No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
When Photographs Create False Memories
Abstract
Photographs help people illustrate the stories of their lives and the significant stories of their society. However, photographs can do more than illustrate events; in this article, we show that photographs can distort memory for them. We describe the course of our "false-memory implantation" research, and review recent work showing that photographs can sometimes increase - while other times decrease - false memories. First, we discuss research showing that a doctored photo, showing subjects taking a completely fictitious hot-air-balloon ride, can cultivate false memories for that experience. We hypothesize that the photograph helps subjects to imagine details about the event that they later confuse with reality. Second, we show that although photographs are indeed powerful sources of influence on memory, they are not necessarily as powerful as narrative. In fact, in certain circumstances, photographs might constrain imagination. Third, we discuss research showing that true photographs can also cultivate false memories. Finally, we present recent work showing that photographs can create false memories for current events.
... When the photographer is creating an image, they are balancing what their eye sees with what their brain associates through their memory of the different elements making up the framed image (Dijck 2008a;Flusser 2000;Garry and Gerrie 2005). Photographic practice in the artistic digital domain finds the digital photographer concerned with the deep natural, social, cultural and aesthetic insights captured by light and time, and their ability to communicate these flickering moments with clarity to an audience (Adams 1981;Flusser 2000;Hainge 2008;Harrison 2002;Hayles 1993). ...
... Secondly our mind and memory also interact with the digital pixel on the screen influencing how we manipulate the image to create a new reality. Thus the process is in-between the camera, mind and screen (Finn 2000;Flusser 2000;Garry and Gerrie 2005). ...
... I pre-visualised the layers and envisaged possible interactions. Next I deconstructed my imagined photograph into its various components in my mind, I then reconstructed it, bringing it into physical reality by using the camera to blend light-time (Finn 2000;Flusser 2000;Garry and Gerrie 2005). ...
E-learning is transforming the learning landscape. This paper focuses on photomedia participatory inquiry in an e-feed learning culture. It harnesses the bene ts of artful inquiry and elaborates on interactive re ective opportunities when using participatory research methods. Student e-learning journal examples and the teacher re ective voice demonstrate how artful inquiry accommodates critical and re ective actions for new creative outcomes. The methods described and analyzed may have relevance to educators considering applying multi-semiotic learning approaches within e-learning journals as digital platforms become central to digital learning and communication of ideas.
... In the context of visually induced false memories [91,98,108], researchers have shown that exposure to images of fictitious events, such as a hot-air-balloon ride, can lead to the formation of false memories related to the depicted experience [28]. Researchers have employed various methods to visually induce false memories, including single presentations of thematic scenes with omitted elements [77], personal photographs [56], and narrative instructions during interviews [107]. ...
... In the context of visually induced false memories, visual stimuli can generate false memories of fictitious events [28,91,98,108]. Methods include presenting scenes with omitted elements [77], personal photos [56], and narrative instructions [107]. One study found 50% of participants developed false memories after viewing fake childhood photos and guided imagery, highlighting implications for clinical and legal professionals [107]. ...
AI is increasingly used to enhance images and videos, both intentionally and unintentionally. As AI editing tools become more integrated into smartphones, users can modify or animate photos into realistic videos. This study examines the impact of AI-altered visuals on false memories--recollections of events that didn't occur or deviate from reality. In a pre-registered study, 200 participants were divided into four conditions of 50 each. Participants viewed original images, completed a filler task, then saw stimuli corresponding to their assigned condition: unedited images, AI-edited images, AI-generated videos, or AI-generated videos of AI-edited images. AI-edited visuals significantly increased false recollections, with AI-generated videos of AI-edited images having the strongest effect (2.05x compared to control). Confidence in false memories was also highest for this condition (1.19x compared to control). We discuss potential applications in HCI, such as therapeutic memory reframing, and challenges in ethical, legal, political, and societal domains.
... When examining photographs of a past event, they often act as a memory cue to recall the events of a specific day and time. In the past, photographs were seen as a reliable and undisputed memory cue, even as our own memories are considerably more unreliable (Dodhia & Metcalfe, 1999;Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Lindsay et al., 2004;Liv & Greenbaum, 2020;Wade et al., 2002). In fact, many studies examining the malleability of memories have used photographs to examine how autobiographical memories are affected (Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Garry & Wade, 2005;Lindsay et al., 2004;Wade et al., 2002). ...
... In the past, photographs were seen as a reliable and undisputed memory cue, even as our own memories are considerably more unreliable (Dodhia & Metcalfe, 1999;Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Lindsay et al., 2004;Liv & Greenbaum, 2020;Wade et al., 2002). In fact, many studies examining the malleability of memories have used photographs to examine how autobiographical memories are affected (Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Garry & Wade, 2005;Lindsay et al., 2004;Wade et al., 2002). Many studies found that even when there was no evidence that a person had experienced a specific event in their life, providing a photograph as a potential cue led many individuals to falsely report the event. ...
... Photographs provide a visual image of the misinformation, and may therefore have considerable perceptual overlap with the memory of the original event. This source similarity might be expected to produce a greater rate of source misattributions (Johnson et al., 1993;Mitchell & Johnson, 2000), and indeed, evidence suggests that the closer misinformation becomes to the qualities of a real memory, the more fluently it will be recalled and accepted (Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Nash et al., 2009;Whittlesea, 1993). Viewing photographs of a scene makes people believe they have been there before when they visit for the first time (Brown & Marsh, 2008), and presenting photographs of an action that participants had only imagined completing resulted in an increase in participants "remembering" having actually completed the action (Henkel & Carbuto, 2008;Nash et al., 2009). ...
... Results indicated that 50% of those in the doctored photograph condition formed false memories, compared with 82% of those in the narrative condition. The authors of this work have suggested that photographs may constrain imagination and reduce mental elaboration of details of the event, whereas narratives leave elements of the event unspoken and allow room for the participant to generate their own mental image of the event (Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Garry & Wade, 2005). These studies aimed to implant memories of personal childhood experiences. ...
Studies of eyewitness memory commonly employ variations on a standard misinformation paradigm. Participants are (a) exposed to an event (e.g., a simulated crime), (b) misled about certain details of the event and (c) questioned about their memory of the original event. Misinformation may be provided in the second step via a range of methods. Here, we directly compared the effectiveness of six misinformation delivery methods-leading questions, elaborate leading questions, doctored photographs, simple narratives, scrambled narratives, and missing word narratives. We presented 1182 participants with a video of a simulated robbery and randomly assigned them to receive misinformation about two out of four critical details via one of these methods. In line with the levels of processing account of memory, we report that methods that encourage deeper processing of misinformation result in more memory distortions. Contrary to previous reports, doctored photographs were not a successful method of implanting misinformation. The six delivery methods resulted in minimal differences in confidence and metamemory estimates, but participants were more likely to notice the presence of misinformation in the simple narrative condition. We conclude with suggestions for the selection of an appropriate method of misinformation delivery in future studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... Lastly, a rich literature examines the pervasive effects of photographs on memory, particularly false memory construction (see Garry & Gerrie, 2005, for a review). As noted previously, EFT construction relies on the contents of past experiences. ...
... Imagination in itself promotes perceptual and contextual detail inclusion in a remembered event, whether counterfactual (e.g., contrary to truth) or not. Photographs affect memory representations in the same way: encouraging embellishment of details included in an imagined past event representation (Garry & Gerrie, 2005). ...
Future episodic thinking relies on the reconstruction of remembered experiences. Photographs provide one means of remembering, acting as a “cognitive springboard” for generating related memory qualities. We wondered whether photographs would also invite embellishment of future thought qualities, particularly in the presence (or absence) of associated memories. In two studies participants generated future events in familiar (associated memories) and novel (no associated memories) locations. Half of the participants viewed scene location photographs during event generation. All participants then imagined the events for one minute and completed a self-report measure of content qualities. Results of the current set of studies suggested that for novel locations, no differences in qualities emerged; however, for familiar locations, photographs did not enhance qualities and, in some cases, actually constrained perceptual (Experiments 1 and 2) and sensory (Experiment 1) detail ratings of future thoughts. Thus, photographs did not invite embellishment of future thought details.
... Photographs represent a powerful dialectic between the past and the present. They provide critical retrieval cues about real or imagined personal memories (Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Henkel, 2011;Wade, Garry, Read, & Lindsay, 2002) and constitute the frame through which people come to understand depicted persons, places, and events as news-worthy, relevant, and memorable in the first place (Schwalbe, 2006;Sturken, 1997). Personal photographs serve as external repositories of memory that can be effectively used to jog one's memory for forgotten information (e.g., Aschermann, Dannenberg, & Schulz, 1998;Glenberg & Grimes, 1995;Weiser, 2002). ...
... Personal photographs serve as external repositories of memory that can be effectively used to jog one's memory for forgotten information (e.g., Aschermann, Dannenberg, & Schulz, 1998;Glenberg & Grimes, 1995;Weiser, 2002). Although this relationship between photographs and memory has been studied extensively at the individual level (see Garry & Gerrie, 2005), few studies have considered this phenomenon at the collective level. To the extent that it has been examined at the collective level, researchers find that photographs provide important cues that shape memories of political events (Frenda, Knowles, Saletan, & Loftus, 2013;Sacchi, Agnoli, & Loftus, 2007). ...
Photographs provide critical retrieval cues for personal remembering, but few studies have considered this phenomenon at the collective level. In this research, we examined the psychological consequences of visual attention to the presence (or absence) of racially charged retrieval cues within American racial segregation photographs. We hypothesized that attention to racial retrieval cues embedded in historical photographs would increase social justice concept accessibility. In Study 1, we recorded gaze patterns with an eye-tracker among participants viewing images that contained racial retrieval cues or were digitally manipulated to remove them. In Study 2, we manipulated participants’ gaze behavior by either directing visual attention toward racial retrieval cues, away from racial retrieval cues, or directing attention within photographs where racial retrieval cues were missing. Across Studies 1 and 2, visual attention to racial retrieval cues in photographs documenting historical segregation predicted social justice concept accessibility.
