Recall, recognition, and confidence patterns in eyewitness testimony

Abstract

The diversity of methods, contents and tests used in the study of eyewitness memory may have contributed to discrepancies in results in this field. In this experiment, using incidental or intentional learning, we examine the recall and recognition of actions and details concerning the central and peripheral information of a kidnapping. A similar pattern emerges in free recall, hits and recognition confidence: scores are much higher in actions than in central details and there are almost no differences between peripheral actions and details, showing that the distribution of attentional resources is different for actions and details in central than in peripheral information. Although in recall the degree of error was low, in recognition false alarms, especially those in central actions, reduced the level of accuracy to even lower than chance performance in both incidental and intentional groups, also showing that subjects accept false but plausible contents with a high level of confidence. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.