The video suggestibility scale for children: how generalizable is children's performance to other measures of suggestibility?

This study explored the generalizability of the Video Suggestibility Scale for Children (VSSC), which was developed by Scullin and colleagues (Scullin & Ceci, 2001; Scullin & Hembrooke, 1998) as a tool for discriminating among children (aged three to five years) who have different levels of suggestibility. The VSSC consists of two subscales; Yield (a measure of children's willingness to acquiesce to misleading questions) and Shift (a measure of children's tendency to change their responses after feedback from the interviewer). Children's (N = 77) performance on each of the subscales was compared with their performance using several other measures of suggestibility. These measures included children's willingness to assent to a false event as well as the number of false interviewer suggestions and false new details that the children provided when responding to cued-recall questions about an independent true-biased and an independent false (non-experienced) event. An independent samples t-test revealed that those children who assented to the false event generated higher scores on the Yield measure. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that Yield was a significant predictor of the number of false details reported about the false activity, but not the true-biased activity. There was no significant relationship between the Shift subscale and any of the dependent variables. The potential contribution of the VSSC for forensic researchers and practitioners is discussed.     

Why are maximizers less happy than satisficers? Because they maximize positive and negative outcomes

Although extant research suggests maximizing is related to objectively positive outcomes (e.g., job offers), I propose maximizing may be simultaneously and positively related to objectively negative outcomes (e.g., job rejections). Specifically, I argue maximizers bear more instances of positive and negative outcomes than satisficers, and that in spite of their positive outcomes—yet because of their negative outcomes—maximizers are less happy than satisficers. In Study 1, participants took the alternate uses test; as expected, maximizing was related to seeking alternatives, yet, maximizing was also related to seeking low‐quality alternatives. Moreover, the number of low‐quality alternatives partially mediated the relationship between maximizing and negative affect. In Study 2, the impact of maximizing on experiencing negative affect was further assessed by examining whether maximizing is related to seeking and choosing low‐quality alternatives. Participants played the Iowa Gambling Task; it was found maximizing was related to alternating among decks, and in particular, sampling bad decks; ultimately, maximizing was related to winning less money, and experiencing more negative affect. Finally, in Study 3, participants responded to questionnaires about positive and negative life outcomes; it was found that maximizing was simultaneously related to experiencing more positive and more negative outcomes, and that negative outcomes predicted happiness to a greater degree than positive outcomes. These findings suggest an irony of maximizing: It produces both positive and negative outcomes, contributing to literature explaining why maximizers are less happy than satisficers, and ultimately whether happiness is a matter of choice. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Incidental and intentional visual memory: What memories are and are not affected by encoding tasks?

Prior research into the impact of encoding tasks on visual memory (Castelhano & Henderson, 2005) indicated that incidental and intentional encoding tasks led to similar memory performance. The current study investigated whether different encoding tasks impacted visual memories equally for all types of objects in a conjunction search (e.g., targets, colour distractors, object category distractors, or distractors unrelated to the target). In sequences of pictures, participants searched for prespecified targets (e.g., green apple; Experiment 1), memorized all objects (Experiment 2), searched for specified targets while memorizing all objects (Experiment 3), searched for postidentified targets (Experiment 4), or memorized all objects with one object prespecified (Experiment 5). Encoding task significantly improved visual memory for targets and led to worse memory for unrelated distractors, but did not influence visual memory of distractors that were related to the target's colour or object category. The differential influence of encoding task indicates that the relative importance of the object both positively and negatively influences the memory retained.     

Children’s cross-ethnic friendships: Why are they less stable than same-ethnic friendships?

Previous findings suggest that children’s cross-ethnic friendships are less stable than same-ethnic friendships. However, it is not clear why this is. This study examined stability of same- and cross-ethnic friendships among 10-year-old children over the course of five months. Analyses focused on both individual-level data (comparing 82 German and 37 Turkish children) and social network data (comparing 125 German and 172 non-German children). We predicted that children high in empathy and who perceived peer norms about cross-ethnic friendships to be positive would have more stable cross-ethnic friendships. Results showed that cross-ethnic friendships were indeed less stable than same-ethnic friendships. Empathy marginally predicted stability of cross-ethnic friendships while peer norms only predicted German but not Turkish children’s cross-ethnic friendship stability. Further, children high in empathy were less likely to be deselected by their cross-ethnic friends and similarity in empathy between cross-ethnic friends increased the longevity of their friendship.     