... Other factors, such as source monitoring errors induced by the simultaneous presentation of narratives and images, may also play a significant role. While the images used in these studies were not fabricated but rather depicted the events or key figures involved, existing literature suggests that presenting individuals with a narrative accompanied by an image of the event may contribute to the creation of false memories (Garry and Gerrie 2005). Undoubtedly, this underscores the intricate interplay between verbal and visual cues in memory encoding. ...
Fake news can affect people in negative ways. A recent line of research has demonstrated that when people are exposed to fake news they can form false memories for the events depicted in the news stories. We conducted a meta-analysis to obtain an estimate of the average rate of false memories elicited by fake news. Thirteen articles were included in the final analysis, revealing that nearly 40% and 60% of the participants reported at least one false memory and belief (respectively) after fake news exposure, while each participant remembered or believed 22% of the total number of fake news presented. Individual differences may affect the rate of false memory formation following exposure to false memories. We therefore examined moderating effects of individual difference variables assessed in the included studies. Participants with better analytical reasoning skills and a high level of interest in the news topic were least likely to report false memories for fake news, with level of interest being also a facilitating factor in remembering true news. No effect was detected for cog-nitive ability and objective knowledge. Our results provide insightful and practical information in the context of worldwide misinformation dissemination and its impact on people's beliefs and memories.
... Reviewing photos can also cause memory distortions. Altered photos have been shown to cause participants to report recollections of events or details that never actually occurred (Frenda et al., 2013;Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Wade et al., 2002). Wade et al. (2002), for example, showed participants doctored photos of the participants on a hot air balloon ride as children, an event that did not actually take place. ...
The Oxford Handbook of Human Memory covers the science of human memory, its application to clinical disorders, and its broader implications for learning and memory in real-world contexts. Written by field leaders, the handbook integrates behavioral, neural, and computational evidence with current theories of how humans learn and remember. Following a section of foundational chapters, subsequent sections include chapters that cover forms and attributes of memory, encoding and retrieval processes and their interactions, individual differences, memory disorders and therapies, learning and memory in educational settings, and the role of memory in society. The handbook’s authoritative chapters document the current state of knowledge and provide a roadmap for the next generation of memory scientists, established peers, and practitioners.
... Photographs are a supplement to memory, but they also have the potential to supplant it. Indeed, photographs can transform and generate new memories through our absorption of external images into internal memory narratives (see Garry and Gerrie 2005;Wade et al. 2002). However, to use this as a critique of photography and media is to over-privilege the coherency and constancy of our own memory. ...
Photography evidences presence, but what does it present? This article explores the notion of magic in photography through Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘haecceity’, Jacques Derrida’s logic of the ‘supplement’ and Jean-François Lyotard’s ‘inhuman’. The sections ‘The Zone of Photography’, ‘Ghosts in/of the Machine’, ‘The Crypt and Encryption’, ‘Affect-Event-Haecceity’ and ‘Magic, Consumerism, Desire’ consider how photography provides a ‘zone’ that encrypts the desires of its photographer and viewer. A photograph, in its various forms and appearances, from scientific instrument to personal documentation, bears our need and desire to be affected. The photographic zone can connect with the anxiety, fear, grief, and ha ppiness that are latent within the irrationality of its viewer. The photography is never past as it continually unfolds into, and is entangled with, the fabric of the present. Through consideration of photography we will consider how magic does not happen to people but people happen to magic. We desire magic to appear.
... They found the misleading text was actually more effective at distorting memory, with 80% of those in the text condition forming a false memory, compared to 50% of those who saw a doctored image of themselves in the hot air balloon [54]. This somewhat unintuitive finding may be due to the nature of memory-by providing doctored images or deepfake videos to participants, we supply such concrete information that the participant doesn't need to do any imagining or mental construction of the event, thus they potentially have less information which they might later mistake for a real memory in a source-monitoring error [55]. Our findings suggest that this fluency-based account, which was developed in relation to autobiographical memory, may also apply to memory for cultural artifacts such as films. ...
There are growing concerns about the potential for deepfake technology to spread misinformation and distort memories, though many also highlight creative applications such as recasting movies using other actors, or younger versions of the same actor. In the current mixed-methods study, we presented participants (N = 436) with deepfake videos of fictitious movie remakes (such as Will Smith staring as Neo in The Matrix). We observed an average false memory rate of 49%, with many participants remembering the fake remake as better than the original film. However, deepfakes were no more effective than simple text descriptions at distorting memory. Though our findings suggest that deepfake technology is not uniquely placed to distort movie memories, our qualitative data suggested most participants were uncomfortable with deepfake recasting. Common concerns were disrespecting artistic integrity, disrupting the shared social experience of films, and a discomfort at the control and options this technology would afford.
... Years of research have demonstrated that misinformation exposure can result in false or distorted memories; for example, when an eyewitness's memory of a crime is influenced by a leading question [7], or when a participant is induced to remember a childhood event that never took place [8][9][10]. Similar observations have been made with respect to online misinformation, with various reports of false memories for fabricated events described in "fake news" articles [11][12][13][14]. ...
In recent years there has been an explosion of research on misinformation, often involving experiments where participants are presented with fake news stories and subsequently debriefed. In order to avoid potential harm to participants or society, it is imperative that we establish whether debriefing procedures remove any lasting influence of misinformation. In the current study, we followed up with 1547 participants one week after they had been exposed to fake news stories about COVID-19 and then provided with a detailed debriefing. False memories and beliefs for previously-seen fake stories declined from the original study, suggesting that the debrief was effective. Moreover, the debriefing resulted in reduced false memories and beliefs for novel fake stories, suggesting a broader impact on participants’ willingness to accept misinformation. Small effects of misinformation on planned health behaviours observed in the original study were also eliminated at follow-up. Our findings suggest that when a careful and thorough debriefing procedure is followed, researchers can safely and ethically conduct misinformation research on sensitive topics.
... Reviewing photos can also cause memory distortions. Altered photos have been shown to cause participants to report recollections of events or details that never actually occurred (Frenda, Knowles, Saletan, & Loftus, 2013;Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Wade, Garry, Don Read, & Lindsay, 2002). Wade et al. (2002), for example, showed participants doctored photos of the participant riding a hot air balloon as a child, an event that did not actually take place. ...
Digital technologies have changed the everyday use of human memory. When information is saved or made readily available online, there is less need to encode or maintain access to that information within the biological structures of memory. People increasingly depend on the Internet and various digital devices to learn and remember, but the implications and consequences of this dependence remain largely unknown. The present chapter provides an overview of research to date on memory in the digital age. It focuses in particular on issues related to transactive memory, cognitive offloading, photo taking, social media use, and learning in the classroom.
... Both internal and external memory are susceptible to physical damage; but external memory can be duplicated (i.e., backed up) across multiple locations, a precaution not available for internal memory. noted that external memory is vulnerable to active sabotage by other agents (e.g., your notes could be deleted or altered by others; photos could be doctored, Garry & Gerrie, 2005), and he claimed that internal memory is not vulnerable. However, we note that internal memory may also be sabotaged, though more subtly, by means of misinformation or gaslighting. ...
Humans have access to both internal memory (information stored in the brain) and external memory (information stored in the environment). To what extent do we use each in everyday life? In two experiments, participants rated both internal and external memory for frequency of use, dependability, ease of use (Experiment 1), and likelihood of use (Experiment 2) across four purposes: episodic, semantic, procedural, and prospective. Experiment 1 showed that internal memory was favoured for episodic and procedural purposes, while external memory was favoured for semantic purposes. Experiment 2 further clarified that internal memory was favoured for episodic and common procedural purposes, while external memory was favoured for uncommon semantic, uncommon procedural, and far-term prospective purposes. This strategic division of labour plays to the strengths of both forms of memory. Participants also generally rated external memory as more dependable and easier to use. Results support the memory symbiosis framework.
... It was already proven that using an image makes fake textual news more credible [14]. In the worst case, such images can alter our reality and cause us to believe in and remember experiences that never happened to us [8,29]. Fake images have the power to change our beliefs about events in the past [28] and can lead to punishing an innocent person [46]. ...
Hypothesis: It is possible to generate a set of photos, using off-the-shelf hardware and a small data set, in time short enough to post it along with honest post-event commentary, flooding social networks with fake images, that for the average internet user is hard to distinguish from real ones.
Methodology: 1378 publicly available images of beaten people’s faces were used as an input for GAN (Generative Adversarial Network), trained on offthe-shelf GPU (RTX 2080 Ti). Two surveys were conducted to check the credibility of generated photos and internet users’ awareness.
Techniques and tools: StyleGAN2-ADA neural network learned on FFHQ512 repository, and transfer learning were used to supplement the small size of the data set. To overcome the uneven quality of real-life images, the ESPCN
algorithm was used for upscaling.
Results: Convincing fake photos were generated in time of one hour, and an average internet user cannot distinguish between fake and genuine photos thoroughly without earlier education on the topic. Moreover, the most readily available tools are aimed at photo manipulation and fail when used against fully synthetic images. However, it turns out that even a quick awareness of the issue is enough to increase the detection of artificially generated
images significantly.
... Applying a color-changing filter involves simply pressing a button and producing a variation of that scene in grayscale, while cropping an object out of a scene involves manipulating the borders, which takes slightly more time and attention, resulting in an altered version that is missing some of the original detail. Research on source monitoring shows that people are less likely to make source misattributions when the mental representations for an event involved more cognitive operations and were more effortful to generate compared to ones that were easy to generate (Finke, Johnson, & Shyi, 1988;Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Henkel & Carbuto, 2008;Johnson et al., 1993;Johnson, Raye, Wang, & Taylor, 1979). Thus, if the act of cropping is more demanding than the act of pressing a button to activate a color-changing filter, that may in turn make it easier to remember having cropped the photo, and could potentially leave one's memory for the original scene intact. ...
