A Community Responds to Collective Trauma: An Ecological Analysis of the James Byrd Murder in Jasper, Texas

The brutal murder of James Byrd Jr. in June 1998 unleashed a storm of media, interest groups, high profile individuals and criticism on the Southeast Texas community of Jasper. The crime and subsequent response—from within the community as well as across the world—engulfed the entire town in a collective trauma. Using natural disaster literature/theory and employing an ecological approach, Jasper, Texas was investigated via an interrupted time series analysis to identify how the community changed as compared to a control community (Center, Texas) on crime, economic, health, educational, and social capital measures collected at multiple pre- and post-crime time points between 1995 and 2003. Differences-in-differences (DD) analysis revealed significant post-event changes in Jasper, as well as a surprising degree of resilience and lack of negative consequences. Interviews with residents conducted between March 2005 and 2007 identified how the community responded to the crisis and augmented quantitative findings with qualitative, field-informed interpretation. Interviews suggest the intervention of external organizations exacerbated the severity of the events. However, using strengths of specific local social institutions—including faith based, law enforcement, media, business sector and civic government organizations—the community effectively responded to the initial threat and to the potential negative ramifications of external entities.     

Fringe consciousness in sequence learning: the influence of individual differences

We first describe how the concept of “fringe consciousness” ([Mangan, 1993a], [Mangan, 1993b], [Mangan, 2001] and [Mangan, 2003]) can characterise gradations of consciousness between the extremes of implicit and explicit learning. We then show that the NEO-PI-R personality measure of openness to feelings, chosen to reflect the ability to introspect on fringe feelings, influences both learning and awareness in the serial reaction time (SRT) task under conditions that have previously been associated with implicit learning ([Destrebecqz and Cleeremans, 2001] and [Destrebecqz and Cleeremans, 2003]). This provides empirical evidence for the proposed phenomenology and functional role of fringe consciousness in so-called implicit learning paradigms (Mangan, 1993b). Introducing an individual difference variable also helped to identify possible limitations of the exclusion task as a measure of conscious sequence knowledge. Further exploration of individual differences in fringe awareness may help to avoid polarity in the implicit learning debate, and to resolve apparent inconsistencies between previous SRT studies.     

The homicidol effect: investigating murder as a fitness signal

This article extends homicide adaptation theory by investigating signal effects of a murder. In two experiments (N = 299 and N = 161) participants reported their perceptions of a described person. The first study manipulated the information about the person (including or excluding a single sentence stating that the person has committed a murder) and stimulus person/observer sex match (same vs. opposite sex). Results suggest that murder functions as a signal of the described person's fitness that enhances observers' evaluations and inclination to interact with the person. Opposite-sex observers evaluate the murderer's intent more favorably than same-sex observers, but these evaluations of intent produce differential (positive vs. negative) effects between the two groups. The second study replicated the findings and ruled out potential confounds.     

Behavioural Investigative Advice: Assistance to Investigative Decision‐making in Difficult‐to‐detect Murder

This paper considers the role of a Behavioural Investigative Adviser (BIA) in assisting with the decision‐making of a Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) in difficult‐to‐detect murder investigations. It outlines the need for transparent evidence‐based decision‐making from both the SIO and the BIA. The paper then details a piece of relevant, applied research that can assist in this end. The research utilised a pragmatic psychology approach to analyse 312 detected murder cases from the Serious Crime Analysis Section database. Some significant patterns relating what is known about the offence at different stages of an investigation and inferences regarding the offender were found, indicating that certain offence information can lead to some reliable predictions and these can be refined as more information becomes available. However, the findings also indicate that base rate frequencies and a ‘best‐guess’ methodology may be as, if not more, useful than more complex statistical techniques when providing advice to investigations. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Bartlett revisited: Direct comparison of repeated reproduction and serial reproduction techniques

Bartlett developed the procedures of repeated reproduction (the same person repeatedly recalling information) and serial reproduction (people transmitting information from one person to another). Our experiment directly compared recall accuracy across these two techniques, which has not previously been reported, using DRM word lists. Recall of the initial study list words remained constant across repeated reproductions but declined markedly across serial reproductions. In contrast, recall of associated words that were not originally studied (i.e. critical words) was steady across both conditions. Because more of the original list words were forgotten across each link of the serial reproduction chain, the proportion of critical items recalled (relative to list words) increased significantly as the list passed between people. Using output bound scoring, serial reproduction resulted in lower accuracy than repeated reproduction by the final recall trial. Our results are broadly consistent with Bartlett's (1932) informal observations: Serial reproduction produces greater forgetting of the original material than does repeated reproduction and also leads to greater distortion relative to the proportion of correct material recalled.     

