The impact of alcohol intoxication on witness suggestibility immediately and after a delay

Abstract

Intoxicated witnesses are common, making it important to understand alcohol's impact on witness accuracy and suggestibility. Participants assigned to an immediate retrieval condition encoded and recalled in one of the three intoxication conditions: sober control, placebo, or intoxicated. Participants in the delayed retrieval condition were assigned to encode in one of the three intoxication conditions, returned a week later, and were assigned to retrieve in one of the three intoxication conditions. Intoxication condition at encoding was fully crossed with intoxication condition at retrieval in the delayed condition. Participants encoded a mock crime video and retrieved via a forced-choice test, with answers already circled (purportedly by a prior participant); half of the precircled responses were incorrect.When recalling after a delay only, intoxication at encoding increased agreement with incorrect suggested answers and decreased accuracy. Results suggest intoxicated witnesses may benefit from being interviewed immediately rather than after a sobering delay.

And one more for the road: Commentary on the Special Issue on alcohol and eyewitness memory

“…Evans et al () examined the role of delay and intoxication on witness suggestibility at encoding and retrieval. Participants witnessed a mock crime intoxicated (BrAC 0.06–0.08%), thinking that they were intoxicated (i.e., placebo), or sober (i.e., control).…”

“…Participants in the immediate conditions were always in the same state during encoding and retrieval, but, in the delayed conditions, participants were either in the same state or in a different state (fully crossed between sober, placebo, and intoxicated condition). To examine the role of delay, Evans et al () compared only participants who had been in the same state during encoding and retrieval. Besides effects of delay and intoxication, they found an interaction.…”

“…In addition, to examine the role of intoxication at encoding and retrieval, Evans et al () only compared participants in the delayed conditions. They found that, whereas the participants' state during retrieval did not matter, participants who were intoxicated during encoding were less accurate and more susceptible to suggestions than participants who were sober or who only thought that they had consumed alcohol during encoding, highlighting the importance of not forcing intoxicated witnesses to provide answers and allowing them to indicate that they do not know the answer.…”

“…They found that, whereas the participants' state during retrieval did not matter, participants who were intoxicated during encoding were less accurate and more susceptible to suggestions than participants who were sober or who only thought that they had consumed alcohol during encoding, highlighting the importance of not forcing intoxicated witnesses to provide answers and allowing them to indicate that they do not know the answer. Finally, Evans et al () found that participants in the immediate condition who were intoxicated were more accurate and less susceptible to suggestions than participants in the delayed condition who were intoxicated during encoding but sober during retrieval, suggesting that it might be better to interview an intoxicated witness immediately than to wait a week and interview the witness sober, a finding with potentially important policy implications.…”

“…This Special Issue covers studies with an impressive range of experimental designs. Some studies ensured that the design was completely balanced by either including a reverse placebo condition (Flowe et al, ; Gawrylowicz, Scoboria, Teodorini, & Albery, ) or counterbalancing intoxicated, placebo, and sober conditions at both encoding and retrieval (Evans et al, ). Other studies opted to have more naturalistic settings by testing participants in bars (Altman, McQuiston, & Schreiber Compo, ; Sauerland, Broers, & Van Oorsouw, ) or simulated bars (Mindthoff, Hagsand, Schreiber Compo, & Evans, ).…”