ERIC Number: EJ1261717
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0888-4080
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Cross-Cultural Differences in Eyewitness Memory Reports
Anakwah, Nkansah; Horselenberg, Robert; Hope, Lorraine; Amankwah-Poku, Margaret; van Koppen, Peter J.
Applied Cognitive Psychology, v34 n2 p504-515 Mar-Apr 2020
Increasingly, investigators conduct interviews with eyewitnesses from different cultures. The culture in which people have been socialised can impact the way they encode, remember, and report information about their experiences. We examined whether eyewitness memory reports of mock witnesses from collectivistic (sub-Saharan Africa) and individualistic (Northern Europe) cultures differed regarding quantity and quality of central and background details reported. Mock witnesses (total N = 200) from rural Ghana, urban Ghana, and the Netherlands were shown stimuli scenes of crimes in Dutch and Ghanaian settings and provided free and cued recalls. Individualistic culture mock witnesses reported the most details, irrespective of detail type. For each cultural group, mock witnesses reported more correct central details when crime was witnessed in their own native setting than a non-native setting, though for different recall domains. The findings provide insight for legal and investigative professionals as well as immigration officials eliciting memory reports in cross-cultural contexts.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Cultural Differences, Memory, Cues, Collectivism, Individualism, Stimuli, Crime, Cross Cultural Studies, Court Litigation
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Ghana; Netherlands
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Data File: URL: https://osf.io/9gs78/?view_only=135f537f7bf8437998906da24a4184c5
Author Affiliations: N/A