Crime re-enactments broadcast on television encourage witnesses to provide information regarding unsolved crimes. However, given that eyewitness memory can be altered through exposure to post-event information, it is possible that crime re-enactments may influence the memory of eyewitnesses. The current studies examined the effects of crime re-enactments on eyewitness memory. In two experiments (Experiment 1 with a distractor task, Experiment 2 without a distractor task), participants were shown one of three versions of a crime video that differed in their ambiguity. One week later half of the participants viewed a crime re-enactment. All participants then completed a guided free- and cued-recall task regarding the original event. Across both studies, exposure to the re-enactment did not improve eyewitness memory; instead, participants who viewed the re-enactment were more likely to accept the misinformation in the re-enactment. The findings shed light on potential issues with using crime re-enactments to elicit eyewitness accounts.

电视上播放的犯罪重演鼓励证人提供有关未解决犯罪的信息。然而，鉴于目击者的记忆可以通过接触事后信息来改变，犯罪重演可能会影响目击者的记忆。目前的研究检查了犯罪重演对目击者记忆的影响。在两个实验（带有干扰任务的实验 1，没有干扰任务的实验 2）中，参与者被展示了三个版本的犯罪视频之一，这些版本的歧义不同。一周后，一半的参与者观看了犯罪重演。然后，所有参与者完成了有关原始事件的引导式自由和提示回忆任务。在这两项研究中，重演并没有改善目击者的记忆；反而，观看重演的参与者更有可能接受重演中的错误信息。调查结果揭示了使用犯罪重演来引出目击者陈述的潜在问题。