Theoretical aspects and practical implications of Memory Conformity: a review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34019/1982-1247.2020.v14.30361Keywords:
Memory, Memory conformity, Recognition, Confidence, EyewitnessAbstract
Memory conformity consists of changes in the memory reports of an individual caused by the memory reports of another individual. Considering the importance of this phenomenon to forensic practices, especially to eyewitness testimony interview, the goal of the present study was to discuss the current scientific knowledge about this phenomenon, and to consider its implications to public inquiry practices. For this purpose, the current narrative review included laboratory studies on memory conformity and studies on public inquiry practices. The literature suggests that although the scientific investigation on memory conformity has made great progress in the last two decades, the inclusion of the knowledge produced by this progress in Brazilian forensic practices remains scant. That is, the adoption of evidence-based eyewitness interview practices in Brazil still depends on infrastructure improvements, as well as changes on legislation and on several legal procedures.
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References
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Axmacher, N., Gossen, A., Elger, C. E., & Fell, J. (2010). Graded effects of social conformity on recognition memory. PLoS ONE, 5(2), 2–7. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009270
Benton, T. R., Ross, D. F., Bradshaw, E., Thomas, W. N., & Bradshaw, G. S. (2006). Eyewitness Memory is Still Not Common Sense: Comparing Jurors, Judges and Law Enforcement to Eyewitness Experts. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20(1), 115-129. doi:10.1002/acp.1171
Berger, J. D., & Herringer, L. G. (1991). Individual differences in eyewitness recall accuracy. The Journal of Social Psychology, 131(6), 807-813. doi:10.1080/00224545.1991.9924667
Brasil. Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil. (1988). Recuperado de http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicaocompilado.htm
Brewer, N., Keast, A., & Rishworth, A. (2002). The confidence-accuracy relationship in eyewitness identification: The effects of reflection and disconfirmation on correlation and calibration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8(1), 44-56. doi:10.1037/1076-898X.8.1.44
Dallenbach, K. M. (1913). The relation of memory error to time interval. Psychological Review, 20, 323–337. doi:10.1037/h0076103
Davis, D., & Loftus, E. F. (2017). Internal and external sources of misinformation in adult witness memory. In The Handbook of Eyewitness Psychology: Volume I (pp. 195-238). Psychology Press.
Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. The journal of abnormal and social psychology, 51(3), 629. doi:10.1037/h0046408
Eisen, M. L., Gabbert, F., Ying, R., & Williams, J. (2017). “I Think He Had A Tattoo On His Neck”: How Co-Witness Discussions About A Perpetrator’s Description Can Affect Eyewitness Identification Decisions. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(3), 274–282. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.01.009
Gabbert, F., Memon, A., & Wright, D.B. (2007). I saw it for longer than you: The relationship between perceived encoding duration and memory conformity. Acta Psychologica, 124, 319–331. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2006.03.009
Garrett, B. L. (2011). Convicting the innocent: Where criminal prosecutions go wrong. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674060982
Harris, C. B., Barnier, A. J., Sutton, J., & Khan, T. (2017). Social contagion of autobiographical memories. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(3), 319-327. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.07.006
Innocence Project. (2018). DNA Exonerations in the United States. Recuperado em 07 de Agosto de 2019. http://www.innocenceproject.org/dna-exonerations-in-the-united-states/
Jaeger, A., Lauris, P., Selmeczy, D., & Dobbins, I. G. (2012). The costs and benefits of memory conformity. Memory and Cognition, 40(1), 101–112. doi:10.3758/s13421-011-0130-z
Kassin, S. M., Ellsworth, P. C., & Smith, V. L. (1989). The "general acceptance" of psychological research on eyewitness testimony: A survey of the experts. American Psychologist, 44(8), 1089-1098. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.44.8.1089
Konkel, A., Selmeczy, D., & Dobbins, I. G. (2015). They Can Take a Hint: Older Adults Effectively Integrate Memory Cues during Recognition. Psychology and Aging, 30(4), 781–794. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2012.12.037.Reactivity
Koriat, A. (2008). Subjective confidence in one's answers: The consensuality principle. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34(4), 945-959. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.34.4.945
Krug, K. (2007). The relationship between confidence and accuracy: Current thoughts of the literature and a new area of research. Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 3(1), 7-41.
