Lane, S. M. (2006) Dividing
attention during a witnessed event increases eyewitness suggestibility. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20, 199 –
212.
During a crime an eyewitness
has many sources draining attentional resources. In addition to trying to fill their memory with any pertinent
information, the witness might be attempting to plan out further actions,
thinking about how to not die, or wondering if they left their iron on. Clearly, there is strong potential for these
other actions to have an effect on memory for forensically relevant
information. Past research has occurred
in an attentionally-sterile environment.
The current study chose to focus on the effects of attention
manipulation.
Method
Participants
viewed a thievery crime of epic proportions in slideshow format. In the slideshow, a maintenance man enters
an office, fixes a chair, and steals $20 and a calculator. Those Ps in the divided attention (DA)
condition listened to a tape of clips of popular music during the
slideshow. They were instructed that
the tape could be stopped at any time, and they were responsible for
remembering the last two songs and artists.
These participants completed a recognition test for the music clips. After this test the DA Ps completed a word
search for 6 minutes. Ps in the full
attention (FA) condition completed the music clip task and test after viewing
the slideshow in its entirety.
Following
completion of the slideshow and the music task, Ps read a post-event
questionnaire. This questionnaire
consisted of 15 questions about the event depicted in the slideshow of the
crime. Six of the questions were
misleading, containing reference to an object not present in the slideshow.
After
a six minute filler task Ps completed a surprise source test. Folks were presented (auditory) with 25
items (6 suggested, 6control, 5 slides only, 7 in both, 1 new), to which they
could make one of four responses: ‘yes’ to ‘saw in the slides?’, ‘yes’ to ‘read
in the questions’, ‘yes’ to both, or ‘no’ to both.
Finally,
Ps completed a test of their confidence in their memory for information from
the slides and from the questionnaire.
Confidence was rated on a 1 to 7 scale.
Results
Suggested and Control Items
·
DA Ps were more likely
that FA Ps to falsely claim suggested items were from the slides.
·
There were no apparent
effect of attention manipulation on correct source attributes for suggested
items.
·
A break down based on
response types revealed that DA resulted in lower ‘read only’ responses and
increased ‘both’ responses.
·
DA Ps were less likely
than FA Ps to claim reading control items in the questionnaire.
·
A 2 (Attention: Divided
or Full) x 2 (Item Type: Suggested or Control) revealed main effects of
attention, item type, and a significant interaction.
Slide-only Items
·
DA Ps were less likely
than FA Ps to attribute the slide-only items to the slideshow.
·
DA Ps were less likely
than FA Ps to recognize slide-only items.
·
Dividing attention
increased the probability that the slide-only items would not be attributed to
either source.
Confidence Measures
·
FA Ps were significantly
more confident than DA Ps that they remembered items from the slide show and
the post-event questionnaire.
·
In the DA condition the
following correlations were significant:
o
Confidence and accurate
attribution of slide items (positive)
o
Confidence and
inaccurate attribution of control items (positive)
·
In the FA condition only
the confidence/incorrect attribution of control items correlation was
significant (negative)
Discussion
This experiment and others suggest strong effects of
dividing attention on eyewitness suggestibility. Dividing attention at
suggestion affects the memory for those suggested items, increasing the
probability that misattributions to the event will occur. Additionally, this division of attention
will decrease the item memory for the suggested items, decreasing the overall
number of incorrect attributions.
Dividing attention at test limits strategic use of source identifying
information, leading to equal probability of misattribution of suggested items
to the event or both the event and the questionnaire. Finally, dividing
attention during the event does not adversely affect the memory for the
questionnaire, leading to increased attributions to both the event and the
questionnaire.
Important Legal Disclaimer: The preceding are articles we read together in the Lampinen Lab Fall 2006 false memory reading group. By clicking on the authors’ names of each article you can see the summary of that article. The summary was prepared by the student presenting that article and it is of course the case that the views expressed in the summary do not necessarily represent the views of the reading group as a whole, Dr. Lampinen, the Lampinen Lab, the University of Arkansas, the Razorback Football or Basketball teams (although we're not sure about cross country), people living down the street from us, Bob Dylan, Jack Fate, our extended families, or anyone else for that matter except for the student who wrote the summary (and they don't necessarily believe what they wrote either).