When to inspect? Recurrent inspection decisions in a simulated risky environment

Participants scheduled inspections to detect costly events for which they were repeatedly at constant risk (probability of event onset) within a computerized environment. They were responsive to risk variations, conveyed either in advance or by experience with inspection outcomes, although experiencing unannounced increases in risk affected inspections more than experiencing unannounced decreases. Participants responded to variations in cost (time varying or fixed) when the effects were made perceptually salient. Compared with a normative model (R. L. Klatzky, D. M. Messick, & J. Loftus, 1992), some conditions showed near-optimal inspecting or had flat payoff functions that tolerated observed departures from optimal performance. Costly departures occurred particularly when combined cost and risk levels caused optimal responses to be extreme (always or never inspect). Results assess people's processing of relevant variables and indicate circumstances in which they may set substantially nonoptimal inspection schedules.     

Optimal correction for guessing in multiple-choice tests

Subjects’ decisions in multiple-choice tests are an interesting domain for the analysis of decision making under uncertainty. When the test is graded using a rule that penalizes wrong answers, each item can be viewed as a lottery where a rational examinee would choose whether to omit (sure reward) or answer (take the lottery) depending on risk aversion and level of knowledge. We formalize students as heterogeneous decision makers with different risk attitudes and levels of knowledge. Building on IRT, we compute the optimal penalty given students’ optimal behavior and the trade-off between bias and measurement error. Although MCQ examinations are frequently used, there is no consensus as to whether a penalty for wrong answers should be used or not. For example, examinations for medical licensing in some countries include MCQ sections with penalty while in others there is no penalty for wrong answers. We contribute to this discussion with a formal analysis of the effects of penalties; our simulations indicate that the optimal penalty is relatively high for perfectly rational students but also when they are not fully rational: even though penalty discriminates against risk averse students, this effect is small compared with the measurement error that it prevents.     

Regarding a Risk‐Pooling System of compensation

In this paper, I propose and defend a distinct and novel approach to compensation for risk impositions. I call it the Risk‐Pooling System of compensation. This system suggests that when X performs an action that imposes a risk of harm to Y, then X is liable to Y, and is therefore obliged to make an ex ante compensation that is roughly equivalent to the expected cost of potential harm to a social‐ risk pool. If and when Y suffers harm as a result of the risk imposed by X, they then receive an ex post compensation roughly equivalent to the cost of actual harm suffered. This system of compensation creates a social buffer between the risk imposer – the one who has the duty to pay compensation into the pool – and the victim – the one who has the right to receive compensation from the social pool. I contend that the Risk‐Pooling System is an improvement over its alternatives due to its capacity to produce the best social utilities, particularly, in terms of reducing information costs, obtaining optimal deterrence in the society and creating incentives for people to be engaged in social activities.     

The cost of callousness: regulating compassion influences the moral self-concept

It has often been argued that compassion is fundamental to morality. Yet people often suppress compassion for self-interested reasons. We provide evidence that suppressing compassion is not cost free, as it creates dissonance between a person's moral identity and his or her moral principles. We instructed separate groups of participants to regulate their compassion, regulate their feelings of distress, or freely experience emotions toward compassion--inducing images. Participants then reported how central morality was to their identities and how much they believed that moral rules should always be followed. Participants who regulated compassion-but not those who regulated distress or experienced emotions--showed a dissonance-based trade-off. If they reported higher levels of moral identity, they had a greater belief that moral rules could be broken. If they maintained their belief that moral rules should always be followed, they sacrificed their moral identity. Regulating compassion thus has a cost of its own: It forces trade-offs within a person's moral self-concept.     

Procurement time as a determinant of meal frequency and meal duration.

Foraging involves the expenditure of both time and effort in the acquisition of food; animals typically modify their meal patterns so as to reduce these expenditures or costs. The contribution of time, as compared with effort, to the overall cost perceived by an animal is not known. We investigated the effect of foraging time as a cost independent of effort by measuring the meal patterns of rats living in a laboratory foraging simulation in which they earned all their daily intake. They pressed a bar once to initiate an interval (procurement interval) leading to the presentation of a large cup of food from which they could eat a meal of any size. As the length of the interval increased from 1 s to 46 hr, meal frequency decreased regularly. Meal size increased in a compensatory fashion, and total daily intake was conserved through an interval of 23 hr. The changes in meal frequency occurred because of changes in the rat's latency to bar press after each meal. The functions relating meal frequency and size to the procurement interval were of the same shape as those seen when cost is the completion of a bar-press requirement, which entails the expenditure of both effort and time. When the bar-press requirement was increased to 10, meal frequency was reduced, but time and effort did not appear to simply add together in the rat's perception of cost. These data reveal that time is preceived to be a cost by rats foraging in this laboratory environment. These results suggest that the time parameters of foraging are different from those of consumption.     

