Sources and destinations of misattributions in recall of instances of repeated events.

Repeated experience of events promotes schema formation. Later activation of the schema facilitates recall of the general structure of the events, whereas attribution of details to instances requires systematic decision-making based on detail characteristics. For repeated events, source monitoring may be less effective due to the similarity and interference of details across instances and consequently result in source attribution errors. To date, researchers have examined aggregated misattributions across instances and have found that misattributions are more frequent in the middle than in the boundary instances. In this study, we investigated the trajectories of misattributions using data from six studies (N = 633), where participants recalled repeated interactive marketing-themed events (Study 1), mock-crime filmed events (Study 2), stories (Study 3), and categorized word lists (Studies 4-6). The patterns confirmed the expected primacy and recency effects, showing fewer misattributions from and to the boundary instances relative to the middle instances. In addition, the patterns indicated proximity effects: Confusions more frequently occurred across adjacent instances and gradually decreased for instances that were further apart from the source. Our findings suggest that detail characteristics that form the basis of source attribution decisions provide information about the relative position of instances in repeated events, where the boundary instances serve as anchors, and where confusion relatively easily occurs across neighbouring instances. In line with context-based models of memory, our findings indicate that a higher-level organization of repeated events that emerges at encoding guides retrieval and source monitoring decisions.

Facilitating recall and particularisation of repeated events in adults using a multi-method interviewing format.

Reports about repeated experiences tend to include more schematic information than information about specific instances. However, investigators in both forensic and intelligence settings typically seek specific over general information. We tested a multi-method interviewing format (MMIF) to facilitate recall and particularisation of repeated events through the use of the self-generated cues mnemonic, the timeline technique, and follow-up questions. Over separate sessions, 150 adult participants watched four scripted films depicting a series of meetings in which a terrorist group planned attacks and planted explosive devices. For half of our sample, the third witnessed event included two deviations (one new detail and one changed detail). A week later, participants provided their account using the MMIF, the timeline technique with self-generated cues, or a free recall format followed by open-ended questions. As expected, more information was reported overall in the MMIF condition compared to the other format conditions, for two types of details, correct details, and correct gist details. The reporting of internal intrusions was comparable across format conditions. Contrary to hypotheses, the presence of deviations did not benefit recall or source monitoring. Our findings have implications for information elicitation in applied settings and for future research on adults' retrieval of repeated events.

Who said what and when? A timeline approach to eliciting information and intelligence about conversations, plots, and plans.

The verbal content of interactions (what was said and who said what) can be important as evidence and intelligence information. Across 3 empirical studies, we examined memory for details of an overheard (Experiment 1) or witnessed (Experiments 2 and 3) conversation using a timeline technique adapted for the reporting of conversations between multiple speakers. Although participants in all conditions received the same general instructions, participants assigned to timeline reporting format reported more verbatim information and made fewer sequencing errors than those using a free recall format. In Experiments 2 and 3, using an extended version of the technique, participants using the timeline reporting format also reported more correct speaker attributions and provided more information about the individuals involved, without compromising overall accuracy rates. With a large effect size across experiments (total N = 134), these findings suggest that timeline reporting formats facilitate the reporting of episodic memories and benefit the reporting of conversations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).