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One prominent variable that can affect the accuracy of paranormal reports is the “source-confusion” or “source-monitoring” error where people misattribute the origin of their recollections to their own experiences. For example, claimants may remember experiencing something paranormal when, in reality, they only heard or read about the incident happening to someone else.[1] A thorough fact-finding investigation would identify whether the claimant was merely duplicating a local tale or whether the claimant has experiential knowledge of the incident in question.
Similarly, people are susceptible to a postevent “misinformation effect,” which occurs when outside people, including other witnesses, accidentally interject details into a person’s memory, which then solidify as part of the eyewitness’s storage and recall. Misinformation can also occur when people mistakenly remember or simply speculate about certain details, which also become part of the memory itself. Particularly during the interview process, witnesses unconsciously invent details to supply investigators with “what must have happened” for things they did not, in reality, observe. These factors are especially problematic for children because they are more susceptible to suggestibility, source confusion errors, and misinformation.[2] Thus, it is important that investigators not assume or inadvertently suggest unstated details about an event because of the potential for changing an eyewitness’s memory.
Investigators also need to avoid an “interviewer bias” when asking questions. This bias occurs when an interviewer conveys details, stereotypes, or desired answers to the witnesses, which then (wittingly or unwittingly) prompts claimants to respond in a particular manner based on what they believe the investigator wants to hear. When conducting an interview, investigators must ask mainly open-ended questions that elicit free recall of the event while also avoiding the use of leading questions. Free recalls tend to be more accurate, whereas questions that are more specific, narrow, or leading tend to occasion inaccurate responses.[3]
This self-imposed limitation also extends to questions designed to arouse mental images of the event (“guided-imagery”). Although people may recall more information (“hypermnesia”) during guided-imagery, they are also predisposed to constructing false memories, which they then describe (with higher levels of confidence) as intensely vivid. As such, investigators must avoid asking claimants to speculate about details or to provide a definitive answer to their questions because witnesses will simply feel pressured to guess. Investigators need to allow witnesses to remain unsure, ambiguous, and even ambivalent about their memories without a compulsion to provide details.[4]
Known as a “system variable,” interviewers can carelessly implant false memories into their subjects merely by the way they ask their questions. Indeed, indecisive eyewitnesses are particularly susceptible to a conformity pressure, being more likely to modify their accounts based on a perceived pressure from authority figures or their perception of what they believe the majority thinks about the event.[5]
An associated problem is known as a “confirming feedback effect” where people unconsciously suggest to eyewitnesses that their story is correct by displaying approval signals about the story’s content, which can then distort their recall of the incident and artificially increase confidence levels. Simply expressing amazement or excitement about a paranormal event can increase people’s sense of certainty about its authenticity. The feedback then results in distorting an investigator’s perception of the testimony’s truthfulness simply because humans are predisposed to believing that higher levels of confidence indicate higher levels of accuracy.[6] Hence, when apologists (for example) exhibit an eagerness to corroborate the paranormal, particularly from friends and family, they may inadvertently compel claimants to fabricate, embellish, or omit details in response to the apologist’s enthusiasm.
The feedback loop ends up artificially heightening the sense of confidence and sincerity felt between interviewer and interviewee.[7] Indeed, witnesses who express a high level of confidence are just as likely to make mistakes as the general population, especially when considering that a witness’s confidence and sincerity increases the more times they recount their testimony to others.[8] Therefore, prior to conducting an initial interview, researchers should determine approximately how many times eyewitnesses have recounted their testimony to others. Conversely, if people express honest doubt about their testimony, then investigators have reason to doubt it, as well.
Moreover, there exist certain biases that affect recall, as well. For instance, people have a tendency toward “retrospective biases” where people falsely superimpose their current experiences, feelings, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs onto past events. The reverse is also true when people perceive and interpret a current event according to earlier experiences (“schema theory”). What people expect to see and hear affects their perception of reality. Once people assimilate a new interpretation about a past event, they are likely never to remember their previous beliefs about the episode. These errors then become established fact and will perpetuate through repeated retellings, even after individuals learn that their recall has, in fact, been wrong.[9] Investigators need to be mindful of these distortions by locating (where possible) the witness’s previous statements to others in order to identify whether their interpretation of the memory has evolved or changed over time.
