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Saturday, May 21, 2011
Word Clouds of our blog
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
OAC Research Described in Recent Article
A very nice article describing our research recently appeared in The Psychology Times. The Times is an eNewspaper for "those in the practice, science, and teaching of psychology in Louisiana." The Editor of the Times is Julie Nelson, a graduate of LSU's Ph.D. program and a practicing psychologist. The article can be found here (Volume 2, Number 9; begins on first page).
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
American Psychology-Law Society Conference 2011
Earlier this month, Audra Cook, Tanya Karam and I attended the American Psychology-Law Society Conference in Miami, Florida. Audra is an undergraduate student working in our lab through the ASPIRE program. We presented two posters on new research lines from our lab.
Emotion, Retrieval and Attention: Effects on Memory Accuracy
Tanya Karam and Sean Lane
We examined how the impact of emotion on long-term memory is influenced by an intervening retrieval. Participants studied emotional and neutral pictures, followed by an initial recognition test for 2/3 of the items that was taken under full or divided attention. The final test took place 48-hours later. Items originally tested under full attention were better remembered than items tested under divided attention. Emotional pictures were remembered better than neutral pictures after 48 hours, but only if they had not been previously tested. However, an initial test diminished this advantage; memory was enhanced more for neutral pictures than for emotional pictures. Exp. 2 showed that the same pattern was obtained when stimuli were repeated at encoding. Implications for eyewitness memory are discussed.
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| Tanya energetically explains her research. |
The Lasting Effects of Lying: Being Untruthful Affects Subsequent Memory Accuracy
Audra Cook, Kathleen Vieira & Sean Lane
We investigated the effects of lying versus telling the truth on memory. Participants viewed a series of pictures of simple objects and later lied or told the truth about the appearance of items. Pictures were described once, were described repeatedly, or were not rehearsed at all during this lying/truth task. Forty-eight hours later, participants were tested on their memory for the pictures. Results indicate that although lying did not impact participants’ later descriptions of items or their accuracy in an old/new recognition task, lying did impair source memory relative to telling the truth. More specifically, participants were significantly less likely to remember lying about an item than they were to remember telling the truth about an item. Also, repetition improved memory for having lied or told the truth.
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| Audra Cook and myself before she dazzled visitors to the poster The experiment on the impact of lying on memory is the first of a series of studies developed by Kathleen Vieira and myself. The goal of these studies is to better understand how lying might affect a person's memory for the truth. This work has both theoretical and applied implications (e.g., forensic interviews and interrogations. Please email us (slane at lsu dot edu) if you would like more information about any of these presentations. |
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Psychonomics 2010
Last week, we were at the annual Psychonomic Society conference in St. Louis, MO. The first of three OAC presentations was a talk given at the International Association of Metacognition pre-conference.
One reason that people make memory errors is because they inappropriately weight features of their memory that are potentially diagnostic of its source. In previous research (Lane et al., 2007), we found that providing feedback on a subset of test items substantially increases the accuracy of source monitoring decisions on subsequent test items. This suggests that enhanced knowledge of the types of memorial evidence that discriminate between different item classes can help people to more accurately guide retrieval and post-retrieval processes. In this talk, we discuss a number of experiments from our laboratory that have followed up on these initial findings. Among other things, these studies have revealed that these effects are robust (e.g., found with different stimuli and across delay), that learning from feedback does not require extensive working memory resources, and that preventing elaborative processing following feedback administration does not affect its efficacy. Furthermore, participants appear largely unaware of how feedback affects their performance, and feedback improves performance even when participants insist it had no effect. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings, and note their relevance for previous disagreements in the field regarding the role of implicit vs. explicit processes in metacognition.
