Applied Cognitive Psychology最新文献

Although not designed for distinguishing true and false memories, several reasons argue for differences in the criteria-based content analysis (CBCA). As, to the best of our knowledge, previous research did not ensure a comparison between true and false memories, this study sought to do so. Memory reports of 52 participants were rated employing the CBCA by two independent raters. Analyses were based on event reports rated as a memory (where participants believed that the event had occurred and reported additionally remembered details about it) or reports rated as a belief (where participants believed that the event had occurred without remembering details about it). For both samples, the CBCA total score was significantly higher for true than false reports. Exploratory discriminant analyses revealed accuracy rates of 61.3%–69.6% and additional analyses hint towards the cognitive (vs. motivational) criteria as the main drivers of the obtained differences. Further replications are needed.

Experts are expected to make well-calibrated judgments within their field, yet a voluminous literature demonstrates miscalibration in human judgment. Calibration training aimed at improving subsequent calibration performance offers a potential solution. We tested the effect of commercial calibration training on a group of 70 intelligence analysts by comparing the miscalibration and bias of their judgments before and after a commercial training course meant to improve calibration across interval estimation and binary choice tasks. Training significantly improved calibration and bias overall, but this effect was contingent on the task. For interval estimation, analysts were overconfident before training and became better calibrated after training. For the binary choice task, however, analysts were initially underconfident and bias increased in this same direction post-training. Improvement on the two tasks was also uncorrelated. Taken together, results indicate that the training shifted analyst bias toward less confidence rather than having improved metacognitive monitoring ability.

Artificial intelligence can now synthesise face images which people cannot distinguish from real faces. Here, we investigated the wisdom of the (outer) crowd (averaging individuals' responses to the same trial) and inner crowd (averaging the same individual's responses to the same trial after completing the test twice) as routes to increased performance. In Experiment 1, participants viewed synthetic and real faces, and rated whether they thought each face was synthetic or real using a 1–7 scale. Each participant completed the task twice. Inner crowds showed little benefit over individual responses, and we found no associations between performance and personality factors. However, we found increases in performance with increasing sizes of outer crowd. In Experiment 2, participants judged each face only once, providing a binary ‘synthetic/real’ response, along with a confidence rating and an estimate of the percentage of other participants that they thought agreed with their answer. We compared three methods of aggregation for outer crowd decisions, finding that the majority vote provided the best performance for small crowds. However, the ‘surprisingly popular’ solution outperformed the majority vote and the confidence-weighted approach for larger crowds. Taken together, we demonstrate the use of outer crowds as a robust method of improvement during synthetic face detection, comparable with previous approaches based on training interventions.

In two studies, we develop and evaluate an intervention focused on one significant challenge that undergraduate students have with evidence-based reasoning—reasoning about different evidence types. Our Evidence-Based Reasoning intervention teaches students about three common evidence types—comparative, correlational, and causal—often discussed in the popular press. In Study 1, using a within-subjects design, we find students' performance on an objective evidence-based reasoning (OEBR) measure to be significantly improved post-intervention (Cohen's d = 2.05). In Study 2, we add two open-ended measures to examine the effects of the intervention on students' evaluations of evidence-based conclusions. We again find students to perform significantly better on the OEBR measure (Cohen's d = 0.96), as well as on two open-ended conclusion evaluation tasks (Cohen's d = 0.97 and d = 0.69). Moreover, we find some of these benefits to persist on a delayed post-test, administered three weeks after intervention.

This study examined the trait-variance in autobiographical memory recollection (AMR). Participants (N = 397) provided ratings on eight autobiographical memories elicited using cue words. Multilevel random coefficients modeling revealed that 43% of the variance in memory ratings was due to individual differences, while the remaining 57% was related to other factors. Scores on the Brief Autobiographical Recollection Test (Brief ART; Berntsen et al.), a measure of metacognitive evaluations of autobiographical memory, were significantly correlated with mean memory ratings. However, they only explained 34% of the variance in mean ratings, and 15% of the variance in the ratings of individual memories, suggesting that metacognitive evaluations do not fully coincide with actual memory experiences. These findings suggest that AMR is a complex phenomenon influenced by both stable individual differences and situational factors. Multilevel modeling provides a rigorous approach to gaining a more nuanced understanding of AMR by disentangling various sources of variance.

Border control officers must decide whether passport images match their holders. In previous research on passport verification most participants have been more willing to report nonmatching passports than is likely to occur in practice. We designed an experimental paradigm to increase participants' motivation to avoid these types of errors in passport verification. Participants decided whether passport photographs matched ambient photographs of passport holders. Most passports matched their holders and nonmatching passports were rare. All participants received feedback on their passport verification decisions, and an experimental group also received a time-consuming consequence if they made an error. Relative to the control condition that only received feedback, consequences were effective in reducing mistaken accusations of nonmatching passports. Consequences also increased the miss rate for nonmatching passports, but the increase in misses over the control condition was not significant. We conclude that consequences can make participants behave more like real border control officers.

When forensic interviewers reject children's “Don't know” responses, either by repeating questions or pressuring the children to provide different responses, children may change their subsequent responses. The primary objective of the current study was to examine interviewer reactions following preschool-aged alleged abuse victims' “Don't know” responses in 114 forensic interviews and the children's responses to these rejections. Interviewer reactions were dichotomously coded as either interviewer acceptance (i.e., transitioning to the next logical question or formulating questions focusing on previously mentioned details) or interviewer rejection (i.e., repeating questions or making negative remarks about recall ability). The results showed that the interviewers accepted the children's “Don't know” responses 75.3% of the time and rejected them 24.7% of the time. When interviewers rejected the children's “Don't know” responses, 75.9% of the subsequent responses contradicted the children's initial responses. These results suggest that interviewer rejections following preschool-aged children's “Don't know” responses may be suggestive.

Choice preferences for the compromise option are one common way to make decisions which has received a great deal of research attention to seek a richer understanding of consumers' product choices. Prior research has focused on investigating the various factors underlying the compromise choice. Given that the literature on cognitive style provides considerable evidence of how a holistic-analytic thinking style influences consumers' decision-making processes, this article applies an individual-differences perspective to examine the influence of consumers' situationally activated styles of thinking on their choice of compromise option. We conduct two separate experimental studies in Korea and in France, as representatives of holistic-and analytic-thinking culture, respectively, and identify whether priming consumers to think either holistically or analytically induces the shift in their thinking tendencies and consequently in their choice behavior. The results demonstrate a significant interaction between consumers' culture and the priming condition; French consumers have a greater tendency to select compromise option in holistic-prime condition, while Korean consumers have a lower tendency to select compromise option in analytic-prime condition. Contributing to literature not only on compromise choice, but also on priming effects of thinking style, the findings provide useful managerial insights into implementing effective global strategies for compromise-option product ranges.

Individuals often have difficulties completing tasks in a timely manner. Whether it be scheduling a doctor's appointment, purchasing a birthday gift, or booking an airline ticket, waiting until the very last minute can carry serious consequences. In two experimental studies, we explore how individuals can be encouraged to finish tasks promptly. We provide evidence for the “fresh start effect” by showing that a temporal landmark signaling a new beginning helps speed up their task completion. Notably, we demonstrate that the “fresh start nudge” can facilitate early task completion through the underlying processes of meaningfulness and motivation. We also report the moderating role of task openness, supporting the claim that the fresh start effect is stronger when the task is perceived to be relatively closed (rather than open) and must therefore be completed in fewer steps without interruption.