Experimental psychology最新文献

People tend to predict better memory for identical word pairs (e.g., DOG-DOG) than related ones (e.g., DOG-CAT), despite remembering related pairs more accurately-a phenomenon known as the identical effect. Across three experiments, we examined whether this illusion extends to pictorial materials and investigated the roles of processing fluency and a priori beliefs. Participants studied image pairs that were identical, exemplars, related, unrelated, or rotated (in Experiment 3). After each pair, they made judgments of learning (JOLs), and memory was later tested by a cued four-alternative forced-choice (4-AFC) recognition test. Consistently, identical image pairs received higher JOLs than related ones, despite equivalent or poorer recall. Identical pairs were also identified more quickly, reflecting greater processing fluency. However, identification speed did not consistently predict JOLs, suggesting that processing fluency alone cannot explain the illusion. These findings indicate that both processing fluency and beliefs influence JOLs, with beliefs about the pair types playing a central role.

An epistemic relative necessity account is proposed to treat nonmodal deductive reasoning as modal reasoning. It assumes that an epistemically valid conclusion from the factual premises is pragmatically necessary relative to the premises. Three studies on modal Modus Ponens problems (with the form: given the premises of p and if p then q, individuals were asked to judge whether the conclusion is "necessarily q," "q," or "possibly q") revealed (1) Participants generally defaulted to interpreting arbitrary conditionals "if p then q" as "if p then must q." (2) Modal MP problems without retrievable counterexamples to conditionals tended to elicit inferences "necessarily q" rather than "q." (3) The influence of level of relevance in conditionals (arbitrary vs. causal conditionals) on modal inferences was modulated by whether causal conditionals had retrievable counterexamples: Causal conditionals with retrievable counterexamples elicited more "possibly q" inferences (belief bias responses) and fewer "necessarily q" inferences than arbitrary and causal conditionals without retrievable counterexamples. The overall response pattern favors only the epistemic relative necessity account, indicating that a mentally valid nonmodal deductive inference can be transformed into a modal inference including the modal word "necessary" in the conclusion. Our research bridges linguistic and psychological research on epistemic necessity.

Cost plays a crucial role in commodity transactions, influencing the decisions of both buyers and sellers. Previous studies have focused either on the impact of seller costs on seller decisions or the influence of buyer costs on buyer decisions. However, it remains unclear whether seller costs directly affect buyers' purchasing decisions. Across six experiments, participants consistently demonstrated a preference for items with higher seller costs. Experiment 1 had them choose between high and low seller cost items that were totally equal in other aspects, with a majority favoring the item with high seller cost. Experiment 2 involved participants pricing items, resulting in higher values for those with greater seller costs. In Experiment 3, when asked to predict others' choices, the consensus was again for high seller cost items. Experiment 4, which used a single reseller, showed a similar pattern. Finally, in Experiments 5 and 6, with stricter experimental design, the preference for higher seller cost items persisted. These findings indicate that irrelevant factors can influence consumers' valuation of products and their consumption decisions, and thus challenge traditional utility theories of decisions, which generally accommodate only relevant factors. Several nondecision theories (price unfairness perception, anti-profit belief, and zero-sum thinking) were also tested, and zero-sum thinking provides the best explanation.

Media multitasking (i.e., the use of multiple forms of media at the same time) is an increasingly common behavior. As media multitasking requires switching between different forms of media, there has been great interest in its relationship with the ability to switch between tasks. Clear patterns have not emerged in cued task switching, as studies have found that high media multitaskers switch more effectively, switch less effectively, or that there are no differences between high and low media multitaskers. The voluntary task switching paradigm provides an alternate and yet unexplored perspective that could reveal differences between high and low media multitaskers in terms of how effectively and how often they switch. In Experiment 1, high media multitaskers had a smaller cued task switching switch cost, but no difference in voluntary switch cost or switch rate. Experiment 2 explored whether voluntary task switching differences emerged at longer response stimulus intervals (RSIs). Again, no group difference was observed in voluntary switch cost or switch rate. We discuss the differences between what is assessed in cued and voluntary task switching paradigms and subsequent implications for media multitasking.

