JARMAC Editors Choice: September 2024

Applying Cognitive Psychology to Improve Learning: Current Developments and Future Directions

Sean H. K. Kang

Developments in cognitive psychology have advanced our understanding of human learning and yielded practical implications for improving learning. The studies reported in this special section offer contributions to both theory and practice, especially in the area of learning strategies. Although translating a given research finding into educational practice is not straightforward, the articles in the special section provide suggestions for strategies that students and teachers should have in their repertoire.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000196

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Turn off, Tune Out? Testing the Effects of Webcam Use and on Learning in Synchronous Online Classrooms

Oscar D. Ramirez Perez, Annie S. Ditta, Julia S. Soares

Synchronous online classes have grown in popularity, sparking debate on student webcam use. In Experiment 1, participants were assigned to attend a lecture with half instructed to turn their webcam on and half instructed to turn their webcam off (interpolated testing was also examined as a buffer against webcam effects). A webcam effect was observed: webcam-on participants outperformed webcam-off participants. Experiment 2 manipulated class-wide webcam use by creating uniform groups in which participants all had webcams on or off at the same time and mixed groups in which webcam use was evenly split. The webcam effect replicated in the mixed condition, but the effect was attenuated in the uniform condition, suggesting that the webcam effect is larger in mixed webcam classes. Additional findings suggest that feelings of accountability and reduced media multitasking for webcam-on participants could contribute to the webcam effect more than social presence.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000145

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Interleaved Pretesting Enhances Category Learning and Classification Skills

Steven C. Pan, Ganeash Selvarajan, Chanda S. Murphy

Alternating between concepts during learning (interleaving) and making guesses about to-be-learned information before viewing the correct answers (pretesting) can enhance learning relative to focusing on one concept at a time (blocking) and studying, respectively. We investigated the potential benefits of interleaving and pretesting for acquiring categorical knowledge and classification skills. In three experiments, participants learned about psychopathological disorders from interleaved or blocked case studies and via pretesting or studying. A 5-min delayed test (Experiment 1) showed that interleaving and pretesting improved the ability to classify new and previously viewed case studies. Moreover, their combination had at least additive effects, yielding the best overall performance. Similar results occurred on a 48-hr delayed test (Experiment 2) and under conditions of equivalent time on task (Experiment 3). Overall, this study reveals that an effective scheduling approach paired with a beneficial learning activity forms a potent combination (interleaved pretesting) that is uniquely capable of enhancing learning.

DOI - https://doi.org/10.1037/mac0000194

JARMAC Editor Choice: June 2024

Vicarious memory promotes successful adaptation and enriches the self

AUTHORS: David B. Pillemer, Dorthe K. Thomsen, and Robyn Fivush

Autobiographical memory theory and research have focused primarily on memories of personally experienced events. We propose that remembering specific memories and life stories recounted by others, termed vicarious memory (VM), is an essential component of personal identity and successful living. We examine (a) the broad adaptive significance of VM; (b) the importance of VM at different developmental periods, with a focus on early childhood; (c) the role played by VM when people confront new and challenging circumstances; (d) the value of VM for deepening understanding of others and establishing relationships; and (e) the positive consequences for personal identity of an enriched connection to family members’ life stories. Although our primary focus is on the positive qualities of VM, we also draw attention to circumstances under which VM is problematic or dysfunctional. We conclude by proposing new directions for research and by identifying practical applications.

Case information biases evaluations of video-recorded eyewitness identification evidence.

AUTHORS: Amy Bradfield Douglass, Steve D. Charman, Kureva P. Matuku, Laura J. Shambaugh, Meghan P. Lapar, and Erika Lamere

Video-recorded eyewitness identification procedures have heretofore unexamined potential for assisting evaluators in assessing eyewitness accuracy. In Study 1 (N = 240), evaluators, on average, successfully differentiated accurate from inaccurate witnesses based on videos of identification procedures alone, but not when extraneous incriminating evidence was also provided. Study 2 (N = 433) replicated this effect using different stimulus videos and operationalizations of evidence. Study 3 (N = 957) revealed that instructions highlighting the limitations of forensic evidence did not preserve evaluators’ ability to discern accuracy when extraneous incriminating case evidence was provided. Moreover, case information affected other judgments (e.g., perceptions of the witness’s view). Overall, results indicate that evaluators can differentiate between accurate and inaccurate witnesses, simply based on a video record of the identification procedure, bolstering recommendations to record identification procedures. However, these evaluations lose their utility when evaluators know about other case evidence.

