Physical Distance and AIDS: Too Close for Comfort?1

The purpose of the study was to assess attitudes toward AIDS as measured by physical distance. Fifty-two female students were told that they would be interviewing an AIDS patient, a homosexual, a cancer patient, or another student. While waiting, they arranged the two chairs for the interview. The distance between chairs was measured. Subjects placed the chairs significantly farther apart when they anticipated interviewing an AIDS patient than when they anticipated interviewing people under the other conditions. The results suggest that people are still uncomfortable with AIDS patients even under casual circumstances that require minimal physical contact. Implications for social interactions are discussed.     

Role of familiar size in spatial judgments under natural viewing conditions.

The purpose of the present experiment was to examine the role of familiar size in judgments of size and egocentric distance under natural (non-reduced) viewing conditions. Independent groups (ns = 14) judged normal and large off-size chairs and control objects presented at a distance of 25.6 m. Subjects also judged the size of unfamiliar objects (adjacent stimuli) attached to the chairs and stakes. The results indicate that the effects of familiar size are specific to spatial judgments of the familiar object itself since judgments of the adjacent stimuli were unaffected by familiar size.     

环境损益的社会折扣:利他人格的影响

他人与自我之间的社会距离越远,则他人的获益或损失带给自我的效用就越小,此现象被称为社会折扣。虽然有一些研究探讨了金钱结果的社会折扣现象,但作为公共品的环境结果的社会折扣规律及其影响因素并未得到应有的研究。本研究以优劣空气天数为例,采用选择滴定程序,在损益两种情境下探索环境结果的社会折扣现象,并考察利他人格对社会折扣的影响。结果发现:(1)相比双曲模型,指数模型在损益两种情境下皆能更佳地拟合环境结果的社会折扣函数;(2)损益情境与社会距离的交互作用影响环境结果的社会折扣程度,损失情境下的社会折扣程度随社会距离的增加而变大的幅度大于收益情境;(3)利他人格在社会距离对社会折扣的影响中起调节作用。相比高利他人格者,低利他人格者的社会折扣受社会距离的影响较大。本研究对理解环境结果社会折扣和环保决策行为具有重要意义。     

Pigeons concurrently categorize photographs at both basic and superordinate levels

We studied categorization in pigeons, using carefully controlled photographs. Within daily sessions, 4 pigeons had to classify each of 32 photographs into either its proper basic-level category (cars, chairs, flowers, or people; four-key forced choice procedure) or its proper superordinate-level category (natural or artificial; two-key forced choice procedure). The pigeons successfully classified the same stimuli at both levels. Overall, the pigeons learned the basic discrimination more quickly than the superordinate discrimination, but this difference was reliable only for artificial stimuli (cars and chairs), not for natural stimuli (flowers and people). The pigeons also exhibited reliable discrimination transfer to novel photographs, attesting to the open-endedness of these basic and superordinate categories.     

Sex differences in proxemic behavior and personal space schemata in young children

Spatial preferences with feltboard figures, observed interpersonal distance, and sex-role identification were examined in 80 preschool children. On the feltboard measure, 4- to 5-year-olds chose generally greater interpersonal distance than younger children. Sex of stimulus figure also influenced older children's distance choices. When same-sex pair play was videotaped, older boys spent significantly more time at far distances and less time at close distances than younger boys. A positive correlation between sex-role identification, measured by the Rabban toy choice task, and feltboard figure distance was obtained for older boys only. Findings supported the notion that sex-related interpersonal spatial norms may be learned during the preschool years, particularly by boys.This study is based on a doctoral dissertation written by the author and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree at Michigan State University, 1974.     

Failure to find a distance effect in pigeon choice: Manipulating amount and delay of reinforcement

The choice behavior of primates, including humans, displays a distance effect: Latency to choose between alternatives appears to increase with smaller differences in value. There is, so far, no demonstration of this effect in birds. Tests of distance effects in birds have been conducted in binary choice situations with a dominant alternative, where one alternative is superior to the other in all aspects that meaningfully contribute to value (e.g., provides access to the same reinforcer, but with a shorter delay). The present study considers the possibility that including dominant alternatives in choice tests precludes distance effects. Four pigeons were presented with binary choices between alternatives that varied in amount and delay. Some choices had a dominant alternative (smaller–sooner or larger–later vs. smaller–later) and some did not (smaller–sooner vs. larger–later). Across phases, only the delay to the smaller–sooner reinforcer varied. Distance effects were expected to be expressed as longer latencies as choice between smaller–sooner and larger–later reinforcers approached indifference. Despite the sensitivity of choice to differences in amount and delay, no distance effect was observed. Alternative explanations for the failure to find a distance effect in pigeon choice, including the Sequential Choice Model (SCM), are discussed.     

