A relação entre confiança e desempenho de memória é um tema que tem sido foco da atenção de pesquisadores há mais de um século, resultando em diversos estudos que apontam para uma interação dinâmica, complexa e multifacetada. Apesar de ser um tema controverso, a confiança ainda é amplamente utilizada como preditor de desempenho no âmbito forense. No entanto, a literatura indica que essa dinâmica pode ser influenciada por diversas variáveis, o que torna difícil estabelecer uma relação direta e linear entre os dois elementos. Diante disso, o objetivo deste artigo é compreender as especificidades dessa complexa relação. Para tanto, foi realizada uma revisão narrativa, na qual foram investigadas as principais formas de se analisar a interação entre confiança e desempenho de memória, bem como as principais variáveis que a influenciam. Além disso, o artigo também realiza uma discussão teórica dessa relação e discute suas implicações práticas no dia a dia jurídico-criminal, além de contextualizar como essa discussão tem ocorrido no Brasil. Embora a confiança continue sendo utilizada como um indicador de veracidade de testemunhos, é importante considerar que essa relação é passível de diversas influências, o que sugere a necessidade de cautela ao interpretar os resultados obtidos a partir da análise da confiança e do desempenho de memória.

Brazil has the 12th highest gross domestic product in the world but ranks 57th regarding education achievement. From this perspective, we discuss how the learning strategy named retrieval practice can benefit education in Brazil. A large body of research has shown that when individuals practice retrieval of previously studied information, they increase their chances of remembering that information in the future. This phenomenon has been advocated as a promising strategy to promote learning in classroom contexts. To verify whether this pattern is reproduced by Brazilian students, we briefly review the literature on retrieval practice conducted in Brazil. We then discuss possible obstacles to the implementation of retrieval practice in Brazilian classrooms, as well as strategies to overcome these obstacles. Although we focus on the Brazilian reality, the current discussion might also be pertinent for the implementation of retrieval practice in educational contexts in other developing countries.

Memory judgments made by an individual may be afected by the memory judgments made by another individual, a phenomenon named memory conformity. It is unclear, however, whether memory conformity afects the well demonstrated positive relationship between accuracy and confdence, and more importantly, whether it afects the accuracy of high-confdence memory judgments. Here, we investigated these possibilities in three experiments wherein participants performed recognition followed by confdence judgments of studied and novel faces, after being exposed to the recognition responses of a fctional participant whose responses could be valid or invalid (74% and 26% of the responses, respectively). In all three experiments, accuracy for high confdence “old” and “new” responses was afected by the responses of the fctitious participant, with invalid responses producing consistent decreases in high confdence accuracy. In addition, confdence-accuracy characteristics (CAC) analysis revealed that invalid responses were particularly impactful on the assignment of confdence for faces judged as “new,” a pattern that sheds light on prior fndings regarding the efects of cueing on mean confdence. Thus, further than demonstrating that the exposition to the memory judgments of another person afects high confdence recognition, we show that such exposition produces distinct efects on the assignment of confdence for “new” versus “old” memory judgments.

Objective: Prior studies have shown that individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD) exhibit deficits in the processing of emotional information. Here, we investigated whether such deficits caused by PD reduce the mnemonic benefits typically produced by emotion in healthy individuals. Method: Thirty individuals with PD and 30 healthy individuals, matched for sex, age, and education, were recruited for the study. To assess their memory for emotional information, we asked them to observe a series of negative, positive, and neutral images distributed in three consecutive blocks. After a short interval, all observed images were presented again intermixed with new images, and the participants were asked to judge whether each image was “old” or “new” (i.e., recognition test), and to indicate the block in which each image was studied (i.e., source memory test). In addition, to characterize the sample, all participants responded to a series of neuropsychological and psychopathological tests. Results: As expected, individuals with PD exhibited diminished overall recognition and source memory scores relative to healthy controls (ηp² = 0.16 and 0.14, respectively). More importantly, while healthy controls showed greater recognition accuracy for negative versus neutral images (d = 0.65), this advantage was absent for PD participants (d < 0.18), a null effect corroborated by Bayesian analysis (BF01 = 3.34). Conclusion: The current findings suggest that individuals with PD lack the mnemonic advantage for negative pictures shown by healthy individuals, a deficit that may result from their difficulties in the processing of emotional information.

A conformidade de memória consiste em alterações dos relatos de memória de um indivíduo provocadas por relatos de memória de outro(s) indivíduo(s). Considerando a importância deste fenômeno no âmbito forense, especialmente na entrevista de testemunhas oculares, o objetivo do presente estudo é compreender melhor o fenômeno da conformidade de memória, e discutir suas implicações nas práticas de inquérito policial. Para isto, realizamos uma revisão narrativa de estudos de laboratório sobre conformidade de memória e de estudos sobre práticas de inquérito. A literatura indica que embora a investigação científica da conformidade de memória tenha apresentado grande avanço nas últimas duas décadas, a incorporação destes achados na prática forense brasileira ainda é lenta. No Brasil, a adoção de práticas de entrevista de testemunhas baseadas em evidência ainda depende de infraestrutura adequada, além de alterações legislativas e em procedimentos administrativos, policiais e jurídicos.