General Audience Summary
Digital photography, photo-editing software, and mobile phone apps make it easy for people to doctor their own photos (e.g., by cropping out unwanted objects, applying color-changing filters, and adding new elements). In past research on how doctored photos alter people’s memories, typically the people viewing the photos do not even know they were doctored. We examined situations where people knew the photos were altered because they themselves doctored them, and we looked at the impact of doctoring one’s photos on memory for what was originally experienced. In three experiments, participants photographed scenes and then edited their photos of the scenes. In Experiment 1, editing one’s photos by either cropping out objects or applying a grayscale filter did not alter people’s memory for the original experience. In Experiment 2 people had the opportunity to review their edited or unedited photos. Reviewing photos helped people better remember which scenes that had seen or not, and reviewing unedited photos helped them better remember visual details that were intact in those photos compared to when they reviewed cropped photos that had those details removed. People were reasonably accurate at remembering that they cropped their photos if they reviewed them but were impoverished at explicitly recalling what objects they cropped out. In addition, cropping objects from photos focused attention on the remaining objects, which increased memory for the intact objects regardless of whether they were reviewed or not. In Experiment 3, applying a grayscale filter to photos did not impact memory for the color and content of the original scenes, but reviewing photos improved recognition memory and memory for the scene’s color and content. The findings suggest that depending on the type of editing and its corresponding output and cognitive demands, reviewing or editing photos can shape what is remembered.
... Reviewing photos can also cause memory distortions. Altered photos have been shown to cause participants to report recollections of events or details that never actually occurred (Frenda, Knowles, Saletan, & Loftus, 2013;Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Wade, Garry, Don Read, & Lindsay, 2002). Wade et al. (2002), for example, showed participants doctored photos of the participant riding a hot air balloon as a child, an event that did not actually take place. ...
Digital technologies have changed the everyday use of human memory. When information is saved or made readily available online, there is less need to encode or maintain access to that information within the biological structures of memory. People increasingly depend on the Internet and various digital devices to learn and remember, but the implications and consequences of this dependence remain largely unknown. The present chapter provides an overview of research to date on memory in the digital age. It focuses in particular on issues related to transactive memory, cognitive offloading, photo taking, social media use, and learning in the classroom.
... Photographs clearly function in multiple and complex ways with our memory, often in the context of other contemporary non-visual (e.g. textual, verbal, social) information (reviewed in Garry & Gerrie, 2005). The strength of their potential influence led to the suggestion that photographs supporting memories can validate a sense of self (Heersmink & McCarroll, 2019, pp. ...
I begin by examining perception of photographs from two directions: what we think photographs are, and the aspects of mind involved when viewing photographs. Traditional photographs are shown to be mnemonic tools, and memory identified as a key part of the process by which photographs are fully perceived. Second, I describe the metamorphogram; a non-traditional photograph which fits specific, author-defined criteria for being memory. The metamorphogram is shown to be analogous to a composite of all an individual’s episodic memories. Finally, using the metamorphogram in artistic works suggests a bi-directional relationship between individual autobiographical memory and shared cultural memory. A model of this relationship fails to align with existing definitions of cultural memory, and may represent a new form: sociobiographical memory. I propose that the experiences documented here make the case for promoting a mutually beneficial relationship between philosophy and other creative disciplines, including photography.
... Findings from Sacchi et al. [94] and from Nash [72] provide evidence that doctored evidence effects apply in the context of recent news events (semantic memory) as well as the previously described cases of episodic memory [34]. Doctored images can be convincing (and will likely only get better) -it's unsurprising therefore that individuals are often poor at identifying both when a photograph has been altered and the specific manipulations that have been made [83]. ...
The technology and tools that we develop have always been transformative, but the pace of change, particularly in the last few decades is undoubtedly altering humans in ways we don’t understand. As researchers look to develop novel prosthetics and tools to enhance our memories and extend cognition, further consideration is needed to understand how technologies can help (or, indeed, hinder) our inherent abilities. In this chapter, we identify two distinct forms of cognitive risk associated with current and emerging technologies: memory inhibition and memory distortion. We describe how lifelogging, search engines, social media, satnavs and other developments are prompting us to retain less information for ourselves (inhibition), and present three specific examples of this phenomenon: the Google effect, photo-taking-impairment and alterations in spatial memory attributed to satnav use. We further consider cases in which technology actually increases the likelihood of errors in what and how we remember (distortion), including doctored evidence effects, creation of false memories for current or historical affairs (“fake news”) and retrieval-induced forgetting. Finally, we provide an exploration of these cognitive vulnerabilities in the context of human memory augmentation, including the reporting of a mixed design experiment with 48 participants in which we demonstrate both retrieval-induced forgetting and false memory creation for real-world experiences.
... Notably, photos biased people to believe they had performed a given action, regardless of whether they actually had or had not. This result is particularly surprising -while there is some evidence that photos can distort memory for recent actions, the photos in those studies are often combined with variables such as suggestion, elaboration, and repetition, all of which make it more difficult to discern whether a memory is real or not (Lindsay et al., 2004; for a review see Garry & Gerrie, 2005). The results from Cardwell et al. (2016) demonstrate that even a short exposure to non-probative photos in the absence of other suggestive techniques can lead to immediate mistakes in memory. ...
This open-access book examines the phenomenon of fake news by bringing together leading experts from different fields within psychology and related areas, and explores what has become a prominent feature of public discourse since the first Brexit referendum and the 2016 US election campaign. Thanks to funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation, all chapters can be downloaded free of charge at the publisher's website:
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429295379
There is also an Amazon Kindle edition that's free of charge:
https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Fake-News-Correcting-Misinformation-ebook-dp-B08FF54H53/dp/B08FF54H53/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=
... Applying a color-changing filter involves simply pressing a button and producing a variation of that scene in grayscale, while cropping an object out of a scene involves manipulating the borders, which takes slightly more time and attention, resulting in an altered version that is missing some of the original detail. Research on source monitoring shows that people are less likely to make source misattributions when the mental representations for an event involved more cognitive operations and were more effortful to generate compared to ones that were easy to generate (Finke, Johnson, & Shyi, 1988;Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Henkel & Carbuto, 2008;Johnson et al., 1993;Johnson, Raye, Wang, & Taylor, 1979). Thus, if the act of cropping is more demanding than the act of pressing a button to activate a color-changing filter, that may in turn make it easier to remember having cropped the photo, and could potentially leave one's memory for the original scene intact. ...
Modern technology allows people to easily doctor their own photos (e.g., cropping out unwanted objects, applying color-changing filters). We examined whether editing and reviewing photos alters people’s memory of their experiences. In three experiments, participants photographed scenes, then edited their photos. In Experiment 1 (n = 54), editing photos by cropping out objects or applying a grayscale filter did not impact memory for the original experience. In Experiment 2 (n = 55), cropping objects from photos focused attention on the remaining objects, thereby increasing memory for the intact objects regardless of whether they were reviewed or not. Reviewing unedited photos where details were intact increased memory. In Experiment 3 (n = 39), applying a grayscale filter to photos did not impact memory for the color and content of the original scene, but reviewing photos improved recognition memory and memory for the scene’s color and content. Depending on the type of edit and cognitive demands, reviewing or editing photos can shape what is remembered.
... Notably, photos biased people to believe they had performed a given action, regardless of whether they actually had or had not. This result is particularly surprising -while there is some evidence that photos can distort memory for recent actions, the photos in those studies are often combined with variables such as suggestion, elaboration, and repetition, all of which make it more difficult to discern whether a memory is real or not (Lindsay et al., 2004; for a review see Garry & Gerrie, 2005). The results from Cardwell et al. (2016) demonstrate that even a short exposure to non-probative photos in the absence of other suggestive techniques can lead to immediate mistakes in memory. ...
... Explored most thoroughly in Psychology (e.g., Garry & Wade, 2005), false memory is the idea that one comes to actually remember the past incorrectly. Narrative has been shown to play an important role in how individuals can develop false memories (Garry & Gerrie, 2005). A study by Wade, Garry, Read, and Lindsay (2002) shows that adults shown fake photoshopped pictures of themselves in a hot air balloon with a parent will often develop false memories of the day the balloon ride occurred. ...
Narratives are the primary way by which people both understand themselves and how they communicate with others. The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF), a framework intended to help researchers make sense of the policy process, empirically studies the capacity for narratives to shape public policy at multiple levels of analyses. After what has now been a decade of empirical hypotheses testing, the NPF is employed in this article as a theoretical tool to engage the postmodern threat of President Donald Trump. While Trump’s misbehaviors are many, here we focus on his propensity to invent facts and engage in activities that seek to obscure truth. We argue these activities are an existential threat to democratic and scientific institutions, that these institutions require defending, and that the NPF can be deployed to that end. To make our case we first articulate the postmodern threat that Trump presents. We then leverage the NPF to provide ideas and strategies that we would expect to help us better understand Trump’s narrative tactics. The article concludes with some prescriptions flowing from the NPF, which are aimed at firmly anchoring the NPF to the normative assumptions and presuppositions of democracy and science.
... Some researchers state that that the main function of photography of the 'analog era', which serves as means of memory preservation, is no longer significant. Its leading functions nowadays are the communication as well as the shaping of the personality [3]. ...
... Yet, the visual texts developed by the users remain hidden under the guise of individual empowerment through their distribution on social media, even if their production required disengagement from the activity they were seeking to capture. Under these conditions, privileging the production of the visual text over the experiential situation seems to be resolved by the construction of a fabricated memory, which might be as vivid for the individual as if no visual documentation had been produced (Garry & Gerrie, 2005). The individual's experience of performing an action that is being documented is not that of the situation per se, but of documenting said situation. ...
... Notably, photos biased people to believe they had performed a given action, regardless of whether they actually had or had not. This result is particularly surprising-while there is some evidence that photos can distort memory for recent actions, the photos in those studies are often combined with variables such as suggestion, elaboration, and repetition, all of which make it more difficult to discern whether a memory is real or not (Lindsay et al., 2004; for a review see Garry & Gerrie, 2005). The results from Cardwell et al. (2016) demonstrate that even a short exposure to non-probative photos in the absence of other suggestive techniques, can lead to immediate mistakes in memory. ...
