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This article addresses the question: Why is there so often silence in the face of injustice? Much of this silence is socially constructed, the result of a process through which possible (and, often, previously audible) objections to injustice are muffled, not by modifying the conditions giving rise to the objections, but by other means. Not all silences are socially constructed, of course, and some of those that are may have the genuine endorsement of all those who observe them. The author examines those socially constructed silences that are clearly not uncontested or incontestable and, drawing on Stanley Milgram's classic work on obedience to authority and other, more, contemporary social psychological research, attempts to understand the social construction of various forms of silence and their consequences for current and future forms of injustice.

Depending on whom you ask, restorative justice is a concept, a theory, or a social movement. It is also, variously, “new wine in old bottles,” “atavistic” and “fundamentally misguided,” (e.g., Delgado (2000). Standard Law Rev. 52: 751–775; Levrant et al. (1999). Crime Delinq. 45(1): 3–27) or revolutionary, immensely promising, and transformative (e.g., Bazemore & Schiff, 2001). I intend to suggest here how recent work on restorative justice might serve as a stimulating provocation to continuing work on procedural and distributive justice. I try to do that in three steps: first, by offering a short description of theory and research on restorative justice; second, by discussing a particular social policy and associated practice—the Vermont Reparative Probation Boards—that has grown out of that work; and third, by discussing work on three issue clusters that might provoke a rethinking of some fundamental issues.

The effect of aging on gesture production in an object-description task was studied. An interaction was found between age and class of gesture; elderly females produced far fewer descriptive gestures than did young adult females. The two age levels were more comparable in their production of non-descriptive gestures. There was, however, no difference in description quality as a function of age. Our working hypothesis that gesture usage should be regarded as a cognitive strategy in description tasks received little support from these data. This approach was therefore discarded in favor of an alternative approach which emphasized the difference between speech-driven and visual imagery-driven gestures.

Both restorative justice and resource theory focus attention on harmful interactions whose resolution sometimes requires the involvement of a third party. Ronald Cohen, in this chapter, reviews recent work in both traditions and underscores the importance of identifying and examining three issues that have escaped systematic attention. First, the nature of the central roles of victim, perpetrator, and “community” need to be clarified. Second, the complexities involved in shifting from a dyadic to a triadic social relation need to be addressed. And, third, the discursive dimension of status alignments and realignments needs to be analyzed. Cohen offers suggestions about why these issues are important and how they might be addressed.

Through it may initially seem simple and straightforward, affirmative action is an extremely complex concept linked to a variety of programs that attempt to address central institutional sources of injustice. Smith and Crosby (1994) have identified several important and contentious issues that have emerged in the debate over affirmative action programs and their effects over the past 30 years. They have also contributed to the continuing need to refine our understanding of injustice and the individual and institutional obstacles that often frustrate attempts to confront injustice. By reflecting critically on their contribution, I have tried to add to that understanding.

In a free recall situation, subjects can predict, with some degree of accuracy, which words they will subsequently recall. This study focused on the question of why subjects often recall words to which they assign low prediction ratings. This problem was approached by comparing the properties of recall-not-predicted (RNP) and recall-predicted (RP) words which appeared in subjects' recall protocols. No differences were found between the two types of items (RNP and RP) in retrieval monitoring. The two types of items were differentiated by whether subjects could recollect the actual occurrence of the recalled items in the study list (“remember” responses) or not (“know” responses). Furthermore, the recall of RNP items, but not RP items, was improved by retrieval prompts. These results were taken to support the position that weakly encoded items may be recalled if they encounter a highly favourable retrieval environment, not anticipated by subjects during study.

Models of memory are typically restricted to the explanation of experimental data. This editorial attempts to make a case for models that can also explain individual differences.

A video-taped model presented subjects with sets of sentences to be free-recalled. under three presentation conditions: (1) accompanied by pantomimic gestures; (2) accompanied by non-pantomimic gestures; and (3) no gestures present. When the sentences formed a narrative, the gestures did not affect recall. When the sentences were unconnected, recall was higher for the gestured than for tbe non-gestured sentences. The pantomimic and non-pantomimic gestures showed about the same mnemonic effect. The subjects were given a second test, either recall-cued by the gestures, or else free recall of the gestured Sentences only. The pantomimic conditions were superior to the non-pantomimic conditions in both these tests. Possible explanations for the mnemonic effects of the gestures are discussed.

Subjects enacted two series of tasks as instructed (subject-performed tasks, or SPTs). The enactions were of either short (5-s) or long (30-s) duration. The long en actions were either repetitive (e.g.,bounce a ball several times) or else nonrepetitive (e. g.,stand up, walk round the room, open the door, look out, close the door, sit down). During presentation, subjects were to rate the probability of recall of each SPT in a subsequent free-recall test. The long SPTs were given higher recall ratings than the short SPTs, but the subjects did not differentiate between the repetitive and the nonrepetitive items. Recall mirrored the ratings; the long SPTs were recalled more frequently than the short ones, with no difference between the repetitive and the nonrepetitive items. The metamemory results are discussed in relation to the notion that the memory-monitoring system is sensitive to quantitative, but not to qualitative, differences in encoding.

