In experiments concerning the misinformation effect, participants first watch some original material, e.g. a video clip, and read a description that in the experimental group contains information inconsistent with the video clip. Afterwards, all participants answer questions about the video. Typically, the misled group more often reports erroneous misleading information than the non-misled one.Theoretical explanations of this effect are usually formulated in terms of the cognitive theories of memory. This article presents three experiments that demonstrate that the misinformation effect can occur even if the memory of the original and postevent materials is correct. In the experiments, after watching a video clip, reading a narrative about it, and answering questions about the video, the participants were debriefed and required to indicate questions in which they noticed differences between the video and the narrative, as well as provide answers about the original and postevent materials. A substantial number of the participants yielded to the misinformation effect in the memory test even though they had correct memory about the original (and postevent) materials. The discussion emphasizes the need of the social influence framework to explain these results. Key message: the misinformation effect is important for applied forensic eyewitness psychology. To get a better understanding of this effect, there is a need to study it not only in terms of the cognitive psychology of memory, but also from the perspective of social psychology, because in many cases witnesses give wrong answers even when remembering the correct information.

The continued influence effect of misinformation (CIE) is a phenomenon in which certain information, although retracted and corrected, still has an impact on event reporting, reasoning, inference, and decisions. The main goal of this paper is to investigate to what extent this effect can be reduced using the procedure of inoculation and how it can be moderated by the reliability of corrections’ sources. The results show that the reliability of corrections’ sources did not affect their processing when participants were not inoculated. However, inoculated participants relied on misinformation less when the correction came from a highly credible source. For this source condition, as a result of inoculation, a significant increase in belief in retraction, as well as a decrease in belief in misinformation was also found. Contrary to previous reports, belief in misinformation rather than belief in retraction predicted reliance on misinformation. These findings are of both great practical importance as certain boundary conditions for inoculation efficiency have been discovered to reduce the impact of the continued influence of misinformation, and theoretical, as they provide insight into the mechanisms behind CIE. The results were interpreted in terms of existing CIE theories as well as within the remembering framework, which describes the conversion from memory traces to behavioral manifestations of memory.

The misinformation effect occurs when an eyewitness includes information in their account that is incongruent with the event they witnessed, and stems from being exposed to incorrect external sources. Yet little research has been undertaken on techniques that could protect eyewitnesses from the influence of misinformation, despite the dangerous consequences of distorted testimony. In this article, a method of enhancing self-confidence, called reinforced self-affirmation (RSA), was proven to reduce the misinformation effect in five experiments. First, participants watched or heard an original event take place. They were then exposed to post-event material containing false information about that event, and finally they were given a memory test about the original material. The RSA, which took place either before the post-event material or before the final test, consisted of self-affirmation (recalling the greatest achievements in life) and external positive feedback (simulated ‘good’ results in a memory test or fake favourable results on personality tests). A meta-analysis of all five experiments revealed that the overall effect of RSA on reducing the misinformation was significant (effect size of 0.94), suggesting that this technique has the potential to be developed for practical use to make eyewitnesses less vulnerable to misinformation.

The misinformation effect is one of the major threats for the quality of witness testimony. It involves including of information that is inconsistent with the course of an event, and which originates from sources other than the event itself, into a witness's report of the event. In the present article research is presented aiming at reducing the tendency to rely on misinformation. After viewing a video clip, participants received a post-event narrative describing the events in the film which in the misled group included some incorrect information about the clip. They were then administered reinforced self-affirmation (RSA), a technique aiming at boosting self-confidence in order to increase the tendency to rely on own memory instead of external cues. This technique consists of self-affirmation by means of writing down one’s greatest achievements in life and manipulated positive feedback. Feedback about memory, perception and independence of judgements was analyzed. All types of feedback effectively reduced the misinformation effect. Mediation analyzes confirmed that RSA operates via increased self-confidence or self-independence.

The association between chronic inflammation and depression, anxiety, anhedonia, and quality of life (QoL) has been recently emphasized. However, the pathophysiology of this relationship remains unsolved. This study aims to assess the dependence between vascular inflammation represented by eicosanoid concentration and quality of life in patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD). A total of 175 patients undergoing endovascular treatment due to lower limbs ischemia were covered with eight years of observation after the endovascular procedure, including ankle-brachial index (ABI), color Doppler ultrasound examination, urinary leukotriene E4 (LTE4), thromboxane B2 (TXB2) and 5-Hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid (5-HETE) measurement and quality-of-life assessment with VascuQol-6. The baseline concentrations of LTE4 and TXB2 reversely correlated with preoperative VascuQol-6 and were predictive of the postoperative values of VascuQol-6 at each follow-up. At every follow-up timepoint, the results of VascuQol-6 reflected the LTE4 and TXB2 concentrations. Higher concentrations of LTE4 and TXB2 were correlated with lower life quality during the next follow-up meeting. Changes in VascuQol-6 at eight years vs. preoperative values were reversely related to the preoperative concentrations of LTE4 and TXB2. This is the first study to confirm that changes in life quality in PAD patients undergoing endovascular treatment are highly dependent on eicosanoid-based vascular inflammation.