Lindsay, D. S., Nilsen, E., & Read, J. D. (2000). Witnessing-condition heterogeneity and witnesses' versus investigators' confidence in the accuracy of witnesses' identification decisions. Law and Human Behavior, 24(6), 685-697. doi:10.1023/A:1005504320565
Lindsay, D. S., Read, J. D., & Sharma, K. (1998). Accuracy and confidence in person identification: The relationship is strong when witnessing conditions vary widely. Psychological Science, 9(3), 215-218. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00041
Loftus, E. F. (2005). Planting misinformation in the human mind: A 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory. Learning & Memory, 12(4), 361-366. doi:10.1101/lm.94705
Loftus, E. F., & Greenspan, R. L. (2017). If I’m certain, is it true? Accuracy and confidence in eyewitness memory. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 18, 1–2. doi:10.1177/1529100617699241
Loftus, E. F., Miller, D. G., & Burns, H. J. (1978). Semantic integration of verbal information into a visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4(1), 19-31. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.4.1.19
Meade, M. L., & Roediger, H. L. III. (2002). Explorations in the social contagion of memory. Memory & Cognition, 30(7), 995-1009. doi:10.3758/BF03194318
Mitchell, K. J. & Johnson, M. K. (2009). Source monitoring 15 years later: what have we learned from fMRI about the neural mechanism of source memory? Psychological Bulletin, 135, 638-677. doi:10.1037/a0015849
Penrod, S., & Cutler, B. (1995). Witness confidence and witness accuracy: Assessing their forensic relation. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 1(4), 817-845. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.1.4.817
Roediger, H. L. III, Meade, M. L., & Bergman, E. T. (2001). Social contagion of memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8(2), 365-371. doi:10.3758/BF03196174
Sampaio, C., & Brewer, W. F. (2009). The role of unconscious memory errors in judgments of confidence for sentence recognition. Memory & Cognition, 37(2), 158-163. doi:10.3758/MC.37.2.158
Schnuerch, R., & Gibbons, H. (2014). A review of neurocognitive mechanisms of social conformity. Social Psychology, 45(6), 466. doi:10.1027/1864-9335/a000213
Schwartz, S. L., & Wright, D. B. (2012). Memory conformity for new and old items with immediate and delayed testing. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26(4), 508-515. doi:10.1002/acp.2820
Selmeczy, D., & Dobbins, I. G. (2017). Ignoring memory hints: The stubborn influence of environmental cues on recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43(9), 1448-1469. doi:10.1037/xlm0000383
Shaw, J. S. III, Garven, S., & Wood, J. M. (1997). Co-witness information can have immediate effects on eyewitness memory reports. Law and Human Behavior, 21(5), 503–523. Doi:10.1023/A:1024875723399
Sousa, W. S., Jaeger, A. (2019). Conformidade de memória: A influência de respostas externas no reconhecimento de faces humanas (Dissertação de Mestrado). Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - UFMG, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil.
Stein, L. M. (2015). Avanços científicos em psicologia do testemunho aplicados ao reconhecimento pessoal e aos depoimentos forenses. Brasília: SAL/MJ. (Série Pensando o Direito, n. 59).
