Journal of Experimental Psychology: General最新文献

We developed a Metacognitive Offloading Optimization Task (MOOT) whereby participants were instructed to score as many points as possible by accessing words from a presented list either by remembering them (worth 10 points each) or by offloading them (worth less than 10 points each). Results indicated that participants were sensitive to the value of the offloaded items such that when offloaded items carried a high value (e.g., 8 points each), participants' scores were lower than if they had chosen to offload all items. Conversely, when offloaded items had a low value (e.g., 2 points each), participants' scores exceeded what they would have achieved had they offloaded all items. In Experiments 2 and 3, we investigated offloading optimality. Specifically, because each individual's maximum possible score depended on how much they could remember, each participant's memory ability was assessed in a pretest. The maximum score obtainable resulted from a strategy in which the participant opts to recall every item that they will be able to remember (obtaining 10 points for each) and offloads all other items (obtaining a value greater than 0 points for each), leaving no items unrecalled and not offloaded. To implement this strategy, the participant needs to have and use metaknowledge of exactly which items they will be able to recall. In each experiment, the MOOT scores-the ratio of participants' observed score to their maximum possible score-were closer to optimal for participants with better memory ability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

While prediction errors (PEs) have long been recognized as critical in associative learning, emerging evidence indicates their significant role in episodic memory formation. This series of four experiments sought to elucidate the cognitive mechanisms underlying the enhancing effects of PEs related to aversive events on memory for surrounding neutral events. Specifically, we aimed to determine whether these PE effects are specific to predictive stimuli preceding the PE or if PEs create a transient window of enhanced, unselective memory formation. In a combined incidental encoding-fear learning task, participants (n = 355) estimated aversive shock probabilities after trial-unique stimuli. Physiological arousal and explicit PEs were measured during encoding to predict recognition memory tested either immediately after encoding (Experiment 3) or 24 hr later (Experiments 1-4). Our results show that the retroactive memory enhancement induced by PEs may extend back longer than previously assumed, impacting stimuli presented 10 s before the PE. Furthermore, PE-driven memory enhancement extends beyond predictive stimuli preceding the PE event to those encountered afterward. Importantly, our findings reveal that PE-related memory enhancement for stimuli preceding the PE event is specific to predictive stimuli, with uninformative stimuli not benefiting from PEs and even interfering with the PE-driven memory enhancement. This pattern demonstrates that PE effects are not unspecific but that PEs enhance memory for predictive stimuli encountered around a PE event. Notably, memory-enhancing effects of PEs persisted even when controlling for changes in arousal. These findings provide insights into the cognitive mechanisms of PE-induced enhancements of memory, with potential implications for understanding aberrant emotional memory in fear-related disorders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Deciphering whether and which mental processes are accessible for metacognitive judgments is a key question to understand higher cognitive functions. Paralleling the crucial role of reaction times (RT) for unraveling the temporal sequence of mental processes, a comparable chronometric approach can be employed at the second-order level through introspective reaction times (iRT) measures. Although mean iRT correlate with mean RT, suggesting good metacognitive abilities, this would not necessarily imply a direct readout of the duration of the underlying processes as participants may instead rely on inferences based on other salient, nontemporal, cues. In the present study, two experiments investigated information at the basis of iRT. In visual choice reaction time tasks, participants were asked to report their RT on a visual analog scale after each trial. Thanks to linear regression analyses, we could evidence that trial-by-trial RT and iRT were strongly correlated, indicating a good readout of RT duration, but also that subjective evaluation was systematically biased by some experimental conditions. In addition, with electromyographic recordings, each single trial RT could be fractionated into premotor and motor times, allowing to investigate the relative contribution of each subprocess to iRT. This revealed that participants access both decision and motor execution durations. Results show that participants can access the duration of their mental processes but that this readout can be biased by nontemporal cues. The proposed methodology allows to dissociate the two. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Much research has noted people's tendency toward extremity. This work has made it clear that some people prefer to hold extreme views and might leave the impression that when biases and preferences occur, they primarily favor extremity. In contrast, in the present work, we examine the possibility that some people prefer attitudinal neutrality across two pretesting samples, three main studies, and two supplementary studies (N_total = 1,873). The preference for neutrality is distinguished from low preference for extremity, as well as from an interest in collecting balanced information. We also show that the preference for neutrality is related to a sometimes uncritical and biased pursuit of attitudinal neutrality, paralleling effects found in the attitude extremity literature. The preference for neutrality is related to dispositional attitudinal neutrality and ambivalence, political centrism, a preference for other people with neutral versus extreme views, and biased responding to messages arbitrarily framed as "moderate" versus extreme. Implications for politically polarized attitudes, persuasion, and intellectual humility are discussed. The preference for neutrality may pose a substantial challenge for creating a shared understanding of the world and addressing pressing social issues. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Many organizations struggle to attract a demographically diverse workforce. How does adding a measurable goal to a public diversity commitment-for example, "We care about diversity" versus "We care about diversity and plan to hire at least one woman or racial minority for every White man we hire"-impact application rates from women and racial minorities? Extant psychological theory offers competing predictions about how historically marginalized applicants might respond to such goals. On one hand, measurable diversity goals may raise belongingness concerns among marginalized group members who are uncomfortable with being recruited and hired based on their demographics. On the other, measurable goals might increase organizational attraction by signaling that marginalized group members are more likely to be hired. In a preregistered field experiment (n = 5,557), including measurable diversity goals in job advertisements increased application likelihood among marginalized group members-women and racial minorities-by 6.5%, without sacrifices to candidate quality. These field effects were primarily driven by White women, who were 10.5% more likely to apply after seeing a measurable diversity goal. Follow-up studies with women (total n = 893, preregistered) and racial minorities (total n = 865, preregistered) suggest that although measurable diversity goals signal a more instrumental approach to diversity, they also increase perceived strategic benefits and beliefs that the organization's commitment is genuine among both groups, which in turn are tied to increased willingness to apply. We discuss the tensions marginalized group members face when evaluating organizational diversity initiatives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

How do people predict the outcome of an event from a set of possible outcomes? One might expect people to predict whichever outcome they believe to be most likely to arise. However, we document a robust disconnect between what people predict and what they believe to be most likely. This disconnect arises because people consider not only relative likelihood but also absolute likelihood when predicting. If people think that an outcome is both the most likely to arise and has a high absolute likelihood of arising, they regularly predict it to arise. However, if people believe that an outcome is the most likely to arise but has a low absolute likelihood (e.g., it has a 20% chance, and other outcomes have smaller chances), they less often choose it as their prediction, even though they know it is most likely. We find that, when the most likely outcome has a low absolute likelihood, the final outcome feels hard to foresee, which leads people to use arbitrary prediction strategies, such as following a gut feeling or choosing randomly, instead of predicting more logically. We further find that predictions are less likely to depart from the most likely outcome when manipulations encourage people to focus more on relative likelihood and less on the low absolute likelihood. People also exhibit a smaller disconnect when advising others than when predicting for themselves. Thus, contrary to common assumptions, predictions may often systematically depart from likelihood judgments. We discuss implications for research on judgments, predictions, and uncertainty. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).