True or false? “A woodpecker is the only bird that can fly backwards.” When such a claim appears with a related, but non-probative photo (e.g., a photo of a woodpecker perched on a tree) people are more likely to think the claim is true—a truthiness effect. This truthiness effect holds across a range of judgments, including judgments about general knowledge facts, predictions about future events, and judgments about our own episodic memories. Throughout, adding a photograph to a claim rapidly increases people’s belief in that claim. We review the literature on truthiness, documenting the ways in which photos and other kinds of non-probative information can rapidly change people’s beliefs, memories, and estimations of their own general knowledge. We also examine the mechanisms contributing to truthiness and explore the implications for misinformation and fake news.
... Such reminders are likely to be surprisingly pleasing (Zhang, Kim, Brooks, Gino, & Norton, 2014) while at the same time increasing memory for the events (Koutstaal, Schacter, Johnson, Angell, & Gross, 1998). Photos can, of course, also mislead memory-such as when doctored photos lead people to believe they experienced events that never happened (Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Wade, Garry, Read, & Lindsay, 2002). One might doubt that posting completely fake photos is common, but at a minimum it is commonplace to use Snapchat or other filters to enhance one's photos, with unknown consequences for memory. ...
General Audience Summary
The internet is rapidly changing what information is available to us as well as how we find that information and share it with others. Here we ask how this “digital expansion of the mind” may change cognition. We begin by identifying ten properties of the internet that we know influence cognition, based on decades of cognitive science research as well as work examining other ways that people externalize memory and cognition (such as relying on other people to help one remember information or printing out information rather than trying to remember it). These properties can be roughly organized around (a) internet content (e.g., the sheer amount of information available, its relative accuracy, the frequency with which it changes, and the number of options offered at any one point in time); (b) internet usage (e.g., access is easy, equires searching, and returns results almost instantaneously); and (c) the community involved in the creation and propagation of content (e.g., anyone can participate, although authorship may often be obscured; perhaps most importantly, the internet connects people in an unprecedented fashion). We then identify questions arising from the combination of these properties; for example, we ask whether internet usage can become habitual, given its ease of access, the scope of information available, and the speed with which results are returned. In this fashion, we consider whether the internet encourages superficial processing of information, is a powerful source of misinformation, inflates people’s beliefs about what they believe they know, and changes how people remember their personal lives, among other questions. In so doing, we aim to redirect the field from questions about the internet as a place to store information to a broader consideration of how internet usage may affect many aspects of cognition, as people increasingly rely on the internet to seek, post, and share information.
... Both internal and external memory are susceptible to physical damage; but external memory can be duplicated (i.e., backed up) across multiple locations, a precaution not available for internal memory. noted that external memory is vulnerable to active sabotage by other agents (e.g., your notes could be deleted or altered by others; photos could be doctored, Garry & Gerrie, 2005), and he claimed that internal memory is not vulnerable. However, we note that internal memory may also be sabotaged, though more subtly, by means of misinformation or gaslighting. ...
How is technology changing the way people remember?
This book explores the interplay of memory stored in the brain (internal memory) and outside of the brain (external memory), providing a thorough interdisciplinary review of the current literature, including relevant theoretical frameworks from across a variety of disciplines in the sciences, arts, and humanities. It also presents the findings of a rich and novel empirical data set, based on a comprehensive survey on the shifting interplay of internal and external memory in the 21st century. Results reveal a growing symbiosis between the two forms of memory in our everyday lives.
The book presents a new theoretical framework for understanding the interplay of internal and external memory, and their complementary strengths. It concludes with a guide to important dimensions, questions, and methods for future research.
Memory and Technology will be of interest to researchers, professors, and students across the disciplines of psychology, philosophy, library and information science, human factors, media and cultural studies, anthropology and archaeology, photography, and cognitive rehabilitation, as well as anyone interested in how technology is affecting human memory.
_____
"This is a novel book, with interesting and valuable data on an important, meaningful topic, as well as a gathering of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary ideas...The research is accurately represented and inclusive. As a teaching tool, I can envision graduate seminars in different disciplines drawing on the material as the basis for teaching and discussions."
Dr. Linda A. Henkel, Fairfield University
"This book documents the achievements of a vibrant scientific project – you feel the enthusiasm of the authors for their research. The organization of the manuscript introduces the reader into a comparatively new field the same way as pioneering authors have approached it."
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schönpflug, Freie Universität Berlin
... Constructed memory and symbolic elasticity Photography theory and research have long established an intimate albeit ambivalent connection between photography and memory (Barthes, 1993;Keightley and Pickering, 2014;Sontag, 1977;van Dijck, 2008). Photographs are a technical aid to personal memory in the face of forgetfulness, yet their very durability threatens to replace actual memories and memory as a human faculty (Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Keenan, 1998). ...
“Known for being known,” iconic photographs are widely circulated and symbolically powerful images that catalyze public discussion and are etched into the fabric of collective memory for succeeding generations—or so the literature postulates. Based on a multi-method research (including focus groups and a national survey), our study aimed to identify the most prevalent domestic-Israeli and foreign (non-Israeli) iconic news photographs that are recognized by the Israeli public, and to expose key features of their place in Israeli collective memory. We found that only a handful of images were recalled by a majority of people. These are images of conflict, trauma and triumph, which inspired mostly emotional reactions, especially among the eldest, who also demonstrated higher recognition scores. This article examines what such differences in recognition and reactions between photographs and between groups of individuals mean for theories of collective memory and the presumed mnemonic power of visual media.
... Garlick (2002) explains that photography has great significance on memory due to its intrinsic relation to time and space. However, authors also suggest that, due to recent advances in photographing and sharing technologies, it also acts as a communication and identity formation tool (Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Van Dijck, 2008). In this vein, Van Dijck (2008) explains that communication and identity formation are not novel uses but have always been intrinsic functions of photography. ...
... Garlick (2002) explains that photography has great significance on memory due to its intrinsic relation to time and space. However, authors also suggest that, due to recent advances in photographing and sharing technologies, it also acts as a communication and identity formation tool (Garry & Gerrie, 2005;Van Dijck, 2008). In this vein, Van Dijck (2008) explains that communication and identity formation are not novel uses but have always been intrinsic functions of photography. ...
This study examines the nature involvement and green consumption values of nature photography tourists. A questionnaire, developed and based on the literature, was used to collect data from the members of nature photography associations located in Adana and Mersin, Turkey. A total of 277 usable responses were obtained. Results suggested that attractiveness, identity expression and social bonding were the main involvement reasons for nature photographers. Results also suggested that there was a strong correlation between nature photography tourists " nature involvement and their green consumption values. Conclusions and implications were drawn based on the findings.
... For example, studies into false autobiographical memories have recruited family members as credible sources of suggestion (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995;Ost, Foster, Costall, & Bull, 2005;Scoboria, Wysman, & Otgaar, 2012), whereas in typical misinformation studies, the credible sources are usually the experimenters themselves (Loftus & Palmer, 1974;Takarangi, Parker, & Garry, 2006). Another credible source of false information used in several studies is doctored photos (Garry & Gerrie, 2005). Such images are rather unique forms of suggestion, as they can provide seemingly authoritative "proof" of fictional events' occurrence. ...
Doctored photographs can shape what people believe and remember about prominent public events, perhaps due to their apparent credibility. In three studies, subjects completed surveys about the 2012 London Olympic torch relay (Experiment 1) or the 2011 Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton (Experiments 2-3). Some were shown a genuine photo of the event; others saw a doctored photo that depicted protesters and unrest. A third group of subjects saw a doctored photo whose inauthenticity had been made explicit, either by adding a written disclaimer (Experiment 1) or by making the digital manipulation deliberately poor (Experiments 2-3). In all three studies, doctored photos had small effects on a subset of subjects' beliefs about the events. Of central interest though, comparable effects also emerged when the photos were overtly inauthentic. These findings suggest that cognitive mechanisms other than credibility - such as familiarity misattribution and mental imagery - can rapidly influence beliefs about past events even when the low credibility of a source is overt.
... Yet, the visual texts developed by the users remain hidden under the guise of individual empowerment through their distribution on social media, even if their production required disengagement from the activity they were seeking to capture. Under these conditions, privileging the production of the visual text over the experiential situation seems to be resolved by the construction of a fabricated memory, which might be as vivid for the individual as if no visual documentation had been produced (Garry & Gerrie, 2005). The individual's experience of performing an action that is being documented is not that of the situation per se, but of documenting said situation. ...
Co-edited special issue of media&time "Media, Communication and Nostalgia" by Manuel Menke and Christian Schwarzenegger with 10 articles:
(1) Manuel Menke & Christian Schwarzenegger: Media, Communication and Nostalgia - Finding a better tomorrow in the yesterday?-----
(2) Ekaterina Kalinina: What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Media and Nostalgia?-----
(3) Steffen Lepa & Vlasis Tritakis: Not Every Vinyl Retromaniac is a Nostalgic - A social experiment on the pleasures of record listening in the digital age.-----
(4) Lynne Hibberd & Zoë Tew-Thompson: Hills, Old People, and Sheep - Reflections of Holmfirth as the Summer Wine town.-----
(5) Jakob Hörtnagl: “Why? Because It’s Classic!“ - Negotiated knowledge and group identity in the retrogaming-community “Project 1999”.-----
(6) Ezequiel Korin: Nowstalgia - Articulating future pasts through selfies and GoPro-ing.-----
(7) Mario Keller: Experienced Mood and Commodified Mode Forms of nostalgia in the television commercials of Manner.-----
(8) Talitha Ferraz: Activating Nostalgia - Cinemagoers’ performances in Brazilian movie theatres reopening and protection cases.-----
(9) Gabriele de Seta & Francesca Olivotti: Postcolonial Posts on Colonial Pasts - Constructing Hong Kong nostalgia on social media.-----
(10) Marek Jeziński & Łukasz Wojtkowski: Nostalgia Commodified- Towards the marketization of the post-communist past through the new media.
This volume places the spotlight on the role different media and communications systems played in informing the public about the pandemic, shaping their views about what was happening and contributing to behavioural compliances with pandemic-related restrictions.
