Structure and Dynamics of Personal and National Event Cognitions

authors: JAMES H. LIU, KARL K. SZPUNAR

The psychological and sociological literature indicates that personal events are remembered and imagined as more positive than negative in comparison to public events, which are remembered and imagined as more negative than positive. In this article, the authors discuss daily experiences, scripted events, and the impact of living in a moment of historical time within a nation as cultural phenomena providing plausible mechanisms for the emotional climate that characterizes personal compared to public events. The authors take into consideration narrative processes (personal versus collective narratives) alongside theorizing difficult objective scenarios to memory for personal lives and national events together in a theoretical account of identity fusion. They conclude by highlighting the implications of collective cognition for group interactions, education, public policy, and collective action.

Application of a Two-Phase Model of Note Quality to Explore the Impact of Instructor Fluency on Students’ Note-taking

AUTHORS: PAIGE E. NORTHERN, SARAH K. TAUBER, KYLE J. ST. HILAIRE, SHANA K. CARPENTER

To create quality notes, students must identify concepts from lectures that should be included in their notes and determine how much information to include about each concept. In this article, the authors developed a two-phase model of note-taking and used multiple measures of note quality to evaluate the influence of an instructor’s fluency on the quality of students’ notes. In the experiment, students took notes while watching either a fluent or disfluent lecture, predicted future test performance, evaluated the instructor, and completed a test. The findings indicate that students failed to include many concepts in their notes, but tended to take complete notes of concepts they chose to include. Also, instructor fluency did not impact note quality or test performance, but impacted test predictions and instructor ratings. Overall, these findings propose that instructional approaches that focus on building skills at identifying information from a lecture could be worthwhile for improving note quality.

Sensitizing Jurors to Eyewitness Confidence Using "Reason-Based" Judicial Instructions

AUTHORS: BRANDON L, GARRETT, WILLIAM E. CROZIER, KARIMA MODJADIDI, ALICE J, LIU, KAREN KAFADAR, JOANNE YAFFE, CHAD S. DODSON

In this article, the authors examine a new paradigm for jury instructions regarding eyewitness testimony, in which the judge provides concise reasons why jurors should discount an eyewitness’s courtroom confidence and instead focus on the eyewitness’s confidence at the time of a police lineup. Over two experiments, participants are presented a video of an eyewitness giving testimony, a video of a judge giving our novel reason-based instructions or control instructions, and then are asked to serve as mock jurors by voting “guilty” or “not guilty”. The findings show that reason-based instructions reduced guilty votes, and that reason-based instructions that directed jurors on how to weigh confidence decreased guilty votes for weak eyewitness evidence, but not strong eyewitness evidence. Not only do these findings demonstrate that reason-based instructions can increase discriminability among laypersons, but that judges should be mindful in phrasing and communicating such instructions.

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