Driver adherence to recommendations from support systems improves if the systems explain why they are given: A simulator study

This paper presents a large-scale simulator study on driver adherence to recommendations given by driver support systems, specifically eco-driving support and navigation support. 123 participants took part in this study, and drove a vehicle simulator through a pre-defined environment for a duration of approximately 10 min. Depending on the experimental condition, participants were either given no eco-driving recommendations, or a system whose provided support was either basic (recommendations were given in the form of an icon displayed in a manner that simulates a heads-up display) or informative (the system additionally displayed a line of text justifying its recommendations). A navigation system that likewise provided either basic or informative support, depending on the condition, was also provided.Effects are measured in terms of estimated simulated fuel savings as well as engine braking/coasting behaviour and gear change efficiency. Results indicate improvements in all variables. In particular, participants who had the support of an eco-driving system spent a significantly higher proportion of the time coasting. Participants also changed gears at lower engine RPM when using an eco-driving support system, and significantly more so when the system provided justifications. Overall, the results support the notion that providing reasons why a support system puts forward a certain recommendation improves adherence to it over mere presentation of the recommendation.Finally, results indicate that participants’ driving style was less eco-friendly if the navigation system provided justifications but the eco-system did not. This may be due to participants considering the two systems as one whole rather than separate entities with individual merits. This has implications for how to design and evaluate a given driver support system since its effectiveness may depend on the performance of other systems in the vehicle.     

Adolescents: why they can be so obnoxious

This paper describes examples of adolescent behavior which parents and school personnel find obnoxious. It attempts to explain why intelligent, reasonable and well-adjusted teenagers periodically behave in this way, as something that is developmentally inevitable given the uneven development of competencies in several important areas. Adolescent incompetencies in four areas (cognitive, social cognition, moral judgment, and knowledge of the world) are discussed and exemplified by resulting behavior (including the current Cabbage Patch doll fad). Suggestions for dealing positively with the sometimes difficult and exasperating behavior of adolescents are offered.     

Chain letters: Players and their accounts

Even though it is unlawful to send chain letters through the mails, thousands of Americans send them to friends, acquaintances, and strangers in hopes that their names will move to the top of the pyramid, and they will receive the influx of tax‐free dollars from those at the bottom of the chain. This paper analyzes the content and structure of the chain letter and also describes the accounts which chain letter players (N=129) provide for their participation. Differences between male and female accounts and participation strategies are provided. The implications for these differences for understanding participation in the underground economy are discussed.     

Only because I love you: why people make and why they break promises in romantic relationships

People make and break promises frequently in interpersonal relationships. In this article, we investigate the processes leading up to making promises and the processes involved in keeping them. Across 4 studies, we demonstrate that people who had the most positive relationship feelings and who were most motivated to be responsive to the partner's needs made bigger promises than did other people but were not any better at keeping them. Instead, promisers' self-regulation skills, such as trait conscientiousness, predicted the extent to which promises were kept or broken. In a causal test of our hypotheses, participants who were focused on their feelings for their partner promised more, whereas participants who generated a plan of self-regulation followed through more on their promises. Thus, people were making promises for very different reasons (positive relationship feelings, responsiveness motivation) than what made them keep these promises (self-regulation skills). Ironically, then, those who are most motivated to be responsive may be most likely to break their romantic promises, as they are making ambitious commitments they will later be unable to keep.     

Learning language from the input: why innate constraints can't explain noun compounding

Do the production and interpretation of patterns of plural forms in noun-noun compounds reveal the workings of innate constraints that govern morphological processing? The results of previous studies on compounding have been taken to support a number of important theoretical claims: first, that there are fundamental differences in the way that children and adults learn and process regular and irregular plurals, second, that these differences reflect formal constraints that govern the way the way regular and irregular plurals are processed in language, and third, that these constraints are unlikely to be the product of learning. In a series of seven experiments, we critically assess the evidence that is cited in support of these arguments. The results of our experiments provide little support for the idea that substantively different factors govern the patterns of acquisition, production and interpretation patterns of regular and irregular plural forms in compounds. Once frequency differences between regular and irregular plurals are accounted for, we find no evidence of any qualitative difference in the patterns of interpretation and production of regular and irregular plural nouns in compounds, in either adults or children. Accordingly, we suggest that the pattern of acquisition of both regular and irregular plurals in compounds is consistent with a simple account, in which children learn the conventions that govern plural compounding using evidence that is readily available in the distribution patterns of adult speech.     

