Denials in informal co-witness conversations do not affect memory for witnessed events

Abstract

Campus sexual assault constitutes a frequent crime witnessed by many. Among co-witnesses such assault is oftentimes denied. We examined how false denials during an informal co-witness conversation impacted memory for the conversation and witnessed assault. Ninety participants watched a trauma-analogue video with a co-witness. The next day, honest control dyads engaged in an honest, informal discussion about the film. In lying dyads one participant falsely denied (internal false denial group) details during this informal discussion with their co-witness (external denial group). One week later, participants' recognition memory for the video and conversation was tested. We did not replicate denial-induced forgetting in that participants who falsely denied did not forget details of the previous conversation, relative to honest participants. Moreover, memory for the film was not statistically significantly affected by our manipulation. Thus, informal false denials might not negatively affect memory, despite previous research showing such effects in formal settings.