Memory and metamemory for social interactions: Evidence for a metamemory expectancy illusion

People do not always have accurate metacognitive awareness of the conditions that lead to good source memory. In Experiment1, participants studied words referring to bathroom and kitchen items that were either paired with an expected or unexpectedroom as the source. Participants provided judgments of item and source learning after each item–source pair. In line with previousstudies, participants incorrectly predicted their memory to be better for expected than for unexpected sources. Here, we show thatthis metamemory expectancy illusion generalizes to socially relevant stimuli. In Experiment2, participants played a prisoner’sdilemma game with trustworthy-looking and untrustworthy-looking partners who either cooperated or cheated. After each roundof the game, participants provided metamemory judgments about how well they were going to remember the partner’sfaceandbehavior. On average, participants predicted their source memory to be better for behaviors that were expected based on the facialappearances of the partners. This stands in contrast to the established finding that veridical source memory is better for unex-pected than expected information. Asking participants to provide metamemory judgments at encoding selectively enhancedsource memory for the expected information. These results are consistent with how schematic expectations affect source memoryand metamemory for nonsocial information, suggesting that both are governed by general rather than by domain-specificprinciples. Differences between experiments may be linked to the fact that people may have special beliefs about memory forsocial stimuli, such as the belief that cheaters are particularly memorable (Experiment3)

PORTAL: Pilot study on the safety and tolerance of preoperative melatonin application in patients undergoing major liver resection: a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Major surgical procedures facilitate systemic endotoxinemia and formation of free radicals with subsequent inflammatory changes that can influence the postoperative course. Experimental data suggest that preoperative supraphysiological doses of melatonin, a potent immuno-modulator and antioxidant, would decrease postoperative infectious and non-infectious complications induced by major abdominal surgery.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>A randomized controlled double blind single center clinical trial with two study arms comprising a total of 40 patients has been designed to assess the effects of a single preoperative dose of melatonin before major liver resection. Primary endpoints include the determination of safety and tolerance of the regimen as well as clinical parameters reflecting pathophysiological functions of the liver. Furthermore, data on clinical outcome (infectious and non-infectious complications) will be collected as secondary endpoints to allow a power calculation for a randomized clinical trial aiming at clinical efficacy.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Based on experimental data, this ongoing clinical trial represents an advanced element of the research chain from bench to bedside in order to reach the highest level of evidence-based clinical facts to determine if melatonin can improve the general outcome after liver resection.</p> <p>Trial Registration</p> <p>EudraCT200600530815</p

Registered Replication Report: Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998)

Dijksterhuis and van Knippenberg (1998) reported that participants primed with a category associated with intelligence ("professor") subsequently performed 13% better on a trivia test than participants primed with a category associated with a lack of intelligence ("soccer hooligans"). In two unpublished replications of this study designed to verify the appropriate testing procedures, Dijksterhuis, van Knippenberg, and Holland observed a smaller difference between conditions (2%-3%) as well as a gender difference: Men showed the effect (9.3% and 7.6%), but women did not (0.3% and -0.3%). The procedure used in those replications served as the basis for this multilab Registered Replication Report. A total of 40 laboratories collected data for this project, and 23 of these laboratories met all inclusion criteria. Here we report the meta-analytic results for those 23 direct replications (total N = 4,493), which tested whether performance on a 30-item general-knowledge trivia task differed between these two priming conditions (results of supplementary analyses of the data from all 40 labs, N = 6,454, are also reported). We observed no overall difference in trivia performance between participants primed with the "professor" category and those primed with the "hooligan" category (0.14%) and no moderation by gender

Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies

The study of the collapse of past societies raises many questions for the theory and practice of archaeology. Interest in collapse extends as well into the natural sciences and environmental and sustainability policy. Despite a range of approaches to collapse, the predominant paradigm is environmental collapse, which I argue obscures recognition of the dynamic role of social processes that lie at the heart of human communities. These environmental discourses, together with confusion over terminology and the concepts of collapse, have created widespread aporia about collapse and resulted in the creation of mixed messages about complex historical and social processes