Perception of randomness and predicting uncertain events

Using randomly generated sequences of binary events we asked participants to make predictions about the next event. It turned out that while predicting uncertain events, people do not behave unsystematically. Our research identifies four types of relatively consistent strategies for predicting uncertain binary events: a strategy immune to short-run sequential dependencies consisting of the persistent prediction of long-run majority events, hereafter called the long-run momentum strategy; a strategy immune to short-run sequential dependencies consisting of the persistent prediction of long-run minority events, called the long-run contrarian strategy; a strategy sensitive to short-run sequential dependencies consisting of the prediction of short-run majority events, called the short-run momentum strategy; and a strategy sensitive to short-run sequential dependencies consisting of the prediction of short-run minority events, called the short-run contrarian strategy. When the character of events remains unknown, the most common strategy is the short-run momentum strategy. With the increase of a perceived randomness of the situation, people tend more often to use the short-run contrarian strategy. People differ in their general beliefs about the continuation or reversal of a trend in various natural and social processes. Trend believers, when facing sequences of binary events commonly perceived as random, tend to use momentum strategies, whereas those who believe in the trend's reversal tend to use contrarian strategies.     

热手谬误？赌徒谬误？ ——随机序列知觉中近因效应的格式塔现象研究

通过两个实验来探讨随机序列中的近因效应。在实验1中,采用传统实验范式,让被试进行一系列的抛掷硬币结果的猜测并给予反馈,结果发现：（1）在最近连续几次硬币呈现的结果不同时,人们通常把各个结果分别作为独立的单元来看待,大部分情况下做出随机性的预期;（2）在最近连续几次硬币呈现的结果相同时,人们通常把连续几次相同的结果作为一个认知单元来看待,在最近猜测对错两种情况下分别出现了截然相反的两种近因效应。当最近1次猜对时,对下一结果的预期出现正近因效应即热手谬误,但是最近几次连续猜对时谬误减少乃至消失;当最近1次猜错时,对下一结果的预期出现负近因效应即赌徒谬误,并且最近几次连续猜错时负近因效应并未受到太大影响。实验2在实验1范式的基础上,把硬币抛掷的结果人为分组,发现被试对每一组的第一个结果做出预期时,实验1中的各种效应均消失,该现象支持关于随机序列知觉的“格式塔理论”。     

Sympathetic magic and perceptions of randomness: The hot hand versus the gambler's fallacy

The gambler's fallacy and hot hand were studied in predictions about outcomes of coin tosses. A critical trial occurred when participants made predictions after a “run” of four heads or tails. Participants' attention was manipulated to focus on the person flipping the coin, the coin, or neither (control group) as a possible cause of the run. We also manipulated whether or not there was a change in who tossed the coin. In the control condition the standard reversal was observed (gambler's fallacy); however, when participants focused on the person, and it was that same person who conducted the run and critical coin toss, more people chose in the direction of continuation (hot hand). Directing attention to the person tossing the run seemed to prompt participants to behave as if that individual was “hot” in terms of getting a specific outcome (e.g., heads), as if by sympathetic magic, thus eliminating the gambler's fallacy.     

Heuristics as beliefs and as behaviors: the adaptiveness of the "hot hand"

and analyzed reasoning by asking: what are the reasoner's goals? This emphasizes the adaptiveness of behavior rather than whether a belief is normative. Belief in the "hot hand" in basketball suggests that players experiencing streaks should be given more shots, but this has been seen as a fallacy due to failure to find dependencies between players' shots. Based on their findings, I demonstrate by Markov modeling and simulation that streaks are valid allocation cues for deciding who to give shots to, because this behavior achieves the team goal of scoring more. Empirically I show that this adaptive heuristic is supported by the fallacious belief in dependency, more so as skill level increases. I extend the theoretical analysis to identify general conditions under which following streaks should be beneficial. Overall, this approach illustrates the advantages of analyzing reasoning in terms of adaptiveness.     

Computational models inform clinical science and assessment: An application to category learning in striatal-damaged patients

In this article we develop a new model of classification that is intermediate between the static, single strategy decision-bound models and the dynamic trial by trial multiple systems model, dCOVIS. The new model, referred to as the sCOVIS model, assumes hypothesis-testing and procedural-based subsystems are active on each trial, but that the parameters that govern behavior of the system are fixed (static) within a block of trials. To determine the clinical utility of the model, it was applied to nonlinear information-integration classification data from patients with Parkinson’s (PD) and Huntington’s disease (HD). In one application, the models suggest that the locus of HD patients’ nonlinear information-integration deficits is in their increased reliance on hypothesis-testing strategies, whereas the locus of PD patients’ deficit is in the application of sub-optimal procedural-based strategies. In a second application, the weight associated with the hypothesis-testing subsystem is shown to account for a significant amount of the variance in longitudinal cognitive decline in non-demented PD patients above and beyond that predicted by accuracy alone. Together, the accuracy rate and this model index account for 72% of the total variance associated with cognitive decline in this sample of PD patients. Interestingly, the Wisconsin Card Sort task added no additional predictive power above and beyond that predicted by nonlinear accuracy alone.     

