D. Stephen Lindsay’s research while affiliated with University of Victoria and other places

Human memory is not always an accurate record of experienced events. Information that has never beenexperienced but is consistent with a relevant schema is sometimes mistaken as memory, giving rise to falsememories. In this study, we focused on whether schema can provoke false memory for actions and for objectseven when schema-consistent targets had not been presented. We presented schema-inconsistent actions andschema-inconsistent objects in a slide sequence depicting a kitchen. Later, we administered an old/newrecognition test with remember/know judgments and Perception/Thought/Emotion/Context ratings forschema-inconsistent targets, schema-consistent distracters, and schema-inconsistent distracters. Both for theactions and the objects, participants more often falsely recognized schema-consistent distracters thanschema-inconsistent distracters. That is, memory can be reconstructed along the scene schema, provoking falsememory. However, these false memories were not typically accompanied by “remember” judgments but ratherby “know” judgments. The similarity between schema-consistent targets and schema-consistent distracters is anessential factor for false recollection.

General Audience Summary When people are exposed to misinformation, they often incorporate this information into their later memory reports. Research suggests that warning people about the presence of misinformation can improve the accuracy of their memory reports, yet these studies have typically used warnings that explicitly mention the presence of misinformation and could not be implemented in forensic settings (e.g., police interviews). Across two experiments, we examined whether ecologically valid sensitization instructions reduce the detrimental effects of misinformation on eyewitness memory. Participants watched a mock crime video and then read a narrative containing misleading information about the video. Following this, sensitized participants watched the sensitization video, whereas nonsensitized participants watched a video about playing musical instruments. The sensitization video told participants that memory is made up of information from several sources and that they had been randomly assigned to either an accurate or inaccurate summary of the video. Participants were not told whether they themselves had been exposed to misinformation. The purpose of these instructions was to emulate real-life situations, where it is often unclear whether someone has been exposed to misinformation, and to encourage participants to remember the original video with this possibility in mind. As expected, participants were more accurate at remembering details they were not misled about (control items) than details they had been misled about (misled items). This difference, however, was smaller for sensitized participants than control participants. Sensitized participants were also less likely to show overconfidence in the accuracy of their memories for misled items. For instance, when control participants reported being 90%–100% confident, they were only accurate 60%–67% of the time. Sensitized participants, by contrast, were accurate 75%–80% of the time. Our findings suggest that warning people about the mere possibility of misinformation can improve the accuracy of witnesses’ memory and the informativeness of their confidence judgments.

Multiple studies have reported evidence that the misinformation effect can be reduced or even eliminated under some conditions, but these studies have typically used warnings that could not be implemented in forensic settings (e.g., telling participant/witnesses that a particular source included false information). In the current study, we investigated whether novel, ecologically valid sensitisation instructions can reduce the misinformation effect. We also examined effects of the manipulation on the confidence-accuracy relationship. Across two experiments that used different stimuli and test formats, participants (total N = 422) were exposed to misinformation about a mock crime; later, half of the participants received sensitisation instructions before completing a memory test. The misinformation effect was significantly smaller for participants who received the sensitisation instructions. Sensitised participants also demonstrated a stronger confidence-accuracy relationship and were less overconfident at the highest level of confidence. Our findings encourage tests of the sensitisation instructions under more naturalistic conditions.

Basol et al. (2020) tested the “the Bad News Game” (BNG), an app designed to improve ability to spot false claims on social media. Participants rated simulated Tweets, then played either the BNG or an unrelated game, then re-rated the Tweets. Playing the BNG lowered rated belief in false Tweets. Here, four teams of undergraduate psychology students each attempted an extended replication of Basol et al., using updated versions of the original Bad News game. The most important extension was that the replications included a larger number of true Tweets than the original study and planned analyses of responses to true Tweets. The four replications were loosely coordinated, with each team independently working out how to implement the agreed plan. Despite many departures from the Basol et al. method, all four teams replicated their key finding: Playing the BNG reduced belief in false Tweets. But playing the BNG also reduced belief in true Tweets to the same or almost the same extent. Exploratory signal detection theory analyses indicated that the BNG increased response bias but did not improve discrimination. This converges with findings reported by Modirrousta-Galian and Higham (2023).

Memory scientists usually compare mean performance on some measure(s) (accuracy, confidence, latency) as a function of experimental condition. Some researchers have made within-subject variability in task performance a focal outcome measure (e.g., Yao et al., Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 38, 227–237, 2016). Here, we explored between-subject variability in accuracy as a function of experimental conditions. This work was inspired by an incidental finding in a previous study, in which we observed greater variability in accuracy of memory performance on cued recall (CR) versus free recall (FR) of English animal/object nouns (Mah et al., Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1146200, 2023). Here we report experiments designed to assess the reliability of that pattern and to explore its causes (e.g., differential interpretation of instructions, [un]relatedness of CR word pairs, encoding time). In Experiment 1 (N = 120 undergraduates), we replicated the CR:FR variability difference with a more representative set of English nouns. In Experiments 2A (N = 117 Prolific participants) and 2B (N = 127 undergraduates), we found that the CR:FR variability difference persisted in a forced-recall procedure. In Experiment 3 (N = 260 Prolific participants), we used meaningfully related word pairs and still found greater variability in CR than in FR performance. In Experiment 4 (N = 360 Prolific participants), we equated CR and FR study phases by having all participants study pairs and, again, observed greater variability in CR than FR. The same was true in Experiment 5 (N = 120 undergraduates), in which study time was self-paced. Comparisons of variability across subjects can yield insights into the mechanisms underlying task performance.

