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In response to the replication crisis in psychology, the scientific community has advocated open science practices to promote transparency and reproducibility. Although existing reviews indicate inconsistent and generally low adoption of open science in psychology, a current-day, detailed analysis is lacking. Recognising the significant impact of false memory research in legal contexts, we conducted a preregistered systematic review to assess the integration of open science practices within this field, analysing 388 publications from 2015 to 2023 (including 15 replications and 3 meta-analyses). Our findings indicated a significant yet varied adoption of open science practices. Most studies (86.86%) adhered to at least one measure, with publication accessibility being the most consistently adopted practice at 73.97%. While data sharing demonstrated the most substantial growth, reaching about 75% by 2023, preregistration and analysis script sharing lagged, with 20-25% adoption in 2023. This review highlights a promising trend towards enhanced research quality, transparency, and reproducibility in false memory research. However, the inconsistent implementation of open science practices may still challenge the verification, replication, and interpretation of research findings. Our study underscores the need for a comprehensive adoption of open science to improve research reliability and validity substantially, fostering trust and credibility in psychology.

The many benefits of online research and the recent emergence of open-source eye-tracking libraries have sparked an interest in transferring time-consuming and expensive eye-tracking studies from the lab to the web. In the current study, we validate online webcam-based eye-tracking by conceptually replicating three robust eye-tracking studies (the cascade effect, n = 134, the novelty preference, n = 45, and the visual world paradigm, n = 32) online using the participant's webcam as eye-tracker with the WebGazer.js library. We successfully replicated all three effects, although the effect sizes of all three studies shrank by 20-27%. The visual world paradigm was conducted both online and in the lab, using the same participants and a standard laboratory eye-tracker. The results showed that replication per se could not fully account for the effect size shrinkage, but that the shrinkage was also due to the use of online webcam-based eye-tracking, which is noisier. In conclusion, we argue that eye-tracking studies with relatively large effects that do not require extremely high precision (e.g., studies with four or fewer large regions of interest) can be done online using the participant's webcam. We also make recommendations for how the quality of online webcam-based eye-tracking could be improved., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Participants in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm learn lists of words (e.g., bed, tired) associated with a nonpresented lure (i.e., sleep). In subsequent memory tests, individuals tend to report the nonlearned lures, that is, exhibiting false memories. Priorly, the DRM task has been criticized for not capturing the aversive nature of (clinically and forensically relevant) real-life memories. To obtain a robust estimate of the influence of negative versus neutral word lists on the DRM effect, we conducted both a preregistered meta-analysis ( k recall = 49, n recall = 2,209, k recognition = 75, n recognition = 3,008, k responsebias = 31, n responsebias = 1,128) and replication ( n final = 278) predicting increased false memories for negative valence in recall and recognition. For recall, we found significant frequentist evidence in the meta-analysis for a reversed valence effect ( d = -0.18, i.e., reduced false memories for negative content vs. neutral), whereas the replication displayed null results ( d = 0.03). For recognition, both the meta-analysis ( d = 0.23) and replication ( d = 0.35) showed that negative valence (vs. neutral) increased false memories. However, this effect may be confounded by shifts in response tendencies as controlling for response bias nullified the valence effect in our meta-analysis ( d meta = 0.05), and we found evidence for differential response bias in our replication ( d replica = 0.39). Hence, the effect of valence on false memory reports in the DRM may not represent a systematic difference in emotional information but instead depend on how memory is tested, and be partly attributable to differential response tendencies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The concealed information test (CIT) presents various probe (familiar) items amidst irrelevant (unfamiliar) items. When the probe items appear, reaction time (RT) slows down. This RT-CIT effect has been accounted for by a conflict resulting from the need to deny familiarity of the familiar probes. The present pre-registered study (n = 292) examined whether response conflict is sufficient to account for the RT-CIT effect, using city and name items. Specifically, we compared the common conflict condition, where the response buttons emphasized familiarity of CIT items ("unfamiliar" versus "familiar"), to a novel no conflict condition, where the buttons emphasized categorical membership ("city" versus "name"). In line with our expectations, the RT-CIT effect was substantially stronger in the conflict condition; yet, it remained significant even in the no conflict condition. This implies a critical role for response conflict, but also suggests that other mechanisms (e.g. orientation to significant stimuli) may contribute to the RT-CIT effect., (© 2023. Springer Nature Limited.)

