title: Extra effort during memory retrieval may be associated with increases in eyewitness confidence.
abstract: When testifying in court, witnesses are motivated to try as hard as possible to give an accurate account. This study tested the proposition that extra effort by eyewitnesses during a memory test can lead to higher confidence ratings without any accompanying changes in accuracy. Participant-witnesses answered multiple-choice questions about a classroom visitor who had spoken 5 days earlier. In the high-motivation condition participants could earn prizes based on their memory test performance; in the low-motivation condition there were no special incentives. Although the motivation manipulation did not affect mean witness confidence, the confidence-accuracy and effort-accuracy correlations were substantially smaller in the high-motivation condition than in the low-motivation condition. Furthermore, the confidence ratings for those participants who reported expending high levels of effort in both motivation conditions were significantly higher than the confidence ratings for the low-effort participants, despite the fact that response accuracy did not differ as a function of reported effort. These findings have important implications for understanding how pressures to perform well in the courtroom can affect eyewitness confidence.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania 18042-1781, USA. shawj@lafayette.edu
authors.forename: John S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Shaw
authors.forename: Tana K
authors.initials: TK
authors.lastname: Zerr
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D009042:Motivation; D020377:Self Efficacy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires