Say it out loud:does mental context reinstatement out loud benefit immediate and delayed memory recall?

Mental context reinstatement (MCR) is a key part of the cognitive interview. However, police face challenges delivering MCR in real-life situations. Over the years, modifications have been made to make MCR more user-friendly for officers and ensure witness engagement. The current study evaluates the impact of vocalizing MCR generations aloud on mock-witness's immediate and delayed recollections. Participants watched a staged multiple-car collision and were interviewed about it the next day. Half verbalized mental images aloud (aMCR), while the other half kept them silent in their minds (cMCR). After a week, participants took part in a delayed recall attempt. No significant differences in immediate recall performance were found. During the delayed recall, participants who engaged in aMCR previously recalled significantly more and more correct details than those who received cMCR. aMCR might lead to more coherent representations in working memory, resulting in improved consolidation and better future recall

Can mentally reinstating the context out loud benefit immediate and delayed memory recall in adult witnesses?

Objectives: Mental Context Reinstatement (MCR) is a cognitive mnemonic that increases memory recall across different age groups (Milne &amp; Bull, 2002). MCR requires witnesses to reconstruct the experienced event in their minds before verbally recalling it. A shortcoming of MCR is that there is no way to control whether the interviewee is complying with the instructions and engaging in the activity. To overcome this, the current study investigated if reinstating the context aloud (aMCR) will be as beneficial as conventional MCR.Design and method: We tested 70 adults in a between-subjects design using a mock-witness paradigm. Participants watched a video of a simulated car accident and were interviewed about it the following day and after a one-week delay. Half of the participants received aMCR and half traditional MCR instructions before recalling the event via free and cued recall tests. We also examined how comfortable participants felt when engaging in the different MCR versions and how they believed this mnemonic could improve their memory recall.Results: A preliminary analyses of total number of items recalled showed no significant difference between aMCR and traditional MCR. Furthermore, participants felt equally comfortable during aMCR and MCR.Conclusions: The preliminary results suggest that aMCR is as effective as the traditional method. This is promising, as aMCR has the benefit of verifying that the mnemonic is implemented by the witness in the manner intended by the interviewer. In addition, it might benefit specific witness populations, such as older adults, by encouraging more effortful retrieval.Poster presented at the International Investigative Interviewing Research Group (iiiRG) Annual Conference 2022, Winchester, UK, 22/06/22 → 24/06/22 and theDivision of Forensic Psychology (DFP) Annual Conference 2022, Solihul, UK 14/06/22 → 16/06/22.<br/

The intoxicated co-witness: effects of alcohol and dyadic discussion on memory conformity and event recall.

Co-witness discussion is common and often witnesses are under the influence of alcohol. As such, it is important to understand how such factors may influence eyewitness testimony. We combined a co-witness memory paradigm with an alcohol administration paradigm to examine the influence of alcohol and dyadic discussion on remembering a mock crime. Intoxicated and sober dyads discussed a previously seen video, whilst in a control condition sober and intoxicated individuals recalled the event on their own. Unknown to the dyads, each discussion partner saw a different version of the video including unique details not present in the other video version. All participants then engaged in a second individual recall attempt. Dyads were more likely to recall misleading details in their individual recall attempts compared to the control group. Intoxicated and sober dyads were equally likely to report misleading information. Alcohol intoxication had no negative impact on individuals' ability to correctly identify the source of their responses. Intoxicated participants recalled fewer details under free recall conditions. Alcohol had a detrimental effect on participants' confidence in their free recall accounts. Possible alcohol-related and social-cognitive mechanisms are discussed which may contribute to the current findings as well as applied implications for interviewing intoxicated witnesses

Forensic procedures for facial-composite construction

Purpose – The paper provides a detailed description of standard procedures for constructing facial composites. These procedures are relevant to forensic practice and are contained in the technical papers of this special issue; the purpose of this paper is also to provide an expanding reference of procedures for future research on facial composites and facial-composite systems. Design/methodology/approach – A detailed account is given of the interaction between practitioner and witness for producing a facial composite. This account involves an overview of the Cognitive Interview (CI) and the Holistic CI (H-CI) techniques used to obtain a description of the face of an offender (target); the authors then describe how this information is used to produce a composite from five popular face-production systems: Sketch, PRO-fit, Electronic Facial Identification Technique (E-FIT), EvoFIT and EFIT-V. An online annex is also made available to provide procedural information for additional composite systems. Practical implications – The work is valuable to forensic practitioners and researchers as a reference for interviewing techniques (involving a CI or an H-CI) and using facial-composite systems. Originality/value – The authors provide an accessible, current guide for how to administer interviewing techniques and how to construct composites from a range of face-production systems

