Self-generated cues: The role of cue quality in facilitating eyewitness recall

Wheeler-Mundy, Rebecca. L. and Gabbert, Fiona and Hope, Lorraine (2024) Self-generated cues: The role of cue quality in facilitating eyewitness recall. Journal of Criminal Psychology. ISSN 2009-3829

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Abstract

Purpose
Witness-led techniques, informed by theory, have been recognised as best practice for eliciting information from cooperative eyewitnesses. In the current research, we test a self-generated cue (SGC) mnemonic grounded in memory theory and explore the impact of three SGC mnemonics on subsequent recall performance.
Methodology
Participants (N = 170) witnessed a live staged event and reported their recall using a SGC mnemonic (keywords only, event-line, or concept map) or control technique (other-generated cues or free recall only). These mock witness accounts were compared in terms of correct and incorrect details reported.
Findings
Fewer correct details were reported in the other-generated cue condition compared to the SGC event-line (p = .018) and SGC concept map (p = .010). There were no significant differences between free recall alone and any other condition. The number of inaccurate details reported did not differ between conditions (p = .153). Our findings suggest that high quality free recall instructions can benefit recall performance above generic cues (e.g. other-generated cues) but using SGCs to support a structured recall (e.g., concept map or event-line) may offer an additional recall benefit.
Originality
Our findings support previous research that SGCs benefit recall beyond other-generated cues. However, by comparing different cue generation techniques grounded in the literature, we extend such findings to show that SGC generation techniques are not equally effective and that combining SGCs with structured recall is likely to carry the greatest benefit to recall.

Item Type: Article
Identification Number: 10.1108/JCP-05-2024-0036
Dates:
Date
Event
13 June 2024
Accepted
18 July 2024
Published Online
Uncontrolled Keywords: Self-Generated cue, Cognitive mnemonic, Information elicitation, Witness-Led recall, Retrieval cue, Cue quality
Subjects: CAH04 - psychology > CAH04-01 - psychology > CAH04-01-01 - psychology (non-specific)
Divisions: Faculty of Business, Law and Social Sciences > College of Psychology
Depositing User: Rebecca Wheeler-Mundy
Date Deposited: 12 Aug 2024 11:02
Last Modified: 12 Aug 2024 11:02
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/15682

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