Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA.
Psychology, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, Canada.
Memory. 2022 Jul;30(6):706-714. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2021.1883064. Epub 2021 Feb 8.
While research suggests that telling lies can distort memory for the truth, the effects of receiving feedback about the believability about one's lies are not known. We hypothesised that participants who exaggerated the number of stolen items (vs. told the truth) in a mock insurance claim and then received feedback that their statement was believable (vs. not believable) would incorporate this lie into memory. In a two-phase between-subjects design, participants saw images of an office pre- and post-theft and were randomly assigned to report the number of stolen items accurately (truth-tellers) or exaggerate (liars). They were then randomly assigned to receive feedback that their statement was believable or not. Approximately two weeks later, participants' recall of the theft was measured. Liars and truth-tellers recalled a similar number of stolen items, but liars had less accurate recall for exactly which items were stolen. Liars (vs. truth-tellers) also made more omission errors. The majority of participants who fabricated additional stolen items (65.7%) incorporated one or more of these (false) items into their memory. Results suggest that source monitoring errors may lead fabricated details to be incorporated into memory. Although no effects of believability feedback were observed, recommendations for future researchers are discussed.
虽然研究表明说谎会扭曲对真相的记忆，但关于人们对自己谎言可信度的反馈对记忆的影响尚不清楚。我们假设，在模拟保险索赔中夸大被盗物品数量（而非说实话）的参与者，然后收到他们的陈述可信（而非不可信）的反馈，他们会将这个谎言纳入记忆中。在一项两阶段的被试间设计中，参与者看到了办公室被盗前后的图像，并被随机分配准确报告被盗物品的数量（说实话者）或夸大（说谎者）。然后，他们被随机分配收到他们的陈述可信或不可信的反馈。大约两周后，测量了参与者对盗窃的回忆。说谎者和说实话者回忆起的被盗物品数量相似，但说谎者对具体哪些物品被盗的记忆不太准确。说谎者（与说实话者相比）也犯了更多的遗漏错误。大多数编造额外被盗物品的参与者（65.7%）将其中一个或多个（虚假）物品纳入了他们的记忆中。结果表明，来源监测错误可能导致编造的细节被纳入记忆。尽管没有观察到可信度反馈的影响，但讨论了对未来研究人员的建议。
