Filling in the Gaps: False Memories and Partisan Bias

While cognitive psychologists have learned a great deal about people's propensity for constructing and acting on false memories, the connection between false memories and politics remains understudied. If partisan bias guides the adoption of beliefs and colors one's interpretation of new events and information, so too might it prove powerful enough to fabricate memories of political circumstances. Across two studies, we first distinguish false memories from false beliefs and expressive responses; false political memories appear to be genuine and subject to partisan bias. We also examine the political and psychological correlates of false memories. Nearly a third of respondents reported remembering a fabricated or factually altered political event, with many going so far as to convey the circumstances under which they “heard about” the event. False-memory recall is correlated with the strength of partisan attachments, interest in politics, and participation, as well as narcissism, conspiratorial thinking, and cognitive ability.     

儿童句子错误记忆:发展性逆转现象及精加工推理效应

为探究文本背景下句子错误记忆的发展性逆转现象及精加工推理效应,95名有效被试学习3篇文本材料后,参与由学过句、内涵推理句、外延推理句和无关句组成的再认测验。结果发现：（1）高中二年级被试学过句的正确再认率和关键诱饵句的校正的错误再认率均显著高于小学五年级和初中二年级,后二者差异不显著;（2）内涵推理句错误再认率高于外延推理句,高中二年级被试尤甚。结论：（1）句子真实记忆随着年龄增长而增加;句子错误记忆存在发展性逆转现象,初中二年级到高中二年级是句子错误记忆发展相对迅速的阶段;（2）文本背景下,不同的精加工推理诱发了不同程度的句子错误记忆,这种精加工推理效应与一般世界知识的自上而下激活的程度有关。     

Effect of lie labelling on children's evaluation of selfish,polite, and altruistic lies

This study investigates how 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds' evaluations of selfish, polite, and altruistic lies change as a result of whether these false statements are explicitly labelled as lies. We are also interested in how interpretive theory of mind may correlate with such evaluations with and without a lie label. Our results showed that labelling lowered children's evaluations for the polite and altruistic lies, but not for the selfish lies. Interpretive theory of mind correlated positively with the evaluation difference between the polite and altruistic lies and that between the selfish and altruistic lies in the label, but not in the non‐label condition. Correlation between the selfish and altruistic lies and that between the polite and altruistic lies were stronger with than without labelling, after controlling for age, and verbal and non‐verbal intelligence. We conclude that lie labelling biases children towards more negative evaluations for non‐selfish lies and makes them see lies of different motives as more similar. If a lie label is applied, whether lies of different motives are still evaluated differently depends on interpretive theory of mind, which reflects the child's ability to represent and allow different interpretations of an ambiguous reality.     

Untangling the web of misinformation and false beliefs

Stanley et al. (2022) underscore four fundamental cognitive principles that underlie the human belief system. These include the truth bias (a predisposition to believe incoming information as true), bias to extract meaning from information (use of prior expectations to make sense of new information), bias to rely on the source of information to judge truth (using judgments of source credibility to rate veracity), and bias to rely on fluency to judge truth (perceptions of ease of processing information affect truth judgments). I suggest that understanding these principles can help us defer and deflect false beliefs from becoming entrenched in consumer minds and offer ways to leverage the four principles in the service of truth. I then propose that we broaden our focus in the study of false beliefs in three ways--by focusing on prevention of false beliefs rather than correction, by diversifying the dependent measures we study and by addressing the role of identity in false belief maintenance. I conclude with a discussion of some thorny issues and the need for regulation in this sphere. I seek to offer a research agenda to scholars interested in addressing the misinformation crisis that is ripping apart the fabric of our society.     

Posttraumatic growth and religion in Rwanda: individual well-being vs. collective false consciousness

Some scholars include changes in spirituality, such as a greater commitment to their religious beliefs or an enhanced understanding of spiritual matters, in the definition of posttraumatic growth; others conclude that questions of spirituality should be excluded from this definition. This article highlights the fundamental difference of religion to other domains of posttraumatic growth because religions are ideologies (and other domains of growth are not). As ideologies, it is argued that religions can affect different levels of identity in different ways. Based on testimonial evidence from Rwandan genocide survivors, the article demonstrates that although religious beliefs can bring existential comfort at the individual level, they can also lead to a state of false consciousness at the collective level. In Rwanda, the dominant religious ideology facilitated the spiritual and moral climate in which genocide became possible. Today, religious interpretations of the Rwandan Patriotic Front's (RPF) leadership provide spiritual backing to a government which has become increasingly authoritarian.     

Phonological false recognition produced by bottom-up automatic activation in young and older people

ABSTRACT

Two experiments explored a new procedure to implicitly induce phonological false memories in young and older people. On the study tasks, half of the words were formed from half of the letters in the alphabet, whereas the remaining words were formed from all the letters in the alphabet. On the recognition tests, there were three types of non-studied new words: critical lures formed from the same half of the letters as the studied words; distractors formed from the other half of the letters not used, and distractors formed from all the letters in the alphabet. In both experiments, the results showed that, in both young and older people, critical lures produced more false recognitions than distractors composed of all the letters in the alphabet, which, in turn, produced more false alarms than distractors composed of the letters not used during the study. These results support the predictions of the activation/monitoring models, which assume that false memories are partly due to activation spreading from items (semantically or phonologically) related to the critical words.     

Belief in memories may be relinquished as often for adulthood as for childhood events,but for different reasons

ABSTRACT

The age distribution of nonbelieved memories (NBMs) reported by young and older adults typically reflects a large proportion of events dated to childhood. The present study aimed to further investigate the age of origin of NBMs by using instructions that include an NBM related to adulthood. Participants aged from 40 to 80 years were asked to describe an NBM, to explain why they had stopped believing their memory, and to rate its phenomenal characteristics. Participants also described and rated an age-matched believed memory (BM). The results revealed a similar proportion of nonbelieved events experienced in childhood and adulthood, thus calling into question the hypothesis that NBMs are mainly related to childhood events. We also found that NBMs might emerge for different reasons depending on the time of events. Additional analyses indicated that, overall, the influence of temporal distance on the ratings of phenomenal characteristics was similar for BMs and NBMs.     

The effects of mood on spontaneous trait inferences about the actor: Evidence from Chinese undergraduates

Prior research has indicated that positive moods increase but negative moods decrease the trait activation of spontaneous trait inferences (STIs). However, it is unknown whether this difference is also present in STIs about the actor. In Study 1, using a false recognition paradigm, we found that Chinese undergraduates made STIs about the actor. In Study 2, we found that the happy Chinese undergraduates were more likely to make STIs about the actor than the sad Chinese undergraduates. These findings showed that Chinese people made STIs about the actor and moods had an influence on their STIs about the actor.     

幼儿心理理论表现的任务特异性分析

研究以90名3～5岁幼儿为被试,采用相同材料和标准评估幼儿外表-事实的区分和错误信念认识,考察幼儿表现的任务特异性及材料刺激的影响。结果表明;幼儿的表现仍存在任务特异性,并且实验材料对儿童的外表-事实区分和错误信念认识具有重要影响。在解释这些结果时,特殊领域知识习得观似乎优于表征缺失理论。