Discrepancy detection and vulnerability to misleading postevent information

When people are exposed to misleading details after a witnessed event, they often claim that they saw the misleading details as part of the event. We refer to this as themisinformation effect. In four experiments, involving 570 subjects, we explored the role that discrepancy detection plays in the misinformation effect. Experiment 1 showed that subjects who naturally read a post-event narrative more slowly were more resistant to the effects of misleading information contained in the narrative. In Experiment 2, subjects who naturally read more slowly were more likely to detect a discrepancy between what they were reading and what was stored in their memory. In Experiment 3, subjects who were instructed to read slowly were more likely to detect a discrepancy than were those who were instructed to read quickly. In Experiment 4, subjects who were instructed to read slowly were more resistant to misleading postevent information. Taken together, these results suggest that longer reading times are associated with a greater scrutiny of postevent information. This leads to an increased likelihood that discrepancies will be detected and that the misinformation will be resisted.     

Part-whole relationships in the processing of small visual patterns

Subjects seem to react to a word faster than they react to a letter within a word. One interpretation is that words are processed holistically; another is that all visual stimuli are processed in terms of components, but that more stimulus information is available for use when the targets are words than when they are letters within words. The results of three experiments indicate that the word or pattern-level advantage occurs even when the stimulus information in the two situations is equated, but if the perceptual arrays cannot be unitized (e.g., consonant sequences), a pattern-level advantage does not occur. In addition, the experiments provide substantial evidence to indicate that if letter arrays cannot be unitized, then they are processed on a componentby-component basis, rather than holistically. Finally, the appropriate definition ofholistic processing is considered.