Information selectivity in decision making by younger and older adults

Past research has demonstrated that older adults are more likely than younger adults to exhibit information selectivity in decision making. Two alternative explanations have been proposed to account for this age difference. One explanation attributes the increase in information selectivity to older adults' reliance on prior knowledge, whereas the other explanation suggests that it reflects reduced information processing capacity. The aim of this research was to explore the latter explanation by controlling for experiential factors and varying the cognitive demands involved in decision making. Specifically, participants were faced with unfamiliar decision problems, and had to base their decisions on the available information in order to reach a desired goal. In Experiment 1 younger and older participants were required to play a game involving chance. The outcome payoff was varied between three conditions (approach, avoidance, and control). The results indicated that both the younger and the older participants based their decisions on payoff, though the older participants did so to a lesser extent. In Experiment 2 younger and older participants performed a similar decision task but with higher cognitive demands. Specifically, the decision‐making task included two dimensions of information, outcome probability and outcome payoff. The results showed that the younger participants based their decisions on probability and payoff whereas the older participants based their decisions on probability alone. In Experiment 3 younger and older participants made decisions in a sale context and received instructional cue to incorporate payoff information in their decisions. As before, the younger participants utilized probability and payoff, whereas the older participants based their decisions only on probability information. The findings are discussed in terms of age differences in information‐processing capacity, metacognition, motivation, and goal‐setting.     

ERP evidence for task modulations on face perceptual processing at different spatial scales

Does the perceptual processing of faces flexibly adapt to the requirements of the categorization task at hand, or does it operate independently of this cognitive context? Behavioral studies have shown that the fine and coarse spatial scales of a face are differentially processed depending on the categorization task performed, thus suggesting that the latter can influence stimulus perception. Here, we investigated the time course of these task influences on perceptual processing by examining the visual N170 face‐sensitive Event‐Related Potential (ERP), while observers categorized faces for their gender and familiarity. Stimuli were full spectrum, or filtered versions that preserved either coarse or fine scale information of the faces. Behavioral results replicated previous findings of a differential processing of coarse and fine spatial scales across tasks. In addition, the N170 amplitude was larger in the Gender task as compared to the Familiarity task for LSF faces exclusively, thus showing that task demands differentially modulated the spatial scale processing on faces. These results suggest that the diagnosticity of scale‐specific cues in categorization tasks can modulate face processing.     

The double‐edged sword of diversity: Toward a dual pathway model

Williams and O'Reilly (1998) published a seminal review of diversity research that has become a classic resource for researchers and practitioners alike. In the current review, we update the theoretical record by discussing traditional views of, as well as recent developments to, the 3 prominent frameworks used to understand diversity: social categorization, similarity‐attraction, and information and decision‐making. Furthermore, we propose a dual pathway model of diversity's effects that integrates all 3 frameworks. In our model, both positive and detrimental effects of diversity stem from processes of social categorization. Whereas these processes disrupt group functioning when intergroup bias is activated, when bias is not activated, we propose that social categorization and reduced attraction to dissimilar others will allow individuals in diverse rather than homogeneous groups to focus more on the task, anticipate differences in task‐relevant opinions and perspectives, and engage in more effortful information processing. Finding the balance is key.     

Measuring decision‐making competence in Chinese adults

In this study, we translated and localized the Adult Decision‐making Competence scale (A‐DMC) and tested its reliability and validity with large samples. Results show the Chinese A‐DMC has relatively good reliability (Cronbach's alpha above 0.6 and test–retest reliability coefficients ranging from 0.44 to 0.78 on all subscales), comparable with the original version. Regarding validity, results of exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis support the one‐factor model, indicating the A‐DMC has good internal consistency and construct validity. A‐DMC scores correlated positively with cognitive ability, constructive decision‐making styles, and good decision outcomes. Additionally, individuals with higher A‐DMC scores were found to perform better on the Cambridge gambling task and Iowa gambling task. These results confirm the validity of the Chinese version of the A‐DMC, which is suitable for measuring decision‐making competence in Chinese adults.     

建议采纳的认知机制

决策者的认知特点, 以及决策过程中建议者,任务特征,环境因素等都会影响决策者的认知加工, 并最终影响建议采纳.目前建议采纳过程中的认知研究主要集中于决策者方面, 本文通过总结以往研究, 从决策者的认知风格,社会认知复杂性,认知策略以及情绪对认知的影响等四个方面, 系统阐述了认知对建议采纳的影响.同时, 结合态度改变理论,解释水平理论,具身认知理论以及认知失调理论等进一步讨论了建议采纳的认知发生机制, 并在此基础上初步构建了建议采纳认知机制模型.未来研究可进一步探讨决策者的认知灵活性,认知闭合需要等对建议采纳的影响, 以及建议提出的认知机制, 以丰富建议采纳领域研究.     

