Mental Reinstatement Research Articles

Real-world implications of aphantasia: episodic recall of eyewitnesses with aphantasia is less complete but no less accurate than typical imagers.

Individuals with aphantasia report an inability to voluntarily visually image and reduced episodic memory, yet episodic accounts provided by witnesses and victims are fundamental for criminal justice. Using the mock-witness paradigm, we investigated eyewitness memory of individuals with aphantasia versus typical imagers. Participants viewed a mock crime and 48 hours later were interviewed about the event, randomly allocated to one of three conditions. Two interview conditions included techniques designed to support episodic retrieval mode, namely (i) Mental Reinstatement of Context (MRC) and (ii) Sketch Reinstatement of Context (Sketch-RC). A third Control condition did not include retrieval support. Aphantasic mock-eyewitnesses recalled 30% less correct information and accounts were less complete, but they made no more errors and were as accurate as typical imagers. Interaction effects revealed reduced correct recall and less complete accounts for aphantasic participants in MRC interviews versus Sketch-RC and Control. Aphantaisic participants in the Control outperformed those in both the Sketch-RC and MRC, although Sketch-RC improved completeness by 15% versus MRC. Our pattern of results indicates reduced mental imagery ability might be compensated for by alternative self-initiated cognitive strategies. Findings offer novel insights into episodic recall performance in information gathering interviews when ability to voluntarily visualize is impoverished.

Effects of mental context reinstatement on accuracy and recollective experience

AbstractObtaining eyewitness accounts after an event can aid criminal investigations. Mental Reinstatement of Context (MRC) is used to improve memory. However, direct comparisons have identified little effects of MRC relative to free delivery with No‐MRC, and little is known about the effects of MRC on subjective memory characteristics and the role of individual differences in autobiographical memory. Here we exposed 234 participants to a naturalistic film and randomly assigned them to either MRC or No‐MRC before requesting written memory reports and memory characteristics ratings. They also answered an autobiographical memory test. MRC participants reported more unverifiable, but not more accurate, details in Free Recall, whereas they performed better in Cued Recall and delivered higher ratings of Reliving, Vividness, Re‐experience, and Emotions, suggesting a richer recall experience, while Belief/confidence and Scene ratings did not differ. Individual differences in autobiographical memory correlated with memory characteristics but not with accuracy performances.

Enhanced Mental Reinstatement of Exposure to Improve Extinction Generalization: A Study on Claustrophobia and MRI Fear

Fear of enclosed spaces prevents many people from receiving magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Although exposure therapy can effectively treat such fears, reductions in fear during exposure often do not generalize beyond the context in which they took place. This study tested a strategy designed to increase generalization, which involved revisiting the memory of a prior exposure to enhance retrieval of extinction learning. Forty-five participants with claustrophobia that included fear of MRI scans underwent a series of exposures lying inside a narrow cabinet. One week later, participants were randomly assigned to enhanced mental reinstatement (EMR) or control procedures. Prior to entering a mock MRI scanner, EMR participants recalled the memory of exposure training and listened to an audio recording of themselves describing what they learned, whereas control participants recalled a neutral memory. Compared to the control condition, EMR led to significantly reduced heart rate reactivity in the mock MRI scanner, but not self-reported fear or avoidance. There were no differences between conditions in claustrophobia symptoms or MRI fear at 1-month follow-up. Results suggest some benefits of mental reinstatement for improving generalization of gains following exposure training for claustrophobia, with measures of subjective fear and physiological arousal showing discordant outcomes.

Adults’ Memory for a Maltreatment-Related Childhood Experience: Interview Protocols

Adults’ claims of decades-old child maltreatment raise questions about how to obtain accurate memories about childhood events. In this study, adults who experienced a documented child maltreatment medical examination when they were 3 to 16 years old (Time 1) were interviewed 2 decades later (Time 2). The adults ( N = 115) were randomly assigned to one of three interview-protocol conditions: a standard forensic interview, the cognitive interview (CI) with mental reinstatement, or the CI with mental- and physical-context reinstatement. The CI increased accuracy by dampening reports of potentially schematic but nonexperienced information. Younger age at Time 1 was associated with memories that were less complete but not more inaccurate. A greater number of Time 2 posttraumatic-stress-disorder symptoms predicted both correct and incorrect (omissions and commissions, respectively) answers to specific questions and incorrect answers to misleading questions; commission errors were associated with Time 1 physical-abuse status. Theoretical implications and clinical and legal applications are discussed.

