School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
Memory. 2020 Apr;28(4):450-460. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2020.1729811. Epub 2020 Feb 18.
Previous research has identified perceptual load - the amount of perceptual processing required by a scene - as a potentially important factor in eyewitness memory. Here, we investigated whether effects of perceptual load on eyewitness memory for a simulated crime are moderated by individual differences in cognitive ability. We presented participants with a video of a simulated crime that imposed either high or low perceptual load, followed by a written narrative which contained a mixture of neutral and misleading descriptions of critical details. We examined the effects of three cognitive variables (working memory capacity, verbal cognitive ability and analytical reasoning) on participants' ability to accurately recall details of the video in both the misinformation and control conditions, and to detect a change in the clothing of a main character. General cognitive ability was associated with improved global memory for details of the event, and enhanced change detection under load. Greater WM capacity and a tendency towards analytical reasoning were both associated with resistance to misinformation under conditions of high perceptual load. We conclude that higher levels of cognitive ability, assessed across a number of domains, may enable eyewitnesses to withstand the effects of perceptual load and preserve the accuracy of their memories.
先前的研究已经确定，感知负荷——场景所需的感知处理量——是目击者记忆的一个潜在重要因素。在这里，我们研究了个体认知能力差异是否会调节感知负荷对模拟犯罪中目击者记忆的影响。我们向参与者展示了一段模拟犯罪的视频，该视频施加了高或低的感知负荷，然后是一个包含关键细节的中性和误导性描述的混合的书面叙述。我们研究了三种认知变量（工作记忆容量、言语认知能力和分析推理能力）对参与者在错误信息和控制条件下准确回忆视频细节以及检测主要角色服装变化的能力的影响。一般认知能力与对事件细节的整体记忆的提高以及在负荷下的变化检测能力的提高有关。较高的工作记忆容量和分析推理的倾向都与在高感知负荷条件下抵制错误信息有关。我们的结论是，通过多种领域评估的更高水平的认知能力，可能使目击者能够承受感知负荷的影响并保持记忆的准确性。