Involuntary autobiographical memories in and outside the laboratory: How different are they from voluntary autobiographical memories?

In two studies, we compared the characteristics and retrieval times of involuntary and voluntary autobiographical memory under controlled laboratory conditions. A new laboratory task of involuntary autobiographical memories involved detecting vertical lines in a stream of stimuli with horizontal lines (an undemanding vigilance task) and recording any involuntary memories during the session. The majority of these memories were reported as being triggered by irrelevant cue phrases presented on the screen. Voluntary autobiographical memories were sampled via a standard word-cue method in Session 2. The results showed that involuntary memories were more specific and were retrieved significantly faster than voluntary memories. They were also more likely to be triggered by negative cues, whereas cue valence did not have any effect on the number of voluntary memories. Furthermore, laboratory involuntary memories did not differ from naturalistic involuntary memories recorded in a diary by the same participants (Study 2). Taken together, these results have important implications for current theories of autobiographical memory, and they open up interesting avenues for future research.     

False or recovered memories?: Legal and ethical implications for therapists

The allegation that therapists encourage false memories of abuse in their clients presents a challenge to practitioners in the UK and USA. The development of the debate over false or recovered memories is briefly placed in its social and historical context. Some of the ethical and legal implications of this area of work for therapists are identified, using the concept of the Drama Triangle. Therapists may become involved in ethical dilemmas, and even in legal proceedings, by unwittingly being perceived by third parties as having taken on the roles of 'rescuer', persecutor' or 'victim'. Responses by therapists to this potential development could include adopting defensive forms of practice, promoting self-regulation, and establishing a more active presence in this wider debate.     

Assumptions of infantile amnesia: are there differences between early and later memories?

Most adults are able to provide few, if any, reports of autobiographical memories from the first years of life. Early memories that do exist have been characterised as highly emotional, containing an abundance of perceptual as opposed to propositional information, and more often in the third than the first person perspective. These qualities figure prominently in theories of the source of the phenomenon of infantile amnesia. However, early and later memories have not been directly compared with regard to these features. In the present research, we compared early and later memories in the same individuals, with the same methodology. Results indicated few objective differences between the early and later memories of women (Experiment 1) and men (Experiment 2). The findings are discussed in light of their implications for theories as to the source of infantile amnesia.     

The origin of children's implanted false memories: Memory traces or compliance?

A longstanding question in false memory research is whether children's implanted false memories represent actual memory traces or merely result from compliance. The current study examined this question using a response latency based deception task. Forty-five 8-year-old children received narratives about a true (first day at school) and false event (hot air balloon ride). Across two interviews, 58/32% of the participants developed a partial/full false memory. Interestingly, these children also showed higher false recall on an unrelated DRM paradigm compared to children without a false memory. The crucial finding, however, was that the results of the deception task revealed that children with partial and full false memories were faster to confirm than to deny statements relating to the false event. This indicates that children's implanted false memories reflect actual memory traces, and are unlikely to be explained by mere compliance.     

Does information about what things are influence children's memory for where things are?

Two experiments examined how information about what objects are influences memory for where objects are located. Seven-, 9-, and 11-year-old children and adults learned the locations of 20 objects marked by dots on the floor of a box. The objects belonged to 4 categories. In one condition, objects belonging to the same category were located in the same quadrant of the box. In another condition, objects and locations were randomly paired. After learning, participants attempted to replace the objects without the aid of the dots. Children and adults placed the objects in the same quadrant closer together when they were related than when they were unrelated, indicating that object information led to systematic biases in location memory.     

When are viewpoint costs greater for silhouettes than for shaded images?

Previous studies of object recognition have shown efficient recognition of silhouettes, suggesting that much of the information used to recognize objects resides in the outline. These studies, however, have used objects that contain many components, which provide redundant information. In this study, we examined recognition of silhouettes of less-complex objects, so that redundant information was reduced. We found that viewpoint generalization costs (the decrement of performance when recognizing nonstudied views) were greater for silhouettes than for shaded images, even when the same qualitative components were visible in the outline of both studied and nonstudied views. Thus, silhouettes do not always allow for view generalization as efficiently as do shaded images.     

