Retrieval-enhanced Suggestibility Research Articles

The more stress, the more accurate memory? The influence of stress on retrieval-enhanced suggestibility effect

ABSTRACT After the occurrence of criminal events, eyewitnesses are often repeatedly interviewed about the crime, which makes them more vulnerable to memory distortion caused by misleading information. This phenomenon is known as the retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES) effect. It has been acknowledged that stressful experiences could affect an individual’s memory processes. Less clear is the exact nature of these stress effects on RES effect. The current study explored the influence of stress, measured by the Trier Social Stress Test, on the RES effect, measured by the RES effect paradigm. Results showed that the incorrect rate of the stress group was lower than that of the no-stress group, indicating that the RES effect was weakened for the participants in the stressful state. The results of the study proved that participants in the stress group were less likely to be misled by misinformation, and provided evidence for the role of stress on memory processes.

Warning weakens retrieval-enhanced suggestibility only when it is given shortly after misinformation: The critical importance of timing.

Recalling details from an experienced event can sometimes exacerbate eyewitnesses' susceptibility to subsequent misinformation. This finding, known as retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES), can be eliminated when participants are warned about possible inaccuracies in the misinformation source (Thomas et al., 2010). In three experiments, we investigated whether this warning benefit persists across delays. When the warning was issued shortly after participants were exposed to misinformation, it inoculated participant witnesses against RES, regardless of whether the final memory test occurred immediately or 48 hr after the warning. However, the warning lost its effectiveness when it was delivered 48 hr after participants were exposed to misinformation. These results applied to both recognition memory and the confidence-accuracy relationship. We considered these data from the perspective of temporal distinctiveness, and we argue that a warning serves a similar function to a forget cue in the directed forgetting paradigm. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Protective effects of testing across misinformation formats in the household scene paradigm.

Many studies have demonstrated retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES), in which taking an initial recall test after witnessing an event increases suggestibility to subsequent misinformation introduced via a narrative. Recently, however, initial testing has been found to have a protective effect against misinformation introduced via cued-recall questions. We examined whether misinformation format (narrative vs. cued-recall questions) yields a similar dissociation in a paradigm that, to date, has consistently yielded a protective effect of testing (PET). After studying photos of household scenes (e.g., kitchen), some participants took an initial recall test. After a 48-hr delay, items not presented in the scenes (e.g., knives/plates) were suggested either via narrative or questions. Regardless of the misinformation format, we found a PET on both initial-test-conditionalised free recall and source-monitoring tests. However, initial testing also yielded memory costs, such that suggested items reported on the initial test were likely to persist on a final recall test. Thus, initial testing can protect against suggestibility, but can also precipitate memory errors when intrusions emerge on an initial test.

How prior testing impacts misinformation processing: A dual-task approach.

Research suggests that testing prior to the presentation of misinformation influences how that misinformation is processed. The present study examined the relationship between testing, the demands of misinformation narrative processing, and memory for original and post-event information. Using response latencies to a secondary task, we tested whether prior testing influenced the available resources for secondary task processing. Additionally, we investigated whether changes in narrative processing were specific to critical details tested earlier. Participants engaged in an eyewitness memory paradigm in which half were tested prior to receiving the post-event narrative. Participants responded to the secondary task at specified time points during the narrative. All participants took a final memory test after listening to the post-event narrative. We found that testing interacted with the placement of the secondary task. When responding on the secondary task was closely linked to the presentation of previously tested critical details in the narrative, retrieval-enhanced suggestibility was reduced on tests of event memory (Experiment 1) and increased post-event information learning was revealed on tests of narrative memory (Experiment 2).

Does Retrieval Enhance Suggestibility Because It Increases Perceived Credibility of the Postevent Information?

Despite the robust memory-enhancing benefits of retrieval practice, an initial test can sometimes exacerbate eyewitness’ susceptibility to subsequent misinformation—a phenomenon known as retrieval-enhanced suggestibility. One explanation for this finding is that after taking a memory test, participant witnesses are more likely to treat the subsequently presented misinformation narrative as being credible (the misinformation acceptance account; e.g., Chan, Manley, & Lang, 2017 ). Another explanation suggests that prior testing enhances participants’ ability to learn the post-event misinformation (the test-potentiated learning account; Chan et al., 2017 ). In two experiments, we provided a direct test of these alternative hypotheses and showed that testing did not make participants believe the content of the narrative to be more accurate, and the perceived accuracy of the narrative was not associated with the likelihood of misinformation recall. These results are inconsistent with the misinformation acceptance account.

Telling a good story: The effects of memory retrieval and context processing on eyewitness suggestibility.

