Purpose

The purpose of this study was to assess the ability of innocent suspects to produce accurate alibis, as well as to identify procedures police interviewers can use to increase the probability of generating accurate alibis.

Design/methodology/approach

In Study 1, 54 university students had a lecture (target event) end at either the normal time (schema group) or 25 min early (non-schema group) and then attempted to generate an alibi for the target event after either a short, moderate or long delay. In Study 2, 20 students had a lecture end 25 min early and underwent an interview regarding their whereabouts using a reverse-order interview technique designed to disrupt schema usage.

Findings

Results from Study 1 suggested that participants relied on schemas to generate their alibis, which led to false alibis for the non-schema group, and this reliance was more pronounced as the delay between event and recall increased. In Study 2, all but one participant produced a false alibi, suggesting reverse order is ineffective in increasing accurate recall in alibi situations.

Practical implications

Results from the two studies revealed that people can produce false alibis easily in mock police interviews – a finding that appears to result from the reliance on schemas. These findings highlight the relative ease with which innocent individuals can produce false alibis. Further research, specific to the alibi generation process, is needed to give police interviewers the tools to produce more accurate and detailed alibis.

Originality/value

This research provides additional evidence regarding the role of schemas in alibi generation. Contrary to findings from the eyewitness area, reverse-order instructions failed to disrupt schema reliance and do not appear to be an effective alibi-elicitation technique.

中文翻译：

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“这就是我的星期三总是这样”：逆序指令不足以减轻不在场证明生成中的模式一致错误

目的

本研究的目的是评估无辜嫌疑人制作准确不在场证明的能力，以及确定警方采访者可以用来增加生成准确不在场证明的可能性的程序。

设计/方法/方法

在研究 1 中，54 名大学生在正常时间（模式组）或提前 25 分钟（非模式组）结束了一场讲座（目标事件），然后在短暂的、中度或长时间延迟。在研究 2 中，20 名学生提前 25 分钟结束了讲座，并使用旨在破坏模式使用的逆序采访技术接受了关于他们下落的采访。

发现

研究 1 的结果表明，参与者依赖图式来生成他们的不在场证明，这导致非图式组出现错误的不在场证明，并且随着事件和回忆之间的延迟增加，这种依赖更加明显。在研究 2 中，除了一名参与者之外，所有参与者都制作了虚假的不在场证明，这表明在不在不在场证明情况下，倒序无法提高准确回忆。

实际影响

这两项研究的结果表明，人们很容易在模拟警察面谈中制造虚假的不在场证明——这一发现似乎是由于对图式的依赖。这些发现凸显了无辜者制造虚假不在场证明的相对容易程度。需要进一步研究，具体针对不在场证明的生成过程，以便为警方采访者提供工具，以生成更准确和详细的不在场证明。

原创性/价值

这项研究提供了关于模式在不在场证明生成中的作用的额外证据。与目击者区域的发现相反，逆序指令未能破坏模式依赖，并且似乎不是一种有效的不在场证明技术。