Human bounds: rationality for our species

Is there such a thing as bounded rationality? I first try to make sense of the question, and then to suggest which of the disambiguated versions might have answers. We need an account of bounded rationality that takes account of detailed contingent facts about the ways in which human beings fail to perform as we might ideally want to. But we should not think in terms of rules or norms which define good responses to an individual’s limitations, but rather in terms of desiderata, situations that limited agents can hope to achieve, and corresponding virtues of achieving them. We should not take formal theories defining optimal behavior in watered-down bounded form, even though they can impose enormous computational or cognitive demands.     

Cleaning versus replacement in power plant air preheaters: a comparison between deterministic and stochastic goal programming models

Power plants lose efficiency when the air preheater elements are not replaced or cleaned as they deteriorate. Replacing is more expensive than cleaning but more secure to preserve power and lifetime. How many baskets should be then replaced and how many cleaned to achieve ‘satisficing’ goals of cost, power and lifetime? We design deterministic/stochastic goal programming approaches to this problem and develop a decision case for usual preheaters. Some discrepancies in results between both approaches appear, the deterministic model advising to replace less baskets than the stochastic, which is plausible due to the risk variable. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The value of distrust

We assume that a state of distrust is the mental system’s signal that the environment is not normal—things may not be as they appear. Hence, individuals sense they should be on guard. In particular, they are likely to avoid routine strategies, ones proven to be optimal and regularly used in normal environments, because these strategies are easily anticipated by whoever may be seeking to deceive them. Conversely, a state of trust is associated with a feeling of safety. The environment is as it normally is and things really are as they appear to be. Thus, individuals see no reason to refrain from doing what they routinely do. Accordingly, we hypothesize that figuring out a new situation depends on the type of environment and the actor’s state of mind: in normal environments, where routine strategies are optimal, individuals who trust should outperform those who distrust; however, in unusual environments, where non-routine strategies are optimal, individuals who distrust should outperform those who trust. This paper reports three experiments that manipulate distrust via orienting tasks that participants perform prior to attempting to predict a series of events (Experiments 1 and 2) or solve matchstick arithmetic problems (Experiment 3). Performance success depends on discovering and implementing an appropriate rule. We found that, as predicted, the manipulation of distrust sensitized participants to the existence of non-routine contingencies, that is, contingencies that were not expected.     

Progress in Violence Risk Assessment and Communication: Hypothesis versus Evidence

We draw a distinction between hypothesis and evidence with respect to the assessment and communication of the risk of violent recidivism. We suggest that some authorities in the field have proposed quite valid and reasonable hypotheses with respect to several issues. Among these are the following: that accuracy will be improved by the adjustment or moderation of numerical scores based on clinical opinions about rare risk factors or other considerations pertaining to the applicability to the case at hand; that there is something fundamentally distinct about protective factors so that they are not merely the obverse of risk factors, such that optimal accuracy cannot be achieved without consideration of such protective factors; and that assessment of dynamic factors is required for optimal accuracy and furthermore interventions aimed at such dynamic factors can be expected to cause reductions in violence risk. We suggest here that, while these are generally reasonable hypotheses, they have been inappropriately presented to practitioners as empirically supported facts, and that practitioners’ assessment and communication about violence risk run beyond that supported by the available evidence as a result. We further suggest that this represents harm, especially in impeding scientific progress. Nothing here justifies stasis or simply surrendering to authoritarian custody with somatic treatment. Theoretically motivated and clearly articulated assessment and intervention should be provided for offenders, but in a manner that moves the field more firmly from hypotheses to evidence. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Inhibition in task switching: The reliability of the n − 2 repetition cost

The n???2 repetition cost seen in task switching is the effect of slower response times performing a recently completed task (e.g. an ABA sequence) compared to performing a task that was not recently completed (e.g. a CBA sequence). This cost is thought to reflect cognitive inhibition of task representations and as such, the n???2 repetition cost has begun to be used as an assessment of individual differences in inhibitory control; however, the reliability of this measure has not been investigated in a systematic manner. The current study addressed this important issue. Seventy-two participants performed three task switching paradigms; participants were also assessed on rumination traits and processing speed—measures of individual differences potentially modulating the n???2 repetition cost. We found significant n???2 repetition costs for each paradigm. However, split-half reliability tests revealed that this cost was not reliable at the individual-difference level. Neither rumination tendencies nor processing speed predicted this cost. We conclude that the n???2 repetition cost is not reliable as a measure of individual differences in inhibitory control.     

