Postevent information and memory: Reply to Loftus, Schooler, and Wagenaar.

Responds to comments by E. F. Loftus et al (see record 1986-13671-001) on the present authors' (see record 1986-03053-001) arguments and evidence in support of the contention that misleading postevent information does not impair memory for the original event. It is suggested that the objections of Loftus et al, which concern the sensitivity of the modified test procedure and its ability to detect memory blends, present no serious challenges to the present authors' position. Implications for forensic applications of postevent information research are considered. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A reconciliation of the evidence on eyewitness testimony: Comments on McCloskey and Zaragoza.

E. F. Loftus (see record 1978-26704-001) demonstrated distorted reports of memory for an event in the direction of postevent misleading information. M. McCloskey and M. Zaragoza (see record 1986-03053-001) argued that these results do not necessarily imply a weakening of the memory for the original event. They obtained evidence supporting their position by using a modified recognition test. In this experiment we introduced still another modification to the recognition test ("Yes"/"No" instead of forced choice) to answer McCloskey and Zaragoza's objections to Loftus and her colleagues' procedures. We obtained evidence for distorted reports of original information as a consequence of the misleading information. Memory and confidence data support an interference or inaccessibility interpretation of the memory errors but cannot rule out overwriting of the original information in some cases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misleading postevent information and recall of the original event: Further evidence against the memory impairment hypothesis.

Evaluated the hypothesis that misleading postevent information impairs memory for the original event using 174 undergraduates in Exp I and 228 Ss in Exp II. Ss were assigned either to a recall test condition or an original recognition test condition. Ss viewed a sequence of slides depicting an event, read a postevent narrative that presented neutral or misleading information about critical details, and were tested on their ability to recall the critical details. No difference in recall performance between misled and control conditions was found. These results, in conjunction with the finding of M. McCloskey and M. Zaragoza (see record 1986-03053-001) that misleading information did not affect Ss' ability to recognize original information, argue strongly against the memory impairment hypothesis. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The fate of memory: Comment on McCloskey and Zaragoza.

M. McCloskey and M. Zaragoza (see record 1986-03053-001) argued that misleading postevent (PE) suggestions do not affect the availability of originally encoded information. Careful consideration of the predictions of their experimental test suggests that it may be insufficiently sensitive to reveal the impact of PE information. A small effect of PE information can be observed when their paradigm is repeated with a more sensitive recognition test. McCloskey and Zaragoza's "no impairment" hypothesis is also difficult to reconcile with numerous reports of "blend" memories that reflect a compromise between the original and PE information. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Drugs for treating behavior problems: How safe are they?

Argues that discussions of negative physical reactions from drug treatment for behavior problems in articles by J. M. Tuma (see record 1989-27149-001) and B. Henker and C. K. Whalen (see record 1989-26516-001) are misleading. Topics addressed include toxicity of neuroleptics, tardive dyskinesia, and life-threatening side effects associated with the use of neuroleptics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constructivism and socially sensitive research.

Replies to comments on multicultural perspectives and researcher bias made by F. A. Ibrahim (see record 1989-25694-001) and M. Gergen (see record 1989-25689-001) regarding the present author's (see record 1988-15683-001) discussion of ethical issues in research on "underrepresented groups" such as women and minorities. Inherent limitations of the individual researcher are noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suggestibility of children's memory: Psycholegal implications.

Examined the psychological mechanisms responsible for suggestibility in the accounts of young children in 4 experiments. Exp I examined whether 182 children (aged 3–12 yrs) were susceptible to misleading postevent information. Results indicate that young children (3- and 4-yr olds) are particularly vulnerable to suggestion. The subsequent experiments focused on this age range and the basis for their susceptibility to misleading postevent information. Exp II, with 102 Ss (mean age 4.6 yrs) found that Ss' susceptibility to misleading information was reduced when another child, as opposed to an adult, provided the misleading information. Therefore, suggestibility effects in children arise in part from a desire to conform to the wishes of an adult authority figure. Exps III and IV tested 2 competing hypotheses as to how postevent suggestions distort children's memories using a total of 175 preschoolers. Data indicate that postevent suggestions can in fact distort memory. Results from these 4 experiments are discussed within the context of children's eyewitness memory and the associated psycholegal implications. (66 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multidimensionality versus inconclusiveness: The baby and the bathwater.

Replies to comments by A. E. Kazdin (see record 1989-12740-001) and K. B. Schmaling and N. S. Jacobson (see record 1989-12763-001) on the present authors' (see record 1989-12762-001) study on social learning family therapy for aggressive children. It is maintained that analyses of the data yield an inference of powerful behavioral-systemic intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual information and response strategies: A comment on Briand and Klein.

