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Stage 1 Registered Report: The Impact of Lying on Memory: Comparison of

Various Deceptive Strategies

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RUNNING HEADER: LYING AND MEMORY

The Impact of Lying on Memory: Comparison of Various Deceptive Strategies

Paul Riesthuis1,2, Henry Otgaar1,2, Ivan Mangiulli1,3, & Charlotte Buecken 1,2

1
Leuven Institute of Criminology, Catholic University of Leuven, Oude Markt 13, 3000,

Leuven, Belgium
2
Forensic Psychology Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University,

Minderbroedersberg 4-6, 6211 LK, Maastricht, Netherlands

3 Department of Education, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari, Via Crisanzio

42, Bari, Italy

Stage 1 Registered Report In-Principle Acceptance in Psychology, Crime, and Law

Word count: 7250

Correspondence should be addressed to Paul Riesthuis: paul.riesthuis@kuleuven.be. The

current manuscript has been supported by a C1 and FWO Research Project grant awarded to

the second author and a FWO PhD fellowship grant awarded to the last author and second

author.

1
LYING AND MEMORY

Abstract

People who are confronted with criminal situations sometimes lie by using different deceptive

strategies. If they eventually come forward with the truth, it is important to understand

whether their memory-based testimonies might be affected by their initial lies. To examine

and compare the effects of various deceptive strategies (i.e., fabrication, false denial, and

feigning amnesia) on memory, we will instruct participants to watch a video of a mock crime.

Then, after two-days participants will be cued to lie according to the different deceptive

strategies and tell the truth in response to different questions in an interview about the mock

crime. One week later, participants will be instructed to tell the truth about what they saw in

the video and which details they discussed in the interview during a final recognition memory

task. We expect that 1) fabrication will lead to more commission errors as compared with all

other groups, 2) false denials and feigning amnesia will lead to lower correct memory and

more omission errors for details discussed during the interview, and 3) false denials and

feigning amnesia will lead to lower correct memory and more omission errors for details

viewed in the video (versus other groups).

Keywords: Deception, Memory, Fabrication, False Denial, Feigning Amnesia

2
LYING AND MEMORY

The Impact of Lying on Memory: Comparison of Various Deceptive Strategies

Previous research has shown that people frequently lie in daily life and tend to do so to

avoid punishment or conflict (Verigin et al., 2019; Riesthuis et al., 2021). Such lies are

oftentimes harmless, but can become problematic when they enter the legal arena. A prime

example is the case of Walter McMillian who was convicted for murdering a store clerk

(Stevenson, 2019). After a long and difficult investigation characterized by a lack of leads,

suspects, and witnesses, police investigators made a breakthrough via the statement of Ralph

Myers. In exchange for a lower sentence, Ralph testified that he was Walter’s accomplice, and

that Walter killed the store clerk. Eventually, Ralph recanted his statement during which he

admitted that he had lied, and further evidence exonerated Walter. An important question here

is whether Ralph’s initial lies undermined his memory for what truly occurred. While Ralph

used a lying strategy referred to as fabrication, there are myriad other ways to deceive

professionals in the legal arena such as falsely denying that certain events happened, or

feigning amnesia (i.e., claiming that they do not remember certain details; Otgaar & Baker,

2018). It is crucial to examine empirically how these different types of lies may affect

memory. Hence, in the present experiment, we will examine and compare the effects of

different types of deceptive strategies (i.e., false denials, feigning amnesia, fabrication) on

memory for what truly occurred but also for details discussed in the interview during which

some participants initially lied.

Memory and Deception

Research examining the reconstructive nature of memory has shown that our

memories can include non-experienced details or events (i.e., false memory) as a result of, for

example, external misinformation (Pickrell et al., 2016), or internal misinformation (Otgaar &

Howe, 2017). Providing participants with external misinformation such as fake news after

experiencing an event (Lewandowsky et al., 2017) can lead them to later on report that

3
LYING AND MEMORY

misinformation when remembering what truly occurred – also known as the misinformation

effect (Loftus, 2005). A person can also generate misinformation themselves, for example

when lying. The effects of internal misinformation on memory have received attention

because lying is a prevalent issue in the courtroom (Vrij et al., 2021), and sometimes

memory-based statements are the only available evidence in court cases (Brainerd & Reyna,

2005). Hence, if someone initially lies and then comes forward with the truth, it is crucial to

assess whether such statements can be reliable and used in legal proceedings. However,

previous research has shown that various deceptive strategies such as fabrication (Ackil &

Zaragoza, 1998), false denials (Otgaar et al., 2014), and feigning amnesia (Mangiulli et al.,

2018) can have adverse effects on memory, as summarized in the Memory and Deception

framework (MAD; Otgaar & Baker, 2018).

