Practice and feedback effects on the confidence-accuracy relation in eyewitness memory

It has been claimed that the lack of a reliable confidence-accuracy relatio n in eyewitness memory stems from eyewitnesses' lack of knowledge concernin g their relative expertise. Two studies tested this idea by contrasting the effects of practice alone with practice with feedback in three successive eyewitness tests. Experiment 1 tested recall for events, and Experiment 2 u sed recognition of faces as test materials. Both studies showed that practi ce alone did not increase the confidence-accuracy relation, but practice wi th feedback on relative performance produced robust increases in the confid ence-accuracy relation. This suggests that lack of calibration is one facto r that causes the reported lack of association between confidence and accur acy for eyewitness memory.