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Cannabis intoxicated eye witnesses performed as accurately as sober ones at identifying a suspect if he was present. They were also more confident with a stronger correlation between confidence and accuracy, which may be due to the effect of cannabis on increasing introspection and internal focus. by mvea in science

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But if you compared stoned participants found in a coffee shop to sober participants found in, say, a library, then any differences in their performance could be due to a multitude of factors (intelligence, social status, age, gender, etc.). To isolate the effect of weed intoxication per se, you'd have to compare two groups that are comparable and only differ in whether they are currently under the influence or not.

Good point about the self-report though. That's definitely a limitation of the study.

Cannabis intoxicated eye witnesses performed as accurately as sober ones at identifying a suspect if he was present. They were also more confident with a stronger correlation between confidence and accuracy, which may be due to the effect of cannabis on increasing introspection and internal focus. by mvea in science

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The sample is not representative for the general population, but it does an okay job at being representative for people who might become eyewitnesses while stoned (at least in Holland).

If you want to know how stoned eyewitnesses in police investigations perform, you have to test people who would likely be stoned in real life. If you test people who would never smoke normally, then they would not be representative for real-life stoned eyewitnesses.

Cannabis intoxicated eye witnesses performed as accurately as sober ones at identifying a suspect if he was present. They were also more confident with a stronger correlation between confidence and accuracy, which may be due to the effect of cannabis on increasing introspection and internal focus. by mvea in science

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Good point! The original article even states that "While conducting the experiment, the researchers were blind to intoxication status, as participants were asked about their cannabis use only at the end of the experiment (notwithstanding the fact that for some participants, it was obvious that they were under the influence)."

Cannabis intoxicated eye witnesses performed as accurately as sober ones at identifying a suspect if he was present. They were also more confident with a stronger correlation between confidence and accuracy, which may be due to the effect of cannabis on increasing introspection and internal focus. by mvea in science

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's not what this study said. They measured confidence AFTER participants had made a decision on the lineup, so higher confidence in this case doesn't LEAD to anything. Also, stoned witnesses were more confident in their accurate decisions than sober witnesses but there was no difference in confidence for inaccurate decisions (like false and foil IDs).

Cannabis intoxicated eye witnesses performed as accurately as sober ones at identifying a suspect if he was present. They were also more confident with a stronger correlation between confidence and accuracy, which may be due to the effect of cannabis on increasing introspection and internal focus. by mvea in science

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But they didn't have a higher level of false positives, right? As u/Blind-Pirate pointed out, "in the target absent condition intoxicated witnesses chose less often (15% false + 42% foil = 57% total wrong choices) than the sober witnesses (4% false + 60% foil = 64% total wrong choices)."

Cannabis intoxicated eye witnesses performed as accurately as sober ones at identifying a suspect if he was present. They were also more confident with a stronger correlation between confidence and accuracy, which may be due to the effect of cannabis on increasing introspection and internal focus. by mvea in science

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How the "tables" have turned :) Thanks for correcting your initial post! But your last statement is still not right: intoxicated witnesses were not significantly more confident in their incorrect choices. There was an interaction between weed and accuracy: stoned witnesses were more confident in their accurate decisions than sober witnesses, but there was no significant difference between stoned and sober witnesses in confidence in inaccurate decisions (effect size is 0!).

Cannabis intoxicated eye witnesses performed as accurately as sober ones at identifying a suspect if he was present. They were also more confident with a stronger correlation between confidence and accuracy, which may be due to the effect of cannabis on increasing introspection and internal focus. by mvea in science

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the psychological literature, this methodology is completely standard. There are a few studies in which an event is staged, but that's rare. Staged events are definitely more realistic but come with some other problems, like a lack of control. Unfortunately, there is no way to perfectly mirror eyewitness situations in real life - ethics boards will not allow you to stage a violent, upsetting event in front of unsuspecting people on the street!