The working memory model attributes the development of span in children to increasing proficiency in the use of an articulatory loop (AL). This hypothesis was investigated by testing samples of two different age levels with a fixed span task, and with a running memory task that required the recall of the 5 terminal items in each list. Some of the results supported the AL hypothesis: Fixed span and articulation rate correlated within each of the samples; the effect of age on fixed span disappeared when articulation proficiency served as a covariate in an analysis of covariance. Several findings challenged the validity of the hypothesis, however. For example, the reliable correlation coefficients found between fixed span and running memory were not generally reduced when the influence of articulation speed was partialled out. This indicates a common factor underlying individual differences in the span and running memory tasks, not related to articulation proficiency. Alternative approaches to the span—articulation proficiency relationships are discussed, including the possibility that span and articulation develop as separate facets of a common system.

Recent social psychological work on procedural justice suggests that people given the opportunity to participate in a decision are more likely to see that decision as just than those given no such opportunity. The operation of this “fair process effect” in legal settings contributes to the legitimacy of those settings and to the stability of their structure over time. A similar, limited opportunity for participation by experimental subjects playing the role of employee in situations designed to model hierarchical, profit-oriented business enterprises produces a similar effect in some cases, but a 'frustration” effect in others. In this latter case, limited participation leads people to see the decision as less just than when no participation is allowed. Previous interpretations of these data neglect the possibility that those in the role of employees recognize a basic conflict of interest with employers in such enterprises and see limited participation as a strategic device to induce loyalty and commitment. This paper reinterprets these data in light of that possibility and argues that various forms of participation may benefit or harm the interests of employers and employees differently.

Several memory laws have been established for the free recall of word lists. The generality of some of these laws were tested, using tasks which the subjects performed (SPTs) as to-be-recalled list items. SPT recall obeyed one law of word recall in showing a strong positive recency effect in immediate free recall, which appeared to be due to these events being in a temporary state of high accessibility. Differences between word and SPT recall were: 1) The reliable primacy effect associated with word recall did not appear in SPT recall; 2) Subjects reported using active memorisation strategies for word lists, but not for SPT lists; 3) Unlike word recall, diverting the subject's attention to so-called deep or shallow features of the SPTs during presentation did not affect the level of their recall. These results considered together with Cohen & Stewart's (1981) finding that SPT recall was not age-sensitive were taken to indicate that SPTs should be regarded as a different class of memory event than words, and that memory models dealing with SPT recall should de-emphasize the importance of encoding, stressing instead retention, and retrieval operations.

Several prior studies have concluded that the correlation between IQ and STM depends on differences in encoding or rehearsal strategies. Low IQ subjects use less effective strategies than high IQ subjects. One basis for these conclusions is that IQ exerts its greatest influence on the recall of early items in to-be-remembered lists, having little effect on the recall of recency items. The present study measured IQ STM correlations in children, using probed serial recall of supraspan digit lists. The results showed the predictive power of IQ to range from a maximum in the case of recall for recency items to practically zero in the case of primacy items. Several explanations for the data are discussed, taking account of the possible roles of individual differences in rehearsal, in item persistence, and in the ability to access specified information in a short-term store.

This paper focuses on false beliefs that create or maintain injustice, particularly those false beliefs held by the unjustly disadvantaged. Those who benefit from injustice may intentionally lead those disadvantaged by unjust distributions, procedures, or interpersonal treatment to believe that no injustice exists, that the injustice is minimal, or that the injustice that exists cannot be reduced. Research on procedural and interactional justice suggests that perceived injustice is reduced where those affected by a decision have an opportunity to offer an opinion (voice) prior to the decision, and where the decision maker offers a justifying account for the decision. False beliefs in control and dignity may be intentionally created by decision makers to perpetuate their unjust advantage. Suggestions are offered to identify the processes through which fabrications of justice have their effects and the situations in which they are most likely to occur.

Several theories consider the development of short-term memory (STM) in children to reflect the development of processing operations. This article reports an experiment that tested some of these theories, using a release from proactive interference (PI) procedure in conjunction with a running memory task, to track down age-related improvements in the processing of various kinds of information. Although evidence for the development of PI release with age appeared for two kinds of information, namely class of item and acoustic similarity, there was no evidence whatsoever for the existence of a relationship between STM performance and PI release. It was concluded that the development of STM on the one hand, and of the capacity to process item or acoustic information on the other, proceed independently of each other. The discussion deals with the apparent conflict between this conclusion and the theoretical positions.