Single-probe serial position recall: Evidence of modularity for olfactory,visual, and auditory short-term memory

The present study examined and compared order memory for a list of sequentially presented odours, unfamiliar faces, and pure tones. Employing single-probe serial position recall and following a correction for a response bias, qualitatively different serial position functions were observed across stimuli. Participants demonstrated an ability to perform absolute order memory judgments for odours. Furthermore, odours produced an absence of serial position effects, unfamiliar faces produced both primacy and recency, and pure tones produced recency but not primacy. Such a finding is contrary to the proposal by Ward, Avons, and Melling (2005) that the serial position function is task, rather than modality, dependent. In contrast, the observed functions support a modular conceptualization of short-term memory (e.g., Andrade & Donaldson, 2007; Baddeley & Hitch, 1974), whereby separate modality-specific memorial systems operate. An alternative amodal interpretation is also discussed wherein serial position function disparities are accommodated via differences in the psychological distinctiveness of stimuli (Hay, Smyth, Hitch, & Horton, 2007).     

Implicit sequence learning in a search task

This study investigated the effects of selection demands on implicit sequence learning. Participants in a search condition looked for a target among seven distractors and responded on the target identity. The responses followed a deterministic sequence, and sequence learning was compared to that found in two control conditions in which the targets were presented alone, either at a central location or over a series of unpredictable locations. Sequence learning was obtained in all conditions, and it was equivalent for the two variable location conditions, regardless of the perceptual demands. Larger effects of learning were observed in the central location, both on the indirect measures and on the measures taken from a cued-generation task. The expression of learning decreased selectively in this condition when the sequence validity was reduced over a test block. These results are consistent with the claims that implicit and explicit learning are mixed in this central condition and that implicit learning is not affected by selection difficulty.     

Evidence for modality-independent order coding in working memory

The aim of the present study was to investigate the representation of serial order in working memory, more specifically whether serial order is coded by means of a modality-dependent or a modality-independent order code. This was investigated by means of a series of four experiments based on a dual-task methodology in which one short-term memory task was embedded between the presentation and recall of another short-term memory task. Two aspects were varied in these memory tasks—namely, the modality of the stimulus materials (verbal or visuo-spatial) and the presence of an order component in the task (an order or an item memory task). The results of this study showed impaired primary-task recognition performance when both the primary and the embedded task included an order component, irrespective of the modality of the stimulus materials. If one or both of the tasks did not contain an order component, less interference was found. The results of this study support the existence of a modality-independent order code.     

Applying an exemplar model to the serial reaction-time task: Anticipating from experience

We present a serial reaction time (SRT) task in which participants identified the location of a target by pressing a key mapped to the location. The location of successive targets was determined by the rules of a grammar, and we varied the redundancy of the grammar. Increasing both practice and the redundancy of the grammar reduced response time, but the participants were unable to describe the grammar. Such results are usually discussed as examples of implicit learning. Instead, we treat performance in terms of retrieval from a multitrace memory. In our account, after each trial, participants store a trace comprising the current stimulus, the response associated with it, and the context provided by the immediately preceding response. When a target is presented, it is used as a prompt to retrieve the response mapped to it. As participants practise the task, the redundancy of the series helps point to the correct response and, thereby, speeds retrieval of the response. The model captured performance in the experiment and in classic SRT studies from the literature. Its success shows that the SRT task can be understood in terms of retrieval from memory without implying implicit learning.     

Core verbal working-memory capacity: The limit in words retained without covert articulation

Verbal working memory may combine phonological and conceptual units. We disentangle their contributions by extending a prior procedure (Chen & Cowan, 2005 Chen, Z. and Cowan, N. 2005. Chunk limits and length limits in immediate recall: A reconciliation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31: 1235–1249. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) in which items recalled from lists of previously seen word singletons and of previously learned word pairs depended on the list length in chunks. Here we show that a constant capacity of about 3 chunks holds across list lengths and list types, provided that covert phonological rehearsal is prevented. What remains is a core verbal working-memory capacity.