Using network science to analyze concept maps of psychology undergraduates

Network science is an emerging area of complexity science that uses mathematical techniques to study complex systems and could represent a new way of quantifying and investigating the internal structure of domain‐specific knowledge as approximated by students' concept maps. Students enrolled in introductory psychology constructed concept maps to represent their understanding of a psychology chapter. Concept networks were constructed based on the concept maps generated by students. Network analysis revealed that the structure of concept networks differed across students (i.e., some networks were better connected than others), and network structure significantly predicted quiz scores, such that concept networks with larger average shortest path lengths (a network metric representing the average of the shortest paths between two nodes in a network) were associated with higher quiz scores, after controlling for network size. This paper illustrates how network science techniques can be used to quantify the conceptual structure of a learner's knowledge.     

Knowing Who Knows: Laypersons' Capabilities to Judge Experts' Pertinence for Science Topics

Because modern societies are built on elaborate divisions of cognitive labor, individuals remain laypersons in most knowledge domains. Hence, they have to rely on others' expertise when deciding on many science‐related issues in private and public life. Even children already locate and discern expertise in the minds of others (e.g., Danovitch & Keil, 2004). This study examines how far university students accurately judge experts' pertinence for science topics even when they lack proficient knowledge of the domain. Participants judged the pertinence of experts from diverse disciplines based on the experts' assumed contributions to texts adapted from original articles from Science and Nature. Subjective pertinence judgments were calibrated by comparing them with bibliometrics of the original articles. Furthermore, participants' general science knowledge was controlled. Results showed that participants made well‐calibrated pertinence judgments regardless of their level of general science knowledge.     

Complexity as a guide to understanding decision bias: A contribution to the favorite‐longshot bias debate

This paper investigates the origins of a widespread decision bias in betting markets, the favorite‐longshot bias (FLB); in particular, whether it is caused by cognitive errors on the part of bettors or by the pricing policies of bookmakers. The methodology is based on previous literature, which has suggested that: (i) races, as decision tasks for bettors, can be distinguished by their degree of complexity and their attractiveness to those with access to privileged information (insiders), (ii) cognitive errors increase as complexity increases, and (iii) bookmakers set odds in a manner to protect themselves from insiders. The degree of FLB was examined in races of varying complexity and attractiveness to insiders using a dataset of 8545 races drawn from the parallel bookmaker and pari‐mutuel markets operating in the UK in 2004. The results, interpreted in the light of the cognitive error and complexity literature, suggest that neither bettors' nor bookmakers' cognitive errors are the main cause of the bias. Rather, bettors' preferences for risk and the deliberate pricing policies of bookmakers play key roles in influencing the bias in markets where bookmakers and pari‐mutuel operators coexist. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cultural differences in the primacy effect for person perception

Previous work has shown there are robust differences in how North Americans and East Asians form impressions of people. The present research examines whether the tendency to weigh initial information more heavily—the primacy effect—may be another component of these cultural differences. Specifically, we tested whether Americans would be more likely to use first impressions to guide person perception, compared to Japanese participants. In this experiment, participants read a vignette that described a target person's behaviour, then rated the target's personality. Before reading the vignette, some trait information was given to create an expectation about the target's personality. The data revealed that Americans used this initial information to guide their judgments of the target, whereas the Japanese sample based their judgments on all the information more evenly. Thus, Americans showed a stronger primacy effect in their impression formation than Japanese participants, who engaged in more data‐driven processing.     

Competent Adolescent Readers’ Use of Internet Reading Strategies: A Think-Aloud Study

The purpose of this study was to investigate the type, pattern, and complexity of Internet reading strategies used by seven accomplished high school readers. Individual participants performed an academic Internet reading task with the goal of developing critical questions about their chosen controversial topic. Strategies for Internet reading were analyzed from the perspective of constructively responsive reading, both qualitatively and quantitatively, using participant-generated verbal reports complemented by recordings of their computer screens. The data described the nature and sequence of reading strategies that participants used to construct meaning, and the interplay of those multiple strategies in Internet settings. The results demonstrated that the participants’ Internet reading involved the iteration and modification of traditional print-based reading strategies (e.g., meaning-making, self-monitoring, information evaluation) and also the use of strategies characteristic of Internet settings (e.g., text location). Implications of the study's findings on Internet reading strategy use for theory and research are discussed.     

