Multiple confidence estimates as indices of eyewitness memory

Eyewitness identification decisions are vulnerable to various influences on witnesses' decision criteria that contribute to false identifications of innocent suspects and failures to choose perpetrators. An alternative procedure using confidence estimates to assess the degree of match between novel and previously viewed faces was investigated. Classification algorithms were applied to participants' confidence data to determine when a confidence value or pattern of confidence values indicated a positive response. Experiment 1 compared confidence group classification accuracy with a binary decision control group's accuracy on a standard old-new face recognition task and found superior accuracy for the confidence group for target-absent trials but not for target-present trials. Experiment 2 used a face mini-lineup task and found reduced target-present accuracy offset by large gains in target-absent accuracy. Using a standard lineup paradigm, Experiments 3 and 4 also found improved classification accuracy for target-absent lineups and, with a more sophisticated algorithm, for target-present lineups. This demonstrates the accessibility of evidence for recognition memory decisions and points to a more sensitive index of memory quality than is afforded by binary decisions.     

Investigating the relationship between product involvement and consumer decision‐making styles

• Recently, a number of studies have investigated consumer decision‐making styles (CDMS) and their importance to consumer behaviour research. However, research designs suggested to date are mainly replications of a study by Sproles and Kendall ( 1986 ) proposing eight mental characteristics, the so‐called Consumer Styles Inventory (CSI). The CSI has been applied across cultures, but without critically examining its validity and reliability. A major concern is the postulated product independence of CSI. The aim of this study is to further develop this approach, to apply it to different product categories and to investigate the relationship between product involvement and CDMS. In doing so, we conducted a survey in Great Britain and Germany, and analysed the data using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Not only did we demonstrate that there is a relationship between products and CDMS, but also that CDMS are governed by consumers' perceived product involvement. Important implications for marketing practice can be derived.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Disentangling the effects of depression symptoms and adult attachment on emotional disclosure

Individuals with high levels of depression symptoms and individuals with insecure attachment orientations have been shown to limit their use of emotional disclosure as a means of emotion regulation. However, little is known about how depression symptoms and insecure attachment orientations might jointly predict whether individuals engage in emotional disclosure. The authors addressed this question using both inter- and intraindividual approaches. College students (N = 121) completed measures of depression symptoms, adult attachment orientation, and generalized disclosure tendencies. To obtain an intraindividual measure of emotional disclosure, participants also completed an online daily diary in which they rated the intensity of the day's most unpleasant event and their disclosure of that event for 7 days. Results indicated that depression symptoms were negatively related to generalized disclosure tendencies and to intraindividual daily intensity-disclosure slopes. Attachment avoidance was negatively related to both generalized disclosure tendencies and to daily disclosure, and attachment anxiety moderated the relation between daily event intensity and disclosure. The authors discuss the implications for theory and counseling psychology practice.     

Using ecphoric confidence ratings to discriminate seen from unseen faces: The effects of retention interval and distinctiveness

Theories of confidence processing for recognition judgments suggest that confidence indexes the degree of match between a presented stimulus and an image in memory (ecphoric similarity). Recent research has demonstrated that having participants rate their confidence that a face had been previously seen provides an equivalent or a better index of the stimulus's status than does eliciting a simple binary response (Sauer, Brewer, & Weber, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 137: 528-547, 2008). Using a face recognition paradigm, we manipulated retention interval and stimulus distinctiveness to directly test the suggestion that confidence indexes ecphoric similarity and to probe the boundary conditions for using confidence ratings to discriminate seen from unseen faces. Consistent with the proposed ecphoric basis for confidence ratings, mean confidence was higher for previously seen than for unseen faces, and conditions conducive to the formation of strong memories improved confidence-based discrimination. In all conditions, after the application of a classification algorithm, confidence ratings provided a more sensitive index of face status (i.e., seen or unseen) than did binary responses.     

The neural correlates of reward-related trial-and-error learning: an fMRI study with a probabilistic learning task

This fMRI study investigated the neural correlates of reward-related trial-and-error learning in association with changing degrees of stimulus-outcome predictabilities. We found that decreasing predictability was associated with increasing activation in a frontoparietal network. Only maximum predictability was associated with signal decreases across the learning process. The receipt of monetary reward revealed activation in the striatum and associated frontoparietal regions. Present data indicate that during reward-related learning, high uncertainty forces areas relevant for cognitive control to remain activated. In contrast, learning on the basis of predictable stimulus-outcome associations enables the brain to reduce resources in association with the processes of prediction.     

Caffeine cravings impair memory and metacognition

Cravings for food and other substances can impair cognition. We extended previous research by testing the effects of caffeine cravings on cued-recall and recognition memory tasks, and on the accuracy of judgements of learning (JOLs; predicted future recall) and feeling-of-knowing (FOK; predicted future recognition for items that cannot be recalled). Participants (N?=?55) studied word pairs (POND-BOOK) and completed a cued-recall test and a recognition test. Participants made JOLs prior to the cued-recall test and FOK judgements prior to the recognition test. Participants were randomly allocated to a craving or control condition; we manipulated caffeine cravings via a combination of abstinence, cue exposure, and imagery. Cravings impaired memory performance on the cued-recall and recognition tasks. Cravings also impaired resolution (the ability to distinguish items that would be remembered from those that would not) for FOK judgements but not JOLs, and reduced calibration (correspondence between predicted and actual accuracy) for JOLs but not FOK judgements. Additional analysis of the cued-recall data suggested that cravings also reduced participants’ ability to monitor the likely accuracy of answers during the cued-recall test. These findings add to prior research demonstrating that memory strength manipulations have systematically different effects on different types of metacognitive judgements.     

The Cost of Consequentialization

Consequentializers suggest that for all non‐consequentialist moral theories, one can come up with a consequentialist counterpart that generates exactly the same deontic output as the original theory. Thus, all moral theories can be “consequentialized.” This paper argues that this procedure, though technically feasible, deprives consequentialism of its potential for normative justification. By allowing purported counterexamples to any given consequentialist moral theory to be accommodated within that theory’s account of value, consequentializers achieve a hollow victory. The resulting deontically equivalent consequentalist counterpart that results from absorbing originally non‐consequentialist moral intuitions can now no longer explain, in a theoretically illuminating way, why certain actions are wrong and others right. The paper explains why traditional consequentialist theories did not embrace the procedure, and sketches how consequentialism can consequentialize without incurring the same cost.