In studies of cued recall, responses to photographic stimuli have often been examined in isolation of related photography practices (e.g. taking, organising, or sharing images), and without considering how photographs are used. In contrast, photo-elicitation methods position photographs not simply as cues, but as meaningful artefacts around which accounts of the past are constructed. Drawing on photo-elicitation interviews, I examine cued recall from a distributed cognition perspective, proposing that it consists of varying combinations of several, potentially-distributed processes. First, looking at photographs can catalyse remembering by surfacing relevant ideas, followed by: stimulation (of feelings and emotions), simulation and narrative production, association, inference, and meaning-making. Using examples from my interviews, I consider how each process is socially and materially configured. I then discuss the role of diverse photographic practices in the convergence of these processes, and the implications for conceptions of cueing, recall, and autobiographical memory.
Machine-learning has enabled the creation of “deepfake videos”; highly-realistic footage that features a person saying or doing something they never did. In recent years, this technology has become more widespread and various apps now allow an average social-media user to create a deepfake video which can be shared online. There are concerns about how this may distort memory for public events, but to date no evidence to support this. Across two experiments, we presented participants (N = 682) with fake news stories in the format of text, text with a photograph or text with a deepfake video. Though participants rated the deepfake videos as convincing, dangerous, and unethical, and some participants did report false memories after viewing deepfakes, the deepfake video format did not consistently increase false memory rates relative to the text-only or text-with-photograph conditions. Further research is needed, but the current findings suggest that while deepfake videos can distort memory for public events, they may not always be more effective than simple misleading text.
Deep fakes have rapidly emerged as one of the most ominous concerns within modern society. The ability to easily and cheaply generate convincing images, audio, and video via artificial intelligence will have repercussions within politics, privacy, law, security, and broadly across all of society. In light of the widespread apprehension, numerous technological efforts aim to develop tools to distinguish between reliable audio/video and the fakes. These tools and strategies will be particularly effective for consumers when their guard is naturally up, for example during election cycles. However, recent research suggests that not only can deep fakes create credible representations of reality, but they can also be employed to create false memories. Memory malleability research has been around for some time, but it relied on doctored photographs or text to generate fraudulent recollections. These recollected but fake memories take advantage of our cognitive miserliness that favors selecting those recalled memories that evoke our preferred weltanschauung. Even responsible consumers can be duped when false but belief-consistent memories, implanted when we are least vigilant can, like a Trojan horse, be later elicited at crucial dates to confirm our pre-determined biases and influence us to accomplish nefarious goals. This paper seeks to understand the process of how such memories are created, and, based on that, proposing ethical and legal guidelines for the legitimate use of fake technologies.
The aim of this chapter is to explore how multipurpose applications of smartphones combined with growing insights of socio-cultural transformations have affected personal photography of Hong Kong females. About 80 digital photographs taken and distributed via the social networking site Facebook were analysed within the social-semiotic theory of representation and communication. The major finding is that photographic images have shown a remarkable degree of homogeneity of representational practices used by females in Hong Kong for self-remodelling. Taking photographs seems no longer primarily to provide factual evidence of a human activity (‘image as record’), but is increasingly becoming a tool for an individual’s identity formation and communication (‘image as construct’). It is argued that the increased economic and social status of Hong Kong females has spawned new ways of manipulating digital photographs disseminated over the internet.
La memoria es un proceso reconstructivo, donde distintos recuerdos buscan conformar una narrativa autobiográfica coherente. No obstante, dichos recuerdos no son completamente precisos, ya que en diversas investigaciones se ha encontrado que las personas tienden a reportar episodios de su pasado que sucedieron ya sea de manera distinta o que en realidad nunca ocurrieron. Tras considerar a la memoria autobiográfica como el mayor logro ontogenético humano, surge la interrogante respecto a cómo puede suceder un fenómeno tan impreciso como el de las memorias falsas. En el presente estudio teórico se revisa la principal evidencia científica respecto a la existencia de memorias falsas, se analiza su etiología y se profundiza en su posible rol adaptativo.
In this chapter we draw on all of our empirical results (reported in Chapters 2, 3 and 4), our thorough review of the disparate literature (Chapters 5 and 6), and the theoretical framework we created (Chapter 7) to present a list of the most important dimensions of external memory for further study, as proposed previously by others and as proposed by us. We also discuss other exciting and important unanswered questions, including the question of whether technology is making internal memory worse. Internal and external memory have mutually shaped each other for tens of thousands of years and will continue to do so into the future. It is important to keep documenting and seeking to understand this interplay. With this book we have laid the groundwork for much-needed future work, both empirical and theoretical.
Photographs have been found to affect a variety of psychological judgments. For example, nonprobative but semantically related photographs may increase beliefs in the truth of general knowledge statements (Newman, Garry, Bernstein, Kantner, & Lindsay, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19(5), 969–974, 2012; Newman et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41(5), 1337–1348, 2015). Photographs can also create illusions of memory (Cardwell, Henkel, Garry, Newman, & Foster, Memory & Cognition, 44(6), 883–896, 2016; Henkel, Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25(1), 78–86, 2011; Henkel & Carbuto, 2008). A candidate mechanism for these effects is that a photograph increases the fluency with which a statement or an event is processed. The present study was conducted to determine whether photos at test can induce illusions of recognition memory and to test the viability of a conceptual fluency explanation of these effects. The results of the present study suggest that photographs enhance the fluency of related words (Experiment 1), that false memories can be produced by the mere presence of a related photo on a recognition memory test for words (Experiments 2 & 3), and that these effects appear to be limited to conceptually based recognition tests (Experiments 4 & 5). The results support the notion that photograph-based illusions of memory stem from the ability of related photographs to increase the speed and ease of conceptual processing.
A digitális fényképezés társadalmi gyakorlata Magyarországon
This paper analyzes popular visual practices of the self-presentation in the visual content of social media in nowadays Russia. Our key question was to understand wide spreading and specificity of social practice of selfie. Using the iconographic method (E. Panofsky), we study visual content of selfie aiming to reveal the hidden rules of their reproduction. The results of an empirical study of random sample of 200 pictures are the following. First of all, selfie and similar visual practices are a means of gaining social approval and support. In order to provide the scientific view on the fascination with such practices the ways of information spreading as well as obtaining social support and approval must be taken into consideration. Secondly, in making selfie, the traditional function of photos such as preservation of memories of oneself at certain moment or memories of social circles together with situations is no longer important. Moreover, identification function of a picture is of fundamental importance, namely, obtaining social approval for the external qualities, imagination, compliance with standards of living, which are considered to be valuable and correct (for instance, geographic mobility, availability of exclusive places and things, originality).
People are more likely to recall both true and false information that is consistent with their pre-existing stereotypes, schemata and desires. In addition, experts in a particular field are more likely to experience false memory in relation to their area of expertise. Here, we investigate whether level of interest, as distinct from level of knowledge, and in the absence of self-professed expertise, is associated with increased false memory. 489 participants were asked to rank 7 topics from most to least interesting. They were then asked if they remembered the events described in four news items related to the topic they selected as the most interesting and four items related to the topic selected as least interesting. In each case, three of the events depicted had really happened and one was fictional. A high level of interest in a topic increased true memories for the topic and doubled the frequency of false memories, even after controlling for level of knowledge. We interpret the results in the context of the source-monitoring framework and suggest that false memories arise as a result of interference from existing information stored in domain-related schemata.
A review of 2,647 studies of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) yielded 476 potential candidates for a meta-analysis of predictors of PTSD or of its symptoms. From these, 68 studies met criteria for inclusion in a meta-analysis of 7 predictors: (a) prior trauma, (b) prior psychological adjustment, (c) family history of psychopathology, (d) perceived life threat during the trauma, (e) posttrauma social support, (f) peritraumatic emotional responses, and (g) peritraumatic dissociation. All yielded significant effect sizes, with family history, prior trauma, and prior adjustment the smallest (weighted r = .17) and peritraumatic dissociation the largest (weighted r = .35). The results suggest that peritraumatic psychological processes, not prior characteristics, are the strongest predictors of PTSD.
The contemporary view of perfectionism is that it is a multidimensional construct (e.g., Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990; Hewitt & Flett, 1991), and that the dimensions comprising perfectionism can have either adaptive or maladaptive influences upon cognition, affect, and behavior. Research in non-sport settings has consistently shown that maladaptive perfectionism is associated with lower levels of self-esteem. However, to date, no studies have examined the relationship between perfectionism and self-esteem in sport. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between perfectionism and self-esteem among a sample of inter-collegiate athletes (36 male, 51 female, M age = 19.65 years). Perfectionism was assessed with the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Frost-MPS; Frost et al., 1990). Self-esteem was assessed by Rosenberg’s (1965) Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and a modified sport-specific version of Heatherton and Polivy’s (1991) State Self-Esteem Scale (SSES). Exploratory factor analysis of the modified SSES revealed two factors that were labeled Satisfaction with Current Sport Performance (SCSP) and Perceived Athletic Competence (PAC). Canonical correlation (RC) analysis was used to examine the multivariate relationship between perfectionism and self-esteem. One significant canonical function was extracted (RC = .74, p < .001). The pattern of canonical loadings suggested that athletes who adopted a maladaptive perfectionist orientation had low levels of self-esteem. Results are discussed around Hamachek’s (1978) distinction between adaptive and maladaptive forms of perfectionism. The importance of measuring perfectionism as a mutlidimensional construct in sport is also discussed.
Objective: To examine the relationship between Positive and Negative Perfectionism and Social Physique Anxiety (SPA) and the extent to which these two variables predict disturbed eating attitudes in male and female elite athletes.Design: Cross-sectional survey.Method: Athletes (n=316) completed measures of Positive and Negative Perfectionism, SPA, disordered eating and social desirability. Zero- and first-order (partial) correlations were examined to determine the relationship between Positive and Negative Perfectionism and SPA. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine how two individual difference variables, perfectionism and SPA, relate and contribute to disordered eating.Results: For both male and female athletes, Negative Perfectionism was significantly related to SPA. For males, Positive Perfectionism made a small, yet significant, contribution (i.e. 6%) in predicting disturbed eating attitudes. For females, Negative Perfectionism and SPA uniquely and in combination significantly contributed 41% of the variance in the prediction of disturbed eating attitudes.Discussion: These findings suggest that Negative Perfectionism is strongly linked with SPA and that, in females, SPA is an additional psychosocial variable to consider in the relationship between Negative Perfectionism and disordered eating.
