Videotaped Confessions: The Impact of Camera Point of View on Judgments of Coercion1

Twenty-four college students viewed one of three videotapes of a mock police interrogation that ended in a confession. In one videotape the camera was focused primarily on the “suspect”; in a second the camera was focused primarily on the “detective”; and in the third the camera was focused on the suspect and detective equally. Subjects in the suspect-focus condition subsequently judged that the confession was elicited by means of a small degree of coercion; subjects in the equal-focus condition judged that it was elicited by means of a moderate degree of coercion; and subjects in the detective-focus condition judged that it was elicited by means of a large degree of coercion. It is argued that the effect of camera point of view on judgments of coercion is mediated by causal attributions. Consistent with this interpretation, camera point of view also had a significant effect on subjects' attributions for the suspect's behavior, with subjects in the suspect-focus condition making the most dispositional attributions and subjects in the detective-focus condition making the least dispositional attributions. Alternative explanations are considered and limitations of the present research are discussed. It is concluded that to the extent that interrogations are videotaped with the camera focused on the suspect, judges and/ or jurors may be biased to perceive a confession as voluntary.     

Word‐to‐picture recognition is a function of motor components mappings at the stage of retrieval

Embodied approaches of cognition argue that retrieval involves the re‐enactment of both sensory and motor components of the desired remembering. In this study, we investigated the effect of motor action performed to produce the response in a recognition task when this action is compatible with the affordance of the objects that have to be recognised. In our experiment, participants were first asked to learn a list of words referring to graspable objects, and then told to make recognition judgements on pictures. The pictures represented objects where the graspable part was either pointing to the same or to the opposite side of the “Yes” response key. Results show a robust effect of compatibility between objects affordance and response hand. Moreover, this compatibility improves participants' ability of discrimination, suggesting that motor components are relevant cue for memory judgement at the stage of retrieval in a recognition task. More broadly, our data highlight that memory judgements are a function of motor components mappings at the stage of retrieval.     

Visual routines for extracting magnitude relations

Linking relations described in text with relations in visualizations is often difficult. We used eye tracking to measure the optimal way to extract such relations in graphs, college students, and young children (6- and 8-year-olds). Participants compared relational statements (“Are there more blueberries than oranges?”) with simple graphs, and two systematic patterns emerged: eye movements that followed the verbal order of the question (inspecting the “blueberry” value first) versus those that followed a left-first bias (regardless of the left value’s identity). Question-order patterns led substantially to faster responses and increased in prevalence with age, whereas the left-first pattern led to far slower responses and was the dominant strategy for younger children. We argue that the optimal way to verify a verbally expressed relation’s consistency with visualization is for the eyes to mimic the verbal ordering but that this strategy requires executive control and coordination with language.     

The influence of adaptation and stochastic fluctuations on spontaneous perceptual changes for bistable stimuli

Spontaneous perceptual change was studied by measuring the probabilities of the first two spontaneous pattern switches as a function of time following the onset of a bistable apparent quartet for which either horizontal or vertical motion is perceived. Contrary to the classical satiation hypothesis (Köhler & Wallach, 1944),differential time-dependent adaptation of the perceived compared with the unperceived motion directions was not necessary to account for the first spontaneous switch. In addition, adaptation of the perceived motion accompanied by recovery from adaptation of the unperceived motion was not necessary to account for the increased probability of the second spontaneous switch. It was concluded that regardless of possible adaptation effects, stochastic fluctuations are necessary for the actual reversal of activation levels that produces the spontaneous switch. When the difference in detector activation is reduced by differential adaptation of competing motion detectors (or by the occurrence of a prior spontaneous pattern change), smaller stochastic fluctuations are sufficient to reverse the relative activation of competing detectors. Thus, adaptation can increase the probability of spontaneous switches without directly causing them.     

A Mid-Career Perspective on the Opportunity-Structure/Occupational-Choice Debate

Research into mid-career change lends support to K. Roberts' thesis on the significance of the opportunity structure for initial entry to work and during the early working years. Whether objective or 'socially constructed', it was perceived as a determinant by men who were ensuring that their children should not be constrained as they had been. The study also offers evidence of the subsequent strengthening and implementation of the self-concept and of a consequent change in the significance of the opportunity structure. The conclusions, highlighted in a case-history, tend to support all parties to the opportunity-structure/occupational-choice debate so far. They suggest that in today's turbulent environment there is an urgent need for careers information, guidance and counselling throughout working life.     

Recall and anticipation methods in probabilistic associative learning1

Six S-R₁ S-R2 modified paired-associates were presented for 60 trials. A 2 by 6 factorial design was employed in which method, recall or anticipation, and the S-R₁, S-R₂ probability-ratio were varied. The S-R₁ S-R₂ ratios were: 1.00-0.00, .90-.10, 80-.20, .70-30. .60-.40, and .50-.50. The results indicated that the recall procedure yielded superior performance in early acquisition. In later stages, recall yielded results approaching matching, whereas the anticipation procedure yielded overmatching of Rt anticipations and undermatching of R₂ anticipations. The results were interpreted as showing that as probability-ratio varies from .50-.50 to 1.00-0.00, and hence, as the relative difference of response strengths of S-R₁, and S-R₂ increases, the selection factor in the anticipation procedure yields a heavy weighting of the stronger response, R,, and the acquisition of the weaker association, S-R₂, occurs slowly; for the recall paradigm, however, the data suggest that R₁, is inhibited and S-R₂ is more readily acquired. The results also were interpreted as showing that one difference in the standard paired-associate recall and anticipation paradigms is that in the recall method. strong error tendencies may be inhibited, but in the anticipation method, strong error tendencies are weighted heavily.     

APPROXIMATING CHAOTIC BEHAVIOR

Abstract— Human subjects received feedback showing how closely their responses approximated the chaotic output of the logistic difference function. In Experiment 1, subjects generated analog responses by placing a pointer along a line. In Experiment 2, they generated digital responses in the form of three-digit numbers. In Experiment 3, feedback was sometimes provided and other times withheld. Responses came to approximate three defining characteristics of logistic chaos: Sequences were "noisy," they were extremely sensitive 10 initial conditions, and lag I autocorrelation functions were parabolic in form. Chaos theory may describe some highly variable although precisely determined human behaviors.