The Impact of Emotional Salience and Scene Duration Exposure on Susceptibility to Misinformation

Abstract

Accuracy in eyewitness testimony is shaped by factors affecting attention to event details. While research has explored attention's role in memory accuracy, less is known about its effect on the recollection accuracy for emotional events. This study investigates how emotional arousal and scene presentation duration influence susceptibility to misinformation. Participants viewed high-arousing negative, low-arousing negative, and neutral scenes, with either short or long presentation times. Participants then answered questions about the event, which included misleading information, and completed a forced-choice recognition test. Results showed a misinformation effect under both long and short presentation durations for the negative emotional images, but the effect disappeared for the neutral scene presented for a short duration. These findings suggest that negative emotional content is more susceptible to misinformation under limited viewing conditions, potentially highlighting the need for caution when relying on eyewitness accounts of briefly experienced emotional events.