Psychology Commons^™

The Effect Of Testing Can Increase Or Decrease Misinformation Susceptibility Depending On The Retention Interval, Ayanna K. Thomas, Leamarie T. Gordon, Paul M. Cernasov, John B. Bulevich

Psychology Department Faculty Works

Research has consistently demonstrated that testing prior to the presentation of misleading post-event information, within the context of a standard eyewitness misinformation paradigm, results in an increase in the misinformation effect. The present study investigated whether changes in misinformation susceptibility in the context of interim testing are affected by retention interval differences between misinformation presentation and final testing. Further, this study tested possible divergences in original and post-event learning between conditions where elaboration in processing of critical details was encouraged either indirectly, via interim testing, or directly, by visually emphasizing critical details. In two experiments, we compared three groups of …