Memory scientists usually compare mean performance on some measure(s) (accuracy, confidence, latency) as a function of experimental condition. Some researchers have made within-subject variability in task performance a focal outcome measure (e.g., Yao et al., 2016). Here we explored between-subject variability in accuracy as a function of experimental conditions. This work was inspired by an incidental finding in a previous study in which we observed greater variability in accuracy of memory performance on cued recall (CR) versus free recall (FR) of English animal/object nouns (Mah et al., 2023). Here we report experiments designed to assess the reliability of that pattern and to explore its causes (e.g., differential interpretation of instructions, (un)relatedness of CR word pairs, encoding time). In Experiment 1 (N = 120 undergraduates), we replicated the CR:FR variability difference with a more representative set of English nouns. In Experiments 2A (N = 117 Prolific participants) and 2B (N = 127 undergraduates), we found that the CR:FR variability difference persisted in a forced-recall procedure. In Experiment 3 (N = 260 Prolific participants), we used meaningfully related word pairs and still found greater variability in CR than FR performance. In Experiment 4 (N = 360 Prolific participants), we equated CR and FR study phases by having all participants study pairs and again observed greater variability in CR than FR. The same was true in Experiment 5 (N = 120 undergraduates), in which study time was self-paced. Comparisons of variability across subjects can yield insights into the mechanisms underlying task performance.

Introduction Free recall tends to be better for names of animate concepts such as animals than for names of inanimate objects. In Popp and Serra’s 2016 article, the authors replicated this “animacy effect” in free recall but when participants studied words in pairs (animate-animate pairs intermixed with inanimate-inanimate pairs) and were tested with cued recall, performance was better for inanimate-inanimate pairs than for animate-animate pairs (“reverse animacy”). We tested the replicability of this surprising effect and one possible explanation for the effect (semantic similarity). Methods Our Experiment 1 was a preregistered direct replication (N = 101) of Popp and Serra’s Experiment 1 (mixed-lists condition). In a second preregistered experiment conducted in four different samples (undergraduate N = 153, undergraduate N = 143, online Prolific N = 101, online Prolific/English-as-a-first-language N = 150), we manipulated the within-category semantic similarity of animal and object wordlists. Results AIn Experiment 1, just as in Popp and Serra, we observed an animacy effect for free recall and a reverse animacy effect for cued recall. Unlike Popp and Serra, we found that controlling for interference effects rendered the reverse animacy effect non-significant. We took this as evidence that characteristics of the stimulus sets (e.g., category structure, within-category similarity) may play a role in animacy and reverse animacy effects. In Experiment 2, in three out of our four samples, we observed reverse animacy effects when within-category similarity was higher for animals and when within-category similarity was equated for animals and objects. Discussion Our results suggest that the reverse animacy effect observed in Popp and Serra’s 2016 article is a robust and replicable effect, but that semantic similarity alone cannot explain the effect.

We report three experiments designed to reveal the mechanisms that underlie subjective experiences of recognition by examining effects of how those experiences are measured. Prior research has explored the potential influences of collecting metacognitive measures on memory performance. Building on this work, here we systematically evaluated whether cross-measure contamination occurs when remember-know (RK) and/or confidence (C) judgments are made after old/new recognition decisions. In Experiment 1, making either RK or C judgments did not significantly influence recognition relative to a standard no-judgment condition. In Experiment 2, making RK judgments in addition to C judgments did not significantly affect recognition or confidence. In Experiment 3, making C judgments in addition to RK judgments did not significantly affect recognition or patterns of RK responses. Cross-contamination was not apparent regardless of whether items were studied using a shallow or deep levels-of-processing task - a manipulation that yielded robust effects on recognition, RK judgments, and C. Our results indicate that under some conditions, participants can independently evaluate their recognition, subjective recognition experience, and confidence. Though contamination across measures of metamemory and memory is always possible, it may not be inevitable. This has implications for the mechanisms that underlie subjective experiences that accompany recognition judgments.

Research on eyewitness identification often involves exposing participants to a simulated crime and later testing memory using a lineup. We conducted a systematic review showing that pre-event instructions, instructions given before event exposure, are rarely reported and those that are reported vary in the extent to which they warn participants about the nature of the event or tasks. At odds with the experience of actual witnesses, some studies use pre-event instructions explicitly warning participants of the upcoming crime and lineup task. Both the basic and applied literature provide reason to believe that pre-event instructions may affect eyewitness identification performance. In the current experiment, we tested the impact of pre-event instructions on lineup identification decisions and confidence. Participants received non-specific pre-event instructions (i.e., "watch this video") or eyewitness pre-event instructions (i.e., "watch this crime video, you'll complete a lineup later") and completed a culprit-absent or -present lineup. We found no support for the hypothesis that participants who receive eyewitness pre-event instructions have higher discriminability than participants who receive non-specific pre-event instructions. Additionally, confidence-accuracy calibration was not significantly different between conditions. However, participants in the eyewitness condition were more likely to see the event as a crime and to make an identification than participants in the non-specific condition. Implications for conducting and interpreting eyewitness identification research and the basic research on instructions and attention are discussed.