The effect of spatial and nonspatial contextual information on visual object memory

Recent research has found visual object memory can be stored as part of a larger scene representation rather than independently of scene context. The present study examined how spatial and nonspatial contextual information modulate visual object memory. Two experiments tested participants’ visual memory by using a change detection task in which a target object's orientation was either the same as it appeared during initial viewing or changed. In addition, we examined the effect of spatial and nonspatial contextual manipulations on change detection performance. The results revealed that visual object representations can be maintained reliably after viewing arrays of objects. Moreover, change detection performance was significantly higher when either spatial or nonspatial contextual information remained the same in the test image. We concluded that while processing complex visual stimuli such as object arrays, visual object memory can be stored as part of a comprehensive scene representation, and both spatial and nonspatial contextual changes modulate visual memory retrieval and comparison.     

Sleep loss and change detection in driving scenes

Driver sleepiness is a significant road safety problem. Sleep-related crashes occur on both urban and rural roads, yet to date driver-sleepiness research has focused on understanding impairment in rural and motorway driving. The ability to detect changes is an attention and awareness skill vital for everyday safe driving. Previous research has demonstrated that person states, such as age or motivation, influence susceptibility to change blindness (i.e., failure or delay in detecting changes). The current work considers whether sleepiness increases the likelihood of change blindness within urban and rural driving contexts. Twenty fully-licenced drivers completed a change detection ‘flicker’ task twice in a counterbalanced design: once following a normal night of sleep (7–8 h) and once following sleep restriction (5 h). Change detection accuracy and response time were recorded while eye movements were continuously tracked. Accuracy was not significantly affected by sleep loss; however, following sleep loss there was some evidence of slowed change detection responses to urban images, but faster responses for rural images. Visual scanning across the images remained consistent between sleep conditions, resulting in no difference in the probability of fixating on the change target. Overall, the results suggest that sleep loss has minimal impact on change detection accuracy and visual scanning for changes in driving scenes. However, a subtle difference in response time to change detection between urban and rural images indicates that change blindness may have implications for sleep-related crashes in more visually complex urban environments. Further research is needed to confirm this finding.     

Culture and change blindness

Research on perception and cognition suggests that whereas East Asians view the world holistically, attending to the entire field and relations among objects, Westerners view the world analytically, focusing on the attributes of salient objects. These propositions were examined in the change-blindness paradigm. Research in that paradigm finds American participants to be more sensitive to changes in focal objects than to changes in the periphery or context. We anticipated that this would be less true for East Asians and that they would be more sensitive to context changes than would Americans. We presented participants with still photos and with animated vignettes having changes in focal object information and contextual information. Compared to Americans, East Asians were more sensitive to contextual changes than to focal object changes. These results suggest that there can be cultural variation in what may seem to be basic perceptual processes.     

自我客体化对女性心理健康的影响及其机制

性客体化理论从社会文化的角度, 解释了女性的性别角色社会化和性客体化经历是怎样影响并转化为心理健康问题的。自我客体化的女性, 从第三者的角度把自己的身体看作物体, 持续监视自己的身体, 并与社会理想体型对比产生差距, 便形成了身体羞耻、焦虑、“心流”体验的减少及身体内部感知的迟钝, 最终导致进食障碍、抑郁、性功能障碍和物质滥用等心理健康问题。近年来已有大量研究验证了女性自我客体化与这些心理健康问题之间的关系及形成机制, 并取得了丰硕成果。未来研究应关注实验群体的多样化, 相关设计和实验研究相结合来探究两者之间的因果关系, 同时运用脑科学技术探究其认知神经机制。另外还要从预防和干预的角度对女性自我客体化展开研究。     

Hallucinations and REM sleep behaviour disorder in Parkinson's disease: dream imagery intrusions and other hypotheses

REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD) is a REM sleep-related parasomnia which may be considered a “dissociated state of wakefulness and sleep”, given that conflicting elements of REM sleep (dreaming) and of wakefulness (sustained muscle tone and movements) coexist during the episodes, leading to motor and behavioural manifestations reminiscent of an enacted dream. RBD has been reported in association with α-synucleinopathies: around a third of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have full-blown RBD.Recent data indicate that PD patients with RBD are more prone to hallucinations than PD patients without this parasomnia. However it is still not clear why RBD in PD is associated with an increased prevalence of VHs.Data exist which suggest that visual hallucinations in PD may be the result of untimely intrusions of REM visual imagery into wakefulness. RBD, which is characterised by a REM sleep dissociation pattern, might be a condition that particularly favours such intrusions. However, other hypotheses may be advanced. In fact, deficits in attentional, executive, visuoperceptual and visuospatial abilities have been documented in RBD and found to occur far more frequently in PD with RBD than in PD without RBD. Neuropsychological deficits involving visual perception and attentional processes are thought to play an important role in the pathophysiology of VHs. On this basis, RBD in PD could be viewed as a contributory risk factor for VHs.     