认知风格影响归类过程中的神经活动-来自fMRI研究的证据

行为学研究表明归类过程中的反应具有认知风格上的不同,但未有研究明确探讨归类过程的神经活动是否也受认知风格的影响。本研究通过双重认知风格分型任务筛选出分析型和整体型被试,以探讨归类过程中二者之间是否表现出神经活动的差异。实验任务要求被试从两个待选物中选出与目标物属于同一类别的一个。同时,采用fMRI技术扫描并记录他们完成任务时的BOLD信号。结果发现,与基线任务相比,整体型和分析型个体均激活了额-枕网络的一些脑区,包括额下回、楔前叶、枕中回等,表明不同认知风格个体在任务中可能共享与工作记忆等相关的脑区。另外,与分析型个体相比,整体型个体在右额下回、右旁海马回呈现更广泛的特异性激活,提示,认知风格可以影响归类过程中的脑活动,而整体型个体大脑右半球更强烈的活动表明这一类型认知风格个体在归类时更依赖于远距离的语义联结。     

The Impact of Asymmetric Partial Feedback on Response‐Bias

For many decisions we make, we are more likely to receive feedback about some outcomes than about others, and thus we must operate under conditions of asymmetric partial feedback. In this paper, we examine the effects of asymmetric partial feedback on decision making across three experiments. Experiment 1 examines the effects of four partial feedback schedules on decision making in a single‐attribute auditory detection task. Experiment 2 examines these same schedules in the context of a simulated experiment in which virtual participants perform a multi‐attribute choice task. Experiment 3 then examines effects of one partial feedback schedule representative of a real‐world decision‐making domain (personnel selection) using an ecologically informed multi‐attribute choice task. All three experiments reveal that asymmetric partial feedback primarily impacts on response‐bias, a parameter of signal detection theory. These findings can be explained in terms of decision makers' attempts to maximize accuracy and the fact that shifts in response‐bias will, under partial feedback, produce misleading impressions of greater accuracy. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An eye‐tracking study on information processing in risky decisions: Evidence for compensatory strategies based on automatic processes

Many everyday decisions have to be made under risk and can be interpreted as choices between gambles with different outcomes that are realized with specific probabilities. The underlying cognitive processes were investigated by testing six sets of hypotheses concerning choices, decision times, and information search derived from cumulative prospect theory, decision field theory, priority heuristic and parallel constraint satisfaction models. Our participants completed 40 decision tasks of two gambles with two non‐negative outcomes each. Information search was recorded using eye‐tracking technology. Results for choices, decision time, the amount of information searched for, fixation durations, the direction of the information search, and the distribution of fixations conflict with the prediction of the non‐compensatory priority heuristic and indicate that individuals use compensatory strategies. Choice proportions are well in line with the predictions of cumulative prospect theory. Process measures indicate that individuals thereby do not rely on deliberate calculations of weighted sums. Information integration processes seem to be better explained by models that partially rely on automatic processes such as decision field theory or parallel constraint satisfaction models. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Synergistic Information Processing Encrypts Strategic Reasoning in Poker

There is a tendency in decision‐making research to treat uncertainty only as a problem to be overcome. But it is also a feature that can be leveraged, particularly in social interaction. Comparing the behavior of profitable and unprofitable poker players, we reveal a strategic use of information processing that keeps decision makers unpredictable. To win at poker, a player must exploit public signals from others. But using public inputs makes it easier for an observer to reconstruct that player's strategy and predict his or her behavior. How should players trade off between exploiting profitable opportunities and remaining unexploitable themselves? Using a recent multivariate approach to information theoretic data analysis and 1.75 million hands of online two‐player No‐Limit Texas Hold'em, we find that the important difference between winning and losing players is not in the amount of information they process, but how they process it. In particular, winning players are better at integrative information processing—creating new information from the interaction between their cards and their opponents’ signals. We argue that integrative information processing does not just produce better decisions, it makes decision‐making harder for others to reverse engineer, as an expert poker player's cards act like the private key in public‐key cryptography. Poker players encrypt their reasoning with the way they process information. The encryption function of integrative information processing makes it possible for players to exploit others while remaining unexploitable. By recognizing the act of information processing as a strategic behavior in its own right, we offer a detailed account of how experts use endemic uncertainty to conceal their intentions in high‐stakes competitive environments, and we highlight new opportunities between cognitive science, information theory, and game theory.     

