Challenges to reasoning in forensic science decisions

The success of forensic science depends heavily on human reasoning abilities. Although we typically navigate our lives well using those abilities, decades of psychological science research shows that human reasoning is not always rational. In addition, forensic science often demands that its practitioners reason in non-natural ways. This article addresses how characteristics of human reasoning (either specific to an individual or in general) and characteristics of situations (either specific to a case or in general in a lab) can contribute to errors before, during, or after forensic analyses. In feature comparison judgments, such as fingerprints or firearms, a main challenge is to avoid biases from extraneous knowledge or arising from the comparison method itself. In causal and process judgments, for example fire scenes or pathology, a main challenge is to keep multiple potential hypotheses open as the investigation continues. Considering the contributions to forensic science judgments by persons, situations, and their interaction, reveals ways to develop procedures to decrease errors and improve accuracy.

Consensus-based guidance for conducting and reporting multi-analyst studies

Any large dataset can be analyzed in a number of ways, and it is possible that the use of different analysis strategies will lead to different results and conclusions. One way to assess whether the results obtained depend on the analysis strategy chosen is to employ multiple analysts and leave each of them free to follow their own approach. Here, we present consensus-based guidance for conducting and reporting such multi-analyst studies, and we discuss how broader adoption of the multi-analyst approach has the potential to strengthen the robustness of results and conclusions obtained from analyses of datasets in basic and applied research.

Psychological Science in the Wake of COVID-19: Social, Methodological, and Metascientific Considerations

The COVID-19 pandemic has extensively changed the state of psychological science from what research questions psychologists can ask to which methodologies psychologists can use to investigate them. In this article, we offer a perspective on how to optimize new research in the pandemic's wake. Because this pandemic is inherently a social phenomenon-an event that hinges on human-to-human contact-we focus on socially relevant subfields of psychology. We highlight specific psychological phenomena that have likely shifted as a result of the pandemic and discuss theoretical, methodological, and practical considerations of conducting research on these phenomena. After this discussion, we evaluate metascientific issues that have been amplified by the pandemic. We aim to demonstrate how theoretically grounded views on the COVID-19 pandemic can help make psychological science stronger-not weaker-in its wake.

The Future of Women in Psychological Science

There has been extensive discussion about gender gaps in representation and career advancement in the sciences. However, psychological science itself has yet to be the focus of discussion or systematic review, despite our field's investment in questions of equity, status, well-being, gender bias, and gender disparities. In the present article, we consider 10 topics relevant for women's career advancement in psychological science. We focus on issues that have been the subject of empirical study, discuss relevant evidence within and outside of psychological science, and draw on established psychological theory and social-science research to begin to chart a path forward. We hope that better understanding of these issues within the field will shed light on areas of existing gender gaps in the discipline and areas where positive change has happened, and spark conversation within our field about how to create lasting change to mitigate remaining gender differences in psychological science.

When Predictions Create Reality: Judgments of Learning May Alter What They Are Intended to Assess

Nelson and Dunlosky ( Psychological Science, July 1991) reported that subjects making judgments of learning (JOLs) can be extremely accurate at predicting subsequent recall performance on a paired-associate task when the JOL task is delayed for a short while after study They argued that this result is surprising given the results of earlier research, as well as their own current experiment, indicating that JOLs are quite inaccurate when made immediately after study We note that the delayed-JOL procedure used by Nelson and Dunlosky invited covert recall practice (which was reported by their subjects) Retrieval practice is a well-known determinant of subsequent recall Accordingly, Nelson and Dunloskys findings can be explained by the simple assumption that people base delayed JOLs on an assessment of retrieval success which in turn influences their retrieval success on the subsequent recall test

