An experimental study of social performance and delay on the testimonial validity of story recall

Sixty adults from the city of Linz took part in this experiment. They read a story—The War of the Ghosts—in pairs, and were required to reproduce it either jointly, in dyads, or singly, and either immediately following or one week later. In addition they were asked a number of specific questions about the story, and gave various ratings of confidence and completeness. As predicted, social (dyadic) performance increased confidence, completeness and the incidence of implicational errors (errors which do not contradict the original). Delay significantly diminished confidence. Analyses of confidence for right and wrong answers indicated that subjective testimonial validity was substantial in all conditions. Analyses of objective testimonial validity showed that dyads are more trustworthy than individuals when they are correct, but are less trustworthy when they happen to be wrong. They overall conjidence I accuracy correlation across conditions of +0.6 masks the fact that the greatest obstacle to valid testimony is inappropriate confidence in wrong answers, especially in dyads, and especially immediately after the event. The incidence of implicational errors was highly related positively to measures of confidence and accuracy, whereas confusional errors were independent. Implicational errors are regarded as an especially important element in schematic recall, and are an important aspect of the superiority of social performance.     

The Interpersonal Cognitive Distortions Scale: development and psychometric characteristics

In this study, an Interpersonal Cognitive Distortions Scale was developed to assess cognitive distortions in individuals' interpersonal relationships. The sample comprised 425 university students. A factor analysis yielded three factors: Interpersonal Rejection, Unrealistic Relationship Expectation and Interpersonal Misperception. To examine construct validity the correlations between the scores on the Interpersonal Cognitive Distortions Scale and the Automatic Thoughts Scale (.54), the Irrational Belief Scale (.54), and the Conflict Tendency Scale (.53) were estimated. The first factor, the second factor, and the total scale discriminated married individuals who had low and high conflict intensity and conflict frequency. The reliability of the scale was estimated by performing a test-retest correlation (.74). Cronbach internal consistency coefficient alpha was .67.     

Quality of written record following mock eyewitness testimony: Note taking should be a minimum standard!

By using a video‐based narrative (unidirectional) eyewitness statement of an alleged victim, participants were asked to imagine they were police officers. We compared the quality of mock police officer written records in a between‐subjects design comprising three conditions: (a) a free recall (n = 27), (b) a free recall by using recall strategies of the cognitive interview (n = 27), or (c) note taking while watching the video (n = 26). The quality of the reports was determined by the amount of correctly recalled details, omitted details, added details (commission errors), and changed details (confabulations). As predicted, the number of correct details was higher in the “Note Taking” condition whereas performance in the “Free Recall” and in the “Cognitive Interview” conditions did not differ. Higher verbal memory ability resulted in a better quality of the written records. Our results suggest that note taking facilitates the quality of written records.     

道德两难判断中亲属关系的认知研究:来自ERPs的证据

采用事件相关电位技术,考察个体在道德两难情境下对不同亲属的加工特征及其亲属偏见效应。道德两难情境中的主人公为被试的两个亲属(父亲、叔父)和一个熟人,要求被试阅读道德两难情境故事后,对是否愿意救助故事中主人公作出判断。结果发现,直系亲属(父亲)比旁系亲属(叔父)和熟人诱发了更大的P2和LPC平均波幅,而旁系亲属与熟人之间并无显著差异。研究表明了个体对直系亲属更为关注和敏感,表现出明显的亲属偏见效应。     

Hypnotic interviewing: the best way to interview eyewitnesses?

It has been suggested that hypnosis techniques may have the potential to enhance eyewitness memory in forensic investigations. However, laboratory research shows that increases in recall with hypnosis techniques are often associated with decreases in accuracy, false confidence in incorrect information, and increased suggestibility to leading questions and misleading post-event information. These problems limit the usefulness of hypnosis as an interviewing procedure. However, in practical investigations, many factors associated with hypnosis, apart from the hypnotic induction itself, might lead to memory enhancement compared with standard police interviews. For example, hypnotic interviewers, because of their psychological, clinical, and interpersonal skills, may be better interviewers than police officers. They may use effective interviewing strategies such as those associated with the “cognitive interview”; a procedure which has the potential to enhance recall by approximately 35% without the problems of memory distortion associated with hypnosis. It is concluded, therefore, that a cognitive interview procedure should be used in preference to hypnosis. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the assessment of landmark salience for human navigation

