Group vs individual information processing: The effects of outcome feedback on decision making

Recent theories of individual decision making have emphasized the role of environmental feedback on decision performance and confidence. However, in relation to group decision making, feedback has received only minor attention. This study compared individual and group decision performance and confidence on a multicue personnel decision task under three different feedback conditions. Individuals and five-person groups decided whether to promote 48 different job candidates, and rated how confident they were in each of their decisions. Feedback as to the correctness of their decisions was provided after (a) every decision (Total Feedback), (b) only those decisions to promote the candidate (Partial Feedback), or (c) after none of the decisions (No Feedback). Results indicated that groups performed best under total feedback, while individuals performed best under partial feedback. In addition, greater amounts of feedback reduced individuals' confidence but had little effect on group member confidence. Implications for both current theory in decision making and group vs individual information processing are discussed.     

领导–下属心理资本一致性对周边绩效的影响——工作关系与私人关系的中介作用

本文基于相似吸引理论,考察了领导–下属心理资本一致性能否影响双方的工作关系(领导–下属交换,LMX)和私人关系(领导–下属关系,SSG),继而塑造下属的周边绩效。采用多项式回归和响应面分析技术,对164份领导–下属配对数据进行分析,结果表明：领导–下属心理资本越一致,双方的LMX和SSG越高;在一致情形下,与“低–低一致”相比,”高–高一致”时的LMX和SSG更高。领导–下属心理资本一致性通过LMX、SSG影响下属的周边绩效。以上结果能为如何有效利用心理资本管理领导–下属的人际互动、下属周边绩效提供启发。     

The effect of the psychopathy checklist – revised in capital cases: Mock jurors' responses to the label of psychopathy

Despite mixed empirical evidence regarding the ability of the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL‐R) to predict violence among incarcerated inmates, it continues to be used to address such questions, even in the context of capital cases. The purpose of this study was to examine if the PCL‐R has a prejudicial effect on mock jury members during the sentencing phase of a capital murder trial. Results indicated that participants were more likely to sentence the defendant to death when the defendant exhibited a high likelihood to commit future violence, whether or not the diagnostic label “psychopath” was present. Interestingly, when asked to rate the defendant's likelihood for future violence and murder, the defendant who was a high risk for future violence and not labeled a psychopath received the highest rating. These results suggest an absence of juror bias as it pertains to the label “psychopath” when sentencing a defendant in a capital murder case. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

行为决策中的描述–经验差距:信息加工角度的解释

选项信息获取过程会影响决策,描述–经验差距简称D-E差距,是指个体进行决策时根据概括性描述信息得到的结果与依据序列体验信息的经验得到的结果之间的差异。文章以认知因素在决策范式演进过程中的角色为线索,梳理了D-E差距的提出及最新的研究发现。参考决策认知过程框架从信息加工角度探讨D-E差距影响因素,从整体上解释D-E差距的原因。未来需要从全面对比两种决策范式,改进经验决策研究方法等角度进行深入探讨。     

Cultural and linguistic factors in audiovisual speech processing: The McGurk effect in Chinese subjects

The “McGurk effect” demonstrates that visual (lip-read) information is used during speech perception even when it is discrepant with auditory information. While this has been established as a robust effect in subjects from Western cultures, our own earlier results had suggested that Japanese subjects use visual information much less than American subjects do (Sekiyama & Tohkura, 1993). The present study examined whether Chinese subjects would also show a reduced McGurk effect due to their cultural similarities with the Japanese. The subjects were 14 native speakers of Chinese living in Japan. Stimuli consisted of 10 syllables (/ba/, /pa/, /ma/, /wa/, /da/, /ta/, /na/, /ga/, /ka/, /ra/ ) pronounced by two speakers, one Japanese and one American. Each auditory syllable was dubbed onto every visual syllable within one speaker, resulting in 100 audiovisual stimuli in each language. The subjects’ main task was to report what they thought they had heard while looking at and listening to the speaker while the stimuli were being uttered. Compared with previous results obtained with American subjects, the Chinese subjects showed a weaker McGurk effect. The results also showed that the magnitude of the McGurk effect depends on the length of time the Chinese subjects had lived in Japan. Factors that foster and alter the Chinese subjects’ reliance on auditory information are discussed.     

The effect of sadness on global-local processing

Gable and Harmon-Jones (Psychological Science, 21(2), 211-215, 2010) reported that sadness broadens attention in a global-local letter task. This finding provided the key test for their motivational intensity account, which states that the level of spatial processing is not determined by emotional valence, but by motivational intensity. However, their finding is at odds with several other studies, showing no effect, or even a narrowing effect of sadness on attention. This paper reports two attempts to replicate the broadening effect of sadness on attention. Both experiments used a global-local letter task, but differed in terms of emotion induction: Experiment 1 used the same pictures as Gable and Harmon-Jones, taken from the IAPS dataset; Experiment 2 used a sad video underlaid with sad music. Results showed a sadness-specific global advantage in the error rates, but not in the reaction times. The same null results were also found in a South-Asian sample in both experiments, showing that effects on global/local processing were not influenced by a culturally related processing bias.     