History & Memory 13.1 (2001) 19-59
For Geoffrey Wigoder, in memoriam
Paul Auster, The Invention of Solitude
The idea for this article arose following several instances of personal loss in my family that led to death becoming far less abstract for me. Even prior to these concrete triggers, however, which had forced me to rethink my ideas about death and memory, I was inspired by a story narrated during a dinner party in an Upper West Side New York City apartment. The hostess was a well-established television correspondent for an American corporation network, whose work entailed rushing to hot spots all over Latin America to report on political and natural disasters. Opposite her sat a photographer who had just completed a project about ancient Indian altars in Latin America that had survived destruction despite modern progress. Between the television reporter (who relied on startling events to shock the viewer into believing in the absolute significance of the present) and the photographer (who was engaged in eternalizing the distant past) sat our narrator and told us the true story of someone whose past had suddenly caught up with him in an unexpected way.
Forty-nine years after the end of the Second World War, Stephen Bleyer walked into a bookshop in Montreal and came across a book of never before published photographs from the Russian archives, following the collapse of the communist block. As he leafed through the pages of the book, filled with photographs taken by Russian soldiers of concentration camp victims during the liberation of Auschwitz, he suddenly came across a photograph of a youth looking over his shoulder toward the camera (figure 1). The boy's skeletal body made him barely recognizable. Bleyer suddenly felt faint and had to sit down on the bookshop steps. After a moment, he started to roll up his sleeve in a jerky movement and uncovered the number tattooed on his arm. He compared this serial number (an impersonal proof of identity) with the "represented" and indexical number in the photograph, inscribed on a board below the wooden box that served as a seat for the young man. The numbers matched. Bleyer rose from the steps and approached the cashier, who was busy calculating other sorts of numbers on the cash register. She reached out her hand to take the book, expecting to clear the magnetic code that would identify the book and the price, but then looked utterly baffled by Bleyer's request: he asked her to verify the number on his arm against the number on the page.
After buying the book he contacted the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum where these photographs were now stored and asked for a copy and for more information. According to our narrator, Bleyer was faxed the full-frame photograph on an official museum page that added another dimension to looking at the anonymous youth in the book. He was now represented by three registers: an image-portrait, a serial number and an archival record -- one identifying the photograph as a classified subject (Holocaust, camps, children, dates,) and placing it in a [Begin Page 22] larger collective context that historicized the personal portrait in relation to a scheme of genocide, providing visual proof of a past that many perpetrators had wished to deny and victims had wanted to forget or to recall selectively because of the pain that was involved in remembering.
What did this process of identification entail as Bleyer looked at the ghost of his past in a photograph that presented him as a stereotype of a camp survivor whom he barely...
A measure of sex-related alcohol expectancies was developed with a total of 916 sexually experienced adolescents (aged 13–19 yrs) who had ever consumed alcohol. The sample was 52.6% male, 48% White, and 44% Black. Expectancy items represented 3 domains: enhancement of sexual experience, increased sexual risk taking, and disinhibition of sexual behavior. Confirmatory analyses showed that a 3-factor model provided a good fit to the data. Adequate reliability and low-to-moderate correlation among the expectancy measures were also demonstrated. Expectancies for sexual risk taking and disinhibition were found to be more strongly endorsed by male than by female respondents, although these differences were stronger among Black than among White adolescents and increased with age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Several recent studies have revealed substantial limitations in 2-year-olds' ability to search accurately for objects that have undergone unseen movement, even along highly constrained paths. In many of these studies, children observed a ball as it rolled down a track and behind an occluding panel that contained 4 doors. The track had a barrier that was partly visible and could be placed in locations corresponding to the doors. When the ball came to a rest against the barrier and behind the occluder, the child's task was to find the ball by opening the correct door. The search accuracy of 2-year-olds has not differed from chance across several variations of this task. This research was conducted to identify the source of 2-year-olds' limitation in this domain. Children were granted a full view of the event before the ball was occluded with a door panel. Children's performance was better under this condition, but was still not systematically accurate unless their gaze remained locked onto the correct location. Two-year-olds' weak performance in these search tasks appears to be more a consequence of limitations in spatial integration than in their representation of unseen movement.
We conducted two experiments to investigate if college students would create false memories of childhood experiences in response to misleading information and repeated interviews. In both experiments we contacted parents to obtain information about events that happened to the students during childhood. In a series of interviews we asked the students to recall the parent-reported events and one experimenter-created false event. In the second experiment we varied the age at which we claimed the false event occurred. In both experiments we found that some individuals created false memories in these circumstances and in the second experiment we found no effect of age of attempted incorporation. In the second experiment we also found that those who discussed related background knowledge during the early interviews were more likely to create a false recall. Generalizations to therapy contexts are discussed.
Experiments with young infants provide evidence for early-developing capacities to represent physical objects and to reason about object motion. Early physical reasoning accords with 2 constraints at the center of mature physical conceptions: continuity and solidity. It fails to accord with 2 constraints that may be peripheral to mature conceptions: gravity and inertia. These experiments suggest that cognition develops concurrently with perception and action and that development leads to the enrichment of conceptions around an unchanging core. The experiments challenge claims that cognition develops on a foundation of perceptual or motor experience, that initial conceptions are inappropriate to the world, and that initial conceptions are abandoned or radically changed with the growth of knowledge.
Infants were presented with two sounding objects of different sizes in light and dark, in which sound cued the object's identity. Reaching behavior was assessed to determine if object size influenced preparation for grasping the object. In both light and dark, infants aligned their hands when contacting the large object compared with the small object, which resulted in a reach with both hands extended for the large object and reach with one hand more extended for the small object. Infants contacted the large object more frequently on the bottom and sides rather than the top, where the sound source was located. Reaching in the dark by 6 1/2-month-olds is not merely directed toward a sound source but rather shows preparation in relation to the object's size. These findings were interpreted as evidence that mental representation of previously seen objects can guide subsequent motor action by 6 1/2-month-old infants.
This article attempted to demonstrate that the perfectionism construct is multidimensional, comprising both personal and social components, and that these components contribute to severe levels of psychopathology. We describe three dimensions of perfectionism: self-oriented perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, and socially prescribed perfectionism. Four studies confirm the multidimensionality of the construct and show that these dimensions can be assessed in a reliable and valid manner. Finally, a study with 77 psychiatric patients shows that self-oriented, other-oriented, and socially prescribed perfectionism relate differentially to indices of personality disorders and other psychological maladjustment. A multidimensional approach to the study of perfectionism is warranted, particularly in terms of the association between perfectionism and maladjustment.
This article explains how alcohol makes social responses more extreme, enhances important self-evaluations, and relieves anxiety and depression, effects that underlie both the social destructiveness of alcohol and the reinforcing effects that make it an addictive substance. The theories are based on alcohol's impairment of perception and thought--the myopia it causes--rather than on the ability of alcohol's pharmacology to directly cause specific reactions or on expectations associated with alcohol's use. Three conclusions are offered (a) Alcohol makes social behaviors more extreme by blocking a form of response conflict. (b) The same process can inflate self-evaluations. (c) Alcohol myopia, in combination with distracting activity, can reliably reduce anxiety and depression in all drinkers by making it difficult to allocate attention to the thoughts that provoke these states. These theories are discussed in terms of their significance for the prevention and treatment of alcohol abuse.
The claim that a person's memory for an event may be altered by information encountered after the event has been influential in shaping current conceptions of memory. The basis for the claim is a series of studies showing that subjects who are given false or misleading information about a previously witnessed event perform more poorly on tests of memory for the event than subjects who are not misled. In this article we argue that the available evidence does not imply that misleading postevent information impairs memory for the original event, because the procedure used in previous studies is inappropriate for assessing effects of misleading information on memory. We then introduce a more appropriate procedure and report six experiments using this procedure. We conclude from the results that misleading postevent information has no effect on memory for the original event. We then review several recent studies that seem to contradict this conclusion, showing that the studies do not pose problems for our position. Finally, we discuss the implications of our conclusions for broader issues concerning memory.
A meta-analysis was conducted on research investigating the effects of alcohol consumption and expectancy within the balanced-placebo design. Preliminary results indicated that both alcohol and expectancy have significant, although heterogeneous effects on behavior. Subsequent analyses were conducted to determine the factors responsible for the heterogeneity of effects. At the highest level of analysis, alcohol expectancy had strong effects on relatively deviant social behaviors and minimal effects on nonsocial behaviors. Alcohol consumption showed the opposite pattern of effects. The principal effects associated with alcohol expectancy involved increased alcohol consumption and increased sexual arousal in response to erotic stimuli. On the other hand, alcohol consumption led to significant impairment of information processing and motor performance, induced a specific set of physical sensations, resulted in general improvements of mood, and tended to increase aggression. Finally, across all studies it was observed that alcohol consumption and expectancy interacted no more frequently than would be expected by chance. These results have implications for both the theories and methods of contemporary alcohol research.
A new method was devised to test object permanence in young infants. Five- month-old infants were habituated to a screen that moved back and forth through a 180-degree arc, in the manner of a drawbridge. After infants reached habituation, a box was centered behind the screen. Infants were shown two test events: a possible event and an impossible event. In the possible event, the screen stopped when it reached the occluded box; in the impossible event, the screen moved through the space occupied by the box. The results indicated that infants looked reliably longer at the impossible than at the possible event. This finding suggested that infants (1) understood that the box continued to exist, in its same location, after it was occluded by the screen, and (2) expected the screen to stop against the occluded box and were surprised, or puzzled, when it failed to do so. A control experiment in which the box was placed next to the screen provided support for this interpretation of the results. Together, the results of these experiments indicate that, contrary to Piaget's (1954) claims, infants as young as 5 months of age understand that objects continue to exist when occluded. The results also indicate that 5-month-old infants realize that solid objects do not move through the space occupied by other solid objects.
Data were obtained on the general population epidemiology of DSM-III-R posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including information on estimated life-time prevalence, the kinds of traumas most often associated with PTSD, sociodemographic correlates, the comorbidity of PTSD with other lifetime psychiatric disorders, and the duration of an index episode.