Metacognition in psychophysical judgment: an unfolding view of comparative judgments of mental workload.

An experiment is reported in which it was found that when subjects were required to indicate which of two visual extents was more difficult to categorize as "long" or "short," they executed these categorizations and then measured the distance of the representation of each stimulus from the long-short category boundary; the stimulus nearer the boundary was judged to be the more difficult. When they were requested to indicate which was easier to categorize, they selected the alternative that was farther. Coombs's theory of data (1952, 1964) and his unfolding theory of preferential choice (1950, 1964) provided the conceptualization of metacognition in this psychophysical task context. Strong support for the probabilistic version of unfolding theory was obtained from the observed selective effects of laterality on the levels of stochastic transitivity attained for various classes of triples and the reliably longer times for comparisons with bilateral pairs than with unilateral pairs. The semantic congruity effects obtained, together with the changes in the form of the relationship between probability and response time as a function of practice, can be best accounted for by an evidence accrual theory in which the distances from the active reference point are measured and compared with a criterion on each evidence accrual. No support is provided for the view that propositionally based semantic "ease"-"difficulty" codes serve as the basis for these metacognitive comparative judgments of ease and difficulty.     

人格特质及脑功能连接对社交网络的影响

采用网络分析的方法, 本研究从个体受欢迎程度和个体间亲密程度两方面探究了人格特质对社交网络的影响, 并在此基础上进一步探究了个体间大脑静息态功能连接相似性和社交网络的关系。结果发现：(1)高尽责性的个体在需要“值得信任”特质的社交网络中更受欢迎, 高宜人性的个体在需要“共享时光”的社交网络中更受欢迎; (2)在需要“相同兴趣”特质的社交网络中, 个体间人格相似性和社会距离呈显著负相关关系; (3)同样在需要“相同兴趣”特质的社交网络中, 个体间部分功能连接相似性与社会距离呈显著负相关关系, 这些功能连接主要集中在额顶控制网络以及背侧注意网络; 同时, 部分节点功能连接相似性与社会距离呈显著正相关关系, 这些功能连接主要集中在默认网络。研究结果揭示了人格特质对不同社交网络结构的影响, 以及个体间人格特质相似性和静息态脑网络相似性与社会距离的关系。本研究对理解社交网络的结构, 形成规律以及其中的信息传播规律有着重要启示意义。     

Rethinking reinforcement: allocation, induction, and contingency

The concept of reinforcement is at least incomplete and almost certainly incorrect. An alternative way of organizing our understanding of behavior may be built around three concepts: allocation, induction, and correlation. Allocation is the measure of behavior and captures the centrality of choice: All behavior entails choice and consists of choice. Allocation changes as a result of induction and correlation. The term induction covers phenomena such as adjunctive, interim, and terminal behavior-behavior induced in a situation by occurrence of food or another Phylogenetically Important Event (PIE) in that situation. Induction resembles stimulus control in that no one-to-one relation exists between induced behavior and the inducing event. If one allowed that some stimulus control were the result of phylogeny, then induction and stimulus control would be identical, and a PIE would resemble a discriminative stimulus. Much evidence supports the idea that a PIE induces all PIE-related activities. Research also supports the idea that stimuli correlated with PIEs become PIE-related conditional inducers. Contingencies create correlations between "operant" activity (e.g., lever pressing) and PIEs (e.g., food). Once an activity has become PIE-related, the PIE induces it along with other PIE-related activities. Contingencies also constrain possible performances. These constraints specify feedback functions, which explain phenomena such as the higher response rates on ratio schedules in comparison with interval schedules. Allocations that include a lot of operant activity are "selected" only in the sense that they generate more frequent occurrence of the PIE within the constraints of the situation; contingency and induction do the "selecting."     

