Examining memory of risk information on medical exposure: An experimental study using recognition test on the web site

A recognition test was conducted to 520 participants in order to investigate the memories of those who received risk information concerning radiation through a Web experiment. We examined what factors might affect the accuracy and the robustness of memones for nsk information related to medical exposure, by which we may obtain basic knowledge that will contnbute to nsk communication. The effects on the state of memories were discussed from three viewpoints such as the signal detection theory, the influence of the contents that the nsk information carries, and the individual differences in the psychological information processing. Results of the recognition test showed that the participants gave more False Alarms to the distractor items than they did Conect Rejects, and that these phenomena were more likely to occur for numeracy information than for mechanical information. Furthermore, the multiple regression analyses revealed that the motivation for scientific understanding facilitated the accuracy of memones, and that the need for safety-clanfication suppressed the accuracy of memories. Our results suggest that in risk communication it is important to provide receivers mainly with the information on the mechanism and to consider their individual differences in information processing as well.