The effects of conformity on recognition judgements

Schneider and Watkins (1996) demonstrated that participants' recognition performance can be affected by responses generated by a confederate. However, it remains uncertain whether the confederate's responses actually change the participants' memories or whether participants simply attempt to conform to the confederate. The present experiments examined this issue by having participants complete a final individual recognition test following a recognition test in which the participants worked with a virtual confederate. The results suggest that responses from virtual confederates affect participants' performance in ways similar to actual confederates and that conforming to a virtual confederate's responses does appear to result in actual deficits in memory. More specifically, it impairs participants' ability to correctly recognise material presented earlier.     

Changing the criterion for memory conformity in free recall and recognition

People's responses during memory studies are affected by what other people say. This memory conformity effect has been shown in both free recall and recognition. Here we examine whether accurate, inaccurate, and suggested answers are affected similarly when the response criterion is varied. In the first study, participants saw four pictures of detailed scenes and then discussed the content of these scenes with another participant who saw the same scenes, but with a couple of details changed. Participants were either told to recall everything they could and not to worry about making mistakes (lenient), or only to recall items if they were sure that they were accurate (strict). The strict instructions reduced the amount of inaccurate information reported that the other person suggested, but also reduced the number of accurate details recalled. In the second study, participants were shown a large set of faces and then their memory recognition was tested with a confederate on these and fillers. Here also, the criterion manipulation shifted both accurate and inaccurate responses, and those suggested by the confederate. The results are largely consistent with a shift in response criterion affecting accurate, inaccurate, and suggested information. In addition we varied the level of secrecy in the participants' responses. The effects of secrecy were complex and depended on the level of response criterion. Implications for interviewing eyewitnesses and line-ups are discussed.     

Changing the criterion for memory conformity in free recall and recognition

People's responses during memory studies are affected by what other people say. This memory conformity effect has been shown in both free recall and recognition. Here we examine whether accurate, inaccurate, and suggested answers are affected similarly when the response criterion is varied. In the first study, participants saw four pictures of detailed scenes and then discussed the content of these scenes with another participant who saw the same scenes, but with a couple of details changed. Participants were either told to recall everything they could and not to worry about making mistakes (lenient), or only to recall items if they were sure that they were accurate (strict). The strict instructions reduced the amount of inaccurate information reported that the other person suggested, but also reduced the number of accurate details recalled. In the second study, participants were shown a large set of faces and then their memory recognition was tested with a confederate on these and fillers. Here also, the criterion manipulation shifted both accurate and inaccurate responses, and those suggested by the confederate. The results are largely consistent with a shift in response criterion affecting accurate, inaccurate, and suggested information. In addition we varied the level of secrecy in the participants’ responses. The effects of secrecy were complex and depended on the level of response criterion. Implications for interviewing eyewitnesses and line-ups are discussed.     

The effects of conformity on recognition judgements for emotional stimuli

Exposure to another’s account of a shared event can influence the content of an individual’s memory report. We examine whether the emotionality of the to-be-remembered information influences the likelihood that socially encountered post-event information is accepted into memory. Participants were exposed to positive, negative or neutral emotional pictures. Subsequently, they had to discriminate these pictures from new pictures in a ‘yes/no’ recognition decision either before or subsequent to a confederate providing misinformation, accurate or no information. Post-event information influenced participants’ responding in the recognition test. Effects were larger for participants viewing neutral items and persisted for these items on a subsequent private source monitoring test. These findings indicate that people rely more on information from others when encountering non-emotional compared to emotional items. We suggest that increased memory strength in conjunction with access to strong retrieval cues in the recognition test serves to shield emotional items from vulnerability to effects of memory conformity.     

Response reversals in recognition memory

Using a dynamic sequential sampling model and a recently proposed model for confidence judgments in recognition memory (T. Van Zandt, 2000b), the authors examine the tendency for rememberers to reverse their responses after a primary decision. In 4 experiments, speeded "old"-"new" decisions were made under bias followed by a 2nd response', either a confidence judgment or another simple choice. The data from these experiments showed that participants know when they have made a mistake and that they respond to this knowledge by reversing their responses. Response reversals are thus shown to be important for constructing models of the response-selection process in recognition memory.     

Response set effects in recognition memory

In three experiments, Ss responded to individual digits or letters according to whether or not each was in some prememorized list. There were either two possible responses (yes-no condition) or a single response (yes-only and no-only conditions). With memory sets of one, two, or four digits, RT was a linear function of memory set size. The slope of the function was least under the yes-only condition and greatest under the yes-no condition. Nonspecific practice had little effect on any of the slopes. With memory sets of 4, 8, or 12 letters, the slopes under the yes-only and yes-no conditions did not seem to differ, and practice with specific sets flattened the function considerably in both cases. Overall, the errors under the yes-no condition were mostly false alarms, those under the no-only condition mostly misses, and those under the yes-no condition were divided about equally. The results are interpreted partially in terms of a multiple-observations model of decision time.     

