Facing away from the interviewer: Evidence of little benefit to eyewitnesses’ memory performance

Alena Nash; Nathan Ridout; Robert A. Nash

doi:10.1002/acp.3723

Facing away from the interviewer: Evidence of little benefit to eyewitnesses’ memory performance

Alena Nash, Nathan Ridout, Robert A. Nash

School of Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Averting gaze from another person’s face generally improves cognitive performance, yet, little is known about how witnesses’ gaze direction affects their recall during investigative interviews. Here, participants witnessed a video-recorded incident, and were interviewed via free recall and closed questions following a short delay. In Experiment 1, participants either faced the interviewer or faced away during the interview. In Experiment 2, alongside this manipulation, the interviewer also either faced the witness or faced away. In Experiment 3, witness gaze direction was manipulated alongside rapport-building. In Experiment 4, the effect of facing away was directly compared with that of eye-closure. Mini meta-analysis of all four experiments showed that the effect of witness gaze direction on memory performance was minimal. Furthermore, neither aversion of interviewer’s gaze nor rapport-building magnified this effect. Added to the cumulative literature on eyewitness gaze aversion, these findings afford better estimates of the likely size of these effects.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1310-1322
Number of pages	13
Journal	Applied Cognitive Psychology
Volume	34
Issue number	6
Early online date	6 Aug 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3723
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2020

Bibliographical note

© 2020 The Authors. Applied Cognitive Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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10.1002/acp.3723Licence: CC BY 3.0

Facing away from the interviewer
© 2020 The Authors. Applied Cognitive Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Final published version, 949 KBLicence: CC BY 3.0

Cite this

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title = "Facing away from the interviewer: Evidence of little benefit to eyewitnesses{\textquoteright} memory performance",

abstract = "Averting gaze from another person{\textquoteright}s face generally improves cognitive performance, yet, little is known about how witnesses{\textquoteright} gaze direction affects their recall during investigative interviews. Here, participants witnessed a video-recorded incident, and were interviewed via free recall and closed questions following a short delay. In Experiment 1, participants either faced the interviewer or faced away during the interview. In Experiment 2, alongside this manipulation, the interviewer also either faced the witness or faced away. In Experiment 3, witness gaze direction was manipulated alongside rapport-building. In Experiment 4, the effect of facing away was directly compared with that of eye-closure. Mini meta-analysis of all four experiments showed that the effect of witness gaze direction on memory performance was minimal. Furthermore, neither aversion of interviewer{\textquoteright}s gaze nor rapport-building magnified this effect. Added to the cumulative literature on eyewitness gaze aversion, these findings afford better estimates of the likely size of these effects. ",

author = "Alena Nash and Nathan Ridout and Nash, {Robert A.}",

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PY - 2020/11/1

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N2 - Averting gaze from another person’s face generally improves cognitive performance, yet, little is known about how witnesses’ gaze direction affects their recall during investigative interviews. Here, participants witnessed a video-recorded incident, and were interviewed via free recall and closed questions following a short delay. In Experiment 1, participants either faced the interviewer or faced away during the interview. In Experiment 2, alongside this manipulation, the interviewer also either faced the witness or faced away. In Experiment 3, witness gaze direction was manipulated alongside rapport-building. In Experiment 4, the effect of facing away was directly compared with that of eye-closure. Mini meta-analysis of all four experiments showed that the effect of witness gaze direction on memory performance was minimal. Furthermore, neither aversion of interviewer’s gaze nor rapport-building magnified this effect. Added to the cumulative literature on eyewitness gaze aversion, these findings afford better estimates of the likely size of these effects.

AB - Averting gaze from another person’s face generally improves cognitive performance, yet, little is known about how witnesses’ gaze direction affects their recall during investigative interviews. Here, participants witnessed a video-recorded incident, and were interviewed via free recall and closed questions following a short delay. In Experiment 1, participants either faced the interviewer or faced away during the interview. In Experiment 2, alongside this manipulation, the interviewer also either faced the witness or faced away. In Experiment 3, witness gaze direction was manipulated alongside rapport-building. In Experiment 4, the effect of facing away was directly compared with that of eye-closure. Mini meta-analysis of all four experiments showed that the effect of witness gaze direction on memory performance was minimal. Furthermore, neither aversion of interviewer’s gaze nor rapport-building magnified this effect. Added to the cumulative literature on eyewitness gaze aversion, these findings afford better estimates of the likely size of these effects.

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Facing away from the interviewer: Evidence of little benefit to eyewitnesses’ memory performance

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