JARMAC Editor's Choice: December 2023

Reexamining models of early learning in the digital age: Applications for learning in the wild.

AUTHORS: Rachel Barr, Heather Kirkorian

Young children are growing up in an increasingly complicated digital world. Research suggests that it is cognitively demanding to process and transfer information presented on screens during early childhood. In this review, the authors have provided an updated framework that integrates prior theoretical explanations to develop a new testable hypothesis, also considering how the research can be generalised. It also includes real-world applications for improving children’s learning and memory from screen-based media by adding supportive cues and reducing distraction and interference. The review concludes with a call for future collaborative research between researchers, content developers, and families to better understand age-related changes in both short-term and long-term learning from digital media.

Spontaneous past and future thinking about the COVID-19 pandemic across 14 countries: Effects of individual and country-level COVID-19 impact indicators.

Authors: Scott N. Cole, Ioanna Markostamou, Lynn Ann Watson, Krystian Barzykowski, İrem Ergen, Andrea Taylor, Sezin Öner

Nations had varying levels of morbidity and mortality and adopted different measures to prevent the spread of infection, as showcased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of the pandemic on spontaneous past and future thoughts are yet to be explored. In this article, the authors conducted a multicounty online study exploring how both country- and individual factors are associated with this core aspect of human cognition. The findings showed that national and individual factors, both separately and jointly, predicted the frequency of people’s pandemic-related spontaneous thoughts, and that these thoughts had a negative emotional valence. As a result, this study provides novel insights toward better understanding spontaneous past and future thoughts.

Factors that influence deep/shallow lecture notetaking: Japanese and Chinese students’ strategies in math class.

Authors: Mengsi Liu, Yuri Uesaka

Lecture notetaking is beneficial for learning at different educational levels. However, there is a lack of consensus on effective lecture note-taking. In this article, the authors aimed to explore effective lecture notetaking and examined the effects of students’ learning beliefs, learning motivation, and teachers’ instructions on it. They compared Japanese and Chinese high school students. This study is the first to investigate effective lecture notetaking as a self-regulated strategy to be cultivated; this is an aspect that has been overlooked in past studies. The findings suggest that further investigation of teachers’ strategy instructions is required across both samples.

JARMAC Editor Choice: September 2023

Listening to misinformation while driving: Cognitive load and the effectiveness of (repeated) corrections.

AUTHORS: Jasmyne A Sanderson, Vanessa Bowden, Briony Swire-Thompson, Stephan Lewandowsky, Ullrich K. H Ecker

Misinformation can continue to influence an individual’s reasoning even after a correction. Research suggests that such influence is partially driven by misinformation familiarity, and that corrections should therefore avoid repeating misinformation to avoid strengthening of misconceptions. In this article, the author tested whether familiarity backfire occur if corrections are processed under cognitive load. In this study, participants listened to repeated misinformation corrections in a driving stimulator. The findings showed that multiple corrections were more effective than a single correction, and that cognitive load reduced correction effectiveness. As a result, these findings provides further evidence against familiarity backfire effects and has implications for real-world debunking.

How susceptible are you? Using feedback and monitoring to reduce the influence of false information

AUTHORS: Nikita A Salovich, David N Rapp

Reading false information, even when it is obviously incorrect, can have problematic effects on what people remember and report to be true. Prior research has demonstrated that evaluative tasks enhance the utilisation of accurate prior knowledge over presented inaccuracies; however, these tasks often rely on explicit instructions to establish an evaluative mindset. In this article, the authors explored the potential impact of confronting individuals about their susceptibility to false information on their motivation to evaluate and reduce reproductions of inaccurate ideas. In Experiment 1, participants receiving performance feedback on susceptibility to misinformation reproduced fewer incorrect ideas and provided more correct answers than those without feedback. In Experiment 2, similar benefits were observed when participants were informed of monitoring their use of false information.

Dishonesty in public reports of confidence: Metacognitive monitoring of memory conformity.

