When asking for a detailed account of actions before or after the event, if memory of before/after is much better or worse than memory of the event, it indicates

• A. Untruthful testimony
• B. Memory bias
• C. Coached statement
• D. Truthful testimony

Answer: (A)

When memory for the surrounding actions is much better or much worse than memory for the event, it often signals deception. Honest recall usually shows a fairly consistent level of detail across what happened and the moments before and after, because the person experienced the whole sequence. If the core event memory is inconsistent or weaker while the details of before or after are unusually clear (or vice versa), that mismatch suggests the story may have been constructed or rehearsed rather than remembered, a pattern typical of untruthful testimony. In other words, the uneven strength of memory across different parts of the timeline is a common red flag for fabrication, rather than a reliable, truthful memory.