City Research Online

Abstract

Accuracy in eyewitness testimony is shaped by factors affecting attention to event details. While research has explored attention's role in memory accuracy, less is known about its effect on the recollection accuracy for emotional events. This study investigates how emotional arousal and scene presentation duration influence susceptibility to misinformation. Participants viewed high‐arousing negative, low‐arousing negative, and neutral scenes, with either short or long presentation times. Participants then answered questions about the event, which included misleading information, and completed a forced‐choice recognition test. Results showed a misinformation effect under both long and short presentation durations for the negative emotional images, but the effect disappeared for the neutral scene presented for a short duration. These findings suggest that negative emotional content is more susceptible to misinformation under limited viewing conditions, potentially highlighting the need for caution when relying on eyewitness accounts of briefly experienced emotional events.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,provided the original work is properly cited. © 2025 The Author(s). Applied Cognitive Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Publisher Keywords:	arousal, emotion, memory, misinformation paradigm, presentation duration
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology K Law > K Law (General) R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0321 Neuroscience. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry
Departments:	School of Health & Medical Sciences School of Health & Medical Sciences > Psychology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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