Maximizing present value: A model to explain why moderate response rates obtain on variable-interval schedules

In Phases 1 and 3, two Japanese monkeys responded on a multiple variable-ratio 80 variable-interval X schedule, where the value of X was adjusted to ensure equal between-schedule reinforcement rates. Components strictly alternated following the delivery of a food pellet, and each session ended following 50 components. Phase 2 differed from the others only in that the 50 pellets previously earned during the session were delivered together at session's end. Variable-ratio response rates did not decrease across phases, but variable-interval response rates decreased substantially during the Phase 2 procedure. This rate decrease was attributed to the food-at-session's-end manipulation removing the greater immediacy of reinforcement provided by short interresponse times relative to long interresponse times. Without this time preference for short interresponse times, the variable-interval interresponse-time reinforcement feedback function largely controlled response emission, dictating a response-rate reduction. This result was explained in terms of the economic notion of “maximizing present value.”     

Seeing why they cannot see: Understanding the syndrome and causes of posterior cortical atrophy

Posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) is a syndrome defined by focal neurodegeneration of the parietal, occipital, and occipito‐temporal cortices and associated with progressive dysfunction of visual processing, praxis, numeracy and reading. The condition is most commonly caused by (and viewed as an atypical presentation of) Alzheimer's disease, although can also be caused by other degenerative diseases. The current paper examines the relationship of PCA to other degenerative syndromes, and considers what comparisons of these syndromes and disease phenotypes can tell us about underlying disease mechanisms. The focus then turns to neuropsychological investigations of the cognitive basis of symptoms which, although unusual in the broader context of a dementia clinic, are particularly characteristic of the PCA syndrome, before exploring implications for clinical management and patient and carer support.     

Ten reasons why ANOVA theory and research fail to explain attribution processes: 1. Conceptual problems

Ten reasons are proposed to explain why Kelley’s attribution theory and related questionnaire research fail to account for the cognitive processes underlying ordinary explanations of behaviour. In this first paper, five salient conceptual problems of the ANOVA model are reviewed: the inadequate analysis of behaviours and their contexts, and the inferences to which they give rise; deployment of the vague and ambiguous internal-external distinction; the normative view of people as poor social scientists; the crude analogy between ordinary reasoning and statistical procedures; and, fundamentally, the naive conceptualization of cognitive processes. Schank’s computational theory of social inference is identified as a sophisticated process model which avoids the conceptual problems inherent in the ANOVA model.     

A cognitive-emotional model of NSSI: using emotion regulation and cognitive processes to explain why people self-injure

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a complex behaviour, routinely engaged for emotion regulatory purposes. As such, a number of theoretical accounts regarding the aetiology and maintenance of NSSI are grounded in models of emotion regulation; the role that cognition plays in the behaviour is less well known. In this paper, we summarise four models of emotion regulation that have repeatedly been related to NSSI and identify the core components across them. We then draw on social cognitive theory to unite models of cognition and models of emotion in developing a new cognitive-emotional model of NSSI. Our model articulates how emotion regulation and cognition can work in concert to govern NSSI, and offers several new research questions that can be addressed within this framework.     

Ten reasons why ANOVA theory and research fail to explain attribution processes: 2. Methodological problems

In this, the second of two companion papers, five major methodological problems of questionnaire research into Kelley’s ANOVA model are identified: the formulation of instructions; the choice of stimulus events; the manipulation of information variables; the choice of attribution measures; and the application of process-probing methods. It is argued that the absence of any sophisticated process propositions in Kelley’s theory, in conjunction with the five methodological problems, has led to a poverty of acceptable evidence about how people process unfolding sequences of behaviour (episodes). In conclusion, some of the process-probing methodologies of cognitive science are considered as a remedy to the naive models and methods of attribution researchers.     