Researchers should also be cognizant of traumatic reports since these can result in memory repression, suppression, and partial amnesia of relevant details. Those events that are more salient due to surprise, heightened emotional arousal, and greater importance will sometimes become “flashbulb memories,” which are especially intense in clarity and precision. However, higher stress levels actually impair and narrow a witness’s perception of events. Though the individual believes their memory is acutely accurate, flashbulb memories are, in actuality, less accurate than normal memories and tend to deteriorate over time. Surprisingly, there is evidence that flashbulb memories do not even form immediately but begin the encoding process several days after having discussed the episode with others. This prolonged process suggests that flashbulb memories are just as susceptible to postevent misinformation as other memories.[10]
When considering topics such as traumatic events, there is a lack of consistency during the encoding process. Emotional intensity appears to encode only certain memories in some circumstances, but not in all cases. Regardless, the evidence suggests that heightened arousal specifically reduces the accuracy of a person’s recall.[11] Again, investigators need to be cautious with descriptions that are concomitant with flashbulb memories and conduct a thorough investigation to determine whether memory repression or suppression has occurred.
Another memory variable involves time delay. In general, memories are subject to rapid decay and postevent distortion where false memories actually increase over time. Hence, the longer the time between encoding, storage, and retrieval, the more difficult recall becomes for eyewitnesses.[12]
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Equally concerning is the chance of chronological displacement where people accurately remember the plot of an event but displace the date by several years.[13] Therefore, investigators need to identify how much time has lapsed since the event and whether their recollection is even in the right period of time.
Spatial and experiential problems also arise from studies that indicate persons directly involved in an event are less accurate than bystanders. The presence of frightening objects and higher anxiety levels diminish an eyewitness’s ability to recall important details since they tend to focus almost exclusively on alarming features. The same is true for situations where an unexpected item or an object that is inconsistent with the context appears in the situation, making eyewitnesses succumb to an object-focus effect.[14] This attentional funneling, which narrows people’s focus, unavoidably means a lack of or diminished awareness to other (potentially disconfirming) details.[15] Hence, investigators should note whether bystanders, unaffected by heightened emotional arousal, were also present and whether there were alarming features that could have distorted a witness’s perception of the event.[16] It is important to recognize, however, that being aware of these variables is not, in fact, an endorsement of hyperskepticism about paranormal claims.
-To be Continued in Part VI-
Citations
[1] Memon, Vrij, and Bull, Psychology and Law, 93‒99; Johnson, Hashtroudi, and Lindsay, “Source Monitoring,” 3‒28. [2] See Ira E. Hyman Jr., Troy H. Husband, and F. James Billings, “False Memories of Childhood Experiences,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 9, no. 3 (June 1995): 181‒97; Elizabeth F. Loftus and John C. Palmer, “Reconstruction of Automobile Destruction: An Example of the Interaction between Language and Memory,” Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 13, no. 5 (October 1974): 585‒89; Jo Saunders and Malcolm D. MacLeod, “New Evidence on the Suggestibility of Memory: The Role of Retrieval-Induced Forgetting in Misinformation Effects,” Journal of Experimental Psychology. Applied 8, no. 2 (June 2002): 127‒42; Michael McCloskey and Maria S. Zaragoza, “Misleading Postevent Information and Memory for Events: Arguments and Evidence Against Memory Impairment Hypotheses,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 114, no. 1 (March 1985): 1‒16; Redman, “How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses?,” 186‒87; Memon, Vrij, and Bull, Psychology and Law, 93‒99; Duke, Lee, and Pager, “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words,” 34; Loftus, Eyewitness Testimony, 56‒58. [3] Cf. Gary L. Wells, R. C. L. Lindsay, and Tamara J. Ferguson, “Accuracy, Confidence, and Juror Perceptions in Eyewitness Identification,” Journal of Applied Psychology 64, no. 4 (August 1979): 440‒48; Jack P. Lipton, “On