Confidence–accuracy relations for real and suggested events

Abstract

Participants completed a multiple item, multiple event version of a traditional misinformation procedure, as well as a battery of individual difference measures. The relation between memory accuracy and self-reported confidence was assessed through the comparison of items involving misinformation and items not involving misinformation. Selected individual differences in the confidence-accuracy relation were also examined for items that did and did not involve false post-event information. Results indicated significant differences between the measure of the confidence-accuracy relationship for misinformation and non-misinformation items. Several significant, although weak, individual difference correlates of the confidence-accuracy relations were also found.

Reduction of the misinformation effect by arousal induced after learning

“…While our results support previous findings that confidence is typically a poor indicator of accuracy when misinformation has been presented (Tomes & Katz, 2000), we also found greater confidence for accurately retrieved information and accurately rejected misinformation in the arousal group. Importantly, one prior study demonstrated enhanced source monitoring accuracy after arousal induction (Smeets et al, 2006).…”

The role of unconscious memory errors in judgments of confidence for sentence recognition

“…For deceptive items, we found that there was a disruption of the positive relationship between confidence and accuracy in both simple recognition and in forced-choice memory and that the size of the disruption was reduced for forced-choice tasks, which lead to more awareness of the deceptive nature of the deceptive memory items. The results of the present experiment also are consistent with research using the misinformation paradigm, which shows that providing postevent misleading information to participants leads to a breakdown in the confidence/accuracy relationship (Kelley & Lindsay, 1993;Tomes & Katz, 2000).…”

“…In many memory situations, these metamemory beliefs are valid, and their use leads to a positive relationship of confidence and accuracy. However, there are situations in which the relationship breaks down (Busey, Tunnicliff, Loftus, & Loftus, 2000;Kelley & Lindsay, 1993;Koriat, 1995;Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996;Tomes & Katz, 2000). For example, in a previous recognition experiment (Brewer & Sampaio, 2006) we showed that individuals assign appropriate levels of confidence for standard nondeceptive experimental materials but assign inappropriately high levels of confidence for deceptive materials.…”

Habitual acceptance of misinformation: Examination of individual differences and source attributions

“…Tomes and Katz (1997) and others (e.g., Loftus, Levidow, & Duensing, 1992) hypothesized that if individuals have poor overall memory for the original event, they are likely to be more susceptible to misinformation, and both studies provided support for this hypothesis. Moreover, Tomes and Katz (2000) reported a strong positive confidence-accuracy calibration for items not involving misinformation but virtually no confidence-accuracy calibration for misinformation items. The Goodman-Kruskal gamma correlation (see Nelson, 1984Nelson, , 1987 was used to obtain a measure of the calibration of confidence and accuracy for each participant and, as such, is treated as an individual difference variable that provides a measure of feeling-of-knowing (Nelson, 1984).…”

“…The Goodman-Kruskal gamma correlation (see Nelson, 1984Nelson, , 1987 was used to obtain a measure of the calibration of confidence and accuracy for each participant and, as such, is treated as an individual difference variable that provides a measure of feeling-of-knowing (Nelson, 1984). As had been done by Tomes and Katz (2000), two gamma correlations were calculated for each participant: one calibrating a participant's confidenceaccuracy relation for misinformation items (MI gamma) and the other calibrating the confidence-accuracy relation for nonmisinformation items (NMI gamma). To calculate the gamma correlation for a participant, the number of concordant pairs (confident with a correct item response or not confident with an incorrect item response) and the number of discordant pairs (confident with an incorrect item response or not confident with a correct item response) were examined.…”