Gabbert, Fiona and Memon, Amina. 2006. Memory conformity: Disentangling the steps towards influence during a discussion. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13(3), pp. 480-485. ISSN 1069-9384 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

When two people see the same event and discuss it, one person’s memory report can influence what the other person subsequently claims to remember. We refer to this asmemory conformity. In the present article, two factors underlying the memory conformity effect are investigated. First, are there any characteristics of the dialogue that predict memory conformity? Second, is memory conformity differentially affected when information is encountered that omits, adds to, or contradicts originally encoded items? Participants were tested in pairs. The two members of each pair encoded slightly different versions of complex scenes and discussed them prior to an individual free recall test. The discussions were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed. Our most striking finding was that the witness initiating the discussion was most likely to influence the other witness’s memory report. Furthermore, witnesses were most likely to be influenced when an additional (previously unseen) item of information was encountered in the discussion.

Item Type:	Article
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Psychology Psychology > Forensic Psychology Unit
Dates:	Date Event 2006 Published
Item ID:	12154
Date Deposited:	16 Jul 2015 12:39
Last Modified:	30 Jun 2017 15:09
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/12154

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