Misinformation continually threatens efforts to control the COVID-19 pandemic, with vaccine misinformation now a key concern. False memories for misinformation can influence behavioural intentions, yet little is known about the factors affecting (false) memories for vaccine-related news items. Across two experiments (total  = 1481), this paper explores the effects of pre-existing vaccine opinions on reported memories for true and false news items. In Study 1, participants ( = 817) were exposed to fabricated pro- or anti-vaccine news items, and then asked if they have a memory of this news event having occurred. In Study 2, participants ( = 646) viewed true pro- or anti-vaccine news items. News items were more likely to be remembered when they aligned with participants' pre-existing vaccine beliefs, with stronger effects for pro-vaccine information. We conclude by encouraging researchers to consider the role of attitudinal bias when developing interventions to reduce susceptibility to misinformation.

Understanding predictors of parents' willingness to vaccinate their children appears fundamental to promote vaccine acceptability, especially in a pandemic scenario. The present study aimed to investigate the role of conspiracy beliefs and absolutist thinking in parental attitude toward COVID-19 vaccine, and the predictive role of parents' individual differences on decisions against children's vaccination. An online survey was administered to 415 parents of children aged 5-11, at the very beginning of the vaccination targeting this population in Italy. Results showed that absolutism predicted the tendency to believe in conspiracies, associated with a negative attitude toward the COVID-19 vaccine administration to children. Moreover, mothers were less willing to vaccinate children and parents of children aged 5-7 were more hesitant, or even against vaccination, than parents of older children. Finally, the worry about consequences of COVID-19 infection on children's health facilitated vaccine adherence. These findings contribute to deepening mechanisms regarding the vaccine acceptability.

Students' ability to accurately self-assess their performance and select a suitable subsequent learning task in response is imperative for effective self-regulated learning. Video modeling examples have proven effective for training self-assessment and task-selection skills, and-importantly-such training fostered self-regulated learning outcomes. It is unclear, however, whether trained skills would transfer across domains. We investigated whether skills acquired from training with either a specific, algorithmic task-selection rule or a more general heuristic task-selection rule in biology would transfer to self-regulated learning in math. A manipulation check performed after the training confirmed that both algorithmic and heuristic training improved task-selection skills on the biology problems compared with the control condition. However, we found no evidence that students subsequently applied the acquired skills during self-regulated learning in math. Future research should investigate how to support transfer of task-selection skills across domains.

Performance at identification lineup was assessed in eighty-five 6- to 11-year-old typically developing children. Children viewed a live staged event involving 2 male actors, and were asked to identify the perpetrators from 2 separate lineups (one perpetrator-present lineup and one perpetrator-absent lineup). Half the children took part in lineups adapted by a registered intermediary (an impartial, trained professional who facilitates understanding and communication between vulnerable witnesses and members of the justice system), and half took part in "best-practice" lineups, according to the current guidance for eyewitness identification in England and Wales. Children receiving assistance from a registered intermediary (relative to children who received best-practice lineups) were more accurate in their identifications for perpetrator-present lineups, and there was some evidence that they were also more accurate for perpetrator-absent lineups. This provides the first empirical evidence for the effectiveness of registered intermediary support during identification lineups.

The aim of this study was to examine how people mentally represent and depict true and false statements about claimed future actions-so-called true and false intentions. On the basis of construal level theory, which proposes that subjectively unlikely events are more abstractly represented than likely ones, we hypothesized that false intentions should be represented at a more abstract level than true intentions. Fifty-six hand drawings, produced by participants to describe mental images accompanying either true or false intentions, were rated on level of abstractness by a second set of participants ( = 117) blind to the veracity of the intentions. As predicted, drawings of false intentions were rated as more abstract than drawings of true intentions. This result advances the use of drawing-based deception detection techniques to the field of true and false intentions and highlights the potential for abstractness as a novel cue to deceit.