A short-term testing effect in cross-language recognition

Taking a memory test after an initial study phase produces better long-term retention than restudying the items, a phenomenon known as the testing effect. We propose that this effect emerges because testing strengthens semantic features of items' memory traces, whereas restudying strengthens surface features of items' memory traces. This novel account predicts that a testing effect should be observed even after a short retention interval when a language switch occurs between the learning phase and the final test phase. We assessed this prediction with Dutch-English bilinguals who learned Dutch Deese-Roediger-McDermott word lists through restudying or through testing (retrieval practice). Five minutes after this learning phase, they took a recognition test in Dutch (within-language condition) or in English (across-language condition). We observed a testing effect in the across-language condition, but not in the within-language condition. These findings corroborate our novel account of the testing effect.     

Dynamics of thematic activation in recognition testing

Two experiments investigated the effects of spreading semantic activation during a recognition test. In Experiment 1, activation spreading during testing from words that were thematic associates of unstudied critical words yielded a linear increase in false alarms to such critical words as the number of tested associates increased, regardless of whether the theme appeared during study or whether any thematic processing occurred during study at all. In Experiment 2, the number of tested associates was held constant, and false alarms to critical words from unstudied themes increased linearly with the strength of association between the critical word and its tested associates, consistent with predictions of spreading-activation theory. For studied themes, however, testing weaker or stronger associates yielded similar rates of such false alarms, contrary to spreading-activation theory. These results suggest that test-induced thematic priming is driven by spreading activation for unstudied themes but by thematic reactivation for studied themes.     

Sequential testing effects and the relationship between recognition and recognition failure

Tulving and Wiseman (1975) reported that there was a systematic relationship between the proportion of words recognized and the proportion of recallable words recognized. This relationship indicates a moderate positive covariation between recognition and recall across subject items, when each subject is given both types of test, recognition followed by recall. In this paper it is shown that the theoretical enterprise of trying to account for this relationship is fruitless unless the data are corrected for sequential testing effects. Evidence on the existence of these effects is reviewed, and then it is shown how they introduce a measure of dependency between recognition and recall. When the data are corrected, the theories proposed by Begg (1979) and Flexser and Tulving (1978) are shown to be poorly supported. The utility of the general enterprise of determining the relationship between recognition and recall by these means is also questioned.     

信息性从众行为和规范性从众行为比较研究

目的:从众可分成两种,即信息性从众行为和规范性从众,探讨它们两者之间的区别。方法:通过瑞文智力测验为材料创造了这两种从众情境,观察大学生被试在两种实验条件下的行为差异。结果:信息性从众和社会规范性从众两者之间存在显著差异(Z=-3.183,P=0.001)。结论:大学生被试的信息性从众行为多于社会规范性从众行为,两者存在统计学上的显著性差异。     

Response deadline and subjective awareness in recognition memory

Level of processing and generation effects were replicated in separate experiments in which recognition memory was tested using either short (500 ms) or long (1500 ms) response deadlines. These effects were similar at each deadline. Moreover, at each deadline these effects were associated with subsequent reports of remembering, not of knowing. And reports of both knowing and remembering increased following the longer deadline. These results imply that knowing does not index an automatic familiarity process, as conceived in some dual-process models of recognition, and that both remembering and knowing increase with the slower, more controlled processing permitted by the longer response time.     

"HIV testing is so gay": the role of masculine gender role conformity in HIV testing among men who have sex with men

Men who have sex with men (MSM) account for more than half of all new cases of HIV infection in the United States. Yet, many MSM are unaware of their HIV serostatus. Consistent with research indicating that gender role conformity impacts health behaviors, this study examined how masculine norms may influence HIV testing among MSM in the United States. Data from 170 self-identified MSM (age M = 46.45, SD = 12.18) of self-reported negative or unknown HIV serostatus living in the United States were used in this study. About half (52%) of participants reported that they had been tested for HIV within the past 12 months; 48% reported that they had not. Logistic regression was used to examine the association between domains of masculine gender role conformity and HIV testing within the past 12 months, controlling for number of sexual partners in the last 12 months. The masculine norm of heterosexual self-presentation (i.e., desire to be perceived by others as heterosexual) was negatively associated with HIV testing (B = -0.74, SE B = 0.36, O.R. = 0.48, 95% CI [0.24, 0.96]), after controlling for the effect of number of sexual partners. Psychologists and other health professionals may remain mindful of potential implications of HIV testing among MSM, including potential for MSM to view HIV testing as an "outing" procedure.     

Correlates of conformity in three cultures

The present study sought to investigate the correlates of conformity among two South African and an Australian sample. Employing paper and pencil measures, the following were found to be significant correlates of conformity across the three various groups: Conformers generally have a low level of education, are characterised by their authoritarian attitudes, but do not have authoritarian personalities as measured by the Ray (1976) Directiveness scale. Conformers can be of either sex. By contrast, self-esteem and patriotism were found to be unique correlates, that is, they reflect the cultural milieu of the individual.