I still think it was a banana:memorable lies and forgettable truths

Interpersonal influences on cognition can distort memory judgements. Two experiments examined the nature of these ‘social’ influences, and whether their persistence is independent of their accuracy. Experiment 1 found that a confederate’s social proximity, as well as the content and the confidence of their utterances, interactively modulate participants’ immediate conformity. Notably, errant confederate statements that ‘lied’ about encoded material had a particularly strong immediate distorting influence on memory judgements. Experiment 2 revealed that these ‘lies’ were also memorable, continuing a day later to impair memory accuracy, while accurate confederate statements failed to produce a corresponding and lasting beneficial effect on memory. These findings suggest that an individual’s ‘informational’ social influence can be selectively heightened when they express misinformation to someone who suspects no deceptive intent. The methods newly introduced here thus allow multiple social and cognitive factors impinging on memory accuracy to be manipulated and examined during realistic, precisely controlled dyadic social interactions

Aspects of Modeling Piezoelectric Active Thin-walled Structures

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.The objective of this article is to reconsider some important aspects of modeling piezoelectric active thin-walled structures. Hence, it is dealt here with thin-walled laminated structures involving piezoelectric patches. A recently developed shell type finite element is used for the purpose. The first aspect is adequate modeling of electric field within the piezoelectric patches polarized in the thickness direction. The influence of higher order functions for the electric field on the accuracy of the model is discussed. The second aspect is related to modeling geometrical non-linearities in the behavior of the considered structures and their significance on the accuracy of the predicted behavior. Both aspects are considered with respect to static and dynamic cases

Food deficits, food security and food aid: concepts and measurement

The concepts of food deficit, hunger, undernourishment and food security are discussed. Axioms and indices for the assessment of nutrition of individuals and groups are suggested. Furthermore a measure for food aid donor performance is developed and applied to a sample of bilateral and multilateral donors providing food aid for African countries

Uncertainty analysis in integrated assessment: the users’ perspective

Integrated Assessment (IA) models aim at providing information- and decision-support to complex problems. This paper argues that uncertainty analysis in IA models should be user-driven in order to strengthen science–policy interaction. We suggest an approach to uncertainty analysis that starts with investigating model users’ demands for uncertainty information. These demands are called “uncertainty information needs”. Identifying model users’ uncertainty information needs allows focusing the analysis on those uncertainties which users consider relevant and meaningful. As an illustrative example, we discuss the case of examining users’ uncertainty information needs in the SEAMLESS Integrated Framework (SEAMLESS-IF), an IA model chain for assessing and comparing alternative agricultural and environmental policy options. The most important user group of SEAMLESS-IF are policy experts at the European and national level. Uncertainty information needs of this user group were examined in an interactive process during the development of SEAMLESS-IF and by using a questionnaire. Results indicate that users’ information requirements differed from the uncertainty categories considered most relevant by model developers. In particular, policy experts called for addressing a broader set of uncertainty sources (e.g. model structure and technical model setup). The findings highlight that investigating users’ uncertainty information needs is an essential step towards creating confidence in an IA model and its outcomes. This alone, however, may not be sufficient for effectively implementing a user-oriented uncertainty analysis in such models. As the case study illustrates, it requires to include uncertainty analysis into user participation from the outset of the IA modelling process

Protecting eyewitness evidence: Examining the efficacy of a self-administered interview tool

Given the crucial role of eyewitness evidence, statements should be obtained as soon as possible after an incident. This is not always achieved due to demands on police resources. Two studies trace the development of a new tool, the Self-Administered Interview (SAI), designed to elicit a comprehensive initial statement. In Study 1, SAI participants reported more correct details than participants who provided a free recall account, and performed at the same level as participants given a Cognitive Interview. In Study 2, participants viewed a simulated crime and half recorded their statement using the SAI. After a delay of 1 week, all participants completed a free recall test. SAI participants recalled more correct details in the delayed recall task than control participants

Alcohol-induced retrograde facilitation renders witnesses of crime less suggestible to misinformation

RATIONALE: Research has shown that alcohol can have both detrimental and facilitating effects on memory: intoxication can lead to poor memory for information encoded after alcohol consumption (anterograde amnesia) and may improve memory for information encoded before consumption (retrograde facilitation). This study examined whether alcohol consumed after witnessing a crime can render individuals less vulnerable to misleading post-event information (misinformation). METHOD: Participants watched a simulated crime video. Thereafter, one third of participants expected and received alcohol (alcohol group), one third did not expect but received alcohol (reverse placebo), and one third did not expect nor receive alcohol (control). After alcohol consumption, participants were exposed to misinformation embedded in a written narrative about the crime. The following day, participants completed a cued-recall questionnaire about the event. RESULTS: Control participants were more likely to report misinformation compared to the alcohol and reverse placebo group. CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that we may oversimplify the effect alcohol has on suggestibility and that sometimes alcohol can have beneficial effects on eyewitness memory by protecting against misleading post-event information

Developmental Reading Learning Communities in the First Year Experience

The University of Texas at El Paso offers over seventy learning communities to firstyear students from extremely diverse socioeconomic and educational backgrounds. Ninety percent are Hispanic, 54 percent are first-generation college students, and 59 percent must participate in developmental classes before moving forward with collegelevel courses. The following article offers a descriptive snapshot of the successes and foibles of developmental reading learning communities at an urban commuter university with a nontraditional student body