Mock informants' memory recall: Investigating the effect of pre-event tasking instructions

Actionable intelligence is vital for law enforcement and intelligence services to combat organised crime and terrorism (Stanier & Nunan, 2018). Human Intelligence (HUMINT), elicited from informants, plays a critical role in gathering such actionable intelligence (Nunan et al., 2022). Unlike witnesses to a crime who typically do not anticipate the occurrence of an important event that requires remembering, informants are often deployed to an event with the intentional goal of collecting information. This task presents a significant cognitive challenge that has been largely overlooked in the wider memory literature, as research typically focuses on retrieval techniques (e.g., The Cognitive Interview; Memon et al., 2010) rather than the encoding phase, despite its significance across various operational contexts. Drawing on prospective memory theory (see Rummel & Kvavilashvili, 2023) the proposed research will explore the impact of deliberate encoding strategies to determine whether advance tasking instructions support subsequent memory performance for personally experienced events. Participants will be allocated to an: (i) intentional memory and tasking group who will be told there will be a memory test and to focus on what the group is planning; (ii) intentional memory group who will be aware of a memory test or (iii) incidental memory group (control group) with no reference to a memory test. Participants will be exposed to a security-relevant stimulus event and then asked to provide a detailed account. We hypothesize that those in the intentional memory and tasking group will provide greater recall than the other groups.

Actionable intelligence is vital for law enforcement and intelligence services to combat organised crime and terrorism. Human Intelligence (HUMINT), obtained from cooperative members of the community, plays a critical role in gathering such actionable intelligence. Unlike witnesses to a crime who typically do not anticipate the occurrence of an important event that requires remembering, such informants are often tasked to attend events with the explicit and intentional goal of collecting information. This task presents a significant cognitive challenge that has been largely overlooked in the wider memory literature, as research typically focuses on memory retrieval techniques (e.g., The Cognitive Interview; Fisher & Geiselman, 1992) rather than methods that may enhance memory for the to-be-remembered event. Drawing on prospective memory theory (see Rummel & Kvavilashvili, 2023), the proposed research will examine deliberate encoding strategies to determine whether pre-event tasking instructions support subsequent memory performance for personally experienced events.