Disinformation effect in human identification

The article presents the results of an experimental study of psychological errors which occur when a person performing identification has been told false identification features before the actual procedure. We have revealed the mechanisms of disinformation effect: the generalization of working memory representations and involuntary mental information adding. Previous studies of the phenomenon of misinformation focused on the study of unintentional memorization, in the process of which the mechanism of an external implanted facility (misinformation) was introduced. In the experiments of other scientists, it was not possible to preset memorizing the elements of the event or the appearance of the subjects. It is shown that a preliminary instruction to memorize the features of an object does not reduce the disinformation effect. At the same time, a prior memorizing instruction can block the influence of gender, age and professional attitudes, but it does not block the subjective attitudes of a particular person. It was shown that reproducing facts some time later is not the main cause of identification errors.

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