Deception of a crime event leads to distortion of memory : An examination of deception strategies

Abstract

In this study we investigated how telling a lie (when a person recall complex event) affects the later recall or recognition of the event. In Experiment 1, the memory performance in deceptive memory group was compared with that in genuine memory group. The participants in both groups read same story that described a crime then participated in free recall and answer question tasks. The participants in deceptive group tried to answer the questions so as to hide the fact that he/she did the crime but the participant in genuine group answered as correctly as possible. The results showed that memory performance is not difference in both groups. In deceptive group, participants used two types of strategies: commission and omission. This double adoption of the strategy in each participant might hinder the performance difference. In Experiment 2, two deceptive strategies were controlled and their memory performances were compared with that of genuine memory group. The results showed that memory performance was poorer than that of commission strategy when omission strategy was adopted. These results were interpreted that the recall of original event was inhibited because of the lack of rehearsal of it.