To examine the mnemonic effects of different deceptive strategies, researchers have

used variations of the same procedure (Otgaar & Baker, 2018). Essentially, in these

experiments, participants are presented with certain stimuli (e.g., watch a video, read a

narrative, perform a mock crime), engage in a short filler task (e.g., playing 5-min Tetris) and

immediately afterwards are instructed to lie (i.e., fabricate, falsely deny, or feign amnesia)

during an interview or using a written memory task (e.g., free recall, cued recall).

Subsequently, participants’ memory for the event but also for details discussed during the

interview will be assessed through a final memory task after a certain delay period (e.g., 2

days, 1-8 weeks). In general, the MAD framework posits that the various deceptive strategies

exert different mnemonic effects such that fabrication tends to lead to errors of commission

for the event (i.e., false memories; Ackil & Zaragoza, 1998; Battista et al., 2021b; Riesthuis et

al., 2022), false denials lead to forgetting of having discussed details that were falsely denied

during the interview phase (i.e., denial-induced forgetting; Otgaar et al., 2014; but see also

4
LYING AND MEMORY

Romeo et al., 2019), while feigning amnesia impairs memory for the original event stimulus

(van Oorsouw & Merckelbach, 2004; but see also Mangiulli et al., 2019).

Of importance for the current research is that, in previous studies (e.g., Battista et al.,

2021a, Battista et al., 2021b; Otgaar et al., 2014), participants were instructed to lie

immediately after encoding the stimuli. However, during police investigations, the time

between witnessing an event and being interviewed is oftentimes longer, ranging from days to

months (Hope et al., 2011). For example, it has been found that for serious crimes (e.g.,

murder and sexual assault) this delay period is approximately two days in the south of

England (Griffiths, 2008). Although in some cases delay periods might even be longer, in the

present study we will instruct participants to lie after a short delay (i.e., two days) to more

accurately reflect real life investigations.

Theoretical Considerations

As noted above, various adverse effects on memory (i.e., commission and omission

errors) can be elicited depending on the adopted deceptive strategy. This means that there are

several mechanisms underpinning the effects of lying on memory. For instance, previous

research has shown that when participants are first instructed or forced to fabricate details or

entire events and then come forward with the truth, they form false memories for these

fabrications (e.g., Ackil & Zaragoza, 1998; Chrobak & Zaragoza, 2008; Riesthuis et al.,

2022). The memory contaminating effects caused when fabrication is adopted as the deceptive

strategy can be accounted for by the Source Monitoring Framework (SMF; Johnson et al.,

1993). The SMF refers to the mechanisms involved in attributing whether the source (i.e.,

origin) of a memory was based in an experienced event or one that was only imagined. More

specifically, the SMF posits that memories of experienced events contain more characteristics

pertaining to perceptual (e.g., voices of other people), contextual (e.g., specific details where

the event took place), and affective details (e.g., emotions felt during the experience) in

5
LYING AND MEMORY

comparison with imagined events which tend to have more cognitive characteristics (e.g.,

thinking or lying about an event). When an imagined event includes many perceptual,

contextual, and affective details, source monitoring errors may arise. That is, the source of the

imagined event is misattributed as an experienced event, leading to a false memory that the

imagined event was actually experienced. Following this reasoning, when fabricated details or

events contain similar perceptual, contextual, and affective elements shared with the actual

experienced event, it is possible that false memories are formed for these fabricated events

(e.g., Ackil & Zaragoza, 1998). Interestingly, some studies found that in certain

circumstances, false denials and feigning amnesia can also lead to memory contaminating

effects (e.g., commission; Mangiulli et al., 2018; Battista et al., 2021b).

In contrast to fabrication which typically does not lead to forgetting (e.g., Ackil &

Zaragoza, 1998; but see also Riesthuis et al., 2022), false denials and feigning amnesia both

tend to elicit memory-undermining effects. However, a critical difference is that false denials

tend to lead to omission errors for discussed details that were falsely denied in an interview,

while feigning amnesia can lead to forgetting of what truly occurred (Otgaar et al., 2014; van

Oorsouw & Merckelbach, 2004). One explanation for the memory-undermining effects

caused when false denials or feigning amnesia are exerted is retrieval inhibition (Levy &

Anderson, 2002; Otgaar et al., 2020). Retrieval inhibition refers to the idea that a memory