When Possibility Informs Reality

People often engage in counterfactual thinking, that is, imagining alternatives to the real world and mentally playing out the consequences. Yet the counterfactuals people tend to imagine are a small subset of those that could possibly be imagined. There is some debate as to the relation between counterfactual thinking and causal beliefs. Some researchers argue that counter-factual thinking is the key to causal judgments; current research suggests, however, that the relation is rather complex. When people think about counterfactuals, they focus on ways to prevent bad or uncommon outcomes; when people think about causes, they focus on things that covary with outcomes. Counterfactual thinking may affect causality judgments by changing beliefs about the probabilities of possible alternatives to what actually happened, thereby changing beliefs as to whether a cause and effect actually covary. The way in which counterfactual thinking affects causal attributions may have practical consequences for mental health and the legal system.

Calibration Trumps Confidence as a Basis for Witness Credibility

Confident witnesses are deemed more credible than unconfident ones, and accurate witnesses are deemed more credible than inaccurate ones. But are those effects independent? Two experiments show that errors in testimony damage the overall credibility of witnesses who were confident about the erroneous testimony more than that of witnesses who were not confident about it. Furthermore, after making an error, less confident witnesses may appear more credible than more confident ones. Our interpretation of these results is that people make inferences about source calibration when evaluating testimony and other social communication.

Infants' Perception of Causal Chains

Three experiments examined infants' and adults' perception of causal sequences of events. In a causal-chain sequence, the first action causes a second action that then causes a final outcome; in a temporal-chain sequence, the first two actions are independent and the second action causes a final outcome. Infants and adults were shown the same event sequences; infants were tested using a visual habituation paradigm, whereas adults were given a questionnaire. Experiment 1 indicated that 15-month-old infants perceive the primary cause of the final outcome to be the first action in a causal chain but the second action in a temporal chain. Experiment 2 showed that adults interpret the causal sequences in a manner similar to that of 15-month-olds. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that 10-month-old infants do not yet perceive causal sequences in the same manner as 15-month-olds and adults. These results are interpreted in terms of both infants' developing knowledge of causal events and adults' attributions of causality in complex events.

Acting as Intuitive Scientists: Contingency Judgments Are Made While Controlling for Alternative Potential Causes

In judging the efficacy of multiple causes of an effect, human performance has been found to deviate from the “normative”Δ P contingency rule However, in cases of multiple causes, that rule might not be normative, scientists and philosophers, for example, know that when judging a potential cause, one must control for all other potential causes. In an experiment in which they were shown trial-by-trial effects of two potential causes (which sometimes covaried), subjects used conditional rather than unconditional contingencies to rate the efficacy of the causes. A conditional contingency analysis may explain various “nonnormative” cue-integration effects (e.g., discounting) found in the literature and is relevant to how people unravel Simpson's paradox.

A Short (Personal) Future History of Revolution 2.0

Crisis of replicability is one term that psychological scientists use for the current introspective phase we are in—I argue instead that we are going through a revolution analogous to a political revolution. Revolution 2.0 is an uprising focused on how we should be doing science now (i.e., in a 2.0 world). The precipitating events of the revolution have already been well-documented: failures to replicate, questionable research practices, fraud, etc. And the fact that none of these events is new to our field has also been well-documented. I suggest four interconnected reasons as to why this time is different: changing technology, changing demographics of researchers, limited resources, and misaligned incentives. I then describe two reasons why the revolution is more likely to catch on this time: technology (as part of the solution) and the fact that these concerns cut across social and life sciences—that is, we are not alone. Neither side in the revolution has behaved well, and each has characterized the other in extreme terms (although, of course, each has had a few extreme actors). Some suggested reforms are already taking hold (e.g., journals asking for more transparency in methods and analysis decisions; journals publishing replications) but the feared tyrannical requirements have, of course, not taken root (e.g., few journals require open data; there is no ban on exploratory analyses). Still, we have not yet made needed advances in the ways in which we accumulate, connect, and extract conclusions from our aggregated research. However, we are now ready to move forward by adopting incremental changes and by acknowledging the multiplicity of goals within psychological science.

