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16:30 - 18:00
Parallel sessions 3
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16:30 - 18:00
Room: HSZ - N1
Chair/s:
Ryan Patrick Hackländer, Magdalena Abel
The scientific study of human memory can be approached from many different angles, for example by focusing on basic questions about memory or on questions that arise with regard to memory in daily life or in applied settings. This symposium will showcase the great variety of current memory research by bringing together researchers who pursue different research questions – some of them addressing basic characteristics of memory, others addressing memory in application. The first talk by Mohammad Hamzeloo will consider how odors can be turned into associative cues that are effective in evoking memories. The second talk by Mira Schwarz and Kai Homburger will examine how memories of odors can shape spatial orientation and support smell-based navigation. The third talk by Alp Aslan will look into memory for object locations and forgetting effects mediated by selective memory retrieval. The fourth talk by Jan Rummel and Luca Leon Bieling will deal with eyewitness source memory and the influence of ethnic bias on the cheater-detection benefit. Finally, the fifth talk by Marius Böltzig will focus on collective remembering, in particular future thinking of Ukrainians during the Russian invasion of their country. In addition to the five talks, a final discussion slot will provide an opportunity to discuss overlap and joint themes across studies, as well as potential avenues for future research.
Submission 201
When Appearance Shapes Memory: Ethnic Bias Modulates the Cheater-Detection Benefit in Eyewitness Source Memory
SymposiumTalk-04
Presented by: Luca Bieling
Luca Bieling, Jan Rummel
Heidelberg University, Germany
This study investigated how behavioral descriptions, ethnic appearance, and crime stereotypes influence eyewitness source memory. Previous research has shown improved memory for perpetrators (i.e., the Cheater-Detection Benefit; CDB) but poorer memory for individuals from other ethnic backgrounds (i.e., the Other-Race Effect; ORE). The present study builds on these two phenomena by examining whether memory for criminal versus neutral behaviors varies as a function of a person’s ethnic appearance. A total of 109 White German participants viewed German and Iranian male faces paired with descriptions of either criminal acts or occupations, which had been pretested as stereotypical for one or the other ethnic group. After a short filler task, participants were asked to recognize the faces and recall the associated behavior. Results revealed a significant interaction between behavioral description and ethnic appearance: participants correctly attributed criminal behaviors more often to faces from their own ethnic group, whereas neutral behaviors were remembered better for faces from the other ethnic group. Thus, the CDB emerged only for own-group faces. Overall, recognition accuracy was higher for own-group than for other-group faces, confirming the ORE, which may have facilitated stereotypic guessing when participants had to remember faces from a less familiar ethnic group. These findings demonstrate a moderating role of ethnic appearance in eyewitness memory, highlighting a boundary condition for the CDB and offering important implications for forensic practice.