Factors Affecting the Efficacy of Feedback Use During Source Monitoring

• Main Author: Groft, Stephanie
• Other Authors: Lane, Sean M
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: LSU 2009
• Subjects: Psychology
• Online Access: http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04062009-231810/

The current study considers how individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) affect feedback effectiveness. Participants, selected to have high and low WMC, first watched a video of a crime. Subsequently, a post-test questionnaire was administered concerning events taken from the video and additional information suggested to have occurred in the video. After a 10 minute filler task, participants were given a two-part memory test requiring them to identify the source of the information presented in the test statements. During the training portion of the test, half of the participants received feedback as to the accuracy of their source decisions. On the second (assessment) portion of the test, participants did not receive any feedback. Both high and low WMC participants benefited equally from the presentation of feedback; both groups significantly reduced their misattributions of suggested items to the video. There was also a trend toward better source monitoring performance on suggested items in high WMC than low WMC participants, regardless of whether they received feedback. These findings suggest that feedback may be used to improve memory accuracy without requiring substantial executive resources.