Long Retention Intervals Impair the Confidence-Accuracy Relationship for Eyewitness Recall

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Rebecca Spearing ◽  
Kimberley A. Wade
Keyword(s):  
Retention Interval ◽  
Cued Recall ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence ◽  
Eyewitness Accuracy ◽  
Memory Accuracy ◽  
Retrieval Fluency ◽  
Retention Intervals ◽  
Mock Crime ◽  
Very High ◽  
Accuracy Relationship

A growing body of research suggests that confidence judgements can provide a useful indicator of memory accuracy under some conditions. One factor known to affect eyewitness accuracy, yet rarely examined in the confidence-accuracy literature, is retention interval. Using calibration analyses, we investigated how retention interval affects the confidence-accuracy relationship for eyewitness recall. In total, 611 adults watched a mock crime video and completed a cued-recall test either immediately, after 1 week, or after 1 month. Long (1 month) delays led to lower memory accuracy, lower confidence judgements, and impaired the confidence-accuracy relationship compared to shorter (immediate and 1 week) delays. Long-delay participants who reported very high levels of confidence tended to be over-confident in the accuracy of their memories compared to other participants. Self-rated memory ability, however, did not predict eyewitness confidence or the confidence-accuracy relationship. We discuss the findings in relation to cue-utilization theory and a retrieval-fluency account.

scholarly journals Providing Eyewitness Confidence Judgements During Versus After Eyewitness Interviews Does Not Affect the Confidence-Accuracy Relationship

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Rebecca Spearing ◽  
Kimberley A. Wade
Keyword(s):  
Memory Test ◽  
Accurate Identification ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence ◽  
Memory Accuracy ◽  
Mock Crime ◽  
Witness Interviews ◽  
Accuracy Relationship

Recent studies suggest that highly confident eyewitnesses are likely to provide highly accurate identification evidence, at least in some conditions. Yet few studies have investigated the confidence-accuracy relationship in witness interviews or exactly when confidence judgements should be taken. Across three experiments, 831 adults answered questions about a mock crime and rated their confidence in each response. Participants gave their confidence immediately after each response or at the end of the memory test. The timing of the confidence judgement did not affect the confidence-accuracy relationship, and the confidence-accuracy relationship remained strong even when participants encoded the event under poor visibility conditions. When participants were unknowingly exposed to misinformation, however, the confidence-accuracy relationship was substantially weakened—participants became highly over-confident in the accuracy of their memories. These findings help to refine the parameters in which witness confidence serves as a useful indicator of memory accuracy.

The Role of Constant Curvature in 2-D Contour Shape Representations

Perception ◽  
10.1068/p6970 ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (11) ◽  
pp. 1290-1308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Garrigan ◽  
Philip J Kellman
Keyword(s):  
Retention Interval ◽  
Constant Curvature ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Shape Representations ◽  
Contour Shape ◽  
Position And Orientation ◽  
Retention Intervals ◽  
Invariant Shape

In early cortex, visual information is encoded by retinotopic orientation-selective units. Higher-level representations of abstract properties, such as shape, require encodings that are invariant to changes in size, position, and orientation. Within the domain of open, 2-D contours, we consider how an economical representation that supports viewpoint-invariant shape comparisons can be derived from early encodings. We explore the idea that 2-D contour shapes are encoded as joined segments of constant curvature. We report three experiments in which participants compared sequentially presented 2-D contour shapes comprised of constant curvature (CC) or non-constant curvature (NCC) segments. We show that, when shapes are compared across viewpoint or for a retention interval of 1000 ms, performance is better for CC shapes. Similar recognition performance is observed for both shape types, however, if they are compared at the same viewpoint and the retention interval is reduced to 500 ms. These findings are consistent with a symbolic encoding of 2-D contour shapes into CC parts when the retention intervals over which shapes must be stored exceed the duration of initial, transient, visual representations.

scholarly journals Pan and Sana (2021) Pretesting vs. posttesting: Errorful generation, prequestions, and retrieval practice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven C. Pan ◽  
Faria Sana
Keyword(s):  
Retrieval Practice ◽  
Expository Text ◽  
Cued Recall ◽  
Practice Test ◽  
Practice Tests ◽  
Text Passage ◽  
Test Enhanced Learning ◽  
Retention Intervals ◽  
Enhanced Learning ◽  
And Training

The use of practice tests to enhance learning, or test-enhanced learning, ranks among the most effective of all pedagogical techniques. We investigated the relative efficacy of pretesting (i.e., errorful generation) and posttesting (i.e., retrieval practice), two of the most prominent practice test types in the literature to date. Pretesting involves taking tests before to-be-learned information is studied, whereas posttesting involves taking tests after information is studied. In five experiments (combined n = 1,573), participants studied expository text passages, each paired with a pretest or a posttest. The tests involved multiple-choice (Experiments 1-5) or cued recall format (Experiments 2-4) and were administered with or without correct answer feedback (Experiments 3-4). On a criterial test administered 5 minutes or 48 hours later, both test types enhanced memory relative to a no-test control, but pretesting yielded higher overall scores. That advantage held across test formats, in the presence or absence of feedback, at different retention intervals, and appeared to stem from enhanced processing of text passage content (Experiment 5). Thus, although the benefits of posttesting are more well-established in the literature, pretesting is highly competitive with posttesting and can yield similar, if not greater, pedagogical benefits. These findings have important implications for the incorporation of practice tests in education and training contexts.

