Reconciling Compensatory and Noncompensatory Strategies of Cue Weighting: A Causal Model Approach

When forming a judgment about any unknown item, people must draw inferences from information that is already known. This paper examines causal relationships between cues as a relevant factor influencing how people determine the amount of weight to place on each piece of available evidence. We propose that people draw from their beliefs about specific causal relationships between cues when determining how much weight to place on those cues, and that understanding this process can help reconcile differences between predictions of compensatory and lexicographic heuristic strategies. As causal relationships change, different cues become more or less important. Across three experiments, we find support for the use of causal models in determining cue weights, but leave open the possibility that they work in concert with other strategies as well. We conclude by discussing relative strengths and weaknesses of the causal model approach relative to existing models, and suggest areas for future research. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Individual Restraint and Group Efficiency in Commons Dilemmas: The Effects of Two Types of Environmental Uncertainty1

In most real-world commons, the exact resource quantity is rarely known, and the rate at which the resource regenerates is not always predictable. Annual salmon runs, for example, are based on breeding rates and many other factors; those fishing never know exactly how many fish will be available for next year's season. The present study employed a computerized commons dilemma simulation to investigate the impact of uncertainty in pool size and regeneration rate on individuals harvest choice and the efficiency with which groups managed the resource pool. Both types of uncertainty produced significant declines in individual restraint and group efficiency, although the group-level effects tended to be stronger than those at the individual level. Implications for the management of real-world commons are discussed.     

Interoceptive Cue Exposure for Depersonalization: A Case Series

Cognitive-behavioral treatment for panic disorder relies heavily on interoceptive exposure. Specifically, therapists induce physical symptoms associated with panic in order to produce habituation to those sensations. Many common symptoms of panic are easily induced, such as increased heart rate and dizziness. However, depersonalization is a difficult symptom to induce in the office. Three uncontrolled cases are presented here where a novel intervention, the use of 3D glasses, was used to successfully induce depersonalization with positive effect. The application of the procedure resulted in rapid habituation within session, and all three patients had significant reductions in panic following treatment. Additional research is necessary to examine the application of this, and other, novel methods for inducing depersonalization as part of a comprehensive approach to treating panic and other psychiatric conditions where depersonalization is present.     

Volunteer Behavior: A Hierarchical Model Approach for Investigating Its Trait and Functional Motive Antecedents

We investigated the antecedents of volunteer behavior within a hierarchical model of motivation and personality. In Study 1, we developed measures of altruism and volunteer orientation and combined them with three additional traits to predict a set of volunteer behaviors. In Studies 2 and 3, we added six functional motives for volunteering identified by Clary et al. (1998) to the model. Across the 3 studies, the traits of altruism, the need for activity, and the need for learning were consistent predictors of volunteer orientation. In Studies 2 and 3, the measure of volunteer orientation was a significant predictor of the functional motives and of volunteer behaviors. Furthermore, the motive to help others was positively related to volunteering behaviors, and the motive of self‐enhancement was negatively related to them. Overall, the results support the proposal that functional motives act like motivated reasons for acting and reside at the surface level in a hierarchical model of personality.     

Distributional Information: A Powerful Cue for Acquiring Syntactic Categories

Many theorists have dismissed a priori the idea that distributional information could play a significant role in syntactic category acquisition. We demonstrate empirically that such information provides a powerful cue to syntactic category membership, which can be exploited by a variety of simple, psychologically plausible mechanisms. We present a range of results using a large corpus of child-directed speech and explore their psychological implications. While our results show that a considerable amount of information concerning the syntactic categories can be obtained from distributional information alone, we stress that many other sources of information may also be potential contributors to the identification of syntactic classes.     

Cue Combinatorics in Memory Retrieval for Anaphora

Many studies have shown that memory retrieval for real‐time language processing relies on a cue‐based access mechanism, which allows the cues available at the retrieval site to directly access the target representation in memory. An open question is how different types of cues are combined at retrieval to create a single retrieval probe (“cue combinatorics”). This study addresses this question by testing whether retrieval for antecedent‐reflexive dependencies combines cues in a linear (i.e., additive) or nonlinear (i.e., multiplicative) fashion. Results from computational simulations and a reading time experiment show that target items that match all the cues of the reflexive are favored more than target items that mismatch these cues, and that different degrees of mismatches slow reading times in comparable amounts. This profile is consistent with the predictions of a nonlinear cue combination and provides evidence against models in which all cues combine in a linear fashion. A follow‐up set of simulations shows that a nonlinear rule also captures previous demonstrations of interference from nontarget items during retrieval for reflexive licensing. Taken together, these results shed new light on how different types of cues combine at the retrieval site and reveal how the method of cue combination impacts the accessibility of linguistic information in memory.     

