Applied Cognitive Psychology

We investigated whether the phenomenological experience of a negative autobiographical memory changes when the self is presumably distanced from it. In session 1, participants described and phenomenologically rated an important negative event. One week later, in session 2, they imagined and described the event as if either a similar or a dissimilar friend experienced it. Afterward, they once more rated the original event that they described in session 1. Results showed increased observer perspective and decreased vividness, accessibility, and reliving of the original event after imagining that a friend experienced it. Importantly, when the negative event was imagined as experienced by a friend, preoccupation with overwhelming emotions related to the event, the event's emotional intensity, and its centrality to identity and life story also decreased. When the imagined friend was dissimilar, the emotional valence of the memory became more positive, and the emotional distance to the memory increased.

Research on list‐method directed forgetting (LMDF) shows that previously encountered material can be voluntarily forgotten. Here, we examined LMDF of news contents. Experiment 1 found that a first set of news headlines from a supposedly untrustworthy source could be voluntarily forgotten, which benefited memory for a second set of news headlines from a supposedly trustworthy source. Experiment 2 used fictitious news reports as study materials and also found intact voluntary forgetting for Set 1 as well as a benefit for Set 2. Moreover, Experiment 2 clarified that the results were not affected by whether the news source for Set 1 was characterized as trustworthy or untrustworthy. News contents can be voluntarily forgotten, but whether this curtails the spread of untrustworthy information may depend on an individual's goals and motivation. Future work is needed to better understand how voluntary forgetting operates in applied settings.

Spatial optimism is the tendency to underestimate the severity of environmental threats in local relative to global contexts. We investigated whether spatial optimism was evident in people's beliefs about the estimated duration and severity of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Participants from 15 countries provided estimates of (i) when the pandemic would be brought under control and (ii) infection rates for their country and globally. Overall, individuals estimated that the pandemic would end sooner and with a lower infection rate in their own country relative to the rest of the world. This spatial optimism bias was moderated by the severity of COVID‐19 at the country level, such that the bias was greatest in countries with lower levels of pandemic severity. Findings parallel those observed for environmental threats and provide evidence for a spatial optimism bias in a distinct domain of collective thought. Implications for public‐health messaging are discussed.

Sexual misperception—inaccurate perception of a partner's sexual interest and intent—is a potential link through which alcohol intoxication affects perpetration of sexual assault. Alcohol intoxication induces cognitive deficits that influence in‐the‐moment perceptions, such as sexual misperception and decision‐making. Further, expectancies about alcohol's effects on behavior may be activated by alcohol‐related cues and influence sexual misperception and behavior. Cisgender men who regularly consume alcohol (N = 96) completed a measure of alcohol expectancies related to sexual drive and were randomized to a beverage condition (alcohol [BrAC = 0.10%] vs. control). Participants completed a sexual assault behavioral analog and reported their perceptions of a hypothetical woman's sexual interest. Participants then reported their intentions to engage in sexual assault. Among intoxicated participants, sexual drive alcohol expectancies were positively associated with sexual misperception, which predicted sexual assault intentions. Sexual assault prevention programming may benefit from cognitive strategies to address alcohol and sexuality‐related beliefs.

People can easily form false memories for events described in “fake news” stories. This is more likely if the content of the stories is consistent with the individual's political or social identity. Here, we test a novel intervention to reduce this effect by demonstrating participants' own bias to them. Participants (n = 1026) were asked to indicate their political affiliation (Democrat or Republican) and then randomly assigned to the intervention or to a control condition. They were then exposed to true and false news items on the topic of U.S. politics. Participants in the intervention condition reported fewer false memories overall, and fewer ideologically congruent memories in particular. The effect was somewhat stronger among those who experienced their own bias during the intervention but was effective even among those who did not. We conclude that this simple and easily scalable intervention can markedly reduce cognitive biases in response to misinformation.

Accuracy in eyewitness testimony is shaped by factors affecting attention to event details. While research has explored attention's role in memory accuracy, less is known about its effect on the recollection accuracy for emotional events. This study investigates how emotional arousal and scene presentation duration influence susceptibility to misinformation. Participants viewed high‐arousing negative, low‐arousing negative, and neutral scenes, with either short or long presentation times. Participants then answered questions about the event, which included misleading information, and completed a forced‐choice recognition test. Results showed a misinformation effect under both long and short presentation durations for the negative emotional images, but the effect disappeared for the neutral scene presented for a short duration. These findings suggest that negative emotional content is more susceptible to misinformation under limited viewing conditions, potentially highlighting the need for caution when relying on eyewitness accounts of briefly experienced emotional events.

