Laypeople's beliefs about the effects of common estimator variables on memory.

This research builds on James Ost's research investigating whether laypeople's beliefs align with those of experts. Recent studies that examined the relationship between high-confidence eyewitness identifications and accuracy proposed that the mechanism underlying this relationship may be based on a knowledge-conditional model. According to this model, the accuracy of a confidence judgment depends on knowledge about factors that affect memory accuracy.

Elevated stress impairs the accuracy of eyewitness memory but not the confidence-accuracy relationship.

Although numerous studies have identified factors that affect eyewitness identification accuracy, recent studies report that many of these factors do not affect the accuracy of high-confidence identifications. This is critical because legal cases are more likely to be prosecuted if they involve high-confidence eyewitnesses. Using a confidence-accuracy characteristic (CAC) analysis, we explored whether stress affects the accuracy of high-confidence identifications.