Counterfactuals, Control, and Causation

Legal and prescriptive theories of blame generally propose that judgments about an actor’s mental state (e.g., her knowledge or intent) should remain separate from judgments about whether the actor caused an outcome. Three experiments, however, show that, even in the absence of intent or immorality, actors who have knowledge relevant to a potential outcome will be rated more causal of that outcome than their ignorant counterparts, even when their actions were identical. Additional analysis revealed that this effect was mediated by counterfactual thinking—that is, by imagining ways the outcome could have been prevented. Specifically, when actors had knowledge, participants generated more counterfactuals about ways the outcome could have been different that the actor could control, which in turn increased causal assignment to the actor. These results are consistent with the Crediting Causality Model, but conflict with some legal and moral theories of blame.

Priming interdependence affects processing of context information in causal inference--but not how you might think

Cultural mindset is related to performance on a variety of cognitive tasks. In particular, studies of both chronic and situationally-primed mindsets show that individuals with a relatively interdependent mindset (i.e., an emphasis on relationships and connections among individuals) are more sensitive to background contextual information than individuals with a more independent mindset. Two experiments tested whether priming cultural mindset would affect sensitivity to background causes in a contingency learning and causal inference task. Participants were primed (either independent or interdependent), and then saw complete contingency information on each of 12 trials for two cover stories in Experiment 1 (hiking causing skin rashes, severed brakes causing wrecked cars) and two additional cover stories in Experiment 2 (school deadlines causing stress, fertilizers causing plant growth). We expected that relative to independent-primed participants, those interdependent-primed would give more weight to the explicitly-presented data indicative of hidden alternative background causes, but they did not do so. In Experiment 1, interdependents gave less weight to the data indicative of hidden background causes for the car accident cover story and showed a decreased sensitivity to the contingencies for that story. In Experiment 2, interdependents placed less weight on the observable data for cover stories that supported more extra-experimental causes, while independents' sensitivity did not vary with these extra-experimental causes. Thus, interdependents were more sensitive to background causes not explicitly presented in the experiment, but this sensitivity hurt rather than improved their acquisition of the explicitly-presented contingency information.

Accuracy, confidence, and calibration: how young children and adults assess credibility

Do children and adults use the same cues to judge whether someone is a reliable source of information? In 4 experiments, we investigated whether children (ages 5 and 6) and adults used information regarding accuracy, confidence, and calibration (i.e., how well an informant's confidence predicts the likelihood of being correct) to judge informants' credibility. We found that both children and adults used information about confidence and accuracy to judge credibility; however, only adults used information about informants' calibration. Adults discredited informants who exhibited poor calibration, but children did not. Requiring adult participants to complete a secondary task while evaluating informants' credibility impaired their ability to make use of calibration information. Thus, children and adults may differ in how they infer credibility because of the cognitive demands of using calibration.

Complex Social Consequences of Self-Knowledge

Psychology theories disagree on the most effective self-presentation strategies—some claim possessing positive illusions is best, whereas others claim accuracy is best. The current experiments suggest that the role of perceivers and what perceivers believe has been underappreciated in this debate. Participants acted as recruiters for either a swim team (Experiment 1) or a company (Experiment 2) and evaluated hypothetical applicants who made claims about their own abilities and personalities. Overly positive statements about oneself were beneficial only when perceivers had no reason to believe they were unfounded. In addition, conveying self-knowledge was more beneficial than being modest. The results are consistent with the presumption of calibration hypothesis, which states that confidence is compelling because, barring evidence to the contrary, perceivers assume others have good self-insight. Therefore, to make the best impression, people should be as positive as is plausible to perceivers.