Two experiments are presented, which explore the presence of a distinctiveness advantage when recognising unfamiliar voices. In Experiment 1, distinctive voices were recognised significantly better, and with greater confidence, in a sequential same/different matching task compared with typical voices. These effects were replicated and extended in Experiment 2, as distinctive voices were recognised better even under challenging listening conditions imposed by nonsense sentences and temporal reversal. Taken together, the results aligned well with similar results when processing faces, and provided a useful point of comparison between voice and face processing.

Although the presentation of extraneous (i.e., irrelevant or unnecessary) information hinders learning, it is unclear whether and how layout and pacing influence this effect. In two experiments, participants learned how the heart functions using four different layouts: a diagram presented without unnecessary text (diagram only), with unnecessary text separated from the diagram (separated) or integrated into the diagram (integrated), or with separated unnecessary text and the instruction to integrate (integration instruction). In Experiment 1, study time was self-paced for half of the participants and system paced for the other half. There were no effects of layout and of pacing on learning, although system pacing was more effortful than self-pacing. In Experiment 2, which was system paced and employed eye tracking, the integrated condition showed worse learning outcomes than the separated condition. Moreover, in the integrated condition, participants made more integration attempts between the unnecessary text and the diagram than in the separated condition.

We tested predictions of fuzzy-trace theory that qualitative health status and gist representations (ordinal and categorical) of risks contribute to willingness to start medications, beyond effects of objective risk, emotion (worry), and numeracy. Adults in two experiments were given hypothetical scenarios based on actual medications, varying health status quo (acceptable or unacceptable), adverse event (pneumonia or cancer), and four levels of quantitative risk (from 1/100,000 to 1/100) between subjects. In both experiments, cancer and higher quantitative risk elicited greater worry and risk perceptions and reduced willingness to start a new medication. Willingness to start was also influenced by health status quo. After controlling for other variables, only status quo and gist representations consistently predicted willingness to start in both experiments. Results support an integrated approach to understanding and predicting perceptions of the risks of medications that encompasses numerical cognition, emotions (such as worry), and qualitative gist representations of medical information.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been characterized by misinformation, politicization of public health, and extreme differences in risk assessment. In two studies, we sought to understand factors that contribute to differences in people's understanding of the virus and associated risks. We found that conservative participants reported higher levels of acceptable risk, have lower risk estimates of activities, and endorsed more misinformation. Participants with personal health risk factors rated COVID-19 risks as higher, more reflective participants had lower acceptable risk levels, and impulsive participants endorsed more misinformation. In our second study, we also found that reflective participants were more likely to wear a mask, get vaccinated, and maintain social distancing, and that participants judged arguments about COVID-19 measures largely based on the claim rather than supporting reasons. By clarifying these individual differences, public health experts can more effectively create targeted interventions for at risk populations, and be better prepared for future outbreaks.

We evaluated the detailed, behavioral properties of face matching performance in two specialist groups: forensic facial examiners and super-recognizers. Both groups compare faces to determine identity with high accuracy and outperform the general population. Typically, facial examiners are highly trained; super-recognizers rely on natural ability. We found distinct behaviors between these two groups. Examiners used the full 7-point identity judgment scale (-3: "different"; +3: "same"). Super-recognizers' judgments clustered toward highly confident decisions. Examiners' judgments for same- and different-identities were symmetric across the scale midpoint (0); super-recognizers' judgments were not. Examiners showed higher identity judgment agreement than super-recognizers. Despite these qualitative differences, both groups showed insight into their own accuracy: more confident people and those who rated the task to be easier tended to be more accurate. Altogether, we show to better understand and interpret judgments according to the nature of someone's facial expertise, evaluations should assess more than accuracy.

