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This research examines the metacognitive awareness that people have about their reasoning performance in the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). The first two studies compare confidence judgments about the CRT vs. general knowledge (GK) questions. Results show that (1) people are generally able to discriminate between correct and incorrect answers, but this ability is far from perfect, and it is greater for GK questions than for CRT problems. Indeed, and strikingly, (2) incorrect responses to CRT problems are produced with approximately the same level of confidence as correct responses to GK questions. However, (3) even though confidence is high for incorrect responses to CRT problems, it is even higher for correct responses. The results of two additional studies show that these differences in confidence are ultimately related to the conflict that CRT problems pose between intuition and deliberation. These findings have implications for the possibility of implicit error monitoring and dual-process models of overconfidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expertise is a reliable cue for accuracy -- experts are often correct in their judgments and opinions. However, the opposite is not necessarily the case -- ignorant judges are not guaranteed to err. Specifically, in a question with a dichotomous response option, an ignorant responder has a 50% chance of being correct. In five studies, we show that people fail to understand this, and that they overgeneralize a sound heuristic (expertise signals accuracy) to cases where it does not apply (lack of expertise does not imply error). These studies show that people 1) tend to think that the responses of an ignorant person to dichotomous-response questions are more likely to be incorrect than correct, and 2) they tend to respond the opposite of what the ignorant person responded. This research also shows that this bias is at least partially intuitive in nature, as it manifests more clearly in quick gut responses than in slow careful responses. Still, it is not completely corrected upon careful deliberation. Implications are discussed for rationality and epistemic vigilance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four studies show that people differ in their lay beliefs concerning the degree to which science can explain their mind and the minds of other people. In particular, people are more receptive to the idea that the psychology of other people is explainable by science than to the possibility of science explaining their own psychology. This self-other difference is moderated by the degree to which people associate a certain mental phenomenon with introspection. Moreover, this self-other difference has implications for the science-recommended products and practices that people choose for themselves versus others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-evaluation: To thine own self be good, to thine own self be sure, to thine own self be true, and to thine own self be better. The Interconnectedness of the Self Identity Complexity Sedikides characterizes the self as a hierarchical system composed of identity themes for which different self-views are relevant. And indeed, the psychological immune system's connection to the biological immune system is certainly less metaphorical than the self-enhancement motive's connection to eating (Sedikides & Gregg, [75]) or the self-enhancement/self-protection dynamic's similarity to the acceleration and deceleration of a car (Gregg, Sedikides, & Gebauer, [28]; see also Alicke & Sedikides, [1]; Sedikides & Strube, [77]). On first consideration, such a conclusion may seem incompatible with previous researchers' identification of self-enhancement (held in check by the reality constraints of self-assessment; Trope, [87], [88]) as the paramount motive with which other human motives must not conflict (Sedikides, [71]; Sedikides & Gregg, [74]). [Extracted from the article]

In moral dilemmas, decision-making can be based on more utilitarian or deontological reasoning. In two experimental studies, we manipulated the number of people to be sacrificed (1 to save 5 vs. 3 to save 5) and whether personalizing information about them was presented. Results provide the first evidence of how the effects of kill-save ratios and identifiability of the potential victims are contingent on one another. Specifically, this research shows that when individuating information about the potential victims is present in a trolley dilemma, participants are more reluctant to sacrifice three persons to save five than to sacrifice one person to save five. When such individuating information is not present, the acceptability of sacrificing the victims does not depend on their number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigated the metacognitive underpinnings of moral judgment. Participants in two studies were asked to provide quick intuitive responses to moral dilemmas and to indicate their feeling of rightness about those responses. Afterwards, participants were given extra time to rethink their responses, and change them if they so wished. The feeling of rightness associated with the initial judgments was predictive of whether participants chose to change their responses and how long they spent rethinking them. Thus, one's metacognitive experience upon first coming up with a moral judgment influences whether one sticks to that initial gut feeling or decides to put more thought into it and revise it. Moreover, while the type of moral judgment (i.e., deontological vs. utilitarian) was not consistently predictive of metacognitive experience, the extremity of that judgment was: Extreme judgments (either deontological or utilitarian) were quicker and felt more right than moderate judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on problem-solving, judgement, and decision making documents systematic reasoning errors. Such errors are often attributed to reasoning shortcomings, an inability to think properly. However, recent