Post-traumatic stress disorder is characterised by recurring memories of a traumatic experience despite deliberate attempts to forget (i.e., suppression). The Think/No-Think (TNT) task has been used widely in the laboratory to study suppression-induced forgetting. During the task, participants learn a series of cue-target word pairs. Subsequently, they are presented with a subset of the cue words and are instructed to think (respond items) or not think about the corresponding target (suppression items). Baseline items are not shown during this phase. Successful suppression-induced forgetting is indicated by the reduced recall of suppression compared to baseline items in recall tests using either the same or different cues than originally studied (i.e., same- and independent-probe tests, respectively). The current replication was a pre-registered collaborative effort to evaluate an online experimenter-present version of the paradigm in 150 English-speaking healthy individuals (89 females; M Age  = 31.14, SD Age  = 7.73). Overall, we did not replicate the suppression-induced forgetting effect (same-probe: BF 01  = 7.84; d  = 0.03 [95% CI: -0.13; 0.20]; independent-probe: BF 01  = 5.71; d  = 0.06 [95% CI: -0.12; 0.24]). These null results should be considered in light of our online implementation of the paradigm. Nevertheless, our findings call into question the robustness of suppression-induced forgetting.

The concealed information test (CIT) was designed to detect concealed knowledge. It does so by measuring differential physiological and behavioral responses to concealed, compared to control, items - i.e., the CIT effect. Although the CIT has gained extensive empirical support in laboratory studies, scientific validity requires also a theoretical understanding of the method's underlying mechanisms. In this article, we present a new theoretical perspective. Specifically, we elaborate and clarify several features of Orienting Response (OR) theory, which has been the dominant theory in this domain. Importantly, we suggest for the first time that the voluntary (rather than the involuntary) OR modulates the CIT effect. Second, we argue that motivational-emotional accounts of the CIT effect are consistent with OR theory and cannot be considered as alternative approaches. Finally, we discuss some more recent developments which highlight the idea that different physiological measures reflect different underlying mechanisms - an idea dubbed as response fractionation., (© 2022 The Authors. Psychophysiology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Psychophysiological Research.)

There is a need for validated, theory-driven methods for memory detection. We review how physiological, neurophysiological, and oculomotor measures can be utilized to reveal concealed memories. Recent advances and future directions are discussed in light of the potential of eye-tracking to improve detection efficiency and resolve problems in real-world settings., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Concealed Information Tests (CIT) are administered to verify whether suspects recognize certain features from a crime. Whenever it is presumed that innocent suspects were contaminated with critical information (e.g., the perpetrator had a knife), the examiner may ask more detailed questions (e.g., specific types of knives) to prevent false positives. However, this may increase the number of false negatives if the true perpetrator fails to discern specific details from its plausible irrelevant controls, or because detailed crime-scene information may be forgotten. We examined whether presenting items at the exemplar level protects against contamination, and whether it compromises the sensitivity in a physiological CIT. Participants (N = 142) planned a mock-robbery, with critical items encoded either at the category or at the exemplar level. The CIT was administered immediately or after a 1-week-delay, with questions phrased at the categorical or exemplar level. There were no effects of time delay. Results revealed that when item detailedness was congruent at encoding and testing, the SCR, HR, and RLL showed larger differential responses, as compared with incongruent conditions. Participants contaminated with crime knowledge at the categorical level did not show a CIT-effect for crime details at the exemplar level, suggesting detailed questions may counter the leakage problem. Asking questions at the exemplar level did not reduce the CIT detection efficiency as compared to asking questions at the categorical level. The importance of congruency between encoding and testing provides examiners with a challenge, as it is difficult to estimate how details are naturally encoded., (© 2021 The Authors. Psychophysiology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Psychophysiological Research.)