(trace) is temporarily suppressed, thereby making people unable to retrieve it. Previous

research examining directed forgetting suggests that trying to suppress certain memories can

indeed lead to retrieval inhibition (MacLeod, 1989). In light of false denials and feigning

amnesia, the instructions for participants to lie according to one of these deceptive strategies

might lead to the actual suppression of information causing the forgetting effects (Mangiulli

et al., 2018; Otgaar et al., 2020). Another explanation can be given by the lack of rehearsal

caused by falsely denying or feigning amnesia (van Oorsouw & Merckelbach, 2004). Simply

6
LYING AND MEMORY

put, by falsely denying or feigning amnesia, participants do not actively engage in rehearsing

details of the experienced event. This leads to weaker correct memory and more errors of

omission relative to people that give an honest account. Indeed, some research (e.g., Sun et

al., 2009) showed that the memory performance of participants who were instructed to feign

amnesia during the interview phase was similar to participants who simply did not rehearse

the event. Specifically, in Sun and colleague’s (2009) study, all participants read and heard a

story of a mock crime. Subsequently, some participants were instructed to feign amnesia or

tell the truth on free and cued recall tests while others did not complete these memory tests

(i.e., delayed response control group). One-week later, all participants completed a final

memory test. Participants in the feigning amnesia and delayed response control groups had

lower memory performance than truth-tellers but did not differ from each other in terms of

memory performance (Sun et al., 2009). However, such forgetting effects on memory have

not consistently been found with false denials as they have been with feigning amnesia (e.g.,

Romeo et al., 2019). To disentangle the different memory undermining effects between, for

example, false denials and feigning amnesia, we will compare the effects of various deceptive

strategies on memory in relation to one another.

Moreover, in contrast to previous research (e.g., Battista et al., 2021a, Battista et al.,

2021b; Otgaar et al., 2014), we will compare the adverse effects of the different deceptive

strategies on memory using a two-day delay between witnessing the event and the interview

wherein participants lie. Previous research examining the effects of external misinformation

on memory revealed that the misinformation effect remained when there was a delay between

encoding an event and exposure to misinformation (Loftus et al., 1978). One explanation for

this can be derived from the discrepancy detection principle (Tousignant et al., 1986) which

postulates that participants adopt misinformation in their memory reports when unable to

detect a discrepancy between the original event and the post event misinformation. Further, if

7
LYING AND MEMORY

the memory for the original event is weaker, then it would be more difficult to detect such

discrepancies, lowering the resistance against the misinformation effect. On the other hand, if

the memory trace of the original event is relatively strong, then participants will be able to

detect any discrepancies and accurately discard the misinformation. Importantly, Ebbinghaus’

forgetting curve (1885; Murre & Dros, 2015; Radvansky et al., 2022) posits that shorter

retention intervals yield a stronger trace of a memory. Additionally, according to the SMF

(Johnson et al., 1993), the strength of a source memory trace fades with time leading people

to less accurately monitor whether the information stems from an experienced event or a lie.

Hence, although source monitoring errors and forgetting tend to increase with the course of

time (Chrobak & Zaragoza, 2008; Murre & Dros, 2015), an empirical question is whether the

memory undermining and/or contaminating effects of the different deceptive strategies remain

when participants lie after a delay period more reflective of real investigations.

The Present Experiment

In the present experiment, we will compare what the effects of the various deceptive

strategies (i.e., fabrication, false denials, and feigning amnesia) are on memory after a two-

day delay between the encoding and lying phases. In the past, mnemonic effects of these

different deceptive strategies have been assessed in different single studies using between

subject designs. Yet this has not been assessed within one single experiment wherein

participants adopt the various deceptive strategies within a single interview (but see also

Polage, 2018). This does not only represent a new addition in the field of lying and memory,

but will also allow us to draw direct comparisons between potential mnemonic effects of

different types of lies. This is important because it is possible that different actors in the same

criminal case, for example, use different deceptive strategies. For instance, witnesses might

falsely deny that they experienced a crime because they are being forced by the perpetrator by

fabricating an alternative account of what happened. Previous research (Vieira & Lane, 2013)

8
LYING AND MEMORY

has examined the effects of lying on memory using a within subjects design. In this study

participants first studied several pictures (e.g., apple) and subsequently received labels of

presented and unpresented pictures with a cue to either tell the truth, falsely denying that they

saw the presented item or fabricate that they saw an unpresented item. In the present

experiment, we will use a similar procedure wherein participants will receive a cue before

each question during the interview to either tell the truth, fabricate, falsely deny, or feign

amnesia in response to the questions about truly experienced details. By doing so, we will be

able to compare the adverse effects of the various deceptive strategies on memory for the

event and/or memory for details discussed during the interview in terms of correct memory

performance and amount of commission and omission errors .