Oscillatory Correlates of Selective Restudy.

Prior behavioral work has shown that selective restudy of some studied items leaves recall of the other studied items unaffected when lag between study and restudy is short, but improves recall of the other items when lag is prolonged. The beneficial effect has been attributed to context retrieval, assuming that selective restudy reactivates the context at study and thus provides a retrieval cue for the other items (Bäuml, 2019). Here the results of two experiments are reported, in each of which subjects studied a list of items and then, after a short 2-min or a prolonged 10-min lag, restudied some of the list items. Participants' electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded during both the study and restudy phases. In Experiment 2, but not in Experiment 1, subjects engaged in a mental context reinstatement task immediately before the restudy phase started, trying to mentally reinstate the study context. Results of Experiment 1 revealed a theta/alpha power increase from study to restudy after short lag and an alpha/beta power decrease after long lag. Engagement in the mental context reinstatement task in Experiment 2 eliminated the decrease in alpha/beta power. The results are consistent with the view that the observed alpha/beta decrease reflects context retrieval, which became obsolete when there was preceding mental context reinstatement.

Right place, wrong time: the limitations of mental reinstatement of context on alibi-elicitation

ABSTRACT Although research has focused on how inconsistencies in alibi statements are perceived by law enforcement and legal decision-makers, less attention has been paid to the cognitive factors that may mitigate such inconsistencies. Using a novel, ecologically-valid paradigm, across two experiments (507 events for N=134), we examined the accuracy, level of detail, and memory characteristics of participant-generated alibis for schema-consistent and – inconsistent events, and whether mental reinstatement of context (MRC) led to improved alibis compared to time-cueing. Participants reported their typical weekly activities, provided real-time reports of their activities during a two-week period, and reported participant-specific schema-consistent and -inconsistent events using time-cues and MRC. Our results suggest schema-consistent events are reported more accurately than inconsistent events, and that MRC does not improve alibi accuracy over time-cueing. When reporting atypical events, participants provided alibis by reporting what they thought they would normally be doing during that time. Together, these findings quantify how difficult remembering an alibi can be, reinforce that people often rely on schemas, and that mnemonic strategies to increase alibi accuracy are likely to fail, even if they work in other domains. We discuss how the current research adds to recent work on boundary conditions for the efficacy of MRC.

Supporting older eyewitnesses’ episodic memory: the self-administered interview and sketch reinstatement of context

ABSTRACT Environmental support at retrieval improves episodic performance, yet there exists very few empirically evaluated techniques for supporting older witnesses/victims’ remembering (>65 years). We investigated two techniques for use in a criminal justice context – the Self-Administered Interview and Sketch Reinstatement of Context. Older adults (N = 134) witnessed an unexpected live event, following which half immediately completed a Self-Administered Interview and half did not (Time 1). All were interviewed 48 h later (Time 2) using one of three face-to-face interview techniques: Sketch Reinstatement of Context, Mental Reinstatement of Context, or no support Control. Those who completed a Self-Administered Interview at Time 1 recalled more correct information at Time 2 irrespective of interview condition and confabulated less. Likewise, participants interviewed using the Sketch Reinstatement of Context technique recalled more correct information and confabulated less, whether they had completed a Self-Administered Interview, or not. However, the Self-Administered Interview + Sketch Reinstatement of Context was the most effective combination, indicating an interaction between stabilising a memory trace quickly and how sketching appears to scaffold memory retrieval during face-to-face interviews.

Mental Reinstatement of Context: Do individual differences in mental time travel and eyewitness occupation influence eyewitness performance over different delay intervals?

