Digitally manipulating memory : effects of doctored videos and imagination in distorting beliefs and memories

In prior research on false autobiographical beliefs and memories, subjects have been asked to imagine fictional events and they have been exposed to false evidence that indicates the fictional events occurred. But what are the relative contributions of imagination and false evidence toward false belief and memory construction? Subjects observed and copied various simple actions, then viewed doctored videos that suggested they had performed extra actions, and they imagined performing some of those and some other actions. Subjects returned two weeks later for a memory test. False evidence or imagination alone was often sufficient to cause belief and memory distortions; the two techniques in combination appeared to have additive or even superadditive effects. The results bear on the mechanisms underlying false beliefs and memories, and we propose legal and clinical applications of these findings

Anchoring effects in the development of false childhood memories

When people receive descriptions or doctored photos of events that never happened, they often come to remember those events. But if people receive both a description and a doctored photo, does the order in which they receive the information matter? We asked people to consider a description and a doctored photograph of a childhood hot air balloon ride, and we varied which medium they saw first. People who saw a description first reported more false images and memories than people who saw a photo first, a result that fits with an anchoring account of false childhood memories

Encouraging eyewitnesses to falsely corroborate allegations : effects of rapport-building and incriminating evidence

Building rapport involves developing a harmonious relationship with another person and conveying understanding and acceptance towards that person. Law enforcement officers use rapport-building to help gather information from witnesses. But could rapport-building, in some situations, work to contaminate eyewitness testimony? Research shows that compelling incriminating evidence can lead people to corroborate false accusations made against another person. We investigated whether rapport-building – when combined with either Verbal or Verbal+Visual false evidence – might boost these corroboration rates. Subjects took part in a pseudo-gambling task, in which their counterpart was falsely accused of cheating. Using a 2 (Rapport: Rapport vs. No-rapport) × 2 (Incriminating Evidence: Verbal vs. Verbal+Visual) between-subjects design, we persuaded subjects to corroborate the accusation. We found that both rapport and verbal+visual incriminating evidence increased the compliance rate. Even when the incriminating evidence was only presented verbally, rapport-building subjects were almost three times as likely to corroborate a false accusation compared to subjects who did not undergo rapport-building. Our results suggest that although there is widespread and strong support for using rapport-building in interviews, doing so also has the potential to aggravate the contaminating power of suggestive interview techniques

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Effectiveness of a national quality improvement programme to improve survival after emergency abdominal surgery (EPOCH): a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial

Background: Emergency abdominal surgery is associated with poor patient outcomes. We studied the effectiveness of a national quality improvement (QI) programme to implement a care pathway to improve survival for these patients. Methods: We did a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial of patients aged 40 years or older undergoing emergency open major abdominal surgery. Eligible UK National Health Service (NHS) hospitals (those that had an emergency general surgical service, a substantial volume of emergency abdominal surgery cases, and contributed data to the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit) were organised into 15 geographical clusters and commenced the QI programme in a random order, based on a computer-generated random sequence, over an 85-week period with one geographical cluster commencing the intervention every 5 weeks from the second to the 16th time period. Patients were masked to the study group, but it was not possible to mask hospital staff or investigators. The primary outcome measure was mortality within 90 days of surgery. Analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This study is registered with the ISRCTN registry, number ISRCTN80682973. Findings: Treatment took place between March 3, 2014, and Oct 19, 2015. 22 754 patients were assessed for elegibility. Of 15 873 eligible patients from 93 NHS hospitals, primary outcome data were analysed for 8482 patients in the usual care group and 7374 in the QI group. Eight patients in the usual care group and nine patients in the QI group were not included in the analysis because of missing primary outcome data. The primary outcome of 90-day mortality occurred in 1210 (16%) patients in the QI group compared with 1393 (16%) patients in the usual care group (HR 1·11, 0·96–1·28). Interpretation: No survival benefit was observed from this QI programme to implement a care pathway for patients undergoing emergency abdominal surgery. Future QI programmes should ensure that teams have both the time and resources needed to improve patient care. Funding: National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research Programme

Effectiveness of a national quality improvement programme to improve survival after emergency abdominal surgery (EPOCH): a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial

BACKGROUND: Emergency abdominal surgery is associated with poor patient outcomes. We studied the effectiveness of a national quality improvement (QI) programme to implement a care pathway to improve survival for these patients. METHODS: We did a stepped-wedge cluster-randomised trial of patients aged 40 years or older undergoing emergency open major abdominal surgery. Eligible UK National Health Service (NHS) hospitals (those that had an emergency general surgical service, a substantial volume of emergency abdominal surgery cases, and contributed data to the National Emergency Laparotomy Audit) were organised into 15 geographical clusters and commenced the QI programme in a random order, based on a computer-generated random sequence, over an 85-week period with one geographical cluster commencing the intervention every 5 weeks from the second to the 16th time period. Patients were masked to the study group, but it was not possible to mask hospital staff or investigators. The primary outcome measure was mortality within 90 days of surgery. Analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This study is registered with the ISRCTN registry, number ISRCTN80682973. FINDINGS: Treatment took place between March 3, 2014, and Oct 19, 2015. 22 754 patients were assessed for elegibility. Of 15 873 eligible patients from 93 NHS hospitals, primary outcome data were analysed for 8482 patients in the usual care group and 7374 in the QI group. Eight patients in the usual care group and nine patients in the QI group were not included in the analysis because of missing primary outcome data. The primary outcome of 90-day mortality occurred in 1210 (16%) patients in the QI group compared with 1393 (16%) patients in the usual care group (HR 1·11, 0·96-1·28). INTERPRETATION: No survival benefit was observed from this QI programme to implement a care pathway for patients undergoing emergency abdominal surgery. Future QI programmes should ensure that teams have both the time and resources needed to improve patient care. FUNDING: National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research Programme