This study sought to explore the effects of COVID-19 exposure, pandemic-related appraisals and coping strategies on psychological symptoms among the front-line healthcare workers based on the transactional theory of stress and coping. A cross-sectional study was conducted in a Wuhan hospital designated for inpatients with COVID-19, assessing COVID-19 exposure (whether or not exposed to confirmed patients at workplace), psychological symptoms, appraisals, and coping strategies in 311 participants. Results revealed that the pandemic markedly affected healthcare workers' mental well-being through appraisal and coping, with 38.9% reporting high levels of psychological symptoms. Primary appraisal related closely with COVID-19 exposure, especially in female, while secondary appraisal was associated with problem-focused coping. Both problem-focused and emotion-focused coping had a protective effect against psychological symptoms, but also showed gender differences in its relations with other variables. These findings could potentially benefit to enrich relevant theories, and to develop psychological programs for future epidemics.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, wearing facemasks was mandatory in the United Kingdom except for individuals with medical exemptions. Facemasks cover the full lower half of the face; however, the effect of facemasks on age perception is not yet known. The present study examined whether age estimation accuracy of unfamiliar young adult women is impaired when the target is wearing a facemask. This study also examined whether makeup, which has previously been shown to increase error bias, further impairs age estimation accuracy when paired with a facemask. The findings indicate that both facemasks and makeup tend to result in overestimation of the young women's age compared to neutral faces, but the combination of both is not additive. Individual level analysis also revealed large individual differences in age estimation accuracy ranging from estimates within 1 year of the target's actual age, and age estimates which deviated by up to 20 years.

Self-derivation of new factual knowledge is crucial for building a knowledge base. In three experiments, we investigated self-derivation about prescription medications. In Experiment 1, adults self-derived new knowledge across textual materials on 40% of trials. Participants in Experiment 2 performed similarly (42%), even when half the information was presented in videos. It was crucial that participants received both learning episodes to successfully self-derive: control condition participants received half the necessary information and performed significantly lower. When a delay was imposed between related facts in Experiment 3, participants self-derived on only 33% of trials and performance did not differ from the control condition. The present research expanded our understanding of adults' learning and self-derivation across media about medications. It revealed room for improvement in adults' learning and self-derivation about health information. This work suggests the need to identify factors that alter performance, including better understanding of the properties of information sources.

The present study investigated whether autobiographical memories serve to maintain feelings of intimacy in times of social isolation that result from the restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Data came from 104 young and older adults who reported three important and three social memories, that is, memories about someone the participants were unable to meet because of the pandemic-related restrictions. Our findings support that social memories more frequently serve intimacy functions than important memories do, and this difference is more pronounced for older compared to young adults. Moreover, social loneliness is associated with less frequent use of important memories for intimacy functions, whereas emotional loneliness shows a positive association. Results are discussed in terms of what type of memories can be used to maintain intimacy feelings across age groups and regarding qualitative and quantitative aspects of loneliness that differently predict the use of memories for intimacy functions.

We experimentally examined the effects of alcohol consumption and exposure to misleading postevent information on memory for a hypothetical interactive rape scenario. We used a 2 beverage (alcohol vs. tonic water) × 2 expectancy (told alcohol vs. told tonic) factorial design. Participants ( = 80) were randomly assigned to conditions. They consumed alcohol (mean blood alcohol content = 0.06%) or tonic water before engaging in the scenario. Alcohol expectancy was controlled by telling participants they were consuming alcohol or tonic water alone, irrespective of the actual beverage they were consuming. Approximately a week later, participants were exposed to a misleading postevent narrative and then recalled the scenario and took a recognition test. Participants who were told that they had consumed alcohol rather than tonic reported fewer correct details, but they were no more likely to report incorrect or misleading information. The confidence-accuracy relationship for control and misled items was similar across groups, and there was some evidence that metacognitive discrimination was better for participants who were told that they had consumed alcohol compared with those told they had tonic water. Implications for interviewing rape victims are discussed.

