Laypeople’s beliefs about the effects of common estimator variables on memory

ABSTRACT

This research builds on James Ost’s research investigating whether laypeople’s beliefs align with those of experts. Recent studies that examined the relationship between high-confidence eyewitness identifications and accuracy proposed that the mechanism underlying this relationship may be based on a knowledge-conditional model. According to this model, the accuracy of a confidence judgment depends on knowledge about factors that affect memory accuracy. However, there has not been a comprehensive assessment of laypeople’s knowledge about the effect on memory accuracy of many estimator variables known to influence the accuracy of eyewitnesses, specifically those relevant to research on the relationship between witness confidence and accuracy. This study consists of the development of a 30-item scale to assess laypeople’s knowledge of the effect of 10 common estimator variables on memory accuracy from three points of view (POV): Self, Other, and Juror. Across MTurk and undergraduate samples, laypeople’s beliefs about the effect of these estimator variables were generally consistent with research findings and did not differ as a function of POV. Additionally, for most estimator variables, participants’ beliefs about memory were consistent with results in the confidence-accuracy literature; confidence and identification accuracy appear to be poorly calibrated for estimator variables that people know less about.

KEYWORDS:

• Metamemory
• Confidence accuracy relationship
• Eyewitness memory
• Laypeople's memory perceptions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The one known notable exception to this is marijuana; Pezdek et al. (2020b) reported that confidence judgments made by viewers under the influence of marijuana are not generally predictive of identification accuracy.

2 Supplementary materials can be accessed at https://osf.io/gv5h4/

3 The wording of this question in the survey: “How do you think seeing a stranger's face while they are holding a weapon affects your ability to recognize that stranger's face 30 min later?”

4 The wording of this question in the survey: “How do you think seeing a stranger's face when the stranger is of a different race affects your ability to recognize that stranger's face 30 min later?”