Overview​

This project examined how memory for crime-related events changes over time by comparing central, peripheral, and accurate details recalled after short and long delays. Results showed that recall remained largely stable, though accuracy for peripheral details improved after a short delay. These findings highlight the complexity of eyewitness memory and the need for refined methods, such as eye-tracking, to better understand how attention shapes recall in legal contexts.

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Purpose

This project was part of my Honors Thesis within my major. I have been working with the I-Lab for nearly two years and wanted to take on more responsibility and challenge myself. Under the guidance of the Principal Investigator, Dr. Nadja Schreiber Compo, and my mentor, Dr. Haley Dawson, I utilized data from Dr. Dawson's dissertation, which I had previously helped code from start to finish. From that dataset, I developed my own coding scheme and designed a study based on a selected subset of the data. I chose this topic because I believe it is crucial to understand our cognitive processes especially in regards to serious issues such as crimes, where the incorrect reminiscence can lead to a false conviction. This focus aligns with my broader interest in neuropsychology, which seeks to understand the relationship between brain function and behavior. I believe that by improving our understanding of cognitive processes, we can improve everyday decision-making and also contribute to critical fields such as the legal system.

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Introduction

Memory doesn't work like a perfect recording. This is important in criminal investigations since it can decay over time. This is important in criminal investigations since witnesses can get interviewed at different time points, some even months after in court.

For this reason, we wanted to see how details change over time

 

We did this by looking at 3 elements: Central details, Peripheral details, and accuracy. These types of details are important because they will help us understand what information witnesses are working with that might be investigatively relevant. That way, we can better develop investigative tools

Such as utilising interviewing techniques to prime recall on the types of details that might help solve crimes.

 

We defined Central vs Peripheral details visually, delineated by the foveal ring. Anything within the foreground of the ring for at least 20 seconds was considered a central detail. Anything outside the right or background was considered a peripheral detail. This followed foveal attentional & legal psychology research and was done to ensure simplicity in coding. Accuracy was defined by details recalled by participants matching the stimulus

Material

 

 

Methods

Additional coding of central, peripheral, and accurate details was derived from a larger study. This study included the typical undergraduate FIU population, consisting mostly of white, Hispanic, female participants. Participants watched a mock crime video and recalled information at two different time points: 

• immediate delay and one hour delay

• immediate delay and two-week delay

Along with coding the original elements, change scores were also calculated

to see the difference in the amount of recalled details between the two delayed interviews of one hour and two weeks.

 

 

Hypotheses

Our first two predictions were non-directional hypotheses, and focused on comparing the immediate and one-hour delay and the immediate and two-week delay. We predicted that peripheral details would change more across delay than central details, which will also be true when accounting for accuracy. This is because literature suggests that peripheral details are more susceptible to decay than central details. One such explanation of this could be from factors such as a lack of attentional emphasis on the stimulus, resulting in improper encoding of information and subsequent retrieval of the information. 

 

Our last predictions were directional hypotheses and focused on comparing the total change between the one-hour delay group to the two-week delay group by looking at their change scores. We predicted that participants overall would recall more central information after a shorter delay and less peripheral information after a longer delay. This is because literature suggests that central details are not as affected by memory decay. One such explanation of this could be from attention research, which suggests that the more concentration one has on a stimulus, especially if it is in their center point of view, then the more they are likely to deeply encode and readily recall the information. 

 

 

Results

None of the hypotheses were fully supported. H2 was partially supported since there was only significance in peripheral accuracy in the one-hour delay, but no significance was found in the two-week delay. In order for this hypothesis to be supported, significance would have had to be translated in the two-week delay condition as well in order to be able to draw a fair comparison.  In other words, we found that only recall of accurate peripheral details increased after a short delay, while central and peripheral details, as well as central accuracy, remained unchanged. As for the other hypotheses, there was no significant difference in any condition after a two-week delay, and overall recall remained stable over time. This means short-term delays enhanced recall accuracy for Peripheral details.

 

 

Limitations 

These results may have been influenced by some limitations:

• Within the literature, there is no clear consensus on how to properly define central and peripheral details, resulting in many studies creating their definitions to fit their studies. For this reason, if we changed the way central and peripheral details were defined, this could have changed the way information was coded and the subsequent results. For example, there was a student present in the left corner of the room throughout the video of the mock crime, however, she was not central to the crime or visually. Even so, the participants still recalled a high amount of information about her. Future directions should utilise eye tracking to better understand what participants encode and find important in a crime. 

• The video was also tightly focused, resulting in limited peripheral content to recall, since most information available to recall was central details

• Of the information available to recall, 87% of details were recalled accurately, resulting in low variability in the data, which makes it difficult to detect significant changes.