To date, researchers in the field have examined the adverse effects of lying when

participants lied immediately after encoding a stimulus (e.g., a video or picture) (see Otgaar &

Baker, 2018). To increase the ecological validity and real-world applicability of our results,

we will include (two-day) delay between the encoding of the stimulus event and the lie

(Griffiths, 2008; Hope et al., 2011). To examine and compare the effects of different types of

lies on memory, participants will watch a video of a mock crime. Then, two days later,

participants will be interviewed. During this interview, they will be cued to lie (according to

the three deceptive strategies) and tell the truth in response to different questions. One week

later, all participants will be asked to come forward with the truth about what they

remembered from the event and what they discussed during the interview on a final

recognition memory task. Based on the described theoretical mechanisms and previous

research (Otgaar & Baker, 2018), we postulated the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: When coming forward with the truth, we expect more commission

errors for true event details that participants will be cued to fabricate during the interview in

Session 2 compared with other types of items (i.e., “falsely denied”, “feigned amnesia”, “tell

9
LYING AND MEMORY

the truth”, and “delayed control”). The dependent variable for our first hypothesis is

commissions error scores for true event details observed in the video.

Hypothesis 2: We expect to replicate the denial-induced forgetting effect (Otgaar et al.,

2014). That is, we expect that false denials will lead to an impaired memory that such denied

details were discussed during the interview. More specifically, we expect lower correct

memory and more omission errors in participants’ memory of the interview for details that

participants will be cued to falsely deny during the interview in Session 2 compared with the

other types of items (“fabricated”, “tell the truth”, and “delayed control”). Moreover, as

previous research has revealed that feigning amnesia can exert similar denial-induced

forgetting effects (Romeo et al., 2019), we also expect to find a similar denial induced

forgetting effect for details for which participants will be cued to feign amnesia relative to

“fabricated”, “tell the truth”, and “delayed control” items when examining memory for the

interview session. However, we expect to observe lower correct memory and more omission

errors in participants’ memory of the interview for details for which participants will be cued

to falsely deny (vs. feigning amnesia). The dependent variables for our second hypothesis are

correct memory and omission error scores for the interview session.

Hypothesis 3: Due to the weakened memory trace of what truly occurred after a longer

retention interval (Ebbinghaus, 1885; Murre & Dros, 2015; Radvansky et al., 2022) and the

mixed results of the effects of false denials on memory for the event itself (e.g., Romeo et al.,

2019), we expect to observe lower correct memory and more omission errors for true event

details observed in the video that were falsely denied or for which participants feigned

amnesia during the interview in Session 2 as compared with “fabricated”, “tell the truth”, and

“delayed control” items. However, we expect the memory-undermining effects to be stronger

for details for which participants will be cued to feign amnesia than falsely deny. The

10
LYING AND MEMORY

dependent variables for our third hypothesis are correct memory and omission errors for the

event itself.

Method

Participants

We conducted an a priori power analysis using G*Power (Faul et al., 2009). The

power analysis indicated that for a one-tailed paired samples t-test using the following

parameters: Power = .80, Cohen’s d = .4, r = .5, and α = .007, we will need to collect data of

72 participants. Our α = .007 was derived using the Dunn-Šidák correction because we will

conduct a maximum of 7 pairwise comparisons for a specific hypothesis (Hypotheses 2 &

3):1:

𝛼𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 = 1 − (1 − 𝛼)1/𝑛

Our effect size was based on our smallest effect size of interest (SESOI; Lakens, 2014;

Riesthuis et al., 2021), which we set to 1 raw mean difference of (in)correct details

remembered. Our decision for this SESOI is because a difference of 1 detail demonstrates the

adverse mnemonic effects of the specific deceptive strategies on a practical level (e.g., less

reliable statements due to the misremembrance of 1 incorrect detail). The SESOI is based on

previous studies examining the effects of false denials and feigning amnesia on correct

memory (Battista et al., 2021a; Mangiulli et al., 2018; Otgaar et al., 2014). We choose to use

the variation of these studies as the effect sizes found in this literature are typically smaller

(vs. forced fabrication) but also used similar procedures, leading to better estimations of the

expected variation. Accordingly, a raw mean difference of 1 detail amounts to approximately

a Cohen’s dz = .4. As the observed effect sizes in the forced fabrication literature are relatively

large (ωp²range = .17 - .42; Ackil & Zaragoza, 1998; 2011; Chrobak & Zaragoza, 2008), we

expect to be able to detect the effects for all dependent variables of interest. Participants will

1
Four pairwise comparisons will be conducted for Hypothesis 1.

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LYING AND MEMORY

receive a 7.50 euro voucher or course credits for their participation. We will recruit

participants via flyers, advertisements, and social media. The Social and Societal Ethics

Committee approved the experiment.

