Undoing suggestive influence on memory: The reversibility of the eyewitness misinformation effect

Presenting inconsistent postevent information about a witnessed incident typically decreases the accuracy of memory reports concerning that event (the misinformation effect). Surprisingly, the reversibility of the effect (after an initial occurrence) has remained largely unexplored. Based on a memory conversion theoretical framework and associated refined assessment strategy, we report three experiments to demonstrate that suggestive influence can be completely undone. Initially established misinformation effects were eliminated - even after a period of 5weeks (Exp. 3) - through (a) an enlightenment procedure ensuring an adequate representation of the memory task as a search for potentially two contradictory items (instead of "the" single "correct" answer) and (b) using a memory state test that unconfounds the performance contributions of item and source memory by assessing them separately. Specifically, memory for original event details that were the target of misinformation was restored to the level of non-misled control performance, and even beyond (Exp. 3). This remarkable reversibility of misinformation influence highlights the central role of memory conversion processes in the misinformation effect (but does not principally exclude the contribution of traditional interference processes). We discuss the compatibility of our findings with previous research and make suggestions for real-world eyewitness interrogation.     

Disagreement in Scientific Ontologies

The aim of this article is to discuss the nature of disagreement in scientific ontologies in the light of case studies from biology and cognitive science. I argue that disagreements in scientific ontologies are usually not about purely factual issues but involve both verbal and normative aspects. Furthermore, I try to show that this partly non-factual character of disagreement in scientific ontologies does not lead to a radical deflationism but is compatible with a “normative ontological realism.” Finally, I argue that the case studies from the empirical sciences challenge contemporary metaontological accounts that insist on exactly one true way of “carving nature at its joints.”     

Dogs’ use of the solidity principle: revisited

A wealth of comparative data has been accumulated over the past decades on how animals acquire and use information about the physical world. Domestic dogs have typically performed comparably poorly in physical cognition tasks, though in a recent study Kundey et al. (Anim Cogn 13:497–505, 2010) challenged this view and concluded that dogs understand that objects cannot pass through solid barriers. However, the eight subjects in the study of Kundey et al. may have solved the task with the help of perceptual cues, which had not been controlled for. Here, we tested dogs with a similar task that excluded these cues. In addition, unlike the set-up of Kundey et al., our set-up allowed the subjects to observe the effect of the solid barrier. Nevertheless, all 28 subjects failed to solve this task spontaneously and showed no evidence of learning across 50 trials. Our results therefore call into question the earlier suggestion that dogs have, or can acquire, an understanding of the solidity principle.     

Dogs learn to solve the support problem based on perceptual cues

Numerous recent studies have investigated how animals solve means-end tasks and unraveled considerable variation in strategies used by different species. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have typically performed comparably poorly in physical cognition tasks, but a recent study showed that they can solve the on–off condition of the support problem, where they are confronted with two boards, one with a reward placed on it and the other with a reward placed next to it. To explore which strategies dogs use to solve this task, we first tested 37 dogs with the on–off condition tested previously and then tested subjects that passed this condition with three transfer tasks. For the contact condition, the inaccessible reward was touching the second board. For the perceptual containment condition, the inaccessible reward was surrounded on three sides by the second board, but not supported by it, whereas for the gap condition, discontinuous boards were used. Unlike in the previous study, our subjects did not perform above chance level in the initial trials of the on–off condition, but 13 subjects learned to solve it. Their performance in the transfer tasks suggests that dogs can learn to solve the support problem based on perceptual cues, that they can quickly adopt new cues when old ones become unreliable, but also that some apparently inherent preferences are hard to overcome. Our study contributes to accumulating evidence demonstrating that animals typically rely on a variety of perceptual cues to solve physical cognition tasks, without developing an understanding of the underlying causal structure.     

Representational insight in pigeons: comparing subjects with and without real-life experience

Understanding the relation between objects and their pictures at a level beyond mere feature discrimination is by no means a trivial cognitive ability, and support of this is still weak in nonhuman species. Here, we report evidence of representational insight in pigeons. Responding to pictures of human body parts was compared in birds that had extensive pre-experience with live humans and in birds that had never seen any human heads. In a two-alternative forced-choice procedure the pigeons were trained to discriminate between pictures of either handless or headless humans and nonhumans. On test, the birds had to choose (i) between body parts they had already seen in training and the parts that had been missing, (ii) between previously seen parts and arbitrary skin patches, and (iii) between previously missing parts and skin patches. Only the pigeons that lacked experience with real heads and were trained with pictures of headless humans failed to show a significant preference for pictures of missing parts (i.e., heads) over arbitrary skin patches. This demonstrates the importance of individual experience with the real 3D-referents of pictures for classification of the latter and is thereby evidence of representational insight.     