The second was a poster presented during the Thursday night poster session:
In prior research, we examined knowledge acquisition in a diagnostic task that involved learning the most effective drug treatments for patients. One consistent finding is that participants appear unaware of negative side effects and yet these negative side effects lower beliefs about the real efficacy of the drug on the primary measure. Two experiments examined how different methods of color coding of feedback in the task can facilitate participants accurate encoding and memory of effects. In Experiment 1, the use of color-coded feedback facilitated the accurate acquisition of drug side effects. In Experiment 2, the use of a full range color coding scheme outperformed a partial (“extremes colored only”) coding scheme. We discuss how color labels can facilitate learning.
Finally, we had a presentation during the last session on Sunday:
Although correct feedback about memory decisions on a subset of items improves subsequent accuracy on source-monitoring tests (e.g., Lane, et al., 2007), it typically has no effect or affects only response criterion on old/new recognition tests (Kantner & Lindsay, 2010). One possible explanation for these findings is that people typically rely heavily on familiarity when making old/new decisions, and it is difficult to adjust this unidimensional type of evidence. In contrast, feedback may help when people make more fine-grained decisions that allow for adjustment to the features they rely upon. In two experiments, we manipulated the similarity of lures to studied items. Participants studied a set of pictures, completed an old/new recognition test, received feedback, and completed a second test. In both experiments, feedback improved old/new discrimination between old items and highly similar lures, but only changed response criterion between old item and low similarity lures.
Please email us (slane at lsu dot edu) if you would like more information about any of these presentations.
Nudging Memory Back on Target: Test Feedback Improves Subsequent Source Monitoring Accuracy
Sean Lane, Stephanie Groft, Kathleen Vieira, Leslie Butler, & Tanya Karam
Sean Lane, Stephanie Groft, Kathleen Vieira, Leslie Butler, & Tanya Karam
One reason that people make memory errors is because they inappropriately weight features of their memory that are potentially diagnostic of its source. In previous research (Lane et al., 2007), we found that providing feedback on a subset of test items substantially increases the accuracy of source monitoring decisions on subsequent test items. This suggests that enhanced knowledge of the types of memorial evidence that discriminate between different item classes can help people to more accurately guide retrieval and post-retrieval processes. In this talk, we discuss a number of experiments from our laboratory that have followed up on these initial findings. Among other things, these studies have revealed that these effects are robust (e.g., found with different stimuli and across delay), that learning from feedback does not require extensive working memory resources, and that preventing elaborative processing following feedback administration does not affect its efficacy. Furthermore, participants appear largely unaware of how feedback affects their performance, and feedback improves performance even when participants insist it had no effect. We discuss the theoretical implications of these findings, and note their relevance for previous disagreements in the field regarding the role of implicit vs. explicit processes in metacognition.
The second was a poster presented during the Thursday night poster session:
Red Means Stop: The Effect of Color on Medical Diagnostic Accuracy
Jonathan Tall, Robert Mathews & Sean Lane
Jonathan Tall, Robert Mathews & Sean Lane
In prior research, we examined knowledge acquisition in a diagnostic task that involved learning the most effective drug treatments for patients. One consistent finding is that participants appear unaware of negative side effects and yet these negative side effects lower beliefs about the real efficacy of the drug on the primary measure. Two experiments examined how different methods of color coding of feedback in the task can facilitate participants accurate encoding and memory of effects. In Experiment 1, the use of color-coded feedback facilitated the accurate acquisition of drug side effects. In Experiment 2, the use of a full range color coding scheme outperformed a partial (“extremes colored only”) coding scheme. We discuss how color labels can facilitate learning.
Finally, we had a presentation during the last session on Sunday:
Only When It’s Tough: Feedback Improves Old/New Recognition
When Lures are Difficult to Discriminate
Kathleen Vieira, Leslie Butler, Sean Lane, Tanya Karam & Stephanie Groft
Kathleen Vieira, Leslie Butler, Sean Lane, Tanya Karam & Stephanie Groft
Although correct feedback about memory decisions on a subset of items improves subsequent accuracy on source-monitoring tests (e.g., Lane, et al., 2007), it typically has no effect or affects only response criterion on old/new recognition tests (Kantner & Lindsay, 2010). One possible explanation for these findings is that people typically rely heavily on familiarity when making old/new decisions, and it is difficult to adjust this unidimensional type of evidence. In contrast, feedback may help when people make more fine-grained decisions that allow for adjustment to the features they rely upon. In two experiments, we manipulated the similarity of lures to studied items. Participants studied a set of pictures, completed an old/new recognition test, received feedback, and completed a second test. In both experiments, feedback improved old/new discrimination between old items and highly similar lures, but only changed response criterion between old item and low similarity lures.