心理距离对跨期选择和风险选择的影响

通过考察时间距离、社会距离和概率距离对跨期选择和风险选择的影响, 探究跨期选择和风险选择心理过程的相似性, 并检验不同心理距离影响决策的相似性。结果发现, 无论是时间距离(实验1)、社会距离(实验2)、还是概率距离(实验3), 心理距离越远, 被试在跨期选择中越倾向于延迟选项, 在风险选择中越倾向于风险选项。研究认为, 在跨期选择和风险选择中, 选项的表征结构和选项整体评价时不同选项特征的相对权重具有相似性。随着心理距离增加, 与高识解相联系的金额特征的相对权重增加, 与低识解相联系的时间和概率特征的相对权重降低, 这使得被试更倾向于选择金额较大的延迟和风险选项。同时, 研究发现三类心理距离对两类决策有相似影响, 进一步验证了不同心理距离的本质相似性。     

A study of metrics of distance and correlation between ranked lists for compositionality detection

Compositionality in language refers to how much the meaning of some phrase can be decomposed into the meaning of its constituents and the way these constituents are combined. Based on the premise that substitution by synonyms is meaning-preserving, compositionality can be approximated as the semantic similarity between a phrase and a version of that phrase where words have been replaced by their synonyms. Different ways of representing such phrases exist (e.g., vectors (Kiela and Clark, 2013) or language models (Lioma, Simonsen, Larsen, and Hansen, 2015)), and the choice of representation affects the measurement of semantic similarity.We propose a new compositionality detection method that represents phrases as ranked lists of term weights. Our method approximates the semantic similarity between two ranked list representations using a range of well-known distance and correlation metrics. In contrast to most state-of-the-art approaches in compositionality detection, our method is completely unsupervised. Experiments with a publicly available dataset of 1048 human-annotated phrases shows that, compared to strong supervised baselines, our approach provides superior measurement of compositionality using any of the distance and correlation metrics considered.     

Perception of two-body center of mass

Participants estimated the perceptual center of mass between two horizontally oriented black dots varying in size and distance. Experiment 1 showed that estimates, measured as distance from the larger dot's center, decreased with an increase in size ratio between the dots and a decrease in the distance between them, as predicted by the physical center-of-mass equation. The results were replicated and extended in further experiments with different ratios and distances. In all experiments, the true center was consistently overestimated, either because the stimuli were perceived in a low dimensionality or because of a hesitancy to place estimates near the larger dot's edge. In Experiment 4, the center was deliberately placed near this edge for one- and two-dimensional solutions. Participants still overestimated, indicating an "edge effect" as responsible.     

心理距离对风险决策框架效应的影响

解释水平理论是一种解释心理距离怎样影响个体的思维决策的社会认知理论。研究基于解释水平理论,探查了心理距离对风险决策框架效应的影响。实验从心理距离的四个维度入手,每个维度均采用2（解释水平高、低）×2（正框架、负框架）的被试间设计,用于检验解释水平是否调节框架对被试决策任务的选择。结果表明,当心理距离越远,解释水平越高时,被试产生明显的框架效应;而当心理距离越近,解释水平越低时,框架效应明显减弱。除了大概率情况下的框架效应削弱至不显著,其余维度的高、低解释水平下的框架效应均显著。     

Preliminary investigation of computer stress and the big five personality factors

This study investigated correlates of personality factors, measured with the Big Five Inventory, with computer users' stress, measured with the Computer Hassles Scale. Based on an analysis of the responses of 95 college students using computers, there was a significant correlation between the computer users' stress and Openness, one of the Big Five personality factors. There was a significant correlation between the Computer Hassles Scale and the somatic complaints and anxiety reactions, typical responses to stress. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that Neuroticism and Extraversion had a "buffering effect" between computer stressors and typical stress responses. The significant correlation between scores on the Computer Hassles Scale and on Openness was a surprising finding and suggested that additional research was needed to clarify the nature of this relationship.     