Previous research has shown that people who endorse conspiracy theories are more prone to the conjunction fallacy: the tendency to perceive conjunct events as more probable than constituent events. The present study examined the relationship between specific beliefs (belief in conspiracy theories, religiosity) and the susceptibility to conjunction errors (CEs) in specific domains. A total of 500 participants was presented with brief scenarios from the domains "coronavirus conspiracy," "miraculous healing," and a control condition. Each scenario included one statement about a separate event and a second statement about two joint events co-occurring. The participants estimated the probability of each statement. Results showed that the number of CEs made in the coronavirus domain was only associated with the belief in conspiracy theories, while general religiosity was only associated with CEs for scenarios describing miraculous healings. The assessed beliefs were not associated with CEs made in the control condition. Results suggest that distinct beliefs are uniquely associated with the susceptibility to conjunction errors in particular domains.

The putative confession (PC) instruction (i.e., "[suspect] told me everything that happened and wants you to tell the truth") during forensic interviews with children has been shown to increase the accuracy of children's statements, but it is unclear whether adults' perceptions are sensitive to this salutary effect. The present study examined how adults perceive children's true and false responses to the PC instruction. Participants ( = 299) watched videotaped interviews of children and rated the child's credibility and the truthfulness of his/her statements. When viewing children's responses to the PC instruction, true and false statements were rated as equally credible, and there was a decrease in accuracy for identifying false denials as lies. These findings suggest that participants viewed the PC instruction as truth-inducing. Implications for the forensic use of the PC instruction are discussed.

Studies examining the effect of social isolation on cognitive function typically involve older adults and/or specialist groups (e.g., expeditions). We considered the effects of COVID-19-induced social isolation on cognitive function within a representative sample of the general population. We additionally considered how participants 'shielding' due to underlying health complications, or living alone, performed. We predicted that performance would be poorest under strictest, most-isolating conditions. At five timepoints over 13 weeks, participants ( = 342; aged 18-72 years) completed online tasks measuring attention, memory, decision-making, time-estimation, and learning. Participants indicated their mood as 'lockdown' was eased. Performance typically improved as opportunities for social contact increased. Interactions between participant sub-groups and timepoint demonstrated that performance was shaped by individuals' social isolation levels. Social isolation is linked to cognitive decline in the absence of ageing covariates. The impact of social isolation on cognitive function should be considered when implementing prolonged pandemic-related restrictive conditions.

Children must describe maltreatment coherently for their testimony to be influential in court. We know little about how well children with intellectual disabilities (CWID) describe their experiences relative to typically developing (TD) children, despite CWID's vulnerability to maltreatment. We investigated children's reports of an experienced event and compared coherence in CWID (mild to moderate impairment: 7-11 years) with TD children matched for mental (4-10 years) or chronological age (7-11 years). All children included important markers of narrative coherence in their reports. Children with lower mental ages, particularly those with an intellectual disability, included fewer markers of narrative coherence in their reports than children with higher mental ages. Individual markers of narrative coherence, particularly recall of content, predicted accuracy of testimony and resistance to suggestion even when disability and mental age were taken into account. These findings highlight the importance of helping children to describe their experiences coherently.

Research on belief in conspiracy theories identified many predictors but often failed to investigate them together. In the present study, we tested how the most important predictors of beliefs in conspiracy theories explain endorsing COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 conspiracy theories and conspiracy mentality. Apart from these three measures of conspiratorial thinking, participants ( = 354) completed several measures of epistemic, existential, and social psychological motives, as well as cognitive processing variables. While many predictors had significant correlations, only three consistently explained conspiratorial beliefs when included in one model: higher spirituality (specifically eco-awareness factor), higher narcissism, and lower analytical thinking. Compared to the other two conspiratorial measures, predictors less explained belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, but this depended on items' content. We conclude that the same predictors apply to belief in both COVID and non-COVID conspiracies and identify New Age spirituality as an important contributor to such beliefs.