Laws and Models in a Theory of Idealization

I first give a brief summary of a critique of the traditional theories of approximation and idealization; and after identifying one of the major roles of idealization as detaching component processes or systems from their joints, a detailed analysis is given of idealized laws – which are discoverable and/or applicable – in such processes and systems (i.e., idealized model systems). Then, I argue that dispositional properties should be regarded as admissible properties for laws and that such an inclusion supplies the much needed connection between idealized models and the laws they `produce' or `accommodate'. And I then argue that idealized law-statements so produced or accommodated in the models may be either true simpliciter or true approximately, but the latter is not because of the idealizations involved. I argue that the kind of limiting-case idealizations that produce approximate truth is best regarded as approximation; and finally I compare my theory with some existing theories of laws of nature.We seem to trace [in KingLear] ... the tendency of imagination toanalyse and abstract, to decomposehuman nature into its constituentfactors, and then to construct beings in whomone or more of these factors isabsent or atrophied or only incipient     

腐败行为的发展轨迹:一项潜变量混合增长模型研究

通过在实验室中模拟一个常见的贿赂情境,并操纵感知的腐败风险概率和腐败风险可控感,让被试进行连续10轮的腐败决策,观察腐败行为的发展趋势。本研究探讨(1)腐败行为如何发展;(2)感知的风险概率和风险可控感如何影响腐败的发展趋势。利用潜变量混合增长模型对腐败行为的发展趋势进行分析,发现腐败行为发展趋势有3种不同的类型:(1)腐败程度始终稳定在中等水平的"一般腐败者";(2)腐败程度较高,并呈逐渐增长趋势的"腐败沦陷者";(3)始终都少有腐败行为的"清廉者"。同时还发现,感知的风险概率影响初始的腐败程度,感知的风险可控感则既影响初始腐败程度,又影响腐败发展速度。     

Cognitive associations of bimanual haptico-visual recognition in preschoolers.

We have investigated the relation between haptico-visual recognition of objects and cognitive tasks in two large samples of preschoolers (n = 534; n = 750). Children aged 6 years completed a cross-modal task in which they have first to haptically explore an object and second to visually recognize it; they also performed phonological, verbal semantic, and visual tasks. For two consecutive years, bimanual haptico-visual recognition was significantly correlated to performance at all the cognitive tasks. The meaning of this relationship is discussed. The study supports the view that haptico-visual recognition tasks should be used as screening tools for early identification of children at risk of learning difficulties.     

Emotional expressions facilitate human–human trust when using automation in high-risk situations

This study investigated the utility of emotional expression for human decision aids, when human aids conflict with an automated decision support system (DSS). The increasing presence of automation in society has resulted in critical, and often life threatening, situations when information from human and automated sources disagree. It has been known that reliance on human aids decrease during high-risk situations, while reliance on automated aids increase. However, it is also possible that human decision aids gain credibility from users when they embody the charismatic and emotionally expressive gesticulations seen in successful organizational leaders. The present study tested how a human agent's expressiveness when providing information would influence participants' behavioral reliance. Using the program Convoy Leader, participants (n=56) engaged in three decision-making scenarios where risk was manipulated as a within-subject factor and emotional expression as a between-subject factor. Emotional susceptibility, perceived risk, and trust for human as well as automated aids were measured. Overall trust was higher for the automated tool than human decision aid, and that pattern was amplified in conditions without an emotionally expressive human aid. Reliance was greater for emotionally expressive human aids, than stoic human aids, particularly during high risk conditions. The findings suggest that emotional expression of a human aid significantly impacts both reliance and trust of a decision aid, especially at higher risk levels. Emotionally expressive human agents should be utilized in decision conflicts where the automated system has certainly failed.     

Stimulus-related priming during task switching

Task switch cost (the deficit of performing a new task vs. a repeated task) has been partly attributed to priming of the repeated task, as well as to inappropriate preparation for the switched task. In the present study, we examined the nature of the priming effect by repeating stimulus-related processes, such as stimulus encoding or stimulus identification. We adopted a partial-overlap task-switching paradigm, in which only stimulus-related processes should be repeated or switched. The switch cost in this partial-overlap condition was smaller than the cost in the full-overlap condition, in which the task overlap involved more than stimulus processing, indicating that priming of a stimulus is a component of a switch cost. The switch cost in the partial-overlap condition, however, disappeared eventually with a long interval between two tasks, whereas the cost in the full-overlap condition remained significant. Moreover, the switch cost, in general, did not interact with foreknowledge, suggesting that preparation on the basis of foreknowledge may be related to processes beyond stimulus encoding. These results suggest that stimulus-related priming is automatic and short-lived and, therefore, is not a part of the persisting portion of switch cost.     