Human Decisions in Moral Dilemmas are Largely Described by Utilitarianism: Virtual Car Driving Study Provides Guidelines for Autonomous Driving Vehicles

Science and Engineering Ethics - Ethical thought experiments such as the trolley dilemma have been investigated extensively in the past, showing that humans act in utilitarian ways, trying to cause...     

Investigating the Constrained Action Hypothesis: A Movement Coordination and Coordination Variability Approach

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of focus of attention cues on movement coordination and coordination variability in the lower extremity. Twenty participants performed the standing long jump under both internal and external focus of attention conditions. A modified vector coding technique was used to evaluate the influence of attentional focus cues on lower extremity coordination patterns and coordination variability during the jumps. Participants jumped significantly further under an external focus of attention condition compared with an internal focus of attention condition (p = .035, effect size = .29). Focus of attention also influenced coordination between the ankle and knee, F(6, 19) = 2.87, p = .012, effect size = .388, with participants primarily using their knees under the internal focus of attention, and using both their ankles and knees under the external focus of attention. Attentional focus cues did not influence ankle-knee, F(1, 19) = 0.02, p = .98, effect size = .02, or hip-knee, F(1, 19) = 5.00, p = .49, effect size = .16, coordination variability. Results suggest that while attentional focus may not directly influence movement coordination condition, there is still a change in movement strategy resulting in greater jump distances following an external focus of attention.     

Rotating With Rotated Text: A Natural Behavior Approach to Investigating Cognitive Offloading

Determining how we use our body to support cognition represents an important part of understanding the embodied and embedded nature of cognition. In the present investigation, we pursue this question in the context of a common perceptual task. Specifically, we report a series of experiments investigating head tilt (i.e., external normalization) as a strategy in letter naming and reading stimuli that are upright or rotated. We demonstrate that the frequency of this natural behavior is modulated by the cost of stimulus rotation on performance. In addition, we demonstrate that external normalization can benefit performance. All of the results are consistent with the notion that external normalization represents a form of cognitive offloading and that effort is an important factor in the decision to adopt an internal or external strategy.     

A Study of Real Dilemmas in Adulthood

The aim of this work is to study real contextualised dilemmas and relevant events of the biographies offered by a group of adult men and women, in order to analyse the contextual and personal factors that influence moral reasoning during this stage of the life cycle. To this end, we interviewed 60 adults who were asked to recount real contextualised dilemmas. The themes of the real dilemmas were later categorised in relation to the stage of moral reasoning reached and then linked to the ecological contexts in which they took place. The results show that the themes related to proximal processes and contexts (family, parenthood) are the most frequent and are related to the conventional level of moral reasoning. However, in relation to social themes and coherence, the reasoning level obtained is more mature. Finally, there are contextual differences regarding the contents of the real dilemmas related to local conflicts or socio-political concern for one??s own community.     

Employees' Perceptions of the Distributive Justice of Pay Raise Decisions: A Policy Capturing Approach

An examination was made of the factors that contribute to employee perceptions of the distributive justice of compensation outcomes and how employees differ in their perceptions. A sample of 414 employees of a large public university was used to assess what distributive rules are associated with employees' perceptions of the fairness of pay raise decisions. The results found that employees evaluated the fairness of pay raise decisions differently. A cluster analysis identified three groups of employees who differed in their perceptions, and one-way analysis of variance highlighted a number of demographic and attitudinal factors by which these groups were distinguished.     

A Social Categorization Explanation for Framing Effects in Nested Social Dilemmas

This study developed and tested the idea that social categorization processes help to explain framing effects in social dilemmas. Using self-categorization theory, we predicted that members of a collective would cooperate more when they faced homogeneous rather than heterogeneous resource frames. We manipulated the starting point of resources for the members of each of two subgroups making up a larger collective in a nested social dilemma. The resources of the subject's own subgroup started at the individual, subgroup, or collective level, and the resources of the opposing subgroup also started at the individual, subgroup, or collective level. The condition in which both subgroups' resources began at the collective level was similar to a traditional commons dilemma, while the condition in which both subgroups' resources began at the individual level was similar to a traditional public goods problem. The other conditions were new to this research domain. We found higher allocations to the collective account when the initial resource location was the same for both subgroups (versus different for each subgroup), even when this initial location was the subgroup or individual level. Whereas previous explanations for framing effects cannot account for these results, social categorization processes provide a parsimonious explanation for the observed pattern of allocations.     

