Cognitive Busyness, Cognitive Recovery, and Social Inference

在社会交往中，人们必须对自己的行为的执行和规范投入相当多的注意力，因此在对他人进行推断时往往处于“认知忙碌”状态。过去的研究表明，认知繁忙使人们暂时无法使用某些重要信息。尽管他们已经注意到、理解并将这些信息存储在记忆中。因此，认知繁忙的感知者特别容易对他人做出错误的推断（即所谓的“未纠正错误”）。当人们没有使用他们实际上已经掌握的信息时，就会出现“纠正不足”的错误；因此，错误应该是可逆的。本研究解决了关于欠校正误差可逆性的四个基本问题。首先，究竟是什么样的认知机制使错误得以逆转？第二，与自己做出错误推断的人未来互动的前景如何时而激活时而抑制这一机制？第三，是否存在使错误真正不可逆转的因素？最后，除了由于认知繁忙而导致的未纠正错误之外，还有其他不可逆的影响吗？社会心理学家认为，“纠正不足”是人们试图相互理解时最基本、最普遍的错误。这种错误常常成为人际和内部冲突的理由。群体冲突，对我们来说，学习如何纠正或消除它们是很重要的。本研究将阐明未校正误差逆转的机制，并将阐明促进或抑制这种逆转的情境因素。

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.