ABSTRACT

Two experiments demonstrate that eyewitnesses often falsely recognise an actor performing an action that had actually been performed by someone else, even if the action involves negative emotions and the actor in question had only appeared in emotionally neutral contexts. Participants viewed videos, each involving an actor performing a neutral (e.g. making oatmeal) or negatively valenced (e.g. killing a roach) action, and were asked to remember the events (Experiment 1) or to rate them for valence and arousal (Experiment 2). In both experiments, participants remembered negative actions better than neutral actions. Participants were also especially likely, however, to falsely recognise a different person performing a negative action. Experiment 2 revealed that this effect was modulated by the prior emotional contexts in which an actor had appeared. Participants were still just as likely, however, to falsely recognise an actor who had only appeared in neutral contexts now performing a negative action as they were to falsely recognise this actor performing a different neutral action. These results suggest that even individuals seen only in benign contexts can be falsely remembered as having participated in emotionally charged events (e.g. crimes).

摘要

两个实验表明，目击者经常错误地识别出一个演员表演的动作实际上是由其他人表演的，即使该动作涉及负面情绪，并且所讨论的演员只出现在情绪中性的环境中。参与者观看视频，每个视频都涉及演员执行中性（例如制作燕麦片）或负面效价（例如杀死蟑螂）的动作，并被要求记住事件（实验 1）或对它们的效价和唤醒度（实验 2）进行评分. 在这两个实验中，参与者比中性行为更能记住消极行为。然而，参与者也特别有可能错误地识别出另一个执行消极行为的人。实验 2 表明，这种效果是由演员出现的先前情绪背景所调节的。然而，参与者仍然有可能错误地识别出一个只出现在中性环境中的演员，现在正在执行负面动作，因为他们错误地识别出这个演员正在执行不同的中性动作。这些结果表明，即使是仅在良性环境中看到的个人也可能被错误地记住为参与了情绪激动的事件（例如犯罪）。