Materials

Mock crime video. We will use an approximately six-minute video that has

previously been used to examine the effects of lying on memory (Battista et al., 2021a; Otgaar

et al., 2014). In this video, an electrician named “Eric” enters a house where he checks out the

house, fixes some household appliances, and steals several items (e.g., jewelry; medicine).

Design and Procedure

In this experiment, we will use a within subjects design. Our dependent variables of

interest for the statistical analyses are memory performance on the final recognition memory

task for correct memory, commission and omission errors (see Scoring section). The memory

task completed during the interview will serve as the experimental manipulation. Sessions 1

and 2 will be conducted face-to-face with the interviewer in the lab, while Session 3 will be

conducted independently by the participant online via Qualtrics (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Procedure of the Experiment

Session 1. At the start of the experiment, participants will first be asked to provide

their informed consent and answer some demographical questions (i.e., age, gender). Then,

12
LYING AND MEMORY

they will be instructed to watch the mock crime video and afterwards they will be thanked and

asked to return in two days.

Session 2. After a two-day delay, participants will return for an interview about the

mock crime video. Participants will be seated at a table across from the experimenter with a

computer on the table. Similar to previous research (Dianiska & Meissner, 2022), participants

will be informed that they will receive a cue (i.e., “fabricate”, “falsely deny”, “feign

amnesia”, or “tell the truth”) on the computer that indicates how they should respond to the

interviewer before each question. Before the interview, participants will receive specific

instructions and examples regarding how they should lie according to the each deceptive

strategy. Specifically, when participants receive the cue “tell the truth” before a question (e.g.,

“What vehicle did Eric arrive with?”) they have to provide an honest answer (e.g., “Eric

arrived with a van”), with the cue “fabricate” they need to create a new detail (e.g., “Eric

arrived with a bicycle”), with the cue “falsely deny” they need to deny that they saw the (true)

detail (e.g., “Eric did not arrive with a vehicle”), and with the cue “feign amnesia”

participants have to pretend to have memory loss (e.g., “I don’t remember that I saw a

vehicle” ), as done in previous research (Battista et al., 2021a; Battista et al., 2021b;

Christianson & Bylin, 1999; Otgaar et al., 2014; Romeo et al., 2019). The fabrication

manipulation is more in line with the research of Battista and colleagues (2020) as

participants will not fabricate answers in response to questions about details never presented

(e.g., Ackil & Zaragoza, 1998), but rather fabricate details that contradict the details seen in

the video. The interview will consist of 20 cued recall questions about only true event details.

We will only include questions about true event details because the interview serves as the

experimental manipulation of the study. Moreover, this will allow us to have a fair

comparison on the effects of the various deceptive strategies on memory for truly occurred

events. Participants will be cued to tell the truth, fabricate, falsely deny, and feign amnesia in

13
LYING AND MEMORY

response to five questions each. Cues on how to respond to questions will be completely

random, to ascertain that the effects of deception on memory are only caused by the deceptive

strategies and not due to content type. This randomization is also done to avoid that some

details are simply better remembered due to, for example, recency effects (Baddeley, & Hitch,

1993) or memorability of certain details (Ghetti, 2008). This means that some participants

will be cued to fabricate in response to a certain question while another participant will be

cued to tell the truth in response to the same question. However, we will track which cue

participants received for each question to determine the effects of the different types of

deceptive strategies on memory after coming forward with the truth (see Supplementary

Materials). After the interview, participants will be informed that they will receive an email

after for the final recognition memory task after a one-week delay (Session 3).

Session 3. During Session 3, all participants will be asked to give an honest account

during a final recognition memory task. Participants will complete the final recognition task

by themselves online to reduce the feeling of being compelled to answer consistently across

sessions and according to their instructions in the interview (Session 2). The final memory

task will consist of 70 recognition questions pertaining to 35 details (two questions per detail)

presented one-by-one completely at random. Of these 35 details, 20 will be asked during the

interview and 15 will be new:

• 5 questions pertain to details that participants told the truth about

• 5 details that were fabricated

• 5 details that were falsely denied

• 5 details for which participants feigned amnesia

• 5 new details that were presented in the video but not discussed during the interview

(i.e., delay control items)

• 10 false details that were not presented in the video nor discussed in the interview.