AbstractThe Cognitive Interview is a memory‐enhancing interview protocol designed to optimise the access and retrieval of eyewitness memories. Its Mental Reinstatement of Context (MRC) component requires interviewees to mentally reconstruct the crime event they witnessed. Individual differences in mental time travel (MTT) relate to the extent to which a person mentally re‐experiences personal events from his or her past. Individual differences in MTT have been found to predict correct recall of a simulated crime event under immediate MRC recall conditions. To explore the relationship between MTT and performance under MRC conditions further, the present study presented a simulated crime video to 30 police officers and 26 members of the public. Eyewitness recall was tested under MRC conditions either immediately or 1 week later. Participants' general MTT and also MTT relating specifically to the crime video itself were measured via self‐report. Less correct information and more confabulations were produced after 1 week, but delay had no effect on the amount of incorrect information reported. No difference in recall was found between police officers and members of the public. Better quality MTT relating to the crime video was found to be a positive predictor of the amount of information correctly recalled under immediate conditions but not after 1 week. General MTT scores did not predict correct recall under either delay condition. Interviewers need to be aware that, due to individual differences, some witnesses may perform better under the MRC component than others.

Establishing the most effective way to deliver the sketch procedure to enhance interviewee free recall

ABSTRACTThe relative effectiveness of three sketching procedures for enhancing the recall of a witnessed event was assessed. Participants (N = 123) viewed a mock crime video and were asked to recall its contents using one of three sketching procedures (i.e. Sketch and Free Recall; Sketch then Free Recall; Sketch and Explain then Free Recall) or two comparison procedures (i.e. Mental Reinstatement of Context; Control). Participants who were administered the Sketch and Explain then Free Recall procedure recalled more correct details than those who were administered the other four procedures (all ds > 0.70); the greater number of correct details was observed primarily for object and action details. There was minimal difference in incorrect details recalled or accuracy rate between all five procedures. The implications of using different sketching procedures for enhancing recall at the onset of investigative interviews are discussed.

Measuring the effectiveness of the sketch procedure for recalling details of a live interactive event

SummaryThe effectiveness of a sketch procedure for enhancing the recall of a live interactive event was assessed. Participants (N = 88) engaged in an interaction with a confederate, were administered a sketch, mental reinstatement of context (MRC), or control procedure and then asked to recall the experienced event. Results showed that participants who were administered a sketch procedure recalled more correct details than those administered an MRC or control procedure (d = 0.55 and d = 1.31, respectively). The increased recall was seen primarily for action and object details, with little difference between procedures for recall of person and verbal details. In addition, the effect of interview procedure on the number of incorrect details recalled was nonsignificant. The utility of the sketch procedure for investigative interviewing is discussed.

Children's learning and memory of an interactive science lesson: Does the context matter?

Children often learn information in a context that is vastly different to the one in which they are asked to recall or use that information. Despite this, little is known about the effect of context change on children's recall of educational information. Here, 197 5- and 6-year-olds were taught the same interactive lesson in their classroom or on a field trip and were tested after a 1- to 2-day and 6-month delay. The effect of learning context was more pronounced for older children, wherein the field trip yielded more autobiographically rich memories than the classroom, but they learned a similar amount of scientific content in both contexts. Furthermore, especially for older children who learned in their classrooms, their autobiographical memory was predictive of the amount of scientific information they recalled. The opportunity to mentally reinstate the learning context generally facilitated children's recollection of autobiographical information, but older children were more adept at effectively utilizing the mental reinstatement prompt to retrieve scientific information. (PsycINFO Database Record

Using Self-Generated Cues to Facilitate Recall: A Narrative Review.

We draw upon the Associative Network model of memory, as well as the principles of encoding-retrieval specificity, and cue distinctiveness, to argue that self-generated cue mnemonics offer an intuitive means of facilitating reliable recall of personally experienced events. The use of a self-generated cue mnemonic allows for the spreading activation nature of memory, whilst also presenting an opportunity to capitalize upon cue distinctiveness. Here, we present the theoretical rationale behind the use of this technique, and highlight the distinction between a self-generated cue and a self-referent cue in autobiographical memory research. We contrast this mnemonic with a similar retrieval technique, Mental Reinstatement of Context, which is recognized as the most effective mnemonic component of the Cognitive Interview. Mental Reinstatement of Context is based upon the principle of encoding-retrieval specificity, whereby the overlap between encoded information and retrieval cue predicts the likelihood of accurate recall. However, it does not incorporate the potential additional benefit of self-generated retrieval cues.