基于多维题组反应模型的项目功能差异检验探究

本文将多维题组反应模型（MTRM）应用到多维题组测验的项目功能差异（DIF）检验中,通过模拟研究和应用研究探究MTRM在DIF检验中的准确性、有效性和影响因素,并与忽略题组效应的多维随机系数多项Logistic模型（MRCMLM）进行对比。结果表明：（1）随着样本量的增大,MTRM对有效DIF值检出率增高,错误率降低,在不同条件下结果的稳定性更高;（2）与MRCMLM相比,基于MTRM的DIF检验模型检验率更高,受到其他因素的影响更小;（3）当测验中题组效应较小时,MTRM与MRCMLM结果差异较小,但是MTRM模型拟合度更高。     

热手谬误和赌徒谬误心理机制研究述评

在知觉随机序列时,人们倾向于把序列中实际上各自独立的相邻结果看作是存在正相关或负相关的,而出现热手谬误或赌徒谬误,又称为随机序列中的正负近因效应。有关这两谬误最早的心理机制的探索中,Kahneman 和Tversky采用局部代表性启发法对此进行了解释。但是这种解释也存在诸多不足,因此近期的一些模型（因果模型、Urn模型、记忆模型、适应模型和两阶段格式塔模型）分别从不同角度对两种谬误提出了新的解释。最后文章指出研究方法、神经机制、个体差异以及生活中的应用是该领域研究的几个未来发展方向     

The situated person: Effects of construct accessibility on situation construals and interpersonal perception

Three studies examined the interrelationship between primed constructs, situation construal, and person perception. Previous research on priming and person perception has generally neglected the situational context. We predicted that when rich situational information is included, primed constructs can lead to assimilation effects on situation construals, which can in turn lead to contrast effects in person perceptions. Study 1 demonstrated that when situation information is included in the experimental context, primes lead to contrast in person perceptions. Study 2, employing a subliminal methodology, demonstrated that these effects could not be accounted for via previous explanations of contrast effects, such as correction-based mechanisms, that require overt recognition of the priming stimuli by the participants. Study 3 demonstrated that the contrastive effects of the priming stimuli on person perception obtained in Studies 1 and 2 are in fact due to the intervening assimilative effects of the priming stimuli on situation construal—that is, the primed constructs led to contrast effects on perceptions of the actor via their assimilative effects on perceptions of the situation in which that actor was embedded. Additionally, moderator variables demonstrated that this effect is most pronounced when the target actor’s behavior is described as relatively unambiguous or situation focus is increased.     

Relations between nonverbal intelligence and personality reports in late childhood

We investigated relations between children’s personality and their nonverbal intelligence.Simple correlations showed that children’s intelligence was positively associated with self-reported benevolence levels and with parental reports on their conscientiousness and imagination levels. Regression analyses revealed a more complex association pattern, with intelligence/personality correlations being moderated by the variables of child and parent gender. Results also yielded a lower personality domain overlap for children with higher IQ, in agreement with the differentiation hypothesis.     

The relationship between the three components of commitment and employee performance in China

This study examined the relationship between the three components of organizational commitment and performance, defined as in-role performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), using a sample of 253 supervisor-subordinate dyads from the People’s Republic of China. Results showed that affective commitment (AC) related positively to in-role performance and OCB, while continuance commitment (CC) was not associated with in-role performance but negatively correlated with OCB. In addition, normative commitment (NC) moderated the relationship between AC and in-role performance as well as OCB. The linear relationship between AC and in-role performance/OCB was stronger for those with lower NC. Limitations of the study, directions for future research, and implications of the findings are discussed.     

Semantic dementia and persisting Wernicke's aphasia: linguistic and anatomical profiles

Few studies have directly compared the clinical and anatomical characteristics of patients with progressive aphasia to those of patients with aphasia caused by stroke. In the current study we examined fluent forms of aphasia in these two groups, specifically semantic dementia (SD) and persisting Wernicke’s aphasia (WA) due to stroke. We compared 10 patients with SD to 10 age- and education-matched patients with WA in three language domains: language comprehension (single words and sentences), spontaneous speech and visual semantics. Neuroanatomical involvement was analyzed using disease-specific image analysis techniques: voxel-based morphometry (VBM) for patients with SD and overlays of lesion digitized lesion reconstructions in patients with WA. Patients with SD and WA were both impaired on tasks that involved visual semantics, but patients with SD were less impaired in spontaneous speech and sentence comprehension. The anatomical findings showed that different regions were most affected in the two disorders: the left anterior temporal lobe in SD and the left posterior middle temporal gyrus in chronic WA. This study highlights that the two syndromes classically associated with language comprehension deficits in aphasia due to stroke and neurodegenerative disease are clinically distinct, most likely due to distinct distributions of damage in the temporal lobe.     