Visual Political Communication: The Impact of Facial Cues from Social Constituencies to Personal Pocketbooks

Voters often use visual cues such as facial appearance when forming impressions of political candidates. Originally, psychological research on appearance‐based politics focused on understanding whether or not these facial cues were consequential for political judgments. As this sub‐field of study has expanded, the focus has shifted to understanding how and what facial cues voters utilize in their decision‐making. From this perspective, inferences about political candidates are characterized by a number of interrelated appearance‐based cues such as facial competence, physical attractiveness, and ingrained gender stereotypes that manifest in politicians' appearance. Importantly, this expanded research focus now includes a broader range of evaluative judgments that are influenced by candidates' facial appearance. Here, we provide an overview of the research on the use of appearance‐based cues in political decision‐making including initial information gathered about candidates, the evaluation of candidates' potential to be effective leaders, and the decision of whether or not to support candidates in an election.     

No decision‐maker is an Island: integrating expert advice with information acquisition

The present research examined the social context of information acquisition. The main purpose was to examine how decision‐makers' information acquisition processes changed when they were provided access to expert advice. Results indicated that all decision‐makers opted to acquire advice; however, they typically did so only after completing over 75% of their own information search. Decision‐makers agreed more with the advice as task complexity increased, but, in general, searched information in two stages—i.e., a pre‐advice “hypothesis generation” stage and a post‐advice “hypothesis testing” stage. To behave in an adaptive manner, decision‐makers could have used expert advice either to increase their decision accuracy or to reduce their effort expenditure (or both); they chose the former. Implications and further extensions are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How do investors make predictions? Insights from analogical reasoning research

Previous work on investor decision making has focused almost exclusively on information specific to the company being judged. Consequently, every decision is viewed as a novel event, disconnected from the investor's existing knowledge. In this study, the analogical reasoning literature provides the theoretical support for arguing that investors frequently utilize existing knowledge as a basis for generating predictions about a company's future. The specific proposal is that investors transfer their existing knowledge via two different forms of analogical reasoning. The first, relational reasoning, is based primarily on structural correspondence between a novel company and an existing schema. The second, literal similarity reasoning, is based primarily on surface correspondence of a novel company and a previously encountered company. Our theoretical framework is tested in a study in which experienced investors predict the outcome of a novel company's strategy after reading about the experiences of other companies who implemented a similar strategy. The results are consistent with the occurrence of both relational and literal similarity reasoning, with relational reasoning emerging as the dominant approach to generating investors' predictions. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Awareness of the origin of knowledge predicts child witnesses' recall of alleged sexual and physical abuse

Children who understand that knowledge may have different origins produce more information in their free‐recall accounts than children who are less aware of source. We examined whether the tendency to make knowledge attributions was related to the number and proportion of details elicited from child witnesses using open‐ended invitations and whether this relationship varied depending on the number of incidents of abuse reported. The tendency to make knowledge attributions was measured in the presubstantive portion of protocol‐guided interviews with 3‐ to 11‐year‐old alleged victims of abuse. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the production of knowledge attribution details was positively related to the proportion of substantive episodic details produced by 3‐ to 6‐year‐olds recalling a single incident and by 3‐ to 11‐year‐olds recalling multiple incidents of abuse. Presubstantive source details were also positively correlated with the amount of source information recalled about incidents of abuse. These findings remained significant after controlling for the children's verbosity, the relative prominence of open‐ended invitations, and the children's ages. © 2003 US Government work.     

Reading morphologically complex clause structures in Finnish

The study examined how morphologically complex clause constructions were processed during reading Finnish. Readers' eye fixation patterns were recorded when they read two alternative versions of the same linguistic construction, a morphologically complex converb construction and its less complex subclause counterpart. The complexity of the converb construction is apparent in the construction being marked by less perceivable bound morphemes, which make the clause subject and predicate morphologically more complex and more dense in information. Experiment 1 showed that more complex converb constructions produced longer gaze durations than the length- and frequency-matched subclause constructions. Experiment 2 showed that the complexity effect is reversed when the more complex clause form was clearly more common in the language than its less complex counterpart. It is concluded that both structural complexity and structural frequency influence the ease with which linguistic expressions are processed during reading.     

