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Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Cognitive Psychology

The Effects Of Accomplice Witnesses And Jailhouse Informants On Jury Decision Making, Jeffrey S. Neuschatz, Deah S. Quinlivan, Jessica K. Swanner, Christian A. Meissner, Joseph S. Neuschatz Jan 2008

The Effects Of Accomplice Witnesses And Jailhouse Informants On Jury Decision Making, Jeffrey S. Neuschatz, Deah S. Quinlivan, Jessica K. Swanner, Christian A. Meissner, Joseph S. Neuschatz

Jessica K Swanner

The present study presents one of the first investigations of the effects of accomplice witnesses and jailhouse informants on jury decision-making. Across two experiments, participants read a trial transcript that included either a secondary confession from an accomplice witness, a jailhouse informant, a member of the community or a no confession control. In half of the experimental trial transcripts, the participants were made aware that the cooperating witness providing the secondary confession was given an incentive to testify. The results of both experiments revealed that information about the cooperating witness’ incentive (e.g., leniency or reward) did not affect participants’ verdict …


Psychophysics Of Perceiving Eye-Gaze And Head Direction With Peripheral Vision: Implications For The Dynamics Of Eye-Gaze Behavior, Jack M. Loomis, Jonathan W. Kelly, Matthias Pusch, Jeremy N. Bailenson, Andrew C. Beall Jan 2008

Psychophysics Of Perceiving Eye-Gaze And Head Direction With Peripheral Vision: Implications For The Dynamics Of Eye-Gaze Behavior, Jack M. Loomis, Jonathan W. Kelly, Matthias Pusch, Jeremy N. Bailenson, Andrew C. Beall

Jonathan W. Kelly

Two psychophysical experiments are reported, one dealing with the visual perception of the head orientation of another person (the `looker') and the other dealing with the percep- tion of the looker's direction of eye gaze. The participant viewed the looker with different retinal eccentricities, ranging from foveal to far-peripheral viewing. On average, judgments of head orientation were reliable even out to the extremes of peripheral vision (90 8 eccentricity), with better performance at the extremes when the participant was able to view the looker changing head orientation from one trial to the next. In sharp contrast, judgments of eye-gaze direction …


The Effects Of Frontal Lobe Functioning And Age On Veridical And False Recall, Jason C.K. Chan, Kathleen B. Mcdermott Aug 2007

The Effects Of Frontal Lobe Functioning And Age On Veridical And False Recall, Jason C.K. Chan, Kathleen B. Mcdermott

Jason C.K. Chan

Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri Older adults’ heightened susceptibility to false memories has been linked to compromised frontal lobe functioning as estimated by Glisky and colleagues’ (Glisky, Polster, & Routhieaux, 1995) neuropsychological battery (e.g., Butler, McDaniel, Dornburg, Price, & Roediger, 2004). This conclusion, however, rests on the untested assumption that young adults have uniformly high frontal functioning. We tested this assumption, and we correlated younger and older adults’ frontal scores with veridical and false recall probabilities with prose materials. Substantial variability in scores on the Glisky battery occurred for younger (and older) adults. However, frontal scores and age were independent …


The Testing Effect In Recognition Memory: A Dual Process Account, Jason C.K. Chan, Kathleen B. Mcdermott Mar 2007

The Testing Effect In Recognition Memory: A Dual Process Account, Jason C.K. Chan, Kathleen B. Mcdermott

Jason C.K. Chan

The testing effect, or the finding that taking an initial test improves subsequent memory performance, is a robust and reliable phenomenon--as long as the final test involves recall. Few studies have examined the effects of taking an initial recall test on final recognition performance, and results from these studies are equivocal. In 3 experiments, we attempt to demonstrate that initial testing can change the ways in which later recognition decisions are executed even when no difference can be detected in the recognition hit rates. Specifically, initial testing was shown to enhance later recollection but leave familiarity unchanged. This conclusion emerged …


Accurate Vocal Compensation For Sound Intensity Loss With Increasing Distance In Natural Environments, Pavel Zahorik, Jonathan W. Kelly Jan 2007

Accurate Vocal Compensation For Sound Intensity Loss With Increasing Distance In Natural Environments, Pavel Zahorik, Jonathan W. Kelly

Jonathan W. Kelly

Human abilities to adjust vocal output to compensate for intensity losses due to sound propagation over distance were investigated. Ten normally hearing adult participants were able to compensate for propagation losses ranging from −1.8 to −6.4dB/doubling source distance over a range of distances from 1 to 8m. The compensation was performed to within 1.2dB of accuracy on average across all participants, distances, and propagation loss conditions with no practice or explicit training. These results suggest that natural vocal communication processes of humans may incorporate tacit knowledge of physical sound propagationproperties more sophisticated than previously supposed.


