S1 (FriAM 1-65) - The Psychonomic Society

Posters 4055–4060 Saturday Noon
memory phenomenon such as rehearsal. Preliminary results suggest
that vividness increased after overt rehearsal but decreased after
covert rehearsal, and that this difference was greater in the short term
versus the long term. There was little to no change in confidence ratings
over time for either overt or covert conditions. Additional data
from the class of 2011 will help clarify the role of rehearsal in the development
of flashbulb memories.
(4055)
Intergenerational Contact and Physionomic Aging Cues Influence
Perceived Credibility of Older Witnesses. KATRIN MUELLER-
JOHNSON, University of Cambridge, MICHAEL P. TOGLIA, SUNY,
Cortland, & CHARLOTTE D. SWEENEY & STEPHEN J. CECI,
Cornell University—In the main experiment, 180 undergraduates
rated court testimony of older eyewitnesses for credibility characteristics
(e.g., convincingness, competence, confidence, accuracy, suggestibility).
Testimony, concerning a car accident, was introduced by
the witness’s photo. Witness age (69, 79, 89) and sex were varied with
one of 3 photos representing each age–sex combination. Separately,
the 18 photos (from Hummert et al., 1997) were normed for perceived
age. Reanalysis of the experiment revealed that convincingness, competence,
memory, accuracy, and cognitive functioning were predicted
by participants’ everyday exposure to older adults, which was modified
by an interaction involving perceived age of the witness in the
photo. When perceived witness age was young relative to real age,
participants who reported more contact with older adults rated witnesses
more positively than did participants with less contact. With increasing
perceived age of the photographed person, this difference decreased.
Discussion will focus on the forensic relevance of witness
credibility.
(4056)
Electrophysiological Correlates of the Segmentation of Simple
Events. RICHARD M. SHARP, University of Edinburgh, JEFFERY M.
ZACKS, Washington University, & DAVID I. DONALDSON, University
of Stirling (sponsored by Jeffery M. Zacks)—Functional MRI
studies have identified a network of brain regions sensitive to perceptually
salient boundaries between events. We investigated the
neural correlates of event segmentation using scalp-recorded eventrelated
potentials. Participants viewed simple animations of randomly
moving geometric objects. Top-down expectations were manipulated
by instruction: Participants were told either that the objects
were moving randomly or that they were performing a goal-directed
activity (e.g., one object chasing the other). Participants viewed the
movies passively, then segmented them into meaningful units at both
a fine and a coarse temporal grain. During passive viewing, significant
EEG responses were observed at points that participants later
identified as event boundaries. Responses over frontal and parietal
cortex were larger for coarse-grained boundaries than for fine-grained
boundaries, consistent with the proposal that perceivers group smaller
events into larger units. Responses to coarse-grained boundaries were
affected more by top-down expectations, suggesting that grouping
events depends differentially on top-down mechanisms.
(4057)
Maintaining an Action Plan Through Articulatory Rehearsal Is Not
Necessary for Compatibility Interference. LISA R. FOURNIER,
PAUL S. MATTSON, JOY KIRKWOOD, THEIBOT HERZOG, &
JACKIE BALATABAT, Washington State University (sponsored by
Lisa R. Fournier)—Planning and withholding an action to one visual
stimulus (A) can delay a response to a latter occurring, second visual
stimulus (B) if A and B share similar action codes (response hands).
We examined whether this compatibility interference (CI) is limited to
action plans held in working memory that are maintained by articulatory
rehearsal. Participants planned and withheld a response to A, and
then they either repeated a task-unrelated phrase or sat passively for
~3 sec until B appeared. Participants responded immediately to B and
then to A. The results showed that recall accuracy of response A was
113
lower for the repetition versus the passive trials; however, CI occurred
only for repetition trials. Thus, articulatory rehearsal of an action plan
is not necessary for CI. Furthermore, a relatively long interval between
the planned action A and intervening action B may eliminate CI unless
one is actively engaged in another task during this interval.
(4058)
Cognitive Code Overlap Between Actions Stored in Memory and
Actions Requiring Immediate Execution. LISA R. FOURNIER,
RYAN MCMEANS, & MATTHEW WIEDIGER, Washington State
University—Withholding actions to one visual stimulus (A) can delay
responses to a second visual stimulus (B) if A and B share similar actions
(same response hand). We examined whether this compatibility
interference (CI) was due to action code or cognitive code similarity
between the stimuli. Participants saw two stimuli (A and B) that occurred
in sequence. A manual left- or right-hand response was
planned and withheld to A. Then B occurred, which required an immediate
vocal response of “left” or “right.” Vocal responses were
based on an object color (Experiment 1), a written word (Experiment
2), or the antonym of a written word (Experiment 3). Only Experiment
1 showed a delay in vocal responses to B when its verbal description
(“left”) was compatible with the response hand (“left”)
required for A. Thus, cognitive code similarity is sufficient for CI.
Moreover, CI may be limited to responses that require access to stored
cognitive representations in working memory.
(4059)
Can the Embodied Nature of Attitudes Be Used to Increase Persuasion?
ERIC C. FIELDS, KEVIN D. MARTIN, & WILLIAM
LANGSTON, Middle Tennessee State University—Increasingly, evidence
from across the subdisciplines of psychology supports an embodied
view of cognition. If this is the case, it should be possible to
use the knowledge of how an attitude is embodied to increase persuasion
away from (or toward) that attitude. Previous research has shown
the elderly stereotype to be embodied in slow movement. In study 1,
participants listened to messages that were either consistent with or
inconsistent with the elderly stereotype. While listening, they moved
either fast or slow. They then completed implicit and explicit measures
of the elderly stereotype. The results suggested that the movement
used might not be effective. To investigate whether particular
movements are required to achieve embodiment effects in this area,
for study 2 we used Mussweiler’s (2006) protocol but substituted the
arm movement used in our study for leg movement. It’s possible that
arm movements will not produce the same embodiment priming effects.
• REASONING •
(4060)
The Time Course of Hypothesis Activation During Diagnostic Reasoning.
MARTIN BAUMANN, KATJA MEHLHORN, FRANZISKA
BOCKLISCH, GEORG JAHN, & JOSEF F. KREMS, Chemnitz University
of Technology (sponsored by Josef F. Krems)—Diagnostic reasoning
may be seen as a process of sequential understanding that integrates
new observations into a developing mental representation.
This situation model represents the current best explanation of the observations.
We assume that constructing situation models involves automatic
knowledge activation as well as deliberate reasoning
processes. Automatic activation determines the availability of hypotheses
for the deliberate reasoning processes. In the reported experiment,
the time course of hypothesis activation during the reasoning
process was examined. Hypothesis activation was measured by
combining a reasoning task with a concurrent probe reaction task with
probes being strongly related to the explanations. Hence, response
times to the probes indicated the degree of activation of the associated
hypotheses. We found that hypotheses representing currently
plausible explanations for a set of observations were more activated
than were irrelevant or rejected hypotheses. We found no evidence for
an inhibition of rejected hypotheses.