Cognitive “Category-Based Induction” Research and Social “Persuasion” Research Are Each About What Makes Arguments Believable

Social and cognitive psychologists each study factors that influence the believability of arguments, but they have worked mostly in parallel. We briefly examine and compare the dominant theories explaining argument believability in the social persuasion literature and the cognitive category-based induction literature. Although the two areas ask similar questions, they use different paradigms to study different aspects of the issues. We describe each area’s major paradigms and questions and then examine the conclusions that each area draws regarding the role of five variables important to argument believability: (a) the number of sources/premises, (b) the similarity between sources/premises, (c) individual differences in characteristics of the reasoner, (d) the available resources, and (e) the reasoner’s background knowledge and beliefs. Comparing the two literatures provides a more complete picture of the factors influencing argument believability and provides fruitful new avenues for integration and exploration.

Discounting and Conditionalization: Dissociable Cognitive Processes in Human Causal Inference

When people are asked to judge the strengths of two potential causes of an effect, they often demonstrate discounting--devaluing the strength of a target cause when it is judged in the presence of a strong (relative to a weak) alternative cause. Devaluing the target cause sometimes results from conditionalization--holding alternative causes constant while evaluating the target cause. Yet discounting not attributable to conditionalization also occurs. We sought to dissociate conditionalization and discounting (beyond that accounted for by conditionalization) by having subjects perform either a spatial or a verbal working memory task while learning a causal relation. Conditionalization was disrupted by the verbal task but not the spatial task; however, discounting was disrupted by the spatial task but not the verbal task. Conditionalization and discounting are therefore cognitively dissociable processes in human causal inference.

Nonnormative discounting: There is more to cue interaction effects than controlling for alternative causes

Several experiments on human causal reasoning have demonstrated "discounting"--that the presence of a strong alternative cause may decrease the perceived efficacy of a moderate target cause. Some, but not all, of these effects have been shown to be attributable to subjects' use of conditional rather than unconditional contingencies (i.e., subjects control for alternative causes). We review experimental results that do not conform to the conditionalizing contingency account of causal judgment. In four experiments, we demonstrate that there is "nonnormative discounting" above what is accounted for by conditionalization, that discounting may depend on the nature of the question put to the subjects, and that discounting can be affected by motivation. We conclude that because nonnormative discounting occurs for summary presentations as well as trial-by-trial presentations of information and because nonnormative discounting depends on motivation, it is not a necessary result of cue competition during the contingency learning process.

The use of category and similarity information in limiting hypotheses

Previous studies have shown that adults usually select diverse evidence for generalizing hypotheses. We investigated what kind of evidence people select in another type of inductive task: limiting hypotheses. Whereas generalizing entails extending a property to all members of a category, limiting entails restricting a property to only members of a category. For example, if you know that elephants have property X, which would you test to determine whether only mammals have property X: a hippopotamus, a fox, a crocodile, or a snake? Both category and similarity information are relevant to selecting evidence to generalize or limit a hypothesis. Although 70% of participants chose diverse evidence for generalizing a hypothesis, only 25% chose the analogous evidence for limiting one. However, the percentage of participants choosing the appropriate evidence for limiting increased to 70% when they were given a rule for category membership. These results suggest that hypothesis-limiting behavior is affected by how participants establish category boundaries.

Relational learning with and without awareness: transitive inference using nonverbal stimuli in humans

Learning complex relationships among items and representing them flexibly have been shown to be highly similar in function and structure to conscious forms of learning. However, it is unclear whether conscious learning is essential for the exhibition of flexibility in learning. Successful performance on the transitive inference task requires representational flexibility. Participants learned four overlapping premise pairs (A > B, B > C, C > D, D > E) that could be encoded separately or as a sequential hierarchy (A > B > C > D > E). Some participants (informed) were told prior to training that the task required an inference made from premise pairs. Other participants (uninformed) were told simply that they were to learn a series of pairs by trial and error. Testing consisted of unreinforced trials that included the non-adjacent pair, B versus D, to assess capacity for transitive inference. Not surprisingly, those in the informed condition outperformed those in the uninformed condition. After completion of training and testing, uninformed participants were given a postexperimental questionnaire to assess awareness of the task structure. In contrast with expectations, successful performance on the transitive inference task for uninformed participants does not depend on or correlate with postexperimental awareness. The present results suggest that relational learning tasks do not necessarily require conscious processes.