research suggests another cause for those errors: insufficient attention to the critical premises in a problem, resulting in miscomprehension, such that, even if a person is capable of reasoning properly, she will fail to solve the problem correctly if she is operating on wrong premises. The first study in this article provided further evidence for this comprehension account of reasoning errors: Performance on reasoning problems was found to relate to verbal comprehension on a separate task. This suggests that reasoning errors are in part due to lack of comprehension. The upside of this account is that it should be possible to improve reasoning performance by drawing attention to the critical premises. Three additional studies provided consistent evidence for this hypothesis, showing that the same participants who at first proved unable to solve certain problems correctly were able to overcome this inability and performed better when simple attention-capturing devices drew their attention to the critical premises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on implicit conflict detection suggests that people are sensitive to violations of logical principles. When they make reasoning errors, their epistemic radar presumably detects an anomaly. This study tested conflict detection using novel measures: self-report measures of how much reasoners struggled when solving a problem and whether they considered an alternative response, and social inferences of what they believe other people would respond. Moreover, this study tested whether these social inferences are informed by how much conflict people feel when trying to decide on an answer themselves. Results show 1) that reasoners in general are conflict-sensitive, even when they are incorrect; but 2) this sensitivity is greater for correct vs. incorrect responders; and 3) the experience of conflict influences social inferences, such that reasoners are less likely to believe that other people share their response when they themselves considered an alternative response when trying to solve a problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of studies explored people's metacognition about moral judgments. These studies begin by demonstrating a metacognitive asymmetry: When faced with a dilemma, consequentialist responders tend to feel more conflict than deontological responders, such that they feel more compelled to give the alternative response. As a consequence, they are aware that other people might make different judgments from them. Deontological responders, on the other hand, are less likely to consider giving the alternative response, and are therefore more likely to project their moral judgments onto others. Results from experimental manipulations, mediational analyses, and process dissociation suggest that these differences in social inference originate in the conflict that people feel when trying to form moral judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present work identifies a so-far overlooked bias in sequential impression formation. When the latent qualities of competitors are inferred from a cumulative sequence of observations (e.g., the sum of points collected by sports teams), impressions should be based solely on the most recent observation because all previous observations are redundant. Based on the well-documented human inability to adequately discount redundant information, we predicted the existence of a cumulative redundancy bias. Accordingly, perceivers' impressions are systematically biased by the unfolding of a performance sequence when observations are cumulative. This bias favors leading competitors and persists even when the end result of the performance sequence is known. We demonstrated this cumulative redundancy bias in 8 experiments in which participants had to sequentially form impressions about the qualities of two competitors from different performance domains (i.e., computer algorithms, stocks, and soccer teams). We consistently found that perceivers' impressions were biased by cumulative redundancy. Specifically, impressions about the winner and the loser of a sequence were more divergent when the winner took an early lead compared with a late lead. When the sequence ended in a draw, participants formed more favorable impressions about the competitor who was ahead during most observations. We tested and ruled out several alternative explanations related to primacy effects, counterfactual thinking, and heuristic beliefs. We discuss the wide-ranging implications of our findings for impression formation and performance evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested whether people have an accurate sense of how good their reasoning is, as measured by their confidence in their responses, and how good they feel after they give those responses. First, incorrect responders were unjustifiably confident in their responses. However, correct responders were even more confident, and this confidence boost was found to come from their awareness of alternative solutions that are intuitive but incorrect. An affect measure revealed the same pattern: correct responders felt better, and incorrect responders felt worse, after they solved reasoning problems, but this was only the case when post-reasoning affect was measured after participants were instructed to think of alternative solutions. Implications are discussed for the possibility of implicit error monitoring, the role of counterfactual thinking in meta-reasoning, and the use of affective measures in meta-reasoning research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper explores the role of motivation to observe a certain outcome in people’s predictions, causal attributions, and beliefs about a streak of binary outcomes (basketball scoring shots). In two studies we found that positive streaks (points scored by the participants’ favourite team) lead participants to predict the streak’s continuation (belief in the hot hand), but negative streaks lead to predictions of its end (gambler’s fallacy). More importantly, these wishful predictions are supported by strategic attributions and beliefs about how and why a streak might unfold. Results suggest that the effect of motivation on predictions is mediated by a serial path via causal attributions to the teams at play and belief in the hot hand. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In judgment and reasoning, intuition and deliberation can agree on the same responses, or they can be in conflict and suggest different responses. Incorrect responses to conflict problems have traditionally been interpreted as a sign of faulty problem-solving-an inability to solve the conflict. However, such errors might emerge earlier, from insufficient attention to the conflict. To test this attentional hypothesis, we manipulated the conflict in reasoning problems and used eye-tracking to measure attention. Across several measures, correct responders paid more attention than incorrect responders to conflict problems, and they discriminated between conflict and no-conflict problems better than incorrect responders. These results are consistent with a two-stage account of reasoning, whereby sound problem solving in the second stage can only lead to accurate responses when sufficient attention is paid in the first stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research with the ratio-bias task found larger response latencies for conflict trials where the heuristic- and analytic-based responses are assumed to be in opposition (e.g., choosing between 1/10 and 9/100 ratios of success) when compared to no-conflict trials where both processes converge on the same response (e.g., choosing between 1/10 and 11/100). This pattern is consistent with parallel dual-process models, which assume that there is effective, rather than lax, monitoring of the output of heuristic processing. It is, however, unclear why conflict resolution sometimes fails. Ratio-biased choices may increase because of a decline in analytical reasoning (leaving heuristic-based responses unopposed) or to a rise in heuristic processing (making it more difficult for analytic processes to override the heuristic preferences). Using the process-dissociation procedure, we found that instructions to respond logically and response speed affected analytic (controlled) processing (C), leaving heuristic processing (H) unchanged, whereas the intuitive preference for large nominators (as assessed by responses to equal ratio trials) affected H but not C. These findings create new challenges to the debate between dual-process and single-process accounts, which are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proportion responding (PR) is the preference for proportionally higher gains, such that the same absolute quantity is valued more as the reference group decreases. This research investigated this kind of proportion PR in decisions about saving lives (e.g., saving 10/10 lives is preferred to saving 10/100 lives). The results of two studies suggest that PR does not stem from an overall tendency to choose higher proportions, but rather from faulty deliberative reasoning. In particular, people who display PR are less likely to engage in deliberative reflection as measured by response time, the Process Dissociation Procedure, the Cognitive Reflection Test, a numeracy test, and a task assessing denominator neglect. This association between faulty deliberation and PR was observed only when choosing the highest proportion was non-normative because it came at the expense of absolute gains (e.g., saving 10/10 lives is preferred to saving 11/100 lives). These results help to make sense of discrepant findings in previous research, pertaining to how PR relates to biased reasoning and decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews a selection of influential studies on judgment of covariation in order to examine how accurate people's covariation judgments are in general, and how sophisticated are the reasoning strategies that they use to make those judgments. Very different answers have been given to these questions, depending on several factors, including the method that is used to assess people's performance on these tasks, and the motivation that people have to reach certain conclusions. It is argued that, although people are often quite poor at judging covariation, they are flexible in the reasoning strategies that they use to do so, and they have the potential to use sophisticated strategies and make accurate judgments when certain conditions are met. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sharing attitudes leads to liking. While this similarity effect is well-established, past research rarely addressed whether positive and negative attitudes differ in their potential to elicit liking. Hence, it is unclear whether people prefer others who share their likes or others who share their dislikes. Four studies (N = 402) showed that likes have a stronger potential to elicit liking than dislikes. That is, participants found others who shared their likes more likable than others who shared their dislikes (Study 1). Also, participants found others who did not share their likes least likable, while not sharing dislikes was not as detrimental to liking (Study 2). We argue that three aspects contribute to this finding. First, people generally prefer likers to dislikers (Study 3). Second and third, likes are stronger and more self-revealing than dislikes (Studies 2 & 4). We discuss the present work's novel insights into the similarity effect and their implications for dating and friendship initiation. • People like others who hold similar attitudes. • Similar positive attitudes elicit more liking than similar negative attitudes. • People generally prefer others with positive attitudes. • Positive attitudes are stronger and more self-revealing than negative attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research shows that the same people who appear to have low numerical competence when analyzing personally irrelevant health-related numerical information are able to overcome their