Conversational pragmatics: memory reporting strategies in different social contexts

Previous studies in conversational pragmatics have showed that the information people share with others heavily depends on the confidence they have in the correctness of a candidate answer. At the same time, different social contexts prompt different incentive structures, which set a higher or lower confidence criterion to determine which potential answer to report. In this study, we investigated how the different incentive structures of several types of social contexts and how different levels of knowledge affect the amount of information we are willing to share. Participants answered easy, intermediate, and difficult general-knowledge questions and decided whether they would report or withhold their selected answer in different social contexts: formal vs. informal, that could be either constrained (a context that promotes providing only responses we are certain about) or loose (with an incentive structure that maximizes providing any type of answer). Overall, our results confirmed that social contexts are associated with different incentive structures which affects memory reporting strategies. We also found that the difficulty of the questions is an important factor in conversational pragmatics. Our results highlight the relevance of studying different incentive structures of social contexts to understand the underlying processes of conversational pragmatics, and stress the importance of considering metamemory theories of memory reporting.

Eyewitness accuracy and retrieval effort: Effects of time and repetition

An important task for the law enforcement is to assess the accuracy of eyewitness testimonies. Recent research show that indicators of effortful memory retrieval, such as pausing and hedging (e.g. "I think", "maybe"), are more common in incorrect recall. However, a limitation in these studies is that participants are interviewed shortly after witnessing an event, as opposed to after greater retention intervals. We set out to mitigate this shortcoming by investigating the retrieval effort-accuracy relationship over time. In this study, participants watched a staged crime and were interviewed directly afterwards, and two weeks later. Half the participants also carried out a repetition task during the two-week retention interval. Results showed that the retrieval-effort cues Delays and Hedges predicted accuracy at both sessions, including after repetition. We also measured confidence, and found that confidence also predicted accuracy over time, although repetition led to increased confidence for incorrect memories. Moreover, retrieval-effort cues partially mediated between accuracy and confidence.

Deliberative process in sharing information with different audiences: Eye-tracking correlates

Research on conversational pragmatics demonstrates how interlocutors tailor the information they share depending on the audience. Previous research showed that, in informal contexts, speakers often provide several alternative answers, whereas in formal contexts, they tend to give only a single answer; however, the psychological underpinnings of these effects remain obscure. To investigate this answer selection process, we measured participants' eye movements in different experimentally modelled social contexts. Participants answered general knowledge questions by providing responses with either single (one) or plural (three) alternatives. Then, a formal (job interview) or informal (conversation with friends) context was presented and participants decided either to report or withdraw their responses after considering the given social context. Growth curve analysis on the eye movements indicates that the selected response option attracted more eye movements. There was a discrepancy between the answer selection likelihood and the proportion of fixations to the corresponding option-but only in the formal context. These findings support a more elaborate decision-making processes in formal contexts. They also suggest that eye movements do not necessarily accompany the options considered in the decision-making processes.

Eyewitness memory in the news can affect the strategic regulation of memory reporting

The public is increasingly exposed to news about eyewitness memory errors. This study draws from the strategic memory regulation framework [Goldsmith, M., Koriat, A., & Weinberg-Eliezer, A. (2002). Strategic regulation of grain size memory reporting. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131(1), 73-95. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-3445.131.1.73] to make predictions about how eyewitness memory reporting is affected by exposure to such reports. In Experiment 1, participants (n = 226) viewed a mock crime, were exposed to a fictitious news report about eyewitness memory accuracy (memory is accurate, memory is inaccurate, or a control condition), and then recalled the mock crime. Participants who read that eyewitness memory is inaccurate were less confident in their memory accuracy and reported less information about the mock crime compared to those in the other conditions. The specificity and accuracy of recall did not vary across conditions, however. In Experiment 2, participants (n = 2,491) watched a mock crime and were asked to identify the perpetrator from a simultaneous lineup. Participants who read that eyewitness memory is inaccurate evaluated their memory for the mock crime as relatively poorer but their lineup decisions did not differ compared to other participants. This suggests that news about eyewitness memory inaccuracy affects how people evaluate their memory capability, and differentially affects memory output depending on the memory task.