Why are familiar-only experiences more frequent for voices than for faces?

Hanley,Smith, and Hadfield (1998) showed that when participants were asked to recognize famous people from hearing their voice , there was a relatively large number of trials in which the celebrity's voice was felt to be familiar but biographical information about the person could not be retrieved. When a face was found familiar, however, the celebrity's occupation was significantly more likely to be recalled. This finding is consistent with the view that it is much more difficult to associate biographical information with voices than with faces. Nevertheless, recognition level was much lower for voices than for faces in Hanleyet al.'s study,and participants made significantly more false alarms in the voice condition. In the present study, recognition performance in the face condition was brought down to the same level as recognition in the voice condition by presenting the faces out of focus. Under these circumstances, it proved just as difficult to recall the occupations of faces found familiar as it was to recall the occupations of voices found familiar. In other words, there was an equally large number of familiar-only responses when faces were presented out of focus as in the voice condition. It is argued that these results provide no support for the view that it is relatively difficult to associate biographical information with a person's voice. It is suggested instead that associative connections between processing units at different levels in the voice-processing system are much weaker than is the case with the corresponding units in the face-processing system. This will reduce the recall of occupations from voices even when the voice has been found familiar. A simulation was performed using the latest version of the IAC model of person recognition (Burton, Bruce, & Hancock, 1999) which demonstrated that the model can readily accommodate the pattern of results obtained in this study.     

On the adaptive function of children's and adults’ false memories

Recent research has shown that memory illusions can successfully prime both children's and adults' performance on complex, insight-based problems (compound remote associates tasks or CRATs). The current research aimed to clarify the locus of these priming effects. Like before, Deese–Roediger–McDermott (DRM) lists were selected to prime subsequent CRATs such that the critical lures were also the solution words to a subset of the CRATs participants attempted to solve. Unique to the present research, recognition memory tests were used and participants were either primed during the list study phase, during the memory test phase, or both. Across two experiments, primed problems were solved more frequently and significantly faster than unprimed problems. Moreover, when participants were primed during the list study phase, subsequent solution times and rates were considerably superior to those produced by those participants who were simply primed at test. Together, these are the first results to show that false-memory priming during encoding facilitates problem-solving in both children and adults.     

Sex differences in face processing: Are women less lateralized and faster than men?

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of sex on hemispheric asymmetry and cooperation in a face recognition task. We used a masked priming paradigm in which the prime stimulus was centrally presented; it could be a bisymmetric face or a hemi-face in which facial information was presented in the left or the right visual field and projected to the right or the left hemisphere. The target stimulus was always a bisymmetric face presented centrally. Faces were selected from Minear and Park’s (2004) database. Fifty-two right-handed students (26 men, 26 women) participated in this experiment, in which accuracy (percentage of correct responses) and reaction times (RTs in ms) were measured. Although accuracy data showed that the percentage of correct recognition – when prime and target matched – was equivalent in men and women, men’s RTs were longer than women’s in all conditions. Accuracy and RTs showed that men are more strongly lateralized than women, with right hemispheric dominance. These results suggest that men are as good at face recognition as women, but there are functional differences in the two sexes. The findings are discussed in terms of functional cerebral networks distributed over both hemispheres and of interhemispheric transmission.     

Emotions and false memories: valence or arousal?

The effects of mood on false memories have not been studied systematically until recently. Some results seem to indicate that negative mood may reduce false recall and thus suggest an influence of emotional valence on false memory. The present research tested the effects of both valence and arousal on recall and recognition and indicates that the effect is actually due to arousal. In fact, whether participants' mood is positive, negative, or neutral, false memories are significantly more frequent under conditions of high arousal than under conditions of low arousal.     

