Publication Date

Spring 5-6-2026

Document Type

Student Project

First Advisor

Katja Wiemer

Degree Name

B.A. (Bachelor of Arts)

Department

Department of Psychology

Abstract

Eyewitness testimony if often treated as strong evidence in legal systems, yet psychological research consistently shows that memory is not a perfect recording of events. Instead, memory is reconstructive and vulnerable to distortion. The present study examined whether exposure to misleading post-event information and differences in perceived source credibility would influence false recall in college students. Using a 2 x 2 factorial design, participants watched a brief video of a car accident and later received either misleading or neutral questions presented by a high credibility (police officer) or low credibility (elderly man) source. It was predicted that misinformation would decrease memory accuracy and that this effect would be stronger when delivered by a credible source. The results did not support these hypotheses. Source credibility showed no significant effect, and misinformation produced a marginal effect in the opposite direction than expected. Overall recall accuracy was low, suggesting weak encoding of the original event. These findings highlight the importance of attention and memory strength when examining misinformation effects.

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