Abstract
<p>Many events that people experience and share with others are instances of repeated events—unique instantiations of sequences of experiences with a similar underlying structure. In four experiments (each N = 128), we examined the impact of misinformation on reporting of one target instance of a repeated event; Experiments 3 and 4 additionally involved single-event conditions. Misinformation was delivered via a post-event narrative and was either internal, i.e., originating in a non-target instance of the repeated event, or external, i.e., originating outside of the repeated event. Memory was measured across free and cued recall to explore changes associated with increasing retrieval support, and in a recognition tests, where participants’ task was to select the original item from a range of options. Due to higher item familiarity and match to a general event context, we expected higher rates of endorsement and lower discriminability for internal than external misinformation. A synthesis of data across repeated-event conditions of all experiments supported our predictions: in contrast to external misinformation, exposure to internal misinformation resulted in higher rates of endorsement, lower discriminability, and overconfidence. These findings reflect two underlying processes: greater baseline accessibility of internal misinformation independent of post-event suggestion (a familiarity bias) and amplified suggestibility following exposure to internal misinformation (a suggestibility gain). There were no differences between internal and external misinformation in recognition, likely due to an overload of familiar items presented in the test. We discuss implications of our findings for theoretical understanding of repeated event memory and applied interviewing settings.</p>