Stephenson, G. M., Brandstätter, H., & Wagner, W. (1983). An experimental study of social performance and delay on the testimonial validity of story recall. European Journal of Social Psychology, 13(2), 175-191 doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420130207
Tulving, E. (1981). Similarity relations in recognition. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 20(5), 479-496. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(81)90129-8
Wells, G. L., Kovera, M. B., Douglass, A. B., Brewer, N., Meissner, C. A., & Wixted, J. T. (2020). Policy and procedure recommendations for the collection and preservation of eyewitness identification evidence. Law and Human Behavior, 44(1), 3. doi:10.1037/lhb0000359
Wells, G. L., Olson, E. A., & Charman, S. D. (2002). The confidence of eyewitnesses in their identifications from lineups. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(5), 151-154. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.00189
Wheeler, R., Allan, K., Tsivilis, D., Martin, D., & Gabbert, F. (2013). Explicit Mentalizing Mechanisms and Their Adaptive Role in Memory Conformity. PLoS ONE, 8(4). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062106
Williamson, P., Weber, N., & Robertson, M.-T. (2013). The Effect of Expertise on Memory Conformity: A Test of Informational Influence. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 31(5), 607–623. doi:10.1002/bsl.2094
Wixted, J. T., & Wells, G. L. (2017). The Relationship Between Eyewitness Confidence and Identification Accuracy: A New Synthesis. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 18(1), 10–65. doi:10.1177/1529100616686966
Wright, D. B., & Villalba, D. K. (2012). Memory conformity affects inaccurate memories more than accurate memories. Memory, 20(3), 254–265. doi:10.1080/09658211.2012.654798
Wright, D. B., Busnello, R. H. D., Buratto, L. G., & Stein, L. M. (2012). Are valence and social avoidance associated with the memory conformity effect? Acta Psychologica, 141(1), 78-85. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2012.06.008
Wright, D. B., London, K., & Waechter, M. (2010). Social anxiety moderates memory conformity in adolescents. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(7), 1034-1045. doi:10.1002/acp.1604
Wright, D. B., Mathews, S. A., & Skagerberg, E. M. (2005). Social Recognition Memory: The Effect of Other People's Responses for Previously Seen and Unseen Items. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 11(3), 200-209. doi:10.1037/1076-898X.11.3.200
Wright, D. B., Memon, A., Skagerberg, E. M., & Gabbert, F. (2009). When eyewitnesses talk. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(3), 174-178. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01631.x
Wright, D. B., Self, G., & Justice, C. (2000). Memory conformity: Exploring misinformation effects when presented by another person. British Journal of Psychology, 91(2), 189–202. doi:10.1348/000712600161781
Zawadzka, K., Krogulska, A., Button, R., Higham, P. A., & Hanczakowski, M. (2016). Memory, metamemory, and social cues: Between conformity and resistance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(2), 181-199. doi:10.1037/xge0000118
Asch, S. E. (1955). Opinions and Social Pressure. Scientific American. Scientific American, 193, 31–35. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1155-31
Axmacher, N., Gossen, A., Elger, C. E., & Fell, J. (2010). Graded effects of social conformity on recognition memory. PLoS ONE, 5(2), 2–7. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009270
Benton, T. R., Ross, D. F., Bradshaw, E., Thomas, W. N., & Bradshaw, G. S. (2006). Eyewitness Memory is Still Not Common Sense: Comparing Jurors, Judges and Law Enforcement to Eyewitness Experts. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 20(1), 115-129. doi:10.1002/acp.1171
Berger, J. D., & Herringer, L. G. (1991). Individual differences in eyewitness recall accuracy. The Journal of Social Psychology, 131(6), 807-813. doi:10.1080/00224545.1991.9924667
Brasil. Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil. (1988). Recuperado de http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/constituicao/constituicaocompilado.htm
Brewer, N., Keast, A., & Rishworth, A. (2002). The confidence-accuracy relationship in eyewitness identification: The effects of reflection and disconfirmation on correlation and calibration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 8(1), 44-56. doi:10.1037/1076-898X.8.1.44
Dallenbach, K. M. (1913). The relation of memory error to time interval. Psychological Review, 20, 323–337. doi:10.1037/h0076103
Davis, D., & Loftus, E. F. (2017). Internal and external sources of misinformation in adult witness memory. In The Handbook of Eyewitness Psychology: Volume I (pp. 195-238). Psychology Press.
Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. The journal of abnormal and social psychology, 51(3), 629. doi:10.1037/h0046408
Eisen, M. L., Gabbert, F., Ying, R., & Williams, J. (2017). “I Think He Had A Tattoo On His Neck”: How Co-Witness Discussions About A Perpetrator’s Description Can Affect Eyewitness Identification Decisions. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(3), 274–282. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.01.009
Gabbert, F., Memon, A., & Wright, D.B. (2007). I saw it for longer than you: The relationship between perceived encoding duration and memory conformity. Acta Psychologica, 124, 319–331. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2006.03.009
Garrett, B. L. (2011). Convicting the innocent: Where criminal prosecutions go wrong. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674060982
Harris, C. B., Barnier, A. J., Sutton, J., & Khan, T. (2017). Social contagion of autobiographical memories. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(3), 319-327. doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.07.006
Innocence Project. (2018). DNA Exonerations in the United States. Recuperado em 07 de Agosto de 2019. http://www.innocenceproject.org/dna-exonerations-in-the-united-states/
Jaeger, A., Lauris, P., Selmeczy, D., & Dobbins, I. G. (2012). The costs and benefits of memory conformity. Memory and Cognition, 40(1), 101–112. doi:10.3758/s13421-011-0130-z
Kassin, S. M., Ellsworth, P. C., & Smith, V. L. (1989). The "general acceptance" of psychological research on eyewitness testimony: A survey of the experts. American Psychologist, 44(8), 1089-1098. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.44.8.1089
Konkel, A., Selmeczy, D., & Dobbins, I. G. (2015). They Can Take a Hint: Older Adults Effectively Integrate Memory Cues during Recognition. Psychology and Aging, 30(4), 781–794. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2012.12.037.Reactivity
Koriat, A. (2008). Subjective confidence in one's answers: The consensuality principle. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34(4), 945-959. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.34.4.945
Krug, K. (2007). The relationship between confidence and accuracy: Current thoughts of the literature and a new area of research. Applied Psychology in Criminal Justice, 3(1), 7-41.
Lindsay, D. S., Nilsen, E., & Read, J. D. (2000). Witnessing-condition heterogeneity and witnesses' versus investigators' confidence in the accuracy of witnesses' identification decisions. Law and Human Behavior, 24(6), 685-697. doi:10.1023/A:1005504320565
Lindsay, D. S., Read, J. D., & Sharma, K. (1998). Accuracy and confidence in person identification: The relationship is strong when witnessing conditions vary widely. Psychological Science, 9(3), 215-218. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00041
Loftus, E. F. (2005). Planting misinformation in the human mind: A 30-year investigation of the malleability of memory. Learning & Memory, 12(4), 361-366. doi:10.1101/lm.94705
Loftus, E. F., & Greenspan, R. L. (2017). If I’m certain, is it true? Accuracy and confidence in eyewitness memory. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 18, 1–2. doi:10.1177/1529100617699241
Loftus, E. F., Miller, D. G., & Burns, H. J. (1978). Semantic integration of verbal information into a visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 4(1), 19-31. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.4.1.19
Meade, M. L., & Roediger, H. L. III. (2002). Explorations in the social contagion of memory. Memory & Cognition, 30(7), 995-1009. doi:10.3758/BF03194318
Mitchell, K. J. & Johnson, M. K. (2009). Source monitoring 15 years later: what have we learned from fMRI about the neural mechanism of source memory? Psychological Bulletin, 135, 638-677. doi:10.1037/a0015849
Penrod, S., & Cutler, B. (1995). Witness confidence and witness accuracy: Assessing their forensic relation. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 1(4), 817-845. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.1.4.817
Roediger, H. L. III, Meade, M. L., & Bergman, E. T. (2001). Social contagion of memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8(2), 365-371. doi:10.3758/BF03196174
Sampaio, C., & Brewer, W. F. (2009). The role of unconscious memory errors in judgments of confidence for sentence recognition. Memory & Cognition, 37(2), 158-163. doi:10.3758/MC.37.2.158
Schnuerch, R., & Gibbons, H. (2014). A review of neurocognitive mechanisms of social conformity. Social Psychology, 45(6), 466. doi:10.1027/1864-9335/a000213
Schwartz, S. L., & Wright, D. B. (2012). Memory conformity for new and old items with immediate and delayed testing. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26(4), 508-515. doi:10.1002/acp.2820
Selmeczy, D., & Dobbins, I. G. (2017). Ignoring memory hints: The stubborn influence of environmental cues on recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 43(9), 1448-1469. doi:10.1037/xlm0000383
Shaw, J. S. III, Garven, S., & Wood, J. M. (1997). Co-witness information can have immediate effects on eyewitness memory reports. Law and Human Behavior, 21(5), 503–523. Doi:10.1023/A:1024875723399
Sousa, W. S., Jaeger, A. (2019). Conformidade de memória: A influência de respostas externas no reconhecimento de faces humanas (Dissertação de Mestrado). Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais - UFMG, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil.
