Undoing suggestive influence on memory: The reversibility of the eyewitness misinformation effect

Presenting inconsistent postevent information about a witnessed incident typically decreases the accuracy of memory reports concerning that event (the misinformation effect). Surprisingly, the reversibility of the effect (after an initial occurrence) has remained largely unexplored. Based on a memory conversion theoretical framework and associated refined assessment strategy, we report three experiments to demonstrate that suggestive influence can be completely undone. Initially established misinformation effects were eliminated - even after a period of 5weeks (Exp. 3) - through (a) an enlightenment procedure ensuring an adequate representation of the memory task as a search for potentially two contradictory items (instead of "the" single "correct" answer) and (b) using a memory state test that unconfounds the performance contributions of item and source memory by assessing them separately. Specifically, memory for original event details that were the target of misinformation was restored to the level of non-misled control performance, and even beyond (Exp. 3). This remarkable reversibility of misinformation influence highlights the central role of memory conversion processes in the misinformation effect (but does not principally exclude the contribution of traditional interference processes). We discuss the compatibility of our findings with previous research and make suggestions for real-world eyewitness interrogation.     

Zur Häufigkeit der Schuldfähigkeitsbegutachtung von Sexualstraftätern im Erkenntnisverfahren

This study investigated how often and depending on which factors sexual offenders are examined by mental health experts regarding their criminal responsibility. Out of a total of 306 legal charges against sex offenders accused of child sexual abuse (CSA: n?=?145), rape or sexual assault (n?=?89), exhibitionism (n?=?39), sexual abuse of adolescents, mentally defective, physically helpless or warded persons (n?=?18) that were admitted by a criminal court in 2001 in the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, 209 (95.6 %) were analyzed regarding the following questions: how often was the accused examined by a mental health professional regarding mental responsibility? Was the chance of being examined systematically related to certain factors (e.g., personality of the accused)? Expert advice regarding the mental responsibility of the accused was obtained by the court in only 34 cases (11.7 %). No systematic relationships of personal variables as well as the modus operandi and the chance of commissioning a mental health expert were found. The main reason for assigning a forensic expert opinion was the vague impression of a psychic disorder. Re-offending increased the rate of a mental health examination only in CSA (34.6 % of re-offenders were examined compared to 9.2 % of first-time offenders), but not in rape or sexual assault. Also age does not predict the commissioning of an expert opinion. Only one fifth of all accused below the age of 21 were investigated by a mental health professional. Results are discussed in terms of legal background, consequences for risk assessment and relapse prevention.     

Normative indications for Xhosa speaking unskilled workers on the Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test

The aim of this study was to establish normative indications for the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure (RCF) copy, incidental recall and delayed recall tasks, administered in English on a non-clinical population of Xhosa, unskilled workers (N?=?33) (females n?=?21; males n?=?12), with a background of relatively disadvantaged quality of education up to Grades 11 and 12. The sample was stratified into two age groupings (18 – 29 years, n?=?17; 30 – 40 years, n?=?16), equally distributed for sex and level of education. Within group statistical analyses compared subgroup test performances for sex and age within the total sample. Between group analyses were used to compare the performance of the present sample with age equivalent data derived from a meta-analysis of US normative data on the RCF task. There was an age effect in favour of the younger group for both the immediate and delayed recall tasks. The local data for all RCF tasks were significantly lower than the US normative data, with the indication that higher levels and/or quality of formal school education might advantage performance on this complex visuoperceptual copy and recall task.     

Comparing the influence of directly vs. indirectly encountered post-event misinformation on eyewitness remembering

Some research has found a stronger influence of directly (face-to-face; co-witness; ‘social’) vs. indirectly (through written reports, ‘non-social’) encountered post-event misinformation on eyewitness memory reports, whereas other research finds no (big) difference. We argue and demonstrate that a crucial but so far neglected variable underlying this difference is memory for the misleading information itself. In a study with N = 120 participants who encountered misinformation directly or indirectly, we found misinformation retention (as assessed in a separate test) to be positively associated with a broad range of misinformation effects. Influence type (direct vs. indirect), however, did not moderate the misinformation effect in terms of memory for original details, and misinformation endorsement was even weaker in the direct influence condition. In our view, these findings reflect differential conversion of retained misinformation into test performance. Other than this, influence type had essentially no effects on remembering; nor did an additional post-warning manipulation.     

What's Scene and Not Seen: Influences of Movement and Task Upon What We See

Studies concerning the processing of natural scenes using eye movement equipment have revealed that observers retain surprisingly little information from one fixation to the next. Other studies, in which fixation remained constant while elements within the scene were changed, have shown that, even without refixation, objects within a scene are surprisingly poorly represented. Although this effect has been studied in some detail in static scenes, there has been relatively little work on scenes as we would normally experience them, namely dynamic and ever changing. This paper describes a comparable form of change blindness in dynamic scenes, in which detection is performed in the presence of simulated observer motion. The study also describes how change blindness is affected by the manner in which the observer interacts with the environment, by comparing detection performance of an observer as the passenger or driver of a car. The experiments show that observer motion reduces the detection of orientation and location changes, and that the task of driving causes a concentration of object analysis on or near the line of motion, relative to passive viewing of the same scene.     

An Analysis of Certain Effects of Bilateral Temporal Lobectomy in the Rhesus Monkey,with Special Reference to “Psychic Blindness”

Southern, black, poverty-level, female subjects were classified as Actives, Dropouts, or Never-Beens in regard to attendance at a family-planning clinic. The subjects took a story-telling test designed for lower social class subjects and rated a variety of persons and activities along semantic differential dimensions. Women who had dropped out were significantly lower than the other groups in their needs for achievement and for controlling life events. Actives perceived more difficulty in controlling events. Several significant differences were also found in the semantic differential ratings. The results can be interpreted to yield a consistent set of hypotheses about motivations related to birth control decisions.     

A Tachistoscopic Device for Work with Subhuman Primates

The present study examined predictors of siblings’ relations in 202 young adults (aged 21–32 years), who completed the Adult Sibling Relationship Questionnaire and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Results indicate that warmth between siblings is explained by gender (with women feeling closer), perceived paternal favoritism, low levels of narcissism, and an interaction suggesting that paternal favoritism moderates the link between narcissism and sibling warmth. Conflict between siblings was explained by gender (sisters), age, parental favoritism, high levels of narcissism, extreme levels of similarity or dissimilarity between siblings, and interactions indicating that older age is a predictor of conflict between siblings among women but not among men. The impact of parental favoritism and narcissism on sibling relationships in young adulthood was discussed.     

Über ein Verfahren zur Untersuchung der psychischen Leistungsfähigkeit

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The neural correlates of reward-related trial-and-error learning: an fMRI study with a probabilistic learning task

This fMRI study investigated the neural correlates of reward-related trial-and-error learning in association with changing degrees of stimulus-outcome predictabilities. We found that decreasing predictability was associated with increasing activation in a frontoparietal network. Only maximum predictability was associated with signal decreases across the learning process. The receipt of monetary reward revealed activation in the striatum and associated frontoparietal regions. Present data indicate that during reward-related learning, high uncertainty forces areas relevant for cognitive control to remain activated. In contrast, learning on the basis of predictable stimulus-outcome associations enables the brain to reduce resources in association with the processes of prediction.