Assessing children's inference generation: What do tests of reading comprehension measure?

Background. Previous research suggests that children with specific comprehension difficulties have problems with the generation of inferences. This raises important questions as to whether poor comprehenders have poor comprehension skills generally, or whether their problems are confined to specific inference types. Aims. The main aims of the study were (a) using two commonly used tests of reading comprehension to classify the questions requiring the generation of inferences, and (b) to investigate the relative performance of skilled and less‐skilled comprehenders on questions tapping different inference types. Sample. The performance of 10 poor comprehenders (mean age 110.06 months) was compared with the performance of 10 normal readers (mean age 112.78 months) on two tests of reading comprehension. Method. A qualitative analysis of the NARA II (form 1) and the WORD comprehension subtest was carried out. Participants were then administered the NARA II, WORD comprehension subtest and a test of non‐word reading. Results. The NARA II was heavily reliant on the generation of knowledge‐based inferences, while the WORD comprehension subtest was biased towards the retention of literal information. Children identified by the NARA II as having comprehension difficulties performed in the normal range on the WORD comprehension subtests. Further, children with comprehension difficulties performed poorly on questions requiring the generation of knowledge‐based and elaborative inferences. However, they were able to answer questions requiring attention to literal information or use of cohesive devices at a level comparable to normal readers. Conclusions. Different reading tests tap different types of inferencing skills. Less‐skilled comprehenders have particular difficulty applying real‐world knowledge to a text during reading, and this has implications for the formulation of effective intervention strategies.     

When the Rule is Ruled Out: Exemplars and Rules in Decisions from Memory

What are the cognitive processes underlying people's decisions from memory? Previous research suggests that these processes can be best described by strategies that are based on abstract knowledge about the decision task (e.g., cue–criterion relations). However, recent results show that different cue presentation formats trigger the use of different decision strategies and that exemplar‐based strategies can account for memory‐based decisions as well. In three experiments, this effect was replicated, and mediation analyses identified the quality of the underlying knowledge representation as the critical variable that determines decision behavior. This supports the view that exemplar‐based reasoning is used as a backup system if cue abstraction is hindered. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Persistence of Erroneous Information in Memory: The Effect of Valence on the Acceptance of Corrected Information

People often have difficulty changing previously held, but erroneous, beliefs. This finding is particularly worrisome in politics where misinformation is regularly distributed about political candidates. We examined whether initial inferences about a fictional political candidate could be corrected, and whether people's willingness to accept a correction was influenced by the valence of the information being corrected. Participants read a list of statements describing a politician running for re‐election in which a negative, positive or neutral piece of information about the politician was later corrected. Results showed that receiving a correction reduced reliance on the original information for all types of information: positive, negative and neutral. Results also showed that participants tended to rely on negative information the most when answering inference questions, regardless of whether it was corrected or not. Results have implications for decision‐making in politics and other applied areas.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Age differences in financial decision making: The benefits of more experience and less negative emotions

The emerging literature on aging and decision making posits that decision‐making competence changes with age, as a result of age differences in various cognitive and noncognitive individual‐differences characteristics. In a national life‐span sample from the United Kingdom (N = 926), we examined age differences in financial decisions, including performance measures of sunk cost and credit card repayment decisions, and self‐report measures of money management and financial decision outcomes. Participants also completed four individual‐differences characteristics that have been proposed as relevant to financial decision making, including two cognitive ones (numeracy and experience‐based knowledge) and two noncognitive ones (negative emotions about financial decisions). First, we examined how age was related to the four financial decision‐making measures and the four individual‐differences characteristics. Older age was correlated to better scores on each of the four financial decision‐making measures, more experience‐based knowledge, less negative emotions about financial decisions, whereas numeracy and motivation were not significantly correlated with age. Second, we found that considering both the two cognitive and the two noncognitive individual‐differences characteristics increased predictions of financial decision making, as compared with considering either alone. Third, we examined how these four individual‐differences characteristics contributed to age differences in financial decision making. Older adults' higher levels of experience‐based knowledge and lower levels of negative emotions seemed to especially benefit their financial decision making. We discuss implications for theories on aging and decision making, as well as for interventions targeting financial decisions.     