The effect of saccades on number processing

Recent research has shown that saccadic eye movements interfere with dorsal-stream tasks such as judgments of object orientation, but not with ventral-stream tasks such as object recognition. Because saccade programming and execution also rely on the dorsal stream, it has been hypothesized that cognitive saccadic suppression occurs as a result of dual-task interference within the dorsal stream. Judging whether one number is larger or smaller than another (magnitude comparison) is a dorsal-stream task that relies especially on the right parietal cortex. In contrast, judging whether a number is odd or even (parity judgment) does not involve the dorsal stream. In the present study, one group of subjects judged whether two-digit numbers were greater than or less than 65, whereas another group judged whether two-digit numbers were odd or even. Subjects in both groups made these judgments while making no, short, or long saccades. Saccade distance had no effect on parity judgments, but reaction times to make magnitude comparison judgments increased with saccade distance when the eyes moved from right to left. Because the right parietal cortex is instrumental in generating leftward saccades, these results provide further evidence for the hypothesis that cognitive suppression during saccades occurs as a result of dual-task interference within the dorsal stream.     

个体自信度对双人决策的影响

群体决策是重要的社会现象, 个体自信度在群体决策中发挥了重要作用。本文开展了不同难度和信息交流方式下的双人决策实验, 通过分析自信度和个体决策以及决策调整行为的关系, 研究了个体自信度的交流对双人决策的影响。实验结果表明, 个体的自信度与选择的正确率高度正相关; 双人决策过程是个体根据对方的自信度和选择来不断调整自己的选择最终达成一致的过程, 并通过交互过程提高双人决策的正确率; 实验中双人决策的质量明显优于“自信度分享模型”和“更自信者主导决策模型”的预期结果, 表明群体决策不是通过分享自信度进行的贝叶斯优化整合过程, 也不是由更自信的个体完全主导的过程。     

The effect of accountability on susceptibility to decision errors

Recent research indicates that accountability can influence both what and how people think and might reduce decision makers' susceptibility to a variety of common judgment and choice errors. It is proposed that accountability can reduce decision errors if (1) decision makers are able to anticipate which response will be evaluated as more rational, and without concerns about accountability decision makers tend to select a different response, or (2) the normatively correct response can be identified by the more thorough and complex information processing associated with accountability. Consistent with the first proposition, four experiments demonstrated that accountability can reduce the sunk cost effect. The findings suggest that this debiasing effect reflects the subjects' expectation that they would be evaluated more favorably if they ignored sunk costs. Contrary to the second proposition, the prediction that accountable decision makers, due to their more thorough and multidimensional processing, would exhibit more consistent preferences across preference elicitation procedures was not supported in two studies. Finally, as hypothesized, accountability did not reduce a variety of decision errors for which the correct response was not known and was unlikely to be identified with more thorough information processing. These results are consistent with the notion that accountability effects in decision making are driven by the desire to be favorably evaluated and avoid criticism by others.     

The effect of visual signals on spatial decision making

We examined the effect of an irrelevant visual transient on the decision where to look for a hidden object. Participants also performed a conventional ‘inhibition of return’ localization task. In Experiments 1 and 2 the two tasks were blocked and in Experiments 3 and 4 they were randomly interleaved. In every experiment there was a bias to select the cued location in the spatial decision task. This facilitory effect was greatest when the cue occurred at a strategically unfavored location and even occurred for participants who reported strategically selecting a non-cued location, indicating that the facilitory effect is automatic and independent of other strategic biases. Inhibition of return was observed only when the tasks were blocked and the localization task preceded the decision task. The findings suggests that spatial decisions engage different attentional control settings than those engaged when detecting visual transients; and that this attentional mode affects the processing of visual transients such that they do not inhibit the subsequent speeded detection of onset targets.     

The effect of familiarity on the processing of fragmented figures

The processing of fragmented figures was investigated in a same-different reaction time task with pairs of intact and pairs of fragmented alphabet letters. The effect of fragmentation was significantly larger for pairs of letters rotated into an unfamiliar orientation than for pairs of normally oriented letters. Since this significant interaction was obtained for subjects emphasizing a structural mode of processing (Hock, 1973), it was concluded that familiarity had a direct effect on the structural/ organizational processing of the fragmented figures.     

任务设置影响负相容效应的机制——自上而下认知控制对阈下启动信息加工的影响

结合掩蔽启动范式和Go-Nogo范式,考察了任务设置影响负相容效应的机制。实验中以指向左或右的双箭头为掩蔽启动项,在两个Block中的Go试次中分别以箭头和汉字为目标项,要求被试对箭头或汉字做辨别反应,Nogo试次中不呈现目标项,被试无需反应。结果发现:Go试次中,只有在箭头任务设置下才出现负相容效应,脑电结果表现为一致条件下P3潜伏期显著长于不一致条件;Nogo试次中,箭头任务设置下的P3波幅显著大于汉字任务设置下的P3波幅。说明负相容效应受到任务设置这种自上而下认知控制过程的影响,且这种影响发生在阈下启动信息加工阶段。支持注意敏化模型,提示可以在更普遍的角度上理解负相容效应。     