Decision rules in the perception and categorization of multidimensional stimuli

This article examines decision processes in the perception and categorization of stimuli constructed from one or more components. First, a general perceptual theory is used to formally characterize large classes of existing decision models according to the type of decision boundary they predict in a multidimensional perceptual space. A new experimental paradigm is developed that makes it possible to accurately estimate a subject's decision boundary in a categorization task. Three experiments using this paradigm are reported. Three conclusions stand out: (a) Subjects adopted deterministic decision rules, that is, for a given location in the perceptual space, most subjects always gave the same response; (b) subjects used decision rules that were nearly optimal; and (c) the only constraint on the type of decision bound that subjects used was the amount of cognitive capacity it required to implement. Subjects were not constrained to make independent decisions on each component or to attend to the distance to each prototype.     

The Impact of Stimuli Color in Lexical Decision and Semantic Word Categorization Tasks

In two experiments, we examined the impact of color on cognitive performance by asking participants to categorize stimuli presented in three different colors: red, green, and gray (baseline). Participants were either asked to categorize the meaning of words as related to the concepts of “go” or “stop” (Experiment 1) or to indicate if a neutral verbal stimulus was a word or not (lexical decision task, Experiment 2). Overall, we observed performance facilitation in response to go stimuli presented in green (vs. red or gray) and performance inhibition in response to go stimuli presented in red. The opposite pattern was observed for stop‐related stimuli. Importantly, results also indicated that color might also be used to categorize neutral stimuli. Overall, these findings provide support to the green‐go and red‐stop color associations and test the potential functional autonomy acquired by these colors and the boundary conditions to their effects on stimuli categorization.     

The impact of contextual information and a secondary task on anticipation performance: An interpretation using cognitive load theory

When performing under severe time constraints, sports performers use kinematic and contextual information to facilitate anticipation. We examined the relative importance of these two information sources and their impact on cognitive load and anticipation performance. Cognitive load theory predicts that adding more information sources to a task will increase cognitive load in less‐skilled but not skilled performers. Skilled and less‐skilled cricket batters anticipated deliveries from bowlers on a life‐size screen under 4 conditions that manipulated access to contextual information and included a secondary task. The presence of context enhanced anticipation accuracy for both skilled and less‐skilled groups, without affecting cognitive load. Skilled performers used sequencing and game‐related contextual information in addition to kinematic information to facilitate anticipation, whereas both groups reported using information pertaining to opponent positioning. Findings highlight the importance of context in anticipation and suggest that the addition of context may not necessarily negatively impact cognitive load.     

Infant temperament and information processing in a visual categorization task

This study investigates the relation between temperament and information processing in 7-month-old infants. Infant temperament was assessed on multiple dimensions, using mothers' ratings on the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ). Information processing was measured during a paired-comparison visual categorization task. Infants (N=50) were familiarized with five different pairs of visual stimuli from one category, followed by two test trials, each contrasting a novel familiar-category item with a novel out-of-category item (animals vs. vehicles). Drop-out rate in this task was within a normal range (21%). No differences in temperament were found between completers and non-completers, but high reactivity to novelty and low motor activity were positively correlated with the strength of infants' familiarization response. Group comparisons between infants scoring high and low on these two dimensions of temperament confirmed this general finding: infants high on distress to novelty and low on motor activity showed stronger familiarization responses. Furthermore, infants scoring low on motor activity showed a stronger categorization response than highly active infants. This study provides evidence that performance in a cognitive categorization task and dimensions of infant temperament are systematically related during the second half of the first year of life. Implications for cognitive research with infants of this age-range will be discussed.     

Unsupervised categorization with a child sample: category cohesion development

Studies into categorization have demonstrated that the ability to form concepts is an essential ability in cognitive development. For example, before a decision about anything can be made, firstly category concepts need to be acquired in order to make efficient decisions about that situation. The present study explored a particular type of category learning, not previously explored in this particular context – unsupervised categorization with 16 items and two dimensions, and comparing specifically children vs. adults. Previous studies have typically focused on simpler designs such as three items of two dimensions in the triad tasks, or a greater number of dimensions but with much fewer items per category in other unsupervised settings. This study investigated unsupervised categorization with two levels of task difficulty, and compared two different populations, children and adults. The findings revealed that adults performed better for the easy condition but there was no difference between these groups for the more difficult category task. The findings also revealed that unsupervised categorization in more complex settings result in more one dimensional sorting, for both children and adults. The results are discussed in the context of unsupervised categorization development abilities in children.     

