In this article we directly assessed the relationship between valence and relevant traits of the Big Two dimensions (i.e., communion and agency). Drawing on previous research, we expected that the ...relationship with valence would be less monotonous and more variable in direction across agency‐related traits, compared to communion‐related traits. In three repeated measures studies we assessed the perceived valence of each trait dimension on a continuum of seven points. Studies 1 and 2 defined each continuum verbally. In Study 3 each continuum was defined by facial features. Results across these studies show that valence is linearly and more consistently related with communion‐related traits than with agency‐related traits. Within agency, however, competence established a positive linear relationship with valence, whereas dominance showed a target‐sensitive relationship with valence: quadratic in evaluation of trait concepts, and negative and linear in face evaluation. We discuss the implications of these data for Big Two‐related research.
The article explores whether the traits representing the dimensions underlying the structure of facial and non‐facial impressions are similarly mapped in the face space. Two studies examine whether ...the trustworthiness‐by‐dominance and the warmth‐by‐competence two‐dimensional models overlap in face perception. In Study 1 (N = 200), we used a reverse‐correlation task to obtain classification images (CIs) reflecting how each dimension is mapped onto a face. Results show that the similarity between CIs was higher between warmth and trustworthiness than between competence and dominance. In Study 2 (N = 31) the evaluations of each CI on each social dimension show a higher dissociation between dominance and competence than between trustworthiness and warmth. These results, obtained at both perceptual and judgment levels, suggest that there is only a partial correspondence between the two models that seems to be driven by the relationship that the competence and dominance dimensions establish with valence.
Errorful learning suggests that, when perfect learning has not yet been attained, errors can enhance future learning if followed by corrective feedback. Research on memory updating has shown that ...after retrieval, memory becomes more malleable and prone to change. Thus, retrieval of a wrong answer might provide a good context for the incorporation of feedback. Here, we tested this hypothesis using sentences including pragmatic sentence implications, commonly used for the study of false memories. Across two experiments with young adults, we hypothesized that corrective feedback would be more efficient at reducing false memories if provided immediately after retrieval, when memory is more malleable than after being exposed to the material. Participants’ memory was assessed as a function of the type of learning task (Experiment 1: retrieval vs. restudy; and Experiment 2: active vs. passive recognition); and whether participants received corrective feedback or not. In both experiments, we observed that retrieval not only improved correct recall (replicating the testing effect) but also promoted the correction of false memories. Notably, corrective feedback was more effective when given after errors that were committed during retrieval rather than after restudy (Experiment 1) or after passive recognition (Experiment 2). Our results suggest that the benefits of retrieval go beyond the testing effect since it also facilitates false memories correction. Retrieval seems to enhance memory malleability, thus improving the incorporation of feedback, compared to the mere presentation of the information. Our results support the use of learning strategies that engage in active and explicit retrieval because, even if the retrieved information is wrong—when immediate feedback is provided—memory updating is promoted and errors are more likely to be corrected.
What happens when people try to forget something? What are the consequences of instructing people to intentionally forget a sentence? Recent studies employing the item‐method directed forgetting ...paradigm have shown that to‐be‐forgotten (TBF) items are, in a subsequent task, emotionally devaluated relative to to‐be‐remembered (TBR) items, an aftereffect of memory selection (Vivas, Marful, Panagiotidou & Bajo, 2016). As such, distractor devaluation by attentional selection generalizes to memory selection. In this study, we use the item‐method directed forgetting paradigm to test the effects of memory selection and inhibition on truth judgments of ambiguous sentences. We expected the relative standing of an item in the task (i.e., whether it was instructed to be remembered or forgotten) to affect the truthfulness value of that item, making TBF items less valid/truthful than TBR items. As predicted, ambiguous sentences associated with a “Forget” cue were subsequently judged as less true than sentences associated with a “Remember” cue, suggesting that instructions to intentionally forget a statement can produce changes in the validity/truthfulness of that statement. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show an influence of memory processes involved in selection and forgetting on the perceived truthfulness of sentences.
Human memory can be unreliable, and when reading a sentence with a pragmatic implication, such as "
," people often falsely remember that the karate champion "
" the cinder block. Yet, research has ...shown that encoding instructions affect the false memories we form. On the one hand, instructing participants to imagine themselves manipulating the to-be-recalled items increase false memories (imagination inflation effect). But on the other hand, instructions to imagine have reduced false memories in the DRM paradigm (imagination facilitation effect). Here, we explored the effect of imaginal encoding with pragmatic inferences, a way to study false memories for information about everyday actions. Across two experiments, we manipulated imaginal encoding through the instructions given to participants and the after-item filler task (none vs. math operations). In Experiment 1, participants were either assigned to the encoding condition of imagine+no filler; pay attention+math; or memorize+math. In Experiment 2, the encoding instructions (imagine vs. memorize) and the filler task (none vs. math) were compared across four separate conditions. Results from the two experiments showed that imagination instructions lead to better memory, by showing a higher proportion of correct responses and better performance in a memory benefit index. Similarly, a significant reduction of false memories was observed across both experiments, even though a complementary Bayesian analysis only supported this conclusion for Experiment 1. The findings show that imaginal encoding improves memory, suggesting the engagement of a distinctiveness heuristic and source-monitoring process.