In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for assessing the salience of landmarks for navigation. Landmark salience is derived as a result of the observer’s point of view, both physical and cognitive, the surrounding environment, and the objects contained therein. This is in contrast to the currently held view that salience is an inherent property of some spatial feature. Salience, in our approach, is expressed as a three-valued Saliency Vector. The components that determine this vector are Perceptual Salience, which defines the exogenous (or passive) potential of an object or region for acquisition of visual attention, Cognitive Salience, which is an endogenous (or active) mode of orienting attention, triggered by informative cues providing advance information about the target location, and Contextual Salience, which is tightly coupled to modality and task to be performed. This separation between voluntary and involuntary direction of visual attention in dependence of the context allows defining a framework that accounts for the interaction between observer, environment, and landmark. We identify the low-level factors that contribute to each type of salience and suggest a probabilistic approach for their integration. Finally, we discuss the implications, consider restrictions, and explore the scope of the framework.     

Implications of research for the treatment of depressive disorders during childhood

Basic research into the prevalence, natural course, and phenomena of comorbidity of depressive disorders during childhood are reviewed and implications of this research for treating depressed youths are noted. Results of investigations into the biological aspects of depression are integrated into a multifactorial model of depressive disorders during childhood and the efficacy of pharmacological interventions is discussed. Cognitive theory is integrated with attachment theory to explain a possible avenue to the development of depressive disorders during childhood. Interpersonal therapy has emerged as a potentially effective intervention for depressed youths. Basic tenets of this treatment model are compared and contrasted to a cognitive-behavioral treatment model, and a hybrid treatment referred to as “cognitive therapy within the interpersonal context” is proposed.     

Something in the way he moves? Interpersonal judgments of acquaintance rapists

Two studies explored variations in women's appraisals of acquaintance rapists. In Study 1, an acquaintance rapist was evaluated the least harshly when he was physically dominating but sexually dysfunctional. In Study 2, this softening of the rapist's perceived qualities was most evident when he attributed his sexual failure to a need for his victim's sexual consent. Acquaintance rape is therefore an interpersonal crime that can yield varied judgments of its perpetrators. In particular, some women may give more benefit of doubt to sexually violent men by relying on an “adversary transformation” narrative in which the victim has tamed the rapist and harnessed his strength, passion, and other desirable qualities for herself.     

Social influence and children's event recall and suggestibility

The present study sheds light on interactions between cognitive and social factors affecting children's memory performance and suggestibility in event recall tasks. We examined 251 children, aged 8, 9 and 10 years, and applied a well-known paradigm from social psychology, that is, the social influence of misleading questions was experimentally manipulated through the presence and answering behaviour of an adult confederate. Children's answers about the content of a previously watched film to misleading questions, their accurate statements in their subsequent free recall, as well as performance in a recognition test were assessed. The design also included two control conditions, one in which children answered misleading questions without an adult confederate, and a second one in which no misleading interview was administered but only free recall and recognition. The results document large recall and suggestibility differences between the conditions. Participants of the strong social influence condition answered more conformably to misleading questions and showed a larger effect of memory contagion in recognition. Moreover, there were strong age-related increases in the ability to rely on one's own recollection rather than parroting the confederate's answers. Strong social influence also differentially affected the occurrence of false statements in free recall and errors in the recognition test depending on the children's age.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Self‐Administered Interview© for Witnesses with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The widely used evidence‐based police interviewing technique, the Cognitive Interview, is not effective for witnesses with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The present study examined whether a modification of the Cognitive Interview that removes the social element, the Self‐Administered Interview^©, is more useful in facilitating recall by ASD witnesses. One of the main components of the Cognitive Interview is context reinstatement, where the witness follows verbal instructions from the interviewer to mentally recreate the personal and physical context that they experienced during the event. The present findings showed that this procedure is not effective for witnesses with ASD in SAI format in which the social component of its administration is removed. However, the SAI sketch plan component did elicit more correct details from the ASD group, although to a lesser degree than for the comparison group. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Gaze behavior predicts memory bias for angry facial expressions in stable dysphoria

