Confidence judgments in event recall: developmental progression in the impact of question format

Two studies were conducted to examine developmental progression in children's and adults' ability to adequately monitor their own attempts to recall event details as well as the dependence of such metamemorial competencies on question formats. Eight and 10-year-old children as well as adults (Study 1, N=116; Study 2, N=60) rated their confidence when responding to specific questions about an observed event. Confirming most recent results, children and adults gave higher confidence ratings after correct than after incorrect answers. This ability, however, was limited to an unbiased question format. When being asked misleading questions, children's ability to differentiate was undermined, as reflected in equally high confidence judgments after correct and incorrect answers, even when the interview contained a mix of misleading and unbiased questions. When the interviewer "bombarded" the children with an uninterrupted series of misleading questions, children's difficulties appeared to be even more pronounced. These findings highlight the importance of the way in which questions are asked, and point to age-related progression in the relative impact of questioning style.     

Aiding self-knowledge

ABSTRACT

Some self-knowledge must be arrived at by the subject herself, rather than being transmitted by another’s testimony. Yet in many cases the subject interacts with an expert in part because she is likely to have the relevant knowledge of their mind. This raises a question: what is the expert’s knowledge like that there are barriers to simply transmitting it by testimony? I argue that the expert’s knowledge is, in some circumstances, proleptic, referring to attitudes the subject would hold were she to reflect in certain ways. The expert’s knowledge cannot be transmitted by testimony because self-knowledge cannot be proleptic.     

Affirming Affectivity: On The Task of Philosophy in Lyotard’s Later Works

ABSTRACT

Jean-François Lyotard famously described the task of philosophy as “bearing witness to the differend”, a differend being a conflict that cannot be equitably solved due to the lack of a rule applicable to all parties involved. Lyotard expanded the notion of differend in his later works. With the name of “the differend itself”, Lyotard seeks to signal a more radical conflict: between articulate meaning and affect. This development changes the task of philosophy. In this article, bearing witness to the differend itself is conceptualized as a twofold process, consisting of a negative and a positive aspect. On the one hand, the differend itself cannot as such be written into language. On the other hand, however, philosophizing presupposes affect as its impetus. To signal this, an openness to affect and a freedom with regard to style are required, thereby showing that reason and affect are not opposed but presuppose each other.     

The moral obligations of trust

Moral obligation, Darwall argues, is irreducibly second personal. So too, McMyler argues, is the reason for belief supplied by testimony and which supports trust. In this paper, I follow Darwall in arguing that the testimony is not second personal ‘all the way down’. However, I go on to argue, this shows that trust is not fully second personal, which in turn shows that moral obligation is equally not second personal ‘all the way down’.     

Eyewitness identification discriminability: ROC analysis versus logistic regression

To reach conclusions regarding the respective accuracy of two conditions, eyewitness researchers evaluate correct and false identification rates computed across participants. Two approaches typically are employed. One approach relies on ratio-based probative value measures; but Wixted and Mickes (2012) and Gronlund, Wixted, and Mickes (2014) showed that these measures fail to disentangle an assessment of accuracy (i.e., discriminability between guilty and innocent suspects) from response bias (i.e., a willingness to make a response). Our focus is on a second approach, logistic regression analyses of the correct and of the false identification rates. Logistic regression also fails to disentangle discriminability from bias. Therefore, it only can denote the most accurate condition in limited circumstances. The best approach for reaching the proper conclusion regarding which condition is most accurate is to use receiver operator characteristic (ROC) analysis. Simulated ROC data illustrate the problem with a reliance on logistic regression to assess accuracy.     

Children’s eyewitness memory: A comparison of two interviewing strategies as realized by forensic professionals

A critical issue for developmental psychology is how to obtain accurate and complete eyewitness memory reports from preschoolers without offering suggestions that might result in false allegations. We examined effects of two interviewing strategies (police/verbal interviews and clinician/prop-assisted interviews) on young children’s reports about a medical examination. A total of 58 4-year-olds participated in the study, which conformed to a 2 (Interview Type) × 2 (Number of Interviews) factorial design. Analyses revealed that interviewers spent less time off topic and asked more free recall questions in the police/verbal interviews than in the clinician/prop-assisted interviews. Compared with police/verbal interviews, clinician/prop-assisted interviews resulted in significantly more correct rejections and commission errors in children’s memory reports. However, on a final free recall test, error rates were comparable across conditions. Higher child verbal intelligence predicted memory accuracy in police/verbal interviews, and greater parental attachment anxiety predicted children being asked a higher number of misleading questions. The study provides new insights into interview techniques that promote preschoolers’ accurate eyewitness reports.     

The fallibility of memory in judicial processes: Lessons from the past and their modern consequences

The capability of adult and child witnesses to accurately recollect events from the past and provide reliable testimony has been hotly debated for more than 100 years. Prominent legal cases of the 1980s and 1990s sparked lengthy debates and important research questions surrounding the fallibility and general reliability of memory. But what lessons have we learned, some 35 years later, about the role of memory in the judicial system? In this review, we focus on what we now know about the consequences of the fallibility of memory for legal proceedings. We present a brief historical overview of false memories that focuses on three critical forensic areas that changed memory research: children as eyewitnesses, historic sexual abuse and eyewitness (mis)identification. We revisit some of the prominent trials of the 1980s and 1990s to not only consider the role false memories have played in judicial decisions, but also to see how this has helped us understand memory today. Finally, we consider the way in which the research on memory (true and false) has been successfully integrated into some courtroom procedures.     

How do ordered questions bias eyewitnesses?

ABSTRACT

Background: Suggestive techniques can distort eyewitness memory (Wells & Loftus, 2003, Eyewitness memory for people and events. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Forensic Psychology, Vol. 11 (pp. 149–160). Hoboken, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc). Recently, we found that suggestion is unnecessary: Simply reversing the arrangement of questions put to eyewitnesses changed what they believed (Michael & Garry, 2016, Ordered questions bias eyewitnesses and jurors. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23, 601–608. doi:10.3758/s13423-015-0933-1). But why? One explanation might be that early questions set an anchor that eyewitnesses then adjust away from insufficiently. Methods: We tracked how eyewitness beliefs changed over the course of questioning. We then investigated the influence of people’s need to engage in and enjoy effortful cognition. This factor, “Need for Cognition,” (NFC) affects the degree to which people adjust (Cacioppo, Petty, & Feng Kao, 1984, The efficient assessment of need for cognition. Journal of Personality Assessment, 48, 306–307. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa4803_13; Epley & Gilovich, 2006, The anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic: Why the adjustments are insufficient. Psychological Science, 17, 311–318. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01704.x). Results: In our first two experiments we found results consistent with an anchoring-and-adjustment account. But in Experiments 3 and 4 we found that NFC provided only partial support for that account. Conclusions: Taken together, these findings have implications for understanding how people form beliefs about the accuracy of their memory.