The power of the spoken word: Sociolinguistic cues influence the misinformation effect

Abstract

We investigated whether the sociolinguistic information delivered by spoken, accented postevent narratives would influence the misinformation effect. New Zealand subjects listened to misleading postevent information spoken in either a New Zealand (NZ) or North American (NA) accent. Consistent with earlier research, we found that NA accents were seen as more powerful and more socially attractive. We found that accents per se had no influence on the misinformation effect but sociolinguistic factors did: both power and social attractiveness affected subjects' susceptibility to misleading postevent suggestions. When subjects rated the speaker highly on power, social attractiveness did not matter; they were equally misled. However, when subjects rated the speaker low on power, social attractiveness did matter: subjects who rated the speaker high on social attractiveness were more misled than subjects who rated it lower. There were similar effects for confidence. These results have implications for our understanding of social influences on the misinformation effect.

You say tomato? Collaborative remembering leads to more false memories for intimate couples than for strangers

“…Several researchers have demonstrated social influences on the misinformation effect (e.g., COUPLES' FALSE MEMORIES 263 Echterhoff, Hirst, & Hussy, 2005b;Vornik, Sharman, & Garry, 2003); Dodd and Bradshaw (1980) were among the first to do so. They asked subjects to watch a slide sequence of a car accident and then read a narrative about it.…”

Why do doctored images distort memory?

“…However, it is possible that people might lower their criteria when an event seems likely to have occurred (Mazzoni & Kirsch, 2002). We know that people are more likely to accept misleading information from credible sources than from non-credible sources (Echterhoff, Hirst, & Hussy, 2005;Vornik, Sharman, & Garry, 2003), therefore a credibility-based account suggests that doctored images might cause people to lower their source-monitoring criteria. Put differently, whereas people might typically attribute mental images as memories only when they are highly vivid or familiar, doctored photos or videos might be perceived as highly credible evidence that the suggested event occurred, and consequently lead people to attribute less vivid or familiar mental images as memories.…”

Actually, a picture is worth less than 45 words: Narratives produce more false memories than photographs do

“…Photographs should help people visualize events, and myriad studies show that visualizing something helps recall (Dobson & Markham, 1993;Paivio, 1971). In addition, research shows that we do not simply adopt a false suggestion without evaluating the credibility of the source of that suggestion (Dodd & Bradshaw, 1980;Johnson, Hashtroudi, & Lindsay, 1993;Vornik, Sharman, & Garry, 2003). Because we have a misplaced but pervasive faith in the objective quality of photographs (Mided, 1998), we view them as more credible than narrative descriptions.…”