Correcting false information in memory: Manipulating the strength of misinformation encoding and its retraction

Information that is presumed to be true at encoding but later on turns out to be false (i.e., misinformation) often continues to influence memory and reasoning. In the present study, we investigated how the strength of encoding and the strength of a later retraction of the misinformation affect this continued influence effect. Participants read an event report containing misinformation and a subsequent correction. Encoding strength of the misinformation and correction were orthogonally manipulated either via repetition (Experiment 1) or by imposing a cognitive load during reading (Experiment 2). Results suggest that stronger retractions are effective in reducing the continued influence effects associated with strong misinformation encoding, but that even strong retractions fail to eliminate continued influence effects associated with relatively weak encoding. We present a simple computational model based on random sampling that captures this effect pattern, and conclude that the continued influence effect seems to defy most attempts to eliminate it.     

Auditory-visual interactions in the perception of a ball's path

We carried out two experiments to measure the combined perceptual effect of visual and auditory information on the perception of a moving object's trajectory. All visual stimuli consisted of a perspective rendering of a ball moving in a three-dimensional box. Each video was paired with one of three sound conditions: silence, the sound of a ball rolling, or the sound of a ball hitting the ground. We found that the sound condition influenced whether observers were more likely to perceive the ball as rolling back in depth on the floor of the box or jumping in the frontal plane. In a second experiment we found further evidence that the reported shift in path perception reflects perceptual experience rather than a deliberate decision process. Instead of directly judging the ball's path, observers judged the ball's speed. Speed is an indirect measure of the perceived path because, as a result of the geometry of the box and the viewing angle, a rolling ball would travel a greater distance than a jumping ball in the same time interval. Observers did judge a ball paired with a rolling sound as faster than a ball paired with a jumping sound. This auditory-visual interaction provides an example of a unitary percept arising from multisensory input.     

Power at work: Linking objective power to psychological power

Experimental research conducted with student participants has documented that feeling powerful or powerless (psychological power) affects outcomes with high practical relevance for organizations. However, it is unclear how results from these studies can be generalized to organizational settings in which individuals have various roles that imply more or less objective power. To address this gap, we present a theoretical framework to aid in the understanding of how objective power in organizations affects psychological power. We assume that stable differences in organizational rank (i.e., structural power) determine the likelihood of interactions with superiors, subordinates, or peers. These interactions give rise to within-person variation in situational power which should lead to dynamic fluctuations of psychological power and eventually its outcomes. Results of a preregistered experiment (n = 190 participants) and a preregistered experience sampling study (n = 129 participants) conducted with working adults support our key predictions: Structural power was associated with the likelihood of being in a high power versus low power situation. Within-person differences in situational power were related to feelings of power such as judgments about (1) one's own ability to influence others in a given social situation (i.e., interpersonal power) and (2) one's own competence, agency, autonomy, and independence (i.e., personal power).     

Towards end-to-end likelihood-free inference with convolutional neural networks

Complex simulator-based models with non-standard sampling distributions require sophisticated design choices for reliable approximate parameter inference. We introduce a fast, end-to-end approach for approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) based on fully convolutional neural networks. The method enables users of ABC to derive simultaneously the posterior mean and variance of multidimensional posterior distributions directly from raw simulated data. Once trained on simulated data, the convolutional neural network is able to map real data samples of variable size to the first two posterior moments of the relevant parameter's distributions. Thus, in contrast to other machine learning approaches to ABC, our approach allows us to generate reusable models that can be applied by different researchers employing the same model. We verify the utility of our method on two common statistical models (i.e., a multivariate normal distribution and a multiple regression scenario), for which the posterior parameter distributions can be derived analytically. We then apply our method to recover the parameters of the leaky competing accumulator (LCA) model and we reference our results to the current state-of-the-art technique, which is the probability density estimation (PDA). Results show that our method exhibits a lower approximation error compared with other machine learning approaches to ABC. It also performs similarly to PDA in recovering the parameters of the LCA model.     

Do people keep believing because they want to? Preexisting attitudes and the continued influence of misinformation

Misinformation—defined as information that is initially assumed to be valid but is later corrected or retracted—often has an ongoing effect on people’s memory and reasoning. We tested the hypotheses that (a) reliance on misinformation is affected by people’s preexisting attitudes and (b) attitudes determine the effectiveness of retractions. In two experiments, participants scoring higher and lower on a racial prejudice scale read a news report regarding a robbery. In one scenario, the suspects were initially presented as being Australian Aboriginals, whereas in a second scenario, a hero preventing the robbery was introduced as an Aboriginal person. Later, these critical, race-related pieces of information were or were not retracted. We measured participants’ reliance on misinformation in response to inferential reasoning questions. The results showed that preexisting attitudes influence people’s use of attitude-related information but not the way in which a retraction of that information is processed.     

Gender differences in the family-relatedness of relocation decisions

Using a dyadic study design, the present study draws on research into the family-relatedness of work decisions to examine the impact of the spouse's characteristics on an employee's willingness to engage in job-related relocation. With a sample of 1234 employees, the results show that spousal willingness to relocate mediates (a) the negative effect of the spouse's community ties and (b) the positive effect of the spouse's job alternatives on an employee's willingness to relocate. The indirect effect of the spouse's job alternatives was stronger among female than among male employees. To validate employees' perceptions, this study uses matched data from a subsample of 207 employees and their spouses to test a multi-source model, which revealed several notable inconsistencies. Our exploration of discrepancies between employee and spousal ratings helps explain these differences between single-source and multi-source models. Overall, findings suggest that employees consider various spousal factors in their career decision-making, and the family-relatedness of relocation decisions is particularly strong among female employees.     

From segregation to intergroup contact and back: Using experiments and simulation to understand the bidirectional link

Research on intergroup contact has mostly viewed desegregation as a necessary condition for contact to unfold its power to reduce prejudice. Through residential and school choices, however, prejudice also contributes to segregation. To shed light on this bidirectional link, we conducted two survey‐based experiments with stratified quota samples of German adults. In Study 1, respondents with less contact and more prejudice indicated a lower likelihood of renting an apartment in a neighborhood with a larger proportion of minority members, although housing quality and crime rate were held constant. In Study 2, similar results were obtained for the likelihood of enrolling their child at a school with a larger proportion of minority students. Building on these results in a computer simulation, we find that because contact only reduces prejudice, but does not produce pro‐minority preferences, spontaneous desegregation is unlikely to occur even under the most favorable structural and economic conditions.