Down the Garden Path: The Role of Conditional Inference Processes in Self‐Persuasion

In a controlled experiment, information format and prior knowledge of risk‐related decision attributes altered the response to decision conflict produced by negatively correlated attributes (NCA) in choice under uncertainty. When dominated choice alternatives were presented in a format in which the displayed attributes were not negatively correlated, decision makers used a simple choice process based on the displayed information. This allowed them to detect the dominated alternatives, regardless of their prior knowledge. However, when the same alternatives were presented in a format in which the displayed attributes were negatively correlated, the more‐knowledgeable decision makers used a compensatory choice process based on the displayed attributes and, consequently, missed the dominated alternatives. The less‐knowledgeable participants, who were unable to use the displayed attributes because of their lack of expertise, calculated the nondisplayed attributes and detected the dominated alternatives. With NCA, the more‐knowledgeable participants followed a conflict‐resolution strategy using the displayed NCAs, whereas the less‐knowledgeable individuals followed a conflict‐avoidance strategy using the uncorrelated, nondisplayed attributes that inadvertently revealed the dominance structure of the decision. The implications of person factors for the effects of NCA and in other types of decisions with NCA are discussed.     

The quality of caregiving in child care: relations to teacher complexity of thinking and perceived supportiveness of the work environment

This study examined the relationship between the complexity of thinking about children by child care teachers and observed teachers' caregiving for infants and toddlers. It was hypothesized that the perceived supportiveness of the work environment would affect this relationship. Fifty‐six child care teachers completed a survey assessing complexity of thinking about children's behaviour as well as a measure of the perceived opportunities for professional development. Teachers' quality of caregiving was assessed using the Caregiver Interaction Scale. Planned contrasts revealed that when professional development opportunities were perceived unfavourably, teachers who were complex in thinking about children's behaviour provided significantly more sensitive care than did teachers who were less complex in their thinking. Findings indicate that the complexity of teachers' thinking about children may be very important in understanding teacher's sensitivity when the quality of the work environment is poor. High‐quality work environments may buffer teachers with less complexity of thinking from being less sensitive with children. Efforts to improve quality of care could focus on individual teachers to improve their complexity of thinking as well as on the work environment to make it more supportive of teachers' professional development. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How Word Familiarity Facilitates Visual Search for Verbal Material

Two experiments assessed the impact of word familiarity on visual search for phrases. Participants' eye movements were recorded while they memorized target phrases and then searched for them within more or less similar phrases. The phrases were written with either familiar or unfamiliar, neuroscience‐specific vocabulary. Most participants did not search for the target by reading lines in a systematic way but scanned the first words of phrases to identify those beginning with the same words as the target. Visual search for unfamiliar target phrases was associated with an increase in the number of non‐target phrases that were scanned. The only search phase during which fixation durations depended on word familiarity was the final recognition of the target phrase. Hence, the data support a model of search within menu‐like displays in which searchers primarily rely on fast, visual match mechanisms and engage in reading‐like processing only during the critical decision‐making phase. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parents’ early book reading to children: Relation to children's later language and literacy outcomes controlling for other parent language input

It is widely believed that reading to preschool children promotes their language and literacy skills. Yet, whether early parent–child book reading is an index of generally rich linguistic input or a unique predictor of later outcomes remains unclear. To address this question, we asked whether naturally occurring parent–child book reading interactions between 1 and 2.5 years‐of‐age predict elementary school language and literacy outcomes, controlling for the quantity of other talk parents provide their children, family socioeconomic status, and children's own early language skill. We find that the quantity of parent–child book reading interactions predicts children's later receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension, and internal motivation to read (but not decoding, external motivation to read, or math skill), controlling for these other factors. Importantly, we also find that parent language that occurs during book reading interactions is more sophisticated than parent language outside book reading interactions in terms of vocabulary diversity and syntactic complexity.