The annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society in Boston drew to a close on Sunday. Continuing on from last year, I again surveyed a few posters by junior researchers on Saturday evening. The choice of posters was arbitrary, rather than random, as I didn’t toss any coins or rolled any dice to determine whom to approach.

I interviewed the authors of the chosen posters by email to get a better sense of what the next generation of Psychonomes is up to and what they hope to achieve. Specifically, I asked the authors four questions:

1. What’s the punchline of your poster? What have we learned from it?

2. What did you enjoy the most about #Psynom16?

3. What would you change for future meetings (e.g. #Psynom17)?

4. Looking at the world right now, what do you think is the most important societal problem that Psychonomic research can help address?

Here are the posters and the responses from the first few authors who got back to me—I have more requests out and if they come in soon I may post an update. And please accept my apologies if you weren’t approached last Saturday: as I said, this sample was entirely arbitrary, and if you presented a poster and want to have it taken up on this blog, get in touch once you publish it in a Psychonomics journal.

The Cross-Race Effect in Eyewitness Identification: Reduced Discriminability Does Not Necessarily Imply Reduced Reliability. BRENT M. WILSON, KATHY VO and JOHN T. WIXTED, University of California, San Diego

Brent replied as follows:

1. What’s the punchline of your poster? What have we learned from it?

“The fact that same-race d’ is greater than cross-race d’ (the cross-race effect) does not answer the key applied question, which is: How reliable is a same-race ID compared to a cross-race ID? We found that despite a large cross-race effect, high-confidence same-race and cross-race IDs were both highly reliable.”

2. What did you enjoy the most about #Psynom16?

“I enjoyed discussing research questions with everyone who stopped by my poster. I also liked that we had more room for each poster than usual.”

3. What would you change for future meetings (e.g. #Psynom17)?

“I thought #Psynom16 went very well, and I can’t think of anything I would want changed in the future (besides not having talks I really want to attend be scheduled for 8:00 AM).”

4. Looking at the world right now, what do you think is the most important societal problem that Psychonomic research can help address?

“Psychonomic Society research (i.e., basic psychological science) is important for better understanding fundamental cognitive processes because those processes operate in the real world (not just in the lab). Eyewitness memory research is an important area that should be informed by decades of work in basic experimental psychology, but that has only recently begun to happen.”

Familiarity, but not Visual Complexity, Affects Letter Encoding in VWM. WILLIAM X. NGIAM, University of Sydney, PATRICK T. GOODBOURN, University of Melbourne

William replied as follows:

1. What’s the punchline of your poster? What have we learned from it?

“Encoding rate and capacity of visual working memory for letter stimuli is not influenced by perimetric complexity, an objective, quantitative estimate of visual complexity. However, the encoding rate and capacity was dramatically larger for familiar letter stimuli compared to unfamiliar letter stimuli.”

2. What did you enjoy the most about #Psynom16?

“I enjoyed learning about all the different approaches to answering current fundamental questions in my area of research, inspiring me to pursue my own research with more vigour!”

3. What would you change for future meetings (e.g. #Psynom17)?

“I would like to see the inclusion of a symposium on Open Science, discussing issues regarding open access to journals and to improving reproducibility in science. With all researchers gathered in the same spot, it is a good chance to refine the process of science and move experimental psychology research forward!”

4. Looking at the world right now, what do you think is the most important societal problem that Psychonomic research can help address?

“Anything that improves the presentation of information and the focus of attention, from shaping how education occurs in the classroom to ensuring new technologies facilitate, rather than distract from, everyday tasks.”

The Effects of Retention Interval and Repeated Lineups on Choosing and Identification Rate. WENBO LIN and HENRY L. ROEDIGER, III, Washington University in St. Louis

Wenbo responded as follows:

1. What’s the punchline of your poster? What have we learned from it?

“Repeated identifications increase people’s tendency to choose from a lineup regardless of whether the guilty suspect is in the lineup or not.”

2. What did you enjoy the most about #Psynom16?

“I really enjoyed the eyewitness identification talks.”

3. What would you change for future meetings (e.g. #Psynom17)?

(I don’t have an answer for this. I like it the way it is.)

4. Looking at the world right now, what do you think is the most important societal problem that Psychonomic research can help address?

“Eyewitness misidentification is a leading cause of wrongful convictions. I believe eyewitness research will help improve the accuracy of eyewitness identification procedures.”

Stand by for the sequel, imaginatively called #Psynom17 and set in Vancouver, Canada, with the same star cast of actors.