Witnesses are likely to describe a crime many times before testifying or encountering misinformation about that crime. Research examining the effect of retrieval on later suggestibility has yielded mixed results. LaPaglia and Chan manipulated whether misinformation was presented in a narrative or misleading questions, and they found that retrieval increased suggestibility when misinformation was presented in a narrative, but reduced suggestibility when the same misinformation was presented in questions. In the current study, we aimed to address why these differences occurred. Specifically, we examined whether contextual detail and narrative coherence during misinformation exposure influenced the relation between retrieval and suggestibility. Participants watched a robbery video and some were questioned about the event afterwards. They were then exposed to misinformation presented in a narrative (Experiment 1) or questions (Experiment 2) before taking a final memory test. Testing enhanced suggestibility when the misinformation phase reinstated contextual information of the event, but not when the misinformation phase included few contextual details–regardless of whether the misinformation was in a narrative or questions. In Experiment 3, disrupting narrative coherence by randomizing the order of contextual information eliminated retrieval-enhanced suggestibility. Therefore, context processing during the post-event information phase influences whether retrieval enhances or reduces eyewitness suggestibility.

The Role of Authority in Retrieval Enhanced Suggestibility (RES)

The Role of Authority in Retrieval Enhanced Suggestibility (RES)

Discrepancy detection in the retrieval-enhanced suggestibility paradigm

ABSTRACTRetrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES) refers to the finding that immediately recalling the details of a witnessed event can increase susceptibility to later misinformation. In three experiments, we sought to gain a deeper understanding of the role that retrieval plays in the RES paradigm. Consistent with past research, initial testing did increase susceptibility to misinformation – but only for those who failed to detect discrepancies between the original event and the post-event misinformation. In all three experiments, subjects who retrospectively detected discrepancies in the post-event narratives were more resistant to misinformation than those who did not. In Experiments 2 and 3, having subjects concurrently assess the consistency of the misinformation narratives negated the RES effect. Interestingly, in Experiments 2 and 3, subjects who had retrieval practice and detected discrepancies were more likely to endorse misinformation than control subjects who detected discrepancies. These results call attention to limiting conditions of the RES effect and highlight the complex relationship between retrieval practice, discrepancy detection, and misinformation endorsement.

Retrieval-Enhanced Suggestibility: A Retrospective and a New Investigation

Eyewitnesses are often repeatedly interviewed about the same crime, and they might be exposed to misleading information between these interviews. Taking a memory test before being exposed to misinformation can ironically increase the likelihood that an eyewitness would fall prey to the misinformation effect—a finding termed Retrieval-Enhanced Suggestibility (RES). In this paper, we outline the motivation behind the original research on RES, summarize the theoretical explanations that have been used to explain this finding, and provide a review of the extant empirical findings. We then report the results of two new experiments that examined whether participants, upon being informed that they had provided inconsistent responses during the prior recall tests, could overcome the RES effect during a final recognition test in which the correct event detail and the misinformation were offered as response options. The results showed that RES persisted in this recognition test, and the level of inconsistencies shown by participants during the prior recall tests predicted their final recognition performance, such that more inconsistent witnesses were also more error-prone during the final recognition test—but this relation was stronger for misinformation-induced inconsistencies than for spontaneously-produced inconsistencies.

Looking for answers in all the wrong places: How testing facilitates learning of misinformation

Abstract Research has consistently demonstrated that taking a test prior to receiving misleading information increases eyewitness suggestibility (Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2009). Retrieval Enhanced Suggestibility (RES) is characterized by two typical findings: (1) reduced access to the originally witnessed event, which has been contextualized within a reconsolidation framework (e.g., Chan & LaPaglia, 2013), and (2) increased production of misleading post-test narrative details, which has been discussed as an example of test-potentiated learning (Gordon & Thomas, 2014). The present study focused on this latter finding, and examined attention as a potential factor moderating the relationship between initial testing and narrative detail production. We hypothesized that initial testing would influence endogenous attention allocation to details in the post-event narrative, thereby impacting narrative learning. We found that compared to participants who did not take an initial test, participants who took an initial test focused efforts on processing narrative details that were directly relevant to initial test questions, and this differential attention allocation was directly related to final test misinformation production. These experiments provide support for the view that testing enhances susceptibility to misinformation by potentiating learning of post-event information. In addition, the present findings support the conclusion that initial test questions and answers function as endogenous cues to direct attention during post-test learning.

Retrieval enhances eyewitness suggestibility to misinformation in free and cued recall.

Immediately recalling a witnessed event can increase people's susceptibility to later postevent misinformation. But this retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES) effect has been shown only when the initial recall test included specific questions that reappeared on the final test. Moreover, it is unclear whether this phenomenon is affected by the centrality of event details. These limitations make it difficult to generalize RES to criminal investigations, which often begin with free recall prior to more specific queries from legal officials and attorneys. In 3 experiments, we examined the influence of test formats (free recall vs. cued recall) and centrality of event details (central vs. peripheral) on RES. In Experiment 1, both the initial and final tests were cued recall. In Experiment 2, the initial test was free recall and the final test was cued recall. In Experiment 3, both the initial and final tests were free recall. Initial testing increased misinformation reporting on the final test for peripheral details in all experiments, but the effect was significant for central details only after aggregating the data from all 3 experiments. These results show that initial free recall can produce RES, and more broadly, that free recall can potentiate subsequent learning of complex prose materials.

