Repeated testing in eyewitness memory: a means to improve recall of a negative emotional event
✍ Scribed by Brian H. Bornstein; Lesley M. Liebel; Nikki C. Scarberry
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1998
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 166 KB
- Volume
- 12
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0888-4080
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Participants viewed either a violent, arousing ®lm or a non-violent, control version of the same ®lm. After viewing the ®lm, they made three successive attempts to recall details of the event. Participants who were exposed to the negative emotional event were better than control participants at recalling details of the event itself, but they were worse at recalling details that preceded or followed the violence. Both groups of participants recalled signi®cantly more information over successive recall attempts, suggesting that memory impairment due to arousal can be alleviated by repeated testing. Repeated testing was also associated with a small but reliable increase in memory intrusions. The implications of these ®ndings for research on hypermnesia and on the relationship between arousal and memory are discussed.