The intoxicated co-witness:effects of alcohol and dyadic discussion on memory conformity and event recall

Rationale: Co-witness discussion is common and often witnesses are under the influence of alcohol. As such, it is important to understand how such factors may influence eyewitness testimony. Objectives: We combined a co-witness memory paradigm with an alcohol administration paradigm to examine the influence of alcohol and dyadic discussion on remembering a mock crime. Methods: Intoxicated and sober dyads discussed a previously seen video, whilst in a control condition sober and intoxicated individuals recalled the event on their own. Unknown to the dyads, each discussion partner saw a different version of the video including unique details not present in the other video version. All participants then engaged in a second individual recall attempt. Results: Dyads were more likely to recall misleading details in their individual recall attempts compared to the control group. Intoxicated and sober dyads were equally likely to report misleading information. Alcohol intoxication had no negative impact on individuals’ ability to correctly identify the source of their responses. Intoxicated participants recalled fewer details under free recall conditions. Alcohol had a detrimental effect on participants’ confidence in their free recall accounts. Conclusions: Possible alcohol-related and social-cognitive mechanisms are discussed which may contribute to the current findings as well as applied implications for interviewing intoxicated witnesses.</p

The impact of post-encoding alcohol consumption on episodic memory recall and remember-know responses in heavy drinkers

People often consume alcohol following trauma, particularly in response to distressing memories. To date, little is known about how post-encoding alcohol consumption influences episodic memory recall for negative events. Understanding these effects may help to improve support for trauma victims - for example, witnesses and victims of crimes. We tested 60 participants who self-described as heavy drinkers. After watching an analog trauma film, half were allocated to consuming a moderate dose of alcohol (Alcohol-Exposed group), while half received a placebo drink (Placebo-Control group). Immediately and after a one-week delay, participants recalled the event free and cued recall tasks. Participants also gave remember-know responses and confidence ratings, elucidating alcohol's effect on experiential memory. Free recall performance was similar for the Alcohol-Exposed group and the Placebo-Control group during Sessions 1 and 2. The Alcohol-Exposed group benefitted more from the delayed repeated retrieval attempt. For the cued recall task, the Alcohol-Exposed group provided more "Do not Know" responses compared to the Placebo-Control group in both sessions. For the Alcohol-Exposed group only "Correct Know" responses increased from Session 1 to 2. Although memory performance improved across sessions, confidence levels decreased from Session 1 to 2 in the Alcohol-Exposed group. Post-encoding alcohol consumption appears to impact immediate episodic memory retrieval; however, this effect is only temporary in nature. No evidence was found that alcohol primarily reduces remembering responses. Much like previous findings focusing on pre-encoding alcohol consumption (Hagsand et al., 2017), current findings suggest that providing individuals who drank alcohol after witnessing an incident with a delayed repeated retrieval attempt can lead to more complete and accurate testimonies. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2023 Butterworth, Hand, Lorimer and Gawrylowicz.

Editorial: The impact of alcohol and drugs on suspects', victims' and witnesses' cognition and memory

In many societies around the world, alcohol and other drug use and abuse pose major health and safety problems. There is a clear link between alcohol consumption and lack of impulse control and an increased risk of violence, which leads to a high prevalence of intoxicated victims, witnesses, and suspects—especially in relation to violent crimes. Although recent years have seen an increase in applied research on the acute effects of alcohol and other drugs on memory and cognition, especially on the topic of eyewitness memory, there are still many gaps in our knowledge. Indeed, more research is needed to further disentangle the often-complex effects of alcohol and other drugs, especially in applied forensic contexts, such as witness and suspect investigative interviewing

Would you believe an intoxicated witness? The impact of witness alcohol intoxication status on credibility judgments and suggestibility

Memory conformity may occur when a person’s belief in another’s memory report outweighs their belief in their own. Witnesses might be less likely to believe and therefore take on false information from intoxicated co-witnesses, due to the common belief that alcohol impairs memory performance. This paper presents an online study in which participants (n = 281) watched a video of a mock crime taking place outside a pub that included a witness either visibly consuming wine or a soft drink. Participants then read a statement from the witness that varied in the number of false details it contained before being asked to recall the crime. We found that the intoxicated witness was regarded as significantly less credible, but participants were not less likely to report misinformation from them. This suggests that intoxication status impacts one’s perception of how credible a source is, but not one’s ability to reject false suggestions from this source. Our findings reinforce the importance of minimizing co-witness discussion prior to interview, and not to assume that people automatically (correctly or not) discount information provided by intoxicated co-witnesses