The metacognitive roles of external evidence in memory construction

Human memory is not like a videotape that conserves faithful records of events. Rather, memories are reconstructed, and to this end people engage in a fallible process of source monitoring. When source monitoring, people judge whether their mental content constitutes a memory by considering its characteristics. For instance, vivid, plausible, familiar mental images are more likely to be memories than are mental images that possess none of these cues. Such cues—derived from a subjective inspection of mental content—are here termed internal evidence of an event’s occurrence. Contrastingly, recent research has examined the capacity of external evidence—obtained via perception rather than introspection—to promote distortions. This thesis explores the effects of external evidence on autobiographical beliefs and memories, in terms of the underlying cognitive mechanisms, the conditions under which distortions can occur, and their behavioural consequences. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate the capacity of external evidence to distort people’s beliefs and memories of their recent experiences, even those that are memorable, and even when people are warned about false evidence. These experiments provide preliminary data on causal mechanisms underlying the distortions, explored more directly in Experiment 3. The findings of Experiments 1-3 have numerous practical applications, particularly with respect to the functions of legal evidence. Experiments 4-5 ask whether seeing fabricated evidence might elicit false confessions from innocent suspects. The experiments show extremely high levels of compliance, and demonstrate that seeing false evidence can promote internalisation of guilt, and confabulation. Alongside discussion of theoretical implications of Experiments 1-5, the findings are used to amend Mazzoni and Kirsch’s (2002) model of autobiographical belief and memory. The amended model captures the effects of external evidence on source monitoring, and thus provides a better account of autobiographical memory processes. This thesis, in sum, helps us to understand the roles of external evidence in memory construction.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The metacognitive roles of external evidence in memory construction

Human memory is not like a videotape that conserves faithful records of events. Rather, memories are reconstructed, and to this end people engage in a fallible process of source monitoring. When source monitoring, people judge whether their mental content constitutes a memory by considering its characteristics. For instance, vivid, plausible, familiar mental images are more likely to be memories than are mental images that possess none of these cues. Such cues—derived from a subjective inspection of mental content—are here termed internal evidence of an event’s occurrence. Contrastingly, recent research has examined the capacity of external evidence—obtained via perception rather than introspection—to promote distortions. This thesis explores the effects of external evidence on autobiographical beliefs and memories, in terms of the underlying cognitive mechanisms, the conditions under which distortions can occur, and their behavioural consequences. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate the capacity of external evidence to distort people’s beliefs and memories of their recent experiences, even those that are memorable, and even when people are warned about false evidence. These experiments provide preliminary data on causal mechanisms underlying the distortions, explored more directly in Experiment 3. The findings of Experiments 1-3 have numerous practical applications, particularly with respect to the functions of legal evidence. Experiments 4-5 ask whether seeing fabricated evidence might elicit false confessions from innocent suspects. The experiments show extremely high levels of compliance, and demonstrate that seeing false evidence can promote internalisation of guilt, and confabulation. Alongside discussion of theoretical implications of Experiments 1-5, the findings are used to amend Mazzoni and Kirsch’s (2002) model of autobiographical belief and memory. The amended model captures the effects of external evidence on source monitoring, and thus provides a better account of autobiographical memory processes. This thesis, in sum, helps us to understand the roles of external evidence in memory construction

Improved energy efficiency using an IGBT/SiC-Schottky diode pair

This paper will demonstrate how the newer Silicon Carbide material semiconductor power devices can contribute to carbon emissions reduction and the speed of adoption of electric vehicles, including hybrids, by enabling significant increases in the driving range. Two IGBT inverter leg modules of identical power rating have been manufactured and tested. One module has silicon-carbide (SiC) Schottky diodes as anti-parallel diodes and the other silicon PiN diodes. The power modules have been tested and demonstrate the superior electrothermal performance of the SiC Schottky diode over the Si PiN diode leading to a reduction in the power module switching losses

Conduction and switching loss comparison between an IGBT/Si-PiN diode pair and an IGBT/SiC-Schottky diode pair

Two insulated-gate bipolar-transistors (IGBTs) inverter leg modules of identical power rating have been manufactured and tested. One module has silicon-carbide (SiC) Schottky diodes as anti-parallel diodes and the other silicon PiN diodes. The power modules have been tested in an inductive switching circuit and curve tracer at a range of temperatures. Static and dynamic characteristics of both IGBTs and diodes have been used in loss comparisons between the two power modules. The results demonstrate the superior electrothermal performance of the SiC Schottky diode over the Si PiN diode leading to a reduction in the power module switching and conduction losses