1. Recapitulation I: Causal reasoning in science
It is impossible to establish causal relations without doubt since it is an instance on inductive reasoning.
Causal reasoning in science:
Proposition of causal theories / models.
Assessment of causal theories / models by means of data and existing well established theories.
Problem: Causal models could be empirically indistinguishable.

2. Recapitulation II: Simpson’s paradox
Summing of relevant variables in contingency tables can result in erroneous conclusions.
It is not allowed to sum over variables that are related to more than one vari-able of the table.

3. Recapitulation III: Ecological fallacy
Treatment of clustered data:
Ignoring the clustered structure of the data can lead to wrong conclusions.
Specifically, between and within cluster relationships may differ.

4. Recapitulation IV: Regression to the mean
Regression line always below main axis (cf. formula)

5. Recapitulation V: Regression to the mean

6. Regression artefact: Lord’s paradox
Concept: Lord’s Paradox:
ANCOVA for testing differences between two groups (due to an intervention) while con-trolling for preexisting differences between groups leads to a different conclusion than one based on a t-test that compares pre-post intervention differences between groups.
Comment: ANCOVA is used to test for the effect of one or more independent variables (the intervention) while partialling out the effect of covariates.

7. Regression artefact: Lord’s paradox
Example: Lord’s Paradox:
2 Groups of students:
Switch from secondary to Grammar school.
Staying for one more year in secondary school (switching after the year).
The two groups differ with respect to their language capabilities: The switching group is superior to the non-switching group.

8. Regression artefact: Lord’s paradox
Obviously, switching has no effect on lang- uage performance.
Regression lines have different intercepts (due to regression to the mean).
ANCOVA indicates difference, t-test of pre-/post difference not.

9. Regression artefact: Lord’s paradox
Conclusion: Lord’s Paradox:
Experimental control of confounding variables is superior to statistical control.
Statistical and methodological sophi-stication together with knowledge of the subject should help to design studies exhibiting the required experimental control.

10. Memory Judgments Cognitive Mechanism: Encoding:
Adjustment to existing knowledge.
Gist / meaning extraction.
Drawing inferences.
Activation of related information.
Processing of value and emotional aspects.
Encoding is not storage but the construction and modification knowledge structures.

11. Memory Judgments Cognitive Mechanism: Retrieval:
Integration of information from different sources.
Consistency and plausibility checks.
Filling in gaps due to inferences and judgments.
Subjective theories relevant.
Retrieval from memory consists in a process of (re-) construction.

12. Memory Judgments Cognitive Mechanism: Forgetting:
Interference of information: Blocking of retrieval by related information.
E.g. intrusions of irrelevant related information blocks the retrieval of irrelevant information (=Output interference).

13. Memory Judgments Experimental paradigms for testing memory errors:
Elisabeth Loftus: Misinformation paradigm.
DRM paradigma (Deese, Roediger, & McDermott) for eliciting false memories.

14. Memory Judgments Method of misleading post event information:
Misleading information after the relevant event provided.
E.g. misleading questions that need not be incorrect but may only result in specific conclusions.

15. Memory Judgments Misleading questions:
Following to a film about a traffic accident, participants were asked the following question (with participants in differ­ent groups received different wordings):
»About how fast were the cars going when they (smashed / collided / bumped / hit / contacted) each other?«
Post-event information influenced peoples’ testimonies, e.g. whether they saw breaking glass.

16. Memory Judgments Misleading information: suggestion
Jean Piaget reported that he had vivid memories of an attempt to kidnap him out of the baby carriage on the Champs-Élysée. He »remember- ed« the gathering of people, the scratches in the face of his heroic nurse that had saved him, the white push stick of the policeman, and the flee- ing offender.
However, the event never happened. Many years later the nurse confessed to have invented the whole story.

17. Memory Judgments Misleading information: Suggestion
The 43 years old deputy Paul Ingram was accused by his daughters to have mistreated them sexually in their child- hood.
Initially he denied vehemently all the accusations since he had absolutely no memory about these events. However, his colleagues, the officers, and the priest (Ingram was a member of a fundamentalist church) assured him that he will remember the events after having made a confession.
Following to long talks and examinations Ingram finally confessed and stated that he had probably repressed his me­mories of the events.