Modified versions of the DSM-III-R PTSD module from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule and of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview were administered to a representative national sample of 5877 persons aged 15 to 54 years in the part II subsample of the National Comorbidity Survey.
The estimated lifetime prevalence of PTSD is 7.8%. Prevalence is elevated among women and the previously married. The traumas most commonly associated with PTSD are combat exposure and witnessing among men and rape and sexual molestation among women. Posttraumatic stress disorder is strongly comorbid with other lifetime DSM-III-R disorders. Survival analysis shows that more than one third of people with an index episode of PTSD fail to recover even after many years.
Posttraumatic stress disorder is more prevalent than previously believed, and is often persistent. Progress in estimating age-at-onset distributions, cohort effects, and the conditional probabilities of PTSD from different types of trauma will require future epidemiologic studies to assess PTSD for all lifetime traumas rather than for only a small number of retrospectively reported "most serious" traumas.
In this article the authors examine one possible factor in the creation of false beliefs among preschool-aged children, namely, source misattributions. The authors present the results from an ongoing program of research which suggest that source misattributions could be a mechanism underlying children's false beliefs about having experienced fictitious events. Findings from this program of research indicate that, although all children are susceptible to making source misattributions, very young children may be disproportionately vulnerable to these kinds of errors. This vulnerability leads younger preschoolers, on occasion, to claim that they remember actually experiencing events that they only thought about or were suggested by others. These results are discussed in the context of the ongoing debate over the veracity and durability of delayed reports of early memories, repressed memories, dissociative states, and the validity risks posed by therapeutic techniques that entail repeated visually guided imagery inductions.
Recent reports have suggested that the use of alcohol or drugs is related to sexual behavior that is high risk for HIV infection. If substance use leads to unsafe sexual activity, understanding the dynamics of this relationship can contribute to research and preventive and educational efforts to contain the spread of AIDS. In this article, we review research on the relationship between substance use and high-risk sexual behavior. We then consider the inherent limitations of the research designs used to study this relationship, outline some methodological concerns including measurement and sampling issues, and comment on causal interpretations of correlational research findings. We end with a consideration of potential avenues for future research and a discussion of implications of these findings for current AIDS prevention policies.
A framework for understanding source monitoring and relevant empirical evidence is described, and several related phenomena are discussed: old-new recognition, indirect tests, eyewitness testimony, misattributed familiarity, cryptomnesia, and incorporation of fiction into fact. Disruptions in source monitoring (e.g., from confabulation, amnesia, and aging) and the brain regions that are involved are also considered, and source monitoring within a general memory architecture is discussed. It is argued that source monitoring is based on qualities of experience resulting from combinations of perceptual and reflective processes, usually requires relatively differentiated phenomenal experience, and involves attributions varying in deliberateness. These judgments evaluate information according to flexible criteria and are subject to error and disruption. Furthermore, diencephalic and temporal regions may play different roles in source monitoring than do frontal regions of the brain.
Previous studies have used symptom provocation and positron emission tomography to delineate the brain systems that mediate various anxiety states. Using an analogous approach, the goal of this study was to measure regional cerebral blood flow changes associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms.
Eight patients with PTSD, screened as physiologically responsive to a script-driven imagery symptom provocation paradigm, were exposed sequentially to audiotaped traumatic and neutral scripts in conjunction with positron emission tomography. Heart rate and subjective measures of emotional state were obtained for each condition. Statistical mapping techniques were used to determine locations of significant brain activation.
Increases in normalized blood flow were found for the traumatic as compared with control conditions in right-sided limbic, paralimbic, and visual areas; decreases were found in left inferior frontal and middle temporal cortex.
The results suggest that emotions associated with the PTSD symptomatic state are mediated by the limbic and paralimbic systems within the right hemisphere. Activation of visual cortex may correspond to the visual component of PTSD reexperiencing phenomena.
Using Steele's inhibitory conflict model (C.M. Steele & R.A. Josephs, 1990) as a framework, the present study investigated the link between alcohol use and the probability that intercourse occurred on 2 different 1st date occasions in a random sample of adolescents and young adults interviewed twice approximately 4 1/2 years apart (Ns = 1,678 and 1,780, respectively). As expected, both between-subjects/within-occasion and within-subjects/across-occasion analyses indicated that the probability of intercourse was significantly higher when the male couple member, but not his female counterpart, drank alcohol. Also consistent with Steele's model, alcohol effects on intercourse probability were found primarily among males who were highly conflicted about having intercourse on the date. Inconsistent with Steele's model, however, a similar effect was not found among highly conflicted females. Results are discussed in terms of a more general variant of Steele's model that allows for both alcohol-related disinhibition and inhibition.
This book brings a surprisingly wide range of intellectual disciplines to bear on the self-narrative and the self. The same ecological/cognitive approach that successfully organized Ulric Neisser's earlier volume on The Perceived Self now relates ideas from the experimental, developmental, and clinical study of memory to insights from post-modernism and literature. Although autobiographical remembering is an essential way of giving meaning to our lives, the memories we construct are never fully consistent and often simply wrong. In the first chapter, Neisser considers the so-called 'false memory syndrome' in this context; other contributors discuss the effects of amnesia, the development of remembering in childhood, the social construction of memory and its alleged self-servingness, and the contrast between literary and psychological models of the self. Jerome Bruner, Peggy Miller, Alan Baddeley, Kenneth Gergen and Daniel Albright are among the contributors to this unusual synthesis.
This study examined the relationship between perfectionism and goal orientations among male Canadian Football players (M age = 18.24 years). Athletes (N = 174) completed inventories to assess perfectionist orientations and goal orientations in sport. Perfectionism was conceptualized as a multidimensional construct and was measured with a newly constructed sport-specific version of the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS; Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990). Exploratory factor analysis of the modified MPS revealed four sport-related perfectionism dimensions: perceived parental pressure, personal standards, concern aver mistakes, and perceived coach pressure. Canonical correlation analysis obtained two significant canonical functions (R C1 = .36; R C2 = .30). The first one revealed that task orientation was positively correlated with an adaptive profile of perfectionism. The second one revealed that ego orientation was positively associated with a maladaptive profile of perfectionism. Results are discussed in the context of Hamachek's (1978) conceptualization of adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism.
This investigation employed Smith's (1996) model of performance-related anxiety to examine links between perfectionism, achievement goals, and the temporal patterning of multidimensional state anxiety in 119 high school runners. Instruments assessed achievement goals (Roberts & Balague, 1989), perfectionism (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990), and multidimensional state anxiety (Martens, Burton, & Vealey, 1990) on 4 occasions prior to a cross-country meet. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that overall perfectionism was a consistent, significant predictor of cognitive anxiety. Perceived ability was a consistent predictor of confidence, and ego and task goals contributed to the prediction of cognitive anxiety and confidence, respectively. Concern over mistakes, doubts about action, and personal standards were consistent predictors of cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and confidence, respectively. The findings help further develop Smith's (1996) model and suggest that the appraisal process underlying multidimensional state anxiety is influenced by individual differences in a number of achievement-related constructs.
The belief that alcohol use leads to sexual risk behavior is nearly ubiquitous. To determine if this belief is warranted, we identify theory and research regarding the alcohol, risky-sex link. We focus our review on studies that use the event-level methodology because this approach provides a particularly sensitive but stringent test of the situational alcohol, risky-sex connection. Overall, the data from available event-level studies indicate that people who use condoms when they are sober also tend to use them when drinking; people who fail to use condoms when drinking probably also fail to use them when sober. We recognize several empirical exceptions to this rule and provide suggestions for future research.
In this paper we review the factors alleged to be responsible for the creation of inaccurate reports among preschool-aged children, focusing on so-called "source misattribution errors." We present the first round of results from an ongoing program of research that suggests that source misattributions could be a powerful mechanism underlying children′s false beliefs about having experienced fictitious events. Preliminary findings from this program of research indicate that all children of all ages are equally susceptible to making source misattributions. Data from a follow-up wave of data indicate that very young children may be disproportionately vulnerable to these kinds of errors when the procedure is changed slightly to create mental images more easily. This vulnerability leads younger preschoolers, on occasion, to claim that they actually experienced events that they only thought about. These preliminary findings are discussed in the context of the ongoing debate over the veracity and durability of delayed reports of early memories, repressed memories, dissociative states, and the validity risks posed by therapeutic techniques that entail repeated visually guided imagery inductions.
Examines the neural basis of false memories through the study of 3 different but related phenomena: source amnesia, confabulation, and false recognition, focusing on patients with lesions to specific brain structures, and neuroimaging and behavioral studies of people with intact memory functions. Research shows that there is a linkage between source amnesia, frontal lobe functions and false memory. High level cognitive processes that normally monitor and evaluate mental contents are disturbed in confabulating patients. False recognition is also found to be related to frontal lobe pathology. The case of a 65 yr old man with patterns of false recognitions and infarction of the right frontal lobe is presented. Based on the observations it is suggested that frontal cortex, right frontal regions in particular, play a role in search processes that access event-specific knowledge from general event knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined the relationship of perfectionism with 40 female athletes' reactions to athletic competition and coaches' ratings of reactions to mistakes during competition. Athletes who rated high in concern over mistakes (one dimension of perfectionism) reported more anxiety and less self-confidence in sports, displayed a general failure orientation toward sports, reacted negatively to mistakes (by their report and by coaches' ratings), and reported more negative thinking in the 24 hrs before competition. A 2nd dimension of perfectionism, high personal standards, was associated with a success orientation toward sports and more dreams of perfection before competition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this experiment, we ask whether photographs can lead to false memories for elements of a newspaper story. Participants played the role of a newspaper editor, identifying minor typographical errors in three newspaper articles and marking the text where they thought an accompanying photo should be placed when the story was printed. The critical article described a hurricane's effects on a coastal region; the story made no mention of personal injury or death. We varied the accompanying critical photo: participants saw either a photo of a village before the hurricane hit or after. In a later memory test, both ‘Before’ and ‘After’ participants were equally good at correctly recognising old statements and rejecting weak lures. However, the ‘After’ participants claimed to have read information describing death and injury 32% of the time. By comparison, ‘Before’ participants claimed to have read these statements only 9% of the time. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In three experiments with difficult stimuli, it was found that the addition of a representative picture to a news item improves recall of that item. Second, as predicted by dual-coding theory (DCT), concrete news items were recalled better than abstract news items (Experiments 2 and 3). Furthermore, concrete news items benefited more from the addition of a news picture than did abstract news items (Experiment 3). In Experiment 4, it was found that news concreteness was strongly correlated with various picture attributes, including visual-verbal overlap, which might in part explain the differential gain in recall from the addition of pictures to concrete and abstract news. The results are explained using Paivio's DCT.