Mental reinstatement of encoding context improves episodic remembering

This study investigates context-dependent memory retrieval. Previous work has shown that physically re-experiencing the encoding context at retrieval improves memory accessibility. The current study examined if mental reconstruction of the original encoding context would yield parallel memory benefits. Participants performed a cued-recall memory task, preceded either by a mental or by a physical context reinstatement task, and we manipulated whether the context reinstated at retrieval overlapped with the context of the target episode. Both behavioral and electrophysiological measures of brain activity showed strong encoding-retrieval (E-R) overlap effects, with facilitated episodic retrieval when the encoding and retrieval contexts overlapped. The electrophysiological E-R overlap effect was more sustained and involved more posterior regions when context was mentally compared with physically reinstated. Additionally, a time-frequency analysis revealed that context reinstatement alone engenders recollection of the target episode. However, while recollection of the target memory is readily prompted by a physical reinstatement, target recollection during mental reinstatement is delayed and depends on the gradual reconstruction of the context. Taken together, our results show facilitated episodic remembering also when mentally reinstating the encoding context; and that such benefits are supported by both shared and partially non-overlapping neural mechanisms when the encoding context is mentally reconstructed as compared with physically presented at the time of retrieval.

Beneficial effects of selective item repetition on the recall of other items

Abstract Selective retrieval of some studied material can improve recall of the other material when access to study context at test is impaired, an effect that has been attributed to context reactivation processes (Bauml and Samenieh, 2012). This study aimed at providing more direct evidence for this proposal by examining the influence of mental reinstatement of study context for the effects of selective retrieval. In addition, it was examined whether the induced beneficial effect generalizes from selective retrieval to selective restudy, and varies with retrieval difficulty, thus providing evidence on whether format of selective item repetition can influence context reactivation processes. In four experiments, prolonged retention intervals between study and selective item repetition were employed to impair study context access. Two main results emerged. First, mental reinstatement of the study context can eliminate, and even reverse, the beneficial effect of selective retrieval. Second, the size of the beneficial effect varies with repetition format, and is larger after selective retrieval than selective restudy, and larger when selective retrieval is demanding. These findings strengthen the view that context reactivation processes mediate the beneficial effects of selective item repetition. In particular, they indicate that the degree of repetition-induced context reactivation can vary with repetition format.

Drawing the answers: Sketching to support free and probed recall by child witnesses and victims with autism spectrum disorder.

The success of witness interviews in the criminal justice system depends on the accuracy of information obtained, which is a function of both amount and quality of information. Attempts to enhance witness retrieval such as mental reinstatement of context have been designed with typically developed adults in mind. In this article, the relative benefits of mental and sketch reinstatement mnemonics are explored with both typically developing children and children with autism. Children watched a crime event video, and their retrieval of event information was examined in free and probed recall phases of a cognitive interview. As expected, typically developing children recalled more correct information of all types than children with autism during free and probed recall phases. Sketching during free recall was more beneficial for both groups in both phases in reducing the amount of incorrect items, but the relative effect of sketching on enhancing retrieval accuracy was greater for children with autism. The results indicate the benefits of choosing retrieval mnemonics that are sensitive to the specific impairments of autistic individuals and suggest that retrieval accuracy during interviews can be enhanced, in some cases to the same level as that of typically developing individuals.

Mental time travel ability and the Mental Reinstatement of Context for crime witnesses.

Mental time travel ability marks how well the phenomenological aspects of events are mentally re-experienced during recall. The Cognitive Interview (CI) elicits eyewitness information. One of its techniques, Mental Reinstatement of Context (MRC), asks eyewitnesses to reinstate the incident's context mentally before recall. Fifty-six participants watched a simulated crime video. Self-report measures were then taken to estimate general mental time travel ability. Participants were questioned subsequently about the video. Eyewitness performance under MRC was compared with the CI's Report Everything (RE) technique, wherein eyewitnesses recall everything they can but with no invitation to mentally reinstate the context. There was no effect of interview condition on accuracy of recall; however, general mental time travel ability was positively associated with the amount of correct and incorrect information produced under MRC, but not RE, conditions. This is the first empirical demonstration that MRC instructions engage the mental time travel capacities they purport to.