reasoning shortcomings and make better judgments when they are shown equivalent information that is personally relevant, and when only a sophisticated kind of reasoning enables them to interpret this information in a favorable way. The fact that people can engage in poorer or more sophisticated numerical reasoning depending on whether that reasoning produces favorable or unfavorable conclusions has implications both for the concept of numeracy as an individual-difference variable and for health communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three experimental studies demonstrate that evaluation mode influences the assessment of product bundles. Consumers’ preferences for product bundles are more pronounced in a joint evaluation mode, where the bundle is directly contrasted to its single counterpart (i.e., the bundle without its add-on), than in a separate evaluation mode, where the bundle is evaluated in isolation. An attentional explanation is suggested: consumers pay more attention to the unique features of a product bundle (i.e., the add-on) and, therefore, prefer the bundle more strongly in joint rather than in separate evaluation. This account bears relevance for Weaver, Garcia, and Schwarz’s presenter’s paradox, according to which presenters (i.e., people deciding what to offer to others) prefer bundle options, whereas evaluators (i.e., people deciding what to get for themselves) prefer single options. In the original research, presenters and evaluators provided judgments in joint and separate evaluation, respectively. Disentangling role (presenter vs. evaluator) and evaluation mode, our results show that, independent of role, people prefer bundle over single options in joint evaluations and are largely indifferent in separate evaluations. Thus, a substantial part of the original findings is attributable to evaluation mode. The presenter’s paradox is revised in light of the current account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three studies tested whether people use cues about the way other people think--for example, whether others respond fast vs. slow--to infer what responses other people might give to reasoning problems. People who solve reasoning problems using deliberative thinking have better insight than intuitive problem-solvers into the responses that other people might give to the same problems. Presumably because deliberative responders think of intuitive responses before they think of deliberative responses, they are aware that others might respond intuitively, particularly in circumstances that hinder deliberative thinking (e.g., fast responding). Intuitive responders, on the other hand, are less aware of alternative responses to theirs, so they infer that other people respond as they do, regardless of the way others respond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes two experiments linking native-language grammar rules with implications for perception of similarity and recognition memory. In prenominal languages (e.g., English), adjectives usually precede nouns, whereas in postnominal languages (e.g., Portuguese), nouns usually precede adjectives. We explored the influence of such rules upon similarity judgments about, and recognition of, objects with multiple category attributes (one nominal attribute and one adjectival attribute). The results supported the hypothesized primacy effect of native-language word order such that nouns generally carried more weight for Portuguese speakers than for English speakers. This pattern was observed for judgments of similarity (i.e., Portuguese speakers tended to judge objects that shared a noun-designated attribute as more similar than did English speakers), as well as for false alarms in recognition memory (i.e., Portuguese speakers tended to falsely recognize more objects if they possessed a familiar noun attribute, relative to English speakers). The implications of such linguistic effects for the cognition of similarity and memory are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We examine semantic illusions from a dual-process perspective according to which the processes that go into failing or succeeding to detect such illusions can be decomposed into controlled processes (checking the facts in the sentence against the information in memory) and automatic processes (the impression of truth that comes from the semantic associations between the elements in the sentence). These processes, we argue, make largely independent contributions to truth judgments about semantic-illusory sentences. The Process Dissociation Procedure was used to obtain estimates of these two kinds of processes. In Study 1, participants judged whether sentences were true or false while under high or low cognitive load. Cognitive load increased the rate of semantic illusions by specifically affecting controlled processing but not automatic processing. In Study 2, a previous paired-associate learning task also increased the rate of semantic illusions, but it did so by specifically affecting automatic processing, not controlled processing. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We explored whether the thinking mode—deliberative versus intuitive—that people use to solve a problem or make ajudgment influences their awareness of their own and others' performance. The results of 7 studies support the hypothesis that deliberative thinkers have a metacognitive advantage over intuitive thinkers: Deliberative thinkers are aware of both the deliberative solution and the intuitive alternative; realizing that the deliberative solution is better, they are likely to feel more confident and be more accurate in how they assess their performance and that of others. Intuitive thinkers, on the other hand, are aware only of the intuitive solution; whenever this solution is incorrect, they are unaware of how poor their performance was and how they rank in comparison to others. Implications of this metacognitive advantage are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Are people more likely to engage in critical thinking when assessing others'' reasoning? And does this reasoning enhancement reflect their belief that others are more likely to be biased than themselves (the bias blind spot, BBS)? In three studies, participants who displayed BBS were better able to detect reasoning biases and performed better in reasoning problems when they were asked to examine responses that were said to come from other people than when those same responses were not attributed to other people. Participants who did not display BBS tended to do the opposite. This pattern was found to result from BBS participants engaging in more deliberate thinking when examining the responses of other people than when those answers are not given a social context (Study 2). Moreover, the better or worse performance that resulted from reasoning about others'' reasoning transferred to subsequent unrelated problems (Study 3). