The ironic effect of guessing: increased false memory for mediated lists in younger and older adults

Younger and older adults studied lists of words directly (e.g., creek, water) or indirectly (e.g., beaver, faucet) related to a nonpresented critical lure (CL; e.g., river). Indirect (i.e., mediated) lists presented items that were only related to CLs through nonpresented mediators (i.e., directly related items). Following study, participants completed a condition-specific task, math, a recall test with or without a warning about the CL, or tried to guess the CL. On a final recognition test, warnings (vs. math and recall without warning) decreased false recognition for direct lists, and guessing increased mediated false recognition (an ironic effect of guessing) in both age groups. The observed age-invariance of the ironic effect of guessing suggests that processes involved in mediated false memory are preserved in aging and confirms the effect is largely due to activation in semantic networks during encoding and to the strengthening of these networks during the interpolated tasks.     

Reproducible research in sport and exercise psychology: The role of sample sizes

ObjectivesWe aim to introduce the discussion on the crisis of confidence to sport and exercise psychology. We focus on an important aspect of this debate, the impact of sample sizes, by assessing sample sizes within sport and exercise psychology. Researchers have argued that publications in psychological research contain numerous false-positive findings and inflated effect sizes due to small sample sizes.MethodWe analyse the four leading journals in sport and exercise psychology regarding sample sizes of all quantitative studies published in these journals between 2009 and 2013. Subsequently, we conduct power analyses.ResultsA substantial proportion of published studies does not have sufficient power to detect effect sizes typical for psychological research. Sample sizes and power vary between research designs. Although many correlational studies have adequate sample sizes, experimental studies are often underpowered to detect small-to-medium effects.ConclusionsAs sample sizes are small, research in sport and exercise psychology may suffer from false-positive results and inflated effect sizes, while at the same time failing to detect meaningful small effects. Larger sample sizes are warranted, particularly in experimental studies.     

Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping paradigm

Recently, several studies have claimed that soon after their first birthday infants understand others’ false beliefs. However, some have questioned these findings based on criticisms of the looking-time paradigms used. Here we report a new paradigm to test false belief understanding in infants using a more active behavioral response: helping. Specifically, the task was for infants to help an adult achieve his goal - but to determine that goal infants had to take into account what the adult believed (i.e., whether or not he falsely believed there was a toy inside a box). Results showed that by 18 months of age infants successfully took into account the adult’s belief in the process of attempting to determine his goal. Results for 16-month-olds were in the same direction but less clear. These results represent by far the youngest age of false belief understanding in a task with an active behavioral measure.     

The development of automatic associative processes and children’s false memories

We investigated children’s ability to generate associations and how automaticity of associative activation unfolds developmentally. Children generated associative responses using a single associate paradigm (Experiment 1) or a Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM)-like multiple associates paradigm (Experiment 2). The results indicated that children’s ability to generate meaningful word associates, and the automaticity with which they were generated, increased between 5, 7, and 11 years of age. These findings suggest that children’s domain-specific knowledge base and the associative connections among related concepts are present and continue to develop from a very early age. Moreover, there is an increase in how these concepts are automatically activated with age, something that results from domain-general developments in speed of processing. These changes are consistent with the neurodevelopmental literature and together may provide a more complete explanation of the development of memory illusions.     

Is Language Required to Represent Others’ Mental States? Evidence From Beliefs and Other Representations

An important part of our Theory of Mind—the ability to reason about other people's unobservable mental states—is the ability to attribute false beliefs to others. We investigated whether processing these false beliefs, as well as similar but nonmental representations, is reliant on language. Participants watched videos in which a protagonist hides a gift and either takes a photo of it or writes a text about its location before a second person inadvertently moves the present to a different location, thereby rendering the belief and either the photo or text false. At the same time, participants performed either a concurrent verbal interference task (rehearsing strings of digits) or a visual interference task (remembering a visual pattern). Results showed that performance on false belief trials did not decline under verbal interference relative to visual interference. We interpret these findings as further support for the view that language does not form an essential part of the process of reasoning online (“in the moment”) about false beliefs.     

