The case of Pinocchio: teachers’ ability to detect deception

In a study with 365 teacher students, 447 teacher trainees, and 123 teachers, the ability to detect students’ deception was tested. Participants judged the credibility of videotaped students who were accused of academic dishonesty (having cheated in a test). Half of these messages were actually true (students had not cheated on the test) and half of them were deceptive (students had cheated on the test). As expected and in line with findings on the influence of expertise on the ability to detect deception from other fields, we found that the overall accuracy rate of teachers was not higher than that of teacher trainees and teacher students. Moreover, we found no effect of teaching experience (years working as a teacher) on overall detection of deception accuracy. Interestingly, teachers were found to have a stronger truth bias and therefore had a lower accuracy in detecting deceptive messages than teacher students and teacher trainees (veracity effect). While teacher characteristics accounted for very little variance, senders’ opportunity to prepare and their gender had strong effects. Detection accuracy was higher for messages where the student had no chance to prepare before being accused of cheating. Overall, independent, or experience, participants hold inaccurate beliefs about deception.     

Age and gender comparisons of driving while sleepy: Behaviours and risk perceptions

To assist road safety professionals in developing effective strategies to combat the risk associated with driving while fatigued, a survey was administered to 1000 Australian drivers. Participants reported their past behaviours in regards to driving while sleepy and their perceptions of risk associated with driving fatigued as compared to speeding and driving under the influence of alcohol. Although participants appeared to be aware of the substantial risk associated with driving while sleepy, many drivers reported that they frequently drive when sleepy. Age and gender comparisons, revealed that risk taking behaviour in regards to driving while sleepy is occurring across all age groups and in both male and female drivers. Overall young to middle age drivers and male drivers reported the highest frequency of driving while sleepy and reported the lowest perceived personal risk in regards to driving while sleepy.     

Third International Conference on Spatial Cognition: “Dynamics in Spatial Interactions”. Rome - Perugia, Italy: September 12th–15th 2006. www.icsc2006.org - committee@icsc2006.org

Call for Papers

Third International Conference on Spatial Cognition: “Dynamics in Spatial Interactions”. Rome - Perugia, Italy: September 12th–15th 2006. www.icsc2006.org - committee@icsc2006.org     

Effects of manipulating valence and arousal components of mood on specificity of autobiographical memory

An important cognitive deficit in clinical depression is the inability to be specific in recalling personal memories, a phenomenon coined "overgeneral memory" by Williams and Broadbent. Although there is general consensus that overgeneral memory is not state-dependent, most of the evidence originates from studies of this effect in clinical populations. The two components of mood, valence and arousal, were manipulated to examine their influence on memory specificity in a nonclinical sample of university undergraduate students. In Exp. 1, a Velten procedure was used to induce elated, depressed, or neutral mood states. No difference was found in autobiographical memory specificity among the three groups. In Exp. 2, high and low arousal states were induced through physical exercise. A low arousal state resulted in an increased proportion of overgeneral memories, suggesting that this memory phenomenon may be influenced by the arousal component of mood.     

Aging, source memory, and emotion

In 2 experiments we assessed younger and older adults' ability to remember contextual information about an event. Each experiment examined memory for 3 different types of contextual information: (a) perceptual information (e.g., location of an item); (b) conceptual, nonemotional information (e.g., quality of an item); and (c) conceptual, emotional information (e.g., safety of an item). Consistent with a large literature on aging and source memory, younger adults outperformed older adults when the contextual information was perceptual in nature and when it was conceptual, but not emotional. Age differences in source memory were eliminated, however, when participants recalled emotional source information. These findings suggest that emotional information differentially engages older adults, possibly evoking enhanced elaborations and associations. The data are also consistent with a growing literature, suggesting that emotional processing remains stable with age (e.g., Carstensen & Turk-Charles, 1994, 1998; Isaacowitz, Charles, & Carstensen, 2000).     

Relationships among compulsive hoarding, trauma, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

The current study investigated aspects of post-traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among hoarders. Compared to a sample of 36 controls, hoarders (n=26) reported a significantly greater number of different types of trauma, more frequent traumatic experiences, more symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and greater comfort derived from possessions. These findings are consistent with previous reports of extensive comorbidity associated with hoarding behaviors, and may reflect the potential usefulness of assessing PTSD and ADHD symptoms at the outset of hoarding treatments, as well as considering alternative pharmacological interventions.     

Level of alliance, pattern of alliance, and outcome in short-term group therapy

This study investigated the relationships between initial level of alliance, pattern of alliance over sessions, and outcome in a sample of 107 patients who completed short-term group therapy for complicated grief. Both patient-rated alliance and therapist-rated alliance were studied. For patient-rated alliance, both the initial level of alliance and the linear pattern of alliance were directly and significantly related to favorable outcome. For therapist-rated alliance, no significant direct relationships with outcome were found. Instead, significant interaction effects were found. For patients with relatively high initial alliance, the greater the increase in alliance over sessions, the better the outcome. For patients with relatively low initial alliance, the greater the decrease in alliance over sessions, the better the outcome. Explanations for the findings are considered as well as possible clinical implications.