Comments on the interference effect found by K. A. Briand and R. M. Klein (see record 1989-21213-001), V. Di Lollo and M. Moscovitch (see record 1984-14011-001), and P. Dixon (see record 1986-21077-001). A framework for discussion is based on the target-array confusion model described by Dixon, and distinguishes between the available perceptual information Ss have to make a response and the strategies Ss use to combine this information and arrive at a decision. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some broader issues: Clinical relevance, gender sensitivity, and psychometrics.

Responds to comments by G. B. Spanier (see record 1989-17637-001) and L. Thompson (see record 1989-17646-001) on the present authors' (see record 1989-17603-001) evaluation of the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misleading postevent information and memory for events: Arguments and evidence against memory impairment hypotheses.

The claim that a person's memory for an event may be altered by information encountered after the event has been based on studies showing that Ss who are given false or misleading information about a previously witnessed event perform more poorly on tests of memory for the event than Ss who are not misled. It is argued that the available evidence does not imply that misleading postevent information impairs memory for the original event because the procedure used in previous studies is inappropriate for assessing effects of misleading information on memory. A more appropriate procedure is presented that involves a change in the recognition test phase. This procedure was used in 6 experiments with 792 undergraduates. Findings indicate that misleading postevent information had no effect on memory for the original event. Several recent studies that seem to contradict this conclusion are reviewed, and it is shown that the studies do not pose problems for the present authors' position. Findings are also considered in relation to the more general claim that information about an event from various sources are integrated into a single representation of the event. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory for serial order revisited.

The critiques by D. J. Mewhort et al (see record 1994-36081-001) and J. S. Nairne and I. Neath (see record 1994-36082-001) identified at least 6 potentially serious problems with S. Lewandowsky and B. B. Murdock's (see record 1989-14457-001) Theory of Distributed Associative Memory (TODAM) model of memory for serial order. It is shown that the flaws attributed to the memory component of TODAM are less serious than claimed, whereas the problems attributed to the response selection stage necessitated a process implementation of the previously unspecified deblurring mechanism. The deblurring process, implemented by a dynamic autoassociative network, is shown to handle most of the problems identified by the critics without imperiling TODAM's ability to handle basic serial position data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"PhD recipients in psychology and biology: Do those with dissertation advisors of the same sex publish scholarly papers more frequently?": Reply to Sugar and Tracy and to Primack and O'Leary.

Comments that the focus of the article by H. Schuckman (see record 1988-11977-001) was the inability to replicate E. Goldstein's (see record 1979-25912-001) finding that people who published most scholarly papers had advisors of the same sex, however, J. Sugar and C. R. Tracy (see record 1989-30958-001) and R. Primack and V. O'Leary (see record 1989-30936-001) were more concerned with the interpretation that the most productive PhDs had male advisors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reactions diagnosed.

Responds to comments of J. R. Bergan (see record 1989-10250-001), B. Y. Wong (see record 1989-10319-001), and G. Alessi (see record 1989-10243-001) on the article by the present author (see record 1989-10292-001). Four issues are discussed: conceptions of behavior focused on the individual's characteristics, norm-referenced vs process assessment, think-aloud analysis, and premature dissemination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Freud's stance, and mine.

Responds to M. O. Slavin and D. Kriegman's (see record 1989-00599-001) and D. M. Snyder's (see record 1989-00600-001) comments on the present author's (see record 1987-21061-001) discussion of Freud's work in the context of neurophysiology and sociobiology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clarification of sampling in some early hardiness articles.

Some of the original studies of hardiness by Kobasa and Maddi and their colleagues in Chicago were characterized by a lack of explicit acknowledgment that samples were drawn from the same large population of business executives and by insufficient information on the number, varying nature, and timing of observations of these research participants. Specifically, two review articles (see record 1990-97699-012) (see record 1988-01423-001) have criticized two early articles (see record 1982-21492-001) (see record 1982-23579-001) as potentially misleading readers about the number of times that the hardiness effect on health has been independently found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on theory, epistemology, and experience in the practice of family therapy.

Replies to the comments of S. Golann (see record 1989-40688-001) and H. A. Guttman (see record 1989-40690-001) on the work of P. R. Falzer (see record 1989-40687-001). It is suggested that as a brutal negation of family therapy's constructions and as an unrefusable offer to examine its prejudices, habits, and customs, G. Bateman's (1979) cybernetic epistemology has already provided a valuable service. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptions of family normality: Refining our lenses.

Suggests that the work of A. E. Kazak et al (see record 1989-32643-001) on perceived normality in families raises issues concerning the limits of existing research on family functioning and common assumptions of clinicians about family normality. The present author discusses the "normal family" concept and her research (see record 1988-10486-001) on family therapists' criteria for healthy families. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)