Causality assessment in epidemiology

Epidemiology relies upon a broad interpretation of determinism. This paper discusses analogies with the evolution of the concept of cause in physics, and analyzes the classical nine criteria proposed by Sir Austin Bradford Hill for causal assessment. Such criteria fall into the categories of enumerative induction, eliminative induction, deduction and analogy. All of these four categories are necessary for causal assessment and there is no natural hierarchy among them, although a deductive analysis of the study design is preliminary to any assessment.     

Telescoping in dating naturally occurring events

Telescoping effects in date estimation were examined in four diary studies. The data show that substantial telescoping can begin as soon as 8 weeks after an event occurs. These studies also found a slight, but typically nonreliable, tendency to make time expansion errors for recent events. Analyses of these data showed that telescoping cannot be attributed to the clarity-of-memory hypothesis proposed by Bradburn, Rips, and Shevell (1987) or to an artifact produced by guessing. An implicit strategy involving estimation of the number of intervening events was proposed to account for the results.     

Pessimism moderates negative emotional responses to naturally occurring stress

Repeated experiences with stress and negative emotion (NE) can decrease psychological and physical well-being. Ruminating on stressful events can further prolong NE responses, especially for those who are pessimistic. For three days participants (N = 68) reported hourly on their current stress, rumination, perceived control, and NE. Tests of mediation conducted using multilevel modeling suggested that rumination mediated same-time reports of stress on NE, and predicted perpetuation of NE over time. Tests of moderated mediation indicated that the pathways from previous stress to rumination, and from rumination to current NE were moderated by pessimism, but not optimism. Perception of control also accounted for some of the variability between concurrent stress and NE, though these associations were not affected by pessimism.     

Memory for emotional faces in naturally occurring dysphoria and induced sadness

The aim was to establish if the memory bias for sad faces, reported in clinically depressed patients (Gilboa-Schechtman, Erhard Weiss, & Jeczemien, 2002; Ridout, Astell, Reid, Glen, & O'Carroll, 2003) generalises to sub-clinical depression (dysphoria) and experimentally induced sadness. Study 1: dysphoric (n = 24) and non-dysphoric (n = 20) participants were presented with facial stimuli, asked to identify the emotion portrayed and then given a recognition memory test for these faces. At encoding, dysphoric participants (DP) exhibited impaired identification of sadness and neutral affect relative to the non-dysphoric group (ND). At memory testing, DP exhibited superior memory for sad faces relative to happy and neutral. They also exhibited enhanced memory for sad faces and impaired memory for happy relative to the ND. Study 2: non-depressed participants underwent a positive (n = 24) or negative (n = 24) mood induction (MI) and were assessed on the same tests as Study 1. At encoding, negative MI participants showed superior identification of sadness, relative to neutral affect and compared to the positive MI group. At memory testing, the negative MI group exhibited enhanced memory for the sad faces relative to happy or neutral and compared to the positive MI group. Conclusion: MCM bias for sad faces generalises from clinical depression to these sub-clinical affective states.     

God, Determinism, and Action: Perspectives from Physics

Recent articles by Michael Heller, Carl Helrich, Peter Hodgson, Jeffrey Koperski, and Nicholas Saunders present a challenge to much current thinking on God, divine action, and cosmology. In the process, they also reveal underlying assumptions and current problems, especially in the debate over physics and divine action. In particular, three issues come up that need to be addressed further. First, what is the status of determinism, and what can physics contribute? Second, what kind of divine action are we talking about? Third, what is the relationship between God and time, and how does this affect claims about the personhood of God? While these essays present necessary critiques and interesting, positive proposals, they also reveal unresolved tensions that need to be addressed.     

动态计算模型在组织行为学研究中的应用

动态计算模型是用数学语言进行理论描述的规范表达, 能够有效地解释理论与实证结果的冲突, 整合和发展理论, 非常适合研究复杂的、非线性的、非递归的组织行为问题, 但目前在组织行为学研究中的应用有限。本研究对基于主体的建模、系统动力学模型和元胞自动机模型等主要动态计算模型进行综述, 对已有引入动态计算模型的组织行为学研究主题、研究问题的类型及动态计算模型的实施等内容进行复杂网络分析及内容综述, 并指出动态计算模型能够帮助研究者开拓新的研究领域、改变组织行为研究的模式、继承和发展已有研究成果, 形成动态计算模型在组织行为学研究领域的应用手册。     

Insights into computational thinking from think-aloud interviews: A systematic review

