Aging and the speed of time

Correlational and experimental methods provide evidence relevant to seven theories of humans’ general impressions of the speed of time, including theories of the purported subjective acceleration of time with aging. A total of 1865 adults from two countries, ranging in age from 16 to 80, reported how fast time appears to pass over different spans of time. Other measures tapped the experience of life changes and time pressure, and experimental manipulations were used to test two models based on forward telescoping and difficulty of recall. Respondents of all ages reported that time seems to pass quickly. In contrast to widely held beliefs, age differences in reports of the subjective speed of time were very small, except for the question about how fast the last 10 years had passed. Findings support a theory based on the experience of time pressure.     

Do people remember the temporal proximity of unrelated events?

In the present study, we tested the ability to remember the temporal proximity of two unrelated events that had happened within 7 days of one another. In three experiments, 1,909 participants judged whether pairs of news events, ranging in age from 1 month to about 6 years, had occurred within a week of each other and, if not, how far apart they had occurred. Some event pairs were related, and others were unrelated. For unrelated event pairs, same-week and separation judgments were very poor. Accuracy was much greater for both kinds of judgments when the events were related. Participants often guessed the separation of unrelated event pairs, whereas they frequently deduced the separation or remembered the proximity of related event pairs. For both types of pairs, the participants reported using the strength of the memories or the general period in which the events had occurred.     

Phänomenologie als Geschichtsphilosophie in praktischer Absicht: Den philosophischen Intentionen Ludwig Landgrebes zur Erinnerung

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The Self‐enhancement Function of Autobiographical Memory

The self‐enhancement function of autobiographical memory was examined by assessing the psychological distance of adults' most important memories. Participants (N = 445, ages 18–80) reported the seven most important events from their lives on an online survey and rated the memories in terms of valence, emotionality, importance, vividness, reliving, rehearsal, novelty, and psychological distance. Participants also completed the Rosenberg Self‐esteem Scale. Regression analyses showed that participants felt psychologically closer to positive memories than to negative memories, independent of the actual age of the memories. The self‐enhancement function was unrelated to participants' age but was related to their self‐esteem: Higher self‐esteem was associated with feeling closer to positive memories. Finally, a moderated multiple‐mediation model showed that memories' importance and rehearsal mediated the relation between one's self‐esteem and the psychological distance of their positive versus negative memories. Findings are discussed in relation to the functional approach to autobiographical memory. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Brand placement disclosure effects on persuasion: The moderating role of consumer self‐control

The inclusion of branded products in media entertainment has become a popular marketing strategy, because viewers are less likely to recognize the persuasive intent of sponsored content as compared with traditional advertising. To guarantee fair communication and protect consumers against unobtrusive persuasion attempts, European media policy has obligated broadcasters to disclose the presence of brand placement in their television shows. Recent studies demonstrate that disclosures raise viewers' persuasion knowledge; however, the circumstances under which brand placement disclosures may affect brand evaluations and resistance to the persuasive impact of brand placement are still unclear. In two experiments, we uncovered self‐control depletion as an important moderator of disclosure effects on brand evaluations and resistance to brand placement influence. Whereas disclosures increase resistance and decrease persuasion for viewers not depleted of their self‐control, disclosures do not affect resistance and even result in more favorable brand evaluations when viewers' self‐control is depleted by a previous self‐control task. Because a state of self‐control depletion can be perceived as the “couch‐potato” mindset in which people expose themselves to entertaining television content, our findings imply that instead of protecting consumers from hidden persuasion, disclosures may unintentionally increase the persuasive effects of brand placement. We discuss several possible mechanisms that could explain our findings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Information–integration category learning and the human uncertainty response

The human response to uncertainty has been well studied in tasks requiring attention and declarative memory systems. However, uncertainty monitoring and control have not been studied in multi-dimensional, information-integration categorization tasks that rely on non-declarative procedural memory. Three experiments are described that investigated the human uncertainty response in such tasks. Experiment 1 showed that following standard categorization training, uncertainty responding was similar in information-integration tasks and rule-based tasks requiring declarative memory. In Experiment 2, however, uncertainty responding in untrained information-integration tasks impaired the ability of many participants to master those tasks. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that the deficit observed in Experiment 2 was not because of the uncertainty response option per se, but rather because the uncertainty response provided participants a mechanism via which to eliminate stimuli that were inconsistent with a simple declarative response strategy. These results are considered in the light of recent models of category learning and metacognition.     

The Joint Impact of Achievement Goals and Performance Feedback on Information Giving

This research examined how performance feedback moderates the effects of individuals' achievement goals on information exchange when carrying out a novel and complex task. Experiment 1 demonstrated that mastery goal individuals who received positive performance feedback gave less modified information about their task performance to their exchange partner relative to both mastery goal individuals who received negative feedback and performance goal individuals (who received either negative or positive feedback). In Experiment 2, we found that relative to performance goals, mastery goals led to a stronger reciprocity orientation and a weaker exploitation orientation. Also, mastery goal individuals provided information of higher quality than performance goal individuals, thereby explaining the observed findings in Experiment 1.