Characteristics of malingered amnesia: consequences of withholding vs. distorting information on later memory of a crime event.

Characteristics of malingered amnesia: Consequences of
withholding vs. distorting information on later memory of a crime
event.

Subject(s): WITNESSES; MEMORY -- Ability testing; CRIMINALprocedure
Source: Legal & Criminological Psychology, Feb2002, Vol. 7 Issue 1,
p45, 17p, 7 charts
Author(s): Bylin, Susanna; Christianson, Sven-Ake
Abstract: Purpose. Perpetratorsmay be more motivated than other
witnesses to withhold reporting crime-related details that have a
probative value for the police investi-gation. One strategy among
suspects/perpetrators toabsolve themselves from culpability is simply
to feign memory impairment. The present study aimed to investigate how
different kinds of simulation of memory impairment affect later genuinememory performance. Methods. Individuals were tested as perpetrators
after having read a story about 'themselves' committing a violent
crime.
There were four groups and two test occasions. Atthe first test
occasion, one group was tested on what they actually recalled, a second
group was not tested at all, while the two remaining groups were asked
to simulate memory impairment bymaking either omission errors (SIM OM)
or commission errors (SIM COM). At the second test occasion, all groups
responded genuinely. Results. Different kinds of simulation have
different impacton later recall. Simu-lation by omission caused more
detrimental effects than simulation by commission on free recall, while
the reverse was true for responses to open-ended questions.However,
simulators showed no impairment s on the multiple-choice questions.
Conclusions. Simulators' worse memory performance is discussed in terms
of non-rehearsal effects and retrieval-inducedforgetting. Regarding
the
open-ended questions, misinformation effects might come into
play.[ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
AN: 6388570
ISSN: 1355-3259
Database: Academic Search Premier