This study addressed potential differential effects of EF training as a function of language background. Training monolingual children with EF‐fostering challenges and feedback may support them more than multilinguals, who face comparable challenges when switching languages. We assessed monolingual (n = 110) and multilingual (n = 91) 6‐year‐olds from Switzerland (Ntotal = 201, 101 female) for inhibition and shifting pre‐ and post‐training using the Hearts and Flowers task. Children were assigned to one of three conditions: training on an EF task with feedback (n = 68), without feedback (n = 68), or on a control learning task (n = 65) for 12 sessions over 6–8 weeks. Results showed no differences between monolingual and multilingual children at T1. At T2, however, monolinguals outperformed multilinguals in inhibition with feedback and in shifting without feedback. Overall, monolinguals showed greater improvement than multilinguals. These results suggest monolingual children may benefit more from EF training, highlighting the need for tailored programs for monolingual and multilingual children.

The predictive validity of reaction time as an actual (objective) and a perceived cue to deception was tested in two experiments differing in question presentation methodology. Participants were video recorded while giving truthful and dishonest verbal responses to autobiographical questions under high and low cognitive load, and coders later viewed the recordings to detect their responses. We hypothesized that lie reaction times (RTs) would be significantly longer than truthful RTs and that longer RTs would be associated with differential lie and truth detection accuracy. We did not make any predictions regarding cognitive load, considering the current literature has produced mixed results. Our hypotheses were supported by the data. Results of our load manipulation differed between Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, leaving us questioning its validity. We provide many suggestions for future research regarding experimental methodologies measuring deception and cognitive load.

Do undergraduate students know and use distributed practice, the strategy of spacing apart learning opportunities over time, and interleaved practice, the strategy of alternating between topics during learning? What beliefs do students hold about how learning should be scheduled, and how are common learning activities—such as using flashcards and completing problem sets—actually scheduled? To explore these questions, we surveyed students at two major universities in North America and Southeast Asia, respectively. We found that distributed practice is unfamiliar to many students, whereas interleaved practice is virtually unknown. Both strategies are often underutilized and perceived with mixed effectiveness. Instructors, meanwhile, reportedly use various scheduling approaches in lectures and assignments. Additionally, distributed practice was associated with better academic performance. These findings, which showed relative consistency across culturally diverse samples, underscore significant gaps in student awareness and adoption of distributed and interleaved practice, highlighting the need to improve their integration into educational settings.

Past research has suggested that minimization (i.e., downplaying the moral or psychological seriousness of the crime) pragmatically implies that a suspect will receive a more lenient sentence in exchange for information, and this cannot be mitigated by a leniency warning. Across four studies (Ns = 187, 124, 236, and 241), participants read a case overview involving a break and enter, a suspect‐interview transcript, and then answered questions regarding various perceptions of the interview and potential subsequent judicial process. We manipulated (1) the perspective taken by participants in the follow‐up questions (Self v. Other) and (2) the language and placement of the leniency warning. We then conducted a mini meta‐analysis that incorporated findings from all four studies. Results indicated that minimization only implies leniency when an imagine‐other perspective is used; however, this effect can be successfully negated if a leniency warning is provided directly to the suspect.

This study aimed to determine which type of information source—providing either mathematical or relative data—children aged 5–11 would prefer. Additionally, the study examined how children justified their choices and whether differences existed in their justifications. A total of 837 children participated in the study. The children watched videos of two information sources: one who made decisions based on mathematical data and another who relied on personal opinions. They then answered three questions about which source they would consult regarding an unfamiliar topic. They also explained why they preferred the source they chose more frequently. Regression analysis revealed that as age increased, the likelihood of choosing the mathematical (precise) informant as the information source significantly increased. Furthermore, with age, children were more likely to justify their selections based on objective, measurement‐based reasoning.

Sex‐related alcohol expectancies about oneself and one's partner vary across time and context, yet alcohol‐related sexual violence research predominantly measures alcohol expectancies as stable traits. Sexually active, non‐abstinent men completed a sexual aggression analog scenario. After indicating a preference for a female or male hypothetical partner, participants were randomized to a scenario depicting a highly or low intoxicated partner, and they reported sex‐related alcohol expectancies and sexual interest for themselves and their partner at four points across the scenario as well as their sexual aggression intentions. Repeated‐measures ANOVA and latent growth curve modeling suggested self‐ and partner‐specific sex‐related alcohol expectancies and sexual interest fluctuated across the scenario. Less acute decreases in self‐ and partner‐sex‐related alcohol expectancies and perceived sexual interest following partner sexual refusal were associated with sexual aggression intentions. Prevention research and program development should incorporate a dynamic conceptualization of alcohol expectancies when examining sexual assault perpetration risks.

