PSYCH 140M Lecture Notes - Lecture 33: Eyewitness Testimony, Psych, Plymouth Valiant
Document Summary
Retrieval of some target items can impair a person"s later ability to recall other items related to those target items. Subjects study lists of words from a number of semantic categories (e. g. fruits, drinks, trees) for a later recall test. Before recall test, they perform some retrieval practice . Recalling a certain number of items from some subset of categories (ex: fruit: or_____ to cue them to recall. Later asked to recall as many items as possible from all categories. Recall for items in category that had been practiced will be increased. Recall for items not practiced will be impaired (decreased) So, from example above, orange would be retrieved more often, but something like banana (unpracticed) would be impaired compared to baseline rate of recall (for control subjects who performed no practice retrievals) Eyewitness testimony is not always reliable, even when the witness is certain about being accurate.
