This study was the first to test both the independent and additive effects of change-detection prompts and warnings about potential discrepancies between an event and post-event information on susceptibility to misinformation. Participants (N = 239) viewed a mock crime video, read a post-event narrative containing misinformation, and completed a…

The study of eyewitness testimony is thriving. Over the last three decades, psychologists have made important discoveries, and applied those discoveries to the legal system in myriad ways. Along the way, there were disagreements, which were typically healthy in nature. I discuss a few, for example, centering around the impact of misinformation on…

The gathering of information for intelligence purposes often comes from interviewing a variety of individuals. Some, like suspects and captured prisoners, are individuals for whom the stakes are especially high and who might not be particularly cooperative. But information is also gathered from myriad individuals who have relevant facts to…

Many current theories of false memories propose that, when we retrieve a memory, we are not reactivating a veridical, fixed representation of a past event, but are rather reactivating incomplete fragments that may be accurate or distorted and may have arisen from other events. By presenting the two phases of the misinformation paradigm in…

Research on memory distortion has shown that postevent suggestion can contaminate what a person remembers. Moreover, suggestion can lead to false memories being injected outright into the minds of people. These findings have implications for police investigation, clinical practice, and other settings in which memory reports are solicited.

Investigates how the wording of questions asked immediately after an event may influence responses to questions asked considerably later. Discussion of the findings develops the thesis that questions asked about an event shortly after it occurs may distort the witness' memory of that event. (RC)

This paper reviewed the original spreading-activation theory developed by M. R. Quillan while trying to correct some common misunderstandings concerning it. It extended the theory in several respects, showed how the extended theory dealt with recent experimental findings, and compared it to the model of Smith, Shoben, and Rips (1974). (Author/RK)

In this commentary, the authors discuss the implications of A. S. Green, E. Rafaeli, N. Bolger, P. E. Shrout, and H. T. Reis's (2006) diary studies with respect to memory. Researchers must take 2 issues into account when determining whether paper-and-pencil or handheld electronic diaries gather more trustworthy data. The first issue is a matter of…

The misinformation effect refers to the impairment in memory for the past that arises after exposure to misleading information. The phenomenon has been investigated for at least 30 years, as investigators have addressed a number of issues. These include the conditions under which people are especially susceptible to the negative impact of…

Authors attempted to measure the effect of phonetic similarity on the ease and speed with which pairs of words are found in memory. (Author/RK)

Thirty graduate students were asked to produce a type of semantic information; they named psychologists who satisfied certain restrictions. Not only was the speed in responding influenced by the speed in which restrictions were given, but the effect of order differed for advanced and beginning students. (Author/RC)

Two experiments are reported in which subjects viewed films of automobile accidents and then answered questions about events occurring in the films. Wording of questions regarding speed influenced subjects' estimates of speed. (Author/RM)

This study is consistent with a model of semantic memory that assumes that the memory store is organized primarily into noun categories, and that the process of retrieving information from this store consists of entering the appropriate category as a first step. (Authors)

Interviews 105 women in outpatient treatment for substance abuse to examine their recollections of childhood sexual abuse. Overall, 54% reported a history of childhood sexual abuse. Of these, 81% remembered all or part of the abuse their whole lives, whereas the remainder regained previously forgotten memories. (SLD)

Reviews research on children's ability to remember events in relation to that of adults. Concludes that age interacts with other factors, including language and the relative development of knowledge structures, to determine suggestibility. Suggests that children's memories may at times be less easily influenced than adults' memories. (KH)