AMALGAMATIONS OF MEMORIES - INTRUSION OF INFORMATION FROM ONE EVENT INTO REPORTS OF ANOTHER

Numerous researchers have reported that exposure to misleading posteve nt information (MPI) regarding details in a witnessed event can lead p eople to report false details from the MPI when asked to report the wi tnessed event. In such studies, the MPI is presented to participants i n the context of information about the witnessed event. This experimen t tests the hypothesis that postevent exposure to information that par ticipants know is not about the witnessed event can, nonetheless, affe ct performance on tests of memory for that event. As predicted, when a sked to report details of an event depicted in a slide show, participa nts tended to intrude details mentioned in a recent postevent narrativ e that described a different event. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.