Using Stress and Warning to Improve Eyewitness Memory

利用压力和警告来提高目击者记忆

• 批准号: 1728764
• 负责人: Ayanna Thomas
• 金额: $ 35.08万
• 依托单位: Tufts University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-09-01 至 2020-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1728764&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Using; Stress; Warning; Improve; Eyewitness

Faulty eyewitness reports have contributed to approximately 70% of wrongful convictions in the United States (Innocence Project, 2016). What gives rise to such faulty reports? Research has revealed that eyewitness memory can be contaminated by false or inaccurate information (misinformation). Exposure to misinformation can occur through the course of interviews and questioning, discussions with co-witnesses, or from information garnered from the media and other external sources. Given that these are the circumstances routinely faced by eyewitnesses, it is imperative that researchers understand how to mitigate susceptibility to misinformation so that such memory errors can be avoided. This project aims to identify a resource-minimal, evidence-based practice that can be employed to protect the integrity of eyewitness memory reports. The research will focus on the effects of warning eyewitnesses about the threat of misinformation. Warnings have previously been incorporated into other areas of legal practice with great success. For example, the Department of Justice (1999) recommended that law officials warn eyewitnesses that a guilty suspect may not be present prior to conducting a lineup -- a practice that significantly reduces false identifications. By 2013, approximately 90% of surveyed police departments adopted this practice. The current project uses a cognitive and neural approach to test whether a similar practice can reduce faulty eyewitness reports. The research team will disseminate the results through seminars with local legal communities to assure the impact of this research on the public. Research reveals that memory errors can be reduced when eyewitnesses are warned that external sources can contaminate memory for an event. For example, when warned about the veracity of information given to an eyewitness after an event, participants were less likely to incorporate such information into memory reports. However, providing a warning after exposure to false or inaccurate information (misinformation) does not entirely eliminate misinformation errors. Is there an optimal time to warn eyewitnesses? Experiment One will reveal the most effective time to warn eyewitness about the threat of misinformation. Such evidence will be especially useful to the legal community. Despite a bulk of research on warning in the context of misinformation, no study has used neuroscientific methods --thus, how warning modulates neural activity to protect memory remains unknown. Accordingly, Experiment Two will employ functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the manner in which warning modulates neural activity to ultimately reduce eyewitness memory errors. This experiment will directly enhance our understanding of the complex mechanisms that support human memory processes in the context of the eyewitness. Lastly, it is noteworthy that misinformation errors that are induced by repeated interviewing have been observed even under optimal conditions for learning and memory. Thus, the inherent stress experienced by eyewitnesses -- from the onset of the witnessed event, during the retrieval of such events, and extending to courtroom testimony -- may pose an even greater risk for memory errors. For this reason, Experiment Three will assess whether warning can reduce eyewitness susceptibility to misinformation under conditions of stress.

在美国，大约70%的错误定罪是由目击者的报告造成的（Innocence Project，2016）。是什么导致了这样错误的报告？研究表明，目击者的记忆可能被错误或不准确的信息（错误信息）所污染。在访谈和询问、与共同证人讨论或从媒体和其他外部来源获得的信息中，可能会出现错误信息。鉴于这些是目击者经常面临的情况，研究人员必须了解如何减轻对错误信息的敏感性，以避免此类记忆错误。该项目旨在确定一种资源最少、基于证据的实践，可用于保护目击者记忆报告的完整性。这项研究将集中在警告目击者错误信息的威胁的影响上。律师事务所以前曾成功地被纳入其他法律的实践领域。例如，司法部（1999年）建议法律官员警告目击者，在进行列队指认之前，犯罪嫌疑人可能不在场-这种做法大大减少了错误指认。到2013年，约90%的受访警察部门采用了这一做法。目前的项目使用认知和神经方法来测试类似的做法是否可以减少错误的目击者报告。研究小组将通过与当地法律的社区举行研讨会来传播研究结果，以确保这项研究对公众的影响。研究表明，当目击者被警告外部来源可能会污染事件的记忆时，记忆错误可以减少。例如，当被告知事件发生后提供给目击者的信息的真实性时，参与者不太可能将这些信息纳入记忆报告。然而，在暴露于虚假或不准确的信息（错误信息）后提供警告并不能完全消除错误信息错误。是否有一个最佳的时间来警告目击者？实验一将揭示警告目击者错误信息威胁的最有效时间。这些证据对法律的界特别有用。尽管有大量关于错误信息背景下的警告的研究，但没有研究使用神经科学方法-因此，警告如何调节神经活动以保护记忆仍然是未知的。因此，实验二将采用功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）来检查警告调节神经活动的方式，以最终减少目击者的记忆错误。这个实验将直接增强我们对在目击者的背景下支持人类记忆过程的复杂机制的理解。最后，值得注意的是，即使在学习和记忆的最佳条件下，也观察到重复采访引起的错误信息错误。因此，目击者所经历的内在压力-从目击事件的开始，在回忆这些事件的过程中，以及延伸到法庭证词-可能造成更大的记忆错误的风险。出于这个原因，实验三将评估警告是否可以减少目击者在压力条件下对错误信息的敏感性。