| 1. |
- Gustafsson, Philip U., et al.
(author)
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Eyewitness accuracy and retrieval effort : Effects of time and repetition
- 2022
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 17:9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- An important task for the law enforcement is to assess the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies. Recent research show that indicators of effortful memory retrieval, such as pausing and hedging (e.g. “I think”, “maybe”), are more common in incorrect recall. However, a limitation in these studies is that participants are interviewed shortly after witnessing an event, as opposed to after greater retention intervals. We set out to mitigate this shortcoming by investigating the retrieval effort-accuracy relationship over time. In this study, participants watched a staged crime and were interviewed directly afterwards, and two weeks later. Half the participants also carried out a repetition task during the two-week retention interval. Results showed that the retrieval-effort cues Delays and Hedges predicted accuracy at both sessions, including after repetition. We also measured confidence, and found that confidence also predicted accuracy over time, although repetition led to increased confidence for incorrect memories. Moreover, retrieval-effort cues partially mediated between accuracy and confidence.
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| 2. |
- Gustafsson, Philip U., et al.
(author)
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Judging the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies using retrieval effort cues
- 2021
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In: Applied Cognitive Psychology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0888-4080 .- 1099-0720. ; 35:5, s. 1224-1235
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Recent research has shown that incorrect statements in eyewitness testimonies contain more cues to effortful memory retrieval than correct statements. In two experiments, we attempted to improve judgments of testimony accuracy by informing participants about these effort cues. Participants read eyewitness testimony transcripts and judged statement accuracy. Performance was above chance in both experiments, but there was only a significant effect of the effort-cue instruction in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, we also compared judgment accuracy between police detectives, police students and laypersons, and found no significant difference, in contrast to previous studies. Moreover, the current study corroborates previous findings that (a) judging testimony accuracy is a difficult task and (b) people spontaneously rely on effort cues to some extent when judging accuracy. However, a complete reliance on effort cues showed substantially better performance than relying on one's own judgments skills at best, and offered equal performance at worst.
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| 3. |
- Gustafsson, Philip U., et al.
(author)
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Predicting Accuracy in Eyewitness Testimonies With Memory Retrieval Effort and Confidence
- 2019
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In: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-1078. ; 10
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Evaluating eyewitness testimonies has proven a difficult task. Recent research, however, suggests that incorrect memories are more effortful to retrieve than correct memories, and confidence in a memory is based on retrieval effort. We aimed to replicate and extend these findings, adding retrieval latency as a predictor of memory accuracy. Participants watched a film sequence with a staged crime and were interviewed about its content. We then analyzed retrieval effort cues in witness responses. Results showed that incorrect memories included more “effort cues” than correct memories. While correct responses were produced faster than incorrect responses, delays in responses proved a better predictor of accuracy than response latency. Furthermore, participants were more confident in correct than incorrect responses, and the effort cues partially mediated this confidence-accuracy relation. In sum, the results support previous findings of a relationship between memory accuracy and objectively verifiable cues to retrieval effort.
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| 4. |
- Gustafsson, Philip U., 1991-
(author)
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Retrieval effort and accuracy in eyewitness testimony
- 2023
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- For better or worse, eyewitness testimonies make up common evidence in criminal trials. This has the benefit that it allows for guilty offenders to be convicted even in the absence of physical evidence. However, the fallibility of memory also means that eyewitnesses may be mistaken in their recall, risking wrongful, innocent convictions. This dilemma has sparked a multitude of studies on situations and factors that distort memory and make it unreliable, and consequently, situations where a testimony should be reliable. It has also sparked research into methods that attempt to distinguish between correct and incorrect memories. It is this latter research that forms the foundation for this thesis.In this thesis, I have attempted to improve judgments of eyewitness accuracy by examining the relationship between expressions of effort in memory retrieval, and accuracy. The thesis builds upon earlier studies demonstrating a negative relationship between retrieval effort and accuracy (easily retrieved memories are more often correct), and explores this relationship further in eyewitness testimonies, while also addressing a number of limitations. Three empirical studies were undertaken, wherein participants saw a fictitious crime and were interviewed as eyewitnesses (Study I & II), or read testimonies and judged the accuracy of statements (Study III). Study I showed that four (para)verbal markers of retrieval effort (“retrieval-effort cues”) were more common in incorrect recall compared to correct recall in eyewitness testimonies. Study I also showed that the retrieval-effort cues mediated between confidence in a memory, and accuracy. Study II replicated Study I and moreover, showed a robustness of the findings, as retrieval-effort cues predicted accuracy both directly after viewing an event, as well as two weeks later, even when witnesses had actively engaged in memory repetition. Finally, Study III showed that fact finders could be instructed to use retrieval-effort cues to predict memory accuracy, and furthermore, results suggested that this method could be superior to fact finders’ spontaneous accuracy judgments. Taken together, this thesis provides evidence that brings us closer to a working method to judge eyewitness accuracy, and illuminates important next steps to be solved, moving forward.
