Applied Cognitive Psychology

From: Applied Cognitive Psychology

Tell your boss his tie looks great, or your dad that his dancing makes him look like a young John Travolta. Little white lies are all around us, but how can we detect them when we’re on the receiving end? Researchers using the Implicit Association Test (IAT) found it could identify both a white lie and the real motivation behind it. IAT differentiated truth from white lies and also identified the real reason from the faked one for 20 participants. The question is, even if you could detect them, would you really want to?

Ever seen a human face on a piece of toast or in a cloud? This illusionary effect is known as pareidolia and scientists writing in Applied Cognitive Psychology claim you’re more prone to seeing faces if you’re a religious or paranormal believer. The team found believer groups were better at identifying previously defined face-like regions in images, but were also prone to false alarms. Signal detection analysis revealed that believers had more liberal answering criteria than skeptics, but the actual detection sensitivity did not differ. The paranormal believers also evaluated the artifact faces as more face-like and emotional than the skeptics.

A recent study appearing in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology suggests that there are factors that can significantly influence our free will without us even knowing it.

According to major investigative interviewing protocols police investigators are expected to create a comfortable environment before interviewing adult witnesses to a crime. Police often fail to spend time building rapport with adult witnesses before a criminal interview, possibly in an effort to save time. An article published in a forthcoming issue of Applied Cognitive Psychology shows that the additional time spent on building rapport (in particular using verbal techniques) may prevent inaccuracies in witness accounts and decrease the witness’ susceptibility to post-event misinformation.

A new study published in Applied Cognitive Psychology shows that all of that squirming and averting of eyes is normal, especially when you are accompanied by your parents. The authors of the study assert that not all movie-watching experiences are enjoyable or positive. Some movies make us feel downright uncomfortable or disturbed in their content and delivery, while others are inspirational, touching, or have us rolling on the floor. However, your movie watching companion also determine how much you will enjoy a particular film; this includes your parents, your first date, or someone you do not know very well.

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Research News from Applied Cognitive Psychology

Handwriting tool could help law enforcement gather more reliable lie detection results