Distinguishing eyewitness descriptions of perceived objects from descriptions of imagined objects

✍ Scribed by Kerri L. Pickel

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 130 KB
• Volume: 13
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0888-4080
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199910)13:5<399::aid-acp603>3.0.co;2-3

✦ Synopsis

This study identi®es cues that dierentiate perceptually based from suggested eyewitness memories and investigates whether misled witnesses deliberately invent false descriptions of suggested objects. Witnesses to a staged event either viewed a target object (Visible condition), did not see the object but had its presence suggested to them (Suggestion condition), or did not see the object but falsi®ed a description (Deception condition). Compared to Suggestion witnesses, Visible witnesses who provided a description used more sensory details, used fewer verbal hedges and `I' pronouns, rated their con®dence higher, spoke more slowly, and maintained less eye contact with the interviewer. Obtained dierences between Suggestion and Deception witnesses imply that misled witnesses do not intentionally fabricate descriptions.