The Influence of Arousal and Expectation on Eyewitness Memory in a Virtual Environment

This study aimed to examine the effects of arousal and expectation on eyewitness memory. We exposed 97 participants to an immersive eyewitness experience by creating four virtual reality stimulus environments. The participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: arousing and expected, arousing and unexpected, nonarousing and expected, and nonarousing and unexpected. The results revealed that memory performance for an arousing encounter was significantly lower than that for a nonarousing encounter, and that memory performance for an unexpected environment was significantly lower compared with an expected one. In addition, memory performance was lowest in the condition that was both arousing and unexpected. No interaction between arousal and expectation was found.

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