Applied Cognitive Psychology最新文献

This commentary discusses the recently published article by Andrews and Brewin (2024) that reanalyzed data collected by Murphy et al. (2023) to replicate the well-known “lost in the mall” study first published by Loftus and Pickrell (1995). We begin by outlining initial and more recent findings that brought the “lost in the mall” paradigm to the forefront of false memory research before considering the thought-provoking results of the reanalysis by Andrews and Brewin (2024). We then highlight some of the implications of the reanalysis for child sexual abuse investigations, and more broadly, for the reliability and validity of psychological research that relies on researchers' coding and interpretation of information provided by participants about the content of their memories. We ask whether the definition and measurement of false memories within laboratory experiments can be meaningfully applied to real-life debates concerning justice for alleged victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse.

In the 1970s Elizabeth Loftus and her team conducted a series of highly influential experiments demonstrating that misleading information received after a personal experience can lead people to make mistakes when they later try to describe what happened (Loftus and Palmer 1974; Loftus 1975). After establishing the impact of misinformation on memory for personal experiences, an innovative research paradigm was designed to demonstrate that memories of entire events that never occurred could be implanted in people's minds with relative ease. Loftus and Pickrell (1995) misled 24 adult participants to believe that their family members provided descriptions of four true past events, but unbeknownst to the participants, one of the supposed true events, being “lost in the mall”, was made up by the researchers. After participants were told that they had been lost in the mall many years earlier they were then asked to recall what they could remember in writing and verbally and rate the clarity of their memories. The results showed that a quarter of the participants were successfully induced to claim that they remembered the false event, although their average clarity ratings for the false memory were substantially lower than scores assigned to true events. (1) The “lost in the mall” study resulted in a “veritable explosion of cognitive research on the topic of false memory” (Pezdek and Lam 2007), (2), and led to the establishment of a new view of human memory as being particularly fragile and easily manipulated.

However, while most memory researchers accept that false memory implantation is possible, the proportion of people who can be induced to develop false memories has been the subject of fierce debate (Wade et al. 2002). Scrutiny of false memory implantation experiments identified two main challenges concerning the definition of f

People can easily form false memories for events described in “fake news” stories. This is more likely if the content of the stories is consistent with the individual's political or social identity. Here, we test a novel intervention to reduce this effect by demonstrating participants' own bias to them. Participants (n = 1026) were asked to indicate their political affiliation (Democrat or Republican) and then randomly assigned to the intervention or to a control condition. They were then exposed to true and false news items on the topic of U.S. politics. Participants in the intervention condition reported fewer false memories overall, and fewer ideologically congruent memories in particular. The effect was somewhat stronger among those who experienced their own bias during the intervention but was effective even among those who did not. We conclude that this simple and easily scalable intervention can markedly reduce cognitive biases in response to misinformation.

Accuracy in eyewitness testimony is shaped by factors affecting attention to event details. While research has explored attention's role in memory accuracy, less is known about its effect on the recollection accuracy for emotional events. This study investigates how emotional arousal and scene presentation duration influence susceptibility to misinformation. Participants viewed high-arousing negative, low-arousing negative, and neutral scenes, with either short or long presentation times. Participants then answered questions about the event, which included misleading information, and completed a forced-choice recognition test. Results showed a misinformation effect under both long and short presentation durations for the negative emotional images, but the effect disappeared for the neutral scene presented for a short duration. These findings suggest that negative emotional content is more susceptible to misinformation under limited viewing conditions, potentially highlighting the need for caution when relying on eyewitness accounts of briefly experienced emotional events.

The predictive validity of reaction time as an actual (objective) and a perceived cue to deception was tested in two experiments differing in question presentation methodology. Participants were video recorded while giving truthful and dishonest verbal responses to autobiographical questions under high and low cognitive load, and coders later viewed the recordings to detect their responses. We hypothesized that lie reaction times (RTs) would be significantly longer than truthful RTs and that longer RTs would be associated with differential lie and truth detection accuracy. We did not make any predictions regarding cognitive load, considering the current literature has produced mixed results. Our hypotheses were supported by the data. Results of our load manipulation differed between Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, leaving us questioning its validity. We provide many suggestions for future research regarding experimental methodologies measuring deception and cognitive load.

Do undergraduate students know and use distributed practice, the strategy of spacing apart learning opportunities over time, and interleaved practice, the strategy of alternating between topics during learning? What beliefs do students hold about how learning should be scheduled, and how are common learning activities—such as using flashcards and completing problem sets—actually scheduled? To explore these questions, we surveyed students at two major universities in North America and Southeast Asia, respectively. We found that distributed practice is unfamiliar to many students, whereas interleaved practice is virtually unknown. Both strategies are often underutilized and perceived with mixed effectiveness. Instructors, meanwhile, reportedly use various scheduling approaches in lectures and assignments. Additionally, distributed practice was associated with better academic performance. These findings, which showed relative consistency across culturally diverse samples, underscore significant gaps in student awareness and adoption of distributed and interleaved practice, highlighting the need to improve their integration into educational settings.

Past research has suggested that minimization (i.e., downplaying the moral or psychological seriousness of the crime) pragmatically implies that a suspect will receive a more lenient sentence in exchange for information, and this cannot be mitigated by a leniency warning. Across four studies (Ns = 187, 124, 236, and 241), participants read a case overview involving a break and enter, a suspect-interview transcript, and then answered questions regarding various perceptions of the interview and potential subsequent judicial process. We manipulated (1) the perspective taken by participants in the follow-up questions (Self v. Other) and (2) the language and placement of the leniency warning. We then conducted a mini meta-analysis that incorporated findings from all four studies. Results indicated that minimization only implies leniency when an imagine-other perspective is used; however, this effect can be successfully negated if a leniency warning is provided directly to the suspect.

This study aimed to determine which type of information source—providing either mathematical or relative data—children aged 5–11 would prefer. Additionally, the study examined how children justified their choices and whether differences existed in their justifications. A total of 837 children participated in the study. The children watched videos of two information sources: one who made decisions based on mathematical data and another who relied on personal opinions. They then answered three questions about which source they would consult regarding an unfamiliar topic. They also explained why they preferred the source they chose more frequently. Regression analysis revealed that as age increased, the likelihood of choosing the mathematical (precise) informant as the information source significantly increased. Furthermore, with age, children were more likely to justify their selections based on objective, measurement-based reasoning.