Age and emotion affect how we look at a face: visual scan patterns differ for own-age versus other-age emotional faces

We investigated how age of faces and emotion expressed in faces affect young (n=30) and older (n=20) adults' visual inspection while viewing faces and judging their expressions. Overall, expression identification was better for young than older faces, suggesting that interpreting expressions in young faces is easier than in older faces, even for older participants. Moreover, there were age-group differences in misattributions of expressions, in that young participants were more likely to label disgusted faces as angry, whereas older adults were more likely to label angry faces as disgusted. In addition to effects of emotion expressed in faces, age of faces affected visual inspection of faces: Both young and older participants spent more time looking at own-age than other-age faces, with longer looking at own-age faces predicting better own-age expression identification. Thus, cues used in expression identification may shift as a function of emotion and age of faces, in interaction with age of participants.     

Movement analysis in the early detection of newborns at risk for developing spasticity due to infantile cerebral palsy

In order to limit the consequences of infantile cerebral palsy (ICP), physiotherapy should start as early as possible. This requires that infants at risk are detected at the earliest age possible. Today, diagnosis is based on visual observation by physicians and as such is influenced by subjective impressions. Objective methods, quantifying the pathological deviation from normal spontaneous motor activity would be preferable as they, for example, allow an inter- and intra-individual comparison of movement. In this paper we have developed a methodology that allows the 3-dimensional acquisition of unconstrained movement in newborn babies, using a motion analysis system. From the recorded movement data we have extracted 53 quantitative parameters that describe the differences between healthy and affected participants. Considered individually, each of these parameters does not permit a conclusive statement to be made as to whether or not the patient is at risk. Cluster analysis based on Euclidian distances therefore has been used to find an optimal combination of eight parameters. The optimal combination has been subsequently applied to organize the participants' movement into preferably homogeneous classes labelled "healthy" or "at risk". Classification was performed utilising quadratic discriminant analysis. The methodology presented allows a reliable discrimination between healthy and affected participants. Overall detection rate reached 73%. This value is expected to rise with increasing patient and norm collective database size.     

How to maximize reward rate on two variable-interval paradigms

Without assuming any constraints on behavior, we derive the policy that maximizes overall reward rate on two variable-interval paradigms. The first paradigm is concurrent variable time-variable time with changeover delay. It is shown that for nearly all parameter values, a switch to the schedule with the longer interval should be followed immediately by a switch back to the schedule with the shorter interval. The matching law does not hold at the optimum and does not uniquely specify the obtained reward rate. The second paradigm is discrete trial concurrent variable interval-variable interval. For given schedule parameters, the optimal policy involves a cycle of a fixed number of choices of the schedule with the shorter interval followed by one choice of the schedule with the longer interval. Molecular maximization sometimes results in optimal behavior.     

Make‐or‐Break: Chasing Risky Goals or Settling for Safe Rewards?

Humans regularly pursue activities characterized by dramatic success or failure outcomes where, critically, the chances of success depend on the time invested working toward it. How should people allocate time between such make‐or‐break challenges and safe alternatives, where rewards are more predictable (e.g., linear) functions of performance? We present a formal framework for studying time allocation between these two types of activities, and we explore optimal behavior in both one‐shot and dynamic versions of the problem. In the one‐shot version, we illustrate striking discontinuities in the optimal time allocation policy as we gradually change the parameters of the decision‐making problem. In the dynamic version, we formulate the optimal strategy—defined by a giving‐up threshold—which adaptively dictates when people should stop pursuing the make‐or‐break goal. We then show that this strategy is computationally inaccessible for humans, and we explore boundedly rational alternatives. We compare the performance of the optimal model against (a) a myopic giving‐up threshold that is easier to compute, and even simpler heuristic strategies that either (b) only decide whether or not to start pursuing the goal and never give up or (c) consider giving up at a fixed number of control points. Comparing strategies across environments, we investigate the cost and behavioral implications of sidestepping the computational burden of full rationality.     

People consider reliability and cost when verifying their autobiographical memories

Because memories are not always accurate, people rely on a variety of strategies to verify whether the events that they remember really did occur. Several studies have examined which strategies people tend to use, but none to date has asked why people opt for certain strategies over others. Here we examined the extent to which people's beliefs about the reliability and the cost of different strategies would determine their strategy selection. Subjects described a childhood memory and then suggested strategies they might use to verify the accuracy of that memory. Next, they rated the reliability and cost of each strategy, and the likelihood that they might use it. Reliability and cost each predicted strategy selection, but a combination of the two ratings provided even greater predictive value. Cost was significantly more influential than reliability, which suggests that a tendency to seek and to value “cheap” information more than reliable information could underlie many real-world memory errors.