How two causes are different from one: the use of (un)conditional information in Simpson's paradox

In a causally complex world, two (or more) factors may simultaneously be potential causes of an effect. To evaluate the causal efficacy of a factor, the alternative factors must be controlled for (or conditionalized on). Subjects judged the causal strength of two potential causes of an effect that covaried with each other, thereby setting up a Simpson's paradox--a situation in which causal judgments should vary widely depending on whether or not they are conditionalized on the alternative potential cause. In Experiments 1 (table format) and 2 (trial-by-trial format), the subjects did conditionalize their judgments for one causal factor on a known alternative cause. The subjects also demonstrated that they knew what information was needed to properly make causal judgments when two potential causes are available. In Experiment 3 (trial-by-trial), those subjects who were not told about the causal mechanism by which the alternative cause operated were less likely to conditionalize on it. However, the more a subject recognized the covariation between the alternative cause and the effect, the more the subject conditionalized on it. Such behavior may arise from the interaction between bottom-up and top-down processing.

Analogical priming via semantic relations

Research on semantic memory has often tacitly treated semantic relations as simple conduits for spreading activation between associated object concepts, rather than as integral components of semantic organization. Yet conceptual relations, and the role bindings they impose on the objects they relate, are central to such cognitive tasks as discourse comprehension, inference, problem solving, and analogical reasoning. The present study addresses the question of whether semantic relations and their bindings can influence access to semantic memory. The experiments investigated whether, and under what conditions, presenting a prime pair of words linked by 1 of 10 common semantic relations would facilitate processing of a target pair of words linked by the same relation. No effect was observed when participants merely read the prime; however, relational priming was observed under instructions to note and use the semantic relations. Participants were faster at making a lexical decision or naming a word on a related pair of target words when that pair was primed with an analogously related pair of words than when the prime pair consisted of either two unrelated words or two words linked by some other relation. This evidence of analogical priming suggests that under an appropriate strategic set, lexical decisions and naming latencies can be influenced by a process akin to analogical mapping.

Pragmatics in analogical mapping

Theories of analogical reasoning differ in the roles they ascribe to pragmatic factors as a source of constraints on analogical mappings. The multiconstraint theory as instantiated in the ACME model (Holyoak & Thagard, 1989a) claims that pragmatic constraints interact with structural and semantic constraints within the mapping stage itself, in addition to influencing pre-mapping and post-mapping stages. Participants in three experiments were asked to generate mappings between non-isomorphic analogs for which mappings for some elements were ambiguous on structural grounds. In all experiments, manipulations of participants' processing goals influenced their preferred mappings. At the same time, goal-irrelevant information contributed to many-to-one mappings (Experiments 1 and 2) and to the resolution of mappings that were ambiguous on the basis of goal-relevant information alone (Experiment 3). The qualitative pattern of results was successfully simulated using the ACME model, implementing the impact of processing goals as an inhibitory process of selective attention.

On the status of inhibitory mechanisms in cognition: memory retrieval as a model case

Theories of cognition frequently assume the existence of inhibitory mechanisms that deactivate mental representations. Justifying this assumption is difficult because cognitive effects thought to reflect inhibition can often be explained without recourse to inhibitory processes. This article addresses the uncertain status of cognitive inhibitory mechanisms, focusing on their function in memory retrieval. On the basis of a novel form of forgetting reported herein, it is shown that classical associative theories of interference are insufficient as accounts of forgetting and that inhibitory processes must be at work. It is argued that inhibitory processes are used to resolve computational problems of selection common to memory retrieval and selective attention and that retrieval is best regarded as conceptually focused selective attention.