Effect of Instruction on Recall of Movements

1975 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-124
Author(s):  
Jack Leavitt ◽  
Terry Ball
Keyword(s):  
Retention Interval ◽  
Factorial Design ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Significant Interaction ◽  
Reverse Order ◽  
Motor Memory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Information Input ◽  
Retention Intervals ◽  
Prior Item

A 4 × 4 factorial design with repeated measures across retention intervals and instructions was employed to determine the effect of instruction on recall ability of movement information from short-term motor memory. Each of the 16 Ss received all 16 possible treatment combinations. While both retention interval and instruction showed significant effects, there was no significant interaction. The reverse-order instruction was affected by the length of the retention interval while the no-prior-item, last-distance, and drop instructions were uninfluenced. No evidence supported the trace-decay hypothesis of forgetting. Ss seem easily able to remove information from memory or ignore information input so it is not represented in memory.

Retention as a Function of Successive Recall Trials following Original Learning

1969 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 567-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerald Lazar
Keyword(s):  
Retention Interval ◽  
Original Learning ◽  
Correct Recall ◽  
Warm Up ◽  
Retention Intervals ◽  
Successive Recall

2 experiments, using paired adjectives, examined the effect of successive recall trials (SRC) that occurred immediately after OL on retention. Retention was measured after 0-, 24-, and 48-hr. retention intervals. The first experiment varied SRC trials (0 vs 10) following OL, and retention interval (0 vs 24 hr.). Exp. II extended the first by increasing the amount of post-OL SRC (0, 10, and 20 trials) and by increasing the retention interval (24 vs 48 hr.). Both experiments measured retention over 10 SRC trials. Correct recall was facilitated by post-OL SRC and increased during SRC trials after 24- and 48-hr. retention intervals. The results suggest that both associative and warm-up processes operate during SRC.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Eyewitness Confidence and Identification Accuracy: A New Synthesis

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Wixted ◽  
Gary L. Wells
Keyword(s):  
Eyewitness Identification ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Information Value ◽  
Identification Accuracy ◽  
High Confidence ◽  
Testing Conditions ◽  
Eyewitness Confidence ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Mock Crime

Summary The U.S. legal system increasingly accepts the idea that the confidence expressed by an eyewitness who identified a suspect from a lineup provides little information as to the accuracy of that identification. There was a time when this pessimistic assessment was entirely reasonable because of the questionable eyewitness-identification procedures that police commonly employed. However, after more than 30 years of eyewitness-identification research, our understanding of how to properly conduct a lineup has evolved considerably, and the time seems ripe to ask how eyewitness confidence informs accuracy under more pristine testing conditions (e.g., initial, uncontaminated memory tests using fair lineups, with no lineup administrator influence, and with an immediate confidence statement). Under those conditions, mock-crime studies and police department field studies have consistently shown that, for adults, (a) confidence and accuracy are strongly related and (b) high-confidence suspect identifications are remarkably accurate. However, when certain non-pristine testing conditions prevail (e.g., when unfair lineups are used), the accuracy of even a high-confidence suspect ID is seriously compromised. Unfortunately, some jurisdictions have not yet made reforms that would create pristine testing conditions and, hence, our conclusions about the reliability of high-confidence identifications cannot yet be applied to those jurisdictions. However, understanding the information value of eyewitness confidence under pristine testing conditions can help the criminal justice system to simultaneously achieve both of its main objectives: to exonerate the innocent (by better appreciating that initial, low-confidence suspect identifications are error prone) and to convict the guilty (by better appreciating that initial, high-confidence suspect identifications are surprisingly accurate under proper testing conditions).

Retention of Connected Discourse

1969 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Mills ◽  
Gordon Winocur
Keyword(s):  
Retention Interval ◽  
Associative Strength ◽  
Significant Interaction ◽  
Interaction Terms ◽  
Connected Discourse ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Interaction Term ◽  
Retention Intervals ◽  
Main Effects

6 24-word English sentences were made up, 2 representing each of 3 levels of meaningfulness. Meaningfulness was defined in terms of the Thorndike-Lorge frequency of the words making up the sentences. The sentences were mounted on memory drums and learned by serial anticipation to a criterion of 100% correct responses or to a lower criterion, equivalent across level of meaningfulness. The retention intervals were 20 min. and 24 hr., the former providing a control for post-criterial drop. The measure of retention was the number of items lost during the interval. The main effects for both retention interval and meaningfulness were significant as was the interaction term between level of learning and retention interval. Because there were no significant interaction terms involving meaningfulness, it was concluded that the main effect for meaningfulness was an artifact resulting from differing degrees of associative strength at the end of learning. This conclusion was reinforced by scrutiny of 24-hr. loss scores, corrected for post-criterial drop.

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