Cognitive Busyness, Cognitive Recovery, and Social Inference

在社会交往中，人们必须将相当大的注意力放在自己行为的执行和规范上，因此在推断他人的时候，人们往往会“认知忙碌”。过去的研究表明，认知忙碌会使人们暂时无法使用某些重要的信息。尽管他们已经注意到、理解并将这些信息存储在内存中。因此，认知繁忙的感知者特别可能对他人做出错误的推论(即所谓的“纠正不足的错误”)。当人们没有使用他们实际上拥有的信息时，就会出现纠正不足的错误；因此，错误应该是可逆的。这项研究解决了关于欠纠正错误的可逆性的四个基本问题。首先，究竟是什么认知机制使这一错误得以逆转？其次，未来与被错误推断的人互动的前景，如何时而激活、时而抑制这一机制？第三，有没有让这个错误真正不可逆转的因素？最后，除了认知上的忙碌导致的纠正不足错误之外，还有其他同样不可逆转的影响吗？社会心理学家认为，纠错不足是人们在试图理解对方时所犯的最基本、最普遍的错误。这类错误往往成为人际冲突和群体间冲突的理由，我们必须学习如何纠正或消除这些错误。本研究将阐明不足矫正错误逆转的机制，并将阐明促进或抑制这种逆转的情景因素。

During social interaction, people must devote considerable attention to the execution and regulation of their own behavior, and thus are often "cognitively busy" while drawing inferences about others. Past research suggests that cognitive busyness makes people temporarily unable to use certain kinds of important information .. despite the fact that they have noticed, understood, and stored this information in memory. As such, cognitively busy perceivers are particularly likely to draw erroneous inferences about others (the so.called "undercorrection error"). The undercorrection error results when people fail to use information that they do, in fact, possess; as such, the error should be reversible. This research addresses four basic questions regarding the reversibility of the undercorrection error. First, precisely what cognitive mechanism enables the error to be reversed? Second, how can the prospect of future interaction with the person about whom one has made an erroneous inference sometimes activate and sometimes inhibit this mechanism? Third, are there factors that render the error truly irreversible? Finally, are there effects other than the undercorrection error that result from being cognitively busy and that are also irreversible? Social psychologists consider the undercorrection error to be the most fundamental and pervasive mistake that people make when trying to understand each other. Such errors often serve as the grounds for interpersonal and inter.group conflicts, and it is important for us to learn how they can be corrected or undone. This research will clarify the mechanisms by which the undercorrection error may be reversed, and will explicate the situational factors that facilitate or inhibit such reversals.