EFFECT OF MODALITY IN EARWITNESS IDENTIFICATION - MEMORY FOR VERBAL AND NONVERBAL AUDITORY-STIMULI PRESENTED IN 2 CONTEXTS

Psycholegal researchers have largely ignored the relevance of nonverba l auditory information in earwitness memory, nor have they compared it s retention with visual or verbal information. Memory of nonverbal aud itory stimuli was investigated in two different contexts. In Experimen t I,participants recalled more sounds (i.e., nonverbal auditory stimul i) than the sounds' verbal labels. However, with a more ecologically v alid method in Experiment 2, participants recalled more verbal stimuli in conjunction with visual information than they did nonverbal stimul i. Even after a 1-week delay, participants' retention of the verbal-vi sual combination was highest.