How do we judge our confidence? Differential effects of meta-memory feedback on eyewitness accuracy and confidence

According to the cue–belief model, we assess confidence in our memories using self-credibility cues that reflect beliefs about our memory faculties. We tested the influence of meta-memory feedback on self-credibility cues in the context of eyewitness testimony, when feedback was provided prior to “testifying” via a memory questionnaire (Experiment 1) and after an initial memory questionnaire but before participants had to retake it (Experiment 2). Participants received feedback (good score, bad score, or none) on a fictitious scale purported to predict eyewitness memory ability. Those given good score feedback before testifying were more confident (but no more accurate) than those given bad score feedback. Feedback also affected confidence (good increased and bad decreased) and accuracy (good increased) after testifying but only on leading questions. These differential effects of meta-memory feedback on confidence for normal and leading questions are not explained by the cue–belief model. Implications for our confidence judgments are discussed.     

Correction to: Towards a Better Understanding of Cognitive Deficits in Absence Epilepsy: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Due to an error during the editorial phase, a correction regarding Fig. 2 is added to the original article: “Towards a Better Understanding of Cognitive...     

Moderating Loss Aversion: Loss Aversion Has Moderators,But Reports of its Death are Greatly Exaggerated

Loss aversion, the principle that losses impact decision making more than equivalent gains, is a fundamental idea in consumer behavior and decision making, though its existence has recently been called into question. Across five unique samples (N_total = 17,720), we tested several moderators of loss aversion, which supported a preference construction account. Across studies, more domain knowledge and experience were associated with lower loss aversion, though people of all knowledge and experience levels were loss averse. Among car buyers, those who knew more about a particular car attribute (e.g., fuel economy) were less loss averse for that attribute but not other attributes (e.g., comfort), consistent with the idea that people with less attribute knowledge are more likely to construct preferences, thereby increasing loss aversion. Additionally, older consumers were more loss averse across different loss aversion measures and studies. We discuss implications for several accounts of loss aversion, including accounts rooted in status quo bias, emotion, or ownership. In addition to discovering loss aversion moderators, we cast doubt on recent claims that loss aversion is a fallacy or is fully explained by status quo bias, risk aversion, or the educated laboratory samples often used to study loss aversion.     

Correlations for organizational,nonorganizational, and intrinsic religiosity with social support among intercollegiate athletes

The present study was a preliminary examination of the correlations among organizational, nonorganizational, and intrinsic religiosity and social support as measured by the Duke Religion Index and the Nonsupport scale of the Personality Assessment Inventory for 105 intercollegiate athletes (51 women). Scores among these measures were not correlated (-.05 to -.14).     

Repetition blindness has a perceptual locus: evidence from online processing of targets in RSVP streams

Four experiments tested whether repetition blindness (RB; reduced accuracy reporting repetitions of briefly displayed items) is a perceptual or a memory-recall phenomenon. RB was measured in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) streams, with the task altered to reduce memory demands. In Experiment 1 only the number of targets (1 vs. 2) was reported, eliminating the need to remember target identities. Experiment 2 segregated repeated and nonrepeated targets into separate blocks to reduce bias against repeated targets. Experiments 3 and 4 required immediate "online" buttonpress responses to targets as they occurred. All 4 experiments showed very strong RB. Furthermore, the online response data showed clearly that the 2nd of the repeated targets is the one missed. The present results show that in the RSVP paradigm, RB occurs online during initial stimulus encoding and decision making. The authors argue that RB is indeed a perceptual phenomenon.     

The priming of face recognition after metric transformations

Four experiments were performed to test whether the perceptual priming of face recognition would show invariance to changes in size, position, reflectional orientation (mirror reversal), and picture-plane rotation. In all experiments, subjects recognized faces in two blocks of trials; in the second block, some of the faces were identical to those in the first, and others had undergone metric transformations. The results show that subjects were equally fast to recognize faces whether or not the faces had changed in size, position, or reflectional orientation between the first and second presentations of the faces. In contrast, subjects were slower to recognize both faces and objects when they were planar-rotated between the first and second presentations. The results suggest that the same metric invariances are shown by both face recognition and basic-level object recognition.     

Gender role and personality disorders

Many researchers have hypothesized relationships between personality disorders and gender role (i.e., masculinity and femininity). However, research has not addressed if people who are masculine or feminine more often meet the criteria for personality disorders. The present study examined whether college students (N = 665, 60% women) higher in masculinity or femininity more often exhibited features of the 10 DSM-IV personality disorders. Feminine men exhibited more features of all the personality disorders except antisocial. Dependent traits were associated with higher femininity and lower masculinity. Antisocial traits were associated with masculinity. Both men and women who typically behaved consistent with their gender had more narcissistic and histrionic features, whereas participants who typically behaved unlike their gender had more features of the Cluster A personality disorders.     

Influence of probe-trial selection on the location negative priming effect.

Using the location variant of the typical negative priming procedure, participants were cued (100% reliable) before (Experiment 1) or after (Experiment 2) the prime trial as to whether a distractor would or would not accompany the target on the probe trial. The crucial results were that on cued trials, the predictable absence, produced the removal of the negative priming effect (disengagement), and that this disengagement of the priming process, motivated by the predictable absence of a probe-trial distractor, could take place on-line. These findings demonstrated the "selection-state" dependency (probe trial) of the location negative priming process, supporting inhibition-based and episodic retrieval models in their contention that the ultimate function of this process is to enhance the efficiency of future distractor processing, and hence selection. The disengagement results revealed an adaptive feature of a process that can be detrimental or irrelevant to upcoming processing.     

Characteristics of true versus false allegations of sexual offences

The goal of the study was to establish whether false allegations of sexual offences with an unknown perpetrator can be distinguished from accurate allegations. Case files of 27 true allegations of sexual offences with an unknown perpetrator were compared to those of 14 false allegations. The comparison was guided by a list of 43 criteria that are hypothesized to differentiate between true and false allegations of sexual assault. Analyses indicated the employed criteria differentiated true from false allegations to a certain extent. However, the discriminative strength of some criteria appeared to be stronger than that of others. Research is required to assess further the discriminative power of these criteria.