Verbal deception detection has gained momentum as a technique to tell truth-tellers from liars. At the same time, researchers' degrees of freedom make it hard to assess the robustness of effects. Replication research can help evaluate how reproducible an effect is. We present the first replication in verbal deception research whereby ferry passengers were instructed to tell the truth or lie about their travel plans. The original study found truth-tellers to include more specific time references in their answers. The replication study that closely mimicked the setting, procedure, materials, coding, and analyses found no lie-truth difference for specific time references. Although the power of our replication study was suboptimal (0.77), Bayesian statistics showed evidence in favor of the null hypothesis. Given the great applied consequences of verbal credibility tests, we hope this first replication attempt ignites much needed preregistered, high-powered, multilab replication efforts.

Finding messaging to promote the use of face masks is fundamental during a pandemic. Study 1 ( = 399) shows that telling people to "rely on their reasoning" increases intentions to wear a face mask, compared with telling them to "rely on their emotions." In Study 2 ( = 591) we add a baseline. However, the results show only a non-significant trend. Study 3 reports a well-powered replication of Study 2 ( = 930). In line with Study 1, this study shows that telling people to "rely on their reasoning" increases intentions to wear a face mask, compared to telling them to "rely on their emotions." Two internal meta-analyses show that telling people to "rely on their reasoning" increases intentions to wear a face mask compared (1) to telling them to "rely on their emotions" and (2) to the baseline. These findings suggest interventions to promote intentions to wear a face mask.

Eyewitnesses to crimes are regularly under the influence of drugs, such as cannabis. Yet there is very little research on how the use of cannabis affects eyewitness memory. In the present study, we assessed the effects of cannabis on eyewitness recall and lineup identification performance in a field setting. One hundred twenty visitors of coffee shops in Amsterdam viewed a videotaped criminal event, were interviewed about the event, and viewed a target-present or target-absent lineup. Witnesses under the influence of cannabis remembered significantly fewer correct details about the witnessed event than did sober witnesses, with no difference in incorrect recall. Cannabis use was not significantly associated with lineup identification performance, but intoxicated witnesses were significantly better at judging whether their lineup identification was accurate. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Societal crises and stressful events are associated with an upsurge of conspiracy beliefs that may help people to tackle feelings of lack of control. In our study ( = 783), we examined whether people with higher feelings of anxiety and lack of control early in the COVID-19 pandemic endorse more conspiracy theories. Our results show that a higher perception of risk of COVID-19 and lower trust in institutions' response to the pandemic were related to feelings of anxiety and lack of control. Feeling the lack of control, but not anxiety, independently predicted COVID-19 conspiracy theory endorsement. Importantly, COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs were strongly correlated with generic conspiracy and pseudoscientific beliefs, which were likewise associated with the feeling of lack of control and lower trust in institutions. The results highlight that considering people's emotional responses to the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial for our understanding of the spread of conspiracy and pseudoscientific beliefs.

Nowadays, more and more people report about their memories in cross-cultural contexts. In international criminal settings and asylum procedures, object recognition tests can provide valuable information, for example, about weapons used during a crime or landmarks from the claimed region of origin. This study was the first to compare object recognition performance by asylum seekers from Sub-Saharan Africa to a matched Western European control group. African participants performed worse than European participants on perceptual tests involving transformations from two- to three-dimensional representations, but both groups performed equally well on an object recognition test that involved transformation from three- to two-dimensional representations. However, African participants were significantly more likely to respond "yes" on the recognition test (i.e., an acquiescence response style) than European participants. Our findings elucidate cultural differences in responding on an object recognition test. Judges, juries, and immigration officials would be wise to take these differences into account when evaluating recognition performance in cross-cultural contexts.

