Recall of Thematic & Perceptual Information following Episodic Specificity Induction and Instructed Eye Closure

Techniques to improve episodic memory such as eye-witness events have been the focus of much research in psychology. The present experiment investigates the effect of two techniques, episodic specificity induction (ESI) and eye-closure (EC) to assess if their conjoined effects are additive or interactive regarding the recall and subjective ratings of thematic and perceptual information of short video clips. It was found that both ESI and EC enhanced recall and that the effects were primarily additive. This was found for both thematic and perceptual details. ESI and EC interacted for subjective ratings of perceptual vividness but not story coherence. For the former, EC increased vividness ratings in the control but not the ESI group. The cognitive basis of these effects and possible applications are discussed.