This systematic review examines 35 empirical studies featuring the use of think-aloud interviews in computational thinking (CT) research. Findings show that think-aloud interviews (1) are typically conducted in Computer Science classrooms and with K-12 students; (2) are usually combined with other exploratory CT assessment tools; (3) have the potential to benefit learners with special needs and identify the competency gaps through involving diverse participants; (4) are conducted in the absence of cognitive models and standard procedures; and (5) display insufficient definitional and methodological rigor. Theoretically, this review presents a systematic assessment about the application of think-aloud interviews in CT studies and identifies the limitations in existing CT-related think-aloud studies. Practically, this review serves as a reference for studying the cognitive processes during CT problem-solving and provides suggestions for CT researchers who intend to incorporate think-aloud interviews in their studies.     

Ethnocultural identification and naturally occurring interethnic social interactions: Muslim minorities in Europe

This study examined relationships between ethnic identification and ethnic minority members' interactions with majority group members. Members of Muslim minority groups, ethnic Turks and Moroccans in the Netherlands and Chechens in Poland, described the social interactions they had for two weeks using a variant of the Rochester Interaction Record (RIR). They also completed measures of ethnocultural identification that distinguished involvement with and attachment to their ethnic minority culture and to the majority culture. Relationships between ethnic identification and contact with the majority group varied as a function of the dimension and source of identification and the aspect of interaction (quantity or quality) being considered. Across the samples, involvement with the ethnic minority culture was negatively related to the quantity of contact with majority group members, whereas emotional attachment to the majority culture was positively related to the quality of interactions with majority group members. Attachment to the ethnic minority culture was not related to either the quantity of interaction with majority group members or to the quality of these interactions. These results suggest that when studying interethnic contact, it is important to distinguish different dimensions and sources of ethnic identification and different aspects of interethnic contact. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Different forms of causation in dynamical systems: Determinism,pattern generation,and information

The standpoint that three fundamentally inequivalent classes of system behavior exist, which deserve separate tools for their characterization, is developed. These classes are: determinism, pattern generation, and information. A simple explanation for the origin of these classes is given. The three classes are shown to correspond to the different possible ways in which the properties of the components of a system unfold in the course of the system's processes. Determinism will be defined as a form of causation in which the properties causing the behavior are factually the same as the ones which for the observer specify the current conditions of the system. As a consequence, deterministic systems can be characterized by state equations that describe how the observable properties change. Pattern generation is characterized here as a form of causation in which the observable properties and the behavior‐generating properties correspond to each other as one to the many. Consequently, we experience in terms of the observable properties a branching behavior which is characterized by a pattern of selections at the branching points, a pattern that stands in close correspondence with the visually perceivable patterns and forms, generated by the system's dynamics. Information will be understood as a name for a process and an instance of causation where properties that cause behavior differ from those which we directly observe. The behavior of the system appears to be a consequence of the content of information hidden in the components. This information is, in turn, epistemologically equivalent to the very causal process in which it is unfolded.     

Capturing naturally occurring superior performance in the laboratory: translational research on expert performance

One of the central challenges to studying highly skilled performance in the laboratory is methodological. It is necessary to develop standardized methods that allow investigators to make experts repeatedly reproduce their superior performance in the laboratory. The recent increase in demand for translational research has raised related issues of how everyday phenomena, such as successful clinical treatments and expert achievement, can be reproduced in the laboratory and how laboratory studies of these phenomena can lead to successful interventions in everyday life. The expert-performance approach was developed as a framework for capturing, analyzing, and accounting for complex acquired skills and adaptations. Performance is initially captured and elicited in the laboratory using tasks representative of core activities in the domain. Process-tracing measures are employed to identify the mechanisms that mediate the reproducibly superior performance. Finally, the factors responsible for the development of the mediating mechanisms are studied by a retrospective analysis of training activities, such as deliberate practice, as well as genetic prerequisites. The principles and mechanisms discovered need then be validated using more traditional longitudinal and experimental designs.     

