title: Reevaluating the potency of the memory conformity effect.
abstract: Witnesses sometimes report event details that are acquired solely from another witness. We reevaluated the potency of this memory conformity effect. After viewing a crime video, some participants learned about nonwitnessed details via discussion (dyad group), reading another participant's report (read group), or watching another version of the video (both-video group). In Experiment 1, these participants often reported nonwitnessed details, but on a source-judgment test most details were attributed primarily to the actual source rather than to the video. In addition, the dyad group was not more likely than the read or both-video groups to report nonwitnessed details. Participants in Experiment 2 were explicitly discouraged from providing details that were remembered from the secondary source only. These postwarning instructions substantially reduced the memory conformity effect, and a dyad group was not more likely than a read group to report nonwitnessed details. Encouraging source monitoring at test can reduce the negative consequences of co-witness collaboration.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. bodner@ucalgary.ca
authors.forename: Glen E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Bodner
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Musch
authors.forename: Tanjeem
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Azad
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D007600:Judgment; D011939:Mental Recall; D012925:Social Conformity; D013404:Suggestion; D013800:Theft / Q000523:psychology*; D014741:Video Recording; D014796:Visual Perception