Influences of Levels of Processing, Misleading Intensity and Warnings on Memory Suggestibility

Abstract

The influences of levels of processing at the encoding phase, misleading intensity at the misleading phase and warning at the retrieval phase on memory suggestibility were explored through the delayed retrieval errors paradigm, and the contributions of dynamic automatic processing and intentional processing to generation of memory suggestibility were deeply assessed through the Remember/Know/Guess paradigm. The results showed that levels of processing were an important influencing factor for memory suggestibility. The intentional processing at the encoding phase benefited the generation of memory suggestibility more than the automatic processing. The misleading intensity had a significant effect, where the misled-generate items were recalled at a higher level with a longer response time than the misled-read items. In addition, the warning in-creased both the memory suggestibility of misleading pictures and the memory accuracy of non-misleading pictures. This memory suggestibility was jointly caused by the automatic pro-cessing and intentional processing, but mainly intentional processing, and the warning increased the probability of intentional processing during the generation of memory suggestibility.