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)

Registered Replication Report on Fischer, Castel, Dodd, and Pratt (2003)

The attentional spatial-numerical association of response codes (Att-SNARC) effect (Fischer, Castel, Dodd, & Pratt, 2003)—the finding that participants are quicker to detect left-side targets when the targets are preceded by small numbers and quicker to detect right-side targets when they are preceded by large numbers—has been used as evidence for embodied number representations and to support strong claims about the link between number and space (e.g., a mental number line). We attempted to replicate Experiment 2 of Fischer et al. by collecting data from 1,105 participants at 17 labs. Across all 1,105 participants and four interstimulus-interval conditions, the proportion of times the effect we observed was positive (i.e., directionally consistent with the original effect) was .50. Further, the effects we observed both within and across labs were minuscule and incompatible with those observed by Fischer et al. Given this, we conclude that we failed to replicate the effect reported by Fischer et al. In addition, our analysis of several participant-level moderators (finger-counting habits, reading and writing direction, handedness, and mathematics fluency and mathematics anxiety) revealed no substantial moderating effects. Our results indicate that the Att-SNARC effect cannot be used as evidence to support strong claims about the link between number and space

Registered replication report on Fischer, Castel, Dodd, and Pratt (2003)

The attentional spatial-numerical association of response codes (Att-SNARC) effect (Fischer, Castel, Dodd, & Pratt, 2003)—the finding that participants are quicker to detect left-side targets when the targets are preceded by small numbers and quicker to detect right-side targets when they are preceded by large numbers—has been used as evidence for embodied number representations and to support strong claims about the link between number and space (e.g., a mental number line). We attempted to replicate Experiment 2 of Fischer et al. by collecting data from 1,105 participants at 17 labs. Across all 1,105 participants and four interstimulus-interval conditions, the proportion of times the effect we observed was positive (i.e., directionally consistent with the original effect) was .50. Further, the effects we observed both within and across labs were minuscule and incompatible with those observed by Fischer et al. Given this, we conclude that we failed to replicate the effect reported by Fischer et al. In addition, our analysis of several participant-level moderators (finger-counting habits, reading and writing direction, handedness, and mathematics fluency and mathematics anxiety) revealed no substantial moderating effects. Our results indicate that the Att-SNARC effect cannot be used as evidence to support strong claims about the link between number and space

Neonatal red blood cell transfusion practices in Switzerland:national survey and review of international recommendations

WHAT IS KNOWN ON THE SUBJECT? Red blood cell transfusions are frequently used in the care of newborns, particularly premature infants. Some countries have guidelines regarding preparation, indication and administration of red blood cells in newborns. There are no such guidelines in Switzerland. WHAT DOES THE CURRENT STUDY ADD? This study analysed the results of two national surveys, one among blood transfusion services and the other among neonatal units in Switzerland. The results demonstrate considerable heterogeneity and a lack of “unité de doctrine”. Establishment of national guidelines would be helpful and warranted. AIMS OF THE STUDY The aim of the study was to analyse Swiss practices in blood transfusion services and neonatal units for the preparation and administration of red blood cells in newborns. METHODS Two questionnaires were developed and their results analysed. A first questionnaire was developed for the Swiss blood transfusion services and local hospital haematology laboratories, and a second for the neonatal units in Switzerland. RESULTS 18/25 (72%) of laboratories and 26/29 (90%) of neonatal units performing red blood cell transfusions participated. Responses revealed a lack of consensus for the majority of questions. Differences were found in all steps of the process, from preparation (testing, irradiation, splitting, shelf life and storage of blood bags) to indication and administration (volume, speed, vascular access, patient monitoring) of red blood cells. Forty-six percent of neonatal units stated that they apply internal guidelines. Nevertheless, all but two would welcome the establishment of national recommendations. CONCLUSION This study confirmed the large variety in neonatal red blood cell transfusion practices in Switzerland. In the absence of clear evidence, national guidelines – as applied in other countries – would foster a common policy among Swiss neonatologists and facilitate the implementation of a national database for future research and comparison with international literature

Preregistered replication of the auditory deviant effect: a robust benchmark finding

Short-term memory of visually presented lists of items is disrupted by auditory distraction. The auditory deviant effect refers to the finding that a sequence in which a single auditory event deviates from all other auditory objects disrupts serial recall more than a sequence without such a deviant. The changing-state effect refers to the finding that auditory changing-state sequences with changes from one auditory distractor item to the next disrupt the immediate serial recall of verbal items more than steady-state sequences consisting of distractor repetitions. One purpose of the present study is to perform a preregistered replication of the auditory deviant effect as well as (for the purpose of comparison) the changing-state effect and to provide reference data sets for the auditory deviant effect and the changing-state effect in the benchmarks repository with a large sample of participants and trials. Both effects were robustly obtained over the course of two sessions in which participants were tested. We also explored the relationship between auditory distraction and personality, and found auditory distraction to be unrelated to extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism

Cognitive load does not affect the behavioral and cognitive foundations of social cooperation

The present study serves to test whether the cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation are affected by cognitive load. Participants interacted with trustworthy-looking and untrustworthy-looking partners in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma Game. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated to stimulate expectations about the future behavior of the partners which were either violated or confirmed by the partners’ cheating or cooperation during the game. In a source memory test, participants were required to recognize the partners and to classify them as cheaters or cooperators. A multinomial model was used to disentangle item memory, source memory and guessing processes. We found an expectancy-congruent bias towards guessing that trustworthy-looking partners were more likely to be associated with cooperation than untrustworthy-looking partners. Source memory was enhanced for cheating that violated the participants’ positive expectations about trustworthy-looking partners. We were interested in whether or not this expectancy-violation effect—that helps to revise unjustified expectations about trustworthy-looking partners—depends on cognitive load induced via a secondary continuous reaction time task. Although this secondary task interfered with working memory processes in a validation study, both the expectancy-congruent guessing bias as well as the expectancy-violation effect were obtained with and without cognitive load. These findings support the hypothesis that the expectancy-violation effect is due to a simple mechanism that does not rely on demanding elaborative processes. We conclude that most cognitive mechanisms underlying social cooperation presumably operate automatically so that they remain unaffected by cognitive load.

Communicating emotions, but not expressing them privately, reduces moral punishment in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game

Abstract The existence of moral punishment, that is, the fact that cooperative people sacrifice resources to punish defecting partners requires an explanation. Potential explanations are that people punish defecting partners to privately express or to communicate their negative emotions in response to the experienced unfairness. If so, then providing participants with alternative ways to privately express or to communicate their emotions should reduce moral punishment. In two experiments, participants interacted with cooperating and defecting partners in a Prisoner’s Dilemma game. After each round, participants communicated their emotions to their partners (Experiments 1 and 2) or only expressed them privately (Experiment 2). Each trial concluded with a costly punishment option. Compared to a no-expression control group, moral punishment was reduced when emotions were communicated to the defecting partner but not when emotions were privately expressed. Moral punishment may thus serve to communicate emotions to defecting partners. However, moral punishment was only reduced but far from being eliminated, suggesting that the communication of emotions does not come close to replacing moral punishment. Furthermore, prompting participants to focus on their emotions had undesirable side-effects: Privately expressing emotions diminished cooperation, enhanced hypocritical punishment (i.e., punishment of defecting partners by defecting participants), and induced an unspecific bias to punish the partners irrespective of their actions

Separating conditional and unconditional cooperation in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma game

<div><p>Most theories of social exchange distinguish between two different types of cooperation, depending on whether or not cooperation occurs conditional upon the partner’s previous behaviors. Here, we used a multinomial processing tree model to distinguish between positive and negative reciprocity and cooperation bias in a sequential Prisoner’s Dilemma game. In Experiments 1 and 2, the facial expressions of the partners were varied to manipulate cooperation bias. In Experiment 3, an extinction instruction was used to manipulate reciprocity. The results confirm that people show a stronger cooperation bias when interacting with smiling compared to angry-looking partners, supporting the notion that a smiling facial expression in comparison to an angry facial expression helps to construe a situation as cooperative rather than competitive. Reciprocity was enhanced for appearance-incongruent behaviors, but only when participants were encouraged to form expectations about the partners’ future behaviors. Negative reciprocity was not stronger than positive reciprocity, regardless of whether expectations were manipulated or not. Experiment 3 suggests that people are able to ignore previous episodes of cheating as well as previous episodes of cooperation if these turn out to be irrelevant for predicting a partner’s future behavior. The results provide important insights into the mechanisms of social cooperation.</p></div

Guess what? Different source-guessing strategies for old versus new information

The probability-matching account states that learned specific episodic contingencies of item types and source dominate over general schematic expectations in source guessing. However, recent evidence from Bell et al. [(2020). Source attributions for detected new items: Persistent evidence for schematic guessing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(9), 1407–1422] suggest that this only applies to source guessing for information that is recognised as belonging to a previously encoded episode. When information was detected as being new, participants persisted in applying schematic knowledge about the sources' profession. This dissociation in source guessing for detected-old and detected-new information may have been fostered by the specific source-monitoring paradigm by Bell et al. (2020) in which sources were a group of individuals in a certain profession rather than fixed persons from that profession for whom episodic contingencies are more likely to persist also for new information. The aim of the present study was to test whether source guessing for detected-old versus detected-new information also dissociates in a more typical source-monitoring task, the doctor-lawyer paradigm, in which one individual doctor and one lawyer present profession-related information. Despite this change in paradigm, source guessing was based on the item-source contingency only for detected-old information, whereas schematic knowledge persisted for detected-new information. The present study thus adds evidence for persistent schema-based source guessing for new information