Not wallowing in misery – retractions of negative misinformation are effective in depressive rumination

People often continue to rely on misinformation in their reasoning after they have acknowledged a retraction; this phenomenon is known as the continued-influence effect. Retractions can be particularly ineffective when the retracted misinformation is consistent with a pre-existing worldview. We investigated this effect in the context of depressive rumination. Given the prevalence of depressotypic worldviews in depressive rumination, we hypothesised that depressive rumination may affect the processing of retractions of valenced misinformation; specifically, we predicted that the retraction of negative misinformation might be less effective in depressive ruminators. In two experiments, we found evidence against this hypothesis: in depressive ruminators, retractions of negative misinformation were at least as effective as they were in control participants, and more effective than retractions of positive misinformation. Findings are interpreted in terms of an attentional bias that may enhance the salience of negative misinformation and may thus facilitate its updating in depressive rumination.     

How "implicit" are implicit color effects in memory?

Processing colored pictures of objects results in a preference to choose the former color for a specific object in a subsequent color choice test (Wippich & Mecklenbr?uker, 1998). We tested whether this implicit memory effect is independent of performances in episodic color recollection (recognition). In the study phase of Experiment 1, the color of line drawings was either named or its appropriateness was judged. We found only weak implicit memory effects for categorical color information. In Experiment 2, silhouettes were colored by subjects during the study phase. Performances in both the implicit and the explicit test were good. Selections of "old" colors in the implicit test, though, were almost completely confined to items for which the color was also remembered explicitly. In Experiment 3, we applied the opposition technique in order to check whether we could find any implicit effects regarding items for which no explicit color recollection was possible. This was not the case. We therefore draw the conclusion that implicit color preference effects are not independent of explicit recollection, and that they are probably based on the same episodic memory traces that are used in explicit tests.     

Color and context: An ERP study on intrinsic and extrinsic feature binding in episodic memory

Episodic memory for intrinsic item and extrinsic context information is postulated to rely on two distinct types of representation: object and episodic tokens. These provide the basis for familiarity and recollection, respectively. Electrophysiological indices of these processes (ERP old-new effects) were used together with behavioral data to test these assumptions. We manipulated an intrinsic object feature (color; Experiment 1) and a contextual feature (background; Experiments 1 and 2). In an inclusion task (Experiment 1), the study-test manipulation of color affected object recognition performance and modulated ERP old-new effects associated with both familiarity and recollection. In contrast, a contextual manipulation had no effect, although both intrinsic and extrinsic information was available in a direct feature (source memory) test. When made task relevant (exclusion task; Experiment 2), however, context affected the ERP recollection effect, while still leaving the ERP familiarity effect uninfluenced. We conclude that intrinsic features bound in object tokens are involuntarily processed during object recognition, thus influencing familiarity, whereas context features bound in episodic tokens are voluntarily accessed, exclusively influencing recollection. Figures depicting all the electrodes analyzed are available in an online supplement at www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

They Might Be a Liar But They’re My Liar: Source Evaluation and the Prevalence of Misinformation

Even if people acknowledge that misinformation is incorrect after a correction has been presented, their feelings towards the source of the misinformation can remain unchanged. The current study investigated whether participants reduce their support of Republican and Democratic politicians when the prevalence of misinformation disseminated by the politicians appears to be high in comparison to the prevalence of their factual statements. We presented U.S. participants either with (1) equal numbers of false and factual statements from political candidates or (2) disproportionately more false than factual statements. Participants received fact-checks as to whether items were true or false, then rerated both their belief in the statements as well as their feelings towards the candidate. Results indicated that when corrected misinformation was presented alongside equal presentations of affirmed factual statements, participants reduced their belief in the misinformation but did not reduce their feelings towards the politician. However, if there was considerably more misinformation retracted than factual statements affirmed, feelings towards both Republican and Democratic figures were reduced—although the observed effect size was extremely small.