The effect of context on the processing of type-shifting verbs

Recent research in lexical semantics has suggested that verbs such as begin and enjoy semantically select for a complement that denotes an activity or an event. When no such activity or event is specified in the form of a progressive or infinitival complement, as in John began (to read/reading) the book, the verb is said to "coerce" the NP direct object to shift its role to encompass the activity that begin requires as complement (e.g., writing, reading). Empirical support for this view has been provided by McElree, Traxler, Pickering, Seely, & Jackendoff (2001). In the present study, however, in two self-paced reading experiments, type-shifting effects (taken to be longer reading times engendered by the computation of the coercion process) were not obtained with sentences in isolation (Experiment 1) or with sentences embedded in contexts that specified the nature of the activity performed over the complement NP (Experiment 2). It is argued that type-shifting verbs are similar to non-preferred verbs for given contexts and that type-shifting operations are pragmatic inferences computed over underspecified semantic representations.     

The factors underlying the decision to text while driving

Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), this study looked at the motivations and reasons behind the behaviour of texting while driving. Following an elicitation study, 150 participants completed a questionnaire measuring self-efficacy and moral norms in addition to traditional TPB variables. Texting while driving was found to be a common behaviour although prevalence varied between age groups. While the youngest age group were more likely to have ever sent a text message while driving, those aged 35–44 years old were most likely to have read a message while driving and to intend to text while driving in the future. Moral norms had the strongest significant correlation with intentions to text while driving. Similar to past research the traditional TPB variables explained significant variance in intentions to perform the behaviour. To be fully effective, future campaigns and interventions to reduce the behaviour are advised to focus on the moral aspect of the behaviour and the beliefs that it saves time and prevents boredom. The setting of campaigns or interventions and the mode of delivery should also be considered. Efforts to deter the behaviour should be aimed at those of all ages and not just younger drivers.     

The deterrent effect of capital punishment during the 1950s

This investigation examines the deterrence hypothesis of an inverse relationship between state execution rates and homicides. Although this question has received some attention in recent studies, the findings of these investigations are mixed. Cross-sectional analyses of states have typically shown execution and homicide rates to be positively associated, while at least two national time-series studies report support for the deterrence hypothesis. To test whether these divergent findings are result of the two different methodologies employed (cross-sectional vs. time-series), a methodology that combines the strengths of each is used in the present study. For the period 1950 to 1960, we examine cross-sectionally for states the relationship between changes in execution rates and changes in murder rates. This analysis does not find support for the deterrence argument for the certainty of the death penalty when a number of models of the execution rate--murder rate relationship are considered, and when a variety of imprisonment and socio-demographic factors are considered as control variables.     

The effect of face orientation on holistic processing

Holistic processing, a hallmark of face processing, can be measured by the composite face effect: adults have difficulty recognising the top half of a face when it is aligned with a new bottom half, unless holistic processing is disrupted by misaligning the two halves. Like the recognition of facial identity, holistic processing is impaired when faces are inverted. To obtain a more refined measure of the influence of orientation on holistic face processing, we administered the composite face task to adults at each of seven orientations. In both experiment 1 (in which orientations were randomly intermixed) and experiment 2 (in which orientations were blocked), the composite face effect decreased linearly with rotation. We conclude that holistic processing is tuned to upright faces, diminishes as faces deviate from upright, and becomes insignificant once faces reach a sideways orientation. We propose a hierarchical model of face perception in which linear decreases in holistic processing underlie qualitative shifts in other aspects of face perception.     

Motivated information processing and group decision-making: Effects of process accountability on information processing and decision quality

Integrating dual-process models [Chaiken, S., & Trope, Y. (Eds.). (1999). Dual-process theories in social psychology. NewYork: Guilford Press] with work on information sharing and group decision-making [Stasser, G., & Titus, W. (1985). Pooling of unshared information in group decision making: biased information sampling during discussion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1467-1478.], we predicted that groups with high epistemic motivation engage in more information-driven and less preference-driven interaction, and achieve better decisions. An experiment manipulating process accountability showed that groups under process accountability experienced greater need for more information, repeated unshared information more often, and more often chose the correct decision alternative. Mediation analysis established that epistemic motivation produced high quality decisions because it stimulated systematic information processing. Results also revealed that preference heterogeneity stimulated information-driven interaction and led to higher decision quality.     

The effect of orientation on number word processing

Besner and Coltheart [Besner, D., & Coltheart, M. (1979). Ideographic and alphabetic processing in skilled reading of English. Neuropsychologia, 17, 467-472] found a size congruity effect for Arabic numbers but not for number words. They proposed that Arabic numbers and number words are processed in different ways. However, in their study orientation of the stimuli and notation were confounded. In the present study, it is found that orientation of number words affects numerical processing. Orientation modulates both the size congruity effect and the distance effect; horizontal presentation produces similar results to those produced by Arabic numbers whereas vertical orientation produces different results. Accordingly, it is proposed that our cognitive system is endowed with two different mechanisms for numerical processing; one relies on a visual-spatial code and the other on a verbal code.