故事情境下真实记忆与虚假记忆的活动差异

以故事情境为实验材料,采用学习再认实验范式,通过操纵再认靶词与故事情境的关联性考察了情境故事对关联虚假记忆和真实再认神经活动的影响。结果发现：在记忆再认的熟悉性加工和回想性加工阶段,虚假记忆与真实记忆所诱发FN400和LPC成分走向一致;在额叶后提取阶段,虚假再认所诱发的晚慢成分波幅大于真实再认。结果说明：情境性关联虚假记忆与真实记忆表现出相似的熟悉性和回想性加工,但在后期需耗费额外的加工资源进行成功的提取。     

Phonological awareness, executive functioning, and theory of mind

Language plays a critical role in theory of mind (ToM) development, particularly the understanding of false beliefs (FB). Further, there is some evidence that the development of FB is important for metalinguistic development, such as the understanding of homonyms and synonyms. However, there is debate regarding the nature of this relationship. This study explored the role of ToM, including FB, understanding and executive function in another aspect of metalinguistic development involving phonological awareness, specifically rhyming. Of interest was the relative role of ToM and executive function, particularly inhibitory control, in children's ability to identify rhymes. Two studies of 4-year-olds demonstrated that ToM understanding was primarily associated with rhyming ability, whereas inhibitory control was not independently related. Results are discussed in terms of children's ability to flexibly shift between different perspectives, by bracketing one perspective and focusing on the other, in both metalinguistic and ToM tasks.     

Domestic Violence

Summary

In this paper, the authors outline their experience in incorporating a curriculum on domestic violence into an urban family practice residency program. Based on the concept that in order to successfully develop such a curriculum, it is necessary to address the “culture of the organization,” joint educational strategies that in-elude resident education as well as faculty development were considered. A research question was designed to inquire as to the difference in the level of knowledge about domestic violence in family practice faculty as compared to residents prior to the introduction of educational strategies. The authors describe curriculum goals and objectives and outline specific teaching methods as well as the evaluation instrument utilized in the study to measure actual difference in knowledge between faculty and residents about domestic violence with a focus specifically on spousal abuse. Their conclusions point to the need for an educational strategy that includes emphasis on the faculty-resident interface which utilizes both traditional and non-traditional integrated formats in order to successfully train residents in the identification and treatment of domestic violence.     

Negative mood state impairs false memory priming when problem-solving

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of emotional mood states on the ability to create effective primes using the recently developed false memory priming paradigm. A negative or positive mood state was induced before Deese/Roediger–McDermott (DRM) list presentation. A further control group experienced no mood induction. Participants were then presented with Compound Remote Associate Task (CRAT) problems, half of which had been primed by the previous DRM lists whose critical lure was the solution to the CRAT problem. The results of this study showed that induction of a negative mood state not only impaired recall of critical lures but also diminished their effectiveness as primes for solving CRAT problems. In contrast, for both positive mood and control conditions, the false memory priming advantage was evident, with a higher proportion of primed problems solved in comparison to those not primed. Findings are discussed in relation to the role of affect on semantic activation and the adaptive consequences of false memories.     

Serial memory for sound-specified locations: Effects of spatial uncertainty and motor suppression

The current study examined four factors that were expected to influence recognition accuracy of previously retrieved events: remoteness of the event, rated emotionality of the event, the type of changes that were made to the original memory report, and the plausibility of these changes. This was done in a study with 33 participants who were tested for recognition accuracy of original and altered reports a year after they had initially reported these autobiographical memories. Participants evaluated original and altered reports as being authentic or not. High recognition accuracy occurred for report evaluations of events that were recent, that contained central changes, and that had higher emotional intensity ratings. Recognition errors were more likely to occur when the original events were remote and when altered reports contained peripheral and plausible changes. These findings demonstrate the vulnerability of recognition accuracy in older adults under difficult retrieval conditions.