Abstract
Misleading postevent information seems to alter memory for a previously witnessed event. But is memory for the original event “erased,” or merely rendered inaccessible? In the present study, subjects were shown slides depicting a robbery. Afterwards, the subjects read a narrative containing misinformation about some details presented in the slides. Memory was then assessed both directly (with a conventional recognition test) and indirectly (with a lexical decision task). The misinformation did impair performance on the recognition test, but not on the lexical decision task. That is, decision latencies were shorter for words naming items seen in the original presentation, in comparison with baseline words; misinformation had no impact on this reaction time advantage.
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Dodson, C., Reisberg, D. Indirect testing of eyewitness memory: The (non)effect of misinformation. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 29, 333–336 (1991). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333936
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03333936