In the interim, memories have faded, witnesses have died, and a man previously convicted of having his wife killed, allegedly by hiring Leasure to do the job, has backed out of an agreement to testify.
We hypothesized that the positive influence on interim testing on memory performance would emerge in the context of the longer retention interval.
However, the impact of emphasizing details and interim testing diverged when memory was assessed at longer retention interval.
Under these instructions, participants who took an interim test demonstrated superior memory for the original event when compared to participants who did not take the intervening test.
Experiment 2 explored whether the benefits of interim testing on final memory performance would be more apparent if final testing was delayed.
However, when the final test is delayed by 48 hours, we predicted that the influence of misinformation on final test reporting would be diminished in both conditions, allowing the benefits of interim testing of original event memory to emerge.
Further, Gordon and Thomas (2014) demonstrated that interim testing resulted in better memory for original and post-event details when participants were allowed to provide multiple responses to final test questions.
The data further suggest that the consolidation of this memory is an important interim stage, and may take up to one day.
However, when final testing was delayed, we predicted participants in the Interim Testing group would demonstrate better memory for the original event than participants in either the Standard Misinformation or Emphasized Details groups.
Therefore, we expected that interim testing would result in better memory performance for the original event and reduced misleading errors of commission when final testing occurred after 48 hours.
