Brassil Maryanne, O'Mahony Cian, Greene Ciara M
School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2024 Dec;31(6):2410-2436. doi: 10.3758/s13423-024-02512-5. Epub 2024 May 2.
The fact that memories can be distorted by post-event misinformation has cast considerable doubt over the dependability of eyewitness evidence in legal contexts. However, despite its adverse practical implications, the misinformation effect is likely an unavoidable distortion stemming from the reconstructive nature of episodic memory. Certain cognitive abilities have been reported to offer protection against misinformation, suggesting that mechanisms aside from episodic memory may also be underpinning this type of memory distortion. The purpose of this review was to collate findings of associations between eyewitness misinformation susceptibility and individual differences in cognitive ability in adults aged 18 and over. Nine studies met the eligibility criteria for this review, including 23 distinct associations. Using a narrative synthesis, three categories of cognitive ability were identified as influencing susceptibility to misinformation: general intelligence and reasoning, perceptual abilities, and memory abilities. Across almost all categories, higher levels of ability were associated with reduced susceptibility to misinformation. While there is no indication that any one trait provides total immunity to the misinformation effect, there is a reasonable amount of evidence to suggest that several cognitive abilities create variance in individual levels of susceptibility. Future research should investigate not only if but how these cognitive abilities protect against misinformation distortions, for example, by contributing to more detailed encoding of the memory, enhancing discrepancy detection in the face of post-event misinformation, or improving source-monitoring during an eyewitness memory test.
事件后错误信息会扭曲记忆，这一事实使得法律背景下目击证人证据的可靠性备受质疑。然而，尽管存在不利的实际影响，但错误信息效应很可能是情景记忆的重构性所导致的一种不可避免的扭曲。据报道，某些认知能力能够抵御错误信息，这表明除情景记忆之外的其他机制可能也在这种记忆扭曲中发挥着作用。本综述的目的是整理18岁及以上成年人目击证人错误信息易感性与认知能力个体差异之间关联的研究结果。九项研究符合本综述的纳入标准，包括23种不同的关联。通过叙述性综合分析，确定了三类影响错误信息易感性的认知能力：一般智力和推理能力、感知能力以及记忆能力。几乎在所有类别中，能力水平越高，错误信息易感性越低。虽然没有迹象表明任何一种特质能完全免疫错误信息效应，但有相当多的证据表明，几种认知能力会导致个体易感性水平的差异。未来的研究不仅应调查这些认知能力是否能抵御错误信息扭曲，还应研究其如何发挥作用，例如，通过对记忆进行更详细的编码、在面对事件后错误信息时增强差异检测，或在目击证人记忆测试中改善来源监控。