Deterministic Chaos and Computational Complexity: the Case of Methodological Complexity Reductions

Some problems rarely discussed in traditional philosophy of science are mentioned: The empirical sciences using mathematico-quantitative theoretical models are frequently confronted with several types of computational problems posing primarily methodological limitations on explanatory and prognostic matters. Such limitations may arise from the appearances of deterministic chaos and (too) high computational complexity in general. In many cases, however, scientists circumvent such limitations by utilizing reductional approximations or complexity reductions for intractable problem formulations, thus constructing new models which are computationally tractable. Such activities are compared with reduction types (more) established in philosophy of science. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

人际互动中社会学习的计算神经机制

人类在社会互动中通过他人的行为对他人特质、意图及特定情境下的社会规范进行学习, 是优化决策、维护积极社会互动的重要条件。近年来, 越来越多的研究通过结合计算模型与神经影像技术对社会学习的认知计算机制及其神经基础进行了深入考察。已有研究发现, 人类的社会学习过程能够较好地被强化学习模型与贝叶斯模型刻画, 主要涉及的认知计算过程包括主观期望、预期误差和不确定性的表征以及信息整合的过程。大脑对这些计算过程的执行主要涉及奖惩加工相关脑区(如腹侧纹状体与腹内侧前额叶)、社会认知加工相关脑区(如背内侧前额叶和颞顶联合区)及认知控制相关脑区(如背外侧前额叶)。需要指出的是, 计算过程与大脑区域之间并不是一一映射的关系, 提示未来研究可借助多变量分析与脑网络分析等技术从系统神经科学的角度来考察大尺度脑网络如何执行不同计算过程。此外, 将来研究应注重生态效度, 利用超扫描技术考察真实互动下的社会学习过程, 并更多地关注内隐社会学习的计算与神经机制。     

计算模型在道德认知研究中的应用

道德认知关注道德心理背后的信息加工。近年来, 研究者开始将计算模型应用于道德认知研究, 以探索道德认知如何在大脑中实现。但目前研究者对道德认知进行计算建模的研究处于起步阶段。计算模型(漂移扩散模型、效用模型、强化学习模型和分层高斯过筛器模型)在道德认知行为和生理研究上的运用量化了道德决策、道德判断和道德推理背后的认知过程和神经机制。此外, 这一新进展对理解反社会行为和精神障碍等有所助益。最后, 计算建模有待完善, 未来研究需要关注其潜在的问题。     

Finding the traces of behavioral and cognitive processes in big data and naturally occurring datasets

Today, people generate and store more data than ever before as they interact with both real and virtual environments. These digital traces of behavior and cognition offer cognitive scientists and psychologists an unprecedented opportunity to test theories outside the laboratory. Despite general excitement about big data and naturally occurring datasets among researchers, three “gaps” stand in the way of their wider adoption in theory-driven research: the imagination gap, the skills gap, and the culture gap. We outline an approach to bridging these three gaps while respecting our responsibilities to the public as participants in and consumers of the resulting research. To that end, we introduce Data on the Mind (http://www.dataonthemind.org), a community-focused initiative aimed at meeting the unprecedented challenges and opportunities of theory-driven research with big data and naturally occurring datasets. We argue that big data and naturally occurring datasets are most powerfully used to supplement—not supplant—traditional experimental paradigms in order to understand human behavior and cognition, and we highlight emerging ethical issues related to the collection, sharing, and use of these powerful datasets.     

Virtual personalities: Using computational modeling to understand within-person variability

How can the same underlying psychological/neurobiological system result in both stable between-individual differences and high levels of within-individual variability in personality states over time and situations? We argue that both types of variability result from a psychological system based on structured, chronic motivations, where behavior at a specific point in time is a joint function of the current availability of motive affordances in the situation, current motivationally relevant bodily or interoceptive states, and the result of the competition among alternative active motives. Here we present a biologically-based theoretical framework, embodied in two different computational models, that shows how individuals with stable personality characteristics, can nevertheless exhibit considerable within-person variability in personality states across time and situations.     

Atypical shape bias and categorization in autism: Evidence from children and computational simulations

The shape bias, a preference for mapping new word labels onto the shape rather than the color or texture of referents, has been postulated as a word‐learning mechanism. Previous research has shown deficits in the shape bias in children with autism even though they acquire sizeable lexicons. While previous explanations have suggested the atypical use of color for label extension in individuals with autism, we hypothesize an atypical mapping of novel labels to novel objects, regardless of the physical properties of the objects. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate this phenomenon in some individuals with autism, but the novelty of objects only partially explains their lack of shape bias. In a second experiment, we present a computational model that provides a developmental account of the shape bias in typically developing children and in those with autism. This model is based on theories of neurological dysfunctions in autism, and it integrates theoretical and empirical findings in the literature of categorization, word learning, and the shape bias. The model replicates the pattern of results of our first experiment and shows how individuals with autism are more likely to categorize experimental objects together on the basis of their novelty. It also provides insights into possible mechanisms by which children with autism learn new words, and why their word referents may be idiosyncratic. Our model highlights a developmental approach to autism that emphasizes deficient representations of categories underlying an impaired shape bias.