Metacognitive Monitoring and Control of Eyewitness Memory Reports in Autism

Providing eyewitness testimony involves monitoring one's memory to provide a detailed and accurate account: reporting details likely to be accurate and withholding potentially inaccurate details. Autistic individuals reportedly experience difficulties in both retrieving episodic memories and monitoring their accuracy, which has important implications for eyewitness testimony. Thirty autistic and 33 IQ‐matched typically developing (TD) participants viewed a video of a mock bank robbery followed by three phases of questions (with judgments of confidence). In Phase 1, participants freely generated the granularity of their responses (i.e., fine‐ or coarse‐grained). In Phase 2, participants answered the same questions but provided both a fine‐ and a coarse‐grained answer. In Phase 3, participants were instructed to maximize accuracy over informativeness by selecting one of their Phase 2 answers as their final answer. They either received the questions socially (from the experimenter) or answered them online. There were no group differences in accuracy or metacognitive monitoring, with both autistic and TD witnesses demonstrating: (a) a strong preference for reporting fine‐grained details at the expense of accuracy; (b) improved though still suboptimal grain size reporting when instructed to maximize accuracy over informativeness; (c) effective accuracy monitoring; and (d) higher overall accuracy when questions were delivered socially. There was, however, a subtle difference in metacognitive control, with autistic witnesses performing more poorly than TD witnesses when questions were delivered socially, but not when they were delivered online. These findings contrast with evidence suggesting that autism is marked by impairments in episodic memory and metacognitive monitoring and control. Autism Res 2020, 13: 2017‐2029. © 2020 The Authors. Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Lay Summary

Autistic people have been reported to experience subtle difficulties in monitoring and regulating their information reporting, which has important implications for providing eyewitness testimony. We found that autistic witnesses' testimony comprised a similar level of detail and accuracy as non‐autistic witnesses' accounts. However, autistic people found it difficult to optimize their testimony when the questions were delivered socially—but not when they answered the questions online. © 2020 The Authors. Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The effects of co-witness discussion on confidence and precision in eyewitness memory reports

We examined the influence of co-witness discussion on the metacognitive regulation of memory reports. Participants (N = 92) watched a crime video. Later, a confederate confidently agreed with (gave confirming feedback), disagreed with (gave disconfirming feedback), or gave no feedback (control) regarding participants' answers to questions about the video. Participants who received disconfirming feedback reported fewer fine-grain details than participants in the confirming and control conditions on a subsequent, individual recall test for a different question set. Unexpectedly, this decrease in fine-grain reporting was not accompanied by a decrease in participants' confidence in the accuracy of their fine-grain responses. These results indicate that receiving social comparative feedback about one's memory performance can affect rememberers' metamemorial control decisions, and potentially decrease the level of detail they volunteer in later memory reports. Further research is needed to assess whether these results replicate under different experimental conditions, and to explore the effects of social influences on metamemory.

Different answers to different audiences: effects of social context on the accuracy-informativeness trade-off

Research on conversational exchanges shows that people attempt to optimise their responses' relevance when they definitely know the correct answer (e.g., "What time is it?"). However, such certainty is often unavailable while speakers may still be under social pressure to provide an answer. We investigated how social context influences the informativeness level when answering questions under uncertainty. In three experiments, participants answered difficult general-knowledge questions placed in different social contexts (formal vs. informal). Participants generated their answers, then they were presented with a given context, and decided on the number of alternative responses they wanted to provide (single, with one alternative vs. plural, with several alternatives) and whether the answer should be reported or withheld (report option). Participants reported more answers in the informal context. In the formal context, single answers were preferred, and they were more frequently reported. We conclude that social context influences the level of informativeness in a conversation, affecting achievable accuracy. Our results also show the joint influence of the confidence and the social context on willingness to share information.

Computer Mediated Social Comparative Feedback Does Not Affect Metacognitive Regulation of Memory Reports

In two experiments, we investigated how social comparative feedback affects the metacognitive regulation of eyewitness memory reports. In Experiment 1, 87 participants received negative, positive, or no feedback about a co-witness’s performance on a task querying recall of a crime video. Participants then completed the task individually. There were no significant differences between negative and positive feedback groups on any measure. However, participants in both of these conditions volunteered more fine-grain details than participants in the control condition. In Experiment 2, 90 participants answered questions about a crime video. Participants in the experimental groups received either positive or negative feedback, which compared their performance to that of others. Participants then completed a subsequent recall task, for which they were told their performance would not be scored. Feedback did not significantly affect participants’ confidence, accuracy, or the level of detail they reported in comparison to a no feedback control group. These findings advance our understanding of the boundary conditions for social feedback effects on meta-memory.