Implications of counterfactual structure for creative generation and analytical problem solving

In the present research, the authors hypothesized that additive counterfactual thinking mind-sets, activated by adding new antecedent elements to reconstruct reality, promote an expansive processing style that broadens conceptual attention and facilitates performance on creative generation tasks, whereas subtractive counter-factual thinking mind-sets, activated by removing antecedent elements to reconstruct reality, promote a relational processing style that enhances tendencies to consider relationships and associations and facilitates performance on analytical problem-solving tasks. A reanalysis of a published data set suggested that the counterfactual mind-set primes previously used in the literature tend to evoke subtractive counterfactuals. Studies 1 and 2 then demonstrated that subtractive counterfactual mind-sets enhanced performance on analytical problem-solving tasks relative to additive counterfactual mind-sets, whereas Studies 3 and 4 found that additive counterfactual mind-sets enhanced performance on creative generation tasks relative to subtractive counterfactual mind-sets.     

Power, propensity to negotiate, and moving first in competitive interactions

Five experiments investigated how the possession and experience of power affects the initiation of competitive interaction. In Experiments 1a and 1b, high-power individuals displayed a greater propensity to initiate a negotiation than did low-power individuals. Three additional experiments showed that power increased the likelihood of making the first move in a variety of competitive interactions. In Experiment 2, participants who were semantically primed with power were nearly 4 times as likely as participants in a control condition to choose to make the opening arguments in a debate competition scenario. In Experiment 3, negotiators with strong alternatives to a negotiation were more than 3 times as likely to spontaneously express an intention to make the first offer compared to participants who lacked any alternatives. Experiment 4 showed that high-power negotiators were more likely than low-power negotiators to actually make the first offer and that making the first offer produced a bargaining advantage.     

Class Size and Student Achievement

Contents:
Introduction, p.1
Quasi-Experimental Studies, p.3
Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies, p.15
Why Does Class Size Matter? Inferences from Existing Research, p.20
Implications of the Class-Size Findings, p.25
References, p.26
Appendix, p.29     

Do the EPR correlations pose a problem for causal decision theory?

We argue that causal decision theory (CDT) is no worse off than evidential decision theory (EDT) in handling entanglement, regardless of one’s preferred interpretation of quantum mechanics. In recent works, Ahmed (Evidence, decision, and causality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014) and Ahmed and Caulton (Synthese, 191(18): 4315–4352, 2014) have claimed the opposite; we argue that they are mistaken. Bell-type experiments are not instances of Newcomb problems, so CDT and EDT do not diverge in their recommendations. We highlight the fact that a Causal Decision Theorist should take all lawlike correlations into account, including potentially acausal entanglement correlations. This paper also provides a brief introduction to CDT with a motivating “small” Newcomb problem. The main point of our argument is that quantum theory does not provide grounds for favouring EDT over CDT.

     

A chronometric analysis of strategy preparation in choice reactions

In this research, we investigated the process of preparing strategies for performing choice-reaction tasks. Before each choice-reaction trial, subjects were shown a cue that indicated features of the stimulus-response mapping to be used on the upcoming trial. Subjects used this cue to specify their strategy for responding to the stimulus. The time needed for specifying the strategy was measured by allowing subjects to control the cue presentation and surreptitiously recording how long they spent looking at the cue. The experiments demonstrated that the time to prepare a strategy was a function of the number and nature of the strategy features that had to be specified; simple uncertainty about the possible strategies had little direct effect. The results discon-firmed a serial model in which the time to prepare a strategy is the sum of the times to specify the individual strategy features. A mixed serial-parallel model was proposed as an alternative.     

Comprehending quantified sentences: The relation between sentence-picture and semantic memory verification

People were timed as they decided whether quantified sentences like All (some) of the round figures are red were true or false of an accompanying picture. The response latency was a function of the quantifier and the relation between the sets mentioned in the subject and predicate of the sentence. The pattern of latencies was similar to the pattern found for sentences that refer to concepts in semantic memory, e.g., All (some) dogs are animals (Meyer, 1970). This result suggests that the same process may be operating in both domains. Two alternative models of the process are considered. One model assumes that the common process consists of computing the relation between the two sets mentioned in the sentence. The other model assumes that the common process consists of comparing the representation of the sentence to the representation of information computed from the second source. Both models are integrated with broader theories of performance in various comprehension tasks.     

Recognition memory: One-component strength functions In the “short-term to long-term transition region”

Experimental manipulationofthe upper bound on the retention interval (30 sec, with average duration of 11 sec, vs. 2 min, with average duration of 18 sec) failed to produce evidence for independent adjustment of initial long-term and short-term storage strengths. Very accurate strength functions of retention time were obtained; these were fitted equally well by a two-component equation and a one-componentequation derived from a theory postulating sequential employment of an active attentional buffer and a one-trace passive storage system. The latter theory appears to be capable of accounting for both post-attentional and two-phase experimental strength data, using fewer free parameters than strength theories which postulate the simultaneous existence of short-term and long-term traces. Other arguments for two traces are also discussed In relation to the postulate of a single post-attentional trace.