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the literature on learning, one of the most robust cue competition effects is blocking: the previous learning of a cue-outcome association prevents learning that other cues predict the same outcome if those cues are presented together with the first cue. In this research, we investigated blocking effects in mental state inference. Participants learned to diagnose the internal states of a target person based on the behaviors he displayed. Blocking effects were observed across several studies, such that, when participants had previously learned that a certain behavior predicted a certain internal state, they later failed to learn about the predictive value of other behaviors that were paired with the original behavioral cue. Implications are discussed for cognitive models of learning and cue competition, as well as for the social psychology of mental state inference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cumulative redundancy bias (CRB) refers to people's difficulty in ignoring the redundancy in cumulatively presented information. When people consider which of two competing agents is better, they are influenced by the sequence of events that led to their accumulative total performance. If one agent was ahead most of the time, people consider this agent better – even if the agents are tied eventually. However, we show that an opposite performance-slope bias (PSB) emerges when participants focus on the performance trajectories of agents. When a trailing agent is substantially catching up to the leading agent, people judge the former as the better agent. In four experiments where we manipulated the magnitude of performance slope difference between two agents, we obtained both effects. In Experiments 1 and 2, a large slope difference between agents overshadowed other factors that may have influenced the reversal from CRB to PSB. In Experiments 3 and 4 we showed conclusively with the same design, but for different real-life contexts that the CRB emerges when the slope difference between agents is small while it reverses as the PSB when the slope difference is large. The four experiments demonstrate individuals' ability for flexible cue utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on dual-process theories of judgment makes abundant use of reasoning problems that present a conflict between Type 1 intuitive responses and Type 2 rule-based responses. However, in many of these reasoning tasks, there is no way to discriminate between the adequate and inadequate use of rules based on logical or probabilistic principles. To experimentally discriminate between the two, we developed a new set of problems: rule-inadequate versions of standard base-rate problems (where base rates are made irrelevant). Across four experiments, we observed conflict sensitivity (measured in terms of response latencies and response confidence) in responses to standard base-rate problems but also in responses to rule-inadequate versions of these problems. This failure to discriminate between real and merely apparent (or spurious) conflict suggests that participants often misuse statistical information and draw conclusions based on irrelevant base rates. We conclude that inferring the sound use of statistical rules from normatively correct responses to standard conflict problems may be unwarranted when this kind of reasoning bias is not controlled for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent results have challenged the widespread assumption of dual process models of belief bias that sound reasoning relies on slow, careful reflection, whereas biased reasoning is based on fast intuition. Instead, parallel process models of reasoning suggest that rule- and belief-based problem features are processed in parallel and that reasoning problems that elicit a conflict between rule- and belief-based problem features may also elicit more than one Type 1 response. This has important implications for individual-differences research on reasoning, because rule-based responses by certain individuals may reflect that these individuals were either more likely to give a rule-based default response or that they successfully inhibited and overrode a belief-based default response. In two studies, we used the diffusion model to describe decision making in a transitive reasoning task. In Study 1, 41 participants were asked to evaluate conclusions based on their validity. In Study 2, 133 participants evaluated conclusions based on their validity or believability. We tested which diffusion model parameters reflected conflict resolution and related those model parameters to individual differences in cognitive abilities and thinking styles. Individual differences in need for cognition predicted successful conflict resolution under logic instruction, which suggests that a disposition to engage in reflective thinking facilitates the inhibition and override of Type 1 responses. Intelligence, however, was negatively related to successful conflict resolution under belief instruction, which suggests that individuals with high cognitive abilities quickly generated a higher-level logical response that