Modeling the Dynamics of Risky Choice

Individuals make decisions under uncertainty every day. Decisions are based on incomplete information concerning the potential outcome or the predicted likelihood with which events occur. In addition, individuals' choices often deviate from the rational or mathematically objective solution. Accordingly, the dynamics of human decision making are difficult to capture using conventional, linear mathematical models. Here, we present data from a 2-choice task with variable risk between sure loss and risky loss to illustrate how a simple nonlinear dynamical system can be employed to capture the dynamics of human decision making under uncertainty (i.e., multistability, bifurcations). We test the feasibility of this model quantitatively and demonstrate how the model can account for up to 86% of the observed choice behavior. The implications of using dynamical models for explaining the nonlinear complexities of human decision making are discussed as well as the degree to which the theory of nonlinear dynamical systems might offer an alternative framework for understanding human decision making processes.     

A Self‐Categorization Explanation for Opinion Consensus Perceptions

The public expression of opinions (and related communicative activities) hinges upon the perception of opinion consensus. Current explanations for opinion consensus perceptions typically focus on egocentric and other biases, rather than functional cognitions. Using self‐categorization theory we showed that opinion consensus perceptions flow from cognitions regarding the fit between issues and group prototypes. Strong normative fit enhanced perceptions of ingroup opinion consensus (Experiments 1 and 2), and consensus perceptions varied as a function of comparison outgroups (Experiment 3), ingroup prototype salience (Experiment 4), and levels of identity threat (Experiment 5). Self‐categorization theory has the potential to integrate a variety of cognitive and motivational processes to provide a comprehensive explanation for opinion consensus perceptions.     

The role of collaborative planning in children's source-monitoring errors and learning.

The aim of this research was to provide empirical evidence for a cognitive process that may contribute to children's learning from another person. A cornerstone of Vygotsky's sociocultural theory is that knowledge is internalized from others; however, the cognitive processes that support this transformation are underspecified. In a series of three studies, kindergarten children (mean age 5 years 8 months) participated in a categorization task with an adult in several collaborative and noncollaborative conditions and then were tested on their memory of who had performed which actions in the task. After the memory task, children were asked to recategorize the items on their own. Source-monitoring patterns and children's learning varied across conditions according to predictions. A measure of recoding was related to children's planning language that, in turn, predicted learning among the children. The results suggest that one process that contributes to children's internalization of knowledge may involve recoding of agent information and that recoding can be indexed by source-monitoring performance.     

交叉分类及其对刻板印象的影响

社会分类(分类)是群体认知和印象评价的依据, 交叉分类作为一种认知过程, 是指在知觉或评价他人时, 同时在两个或多个类别维度上进行社会分类, 形成在多个类别维度上内外群体身份的交叉。研究发现交叉分类既可以降低刻板印象, 也可以增强刻板印象。对此, 类别化视角的解释强调群体身份的作用, 而个体化视角的解释强调多重类别背景下去类别化的作用。现有的研究在如何理解并考察这一影响的不同方向上仍存在分歧, 同时, 也未能认识到刻板印象对于个体认知与认同的意义, 存在明显不足。今后的研究应重点探讨类别化视角的动机与认知过程, 个体化视角的优势类别与加工方式, 以及以自我归类为基础的整合。     

Use of evidence in a categorization task: analytic and holistic processing modes

Category learning performance can be influenced by many contextual factors, but the effects of these factors are not the same for all learners. The present study suggests that these differences can be due to the different ways evidence is used, according to two main basic modalities of processing information, analytically or holistically. In order to test the impact of the information provided, an inductive rule-based task was designed, in which feature salience and comparison informativeness between examples of two categories were manipulated during the learning phases, by introducing and progressively reducing some perceptual biases. To gather data on processing modalities, we devised the Active Feature Composition task, a production task that does not require classifying new items but reproducing them by combining features. At the end, an explicit rating task was performed, which entailed assessing the accuracy of a set of possible categorization rules. A combined analysis of the data collected with these two different tests enabled profiling participants in regard to the kind of processing modality, the structure of representations and the quality of categorial judgments. Results showed that despite the fact that the information provided was the same for all participants, those who adopted analytic processing better exploited evidence and performed more accurately, whereas with holistic processing categorization is perfectly possible but inaccurate. Finally, the cognitive implications of the proposed procedure, with regard to involved processes and representations, are discussed.