Crime Blindness: How Selective Attention and Inattentional Blindness Can Disrupt Eyewitness Awareness and Memory

Hyman, Ira E.; Wulff, Alia N.; Thomas, Ayanna K.

doi:10.1177/2372732218786749

Cited by 17 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Whether a person notices and attends to a crime depends on both the circumstances of the crime and that person's goals (Hyman et al, 2018). Conditions rarely align to cause a person to literally watch for a crime, as most people who witness a crime are probably engaged in an unrelated, personally relevant task and do not anticipate encountering a crime.…”

Section: The Effects Of Pre-event Instructions On Eyewitness Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conditions rarely align to cause a person to literally watch for a crime, as most people who witness a crime are probably engaged in an unrelated, personally relevant task and do not anticipate encountering a crime. In general, criminal activity may not engage our full attention immediately or even at all (Hyman et al, 2018). Other than those in roles such as police officers, security guards, bank tellers, and convenience store workers, eyewitnesses do not usually receive instructions on what to attend to or a forewarning that they are about to witness a crime.…”

Section: The Effects Of Pre-event Instructions On Eyewitness Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the current research, we manipulated pre-event instructions about the event and any future memory tasks (i.e., lineup) using a conspicuous event. Hyman et al (2018) established that clear pre-event instructions enable participant-witnesses to notice an inconspicuous event earlier and identify the culprit from a lineup more frequently. Though inconspicuous events are surely common in the real world, conspicuous events are more common in the eyewitness identification literature and thus merit a similar investigation.…”

Section: The Effects Of Pre-event Instructions On Eyewitness Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Effect of Pre-Event Instructions on Eyewitness Identification Stage 2 Registered Report Accepted Manuscript

Baldassari¹,

Moore²,

Hyman³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Research on eyewitness identification often involves exposing participants to a simulated crime and later testing memory using a lineup. We conducted a systematic review showing that pre-event instructions, instructions given before event exposure, are rarely reported and those that are reported vary in the extent to which they warn participants about the nature of event or tasks. At odds with the experience of actual witnesses, some studies use pre-event instructions explicitly warning participants of the upcoming crime and lineup task. Both the basic and applied literature provide reason to believe that pre-event instructions may impact eyewitness identification performance. In Experiment 1, we will test the effect of pre-event instructions on lineup identification decisions and confidence. Participants will receive non-specific pre-event instructions (i.e., “watch this video”) or eyewitness pre-event instructions (i.e., “watch this crime video, you’ll complete a line-up later”) and complete a culprit absent or present lineup. In Experiment 2, we will manipulate exposure duration and pre-event instructions to determine if pre-event instructions differentially impact high or low quality eyewitness events. If pre-event instructions impact eyewitness identification accuracy, then the findings of existing studies need to be considered in the context of their pre-event instructions and future work will be needed to determine how instructions interact with existing systems and estimator variables.

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Section: The Effects Of Pre-event Instructions On Eyewitness Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Effects Of Pre-event Instructions On Eyewitness Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Effects Of Pre-event Instructions On Eyewitness Identificationmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Effect of Pre-Event Instructions on Eyewitness Identification Stage 2 Registered Report Accepted Manuscript

Baldassari¹,

Moore²,

Hyman³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In recent past, there is evidence emerging for change and inattentional blindness on group level, suggesting that majority of individuals across groups and teams are susceptible to change and inattentional blindness for same items across the group (Tollner-Burngasser et al, 2010 )(DiVita et al, 2016 ). In particular, the impact in real-world situations has become apparent in aviation, medicine, driving, combat conditions, and eyewitness testimony, where such perceptual changes can lead to catastrophic incidents (Davies & Hine, 2007 )(Tollner-Burngasser et al, 2010 )(Hyman et al, 2018 )(Ahlstrom & Suss, 2014 ), (DiVita et al, 2016 ) (Spak & Nygren, 2016 ) (Greig, 2016 ) (Ho et al, 2017 )(Jones & Johnstone, 2017 ). One often cited example is the Eastern Airlines Flight 401 on December 29, 1972, in which the crash occurred while the entire cockpit crew was preoccupied with a burnt-out landing gear indicator light (NTSB, 1973 ).…”

Section: Group-level Change Blindness and Inattentional Blindnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Failure to Perceive Change: From Neurons to Social Networks

Blum

2021

Hu Arenas

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Humans are fundamentally bad at perceiving change which is not expected to be present based on prior experience of the organism. Change blindness and inattentional blindness are striking such examples of failure to notice changes in a visual scene. This has been observed in other sensory systems including auditory and somatosensory. In conditions of crisis, whether it is a global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic or a local crisis such as Hurricane Katrina, profound changes in structure and function of previously static environmental elements occur and trickle down to each neighborhood, street corner, and individual person's life. In such conditions of flux and instability, susceptibility to micro-perceptual failures such as change and inattentional blindness may be heightened. These phenomena occur at millisecond to seconds time scale, at the level of initial sensations and first level perceptions, however are linked to multimodal associative brain-wide processes. Here we review the evidence for, and develop a line of argument that following propositions hold true in conditions of crisis: (1) Frequency of change blindness events and related failures of micro-perceptions may be higher; (2) accumulation of micro-perceptual failures of a single sensory system such as vision can impact complex cognitive processes such as reasoning, reality-based belief, and judgment occurring over longer time scales and brain-wide networks; and (3) same failures of micro-perceptions across individuals in a population may have impact on faulty consensus assessments of reality of situation and missed opportunities for solution building on group or collective level.

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“…Similarly, individuals who exhibit lower levels of sustained attention have been shown to be more susceptible to false memories (Kiat, Long, & Belli, 2018; Rivardo et al, 2011). In such cases, an individual will be more likely to rely on external information when reconstructing an event, which may leave them open to suggestion (Hyman, Wulff, & Thomas, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the effects of memory specificity and perceptual load on susceptibility to misleading information

Farina

Greene

2020

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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Summary Our study aimed to examine the role of perceptual load in eyewitness memory and susceptibility to misinformation and establish whether trait‐based memory specificity protects against misinformation. Participants (n = 264) viewed a video depicting a crime and completed a memory questionnaire immediately afterwards and 1 week later. Memory specificity was measured using the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT). Higher AMT scores were associated with better memory accuracy. Performance was worse in the high load compared to the low load condition at immediate recall. However, this effect was not seen for every question and load did not influence eyewitness identifications. To test the possibility that load effects were not fully captured by the questionnaire in experiment 1, we conducted a second experiment (n = 120) where we systematically manipulated misinformation about central and peripheral details. We found no effects. Our findings suggest that high perceptual load enhances eyewitness suggestibility, while specific autobiographical memory protects against misinformation.

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Crime Blindness: How Selective Attention and Inattentional Blindness Can Disrupt Eyewitness Awareness and Memory

Abstract: Can we trust inattentive eyewitnesses? How divided attention during a crime impairs eyewitness awareness, memory, and identification.

Cited by 17 publications

References 51 publications

The Effect of Pre-Event Instructions on Eyewitness Identification Stage 2 Registered Report Accepted Manuscript

The Effect of Pre-Event Instructions on Eyewitness Identification Stage 2 Registered Report Accepted Manuscript

Failure to Perceive Change: From Neurons to Social Networks

Examining the effects of memory specificity and perceptual load on susceptibility to misleading information

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