The COVID‐19 pandemic produced a unique opportunity to examine undergraduate students' notetaking practices for online courses. In this large survey study ( n = 584), we examined how students' notetaking changed from before to during emergency online instruction and how students used their notes during this time. Our findings suggest that students made use of the affordances of online courses—especially the availability of lecture recordings and live captions—while taking notes. We also found mixed support for students' taking and using their notes in evidence‐aligned ways. Students reported that they consistently took notes and often used organizational strategies while notetaking. Yet, students also tended to take transcript‐style notes and often reviewed their notes passively and at the last minute. Together, our findings offer insight into how students leverage the unique features of online learning during notetaking and paint a nuanced picture of students' notetaking strategies.

The study examined the impact of group structure on individual and collective memory using a socially shared retrieval‐induced forgetting (SS‐RIF) paradigm with categorized exemplar words. A mixed design study with a 2 (group structure: member‐identical, member‐reconfigured) × 2 (interaction roles: speaker, listener) × 4 (item types: Rp+, Rp−, Nrp+, Nrp−) was conducted. Listeners in both groups exhibited SS‐RIF, with no significant difference in forgetting. The member‐identical group demonstrated a higher level of collective memory (overlapping items both members remembered or forgotten after collaboration) than the member‐reconfigured group. No significant difference was found in collective recollection (i.e., items commonly remembered). However, the member‐reconfigured group exhibited lower collective forgetting (i.e., items commonly forgotten). These results suggest repeated interactions with the same group are more conducive to forming collective memories, while interacting with a different person each time offers greater re‐exposure benefits, leading to enhanced recall and less forgetting of the discussed information.

Prospective memory (PM) is the ability to plan and carry out a specific intention. Among older adults, the frequency of PM errors predicts difficulties with independent living. However, little is known about the nature and appraisal of everyday PM errors in older adults, as well as the strategies used to support PM. We addressed these issues in two qualitative interview studies ( N = 30) with individuals aged 55–86. Findings suggested that older adults were most affected by PM failures that impact others (e.g., forgetting to meet a friend, 19/30 participants). The importance of social support to help remember tasks was also highlighted. External aids (e.g., calendars) were seen as the most useful strategies (27/30 participants), but participants differed in their attitudes toward technological support for memory. Findings highlight the importance of social factors in motivating and supporting PM in older adults and may inform the development of effective strategies to support PM in aging.

This study examined if the number of interruptions caused by interesting side notes in learning text is critical for the detrimental effect that is generally found when such seductive details are included, and consequently, if this effect can be mitigated by grouping these details together instead of interspersing them. Results confirmed that extraneous cognitive load was increased and transfer performance impaired in conditions with seductive details. However, no significant differences were found between the grouped condition with five seductive details placed directly one after another (one interruption), and the interspersed condition with five seductive details placed at different positions (several interruptions). It is recommended to avoid interesting digressions in teaching, regardless of whether they are spread across the learning material or grouped together in one place. The extent of the seductive detail effect might rather depend on the amount of seductive details presented than the number of interruptions caused.

Men's condom use resistance (CUR) is common and associated with negative health consequences. CUR can involve both coercive and noncoercive strategies, and like other types of sexual coercion, may be exacerbated by alcohol use. Following sociocultural and feminist theories, the current study examined the associations between adversarial heterosexual beliefs and coercive and noncoercive CUR intentions via sexual entitlement cognitions among sober versus intoxicated men. Non‐problem drinking young adult men ( N = 282) completed background surveys, an in‐lab alcohol administration procedure, and a hypothetical sexual scenario task. Results of multigroup path analysis showed that sexual entitlement cognitions mediated the associations between adversarial heterosexual beliefs and coercive and noncoercive CUR intentions. These associations were of similar strength among sober and intoxicated men. Findings lend support for the use of cognitive behavioral interventions and broader prevention efforts reducing societal messages that support hostile masculinity beliefs and cognitions to reduce CUR.

Reisberg and Pezdek raise concerns about our study, in which police trainees outperformed civilians on an identification task. They argue that we did not report our results in a sufficiently disaggregated form and that our study does not overturn their earlier conclusion that the superiority of police witnesses is a myth. We maintain that police trainees' identification decisions in our experiment were, on aggregate, more accurate than civilians'. However, we do not claim that the literature generally supports the conclusion that police witnesses are more accurate than civilians when making identifications. The existing literature includes only seven relevant experiments, and two use only target‐present lineups. Moderators and confounds may play a role in several studies. We conclude with a call for a systematic review and meta‐analysis and encourage future research to consider under‐represented jurisdictions and sampling plans to reflect the heterogeneity of the police body.