interfered with their ability to evaluate lower-level intrinsic problem features. Taken together, this double dissociation indicates that cognitive abilities and thinking styles affect the processing of conflict information through different mechanisms and at different stages: Greater cognitive abilities facilitate the efficient creation of decoupled problem representations, whereas a greater disposition to engage in critical thinking facilitates the detection and override of Type 1 responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Going beyond the origins of cognitive biases, which have been the focus of continued research, the notion of metacognitive myopia refers to the failure to monitor, control, and correct for biased inferences at the metacognitive level. Judgments often follow the given information uncritically, even when it is easy to find out or explicitly explained that information samples are misleading or invalid. The present research is concerned with metacognitive myopia in judgments of change. Participants had to decide whether pairs of binomial samples were drawn from populations with decreasing, equal, or increasing proportions p of a critical feature. Judgments of p changes were strongly affected by changes in absolute sample size n, such that only increases (decreases) in p that came along with increasing (decreasing) n were readily detected. Across 4 experiments these anomalies persisted even though the distinction of p and n was strongly emphasized through outcome feedback and full debriefing (Experiment 1–4), simultaneous presentation (Experiments 2–4), and recoding of experienced samples into descriptive percentages (Experiment 3–4). In Experiment 4, a joint attempt was made by 10 scientists working in 7 different institutions to develop an effective debiasing training, suggesting how multilab-collaboration might improve the quality of science in the early stage of operational research designing. Despite significant improvements in change judgments, debiasing treatments did not eliminate the anomalies. Possible ways of dealing with the metacognitive deficit are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's intuitive predictions under uncertainty may rely on the representativeness or on the availability heuristics (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). However, the distinction between these two heuristics has never been clear, and both have been proposed to underlie the same judgment tasks. For instance, when judging what outcome is likely to be next in a coin flip after a streak, representativeness leads to predicting an alternation in the outcome, ending the streak (gambler's fallacy), whereas availability leads to predicting the streak's continuation. We propose that availability (direct use of accessibility) is computed earlier than representativeness (comparing to an abstract representation of the expected outcome). In five studies, we pit one heuristic against the other in binary prediction tasks, both in coin flip and athlete's performance contexts. We find that, although the streak outcome is cognitively more available, judgments are usually based on representativeness, leading more often to a prediction of an alternation after a streak. However, under time-pressure conditions, representativeness processes are constrained and participants are more prone to base their predictions on the most salient and cognitively available outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three experiments were designed to test whether experimentally created ad hoc associative networks evoke false memories. We used the DRM (Deese, Roediger, McDermott) paradigm with lists of ad hoc categories composed of exemplars aggregated toward specific goals (e.g., going for a picnic) that do not share any consistent set of features. Experiment 1 revealed considerable levels of false recognitions of critical words from ad hoc categories. False recognitions occurred even when the lists were presented without an organizing theme (i.e., the category's label). Experiments 1 and 2 tested whether (a) the ease of identifying the categories' themes, and (b) the lists' backward associative strength could be driving the effect. List identifiability did not correlate with false recognition, and the effect remained even when backward associative strength was controlled for. Experiment 3 manipulated the distractor items in the recognition task to address the hypothesis that the salience of unrelated items could be facilitating the occurrence of the phenomenon. The effect remained when controlling for this source of facilitation. These results have implications for assumptions made by theories of false memories, namely the preexistence of associations in the activation-monitoring framework and the central role of gist extraction in fuzzy-trace theory, while providing evidence of the occurrence of false memories for more dynamic and context-dependent knowledge structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competitions in sports, business, or politics often provide perceivers with cumulative standings over time. Recent research suggests that people fail to accurately update their impressions from cumulative observations as they are influenced by previous standings. This cumulative redundancy bias (CRB) implies that competitors that are leading during a competition will receive more favorable evaluations, over and beyond their eventual success or failure. While the CRB has far-reaching implications, its underlying mechanisms are not fully understood. We present data from four experiments in which we modified the standard CRB task by adding a step-by-step procedure to track the dynamics of perceivers' impressions during the competition. We also manipulated the length of the competition and tested different possible explanations for the CRB. Results suggest that the CRB is a robust phenomenon that constitutes an actual bias and that is best explained by an additive effect of cumulative redundancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]