Predicting and projecting memory: Error and bias in metacognitive judgments underlying testimony evaluation

Abstract

Purpose: Metacognitive judgments of what another person would remember had they experienced a stimulus – i.e., social metamemory judgments, are likely to be important in evaluations of testimony in criminal and civil justice systems. This paper develops and tests predictions about two sources of error in social metamemory judgments that have the potential to be important in legal contexts – errors resulting from beliefs informed by own memory being inappropriately applied to the memory of others, and errors resulting from differential experience of an underlying stimulus. Method: We examined social metamemory judgments in two experimental studies. In Experiment 1 (N = 323) participants were required to make either social metamemory judgments relating to faces or predictions relating to their own memory for faces. In Experiment 2 (N = 275), we manipulated participant experience of faces, holding the described experience of the person whose memory was being assessed constant and asked participants to make social metamemory judgments. Results: As predicted, judgments relating to the memory of others were prone to inaccuracy. While participants making predictions relating to their own memory performed above chance, participants making social metamemory judgments performed no better than chance. Social metamemory judgments were also influenced by the way stimuli were experienced by an assessor, even where this experience did not correspond to the experience of the person whose memory they were assessing. Conclusions: Having our own experiences of memory does not necessarily make us well-placed to assess the memory of others and, in fact, our own experiences of memory can even be misleading in making judgments about the memory of others.