Retrieval-Induced Facilitation: Initially Nontested Material Can Benefit From Prior Testing Of Related Materia, Jason C.K. Chan, Kathleen B. Mcdermott, Henry L. Roediger Iii Nov 2006

Retrieval-Induced Facilitation: Initially Nontested Material Can Benefit From Prior Testing Of Related Materia, Jason C.K. Chan, Kathleen B. Mcdermott, Henry L. Roediger Iii

Jason C.K. Chan

Classroom exams can assess students' knowledge of only a subset of the material taught in a course. What are the implications of this approach for long-term retention? Three experiments (N = 210) examined how taking an initial test affects later memory for prose materials not initially tested. Experiment 1 shows that testing enhanced recall 24 hr later for the initially nontested material. This facilitation was not seen for participants given additional study opportunities without initial testing. Experiment 2 extends this facilitative effect to a within-subjects design. Experiment 3 demonstrates that this facilitation can be modulated by conscious strategies. These results …


The Effects Of Aging On Controlled Attention And Conflict Processing In The Stroop Task, Robert West Mar 2006

The Effects Of Aging On Controlled Attention And Conflict Processing In The Stroop Task, Robert West

Robert West

Recent computational modeling and behavioral work indicate that age-related declines in the ability to represent task context may contribute to disruptions of working memory and selective attention in older adults. However, it is unclear whether age-related declines in context processing arise from a disruption of the encoding or maintenance of task context and how age-related declines in context processing interact with mechanisms supporting conflict detection and resolution processes contributing to efficient selection of task-relevant information. This study examines the effects of aging on the neural correlates of context and conflict processing in the Stroop task using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). …


The Importance Of Material-Processing Interactions In Inducing False Memories, Jason C.K. Chan, Kathleen B. Mcdermott, Jason M. Watson, David A. Gallo Apr 2005

The Importance Of Material-Processing Interactions In Inducing False Memories, Jason C.K. Chan, Kathleen B. Mcdermott, Jason M. Watson, David A. Gallo

Jason C.K. Chan

Deep encoding, relative to shallow encoding, has been shown to increase the probability of false memories in the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm (Thapar & McDermott, 2001; Toglia, Neuschatz, & Goodwin, 1999). In two experiments, we showed important limitations on the generalizability of this phenomenon; these limitations are clearly predicted by existing theories regarding the mechanisms underlying such false memories (e.g., Roediger, Watson, McDermott, & Gallo, 2001). Specifically, asking subjects to attend to phonological relations among lists of phonologically associated words (e.g.,weep, steep, etc.) increased the likelihood of false recall (Experiment 1) and false recognition (Experiment 2) of a related, nonpresented associate …


Importance Of Perceptual Representation In The Visual Control Of Action, Jack M. Loomis, Andrew C. Beall, Jonathan W. Kelly, Kristen L. Macuga Mar 2005

Importance Of Perceptual Representation In The Visual Control Of Action, Jack M. Loomis, Andrew C. Beall, Jonathan W. Kelly, Kristen L. Macuga

Jonathan W. Kelly

In recent years, many experiments have demonstrated that optic flow is sufficient for visually controlled action, with the suggestion that perceptual representations of 3-D space are superfluous. In contrast, recent research in our lab indicates that some visually controlled actions, including some thought to be based on optic flow, are indeed mediated by perceptual representations. For example, we have demonstrated that people are able to perform complex spatial behaviors, like walking, driving, and object interception, in virtual environments which are rendered visible solely by cyclopean stimulation (random-dot cinematograms). In such situations, the absence of any retinal optic flow that is …


Perception Of Shared Visual Space: Establishing Common Ground In Real And Virtual Environments, Jonathan W. Kelly, Andrew C. Beall, Jack M. Loomis Aug 2004

Perception Of Shared Visual Space: Establishing Common Ground In Real And Virtual Environments, Jonathan W. Kelly, Andrew C. Beall, Jack M. Loomis

Jonathan W. Kelly

When people have visual access to the same space, judgments of this shared visual space (shared vista) can facilitate communication and collaboration. This study establishes baseline performance on a shared vista task in real environments and draws comparisons with performance in visually immersive virtual environments. Participants indicated which parts of the scene were visible to an assistant or avatar (simulated person used in virtual environments) and which parts were occluded by a nearby building. Errors increased with increasing distance between the participant and the assistant out to 15 m, and error patterns were similar between real and virtual environments. This …


Judgments Of Exocentric Direction In Large-Scale Space, Jonathan W. Kelly, Jack M. Loomis, Andrew C. Beall Jan 2004

Judgments Of Exocentric Direction In Large-Scale Space, Jonathan W. Kelly, Jack M. Loomis, Andrew C. Beall

Jonathan W. Kelly

Judgments of exocentric direction are quite common, especially when judging where others are looking or pointing. To investigate these judgments in large-scale space, observers were shown two targets in a large open field and were asked to judge the exocentric direction specified by the targets. The targets ranged in egocentric distance from 5 to 20 m with target-to-target angular separations of 45 8 ,90 8 , and 135 8 . Observers judged exocentric direction using two methods: (i) by judging which point on a distant fence appeared collinear with the two targets, and (ii) by orienting their body in a …