Testing potentiates new learning in the misinformation paradigm

Retrieval enhanced suggestibility (RES) is the finding that the misinformation effect is exacerbated when a test precedes misleading postevent information (Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich Psychological Science 20: 66-73, 2009). In the present study, we tested three hypotheses relevant to RES. First, we examined whether retrieval of critical details was necessary for the RES effect. Second, we examined whether initial testing influenced the allocation of attention to critical details during postevent information processing. Finally, we examined whether RES resulted in impaired access to the originally learned information. We compared three groups of participants in three experiments: an identical-test group, a related-test group, and a standard misinformation group. Both testing groups were tested on the original event before the introduction of misinformation; however, the identical-test group took the same test before and after the misinformation, whereas the related-test group took different tests before and after misinformation. We found that testing before misleading postevent information affected attention allocation to details in the postevent narrative. Furthermore, the RES effect did not accompany reduced accessibility to the original information, as measured by a modified-modified free recall test. These data have implications for how testing may potentiate new learning.

Retrieval can increase or decrease suggestibility depending on how memory is tested: The importance of source complexity

Taking an intervening test between learning episodes can enhance later source recollection. Paradoxically, testing can also increase people’s susceptibility to the misinformation effect – a finding termed retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES, Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2009). We conducted three experiments to examine this apparent contradiction. Experiment 1 extended the RES effect to a new set of materials. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that testing can produce opposite effects on memory suggestibility depending on the complexity of the source test. Specifically, retrieval facilitated source discriminations when the test contained only items with unique source origins. But when the source test included some items that had appeared in multiple sources, the intervening test actually increased source confusions. These results have implications for a wide variety of learning situations. We focused our discussion on eyewitness memory, source complexity, and reconsolidation.

Paradoxical effects of testing: Retrieval enhances both accurate recall and suggestibility in eyewitnesses.

Although retrieval practice typically enhances memory retention, it can also impair subsequent eyewitness memory accuracy (Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2009). Specifically, participants who had taken an initial test about a witnessed event were more likely than nontested participants to recall subsequently encountered misinformation—an effect we called retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES). Here, we sought to test the generality of RES and to further elucidate its underlying mechanisms. To that end, we tested a dual mechanism account, which suggests that RES occurs because initial testing (a) enhances learning of the later misinformation by reducing proactive interference and (b) causes the reactivated memory trace to be more susceptible to later interference (i.e., a reconsolidation account). Three major findings emerged. First, RES was found after a 1-week delay, where a robust testing benefit occurred for event details that were not contradicted by later misinformation. Second, blockage of reconsolidation was unnecessary for RES to occur. Third, initial testing enhanced learning of the misinformation even when proactive interference played a minimal role.

The dark side of testing memory: Repeated retrieval can enhance eyewitness suggestibility.

Eyewitnesses typically recount their experiences many times before trial. Such repeated retrieval can enhance memory retention of the witnessed event. However, recent studies (e.g., Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2009) have found that initial retrieval can exacerbate eyewitness suggestibility to later misleading information--a finding termed retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES). Here we examined the influence of multiple retrieval attempts on eyewitness suggestibility to subsequent misinformation. In four experiments, we systematically varied the number of initial tests taken (between zero and six), the delay between initial testing and misinformation exposure (~30 min or 1 week), and whether initial testing was manipulated between- or within-subjects. University undergraduate students were used as participants. Overall, we found that eyewitness suggestibility increased as the number of initial tests increased, but this RES effect was qualified by the delay and by whether initial testing occurred in a within- or between-subjects manner. Specifically, the within-subjects RES effect was smaller than the between-subjects RES effect, possibly because of the influence of retrieval-induced forgetting/facilitation (Chan, 2009) when initial testing was manipulated within subjects. Moreover, consistent with the testing effect literature (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006), the benefits of repeated testing on later memory were stronger after a 1-week delay than after a 30-min delay, thus reducing the negative impact of RES in long-term situations. These findings suggest that conditions that are likely to occur in criminal investigations can either increase (repeated testing) or reduce (delay) the influence of RES, thus further demonstrating the complex relationship between eyewitness memory and repeated retrieval.

Testing promotes eyewitness accuracy with a warning: Implications for retrieval enhanced suggestibility

Numerous studies have demonstrated that repeated retrieval boosts later retention. However, recent research has shown that testing can increase eyewitness susceptibility to misleading post-event information (e.g., Chan, Thomas, & Bulevich, 2009). The present study examines the effects of warning on this counterintuitive finding. In two experiments, subjects either took an initial test or performed a filler task after they viewed a video event. They were then given post-event information before they took a final test. Critically, one group of subjects was warned about potential inaccuracies in the post-event narrative and the other group was not. Without a warning, subjects who received an initial test were more likely to endorse misleading post-event information, replicating the retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES) effect. However, this RES effect was eliminated when subjects were warned about the veracity of the narrative. These results are consistent with a retrieval fluency account of RES.