AUTHORS: Dicle Çapan, Terry Eskenazi Sami Gülgöz

Although memory is constantly monitored and controlled by the metacognitive system, little is known about how people monitor memory conformity, incorporating information in others’ memories into one’s memory of a specific event. In this article, the authors tested participants’ memory for shared events and asked them to report their confidence, individually and jointly. Relationships between specific individual characteristics, memory and confidence variables were explored. The findings showed that participants were privately more confident in memory decisions when they did not conform to their cowitness, and that participants were publicly more confident when they conformed to an incorrect than a correct answer. These findings imply that the metacognitive system monitors the social influences of memory, as well as tracks the reliability of the information presented by another.

JARMAC Editor's Choice: June 2023

Generalizations: The Grail and the Gremlins

AUTHORS: PATRICIA J. BAUER

The current state of psychological science and highlights a major goal of research: generalizing findings beyond their initial observations. In this article, the author points out various factors that hinder generalization, such as limited and unrepresentative samples, biased measurements and broad interpretations, as well as threats to the validity of stimuli and experimental designs. The author uses examples from cognitive research to demonstrate these challenges. It is argued that these practices diminish the authenticity of psychological research and, if unchecked, could make the discipline irrelevant and outdated, similar to the threat posed by practices that undermine rigor and replicability. The author proposes suggestions to improve research practices, aiming to develop a more valid, generalizable, and applicable science. By doing so, both basic and applied research in memory and cognition can be advanced.

Visual decision aids: Improving laypeople’s understanding of forensic science evidence

AUTHORS: GIANNI RIBEIRO, HELENA LIKWORNIK, JASON M. CHIN

Forensic science plays an important role in the criminal justice system; however, research and miscarriages of justice have demonstrated that laypeople can easily misunderstand the results of forensic tests. A large body of research in the medical domain suggests that visual decision aids can improve understanding of statistical information. In this article, the authors investigated the use of decision aids in the forensic domain through three experiments involving 879 participants. The findings showed a significant improvement in participants' comprehension of forensic science evidence when presented with visual decision aids. The results highlight the promising potential of decision aids in preventing miscarriages of justice and ensuring a clearer expression of forensic test error rates. As a result, these findings open new avenues for enhancing public understanding of forensic science evidence, fostering fairer legal outcomes.

Face value? How jurors evaluate eyewitness face recognition ability.

AUTHORS: ADELE QUIGLEY-MCBRIDE, WILLIAM CROZIER, CHAD S. DODSON, JENNIFER TEITCHER, BRANDON GARRETT

Although reports of post-identification confidence are not always reliable indicators of eyewitness accuracy, jurors rely heavily on eyewitness confidence to evaluate eyewitnesses. Face memory ability tests are helpful in providing objective information about a person’s ability to encode and recognise faces, enhancing the association between confidence statements and accuracy. This article explored the significance of face memory tests in evaluating the reliability of eyewitnesses. The authors investigated how jurors and lay persons interpret objective face memory information and its connection to post-identification confidence in a series of three experiments (N₁ = 3,143, N₂ = 1,156, N₃ = 3,180). The findings demonstrated that jurors were generally capable of understanding and integrating objective face memory information alongside eyewitness reports of confidence. However, an exception arose when eyewitnesses reported low confidence despite having strong face memory scores. These results highlight the potential of face memory tests to enhance the evaluation of eyewitness evidence.

JARMAC Editor's Choice: March 2023

Structure and Dynamics of Personal and National Event Cognitions

authors: JAMES H. LIU, KARL K. SZPUNAR

The psychological and sociological literature indicates that personal events are remembered and imagined as more positive than negative in comparison to public events, which are remembered and imagined as more negative than positive. In this article, the authors discuss daily experiences, scripted events, and the impact of living in a moment of historical time within a nation as cultural phenomena providing plausible mechanisms for the emotional climate that characterizes personal compared to public events. The authors take into consideration narrative processes (personal versus collective narratives) alongside theorizing difficult objective scenarios to memory for personal lives and national events together in a theoretical account of identity fusion. They conclude by highlighting the implications of collective cognition for group interactions, education, public policy, and collective action. 

