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Ample evidence shows that post-encoding misinformation from others can induce false memories. Here, we demonstrate in two experiments a new, tacit form of socially generated false memories, resulting from interpersonal co-monitoring at encoding without communication of misinformation. Pairs of participants jointly viewed semantically coherent word lists, presented successively in blue, green, or red letters. Each individual was instructed to memorize words presented in one of the colors. One color remained unassigned (control condition). Participants (total N  = 113) reported more false memories for non-presented words (lures) semantically related to partner-assigned than to control lists, although both list types were equally irrelevant to their own task. Notably, this effect also persisted for particularly rich memories. These findings show for the first time that social induction of false memories, even subjectively rich ones, does not necessarily require communication of deceptive information. This has important implications both theoretically and practically (e.g., in forensic contexts).

Episodic memories can be shaped by various contextual factors. While social and sensory cues such as odors and music have been shown to influence encoding and retrieval, the role of tactile information remains unclear. In this preregistered study, we investigated the effects of affective touch on face memory. 57 healthy adults (40 women) completed the Cambridge Face Memory Tests and the Social Touch Questionnaire to assess general face recognition ability and attitudes toward social touch. During encoding, participants viewed neutral faces while receiving either static, dynamic, or no touch from a hidden experimenter and rated each face’s attractiveness and trustworthiness. Recognition was tested two days later. Outcome measures included recognition accuracy, metacognitive sensitivity (i.e., the ability of confidence ratings to distinguish between correct and incorrect responses), and judgments of attractiveness and trustworthiness. No significant differences emerged between touch conditions, and neither face recognition ability nor attitudes toward touch moderated these effects. Bayesian analyses provided moderate to strong evidence for the absence of touch effects on recognition accuracy and confidence ratings, whereas evidence regarding metacognitive sensitivity and trustworthiness evaluations was inconclusive. Overall, the findings suggest that brief social touch in a controlled laboratory context has limited measurable effects on face memory, and that richer social context may be required for touch to influence memory processes.

The neuropeptide oxytocin plays an essential role in regulating social behavior and has been implicated in a variety of human cognitive processes in the social domain, including memory processes. The present study investigates the influence of oxytocin on human memory encoding, taking into account social context and personality, which have previously been neglected as moderators for how oxytocin affects memory encoding. To examine the role of social context of encoding, we employed an established experimental paradigm in which participants perform a word-categorization task in either a joint (social) or individual (non-social) setting. To investigate the role of socially relevant personality factors, participants' adult attachment style (AAS) was assessed. Previous research has identified attachment style as a potent moderator of oxytocin effects in the social-cognitive domain, but here we investigated for the first time its role in memory encoding. Participants were invited in pairs and received either placebo or oxytocin intranasally. Forty-five minutes later, they were instructed to react to different word categories within a list of successively presented words. This task was performed individually in the non-social condition and simultaneously with the partner in the social condition. After a 24-h delay, memory for all words was tested individually in a surprise recognition memory test. Oxytocin effects on memory accuracy depended on participants' AAS. Specifically, oxytocin positively affected memory for participants who scored low on attachment dependence (who find dependence on others uncomfortable), but negatively affected memory for high scorers (who are comfortable depending on others). Oxytocin effects were not moderated by social vs. non-social context at encoding, and we discuss reasons for this outcome. Regardless of encoding condition or personality, oxytocin led to more liberal responding in the recognition memory test, which was also reflected in significantly higher false alarm rates (FARs) and a trend towards higher hit rates (HRs) compared to placebo. Overall, our results are consistent with an interactionist view on oxytocin effects on human cognitive functioning. Future research should further examine how oxytocin affects response biases via previous encoding and the ways in which biological dispositions linked to attachment style affect the process of memory encoding.

One way in which people may cope with sadness is to seek positive social contact. We examined whether subtle reminders of Facebook increase positive mood and thus attenuate the interest in social activities that is typically enhanced by sad mood induction. Participants watched either a loss-related sad or neutral video and were afterwards presented with either a Facebook, positive (sun) or neutral (Word) icon. We then examined their mood and their desire to engage in social activities as well as their feeling of belonging. The presentation of the Facebook icon increased feelings of belonging, but it did not influence participants' other responses to the sad video. Participants reported more negative mood and a greater desire to engage in social activities after the sad (vs. control) video regardless of the icon condition. The results suggest that the activation of thoughts about Facebook can enhance users' feeling of belonging; however, this effect might not be sufficient to facilitate coping with loss-related sadness.

Previous findings have been equivocal as to whether the postevent misinformation effect on eyewitness memory is reduced by warnings presented after the misinformation (postwarnings). In the present research, social postwarnings, which characterize the postevent source as a low-credibility individual, diminished the misinformation effect in both cued recall and recognition tests. Discrediting the source as being either untrustworthy or incompetent was effective (Experiment 1). Also, postwarned participants rated reality characteristics of their memories more accurately than did participants receiving no or high-credibility information about the postevent source (Experiment 2). A social postwarning yielded the same results as an explicit source-monitoring appeal and led to longer response times for postevent items, relative to a no-warning condition (Experiments 3 and 4). The findings suggest that the reduced misinformation effect was due to more thorough monitoring of memory characteristics by postwarned participants, rather than to a stricter response criterion or to enhanced event memory.

Communicators' tuning of a message to suit their audience's attitude about a target can bias their subsequent memory of the target. Research shows that this effect occurs to the extent that the message serves the creation of a shared reality with the audience. In two experiments we investigated the motivational processes underlying such audience-tuning memory biases. Experiment 1 found that when audience tuning was motivated by a shared-reality motive (vs. compliance with a blatant demand), the memory bias was found even when the audience-attitude information was provided after the target information had already been encoded. In Experiment 2, communicators' epistemic needs were directly manipulated by giving them bogus feedback regarding their ability to form social judgments. Only communicators in the high (vs. low) epistemic-need condition tuned their message to their audience and, by so doing, they attained a confident view of the target, as well as a memory of the target that was consistent with their message. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Remembering is dynamically entangled in conversations. The communicative function of episodic memory can be epistemic, as suggested by Mahr & Csibra (M&C). However, remembering can have genuinely social functions, specifically, the creation or consolidation of interpersonal relationships. Autonoesis, a distinct feature of episodic memory, is more likely to have evolved in the service of social binding than of epistemic assertiveness.

Metaphors are common transfer devices that map concrete experiences onto abstract target concepts. We investigated whether a specific gustatory sensation (sweet taste) affects social judgments (here, of harmful acts) via indirect activation of an idiomatic metaphor (\"Revenge is sweet\"). After reading about a harmful act motivated (vs. not motivated) by revenge, participants judged the avenger and her action more leniently when they had a sweet (vs. neutral) taste in their mouths (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, we disentangled the activation of target concept and judgment by priming participants with revenge before they read about a harmful act. Only after being primed with the concept revenge, but not after being primed with the similar concept schadenfreude, a concurrent sweet (vs. fresh) taste led to more lenient judgments. We discuss the role of idiomatic (vs. conceptual) metaphors in effects of concurrent bodily experience on social judgments. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

In examining the utility of the action view advanced in the Pickering & Garrod (P&G) target article, I first consider its contribution to the analysis of language vis-à-vis earlier language-as-action approaches. Second, I assess the relation between coordinated joint action, which serves as a blueprint for dialogue coordination, and the experience of shared reality, a key concomitant and product of interpersonal communication.