Recall memory, recognition memory, and the eyewitness confidence–accuracy correlation.

Abstract

Research on the eyewitness confidence-accuracy correlation assesses the degree of insight that eyewitnesses have into the accuracy of their memories. Recently, researchers have begun to consider some of the variables that may facilitate or hinder such insight. In the present study with 205 college undergraduates, a previously unexamined influence on this correlation in the context of memory for details of a simulated crime was investigated. The authors hypothesized and found that recall memory conditions (in which no alternative answers were provided ) were characterized by a higher eyewitness confidence-accuracy correlation than recognition memory conditions (in which alternative answers were provided). These findings are explained as a function of the availability of an ease-of-retrieval cue in recall memory.