The effects of immediate recall and subsequent retrieval strategy on eyewitness memory

Abstract

The current study investigated the effects of immediate recall and subsequent interview on mock witnesses’ memory of a crime. After watching a video of a crime, 111 participants were randomly allocated to an immediate recall condition (the iWitnessed mobile app, free recall). One week later, participants were randomly allocated to a retrieval condition (timeline aid, category clustering recall, free recall). Results showed that iWitnessed elicited more correct details than free recall at immediate recall (Time 1), without compromising accuracy. However, the immediate recall tool did not affect memory performance at a one-week delay (Time 2). At Time 2, participants with retrieval support (timeline aid, category clustering recall) reported more details than those with no retrieval support (free recall), without compromising accuracy. The findings highlight that high-quality immediate recall and retrieval support during a subsequent interview are necessary to elicit more complete and accurate accounts.

Key words:

• Eyewitness memory
• eyewitness recall
• immediate recall
• interviewing
• retrieval strategy

Ethical standards

Declaration of conflicts of interest

Jennifer Ma has declared no conflicts of interest.

Helen M. Paterson has declared no conflicts of interest.

Misia Temler has declared no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of The University of Sydney [Approval no. 2019/204] and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.