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Do cognitive abilities reduce eyewitness susceptibility to the misinformation effect? A systematic review

Maryanne Brassil, Cian O’Mahony, Ciara M. Greene

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

Swansea University Author: Maryanne Brassil

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DOI (Published version): 10.3758/s13423-024-02512-5

Abstract

The fact that memories can be distorted by post-event misinformation has cast considerable doubt over the dependability of eyewitness evidence in legal contexts. However, despite its adverse practical implications, the misinformation effect is likely an unavoidable distortion stemming from the recon...

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Published in: Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
ISSN: 1069-9384 1531-5320
Published: Springer Science and Business Media LLC 2024
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa67725
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Abstract: The fact that memories can be distorted by post-event misinformation has cast considerable doubt over the dependability of eyewitness evidence in legal contexts. However, despite its adverse practical implications, the misinformation effect is likely an unavoidable distortion stemming from the reconstructive nature of episodic memory. Certain cognitive abilities have been reported to offer protection against misinformation, suggesting that mechanisms aside from episodic memory may also be underpinning this type of memory distortion. The purpose of this review was to collate findings of associations between eyewitness misinformation susceptibility and individual differences in cognitive ability in adults aged 18 and over. Nine studies met the eligibility criteria for this review, including 23 distinct associations. Using a narrative synthesis, three categories of cognitive ability were identified as influencing susceptibility to misinformation: general intelligence and reasoning, perceptual abilities, and memory abilities. Across almost all categories, higher levels of ability were associated with reduced susceptibility to misinformation. While there is no indication that any one trait provides total immunity to the misinformation effect, there is a reasonable amount of evidence to suggest that several cognitive abilities create variance in individual levels of susceptibility. Future research should investigate not only if but how these cognitive abilities protect against misinformation distortions, for example, by contributing to more detailed encoding of the memory, enhancing discrepancy detection in the face of post-event misinformation, or improving source-monitoring during an eyewitness memory test.
Keywords: Misinformation; Eyewitness memory; Individual differences; Cognitive abilities
College: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Funders: Open Access funding provided by the IReL Consortium. MB is an awardee of the Irish Research Council’s Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship, which supported this work. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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