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Category: Project

Description: The goal of pilot testing was to develop a DRM Story paragraph for the critical lure "guilty." We tested two possible paragraphs using the words from previous "Guilty" list studies: one using 14 words, and one using 7 words embedded in a paragraph about the criminal justice process. Our original goal was to develop a DRM story for "guilty" with 30% free recall or recognition recall rates, based on the success of previous DRM story studies (Dewhurst, Pursglove, & Lewis (2007). Surprisingly, both our 14-word and 7-word paragraphs greatly surpassed this expectation. 14-word Free Recall: 49/69 (71.0%) 14-word Recognition Recall: 57/69 (82.61%) 7-word Free Recall: 17/24 (70.8%) 7-word Recognition Recall: 22/24 (91.6%) (Free recall: #ofSs who included "guilty" in their paragraph / Total N; Recognition Recall: #ofSs who rated "guilty" as old / Total N) Based on these rates, it seems free recall is stable across formats at a decent mean - encouraging, given that past DRM Story studies have used free recall over recognition tests. For Study 2, we will use the 7-word list. Although the Recognition Recall rate is very high (and potentially approaching ceiling), the Free Recall rate is acceptable. Further, the goal of Study 2 is to eliminate the last word "guilty" word and replace it with a specific form of evidence. With this in mind, a single form of evidence will likely have more impact in a shorter paragraph. As such, a 7-word format will allow each form of evidence to "contribute" to activating "guilty" more than a 14-word format, in which the evidence may be "buried" by all the other words in the longer paragraph.