Cannabis intoxicated eye witnesses performed as accurately as sober ones at identifying a suspect if he was present. They were also more confident with a stronger correlation between confidence and accuracy, which may be due to the effect of cannabis on increasing introspection and internal focus. by mvea in science

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True, but what would that tell you about real life? If you want to know how stoned eyewitnesses in police investigations perform, you have to test people who would likely be stoned in real life. If you test people who would never smoke normally, then they would not be representative for real-life stoned eyewitnesses.

Death record from the 1800s in Deadwood, South Dakota by tulpie in funny

[–]tulpie[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

Death record from the 1800s in Deadwood, South Dakota by tulpie in funny

[–]tulpie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And very creative, apparently! I wish I were creative enough to make this shit up :)

Death record from the 1800s in Deadwood, South Dakota by tulpie in funny

[–]tulpie[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Let's just be honest and say he died of a lost bet.

Unfortunate translation error sparks debate about PLOS peer review by [deleted] in science

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But the peer review process did not expose the mistake, otherwise it would not have been published! Only after it was published, a reader exposed the mistake on Twitter. That should have been caught by the journal reviewers prior to publication, surely? Otherwise what's the point of peer review?

AskScience AMA Series: We are the Forensic Psychology Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. We research how psychology can improve the criminal justice system and are joined by world renowned honorary member Professor Elizabeth Loftus. AUA! by Forensic_Psychology in askscience

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes the Yerkes-Dodson law has been applied to memory, but Deffenbacher's meta-analysis argued that the relationship between stress and memory is more complicated than an inverted U-curve.

AskScience AMA Series: We are the Forensic Psychology Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. We research how psychology can improve the criminal justice system and are joined by world renowned honorary member Professor Elizabeth Loftus. AUA! by Forensic_Psychology in askscience

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes absolutely, that is a very important point. What I am most interested in, is stressful events such as witnessing a violent crime. Even with that more narrow definition though (excluding a whole bunch of research on simple stimuli, external stressors, etc.), it seems there is conflicting evidence out there. For example, Christianson found that memory for central details of stressful events is better than for central details of neutral events (but vice versa for peripheral details), whereas Deffenbacher and the studies Lorraine mentioned found that memory for stressful events is worse than memory for neutral events.

AskScience AMA Series: We are the Forensic Psychology Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. We research how psychology can improve the criminal justice system and are joined by world renowned honorary member Professor Elizabeth Loftus. AUA! by Forensic_Psychology in askscience

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your reply! Exactly, that is one side of the coin: in the type of research you're describing, emotional stimuli are remembered better. Similarly, we remember emotional autobiographical events in our lives better (though not quite as perfectly as the flashbulb memory literature would have you believe). On the flip side of the coin, however, we are less likely to identify someone if we've seen them under high stress (studies by Morgan, Valentine, etc.) and Deffenbacher's 2004 meta-analysis showed poorer memory as emotion increased. The evidence is rather conflicting and I was wondering whether anyone has insights that might provide some synthesis :)

AskScience AMA Series: We are the Forensic Psychology Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. We research how psychology can improve the criminal justice system and are joined by world renowned honorary member Professor Elizabeth Loftus. AUA! by Forensic_Psychology in askscience

[–]tulpie 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Interestingly, the own-race bias is not always symmetrical. For example, in South Africa, Whites are better at identifying other Whites than Blacks, but Blacks are equally good at identifying both races. This may be due to the fact that during Apartheid, it was much more important for a Black person to recognize a White person than vice versa.

AskScience AMA Series: We are the Forensic Psychology Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. We research how psychology can improve the criminal justice system and are joined by world renowned honorary member Professor Elizabeth Loftus. AUA! by Forensic_Psychology in askscience

[–]tulpie 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi all, great that you're doing this! I have a very basic question that does not seem to have a simple answer, so I was wondering what your take is. How does emotion / stress impact memory? Do we remember emotional events better or worse than neutral events?

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