Suppression of Misinformation in Memory

Agents in a dynamic world must continue to comprehend and reason about events, even after they learn that previously encoded information about an event is incorrect. As a result, some mechanism is needed to modify incorrect information in memory, and allow one to use new, superceding knowledge instead. Ho w is misinformation suppressed in human memory? A study using a text understanding paradigm and a standard anaphoric inference task investigates this problem of updating memory. Subjects read a set of stories, half of which contained a conection, and were asked to make a speeded wordrecognition judgment for a probe word appearing after an anaphor sentence. Subjects in a short delay condition showed slower reaction times to correct referents in correction stories than in control stories that did not contain misinformation. Those in the longer delay condition showed no difference in reaction times to correct referents, but more priming for invalidated items in correction stories. These results suggest that misinformation can interfere with accessing correct information, but that an additional comprehension process, possibly suppression-like, may facilitate access to correct information after delay

Learning from Error

Distributed systems of cognition are receiving increasing attention in a variety of research traditions. A central question is h o w the specific features of cognitive functions will be affected by their occurrence within a system of cooperative agents. In this paper, we will examine the less often considered aspects of the organization of cooperative work settings that can become important in terms of error within a system. Specifically, w e examine how response to error in a cooperative task can in some ways benefit future task performance. The goal is to facilitate learning from error so that future errors become less likely. The study involved an analysis of observations of several cooperative teams involved in coordinated activity for the navigation of a large ship. The analysis of the team member's activities revealed a surprisingly high rate of errors; yet, the final product of the group work showed that the error had been removed somewhere within the system.Features of the distributed system that facilitated this error removal included the monitoring of other's performance, as constrained by a horizon of observation, Umiting exposure to particular subtasks; the distribution of knowledge within the team, such that more knowledgable members were also ones in a position to detect other's errors; and methods of providing feedback. In particular, specific design tradeoffs were found to underlie the functioning of the system. For example, evaluation depends on utilizing objective knowledge of h o w the product reconciles with the real world; however, separating evaluation from the system means "wasting" the knowledgable potential participant. Thus,the distributed system was found to contain certain properties that can be exploited for their utility in error detection, diagnosis, and correction. The results m a y be applied to the design of such cooperative tasks, including a role for technology, with the goal of designing cooperative systems that can more easily learn from their errors

Memory and Discredited Information: Can You Forget I Ever Said That?

Previous research has found that when information stored in memory is discredited, it can still influence later inferences one makes. This has previously been considered as an editing problem, where one has inferences based on the information prestored in memory before the discrediting, and one cannot successfully trace out and alter those inferences. However, in the course of comprehending an account, one can potentially make inferences after a discrediting, which may also show influence from the discredited information. In this experiment, subjects read a series of reports about a fire investigation, and their opportunity to make inferences before a correction appeared in the series was manipulated. Subjects received a correction statement either directly following the information it was to discredit, or with several statements intervening. The results show that subjects w h o received the correction directly after the information it corrected made as many inferences based on the discredited information as subjects w ho received the correction later (and thus could presumably make many more inferences before the correction occurred). This suggests that discredited information can influence inferences made after a correction, as well as those made before. Several hypotheses accounting for this effect are proposed

Teaching Creative Process across Disciplines

While there is great interest in higher education about teaching creative process, there have been relatively few studies of how courses can facilitate the development of creative skills. The goal of this study was to document how college instructors structure courses intended to develop students’ creative processes. The study data included interviews from instructors and students using a critical case sample of fifteen courses at a single U.S. University. A qualitative analysis of the transcripts yielded a set of 14 pedagogical elements appearing across courses. Common elements were open‐ended projects and skill‐building activities, and less frequently, risk taking experiences and self‐reflection. The sample included undergraduate courses in engineering, education, the liberal arts, and the arts, and the elements observed were often shared across courses from different disciplines. These findings provide a diverse set of pedagogical approaches and opportunities for building creative process skills within undergraduate courses.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148345/1/jocb158.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/148345/2/jocb158_am.pd

The Implications of Corrections : Then Why Did You Mention It?

How can misreported information be effectively corrected? Wilkes and Leatherbarrow (1988) found that people relied upon invalidated information to answer questions despite their awareness of its inaccuracy, a phenomenon called the "continued influence effect" (Johnson & Seifert, in press). But corrections in which an assertion is made and then denied (e.g., "X is true ... actually, X is untrue") ma y violate important conversational assumptions. Grice (1967/1989) and others have argued that people expect speakers to offer only information that is both truthful and conversationally relevant; thus, people may seek interpretations for corrections that will incorporate both the literal meaning and the conversational implications of the contradictory statements. Our hypothesis was that corrections would be more successful when they explained why the original information was asserted. An empirical study showed that corrections that accounted for conversational implications (e.g., "X, which bad originally been believed because of Y, is actually untrue") could more effectively reduce the continued use of discredited information. Additionally, the results show that reiterating the literal content of a correction ma y actually be perceived as implying that the correction statement should be disbelieved. Since the conversational implications of corrections critically shape comprehension, their examination is crucial in domains (such as courtrooms, newspapers, and classrooms) where informational updates frequently occur