Lists of verbal instructions were read aloud and each was enacted either by the subject (SPTs) or by the experimenter (EPTs). In Experiment 1 free recall was made of lists of SPTs and EPTs either immediately after presentation, after an empty 20-s delay interval, or after a 20-s delay interval filled with backward counting. The recall of recency items was unaffected by the empty delay interval, but was somewhat reduced by the counting task. In Experiment 2 free recall was made of lists of SPTs and EPTs either immediately after presentation or after a delay that was filled with a single SPT or a single EPT, 20 s in length. The recency effect evident in the immediate-recall condition was virtually wiped out in the delay conditions, irrespective of whether the delay task matched those in the free-recall list or not. These results are discussed in terms of the mnemonic similarity of the two types of action event.

Five possible mechanisms are considered as being responsible for the systematic variation of serial STM with IQ, namely rehearsal maintenance, chunking, access, encoding of item and/or order information, and trace persistence. A STM/IQ correlational study is reported. It was concluded from analysis of a correlation matrix, and from earlier reported data, that the encoding of items-in-order into an already loaded store appears to be the critical mechanism in determining IQ-related individual differences in STM performance, at least in children. The implications of individual difference data for models of STM are also discussed.

This study sought to test three hypotheses derived from contract theory concerning laypersons' conceptions of social relationships. Data collected in a questionnaire administered to male and female university students at one West German university and one college in the United States provided evidence for distinctions among three relationship types: loving or caring relationships, friend or associate relationships, and work relationships. Each relationship type is distinguished from the others on the basis of a relatively unique configuration of three characteristic features: affective climate, the primary goal (and profile of subsidiary goals) of participants, and the relative importance of various resources exchanged in the relationship. The evidence also suggests that individuals possess similar configurations in conceptualizing social relationships in various types of small groups and social relations in various spheres of institutionally organized social activity. No significant sex or nationality differences were observed.

Three experiments are reported in which under one condition subjects were given instructions to perform a series of acts (SPTs) and to remember the acts performed, and under a second condition were asked to remember the same verbal instructions without being required to perform any acts. Different groups of subjects were tested at different retention intervals. The forgetting curves for the two conditions differ with respect to intercept, but are similar in slope. The similarity in slope for the two conditions is present irrespective of differences in intercept. Several methodological issues are discussed as well as the nature of the relationship between recall of SPTs and verbal instructions.

The concept of distributive justice and the theoretical and empirical work conducted on it during the past two decades are examined. Three questions provide the structure for this examination: (i) What are fundamental conceptual dimensions of distributive justice and the specific substantive issues to which they are related? (ii) What central questions has recent work on distributive justice addressed? and (iii) What are the most important emerging issues on which work in the near-term future should focus? Much of the theory and research examined in the paper is social psychological in nature, but reference is made to related work in related disciplines, particularly sociology and philosophy.

Interitem differences in the free recall of action events were studied in five experiments. The action events were presented in three different formats: minitasks performed by the subjects in response to verbal instructions from the experimenter (SPTs), minitasks performed by the experimenter (EPTs), and task instructions (TIs). Not only were reliable interevent differences in recall probability demonstrated within each format, but these differences tended to correlate across formats, especially between the SPTs and EPTs; thus, a highly recallable SPT also tended to be a highly recallable EPT. Attempts to explain interitem recall differences in terms of differences in familiarity, vividness, and the availability of environmental cues were largely unsuccessful. An experimental analysis of the action events into action and object components showed the recall probabilities of our events to be mainly dependent on the recall probabilities of their action components, with only a minor dependence on the recall probabilities of their object components.

Two groups of reading-disabled (RD) children were compared with controls (age- and IQ-matched competent readers), on a serial running memory task. The unknown (to the subject) length of the serial lists coupled with high rates of presentation, made it impossible for the children to use systematic rehearsal strategies in this task. Both groups of RD children performed reliably worse than their controls. From the data, it is argued that the short-term memory deficits exhibited by the RD children should not be attributed to an inability to rehearse, nor to an inability to encode (recognize) items, but rather to an inability to encode serial items in the form of serial phonological patterns.

Four groups of children were tested with a serial short term memory (STM) task. Three of the groups were matched in IQ and age, but differed in reading ability from reading-disabled to reading-superior. The fourth group consisted of competent readers matched in IQ with the other three groups, but two years younger than the other children. The STM data showed that (1) differences between the groups were confined mainly to the recall of recency items; (2) within the three older groups, the superior readers were superior to the competent readers, who in turn were superior to the disabled readers; (3) the younger competent readers were superior to the older disabled readers, in spite of the similarity in their reading test scores. These data are discussed both in terms of their implications for physiological approaches to the STM/reading relationship and for the possible causal nature of the relationship.

