Investigating the misinformation effect and individual differences in a modern crime scene

This online study analyses how much detail people remember after a single viewing of a drink-spiking incident, and how reading a misleading text might influence whom people identify as the culprit. Six analyses were carried out to test manipulations in acquisition and individual differences. Using a repeated measures design, it was found that memory for faces was better than memory for events. In accordance with the hypothesis, face recognition was worse when actors changed clothes between the crime scene and the identification task, indicating a reliance on external factors. Additionally, the misleading text influenced accusation of an incorrect suspect implicated in the text. Moreover, contrary to the hypothesis, it was shown that participants who saw the drink being spiked were less reluctant to identify someone as the culprit than participants who did not see the spiking. The effects of personality on memory are investigated to establish whether previously inconsistent findings on individual differences can be grouped into a common Big Five personality factor affecting people’s performance. Contrary to the hypothesis, it was found that extraversion was negatively correlated with better face recognition memory, openness to experience was positively correlated with suggestibility and high conscientiousness had no effect on memory or face recognition. Regarding age differences it was ascertained that participants aged 18 – 24 were better in face recognition than participants aged 45 – 64. The implications of these findings are discussed