Across two experiments (N = 303), we examined the effect of physical fatigue on moral decision-making. Participants were subjected to acute physical exercise. Half of the participants were presented with moral dilemmas before the physical exercise and the other half after the exercise. We measured moral judgement using a shortened version of the Process Dissociation procedure, allowing us to investigate (1) decisions in the traditional sacrificial dilemmas and (2) deontological and utilitarian moral inclinations. The results showed no significant differences in moral judgments between fatigued and nonfatigued participants in nine out of 10 statistical tests. This suggests a unique resilience of moral judgments to physical fatigue, in contrast to what is known about cognitive fatigue.

Recent research has shown mixed evidence for the morning morality effect (MME; i.e., the observation that individuals are less immoral in the morning than in the afternoon). In the present research, we target the morning morality effect in the context of moral utilitarianism, for which this effect has never been explored. We first reanalyzed observational data from six studies previously conducted by our lab, which included different tasks capturing moral utilitarianism. A meta-analytic model showed that participants become less utilitarian as the day goes on, but with a small effect size (r = -0.14, 95% CI = [-0.25, -0.02]) and large heterogeneity. Exploration of this heterogeneity showed that this association was statistically significant for classic sacrificial dilemmas only. We next conducted an experimental study of the morning morality effect, which aimed to experimentally support the results previously observed in the meta-analysis, as well as to explore, in addition, a possible moderating effect of chronotype. These experimental results showed no reliable overall effect of time of day on moral utilitarianism (SMD = 0.04, 95% CI = [-0.21, 0.28]). A potential moderating effect of chronotype was detected in secondary analyses, but that needs to be replicated. The implications and limitations are discussed.

Not all information encountered is equally important to remember. Some information may be valuable, while others may be irrelevant. Importantly, retrieving and acting upon some information may even have negative consequences. Research has shown that information associated with negative consequences when retrieved is remembered worse than information associated with positive consequences when retrieved. The current experiments address a hitherto understudied aspect of memory for values, namely about how neutral and negative valued information is remembered and which processes underly the encoding and retrieval of this information. Across four experiments, we presented participants with words and an associated positive, neutral, or negative point value. Participants thought the associated values would be added to their total score, thus incentivizing the recall of positive value words and forgetting of negative value words. However, at retrieval participants were told to ignore previously associated values and to try to retrieve as many words from the study phase as possible. Replicating previous research, we found superior retrieval for words associated with positive compared to negative values. More importantly for the current investigation, across four experiments, we found no evidence that words associated with negative values were remembered worse than words associated with a neutral value.

Prior familiarity has been shown to increase memory for faces, but different effects emerge depending on whether the face is experimentally or pre-experimentally familiar to the observer. Across two experiments, we compared the effect of experimental and pre-experimental familiarity on recognition and source memory. Pre-experimentally familiar faces were nameable US celebrities, and unfamiliar faces were unnamable European celebrities. Within both sets, faces could be made experimentally familiar via repetition during the learning phase (studied once or thrice). At test, all studied identities were represented by novel (i.e., not studied) photos, allowing us to test memory for the identity rather than the picture. In Experiment 1, repeated presentations of both face types increased recognition rates, but accuracy was generally higher for pre-experimentally familiar faces. Experiment 2 expanded on these findings by pairing the faces with background locations and manipulating associative strength of the face-location pairs. Although pre-experimentally familiar faces were again recognized more often, they were also more likely to be falsely labeled as "old" when paired with new background locations. These results have implications for basic and applied studies examining familiar versus unfamiliar face recognition.

Posner's beam and Treisman's glue are metaphors of visual attention that stimulated research programs on exogenous and endogenous modes of attentional control and feature integration theory. Briand and Klein (1987) asked, "Is Posner's beam the same as Treisman's glue," positing that the orienting of Posner's spatially confined beam (spotlight of attention) could be the mobilization of the same attentional machinery described by Treisman as performing object feature integration. Based on the patterns of interaction between cue condition and the opportunities for illusory conjunctions, they concluded the answer depended upon the mode of control: An interaction suggested a yes answer for exogenous control while additivity suggested no for endogenous control, a difference in the effects of attention suggesting that there may be two independent beams. Kawahara and Miyatani (2001) challenged the lack of interaction between endogenous cues and task type (feature targets vs. conjunction targets) using a different paradigm that emphasized search and contained more items. After noting the importance of presenting all the displayed items at an attended or unattended location, we report two experiments that replicate Briand with two-item arrays and extend this finding to four-item arrays, strongly supporting the claim that Posner's endogenous beam is not Treisman's glue.