The way we remember and report: an experiment testing cultural differences in eyewitness memory.

Abstract

More and more people report their memories in cross-cultural contexts, including eyewitness interviews. In a pre-registered experiment (N = 64), we examined cultural differences in mock eyewitness reports, comparing Sub-Saharan African participants to a matched Western European group. Participants were interviewed about a mock crime video. We assessed differences in the number of correct, incorrect, subjective and total details, the type of details (person, action, object, surrounding), and accuracy. European participants provided significantly more details than African participants. Surprisingly, in free recall African participants used non-significantly more words to provide non-significantly fewer details. An exploratory analysis revealed that this may be due to the fact that Africans included more information that is not directly relevant to the event, such as moral evaluations. That finding supports existing literature on cultural differences in high- versus low-context communication styles. We found no significant differences between groups in the accuracy of witness reports. Because factual details about the event are typically required for criminal investigations, future research should assess how to elicit those from African individuals. Our findings emphasise the importance of considering cultural differences in memory reports and provide insight into the mechanisms underlying such cultural differences.