Department of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Cognition. 2010 Dec;117(3):261-75. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2010.08.020. Epub 2010 Sep 24.
A popular assumption in evolutionary psychology is that the human mind comprises specialized cognitive modules for social exchange, including a module that serves to enhance memory for faces of cheaters. In the present study, participants played a trust game with computerized opponents, who either defected or cooperated. In a control condition, no interaction took place. In a surprise memory test, old-new recognition for faces and source memory for the associated cooperative or non-cooperative behavior were assessed. A multinomial model was used to measure old-new discrimination, source memory, and guessing biases separately. Inconsistent with the assumption of a memory mechanism that focuses exclusively on cheating, the present study showed enhanced old-new discrimination and source memory for both cooperators and defectors. Rarity of the behavior strategies within the experiment modulated source memory, but only when the differences in base rates were extreme. The findings can be attributed to a mechanism that focuses on exchange-relevant information and flexibly adapts to take into account the relative significance of this information in the encoding context, which may be more beneficial than focusing exclusively on cheaters.
进化心理学中的一个流行假设是，人类的思维包括专门用于社会交换的认知模块，其中一个模块用于增强对骗子面孔的记忆。在本研究中，参与者与计算机对手进行了信任游戏，这些对手要么背叛要么合作。在对照条件下，没有发生交互作用。在一个惊喜的记忆测试中，评估了对旧面孔和新面孔的新旧识别，以及与合作或非合作行为相关的源记忆。使用多项模型分别测量新旧辨别力、源记忆和猜测偏差。与专门关注欺骗的记忆机制的假设不一致，本研究显示对合作者和背叛者的新旧辨别力和源记忆都增强了。实验中行为策略的稀有性调节了源记忆，但只有在基率差异非常极端时才会如此。这些发现可以归因于一种机制，该机制专注于与交换相关的信息，并灵活地适应考虑到该信息在编码环境中的相对重要性，这可能比专门关注骗子更有益。