Zur Häufigkeit der Schuldfähigkeitsbegutachtung von Sexualstraftätern im Erkenntnisverfahren

This study investigated how often and depending on which factors sexual offenders are examined by mental health experts regarding their criminal responsibility. Out of a total of 306 legal charges against sex offenders accused of child sexual abuse (CSA: n?=?145), rape or sexual assault (n?=?89), exhibitionism (n?=?39), sexual abuse of adolescents, mentally defective, physically helpless or warded persons (n?=?18) that were admitted by a criminal court in 2001 in the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, 209 (95.6 %) were analyzed regarding the following questions: how often was the accused examined by a mental health professional regarding mental responsibility? Was the chance of being examined systematically related to certain factors (e.g., personality of the accused)? Expert advice regarding the mental responsibility of the accused was obtained by the court in only 34 cases (11.7 %). No systematic relationships of personal variables as well as the modus operandi and the chance of commissioning a mental health expert were found. The main reason for assigning a forensic expert opinion was the vague impression of a psychic disorder. Re-offending increased the rate of a mental health examination only in CSA (34.6 % of re-offenders were examined compared to 9.2 % of first-time offenders), but not in rape or sexual assault. Also age does not predict the commissioning of an expert opinion. Only one fifth of all accused below the age of 21 were investigated by a mental health professional. Results are discussed in terms of legal background, consequences for risk assessment and relapse prevention.     

Dogs’ attention towards humans depends on their relationship, not only on social familiarity

Both in humans and non-human animals, it has been shown that individuals attend more to those they have previously interacted with and/or they are more closely associated with than to unfamiliar individuals. Whether this preference is mediated by mere social familiarity based on exposure or by the specific relationship between the two individuals, however, remains unclear. The domestic dog is an interesting subject in this line of research as it lives in the human environment and regularly interacts with numerous humans, yet it often has a particularly close relationship with its owner. Therefore, we investigated how long dogs (Canis familiaris) would attend to the actions of two familiar humans and one unfamiliar experimenter, while varying whether dogs had a close relationship with only one or both familiar humans. Our data provide evidence that social familiarity by itself cannot account for dogs’ increased attention towards their owners since they only attended more to those familiar humans with whom they also had a close relationship.     

Comparing the influence of directly vs. indirectly encountered post-event misinformation on eyewitness remembering

Some research has found a stronger influence of directly (face-to-face; co-witness; ‘social’) vs. indirectly (through written reports, ‘non-social’) encountered post-event misinformation on eyewitness memory reports, whereas other research finds no (big) difference. We argue and demonstrate that a crucial but so far neglected variable underlying this difference is memory for the misleading information itself. In a study with N = 120 participants who encountered misinformation directly or indirectly, we found misinformation retention (as assessed in a separate test) to be positively associated with a broad range of misinformation effects. Influence type (direct vs. indirect), however, did not moderate the misinformation effect in terms of memory for original details, and misinformation endorsement was even weaker in the direct influence condition. In our view, these findings reflect differential conversion of retained misinformation into test performance. Other than this, influence type had essentially no effects on remembering; nor did an additional post-warning manipulation.     

Die „Technik der Psychoanalyse“ von Otto Rank

In the 1920s, Otto Rank broadened the psychoanalytic treatment space by the prelingual relational and self-experience in the time before, during and after birth. This meant that early prelingual experiences at the level of emotions and sensations is always covertly present in the analytic situation. The special emphasis on the earliest relationship to the mother was perceived in the patriarchal society of the time as inadequate and unjustifiable. But the last decades provided perceptions in different therapeutic settings which seem to confirm the observations of Rank. Just as important are the findings of the empirical research in early brain development and in after effects of early traumatic stress which show the shaping role of early development in a completely new light. There are also new insights into particularities of early human development due to evolution, especially about the psychological consequences of the “physiological premature birth”. From this knowledge a new framework arises for the understanding of early development and for the assessment of the observations and conclusions of Rank. From a contemporary viewpoint this provides valuable contributions to the psychoanalytic research of the last decades into early after birth mother-child relationships. They bear the potential for a deeper understanding of the prelingual level of the psychoanalytic treatment situation.