Feature-specific retrieval of the knowledge of having lied before: Persons and questions independently retrieve truth-related information.

Abstract

Previous research on event coding has shown that, by default, bindings are binary and elemental, that is, individual objects or single features of these objects can retrieve responses separately and independently. In our study, we applied these findings to the automatic retrieval of former deceptions. Specifically, we investigated whether the person or the question to which one has answered deceptively can retrieve this knowledge independently, or whether there is also evidence for configural retrieval processes that use a combination of person and question information to retrieve the truth status of former episodes. We found evidence for retrieval based on single cues (i.e., person or question), supporting that the elementary retrieval of episodes by independent cues also holds in the context of retrieving knowledge about former lies.