14
LYING AND MEMORY

Delay control items were included to have a base rate of how well participants

remembered the video and to examine whether the effects on memory are indeed due to lying

or whether the effects could be caused by a lack of rehearsal (e.g., Sun et al., 2009). Of the 25

questions pertaining to true event details, 20 questions will be chosen at random for each

participant to be used during the interview in Session 2 and 5 questions will not be discussed

during the interview but are asked only during the final recognition memory task in Session 3.

This means that how participants have to respond in regard to each question during the

interview and final recognition memory task differ per participant to prevent content to be a

confounding variable. Before the interview, participants will be informed that some questions

are about whether they actually observed certain details in the video while other questions are

about whether they discussed them during the interview. For each detail, participants will

receive 2 multiple choice questions in regard to the source of the memory (e.g., video: “In the

video, in which room did you see Eric watch tv?”; interview: “In the interview, in which room

did you say that Eric watched tv?”). For true event detail questions participants will receive 4

response options: a) correct answer (e.g., living room), b) fabricated detail/incorrect answer

(e.g., bedroom), c) incorrect rejection (e.g., Eric did not watch tv in the video/we did not talk

about in which room Eric watched tv), and d) “I don’t know”. For false event detail questions

(e.g., video: “In the video, which tool did Eric use to fix the clock?”; interview: “In the

interview, which tool did you say Eric used to fix the clock?”) participants receive the

following 4 response options: two incorrect answer (e.g., hammer and screwdriver as there are

no correct answers for false event details, c) correct rejection (e.g., Eric did not use a tool to

fix the clock in the video/we did not talk about the tool Eric used to fix the clock), d) “I don’t

know”. For questions for which participants were cued to fabricate an answer, the response

option “fabricated detail/incorrect answer” will be the participants’ fabricated detail. If not, an

incorrect answer will be given which is the same for all participants. This means that scoring

15
LYING AND MEMORY

of the final recognition memory task depends on which cues participants received before

answering the question during the interview in Session 2. Response options will be presented

completely at random for each questions. Finally, we will add two different types of attention

checks which are in line with the experiment and fair as we clearly indicate the required

response (e.g., “In the video, which tool did Eric use to fix the shower?” [To show that you

have read this information, we would like you to answer “Hammer” on this page]; Abbey &

Meloy, 2017; Thomas & Clifford, 2017). The personalized final recognition task will be made

for each participant individually via Qualtrics.

Scoring2

Interview. During the interview (Session 2) participants are sometimes cued to lie

according to one of the deceptive strategies and, thus, their answers should reflect the specific

instructions they received. Hence, the coding of the interview (Session 2) will be done as a

manipulation check to make sure that participants responded in accordance with the cue. For

true event details:

• Correct answers will be scored with 1 point for correct memory

• Answers for which participants were cued to deny or cannot be answered because of

(feigned) memory loss will be given 1 point for omission errors

• Incorrect answers or fabrications will be given 1 point for commission errors

• “I don’t know” responses will be given 1 point for “don’t know”

Participants who follow the instructions correctly should have 10 points for omission

errors when receiving the cues “falsely deny” or “feign amnesia”, and 5 points for

commission errors when receiving the cue “fabrication”. Scores for the cue “tell the truth”

might differ depending on participants’ individual memory performance (i.e., how well they

remember the mock criminal event).

2
See Appendix for an overview of the scoring.

16
LYING AND MEMORY

Final Memory Task. In Session 3, participants will complete a final recognition

memory task that examines memory for the video and interview. The recognition memory

task is scored as follows: For questions about whether the participants saw a true event detail

in the video (e.g., “In the video, in which room did you see Eric watch tv?”):

• Correct responses (e.g., living room) will be given 1 point for correct memory

• Fabricated detail/incorrect responses (e.g., bedroom) will be given 1 point for

commission errors

• Incorrect rejections (e.g., Eric did not watch tv in the video) will be given 1 point for

omission errors

• “I don’t know” responses will be given 1 point for “don’t know” (see Appendix for an

overview of the scoring system)

For questions about whether participants saw false event details in the video (e.g., “In

the video, which tool did Eric use to fix the clock?”):

• Incorrect answers (e.g., hammer) will be given 1 point for commission errors

• Correct rejections will be given 1 point for correct memory

• “I don’t know” responses will be given 1 point for “don’t know”