Mindfulness‐based interventions (MBIs) are secular trainings shown to enhance cognitive function, but their effectiveness among tertiary students has not been critically evaluated. This review synthesized evidence from randomized controlled trials on the impact of MBIs on cognitive improvement in tertiary students. Databases including Medline and Embase were searched for randomized controlled trials. Twenty‐six trials were included, with 17 pooled for meta‐analysis. Participants, mostly without mental health issues or prior meditation experience, underwent cognitive assessments on attention, memory, executive function, perception, and learning. The MBIs ranged from one session to 8 weeks in duration. The evidence quality was generally low. Significant improvements were found in the “orienting” subdomain of attention (MD −8.12, 95% CI: −14.18, −2.05) and “episodic memory”: (SMD 0.93, 95% CI: 0.32, 1.53). These findings suggest that MBIs can enhance attention and memory in tertiary students, indicating potential benefits of integrating mindfulness training into university education systems. Trial Registration: PROSPERO: CRD42020170393.

Health professions educators are increasingly encouraged to implement desirable difficulties in their instruction, such as interleaved practice. In practical context, however, there is limited empirical evidence regarding the (meta)cognitive benefits of desirable difficulties, and interleaved practice in particular, posing a challenge to theoretical propositions. In this quasi‐experimental field study, we examined the effectiveness of interleaved practice in auscultation training for second‐year nursing students, with a focus on their learning outcomes and relative monitoring accuracy. Over 3 weeks, we measured participants' immediate and delayed‐test scores, monitoring accuracy, and metacognitive knowledge of blocked and interleaved practice. Results revealed that interleaved practice yielded better auscultation performance than blocked practice. Regarding metacognitive accuracy, however, we found no statistically significant benefit of interleaving. Many students were unaware of the learning benefits of interleaved practice and found it more effortful than blocking. Our findings indicate that interleaved practice is a viable instructional method that can be utilized in authentic environments.

The other race‐effect (ORE), the tendency to identify more accurately own‐ than other‐race faces, is typically attributed to diminished holistic or configural processing for other‐race faces. However, other accounts suggest that the ORE can be mediated when observers specifically focus on particular facial features. For example, Black observers do not show an ORE for White faces when they attend to the eye region. This study examines these accounts when surgical face masks naturally occlude the lower region of the face, which may both disrupt holistic processing and facilitate or hamper selective feature processing, dependent on the race of the face. Overall, our experiments showed that face masks disrupted the identification of both own‐ and other‐race faces. In addition, internal meta‐analyses showed that this effect was slightly larger for own‐ than other‐race faces, providing more support for the holistic processing account of the ORE.

Cognitive effects of smartphones have become a relevant research area. In two experiments, we investigated the effect of other‐owned phone vibrations on long‐term memory in undergraduate Colombian students. Participants watched an educational video while a nearby experimenter‐owned smartphone emitted vibrations at specific moments. After a few minutes, their memory for video content with and without vibrations was assessed. In Experiment 1, memory showed no significant effect of vibrations, but a non‐significant directional trend suggested potential disruption in memory regarding vibrating notifications. In Experiment 2, we adjusted some parameters and added a metamemory measure. We found a significantly worse memory performance and lower confidence on questions with vibrations. Experiment 2 also included a media‐multitasking measure that showed no relation to memory or metamemory results. Our findings provide new data on the effects of silent notifications on memory and metamemory, highlighting the potential disruption of nearby phones.

Academic and media commentary suggests that deepfake videos are problematic because they are both more easily created and more potent than previous forms of misinformation. Surprisingly, there is little research that experimentally tests these claims. In this study, we tasked a first‐year undergraduate student with quickly creating political deepfakes using easily available online tools. We experimentally compared the effectiveness of misinformation delivered through those deepfake videos against misinformation delivered through text and synthetic audio format (N = 443). Deepfakes were effective at planting false memories for fabricated political scandals and, in some cases, reduced reported voting intention by up to 20%. However, they were not consistently more effective than simple text. In a follow‐up study (N = 300), we confirmed that we effectively debriefed participants and caused no lasting measurable changes to their beliefs or memories. We encourage further critical study of the novel properties of deepfake technology.

The Illusory Truth Effect (ITE) is a cognitive bias wherein participants rate repeated statements as more truthful relative to new statements. Although this effect may be less adaptive in our current media climate, where repeated information can circulate easily, few studies have examined how to mitigate or reduce it. In the current studies, we examined whether a novel intervention, consisting of a warning that some statements may be false and an engaging educational video on the ITE, may reduce or eliminate the ITE. Across three experiments, we found evidence for a robust ITE in the control group. However, we found an elimination of the ITE in the experimental group, offering insight on the potential of warning and education to eliminate the ITE that may be applicable to real‐life settings.