Abstract
The standard temporal order of events used in studies of eyewitness suggestibility was reversed: Misled subjects were given verbal suggestions about a visual scene before witnessing it. As in the standard procedure, the subjects were later tested on memory of the visual scene. A suggestibility effect was obtained with this reversed procedure, even though the verbal information could not “update” the target memory because no memory of the visual scene existed when the misleading suggestions were given.
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This research was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant BNS8510633 to Marcia K. Johnson. We wish to express our gratitude to Patricia Carr, Laurene Jones, and Dori Seider, who generously opened their classes to us. We also thank Ronald Kopchow for helping s make these arrangements. Thanks are also due to Collen Kelley for very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
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Lindsay, D.S., Johnson, M.K. The reversed eyewitness suggestibility effect. Bull. Psychon. Soc. 27, 111–113 (1989). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329912
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03329912