Are two heads better than one? Peer support and children's eyewitness reports

This study examined the effects of peer support on children's event reports. In Experiment 1, 48 children aged between 5 and 10 years who had been scheduled for a school dental visit involving an invasive procedure were interviewed about it 2–4 days later. Children were interviewed alone, with an informed peer (who had also recently had a dental appointment), or with an uninformed peer. Anxiety was assessed both prior to the dental appointment and at the time of the recall interview. Peer support did not influence children's anxiety or the amount or the accuracy of information reported in prompted recall. However, younger children interviewed alone were significantly more likely to be misled than those interviewed in the presence of a support child. In Experiment 2, children aged between 5 and 7 years took part in a neutral event contrived for the study. They were interviewed about it 3 days later, either alone or with an informed or uninformed support child present. The support child was encouraged to take an active part in the interview and to help the target child to describe what happened. Peer support did not influence the recall of the target child in either prompted recall or in response to questions. However, together the target and informed support children reported more information than did children interviewed alone or with uninformed support. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

You say tomato? Collaborative remembering leads to more false memories for intimate couples than for strangers

Research on memory conformity shows that collaborative remembering--typically in the form of discussion--can influence people's memories. One question that remains is whether it matters with whom we discuss our memories. To address this question we compared people's memories for an event after they discussed that event with either their romantic partner or a stranger. Pairs of subjects watched slightly different versions of a movie, and then discussed some details from the movie, but not others. Subjects were better at remembering non-discussed details than discussed details: when remembering discussed details they incorrectly reported information from their partner's version instead of their own. In addition, subjects who discussed the event with their romantic partner (rather than with a stranger) were even more likely to report false memories. We discuss our findings in relation to other research on memory conformity, social influences on false memories, and memory systems within romantic relationships.     

Measuring consciousness: Is one measure better than the other?

What is the best way of assessing the extent to which people are aware of a stimulus? Here, using a masked visual identification task, we compared three measures of subjective awareness: The Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS), through which participants are asked to rate the clarity of their visual experience; confidence ratings (CR), through which participants express their confidence in their identification decisions, and Post-decision wagering (PDW), in which participants place a monetary wager on their decisions. We conducted detailed explorations of the relationships between awareness and identification performance, looking to determine (1) which scale best correlates with performance, and (2) whether we can detect performance in the absence of awareness and how the scales differ from each other in terms of revealing such unconscious processing. Based on these findings we discuss whether perceptual awareness should be considered graded or dichotomous. Results showed that PAS showed a much stronger performance-awareness correlation than either CR or PDW, particularly for low stimulus intensities. In general, all scales indicated above-chance performance when participants claimed not to have seen anything. However, such above-chance performance only showed when we also observed a correlation between awareness and performance. Thus (1) PAS seems to be the most exhaustive measure of awareness, and (2) we find support for above-chance performance in the absence of subjective awareness, but such unconscious knowledge only contributes to performance when we observe conscious knowledge as well. Similarities and differences between scales are discussed in the light of consciousness theories and response strategies.     

Are false memories more difficult to forget than accurate memories? The effect of retention interval on recall and recognition

What is the effect of retention interval on accurate and false recollection in the Deese, Roediger, and McDermott (DRM) procedure? Previous research has suggested that false recall is more persistent than accurate recall, but the recognition results have been inconsistent. In two parametric studies, we tested recall and recognition for the same DRM lists, over retention intervals that ranged from no delay to a 2-month delay. We found that accurate and false memory were diminished by increases in retention interval, false memory persistence was present for recall and recognition, greater persistence for false memory than for accurate memory was more readily observed for recall than recognition, and the highthreshold (Pr), signal detection (d’), and nonparametric (A’) recognition measures differed in their sensitivity for detecting change. The effect of retention interval on accurate and false memory is consistent with expectations from fuzzy trace theory. In the DRM procedure, truth is not more memorable than fiction.     

Are we all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers?

In this study subjects were asked about their competence as drivers in relation to a group of drivers. The results showed that a majority of subjects regarded themselves as more skillful and less risky than the average driver in each group respectively. This result was compared with similar recent findings in other fields. Finally, the consequences for planning and risk taking of seeing oneself as more competent than others were discussed briefly.     

Parenting and children's aggression: are there differences in the influence of the father and the mother?

Child rearing provides messages and rules that mediate the children's personality. These messages have a positive or negative influence on their behaviour. The objective of this empirical study was to analyse the relationship between physical and verbal aggression of sons and daughters and parenting style practiced by the father and the mother. The sample consisted of 2,788 students, aged 10 to 15 years, studying either the third cycle of Primary Education (44%) or the first cycle of Secondary Education (56%). Of them, 1,412 were boys (50.6%) and 1,375 were girls (49.3%). The results show that children's aggressiveness is more related to factors associated with the mother's parenting. In the case of daughters, the influence of parenting factors are caused by both parents (father and mother).