Previous research shows that posing many questions about an event may lead to asking questions about unwitnessed details and that people sometimes provide substantive and erroneous answers to them. Therefore, two experiments investigated the role of the problem-solving and judgment processes, which are unrelated to memory access, in improving responding to unanswerable questions. Experiment 1 compared the effects of a brief retrieval training with the effects of an instruction to increase the criterion of reporting. As expected, the two manipulations had different effects on participants' answers, which demonstrates that training can do more than just instigate more cautious responding. However, we found evidence against our prediction that an enhancement in metacognitive ability underlies improved responding after training. Experiment 2 investigated, for the first time, the role of constant awareness that questions can be unanswerable and that such questions should be rejected. We compared the effects of training with the effects of a small change in response format that ensured such awareness. The effects of the two manipulations were similar, which supports our prediction that the constant awareness of unanswerable questions is a key factor behind improved responding. Practical implications for the eyewitness memory domain are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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“未提及”：使用检索指令改进对无法回答的问题的回答。

先前的研究表明，对一个事件提出许多问题可能会导致对未目击的细节提出问题，并且人们有时会提供实质性和错误的答案。因此，两个实验研究了与记忆访问无关的问题解决和判断过程在提高对无法回答的问题的反应中的作用。实验 1 比较了简短检索训练的效果与提高报告标准的指令的效果。正如预期的那样，这两种操作对参与者的回答产生了不同的影响，这表明培训不仅可以激发更谨慎的反应，还可以做更多的事情。然而，我们发现了与我们的预测相反的证据，即元认知能力的增强是训练后响应改善的基础。实验 2 首次调查了持续意识到问题可能无法回答以及应该拒绝此类问题的作用。我们将培训的效果与确保这种意识的响应格式的微小变化的效果进行了比较。两种操作的效果相似，这支持了我们的预测，即不断意识到无法回答的问题是改善响应的关键因素。讨论了目击者记忆域的实际意义。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。两种操作的效果相似，这支持了我们的预测，即不断意识到无法回答的问题是改善响应的关键因素。讨论了目击者记忆域的实际意义。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。两种操作的效果相似，这支持了我们的预测，即不断意识到无法回答的问题是改善响应的关键因素。讨论了目击者记忆域的实际意义。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2023 APA，保留所有权利）。