Metacognitive monitoring and control of eyewitness memory reports in autism 2017-2019

Providing eyewitness testimony involves monitoring one’s memory to provide a detailed and accurate account: reporting details likely to be accurate and withholding potentially inaccurate details. Autistic individuals reportedly experience difficulties in both retrieving episodic memories and monitoring their accuracy, which has important implications for eyewitness testimony. Thirty autistic and 33 IQ-matched typically developing (TD) participants viewed a video of a mock bank robbery followed by three phases of questions (with judgments of confidence). In Phase 1, participants freely generated the granularity of their responses (i.e., fine- or coarse-grained). In Phase 2, participants answered the same questions but provided both a fine- and a coarse-grained answer. In Phase 3, participants were instructed to maximise accuracy over informativeness by selecting one of their Phase 2 answers as their final answer. They either received the questions socially (from the experimenter) or answered them online. There were no group differences in accuracy or metacognitive monitoring, with both autistic and TD witnesses demonstrating: a) a strong preference for reporting fine-grained details at the expense of accuracy; b) improved, though still sub-optimal grain size reporting when instructed to maximise accuracy over informativeness; c) effective accuracy monitoring; and d) higher overall accuracy when questions were delivered socially. There was, however, a subtle difference in metacognitive control, with autistic witnesses performing more poorly than TD witnesses when questions were delivered socially, but not when they were delivered online. These findings contrast with evidence suggesting that autism is marked by impairments in episodic memory and metacognitive monitoring and control.

Keywords:
autism spectrum disorders, cognition, witnesses, memory

Cite this dataset as:
Maras, K., 2020. Metacognitive monitoring and control of eyewitness memory reports in autism 2017-2019. UK Data Service. Available from: https://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-854140.

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Creators

Katie Maras
University of Bath

Contributors

University of Bath
Rights Holder

Coverage

Collection date(s):

From 31 August 2017 to 1 May 2019

Geographical coverage:

South West of England, United Kingdom

Documentation

Data collection method:

A total of 63 participants took part: 30 autistic adults (16 males, 14 females) and 33 age- and IQ-matched typically developed (TD) participants (7 males; 26 females). Participants were recruited mainly from the South West of England and surrounding areas, including via previous research participation, autism-related and local community Facebook groups, social and support groups, as well as via local community recruitment (including posters, magazine articles, and social media posts, and University website campaigns). All autistic participants had received a formal clinical diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder according to DSM–IV (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) or DSM-5 criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), and confirmed this with a copy of their clinical diagnostic report. Six participants had received a clinical diagnosis but were unable to access their report and were therefore administered the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2; Lord et al., 2012) to confirm their diagnoses. Participants provided their written informed consent to take part and were fully debriefed. Ethical approval was obtained from the Psychology Research Ethics Committee at the University of Bath. Participants individually viewed a video of a mock bank robbery followed by three phases of questions (with judgments of confidence). In Phase 1, participants freely generated the granularity of their responses (i.e., fine- or coarse-grained). In Phase 2, participants answered the same questions but provided both a fine- and a coarse-grained answer. In Phase 3, participants were instructed to maximise accuracy over informativeness by selecting one of their Phase 2 answers as their final answer. They either received the questions socially (from the experimenter) or answered them online.

Funders

Economic and Social Research Council
https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000269

ESRC Future Research Leaders - Reporting by People with Autism: A New Evidence Based Supportive Model of Information Gathering for Applied Interviews Contexts
ES/N001095/1

Publication details

Publication date: 5 February 2020
by: UK Data Service

Version: 1

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-854140

URL for this record: https://researchdata.bath.ac.uk/id/eprint/1031

Related datasets and code

Maras, K., 2020. The witness-aimed first account: A new technique for interviewing autistic witnesses and victims, experimental data 2017-2019. UK Data Service. Available from: https://doi.org/10.5255/UKDA-SN-854146.

Contact information

Please contact the Research Data Service in the first instance for all matters concerning this item.

Contact person: Katie Maras

Departments:

Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
Psychology

Research Centres & Institutes
Centre for Applied Autism Research