Please email us (slane at lsu dot edu) if you would like more information about any of these presentations.
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| Jon explains the intricacies of his experiment |
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| Kathleen and Leslie analyze data. Dedication! |
Monday, November 29, 2010
LSU DAY
Saturday, November 13th was LSU Day - an opportunity for Baton Rouge area visitors to learn about research at the university (oh yeah....it was also homecoming). The Office of Applied Cognition presented demonstrations on eyewitness memory and memory errors, and talked with people about the implications of our research.
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| Tanya Karam and Leslie Butler talk memory |
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| Serena Fisher and Stephanie Groft give a demonstration |
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| Serena, Stephanie, Leslie, Tanya and Amanda in a relaxed moment |
Thursday, August 5, 2010
New Updated Office of Applied Cognition Web Site
We are pleased to announce that our old web site has been revamped with a new look and updated content. In particular, we have updated information about the research being conducted in the lab, access to more recent publications, and information about all the lab members. You can find our site here.
I want to thank Kathleen Vieira, our project coordinator. She did a great job organizing the new content, keeping the project on track, and making it sure it was up to her high standards. I also want to thank Sameer Bhavanibhatla, who handled the technical aspects of updating and revising the site. We sincerely appreciate both of their efforts.
I want to thank Kathleen Vieira, our project coordinator. She did a great job organizing the new content, keeping the project on track, and making it sure it was up to her high standards. I also want to thank Sameer Bhavanibhatla, who handled the technical aspects of updating and revising the site. We sincerely appreciate both of their efforts.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
5. MEDICAL COGNITION - OAC Research Series
We also have a long-standing interest in the cognitive processes underlying medical practice, and how these processes might be supported. In prior work, we collaborated on an NSF-funded grant with an interdisciplinary team of researchers that included Sonja Wiley-Patton and Andrea Houston from LSU’s Information Systems and Decision Sciences (ISDS) department. This research investigated how medical technology implementation affects the practices of nurses and doctors.
Our more recent work examines how people learn in a laboratory task that has many features in common with those faced by doctors treating patients. Given the complexity of the world we face, it is almost surprising people can learn how and in what ways their actions (e.g., prescribing a medication) affect others. In many situations, professionals have multiple options for action and multiple ways that they could measure the impact of their actions. Furthermore, there is often “noise” in such environments (e.g., the same action may have different effects at different times) and feedback can often be delayed or absent. For example, imagine that you are a family doctor and are responsible for the health of a number of patients. For any given patient, you could try different interventions (e.g., prescribe a medication or a surgical procedure) as a means of affecting their illness. Such interventions might positively affect some aspects of their well-being (e.g., blood pressure) and have a negative or no effect on others (e.g., insomnia). Furthermore, the effects of any intervention are likely not immediately obvious, assuming one gets adequate feedback at all. Despite the complexity and potential ambiguity, professionals who face similar situations are often quite confident that they acquire specific and accurate knowledge about the impact of their interventions as a result of experience (e.g., doctors treating patients; managers supervising employees).