The Correlational Structure of Natural Images and the Calibration of Spatial Representations

Physiologists have long proposed that correlated input activity is important in normal sensory development. Here it is postulated that the visual system is sensitive to the correlation in image intensity across the visual field, and that these correlations are used to help calibrate spatial representations. Since measurements made near to each other in the visual field are more correlated than measurements made at a distance, the degree of correlation can be used as an estimate of the distance between two measurements and can therefore be used to calibrate a roughly organized spatial representation. We therefore explored the hypothesis that low level spatial representations are calibrated using a signal based on image intensity correlation. If the visual system uses input statistics to calibrate its spatial representation, then any distortions and anisotropies in these input statistics should be mirrored by distortions in the representation of space. To test the psychological implications of this hypothesis, a collection of 81 images of open and urban landscapes were used to estimate the degree of correlation between image intensity measurement pairs as a function of both distance and orientation. Doing this we show that a system that used the statistics measured to calibrate its representation would show: (1) a horizontal-vertical illusion;(2) the magnitude of this illusion would depend on the amount of open and urban landscapes in the environment;(3) there would be a nontrivial relationship between line orientation and judged length. Analogues of all these distortions and regularities can be found in the psychophysical literature on distance estimation. This gives strength to the proposal that spatial representations are calibrated using input statistics.     

Alan Baron: A pioneer in translational science

Primates take longer to choose between alternatives with smaller differences in value. This effect—a particular instance of the distance effect in symbolic comparisons—has not been replicated in birds. Instead, birds appear to respond independently to each alternative, such that the latency to choose depends primarily on the alternative of highest value. Three experiments tested for the distance effect in pigeons under conditions not previously considered. Experiment 1 presented pigeons with forced‐ and binary free‐choice trials, where each alternative was one of three possible delays to reinforcement (4, 8, and 16 s). Pigeons were exposed to the choice stimuli for different amounts of time and with different sample response requirements prior to the choice response. Experiment 2 added a fourth (0‐s delay) alternative. Experiment 3 substituted the 16‐s delay with a second 4‐s delay. In all experiments, pigeons systematically chose the shortest delay to reinforcement. Latency to choose the 4‐s delay did not vary when choosing against the 8‐s or 16‐s delay, regardless of whether choice stimuli were exposed for the duration of nine pecks (Experiment 1), or whether a 0‐s delay alternative was sometimes present (Experiment 2). Latency to choose the preferred of two identical alternatives (4‐s vs. 4‐s) was shorter than the latency to choose between different alternatives (4‐s vs. 8‐s; Experiment 3); this is the opposite of a distance effect. These results show no evidence of a distance effect in pigeon choice, consistent with the hypothesis that pigeons respond independently to each choice alternative.     

Delay and number of food reinforcers: Effects on choice and latencies

Pigeons were given a choice between two identical-duration situations (terminal links of chain schedules). One terminal link of the choice pair provided two food deliveries, and the other provided five. The exact times of these food deliveries differed between the terminal links and were varied over conditions. A single response during the initial link gave immediate access to the corresponding terminal link. Forced trials, during which only one of the initial-link keys was lighted, were interspersed with choice trials during which both initial-link keys were lighted. Choice tended to favor whichever terminal link was correlated with the higher sum of the immediacies (i.e., the sum of the reciprocals of the delays to each of the reinforcers following the choice, with all delays measured from the choice). Latencies on forced trials and on choice trials also were related (negatively) to the sum of the immediacies. This correlation among response measures (choice and latencies) suggests that both measures are manifestations of the effect of conditioned reinforcement on response tendencies.     

P3b反映基于相似性的图形类别归纳决策过程(309)

先前关于归纳推理的研究没有探讨过图形类别归纳任务中决策过程的事件相关电位(ERPs)特征。该研究采用图形材料,通过记录和分析图形类别归纳推理任务的结论评估阶段的脑电信号,探讨了不同类别条件下图形归纳推理决策过程的ERP特征。实验结果显示,推理决策过程中,当前提为一些狗具有某种属性特征时,结论一致类别(狗类及马类)比结论不一致类别下(椅子类)的归纳推理诱发了更大的P3b的波幅; 而结论一致类别下,类别内(狗类)比类别外(马类)推理诱发更大的后部脑区的P3b的波幅,反映了相似性对类别归纳的贡献。该研究为理解类别归纳过程的决策阶段的动态加工过程提供了神经电生理学证据。研究结果进一步支持了类别归纳的相似性理论模型。