In the coronavirus "infodemic," people are exposed to official recommendations but also to potentially dangerous pseudoscientific advice claimed to protect against COVID-19. We examined whether irrational beliefs predict adherence to COVID-19 guidelines as well as susceptibility to such misinformation. Irrational beliefs were indexed by belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, COVID-19 knowledge overestimation, type I error cognitive biases, and cognitive intuition. Participants ( = 407) reported (1) how often they followed guidelines (e.g., handwashing, physical distancing), (2) how often they engaged in pseudoscientific practices (e.g., consuming garlic, colloidal silver), and (3) their intention to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Conspiratorial beliefs predicted all three outcomes in line with our expectations. Cognitive intuition and knowledge overestimation predicted lesser adherence to guidelines, while cognitive biases predicted greater adherence, but also greater use of pseudoscientific practices. Our results suggest an important relation between irrational beliefs and health behaviors, with conspiracy theories being the most detrimental.

Recently, verbal credibility assessment has been extended to the detection of deceptive intentions, the use of a model statement, and predictive modeling. The current investigation combines these 3 elements to detect deceptive intentions on a large scale. Participants read a model statement and wrote a truthful or deceptive statement about their planned weekend activities (Experiment 1). With the use of linguistic features for machine learning, more than 80% of the participants were classified correctly. Exploratory analyses suggested that liars included more person and location references than truth-tellers. Experiment 2 examined whether these findings replicated on independent-sample data. The classification accuracies remained well above chance level but dropped to 63%. Experiment 2 corroborated the finding that liars' statements are richer in location and person references than truth-tellers' statements. Together, these findings suggest that liars may over-prepare their statements. Predictive modeling shows promise as an automated veracity assessment approach but needs validation on independent data.

Given the range of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) products currently being tested to prevent HIV in women, a standardized Acceptability and Use of PrEP Products Among Women Tool may facilitate comparisons of product acceptability and use across different geographies, trials, and users. We conducted three rounds of cognitive interviewing over 2 months in 2016, with 28 South African women who had experience participating in a range of PrEP product trials. The final instrument contained 41 items, including five new items that improved construct validity and 22 items modified for clarity. Changes were made due to unclear wording, difficulty answering, participant embarrassment, low response variability, and administrative formatting. Cognitive interviewing provided a means to address issues that would have inhibited this tool's ability to accurately collect data otherwise. This rapid, low-cost study provided valuable insight into participants' understanding of questions and demonstrated the utility of cognitive interviewing in international clinical trials.

Recent experimental and clinical research has suggested that Tetris game play can disrupt maladaptive forms of mental imagery because Tetris competes for limited cognitive resources within visuospatial working memory (WM) that contribute to imagery. Whether or not Tetris performance is selectively associated with visuospatial WM remains to be tested. In this study, young adults (N = 46) completed six standardized measures indexing verbal and non-verbal reasoning, verbal and visuospatial short-term memory, and verbal and visuospatial WM. They also played Tetris. Consistent with the hypothesis that visuospatial WM resources support Tetris game play, there was a significant moderate positive relationship between Tetris scores and visuospatial WM performance but no association with other cognitive ability measures. Findings suggest that Tetris game play involves both storage and processing resources within visuospatial WM. These preliminary results can inform interventions involving computer games to disrupt the development of maladaptive visual imagery, for example, intrusive memories of trauma. © 2017 The Authors. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Investigative interviewers are often required to accurately remember information that has been provided by different people. This can be at the scene of an event or during follow-up investigations in interview rooms. Interviewers must accurately monitor the source of information to differentiate between witnesses' accounts and to assess what information is novel and what has been corroborated by others or by physical evidence. The current research examined the effects of cognitive load on memory and source monitoring accuracy for information provided by multiple witnesses. Participants, under conditions of high cognitive load (HCL) where load was induced via interviewer-relevant tasks (e.g., formulating questions) or no cognitive load (NCL), watched five mock-witnesses' accounts of the same crime. Each witness provided several details of the crime that were unique to their individual account. When asked about account details, and which witness had provided each detail, mock-interviewers' memory accuracy was lower in the HCL condition than the NCL condition. There was no difference between cognitive load conditions for source monitoring accuracy, which was poor regardless of condition.