A Social Ecological Approach to Investigating Relationships Between Housing and Adaptive Functioning for Persons with Serious Mental Illness

This paper seeks to advance mental health—housing research regarding which factors of housing and neighborhood environments are critical for adaptive functioning, health, and recovery for persons with serious mental illness (SMI). Housing and neighborhood environments are particularly important for persons with SMI because of the prevalence of poor housing conditions among this population. Most mental health—housing research has been limited by a focus on problems in environments and functioning. The paper seeks to expand the mental health—housing research agenda to consider protective factors that promote community integration and adaptive functioning. We provide an account of how social ecology theory transformed a research program, from examining individual risk factors to investigating the functioning of persons in the contexts of their housing and neighborhood experiences. The resulting housing environment framework—physical aspects of housing and neighborhoods, social environment of neighborhoods, and interpersonal relationships tied to housing—allows for identification of opportunities for health promotion and facilitation of participation in community-based settings. This program of research draws upon several methods to understand the social experience of persons with SMI living in community settings—survey research, qualitative interviews, Geographic Information Systems, participatory research, and visual ethnography. In this paper, we present how social ecology theory was instrumental in the development of new housing environment measures, the selection of appropriate research methods, and framing research questions that are building a new empirical base of knowledge about promoting adaptive functioning, health, and recovery for persons with SMI living in community settings.     

Cue usage in memory for location when orientation is fixed

In previous research, it was demonstrated that including one or three cues surrounding a circular field had no effect on spatial memory for dot locations when the field's orientation was fixed, but that there were very large effects when orientation varied across trials (Fitting, Wedell, & Allen, 2007). In four new experiments, we explored the use of external cues in the fixed orientation environment, using 0, 4, 8, or 24 cues and manipulating task difficulty. In Experiments 1-3, the angular bias data supported the use of four quadrant-based prototypes regardless of cue condition, but there were clear cue effects on radial prototype locations. Increasing the number of cues enhanced accuracy of spatial memory for targets closer to cues. In Experiment 4, we severely challenged memory by using multiple targets and a filled delay before estimation. Doing so demonstrated an effect of cues on the categorical structuring of memory. Collectively, findings indicate that when orientation is fixed, cues bolster fine-grain memory, but that they only alter the default categorical scheme when memory demands are high.     

Investigating Predictors of Listening Comprehension in Third-, Seventh-, and Tenth-Grade Students: A Dominance Analysis Approach

This study rank ordered the contributive importance of several predictors of listening comprehension for third, seventh, and tenth graders. Principal components analyses revealed that a three-factor solution with fluency, reasoning, and working memory components provided the best fit across grade levels. Dominance analyses indicated that fluency and reasoning were the strongest predictors of third-grade listening comprehension. Reasoning emerged as the strongest predictor of seventh- and tenth-grade listening comprehension. These findings suggest a shift in the contributive importance of predictors to listening comprehension across development (i.e., grade levels). The implications of our findings for educators and researchers are discussed.     

Spatial and Temporal Details in Intentions: A Cue to Detecting Deception

Research into lying about intentions is relatively new. Studies have suggested that lying about intentions can be detected with statement analysing methods. This article describes two experiments. The first experiment investigates how much spatial and temporal detail is given by people who are discussing a true or false intention in a 26‐question interview. The results showed that those with a true intention gave more spatial and temporal details. The second experiment examines these details in a one‐question interview and whether the amount of temporal detail given can be manipulated by the phrasing of the question. The results showed that the amount of detail is much lower in these short interviews, but can be increased with specific phrasing. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Illustrating a Hierarchical Approach for Selecting Personality Traits in Personnel Decisions: An Application of the 3M Model

Recent research indicates that managers are not aware of the latest developments in theory regarding the use of personality inventories in personnel selection decisions. This article presents a systematic approach to selecting traits for use in personnel selection that is based on recent developments in hierarchical personality models. Results from a study of real estate sales associates indicate that the new approach does have much to offer the area. Results are discussed along with managerial implications.