Sketching to remember: episodic free recall task support for child witnesses and victims with autism spectrum disorder.

Deficits in episodic free-recall memory performance have been reported in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), yet best practice dictates that child witness/victim interviews commence with a free-recall account. No 'tools' exist to support children with ASD to freely recall episodic information. Here, the efficacy of a novel retrieval technique, Sketch reinstatement of context (Sketch-RC), is compared with mental reinstatement of context and a no support control. Ninety children (45 with ASD; 45 matched typically developing) viewed a stimulus film, and were interviewed using one of the aforementioned techniques. The Sketch-RC technique was most effective, improving ASD participants' remembering without a concomitant increase in intrusions. This procedure offers a population-appropriate method for supporting free recall in criminal justice settings.

Mental context reinstatement or drawing: Which better enhances children's recall of witnessed events and protects against suggestive questions?

The aim of this experiment was to examine the effectiveness of two techniques in enhancing children's recall of an event that they experienced approximately a week earlier. Younger (5–6 years) and older (8–9 years) children were interviewed about a magic show event in one of three conditions. Before recalling the event, some children were instructed to mentally reinstate the context of the event (MCR group), others were asked to draw the context of the event (DCR group), and others received no reinstatement instructions (NCR). Results showed that these instructions had no impact on children's free recall or responses to open‐ended prompts. However, reinstatement instructions impacted children's responses to suggestive questions: those in the DCR group gave more accurate responses than those in the NCR group. These findings provide preliminary support for the use of drawing as a potentially protective exercise that lessens the impact of biased questions with child witnesses.

Does Extensive Free Narrative Prompting Minimise the Effect of Mental Reinstatement on Children's Recall of Events?

The effect of mental reinstatement on children's recall is unclear. One factor that may impact its effectiveness is the degree to which interviewers prompt children during an interview. We examined whether interviewers’ degree of narrative prompting moderated the effect of mental context reinstatement during children's recall of a staged event. Younger and older children were interviewed 7–10 days after the event. Half were told to mentally reinstate the context and half were not. In a fully crossed design, half also received extended narrative prompting during the interview and half did not. We predicted that extensive narrative prompting should reduce any observable benefit of mental reinstatement, especially for older children. However, mental reinstatement had no beneficial effect on recall performance. It is possible that methodological differences, low statistical power, and a small effect size may have reduced the observable benefit of mental reinstatement in comparison to other studies. Overall, the findings of this study suggest that until further research can clearly define the parameters in which mental reinstatement is useful, and therefore produce findings with greater consistency across studies, there is little support for its use in investigative interviews with child witnesses.

Encoding- and retrieval-related brain activity underlying false recognition

We examined the neural activity associated with true and false recognition during both encoding and retrieval using the Remember/Know procedure to separate recollection (i.e., mental reinstatement of experienced events during which unique details of a memory are recalled) and familiarity (i.e., mental awareness that an event has been experienced previously without the unique details of the event) in recognition memory. Neuroimaging data at retrieval revealed that the right parahippocampal gyrus was activated during recollection-based true recognition compared with familiarity-based true recognition, indicating the item-specific retrieval of visual details. This effect in the right parahippocampal gyrus was not observed for false recognition. Contrary to our expectation, the reactivation effect in early visual cortex was not observed during true recognition, as opposed to false recognition. Neuroimaging data at encoding revealed that the right visual cortex (the right occipitotemporal sulcus) was activated during the encoding of items that yielded recollection-based true recognition compared with familiarity-based true recognition, indicating item-specific visual processing. This effect in the right visual cortex was not observed for false recognition. These results suggest that the subjective feeling of Remember/Know with respect to both veridical and false memories varies with the neural activity during both encoding and retrieval.