For questions about true event details discussed in the interview (e.g., “In the

interview, in which room did you say that Eric watched tv?”) the correct response will depend

on the cue the participant received for the question in the interview. That is, if participants

were cued to “tell the truth”, then the actual observed detail is the correct response, if they

were cued to “fabricate”, then the fabricated detail is the appropriate response for the

interview, if they were cued to “falsely deny”, or “feign amnesia” then rejecting to have

talked about the detail is the correct response for the interview. Hence the scoring for true

event details discussed in the interview is as follows:

• Answers in accordance with the cue will be given 1 point for correct memory

17
LYING AND MEMORY

• Incorrect answers will be given 1 point for commission errors

• Correct rejections will be given 1 point for correct memory (true event detail not

discussed in the interview)

• Incorrect rejections will be given 1 point for omission errors

• “I don’t know” responses will be given 1 point for “don’t know”

For questions about false event details discussed in the interview (e.g., “In the

interview, which tool did you say Eric used to fix the clock?”):

• Incorrect responses will be given 1 point for commission errors

• Correct rejections (e.g., “We did not talk about the tool Eric used to fix the clock”) will

be given 1 point for correct memory

• “I don’t know” responses will be given 1 point for “don’t know”

Data Analysis Plan

Quality and Manipulation Checks

We will not include a baseline memory task because the initial rehearsing of the event

might hinder the interpretation of our results. Moreover, previous research using the same

mock crime video has shown repeatedly that participants are able to correctly and adequately

encode this video (e.g., Battista et al., 2021a; Battista et al., 2021b; Otgaar et al., 2014). Data

from participants that failed to lie according to one of the deceptive strategies for one or more

questions during the interview will be excluded from the data analysis. The responses to the

interview will be scored by the first and last author. Then, we will calculate intraclass

correlation coefficients for single rating, absolute agreement, and two-way random-effects

model for correct memory, omission errors ,commission errors, and “I don’t know” responses.

Moreover, data from participants who failed both attention checks during the final recognition

memory task will be excluded from the analysis. Finally, for our main analyses, we will use

the scores concerning correct memory, omission, and commission errors for true event details

18
LYING AND MEMORY

derived from the final memory test (Session 3) because participants only lied about these true

event details in the interview (Session 2).

Hypothesis 1

To examine whether fabrication leads to more commission errors relative to truth

telling and other deceptive strategies, we will examine the number of commission errors for

true event details seen in the video and discussed during the interview. For our main analyses

we will only compare true event details as participants lied about these items during the

interview in Session 2. First, we will conduct one-tailed paired samples t-tests for commission

errors for true event details observed in the video between details that were fabricated and the

other types of details (i.e., “falsely denied”, “feigned amnesia”, “tell the truth”, and “delayed

control”). Individual comparisons will be made between the types of items (e.g., fabricated

items vs. falsely denied items, fabricated items vs. feigned amnesia items, etc.). Moreover, we

will compare the number of commission errors for true event details discussed during the

interview. We will report the following test statistics for our one-tailed paired samples t-test:

t, degrees of freedom, p, and Cohen’s dz and its 98.7% confidence interval. Because we will

conduct four pairwise comparisons using the disjunction testing approach, we will use the

following significance threshold, αcorrected = .013 (Rubin, 2021). Moreover, because we

determined our SESOI a priori, we will also conduct equivalence testing using the two one-

sided test procedure (TOST; Lakens, 2017). Specifically, we will use our SESOI of 1 raw

mean difference to set the lower and upper equivalence bounds to examine whether our

results are statistically equivalent (i.e., 97.4% CI of the mean difference falls within the lower

and upper bounds).

Hypothesis 2

To examine whether falsely denying or feigning amnesia leads to an impaired memory

for having discussed details during the interview, we will conduct one-tailed paired samples t-

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LYING AND MEMORY

tests for true event details discussed during the interview between the different types of items

(i.e., “falsely denied”, “feigned amnesia”, “fabricated”, “tell the truth”, and “delayed

control”). Individual comparisons will be made between the types of items. Moreover, we will

compare “falsely denied” items with “feigned amnesia” items to examine whether the denial

induced forgetting effect is indeed stronger for details that were falsely denied compared with

items that participants pretended to have memory loss for. We will report the following test

statistics for our one-tailed paired samples t-test: t, degrees of freedom, p, and Cohen’s dz and

its 99.3% confidence interval. Because we will conduct seven pairwise comparisons using the

disjunction testing approach, we will use the following significance threshold, αcorrected = .007

(Rubin, 2021). Moreover, because we determined our SESOI a priori, we will also conduct

equivalence testing using the two one-sided test procedure (TOST; Lakens, 2017).

