Retrieval Does Not Always Enhance Suggestibility: Testing Can Improve Witness Identification Performance

• Published in: Law and human behavior Vol. 36; no. 6; pp. 478 - 487
• Main Authors: LaPaglia, Jessica A., Chan, Jason C. K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Educational Publishing Foundation of the American Psychological Association 01.12.2012
• Subjects: Attention; Cognition; Communication; Criminal Law; Cues; Eyewitness memory; Face; Face Perception; Facial hair; Female; Human; Humans; Male; Memory; Memory recall; Mental Recall; Misinformation; Models, Statistical; Narratives; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Performance enhancing substances; Perpetrators; Police lineups; Practice (Psychology); Suggestibility; Suggestion; Testing; Theft - legislation & jurisprudence; Theft - psychology; Witnesses
• ISSN: 0147-7307; 1573-661X
• DOI: 10.1037/h0093931

Verbally recalling the appearance of a perpetrator and the details of an event can sometimes hinder later eyewitness memory performance. In two experiments, we investigated the effects of verbally recalling a face on people's ability to resist subsequent misinformation about that face. Participants watched a video of a theft and then completed either a recall test or a distractor activity. After a delay, some participants heard a piece of misinformation. Memory was assessed with a recall test in Experiment 1 and with a target-present lineup in Experiment 2. In both experiments, initial testing reduced eyewitness suggestibility for the face.