Subjects can predict, during word list acquisition, which items they will subsequently recall. When the list items are subject-performed tasks (SPTs), recall prediction is totally inaccurate. Delaying the rating of recall probability (actually, trace strength rating) until list acquisition was complete did not affect the accuracy of the ratings. Word recall was predictable; SPT recall was not. When encoding was systematically manipulated, the effects of the manipulations on recall were accompanied by parallel effects on the strength ratings for SPTs, as well as for words. Several explanations for the data are discussed, the most probable being that of a mismatch between those characteristics of the SPTs that underlie strength ratings and those that determine recall.

Educable mentally retarded (EMR) and nonretarded adults free recalled lists of (a) words, (b) minitasks performed by the subjects (SPTs), (c) minitasks performed by the experimenter (EPTs), or (d) task instructions. The EMR subjects were significantly inferior to the nonretarded subjects in the immediate recall of words, EPTs and instructions, but not in the immediate recall of SPTs. This proficiency of the EMR subjects in SPT recall was attributed to the nonstrategic nature of this test. The EMR subjects were, however, inferior to the nonretarded subjects in a final free recall (recall of all lists) of all four types of item.

This article deals with the reliability of child witnesses, in particular from the viewpoint that child witnesses should be treated with suspicion because their memories are very susceptible to suggestion. An experiment is reported, in which grade 3, grade 6, and college students were compared on their ability to recall events from a film, in the face of (mis)leading questions from an interrogator. The data showed that the grade 6 students were equal to the college students in memory capacity and in their ability to resist suggestion. The grade 3 students were inferior to the older subjects in these areas. However, the results from a second testing session led to the conclusion that although the younger children appeared to submit to suggestion much more readily than the older subjects, the effect of suggestion on actual memory was not significantly different for the three subject-groups. The implications of these findings are discussed with reference to the present status of child witnesses in Anglo-Saxon law systems.

Memory researchers have traditionally made use of verbal materials in their empirical studies. During the last decade or so, there has been a burgeoning interest in memory for other classes of materials — in particular, memory for action events. This report reviews briefly some of the research in this area. The emphasis is on the recall of series of instructions, such aslift the pen, put on the ring. The core finding in those studies is that enactment of the instructions during the study phase, either by the subject or by the experimenter, improves performance on a subsequent recall test. Some explanations for the mnemonic effect of enactment are examined, as also are subsidiary issues, such as population and individual differences in the recall of action events. Implications for education are discussed, including the possibility of a two-way interaction between enactment and cognition.

Retarded subjects were compared with MA-matched and CA-matched controls on serial STM tasks. Performance was measured separately for the recall of primacy and recency items, under conditions of partial (probed) and complete (nonprobed) recall. The retarded subjects were inferior to the two groups of controls on both primacy and recency items, under both recall conditions. These data are discussed in relation to the possible mechanisms underlying IQ-related individual differences in STM.

Immediate and final free recall was tested in children from grades 4, 6, and 8, using lists of words and lists of tasks which the children performed. The expected developmental effect was found in both the immediate and the final free recall of the words, but there were no significant differences in the recall of the tasks as a function of age. These data are discussed within the Flavell-Brown framework of strategic and nonstrategic memory tasks.

Two experiments were designed to test the possibility that correlations between IQ and probed serial running memory depend on IQ-related individual differences in the retention of order information in short-term memory. In Experiment I, correlations were obtained regardless of whether instructions emphasized serial recall or free recall. In Experiment II, a significant correlation between IQ and performance was obtained in a recognition test for very recent item information, but not in a recognition test for very recent order information. These data together with a theoretical analysis of the operations involved in the tasks, led to the conclusion that the correlations reflected individual differences in the capacity to access specified sets of items in very short-term memory.

Cohen, R. L. Velocity perception—centrally or retinally organised?Scand. J. Psychol., 1961, 2, 45–48.—5 subjects were asked to estimate (a) the relative and (6) the absolute velocities of two spots moving in a simple harmonic motion, 180° out of phase under two experimental conditions: (1) both spots projected on to bothretinas, and (2) one spot projected on to one retina and the second on to the other. Theresults were precisely the same under both conditions. This was taken as indicating that(a) the organisation of velocity perception is central rather than retinal, and (b) the effect of interference caused by one spot when trying to estimate the velocity of the other (the signal) is not lessened when the interference is fed into the eye other than the one receiving the signal spot.

RI and PI effects were investigated in two probe digit experiments when varying (a) the nature of the retroactive and proactive items and (b) the number of proactive items. Two of Waugh & Norman's criteria for a PM experiment were met: no rehearsal during presentation and recall probability curve reached zero. With a presentation rate of 1 digit/sec. both PI and RI effects were found; with a rate of 4 digits/sec. only the presence of PI effects could be established. The discussion deals with the inconsistency between these results and the Waugh & Norman PM model.