Personality,reciprocity, and strength of conflict resolution strategy

The present field study investigates how an individual’s interpersonal conflict resolution behavior is affected by the individual’s personality (assessed by the Big 5) and a situational factor (the other party’s conflict behavior), as well as how the two factors interact. A hierarchical regression analysis based on 256 student–roommate/friend dyads shows that both factors are important. Extraversion and Agreeableness were significantly related to most conflict strategies used by students. The results show that interactions between the parties in conflict situations are strongly governed by the norm of reciprocity. Finally, we found some empirical support for the interaction effect between personality and situation, suggesting that an individual’s conflict behavior is more complex than what the dispositional or the situational view may suggest.     

Enhancing job satisfaction perspectives: Combining Holland themes and basic interests

Investigations addressing the match between vocational interests and satisfaction have emphasized higher-order dimensions (e.g., Holland themes) and specific occupational scales. Although support exists at these levels of analysis for the hypothesis that congruence between interests and work environments yields satisfaction, limitations of these perspectives frequently result in small effect sizes or inconclusive results. This study examined the capacity of content scales of the 2005 Strong Interest Inventory, including the General Occupational Themes (GOTs) and Basic Interest Scales (BISs), in predicting job satisfaction across 22 samples comprising 9647 working adults. Hypothesized multivariate sets of content scales, and predicted individual GOTs and BISs demonstrated significant group differences. Sequential discriminant function analyses demonstrated that sets of hypothesized BISs significantly distinguished between satisfied and dissatisfied workers beyond the six Holland themes in 17 of the 22 occupational samples. The authors discuss practical implications of interpreting BISs to augment Holland themes related to job satisfaction.     

The free and cued selective reminding test for predicting progression to Alzheimer's disease in patients with mild cognitive impairment: A prospective longitudinal study

Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) patients carry a greater risk of conversion to Alzheimer's disease (AD). Therefore, the International Working Group (IWG) on AD aims to consider some cases of aMCI as symptomatic prodromal AD. The core diagnostic marker of AD is a significant and progressive memory deficit, and the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test (FCSRT) was recommended by the IWG to test memory in cases of possible prodromal AD. This study aims to investigate whether the performance on the FCSRT would enhance the ability to predict conversion to AD in an aMCI group. A longitudinal study was conducted on 88 aMCI patients, and neuropsychological tests were analysed on the relative risk of conversion to AD. During follow‐up (23.82 months), 33% of the aMCI population converted to AD. An impaired FCSRT TR was significantly associated with the risk of conversion to dementia, with a mean time to conversion of 25 months. The FCSRT demonstrates utility for detecting AD at its prodromal stage, thus supporting its use as a valid clinical marker.     

The effects of clinical motor variables and medication dosage on working memory in Parkinson’s disease

In this study, we investigate the interrelationship between clinical variables and working memory (WM) in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Specifically, the aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between disease duration, dopaminergic medication dosage, and motor disability (UPDRS score) with WM in individuals with PD. Accordingly, we recruited three groups of subjects: unmedicated PD patients, medicated PD patients, and healthy controls. All subjects were tested on three WM tasks: short-delay WM, long-delay WM, and the n-back task. Further, PD encompasses a spectrum that can be classified either into akinesia/rigidity or resting tremor as the predominant motor presentation of the disease. In addition to studying medication effects, we tested WM performance in tremor-dominant and akinesia-dominant patients. We further correlated WM performance with disease duration and medication dosage. We found no difference between medicated and unmedicated patients in the short-delay WM task, but medicated patients outperformed unmedicated patients in the long-delay WM and n-back tasks. Interestingly, we also found that akinesia-dominant patients were more impaired than tremor-dominant patients at various WM measures, which is in agreement with prior studies of the relationship between akinesia symptom and basal ganglia dysfunction. Moreover, the results show that disease duration inversely correlates with more demanding WM tasks (long-delay WM and n-back tasks), but medication dosage positively correlates with demanding WM performance. In sum, our results show that WM impairment in PD patients depend on cognitive domain (simple vs. demanding WM task), subtype of PD patients (tremor- vs. akinesia-dominant), as well as disease duration and medication dosage. Our results have implications for the interrelationship between motor and cognitive processes in PD, and for understanding the role of cognitive training in treating motor symptoms in PD.