Evidence for Selective Emotional Memory Enhancement in a Mock Witness Paradigm

Abstract

Elucidating the effects of negative emotion on eyewitness memory is an important part of understanding how witnesses remember and report criminal events. Extant research in this area has been inconsistent in its methodology and conclusions, thus warranting further empirical investigation. In the current experiment, participants (N = 204) viewed either a Negative or Neutral version of a video of a staged social interaction and had their memory assessed either immediately or 1 week later. Memory assessment consisted of both recall and recognition (lineup identification) components. The Negative video group showed enhanced recall for some aspects of the video compared to the Neutral group, but no enhancement (or impairment) of lineup identification performance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.