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| 5. |
- Arshamian, Artin, 1979-, et al.
(author)
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Sniff Your Way to Clarity : The Case of Olfactory Imagery
- 2008
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In: CHEMOSENSORY PERCEPTION. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1936-5802 .- 1936-5810. ; 1:4, s. 242-246
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study addressed the effects of blocking spontaneous sniffing during olfactory imagery. A group of subjects (n=40) who scored high in olfactory focus and imagery ability rated the vividness in olfactory and visual imagery content under conditions of blocked sniffing, blocked vision, and a nonblocked control. The imagery stimuli consisted of 90 common words that could represent either an odor or a visual object. Blocked sniffing was expected to impair olfactory imagery vividness, but since visual imagery entails eye movements, which was not affected by the ""blocked vision"" manipulation, visual imagery ratings were effectively used as a placebo control. Confirming our hypotheses, the results showed that preventing sniffing resulted in a selectively poorer olfactory but not visual vividness, whereas blocked vision showed no effect on either the visual or olfactory vividness ratings. These observations confirm that sensorimotor activity is an important aspect for the quality of evoked olfactory images.
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| 6. |
- Cornell Kärnekull, Stina, et al.
(author)
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Affected by Smells? : Environmental Chemical Responsivity Predicts Odor Perception
- 2011
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In: Chemical Senses. - Oxford : Oxford University Press. - 0379-864X .- 1464-3553. ; 36:7, s. 641-648
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Strong negative reactions, physical symptoms, and behavioral disruptions due to environmental odors are common in the adult population. We investigated relationships among such environmental chemosensory responsivity (CR), personality traits, affective states, and odor perception. Study 1 showed that CR and neuroticism were positively correlated in a sample of young adults (n = 101), suggesting that persons high in neuroticism respond more negatively to environmental odors. Study 2 explored the relationships among CR, noise responsivity (NR), neuroticism, and odor perception (i.e., pleasantness and intensity) in a subset of participants (n = 40). High CR was associated with high NR. Regression analyses indicated that high CR predicted higher odor intensity ratings and low olfactory threshold (high sensitivity) predicted lower pleasantness ratings. However, neuroticism was not directly associated with odor ratings or thresholds. Overall, the results suggest that CR and odor thresholds predict perceptual ratings of odors and that high CR is associated with nonchemosensory affective traits.
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| 7. |
- Cornell Kärnekull, Stina, 1985-
(author)
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Auditory and Olfactory Abilities in Blind and Sighted Individuals : More Similarities than Differences
- 2018
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Blind individuals face various challenges in everyday life because of the lack of visual input. However, since they need to rely on the non-visual senses for everyday tasks, for instance, when navigating the environment, the question has been raised as to whether perceptual and cognitive abilities in these senses may be enhanced. This question has mainly been addressed for auditory and tactile abilities, whereas there is considerably less research into the chemical senses, such as olfaction. However, to determine whether blindness has general effects, different senses and types of tasks should be studied, preferably in one and the same study. Therefore, throughout this thesis, analogous auditory and olfactory tasks that varied in cognitive complexity were studied. In Study I, absolute thresholds, discrimination, identification, episodic recognition (i.e., after a short retention interval), metacognition, and self-reported imagery ability were assessed in early blind, late blind, and sighted participants. The only objective measure on which the blind and sighted clearly differed was the auditory episodic recognition task. The fact that early blind but not late blind participants displayed better memory than the sighted suggested that the onset age of blindness may be important for whether this ability becomes enhanced following blindness. Furthermore, the early blind participants rated their auditory imagery ability higher than the sighted, whereas both early and late blind participants rated their olfactory imagery ability higher than the sighted. In Study II, the participants from Study I were followed up after more than a year and retested on auditory and olfactory episodic recognition and identification. This time, the early blind displayed no advantage over the sighted, suggesting that the influence of blindness on auditory memory may be modulated by the length of the retention interval. Moreover, in line with Study I, identification of sounds and odors was similar in the three groups. In Study III, early blind and sighted participants were examined for potential differences in autobiographical memory as evoked by sounds and odors, respectively. Blindness did not influence the reminiscence bumps (i.e., memory peaks in certain age intervals) or have any clear impact on the number of retrieved sound- or odor-evoked memories. Taken together, the present findings indicate that blindness has no general influence across tasks or sensory modalities. Rather, specific auditory abilities, such as episodic memory, may be enhanced in blind individuals, although such effects may depend on both the onset age of blindness and the length of the retention interval. In conclusion, for most perceptual and cognitive abilities examined, performance seemed unaffected by blindness.
