Situación Actual de la Política Educacional en el Ecuador

4.2.1 Discrepancies in peripheral details

There was strong evidence for the hypothesis that there would be more inconsistencies in peripheral than central details. This result was found in the whole sample and also in the smaller more homogenous sample of Kosovan refugees. This hypothesis was drawn from predictions following the eye-witness testimony literature: that memory is better for central details than peripheral details in the recall of traumatic material.

In investigating these different recall effects, the present study addresses some of the criticisms of the eye-witness testimony literature. Yuille and Tollstrup (1992) have observed that most of the studies in this area have used what they term ‘upsetting material’. The videos or pictures shown have no (known) emotional salience for the participants and cannot realistically be compared to personal traumatic experiences. The memories of the current study clearly answer this point. Wessel and Merckelbach

(1997) also refer to studies where the emotionality of personal events is rated

retrospectively, suggesting that such reports may not give an accurate reflection of the emotion at the time of the event. Again, by asking participants to report events during which they felt their life was in danger, a somewhat more standard level of emotionality may be assumed. However, the current study is prone to the circularity of the

central/peripheral ratings which Wessel and Merckelbach (1997) have also identified. Participants may well have rated as peripheral those details which they could not remember so well.

4.2.2 Traumatic and neutral memories

The lack of any difference in recall of details between traumatic and non-traumatic memories is not consistent with the literature. It was hypothesised that the difference between recall of central and peripheral details would be differential across traumatic and non-traumatic memories (Christianson & Nilsson, 1984; Christianson & Safer, 1996). It may be that the failure to demonstrate this effect was due to the low sample size, and the trend of the data does suggest this, insofar as it is in the right direction, but fails to meet statistical significance. However, in the current study the non-traumatic events were perhaps not sufficiently like those in previous studies to be able to demonstrate the same effects. Two issues arose in the eliciting of non-traumatic memories.

Firstly, the types of memories that were offered in the current study, whilst mostly happy memories, were often highly emotional ones. Many recounted memories of the birth of

possible with the participant group and the circumstances of the project. Interestingly, this is more in line with van der Kolk’s (1995) study of traumatic and non-traumatic autobiographical memory outlined (see section 4.1.4.1 above). However, in the eye­ witness testimony literature, the alternative scenarios to the ‘traumatic’ ones are usually described as ‘neutral’.

Secondly, the ability of participants to relate non-traumatic memories in the current study seemed to be particularly subject to the effects of mood disorder. Three participants could not recall any memories that they would describe as happy, and two more needed a full ten minutes of prompting before describing a happy family event. Another

participant’s happy memory was of a work colleague who fell almost to his death, but was saved by the rest of the work team. All six of these respondents had high scores on the BDI, suggesting the presence of major depression. Their responses are thus

consistent with the literature on recall bias in depression which predicts that depressed individuals are more likely to recall negative memories than positive memories (Williams et al., 1997). Mood-congruent recall may also be pertinent, but no measure of mood was taken.

The problem with these findings, then, is that they only demonstrate that there are more mistakes made in the recall of peripheral details, without showing any effect of the nature (traumatic or not) of the material. The same effect might be achieved, for example, by asking ridiculously irrelevant questions (“exactly how many clouds were there in the sky at that moment?”).

However, the general picture, whilst non-significant, did seem to indicate some

differences between memories which are consistent with the literature, and a post-hoc test did suggest that the difference between central and peripheral recall was significant for traumatic and not for non-traumatic memories.

4.2.3 Discrepancies not recall failure

Although the hypothesis addressed in the current study was drawn from notions explored in the eye-witness testimony, the nature of the task is subtly different in the two different paradigms. In eye-witness testimony studies, participants are asked to recall details, and whether or not they succeed in this task is recorded (along with the type of detail and type of material being recalled). The focus of the current study was consistency. If

participants answered ‘don’t know’ on both occasions, this was not recorded as a

discrepancy. In comparison to the eye-witness testimony studies, then, it may be that the data presented here are conservative. However, it does leave open the question of why there should be inconsistencies, as opposed to consistent failure to recall, for peripheral details.

One explanation might be that many of the peripheral details given were in fact ‘plausible guesses’ (Baddeley et al., 1995) and thus less stable under repeated questioning. I have considered the suggestion that survivors of state organised violence are motivated to give testimony about their experiences and to be believed (see above, section 4.1.4.2 :

memory that make an account more believable and persuasive (Tromp, Koss, Figueredo, & Tharan, 1995; Heuer & Reisberg, 1992). This is partly based on an understanding of how schematic knowledge (generalised structures based on repeated experiences and knowledge of the world) is used in the formation of autobiographical accounts. The gist of an autobiographical memory, it is argued, can be reconstructed from schematic

knowledge, whereas detail of a specific event cannot, thus detail is seen as a good way of distinguishing between “accurate recollection and plausible reconstruction” (Heuer & Reisberg, 1992). This is presumably in part the principle which guides the Immigration and Nationality Directorate’s reliance on consistent details as an indication of credibility. However, there are problems with accepting that assumption at face value. We know that peripheral information is more susceptible to post-event disruption. For example, both discussions about the event (Hollin & Clifford, 1983) and the exact wording of questions about the event (Harris, 1973; Lipton, 1977) can change the detail of the responses given. Harris (1973) found that asking ‘how tall?’ as opposed to ‘how short?’ could make a ten inch difference in the means of participants’ estimates of the height of a person they saw minutes previously.

Thus the suggestion is that there is pressure to produce peripheral detail from both the interviewee who wants to be believed and from the interviewer who is making that judgement. According to the eye-witness testimony literature, peripheral detail is less

likely to be recalled. Confabulation (guessing) of those details is thus highly likely. When this is added to post-event effects such as discussion with other refugees, or the

different wording of questions, the likelihood of those details being inconsistent is considerably raised.

4.2.4 Asylum process implications

In terms of the asylum process, this distinction between different types of memories is less critical. If the only finding is that details rated peripheral by interviewees are likely to be prone to discrepancies, then the use of discrepancies in judging credibility is still under question. It must be remembered that many of the questions used for the study were taken from asylum interview transcripts, and are not excessively irrelevant details as

suggested above. More positively, it suggests that an awareness of such differences could help credibility decisions to be more finely tuned. By recognising the difference between central and peripheral details, asylum officials might be able to decide that a discrepancy is more or less likely to indicate fabrication in order to achieve refugee status on the part of the applicant.