The effect of presenting multiple images on prospective and retrospective person memory for missing children

Abstract

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children sometimes present multiple images of the same child on missing-child posters. In the present research, we examined the effect of including multiple pictures of missing children on posters in the context of both prospective and retrospective person memory. Improvements in both prospective person memory and retrospective person memory were obtained in the multiple-image condition. Additionally, in retrospective person memory, participants who were presented with multiple-image posters showed an increased tendency to indicate that a child was previously seen regardless of whether the child actually was previously seen. We discuss these findings as well as policy implications of these results.