City Research Online

Abstract

The police often appeal for eyewitnesses to events that were unlikely to have been emotive when observed. An eyewitness, however, may be in a negative mood whilst encoding or retrieving such events as mood can be influenced by a range of personal, social, and environmental factors. For example, bad weather can induce a negative mood. This experiment compared the impact of negative and neutral moods during encoding and/or retrieval upon eyewitness recall of a non-emotive event. A negative mood during encoding had no impact upon the number of correct details recalled (provided participants were in a neutral mood at retrieval) but a negative mood during retrieval impaired the number of correct details recalled (provided participants were in a neutral mood at encoding). A negative mood at both time points enhanced the number of correct details recalled, demonstrating a mood-dependent memory enhancement. The forensic implications of these findings are discussed.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Memory on 14 Aug 2015, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09658211.2015.1058955
Publisher Keywords:	eyewitness testimony; memory; mood; emotion; mood-dependent
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Departments:	School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Psychology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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