Interpersonal theories suggest that depressed individuals are sensitive to signs of interpersonal rejection, such as angry facial expressions. The present study examined memory bias for happy, sad, angry, and neutral facial expressions in stably dysphoric and stably nondysphoric young adults. Participants' gaze behavior (i.e., fixation duration, number of fixations, and distance between fixations) while viewing these facial expressions was also assessed. Using signal detection analyses, the dysphoric group had better accuracy on a surprise recognition task for angry faces than the nondysphoric group. Further, mediation analyses indicated that greater breadth of attentional focus (i.e., distance between fixations) accounted for enhanced recall of angry faces among the dysphoric group. There were no differences between dysphoria groups in gaze behavior or memory for sad, happy, or neutral facial expressions. Findings from this study identify a specific cognitive mechanism (i.e., breadth of attentional focus) that accounts for biased recall of angry facial expressions in dysphoria. This work also highlights the potential for integrating cognitive and interpersonal theories of depression.     

大学生人际自立特质对人际信任的预测:独立于大五人格的作用

采用大学生人际自立量表、人际信任量表、大五人格简式量表等工具对1345名大学生进行的调查和情境研究显示:控制大五人格后,人际开放仍能预测人际信任倾向,并能通过人际信任倾向的中介作用间接预测人际信任的认知和行为反应;人际责任仍能直接预测人际信任的认知与行为反应。这提示,在对人际信任的预测方面,人际责任和人际开放具有大五人格所不能解释的独特作用,并在一定程度上支持了人格与人际信任反应的人际信任倾向中介模型。     

Sex differences in confidence influence patterns of conformity

Lack of confidence in one's own ability can increase the likelihood of relying on social information. Sex differences in confidence have been extensively investigated in cognitive tasks, but implications for conformity have not been directly tested. Here, we tested the hypothesis that, in a task that shows sex differences in confidence, an indirect effect of sex on social information use will also be evident. Participants (N = 168) were administered a mental rotation (MR) task or a letter transformation (LT) task. After providing an answer, participants reported their confidence before seeing the responses of demonstrators and being allowed to change their initial answer. In the MR, but not the LT, task, women showed lower levels of confidence than men, and confidence mediated an indirect effect of sex on the likelihood of switching answers. These results provide novel, experimental evidence that confidence is a general explanatory mechanism underpinning susceptibility to social influences. Our results have implications for the interpretation of the wider literature on sex differences in conformity.     

Cognitive load,trigger salience,and the facilitation of triggered displaced aggression

Researchers hypothesize that a state of limited cognitive processing capacity increases aggression. In the context of the triggered displaced aggression (TDA) paradigm, a 2 (Salience of triggering event: high/low) × 2 (Cognitive load at trigger: yes/no) × 2 (Cognitive load at aggression: yes/no) between participants experiment tested this hypothesis. Results showed that inducing cognitive load in previously provoked participants while they received a triggering provocation augmented aggression toward the target when the latter was highly salient. Affective reactions to the trigger partially mediated this effect. In contrast to expectation, however, inducing cognitive load while participants aggressed against their target did not affect aggression levels. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

环形模型:整合人格研究的一种取向

环形模型是一种用于描述具有系统有序的相关模式的一组变量的取向,它可作为研究思路、形成待检验的理论假设、分析方法、检验其他结构的法则网络系统,具有强有力的理论基础和明确的数学属性,是人格和社会心理学中一个重要的工具。人际环形模型对于人际特质结构的探讨,对人际相关心理结构的检验,以及对于人际行为的描述和预测,都有其独特的效力,是以五因素人格特质模型为代表的因素模型的一个重要互补且兼容的模型。本文就人际环形模型的理论与实践背景加以介绍,并用人际形容词量表(IAS-R)的实证数据来演示环形模型的分析和检验过程,从而对环形模型的数学属性及其分析检验方式加以阐释。最后论述了该模型对于传统人际评价的理解以及本土人格与社会心理研究的意义。     