A complete understanding of the consequences of service in a war zone includes examining the lifetime and current prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and of partial PTSD. Cases of partial PTSD are persons who have clinically significant symptoms of PTSD, but who do not meet the full diagnostic criteria. The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS) estimated the lifetime prevalence of PTSD to be 30.9% among male theater veterans, 26.% among females; lifetime prevalence of partial PTSD was an additional 22.5% and 21.2%, respectively; current prevalence of partial PTSD was 11.1% in males and 7.8% in females. NVVRS findings indicate that of the 1.7 million veterans who ever experienced significant symptoms of PTSD after the Vietnam war, approximately 830,000 (49%) still experience clinically significant distress and disability from symptoms of PTSD. The contribution of partial PTSD represents an estimated additional 350,000 veterans.
The intent of this article is to consider similarities between the research on the alteration of memory, and that on the modification of behavior through viewing edited self-modeling videotapes that depict exemplary behavior. A considerable number of studies unequivocally show that memory can be altered through several mechanisms, including visual techniques. However, there is limited research indicating that alteration of memory results in valued and adaptive behavioral change. This article explores a tenable explanation for the research finding that self-modeling is an effective intervention for students with behavior disorders. It was hypothesized that when participants view a change in their behavior, their memories and self-beliefs subsequently change to be in concert with that shown on the edited videotape. Perhaps as the individuals repeatedly view the videotapes, they alter their memory of engagement in past maladaptive behavior, with an adaptive memory of exemplary behavior. Further, they may come to believe that they were always capable of exhibiting such behavior. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Individual differences in memory and suggestibility were assessed in an experiment involving 1989 people who attended the Exploratorium, a science museum located in San Francisco. Subjects watched a brief film clip of an assault and later answered questions about it. Approximately half received misinformation about some critical items. Four demographic variables (gender, educational level, age, and occupation) were examined to determine their impact on memory performance. The principle of discrepancy detection predicts that, compared to individuals with a good memory, people who have poor memory to begin with will be relatively suggestible (that is susceptible to misinformation). Some of our findings were consistent with this principle. For example, children (5–10 years) and elderly (over 65) were relatively inaccurate and also relatively suggestible. Other findings were not consistent with the principle, for example the finding that artists and architects were relatively accurate, but they were also highly suggestible.
The long-term outcome in rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis (RPGN) is a subject of increasing clinical attention. We performed a retrospective study of 64 patients, who were treated between 1972 and 1990 for biopsy-confirmed RPGN (median observation time 3.3 years). The incidence of RPGN displayed a linear increase with age, and 41 percent of the patients were older than 60 years (26/64). Fifty-one of the 64 patients (80%) were treated with immunosuppressives (steroid pulses, cyclophosphamide, azathioprine, prednisolone, plasma exchange). Of the 13 patients not receiving immunosuppresion, 12 were diagnosed as cases of idiopathic RPGN. Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmatic antibodies (ANCA) were tested for in 6 of the 64 patients, of whom 2 with systemic immune disease were cANCA positive. In the Kaplan-Meier analysis, the overall 5-year patient survival rate with the 95 percent confidence interval [95% CI] was 70 percent [47%–93%] and did not differ for immunosuppressed and nonspecifically treated patients. Kaplan-Meier probability of life-sustaining renal function was significantly better in 51 immunosuppressed patients (p=0.03) compared to 13 nonspecifically treated patients, and the efficacy of immunosuppression in patients older than 60 years was comparable to that in younger patients. After 5-years, the proportion of patients with maintained renal function was only 27 percent [0%–57%] in the immunousppressed patients. From the multivariate Cox model, it was evident that immunosuppression had no independent beneficial effect on renal function, whereas the 20 patients with initial oliguria (
Perfectionism is a major diagnostic criterion for one DSM-III diagnosis, and it has been hypothesized to play a major role in a wide variety of psychopathologies. Yet there is no precise definition of, and there is a paucity of research on, this construct. Based on what has been theorized about perfectionism, a multidimensional measure was developed and several hypotheses regarding the nature of perfectionism were tested in four separate studies. The major dimension of this measure was excessive concern over making mistakes. Five other dimensions were identified, including high personal standards, the perception of high parental expectations, the perception of high parental criticism, the doubting of the quality of one's actions, and a preference for order and organization. Perfectionism and certain of its subscales were correlated with a wide variety of psychopathological symptoms. There was also an association between perfectionism and procrastination. Several subscales of the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), personal standards and organization, were associated with positive achievement striving and work habits. The MPS was highly correlated with one of the existing measures of perfectionism. Two other existing measures were only moderately correlated with the MPS and with each other. Future studies of perfectionism should take into account the multidimensional nature of the construct.
The current paper describes the results of an experiment in which 200 students who varied in levels of trait perfectionism performed a laboratory task of varying levels of difficulty. Participants received either negative or positive performance feedback, independent of their actual level of performance. Analyses of pre-task and post-task measures of negative and positive affect showed that individuals with high self-oriented perfectionism experienced a general increase in negative affect after performing the task, and self-oriented perfectionists who received negative performance feedback were especially likely to report decreases in positive affect. Additional analyses showed that self-oriented perfectionists who received negative feedback responded with a cognitive orientation characterized by performance dissatisfaction, cognitive rumination, and irrational task importance. In contrast, there were relatively few significant differences involving other-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism. Collectively, our findings support the view that self-oriented perfectionism is a vulnerability factor involving negative cognitive and affective reactions following failure experiences that reflect poorly on the self.
The setting of high standards is an integral part of elite sports, and often beneficial for the athlete's performance. However, individuals who are characterized by frequent cognitions about the attainment of ideal, perfectionistic standards, have been shown to be likely to experience heightened levels of anxiety, due to discrepancies between ideal and current self/situation. This could of course be detrimental to their sport performance. The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between different patterns of perfectionistic dimensions and sport-related competitive anxiety and self-confidence, for elite athletes with different self-esteem strategies. The results revealed that the relation between self-esteem and perfectionism differs depending on which dimensions of self-esteem and perfectionism that are being considered. Athletes with a high self-esteem based on a respect and love for themselves had more positive patterns of perfectionism, whereas athletes who have a self-esteem that is dependent on competence aspects showed a more negative perfectionism. Further, negative patterns of perfectionism were in the present study related to higher levels of cognitive anxiety and lower levels of self-confidence. Hence, it seems that sport related anxiety is positively associated to certain patterns of perfectionism, patterns that are more common in individuals with specific self-esteem strategies.
The paper reviews and considers the existing cognitive and behavioral accounts for the acquisition and maintenance of post-traumatic stress disorder. Mowrer's two-stage theory as applied to rape victims and Vietnam veterans is critically reviewed. It was concluded that traditional S-R learning theories can adequately account for fear and avoidance consequent to a traumatic event, as well as the greater generalization as compared to simple phobics. However, these theories do not explain the remaining PTSD symptoms. The literature on experimental neurosis predicts that uncontrollable and unpredictable events produce responses that are highly reminiscent of PTSD irrespective of stimulus intensity and complexity. An additional shortcoming of S-R theory is the difficulty in incorporating meaning concepts which are so central to PTSD. Evidence for the necessity of a theory to accommodate meaning concepts is the finding that perceived threat is a better predictor of PTSD than actual threat. Therefore, we have presented a theoretical framework developed by Foa & Kozak (1986) which accommodates meaning concepts in explaining mechanisms of fear reduction and adapted this theory to PTSD.
Where does the mind stop and the rest of the world begin? The question invites two standard replies. Some accept the intuitive demarcations of skin and skull, and say that what is outside the body is outside the mind. Others are impressed by arguments suggesting that the meaning of our words "just ain't in the head", and hold that this externalism about meaning carries over into an externalism about mind. We propose to pursue a third position. We will advocate an externalism about mind, but one that is in no way grounded in the debatable role of external reference in fixing the contents of our mental states. Rather, we advocate an *active externalism*, based on the active role of the environment in driving cognitive processes.
Recent evidence indicates that infants as young as 3.5 months of age understand that objects continue to exist when hidden (Baillargeon, 1987a; Baillargeon & DeVos, 1990). Why, then, do infants fail to search for hidden objects until 7 to 8 months of age? The present experiments tested whether 5.5-month-old infants could distinguish between correct and incorrect search actions performed by an experimenter. In Experiment 1, a toy was placed in front of (possible event) or under (impossible event) a clear cover. Next, a screen was slid in front of the objects, hiding them from view. A hand then reached behind the screen and reappeared holding the toy. The infants looked reliably longer at the impossible than at the possible event, suggesting that they understood that the hand's direct reaching action was sufficient to retrieve the toy when it stood in front of but not under the clear cover. The same results were obtained in a second condition in which a toy was placed in front of (possible event) or behind (impossible event) a barrier. In Experiment 2, a toy was placed under the right (possible event) or the left (impossible event) of two covers. After a screen hid the objects, a hand reached behind the screen's right edge and reappeared first with the right cover and then with the toy. The infants looked reliably longer at the impossible than at the possible event, suggesting that they realized that the hand's sequence of action was sufficient to retrieve the toy when it stood under the right but not the left cover. A control condition supported this interpretation. Together, the results of Experiments 1 and 2 indicate that by 5.5 months of age, infants not only represent hidden objects, but are able to identify the actions necessary to retrieve these objects. The implications of these findings for a problem solving explanation of young infants' failure to retrieve hidden objects are considered.