18. Memory Judgments Misleading information: Suggestion
However, the officers believed that the sexual abuse has taken place in the context of Satanism, and, in fact, in the course of the examination Ingram »remembered« in- creasingly better the various events and accused further people that denied vehemently to have committed the criminal acts.
At the same time Ingram’s daughters »remembered« further details of the Satanism like killing of babies, and a mass orgy.

19. Memory Judgments Misleading information: Suggestion
On waiting on his lawsuit Ingram was visited and inter- viewed by social psychologist Richard Ofshe. The latter asked Ingram to remember how he has forced his son to have sexual intercourse with his daughter before his eyes.
Comment: This event follows a logic that is similar to the other ac- cusations. However, none of Ingram’s daughters has ever claimed that such an event had occurred, and also the son denied it vehemently.

20. Memory Judgments Misleading information: Suggestion
Ingram‘s reaction to the questions of the psychologist fol­ lowed a predictable pattern: First he could not remember. However, following to intensive visualization and praying he developed vivid »memories« concerning the respective event.
Comment: Finally, Ingram was convicted of imprisonment for 20 years. At the time of Schacter’s report (6 years after the conviction) he had not yet been released.

21. Memory Judgments Comments on Suggestion:
The examples demonstrate the impact of suggestions on memory.
Children are extremely prone to sug- gestens and, thus, in general not apt as witnesses in trials.

22. Memory Judgments Cognitive mechanisms:
Replacement of original memory with post-event information (has not turned out to be valid).
Reality monitoring: Ability to separate real events from imagined, dreamed etc. events.
Source monitoring: Correct attribution of the source where the information comes from.

23. Memory Judgments Cognitive mechanisms:
Suggestions and misleading information, as well as imagery technics influence both reality and source monitoring:
Specifically, imagination technics are able blur the borders between reality and imagined events.
Repeating information can make it more difficult to correctly identify the source where the information comes from (cf. the case of Piaget).

24. Memory Judgments Therapeutic interventions and false memories
Therapeutic techniques used to »recover« lost memories can result in false memories.
Initially Sigmund Freud believed that neurotic symptoms were the result of sexual misuse in childhood. Later on he abandoned this theory attributing reports of sexual abuse to patients’ imagination.
Jeffrey Masson’s accusations that Freud had swept the issue of sexual abuse under the carpet could never be confirmed.

25. Memory Judgments
DRM (Deese-Roediger-McDermott) paradigm: Experimental creation of vivid false memories (associative memory illusions).
People learn lists with words that are grouped around a lure item:
e.g. Critical lure (never presented): sleep List of items to be learned: Bed, rest, awake, tired, dream, wake, snooze, blanket, doze, slumber, snore, nap, peace, yawn, drowsy.

26. Memory Judgments DRM (Deese-Roediger-McDermott) paradigm:
After each list, participants performed a free recall test where they should reproduce as many items as possible.
After presentation of all 24 lists, a recognition test was performed in which participants had to indicate whether an item was OLD or NEW.
In case of an OLD item people should also indicate, whether they remembered details of the event the item was presented (=remember response).

27. Memory Judgments DRM paradigm: Results
Free recall: Intrusion of lure items: The lure items that were never presented were recalled approximately as often as old items in the middle or the list.
Recognition test: slightly more critical words than words actually on the list were categorized as old.
Of the critical items actually produced in the recall task a remember response was given in 73 percent of the cases, i.e. participants believed that they recalled some details of the presentation episode.

28. Memory Judgments DRM paradigm: Interpretation
Implicit associative response: The presentation of an associated item leads to the activation of the critical lure item (by means of semantic priming and perhaps in terms of conscious deliberation: thinking of the lure).
This increases the familiarity of the lure items.

29. Memory Judgments DRM paradigm: Interpretation
Implicit associative response can explain the high rate of intrusions in free recall.
However it can not explain the high rate of remember judgments.
The later may be explained by means of source monitoring: People had actually »seen« the lures at the moment they reproduced in free recall. They erroneously attributed to having seen them on the list.

30. Exercises: Exercise 2-7: Ecological fallacy
Exercise 2-8: Lord’s paradox