Stein, L. M. (2015). Avanços científicos em psicologia do testemunho aplicados ao reconhecimento pessoal e aos depoimentos forenses. Brasília: SAL/MJ. (Série Pensando o Direito, n. 59).
Stephenson, G. M., Brandstätter, H., & Wagner, W. (1983). An experimental study of social performance and delay on the testimonial validity of story recall. European Journal of Social Psychology, 13(2), 175-191 doi:10.1002/ejsp.2420130207
Tulving, E. (1981). Similarity relations in recognition. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 20(5), 479-496. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(81)90129-8
Wells, G. L., Kovera, M. B., Douglass, A. B., Brewer, N., Meissner, C. A., & Wixted, J. T. (2020). Policy and procedure recommendations for the collection and preservation of eyewitness identification evidence. Law and Human Behavior, 44(1), 3. doi:10.1037/lhb0000359
Wells, G. L., Olson, E. A., & Charman, S. D. (2002). The confidence of eyewitnesses in their identifications from lineups. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(5), 151-154. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.00189
Wheeler, R., Allan, K., Tsivilis, D., Martin, D., & Gabbert, F. (2013). Explicit Mentalizing Mechanisms and Their Adaptive Role in Memory Conformity. PLoS ONE, 8(4). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062106
Williamson, P., Weber, N., & Robertson, M.-T. (2013). The Effect of Expertise on Memory Conformity: A Test of Informational Influence. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 31(5), 607–623. doi:10.1002/bsl.2094
Wixted, J. T., & Wells, G. L. (2017). The Relationship Between Eyewitness Confidence and Identification Accuracy: A New Synthesis. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 18(1), 10–65. doi:10.1177/1529100616686966
Wright, D. B., & Villalba, D. K. (2012). Memory conformity affects inaccurate memories more than accurate memories. Memory, 20(3), 254–265. doi:10.1080/09658211.2012.654798
Wright, D. B., Busnello, R. H. D., Buratto, L. G., & Stein, L. M. (2012). Are valence and social avoidance associated with the memory conformity effect? Acta Psychologica, 141(1), 78-85. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2012.06.008
Wright, D. B., London, K., & Waechter, M. (2010). Social anxiety moderates memory conformity in adolescents. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(7), 1034-1045. doi:10.1002/acp.1604
Wright, D. B., Mathews, S. A., & Skagerberg, E. M. (2005). Social Recognition Memory: The Effect of Other People's Responses for Previously Seen and Unseen Items. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 11(3), 200-209. doi:10.1037/1076-898X.11.3.200
Wright, D. B., Memon, A., Skagerberg, E. M., & Gabbert, F. (2009). When eyewitnesses talk. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(3), 174-178. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2009.01631.x
Wright, D. B., Self, G., & Justice, C. (2000). Memory conformity: Exploring misinformation effects when presented by another person. British Journal of Psychology, 91(2), 189–202. doi:10.1348/000712600161781
Zawadzka, K., Krogulska, A., Button, R., Higham, P. A., & Hanczakowski, M. (2016). Memory, metamemory, and social cues: Between conformity and resistance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145(2), 181-199. doi:10.1037/xge0000118
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Published
2020-10-04
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Número Temático: Cérebro & Mente: Interações