Specifically, we will use our SESOI of 1 raw mean difference to set the lower and upper

equivalence bounds to examine whether our results are statistically equivalent (i.e., 98.6% CI

of the mean difference falls within the lower and upper bounds).

Hypothesis 3

To examine the memory-undermining effects of feigning amnesia and false denials on

true event details in the video, we will conduct one-tailed paired samples t-tests for correct

memory and omission errors between the different types of items (i.e., “falsely denied”,

“feigned amnesia”, “fabricated”, “tell the truth”, and “delayed control”). Individual

comparisons will be made between the types of items. Moreover, we will compare the

“feigned amnesia” and “falsely denied” items to examine whether the memory-undermining

effects are stronger when details are falsely denied compared with when participants feign

amnesia. We will report the following test statistics for our one-tailed paired samples t-test: t,

degrees of freedom, p, and Cohen’s dz and its 99.3% confidence interval. Because we will

conduct seven pairwise comparisons using the disjunction testing approach, we will use the

20
LYING AND MEMORY

following significance threshold, αcorrected = .007 (Rubin, 2021). Moreover, because we

determined our SESOI a priori, we will also conduct equivalence testing using the two one-

sided test procedure (TOST; Lakens, 2017). Specifically, we will use our SESOI of 1 raw

mean difference to set the lower and upper equivalence bounds to examine whether our

results are statistically equivalent (i.e., 98.6% CI of the mean difference falls within the lower

and upper bounds).

Exploratory Analyses

Our planned confirmatory analyses and hypotheses will be focused on the effects of

lying on memory for true event details. We focused on these details because in our

experiment participants only lied about true event details during the interview in Session 2.

To explore whether lying has additional adverse effects on memory, we will also examine

what the effects of each deceptive strategy are on memory for false event details.

Additionally, we will examine whether details that are lied about lead to more “I don’t know”

responses for true event details compared with questions to which participants responded

honestly (and “delayed control” items). This is to examine whether lying simply leads to a

more conservative responding in general compared with truth telling. In other words, we will

examine whether details that were lied about impaired the memory for these details and

therefore made participants less certain about what happened in the video or what was

discussed during the interview leading to more “I don’t know” responses. To do so, we will

conduct two-tailed paired sample t-tests for the amount of “don’t know” responses between

details that were lied about according to the deceptive strategy and details that were either told

truthfully or delayed control items. We will report the following test statistics for our two-

tailed paired samples t-test: t, degrees of freedom, p, Cohen’s dz, and its confidence interval.

Timeline

21
LYING AND MEMORY

We already have funding and the ethical approval to start the experiment. The first and

last author will be collecting the data. Hence, after receiving In-Principle Acceptance (IPA)

we will immediately start with recruiting participants and data collecting. We expect that we

will have gathered the data within five months. Then, we expect that analyzing and

interpreting data and writing up our results will take approximately three months.

Data Management Plan

After receiving IPA, we will preregister our stage 1 registered report on OSF. After

data collection, we will anonymize the data and make them available on OSF. Additionally,

we will store the data on the secure network drives.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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LYING AND MEMORY

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Appendix

Overview of Scoring Correct Memory, Commission Errors, and Source Monitoring Errors
Interview (Session 2) Answer of Participant Score
True event details.
Correct answer +1 Correct Memory
Incorrect answer +1 Commission Error
Fabrication +1 Commission Error
False denial +1 Omission Error
Pretending to have memory loss +1 Omission Error
I don’t know +1 Don’t know
Recognition Memory Video (Session 3)
True event details
Correct answer +1 Correct Memory
Fabricated detail/incorrect answer +1 Commission Error
Incorrect rejection +1 Omission Error
I don’t know +1 Don’t Know
False event details
Incorrect answer +1 Commission Error
Incorrect answer +1 Commission Error
Correct rejection +1 Correct Memory
I don’t know +1 Don’t Know
Recognition Memory Interview (Session 3)
True event details*
Answer in accordance with cue +1 Correct Memory
Incorrect answer +1 Commission Error
Correct Rejection +1 Correct Memory
Incorrect Rejection +1 Omission Error
I don’t know +1 Don’t Know
False event details
Incorrect answer +1 Commission Error
Incorrect answer +1 Commission Error
Correct rejection +1 Correct Memory
I don’t know +1 Don’t Know
Note. * = The scores for true event details discussed in the interview depend on which cue participants received before the questions.
That is, if participants were cued to “tell the truth”, then the actual observed detail is the correct response, if they were cued to
“fabricate”, then the fabricated detail is the correct response, if they were cued to “falsely deny”, or “feign amnesia” then rejecting to
have talked about the detail is the correct response.

29

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