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We tested whether targeting the illusion of causality and/or misperceptions about health risks had the potential to reduce consumer demand for an ineffective health remedy (multivitamin supplements). We adopted a 2 (contingency information: no/yes) × 2 (fear appeal: no/yes) factorial design, with willingness-to-pay as the dependent variable. The contingency information specified, in table format, the number of people reporting a benefit vs. no benefit from both multivitamins and placebo, plus a causal explanation for lack of efficacy over placebo. The fear appeal involved a summary of clinical-trial results that indicated multivitamins can cause health harms. The control condition received only irrelevant information. Experimental auctions measured people's willingness-to-pay for multivitamins. Experiment 1 (N = 260) elicited hypothetical willingness-to-pay online. Experiment 2 (N = 207) elicited incentivised willingness-to-pay in the laboratory. Compared to a control group, we found independent effects of contingency information (-22%) and the fear appeal (-32%) on willingness-to-pay. The combination of both interventions had the greatest impact (-50%) on willingness-to-pay. We found evidence that consumer choices are influenced by both perceptions of efficacy and risk. The combination of both elements can provide additive effects that appear superior to either approach alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fact‐checking has become an important feature of the modern media landscape. However, it is unclear what the most effective format of fact‐checks is. Some have argued that simple retractions that repeat a false claim and tag it as false may backfire because they boost the claim's familiarity. More detailed refutations may provide a more promising approach, but may not be feasible under the severe space constraints associated with social‐media communication. In two experiments, we tested whether (1) simple 'false‐tag' retractions can indeed be ineffective or harmful; and (2) short‐format (140‐character) refutations are more effective than simple retractions. Regarding (1), simple retractions reduced belief in false claims, and we found no evidence for a familiarity‐driven backfire effect. Regarding (2), short‐format refutations were found to be more effective than simple retractions after a 1‐week delay but not a one‐day delay. At both delays, however, they were associated with reduced misinformation‐congruent reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People often continue to rely on misinformation in their reasoning after they have acknowledged a retraction; this phenomenon is known as the continued-influence effect. Retractions can be particularly ineffective when the retracted misinformation is consistent with a pre-existing worldview. We investigated this effect in the context of depressive rumination. Given the prevalence of depressotypic worldviews in depressive rumination, we hypothesised that depressive rumination may affect the processing of retractions of valenced misinformation; specifically, we predicted that the retraction of negative misinformation might be less effective in depressive ruminators. In two experiments, we found evidence against this hypothesis: in depressive ruminators, retractions of negative misinformation were at least as effective as they were in control participants, and more effective than retractions of positive misinformation. Findings are interpreted in terms of an attentional bias that may enhance the salience of negative misinformation and may thus facilitate its updating in depressive rumination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the recent research in psychology and offers ways to counter falsehoods along with the impacts of misinformation on people, role of psychology in finding ways out of the post-truth malaise and the role of attitudes and beliefs in the life of people.

Is consolidation needed to account for retroactive interference in free recall? Interfering mental activity during the retention interval of a memory task impairs performance, in particular if the interference occurs in temporal proximity to the encoding of the to-be-remembered (TBR) information. There are at least two rival theoretical accounts of this temporal gradient of retroactive interference. The cognitive neuroscience literature has suggested neural consolidation is a pivotal factor determining item recall. According to this account, interfering activity interrupts consolidation processes that would otherwise stabilize the memory representations of TBR items post-encoding. Temporal distinctiveness theory, by contrast, proposes that the retrievability of items depends on their isolation in psychological time. According to this theory, information processed after the encoding of TBR material will reduce the temporal distinctiveness of the TBR information. To test between these accounts, implementations of consolidation were added to the SIMPLE model of memory and learning. We report data from two experiments utilizing a two-list free recall paradigm. Modeling results imply that SIMPLE was able to model the data and did not benefit from the addition of consolidation. It is concluded that the temporal gradient of retroactive interference cannot be taken as evidence for memory consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Impairments in memory and executive function are key components of schizophrenia. These disturbances have been linked to several subcortical and cortical networks. For example, anatomical and functional changes in the hippocampus have been linked to deficits in these cognitive domains. However, the association between hippocampal morphometry, neurochemistry and function is controversial. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the relationship between hippocampal anomalies and their functional relevance. Methods. Fifty-seven first-episode schizophrenia patients (FE-SZ) and 61 healthy control subjects (HC) participated in this study. Hippocampal volumes were investigated using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and hippocampal neurochemistry was determined using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H MRS). Verbal memory was used as a hippocampus-dependent cognitive task whereas working memory and cognitive flexibility assessed frontal lobe function. Results. FE-SZ presented smaller volumes of the left hippocampus, with a significant correlation between left hippocampal volume and verbal memory performance (immediate recall). There was also an inverse correlation between neurochemical ratios (NAA/Cho and Cho/Cr) and verbal memory (delayed recognition). Tests of cognitive flexibility and working memory were not correlated with MRI and 1H MRS values. Compared to HC, FE-SZ demonstrated reduced performance in all of the assessed neurocognitive domains. Conclusions. These results point to a relationship between verbal memory and hippocampal integrity in schizophrenia patients which might be independent from deficits in other memory domains. Disturbed verbal memory functions in FE-SZ might be linked specifically to hippocampal function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Misinformation can continue to influence reasoning after correction; this is known as the continued influence effect (CIE). Theoretical accounts of the CIE suggest failure of two cognitive processes to be causal, namely memory updating and suppression of misinformation reliance. Both processes can also be conceptualised as subcomponents of contemporary executive function (EF) models; specifically, working-memory updating and prepotent-response inhibition. EF may thus predict susceptibility to the CIE. The current study investigated whether individual differences in EF could predict individual differences in CIE susceptibility. Participants completed several measures of EF subcomponents, including those of updating and inhibition, as well as set shifting, and a standard CIE task. The relationship between EF and CIE was then assessed using a correlation analysis of the EF and CIE measures, as well as structural equation modelling of the EF-subcomponent latent variable and CIE latent variable. Results showed that EF can predict susceptibility to the CIE, especially the factor of working-memory updating. These results further our understanding of the CIE's cognitive antecedents and provide potential directions for real-world CIE intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]