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| 8. |
- Cornell Kärnekull, Stina, et al.
(author)
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Long-Term Memory for Odors : Influences of Familiarity and Identification Across 64 Days
- 2015
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In: Chemical Senses. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0379-864X .- 1464-3553. ; 40:4, s. 259-267
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Few studies have investigated long-term odor recognition memory, although some early observations suggested that the forgetting rate of olfactory representations is slower than for other sensory modalities. This study investigated recognition memory across 64 days for high and low familiar odors and faces. Memory was assessed in 83 young participants at 4 occasions; immediate, 4, 16, and 64 days after encoding. The results indicated significant forgetting for odors and faces across the 64 days. The forgetting functions for the 2 modalities were not fundamentally different. Moreover, high familiar odors and faces were better remembered than low familiar ones, indicating an important role of semantic knowledge on recognition proficiency for both modalities. Although odor recognition was significantly better than chance at the 64 days testing, memory for the low familiar odors was relatively poor. Also, the results indicated that odor identification consistency across sessions, irrespective of accuracy, was positively related to successful recognition.
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| 9. |
- Cornell Kärnekull, Stina, 1985-, et al.
(author)
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The reminiscence bump is blind to blindness : Evidence from sound- and odor-evoked autobiographical memory
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Other publication (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Autobiographical memories (AMs) evoked by sensory cues, such as words, pictures, and sounds, typically form reminiscence bumps in adolescence and young adulthood. However, odors constitute an exception by shifting the bump to early childhood. Olfaction may be a “sense of first impressions”, as indicated by a unique hippocampal representation in the brain for first odor-to-object associations. However, the influence of the individual’s sensory function on AMs has never been examined. We examined the reminiscence bumps of sound- and odor-evoked memories of early-blind and sighted individuals, since blindness implies considerable changes in sensory experience. Despite such changes, the groups displayed similar age distributions of both sound- and odor-evoked memories. The auditory bump seemed to span the first two decades of life, whereas the olfactory bump was once again found in early childhood. Hence, the reminiscence bumps were robust to differences in sensory function and experience.
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| 10. |
- Cornell Kärnekull, Stina, et al.
(author)
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The reminiscence bump is blind to blindness : Evidence from sound- and odor-evoked autobiographical memory
- 2020
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In: Consciousness and Cognition. - : Elsevier BV. - 1053-8100 .- 1090-2376. ; 78
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The reminiscence bump is the disproportionally high reporting of autobiographical memories from adolescence and early adulthood and is typically observed when memories are evoked by cues, such as words, pictures, and sounds. However, when odors are used the bump shifts to early childhood. Although these findings indicate that sensory modality affects the bump, the influence of the individual's sensory function on the reminiscence bumps is unknown. We examined the reminiscence bumps of sound- and odor-evoked autobiographical memories of early blind and sighted individuals, since early blindness implies considerable effects on sensory experience. Despite differences in sensory experience between blind and sighted individuals, the groups displayed similar age distributions of both sound- and odor-evoked memories. The auditory bump spanned the first two decades of life, whereas the olfactory bump was once again found in early childhood. These results demonstrate that the reminiscence bumps are robust to fundamental differences in sensory experience.
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