Two ways to be complex and why they matter: implications for attitude strength and lying

Integrative complexity broadly measures the structural complexity of statements. This breadth, although beneficial in multiple ways, can potentially hamper the development of specific theories. In response, the authors developed a model of complex thinking, focusing on 2 different ways that people can be complex within the integrative complexity system and subsequently developed measurements of each of these 2 routes: Dialectical complexity focuses on a dialectical tension between 2 or more competing perspectives, whereas elaborative complexity focuses on complexly elaborating on 1 singular perspective. The authors posit that many variables have different effects on these 2 forms of complexity and subsequently test this idea in 2 different theoretical domains. In Studies 1a, 1b, and 2, the authors demonstrate that variables related to attitude strength (e.g., domain importance, extremism, domain accessibility) decrease dialectical complexity but increase elaborative complexity. In Study 3, the authors show that counterattitudinal lying decreases dialectical complexity but increases elaborative complexity, implicating a strategic (as opposed to a cognitive strain) view of the lying-complexity relationship. The authors argue that this dual demonstration across 2 different theoretical domains helps establish the utility of the new model and measurements as well as offer the potential to reconcile apparent conflicts in the area of cognitive complexity.     

Remembering autobiographically consequential experiences: content analysis of psychologists' accounts of their lives

The autobiographies of 49 eminent psychologists were content analyzed in terms of autobiographically consequential experiences (ACEs). Most memories for ACE were not single episodes. Episodic ACEs did, however, share many characteristics of "flashbulb" and vivid memories elicited in studies using more traditional experimental procedures. Memories were concentrated during the college and early adult years. Thus, as in other autobiographical memory studies that have used older subjects, there was a pronounced reminiscence effect. These results were considered in light of Erikson's theory of adult personality development.     

The analyst in action: An individual account of what Jungians do and why they do it1

This paper describes some similarities and differences between contemporary approaches to analysis as practised by ‘Freudians’ and ‘Jungians’ in London today. It aims to contribute to mutual understanding between different schools of analysis by showing how the analyst’s interventions can only be understood in terms of the theoretical context from which they arise (cf. ‘the analyst’s preconscious’, as discussed by Hamilton [1996] ). A discussion of five key themes of Jungian theory is followed by an account of clinical work with a patient who enacted her inner world through the use of material objects brought to the consulting room, presenting difficult technical dilemmas concerning boundaries and enactment. The paper aims to shows how these Jungian themes influenced the analyst’s response, particularly in relation to ideas of symbolic transformation, the unknowable nature of unconscious processes and the purposive orientation of the self towards wholeness and integration.     

Time-limit tests: estimating their reliability and degree of speeding

Non-spurious methods are needed for estimating the coefficient of equivalence for speeded tests from single-trial data. Spuriousness in a split-half estimate depends on three conditions; the split-half method may be used if any of these is demonstrated to be absent. A lower-bounds formula,r _c, is developed. An empirical trial of this coefficient and other bounds proposed by Gulliksen demonstrates that, for moderately speeded tests, the coefficient of equivalence can be determined approximately from single-trial data. It is proposed that the degree to which tests are speeded be investigated explicitly, and an index is advanced to define this concept.     

Social spatial cognition in rat tetrads: how they select their partners and their gathering places

Spatial organization is an extensively studied field, in which most of the research has been on how the physical environment is perceived and conceived. There is a consensus that physical attributes such as environment geometry and landmarks are key factors in shaping spatial cognition. Nevertheless, the numerous studies of spatial behavior have usually been carried out on individuals, thereby overlooking the possible impact of the social environment. In the present study, rats were exposed to an unfamiliar open-field, first alone and then in tetrads of unfamiliar individuals, in order to monitor and analyze when and how their individual spatial behavior converged to a group spatial behavior. We found that the unfamiliar rats spent most of their time in companionship, first with preferred partners and ultimately as a quartet. Specifically, group formation was dynamic and gradual, with the rats first forming duos, then trios, and ultimately a quartet. Trios and quartets mostly huddled in the same specific corner that became a shared home base, from which they took solo or duo roundtrips to the arena. The present study unveils how, by means of gradual interactions among self, place, and conspecifics, four unfamiliar rats organized together their social spatial behavior.