the Psychology of Eyewitness Testimony,” Journal of Applied Psychology 62, no. 1 (February 1977): 90‒95; Memon, Vrij, and Bull, Psychology and Law, 96‒97, 101‒6; and Yuille and Cutshall, “Analysis of the Statements,” 176. [4] Ira E. Hyman Jr. and Joel Pentland, “The Role of Mental Imagery in the Creation of False Childhood Memories,” Journal of Memory and Language 35 (April 1996): 101‒17; Redman, “How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses?,” 187‒88. [5] Cf. Norman J. Bregman and Hunter A. McAllister, “Eyewitness Testimony: The Role of Commitment in Increasing Reliability,” Social Psychology Quarterly 45, no. 3 (1982): 181‒83; Hyman, Husband, and Billings, “False Memories,” 181‒97; Hyman and Pentland, “The Role of Mental Imagery,” 101‒17. [6] Smalarz and Wells, “Eyewitness Certainty,” 163, 168‒70. Interestingly, Keener appears to associate eyewitness confidence with a story’s accuracy when he writes about people raising from the dead, “That the writers of the Gospels and Acts believed that the resuscitations they reported took place should no more be doubted than the confidence of many people later in history and today who believe that they have seen, and have offered eyewitness evidence for, analogous experiences” (Keener, Miracles, 537; emphasis added). [7] Again, Keener appears to associate eyewitness sincerity with a story’s accuracy, writing, “Given my knowledge of Elaine and the larger context of her life story …, I have full confidence that she speaks with absolute sincerity” (Keener, Miracles, 570). [8] Siegfried Ludwig Sporer et al., “Choosing, Confidence, and Accuracy: A Meta-Analysis of the Confidence-Accuracy Relation in Eyewitness Identification Studies,” Psychological Bulletin 118, no. 3 (November 1995): 315‒27; John S. Shaw III and Kimberley A. McClure, “Repeated Postevent Questioning Can Lead to Elevated Levels of Eyewitness Confidence,” Law and Human Behavior 20, no. 6 (December 1996): 629‒53; Köhnken, “Behavioral Correlates of Statement Credibility,” 272; Smalarz and Wells, “Eyewitness Certainty,” 165, 171‒72; Shermer, Rose, and Hoffman, “Perceptions and Credibility,” 185. [9] Daniel L. Schacter and Elaine Scarry, eds., Memory, Brain, and Belief, Pbk. ed. (2000; repr., Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), 3; Redman, “How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses?,” 180‒82, 185, 187‒88. [10] See Stephen Porter and Angela R. Birt, “Is Traumatic Memory Special? A Comparison of Traumatic Memory Characteristics with Memory for Other Emotional Life Experiences,” Applied Cognitive Psychology 15, no. 7 (December 2001): 101‒17; Memon, Vrij, and Bull, Psychology and Law, 128‒35; Redman, “How Accurate Are Eyewitnesses?,” 184‒85; Shermer, Rose, and Hoffman, “Perceptions and Credibility,” 186; Ruback and Greenberg, “Crime Victims as Witnesses,” 411. [11] Cf. Daniel B. Wright et al., “Field Studies of Eyewitness Memory,” in Reform of Eyewitness Identification Procedures, ed. Brian L. Cutler (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2013), 181‒82 and Ken A. Deffenbacher, “The Influence of Arousal on Reliability of Testimony,” in Evaluating Witness Evidence: Recent Psychological Research and New Perspectives, ed. Sally M. A. Lloyd-Bostock and Brian R. Clifford (New York: John Wiley, 1983), 235‒51. [12] See the research in Henry F. Fradella, “Why Judges Should Admit Expert Testimony on the Unreliability of Eyewitness Testimony,” Federal Courts Law Review 2006, no. 3 (June 2006): 10; Craig R. Barclay, “Schematization of Autobiographical Memory,” in Autobiographical Memory, ed. David C. Rubin (1986; repr., Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 82‒99; Elizabeth F. Loftus, “Silence is Not Golden,” American Psychologist 38 (May 1983): 564‒72; Duke, Lee, and Pager, “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words,” 30‒33; and Lipton, “On the Psychology of Eyewitness Testimony,” 90‒95. [13] Steen F. Larsen, Charles P. Thompson, and Tia Hansen, “Time in Autobiographical Memory,” in Remembering Our Past: Studies in Autobiographical Memory, Pbk. ed., ed. David C. Rubin (1995; repr., New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 129‒56. [14] See for example, Anne Maass and Günter Köhnken, “Eyewitness Identification: Simulating the ‘Weapon Effect’,” Law and Human Behavior 13, no. 4 (December 1989): 397‒408 and Kerri Pickel, “The Influence of Context on the ‘Weapon Focus’ Effect,” Law and Human Behavior 23, no. 3 (June 1999): 299‒311. [15] Peace, Brower, and Rocchio, “Is Truth Stranger Than Fiction,” 42; Ruback and Greenberg, “Crime Victims as Witnesses,” 416‒19. [16] Cf. Memon, Vrij, and Bull, Psychology and Law, 87‒106, 110, 113‒18.