Application of a Two-Phase Model of Note Quality to Explore the Impact of Instructor Fluency on Students’ Note-taking 

AUTHORS: PAIGE E. NORTHERN, SARAH K. TAUBER, KYLE J. ST. HILAIRE, SHANA K. CARPENTER

To create quality notes, students must identify concepts from lectures that should be included in their notes and determine how much information to include about each concept. In this article, the authors developed a two-phase model of note-taking and used multiple measures of note quality to evaluate the influence of an instructor’s fluency on the quality of students’ notes. In the experiment, students took notes while watching either a fluent or disfluent lecture, predicted future test performance, evaluated the instructor, and completed a test. The findings indicate that students failed to include many concepts in their notes, but tended to take complete notes of concepts they chose to include. Also, instructor fluency did not impact note quality or test performance, but impacted test predictions and instructor ratings. Overall, these findings propose that instructional approaches that focus on building skills at identifying information from a lecture could be worthwhile for improving note quality.

Sensitizing Jurors to Eyewitness Confidence Using "Reason-Based" Judicial Instructions 

AUTHORS: BRANDON L, GARRETT, WILLIAM E. CROZIER, KARIMA MODJADIDI, ALICE J, LIU, KAREN KAFADAR, JOANNE YAFFE, CHAD S. DODSON

In this article, the authors examine a new paradigm for jury instructions regarding eyewitness testimony, in which the judge provides concise reasons why jurors should discount an eyewitness’s courtroom confidence and instead focus on the eyewitness’s confidence at the time of a police lineup. Over two experiments, participants are presented a video of an eyewitness giving testimony, a video of a judge giving our novel reason-based instructions or control instructions, and then are asked to serve as mock jurors by voting “guilty” or “not guilty”. The findings show that reason-based instructions reduced guilty votes, and that reason-based instructions that directed jurors on how to weigh confidence decreased guilty votes for weak eyewitness evidence, but not strong eyewitness evidence. Not only do these findings demonstrate that reason-based instructions can increase discriminability among laypersons, but that judges should be mindful in phrasing and communicating such instructions.

JARMAC Editor's Choice: December 2022

Memory sins in applied settings: What kind of progress?

AUTHORS: DANIEL L. SCHACTER

Over two decades ago, Schacter proposed that memory errors could be classified into seven basic categories or sins, including three “sins of omission” that refer to different kinds of forgetting and four “sins of commission” that refer to cases in which memory is present but either wrong or unwanted. In this article, the author discusses research conducted during the past 2 decades that has examined several of the memory sins in everyday settings. They conclude that we have made impressive progress in understanding how memory sins impact our function in everyday settings and generating steps to counter them, identify gaps in our knowledge and future research directions, and discuss implications for our understanding of the reliability of human memory.

Fair lineups improve outside observers’ discriminability, not eyewitnesses’ discriminability: Evidence for differential filler-siphoning using empirical data and the WITNESS computer-simulation architecture.

AUTHORS: Andrew M. Smith, Laura Smalarz, Gary L. Wells, James M. Lampinen, Simona Mackovichova

Fair lineups lead to a better trade-off between guilty-suspect identifications and innocent-suspect identifications than biased lineups. Why are fair lineups better? Some researchers argue that fair lineups increase the ability of eyewitnesses to discriminate between the guilty and the innocent, whereas others argue that fair lineups simply spread identifications across fillers and that this filler-siphoning process is more pronounced when the suspect is innocent than when the suspect is guilty (differential filler siphoning). In Experiment 1, fair lineups led to fewer guilty-suspect identifications and a similar rate of correct rejections compared to biased lineups, which is inconsistent with the improved discriminability account. In Experiment 2, computational modelling demonstrated that a spreading effect (differential filler-siphoning) produced a fair-lineup advantage even when the psychology of simulated witnesses was held constant across fair and biased lineups. Together, these findings support differential filler-siphoning and the idea that fair lineups enhance outside observers' discriminability, not eyewitnesses' discriminability.

A new method to implant false autobiographical memories: Blind implantation.

AUTHORS: Henry Otgaar, Georgiana Moldoveanu, Victorien Melis, Mark L. Howe

In this article, the authors offer an elegant new paradigm to implant false autobiographical memories. Participants received a list of 20 autobiographical events including a critical false event (i.e., swimsuit falling off) and indicated whether they had experienced these events. After 1 week, participants who had not experienced the false event received a second survey suggesting that they had experienced the false event either once (Single group) or repeatedly (Repeated group). Participants provided belief and recollection ratings and event-related details. Depending on memory type, false memory implantation ranged from 9% (for false memories) to 30% (for detailed false reports). Furthermore, false beliefs were most likely to be elicited in the Single group. This novel paradigm can offer new insights on how false autobiographical memories can be implanted.