In this research, participants see “patients” suffering from the same disorder multiple times and receive information about their health on a number of parameters, for example, blood pressure (some experiments use a managerial version of this task). Their goal is to keep a key health measure in the “excellent” range while keeping other measures at least in the “acceptable” range (i.e., avoid negative side effects), and also to learn about the effects of different drugs. After a number of rounds with the patients, they are asked to prescribe the best drug for each patient and to indicate what they know about the effects of each drug. Across a number of studies, we have found similar findings. Although participants appear to be learning which drugs are relatively most effective overall, they lack specific knowledge about the impact of such drugs. Specifically, participants avoid prescribing a drug that has a positive effect on a key (primary) measure and a negative “side effect” on another (secondary) measure, yet when asked directly about the impact of the drug they respond by reducing their judgments of it's positive impact and indicate little knowledge of the negative side effect. Thus, participants appear unaware they are integrating across the effects of the drug on different health measures. These effects appear quite robust as they occur under situations where participants have the ability to choose which drug to prescribe (e.g., Mathews, Tall, Lane & Sun, under review), as well as situations where participants do not (and thus everyone gets to see the same information about each patient, e.g., Tall, Mathews, & Lane, 2009, Psychonomics Society). In addition to the goal of understanding the mechanisms underlying these effects, we are also exploring potential avenues for supporting good decision-making in this task. For example, we have examined the effects of providing decision strategy support (Tall, et al., 2009) and using color coding to emphasize the impact of drugs upon health measures (Tall, Mathews, & Lane, submitted). Although the former has beneficial effects under conditions where different patients have different reactions to specific drugs, the impact of color coding appears to be a particularly good general way to enhance attention to side effects.
Our more recent work examines how people learn in a laboratory task that has many features in common with those faced by doctors treating patients. Given the complexity of the world we face, it is almost surprising people can learn how and in what ways their actions (e.g., prescribing a medication) affect others. In many situations, professionals have multiple options for action and multiple ways that they could measure the impact of their actions. Furthermore, there is often “noise” in such environments (e.g., the same action may have different effects at different times) and feedback can often be delayed or absent. For example, imagine that you are a family doctor and are responsible for the health of a number of patients. For any given patient, you could try different interventions (e.g., prescribe a medication or a surgical procedure) as a means of affecting their illness. Such interventions might positively affect some aspects of their well-being (e.g., blood pressure) and have a negative or no effect on others (e.g., insomnia). Furthermore, the effects of any intervention are likely not immediately obvious, assuming one gets adequate feedback at all. Despite the complexity and potential ambiguity, professionals who face similar situations are often quite confident that they acquire specific and accurate knowledge about the impact of their interventions as a result of experience (e.g., doctors treating patients; managers supervising employees).
In this research, participants see “patients” suffering from the same disorder multiple times and receive information about their health on a number of parameters, for example, blood pressure (some experiments use a managerial version of this task). Their goal is to keep a key health measure in the “excellent” range while keeping other measures at least in the “acceptable” range (i.e., avoid negative side effects), and also to learn about the effects of different drugs. After a number of rounds with the patients, they are asked to prescribe the best drug for each patient and to indicate what they know about the effects of each drug. Across a number of studies, we have found similar findings. Although participants appear to be learning which drugs are relatively most effective overall, they lack specific knowledge about the impact of such drugs. Specifically, participants avoid prescribing a drug that has a positive effect on a key (primary) measure and a negative “side effect” on another (secondary) measure, yet when asked directly about the impact of the drug they respond by reducing their judgments of it's positive impact and indicate little knowledge of the negative side effect. Thus, participants appear unaware they are integrating across the effects of the drug on different health measures. These effects appear quite robust as they occur under situations where participants have the ability to choose which drug to prescribe (e.g., Mathews, Tall, Lane & Sun, under review), as well as situations where participants do not (and thus everyone gets to see the same information about each patient, e.g., Tall, Mathews, & Lane, 2009, Psychonomics Society). In addition to the goal of understanding the mechanisms underlying these effects, we are also exploring potential avenues for supporting good decision-making in this task. For example, we have examined the effects of providing decision strategy support (Tall, et al., 2009) and using color coding to emphasize the impact of drugs upon health measures (Tall, Mathews, & Lane, submitted). Although the former has beneficial effects under conditions where different patients have different reactions to specific drugs, the impact of color coding appears to be a particularly good general way to enhance attention to side effects.
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