The categorization of inductive reasoning into largely automatic processes (heuristic reasoning) and controlled analytical processes (rule-based reasoning) put forward by dual-process approaches of ...judgment under uncertainty (e.g.,
K. E. Stanovich & R. F. West, 2000
) has been primarily a matter of assumption with a scarcity of direct empirical findings supporting it. The present authors use the process dissociation procedure (
L. L. Jacoby, 1991
) to provide convergent evidence validating a dual-process perspective to judgment under uncertainty based on the independent contributions of heuristic and rule-based reasoning. Process dissociations based on experimental manipulation of variables were derived from the most relevant theoretical properties typically used to contrast the two forms of reasoning. These include processing goals (Experiment 1), cognitive resources (Experiment 2), priming (Experiment 3), and formal training (Experiment 4); the results consistently support the author's perspective. They conclude that judgment under uncertainty is neither an automatic nor a controlled process but that it reflects both processes, with each making independent contributions.
Memories acquired incidentally from exposure to food information in the environment may often become active to later affect food preferences. Because conscious use of these memories is not requested ...or required, these incidental learning effects constitute a form of indirect memory. In an experiment using a novel food preference paradigm
(n
= 617), we found that brief incidental exposure to hedonic versus healthy food features indirectly affected food preferences a day later, explaining approximately 10% of the variance in preferences for tasty versus healthy foods. It follows that brief incidental exposure to food information can affect food preferences indirectly for at least a day. When hedonic and health exposure were each compared to a no-exposure baseline, a general effect of hedonic exposure emerged across individuals, whereas health exposure only affected food preferences for high-BMI individuals. This pattern suggests that focusing attention on hedonic food features engages common affective processes across the general population, whereas focusing attention on healthy food features engages eating restraint goals associated with high BMI. Additionally, incidental exposure to food features primarily changed preferences for infrequently consumed foods, having less impact on habitually consumed foods. These findings offer insight into how hedonic information in the obesogenic food environment contributes to unhealthy eating behavior that leads to overweight and obesity. These findings further motivate the development of interventions that counteract the effects of exposure to hedonic food information and that broaden the effects of exposure to healthy food information.
Comments on an article in the same journal issue, "The scaffolded mind: Higher mental processes are grounded in early experience of the physical world" by Lawrence E. Williams, Julie Y. Huang, and ...John A. Bargh. Copyright John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.
Dolinski (2018, this issue) argues that Social Psychology may hardly be considered a science of behaviour anymore, given the rarity of published studies in which the dependent measures involve ...behaviours other than the completion of surveys, pressing of keys on a computer keyboard, or clicking a mouse. In the present, we comment on this void of empirical studies in which “real” human behaviours are examined to put forward the following points: i) Key-pressing can be a human behaviour as meaningful as any other more complex behaviour (i.e., behavioural complexity is not a good criterion for meaningfulness), ii) Lessons learned from past research in social psychology have shown us that studying “real” behaviour introduces a number of well-known complications, iii) Improvement in the comprehension of human behaviour depends more on a strong theoretical lens constrained by results obtained via rigorous experimentation than on the complexity of people’s observed actions.
More than twenty five years after the beginning of research on spontaneous trait inferences (Winter & Uleman, 1984) an intriguing paradox in the impression formation literature remains: if traits are ...spontaneously inferred, why aren't they used to organize behavioral information and thereby facilitate recall under memory instructions (Hamilton, Katz, & Leirer, 1980)? We hypothesized that organization by traits is more evident under impression formation goals because only in that case then are inferences sufficiently monitored to permit their use in organizing impressions. As a consequence, such monitored traits can then be used strategically as retrieval cues. Merging the main features of the Winter and Uleman and the Hamilton et al. experimental paradigms, Experiment 1 simultaneously replicated the main results of both studies. Using a new recognition paradigm, Experiments 2 and 3 further tested this
inference monitoring hypothesis by showing that monitoring of trait inferences only occurs under particular processing goals, and is dependent on the availability of cognitive resources.
► Trait inferences are closely monitored under impression formation. ► Monitored inferences may become available for organizing and retrieving impressions. ► In the absence of monitoring trait inferences occur mostly at an implicit level. ► Three studies used a cued recall and false recognition paradigm coupled with the PDP. ► Inference monitoring accounts for both intentional and spontaneous trait inferences.
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