The efficacy of mnemonic components of the cognitive interview: towards a shortened variant for time‐critical investigations

The cognitive interview utilizes mnemonic instructions and social facilitative techniques to increase correct recall from eyewitnesses without concomitant increases in errors. Recent studies however have suggested that police may neglect this technique in time‐critical situations. The present study investigated mnemonic components to determine whether a shorter, but still effective, technique was possible. Forty‐five participants viewed a film of a simulated crime and were interviewed with one of three techniques: the cognitive interview; a modified version that replaced the change order and change perspectives techniques with additional free recall attempts; or a structured interview. It was hypothesized that the modified technique would be as effective as the cognitive interview, while both would be superior to the structured interview. Results supported these hypotheses. Further analysis suggested that a shortened version, with the two mnemonics removed, may substantially reduce interviewing time while still offering an effective interview strategy in time‐critical situations. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

It takes one to know one: interpersonal sensitivity is related to accurate assessments of others' interpersonal sensitivity

Interpersonal sensitivity (emotional and social) is the ability to accurately assess others' abilities, states, and traits from nonverbal cues. The authors predicted that individuals' interpersonal sensitivity would be related to accurate judgments of friends' interpersonal sensitivity. Fifty participants were recruited, each bringing a friend to participate in performance-based, self-report, and other-rating measures of emotional and social sensitivity. Interpersonal sensitivity was related to accurate judgments of others' interpersonal sensitivity (the "it-takes-one-to-know-one effect"). Neither gender nor acquaintanceship was directly related to accurate judgments of interpersonal sensitivity, nor did either variable moderate the it-takes-one-to-know-one effect.     

Enhancing the recall of young,young–old and old–old adults with cognitive interviews

Two studies examined whether a Cognitive Interview improves older witnesses' recall. Study 1 compared the quality and quantity of older adults' recall when given a typical UK police interview, the Enhanced Cognitive Interview (ECI), or a modified version of the Cognitive Interview (MCI). The MCI was identical to the ECI except that the change perspective technique was omitted. Old–old (75–95‐years) adults' recall was less complete and less accurate than that of young–old (60–74‐years) adults, which was less complete and accurate than that of young (17–31‐years) adults. The ECI and MCI increased the number of correct Person, Action, Object and Surrounding details reported across every age group, without increasing the number of incorrect or confabulated details recalled. In Study 2, it was found that these effects remained when interviews were re‐scored using a system that reflected police officers' decisions about the investigative relevance of details. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Specifying executive representations and processes in number generation tasks

The Interacting Cognitive Subsystems framework, ICS (Barnard, 1985) proposes that central executive phenomena can be accounted for by two autonomous subsystems, which process different forms of meaning: propositional and schematic (implicational) meanings. The apparent supervisory role of the executive arises from limitations on the exchange of information between these and other cognitive subsystems. This general proposal is elaborated in four experiments in which a total of 1,293 participants are asked to spontaneously generate a large verbal number to varying task constraints, with the intention of specifying the representations of number and task that underlie responses. Responses change systematically according to participants' use of explicit propositional information provided by the instructions, and inferred implicational information about what the experimenter is requesting. There was a high error rate (between 6% and 24%), participants producing responses that did not fall within the large range indicated by the instructions. The studies support the distinction between propositional and implicational processing in executive function, and provide a framework for understanding normal executive representations and processes.     

Seeing her looking at you: acquaintance and variation in the judgment of gaze depth

The acquaintance of subject and looker as well as the depth of gaze affected male subjects' judgments of a female assistant's looking behavior. In a situation ruling out visual interaction, eye-contact gazes were located no more accurately than other gazes. Nevertheless, although gaze depths were not accurately discriminated, gazes deviating vertically and horizontally, to the edge of the head and just beyond the head, were located with some accuracy. The pattern of errors was toward the head and away from the body. Acquaintance produces a stronger bias away from the body, and may produce other interaction-facilitating biases.