Ockhamism without Thin Red Lines

This paper investigates the logic of Ockhamism, a view according to which future contingents are either true or false. Several attempts have been made to give rigorous shape to this view by defining a suitable formal semantics, but arguably none of them is fully satisfactory. The paper draws attention to some problems that beset such attempts, and suggests that these problems are different symptoms of the same initial confusion, in that they stem from the unjustified assumption that the actual course of events must be represented in the semantics as a distinguished history, the Thin Red Line.     

The role of thought-content and mood in the preparative benefits of upward counterfactual thinking

Upward counterfactual thoughts identify how a prior outcome could have been better and have been shown to improve subsequent performance. Both the identification of corrective actions (content-specific effects) and the more general mobilization of effort as a result of negative affect (content-neutral effects) have been suggested to underlie performance benefits. The results of three experiments presented here indicate that counterfactual thoughts have broad benefits for performance, independent of their content and beyond the effects of planning. These benefits were consistently dependent upon the experience of negative affect, but were eliminated when negative affect could be (mis)attributed to an intervening task. This misattribution effect is consistent with the operation of a mood-as-input process in which affect informs judgments of goal progress. Overall, the findings suggest that the benefits of upward counterfactual thinking reflect more broad attempts to improve following a subjectively unsatisfactory performance.     

Assessing Fear of Storms and Severe Weather: Validation of the Storm Fear Questionnaire (SFQ)

To date, research on storm phobia has been limited by a lack of validated self-report measures for evaluating the severity of anxiety, phobic avoidance, and distress associated with storms and severe weather. The current research presents the development and validation of the Storm Fear Questionnaire (SFQ), a 15-item self-report questionnaire that assesses the cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects thought to be associated with Storm Phobia in adults. Three studies were conducted to assess 1) the factor structure, internal consistency, and convergent and discriminant validity of the SFQ, 2) the test-retest reliability of the SFQ, 3) the extent that scores on the SFQ were associated with subjective anxiety ratings during a Behavioral Approach Test (BAT) involving exposure to a virtual thunderstorm, and the extent to which SFQ scores distinguished community participants with versus without a fear of storms. Exploratory factor analyses supported a one-factor model with good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α?=?.95), good convergent and discriminant validity with self-report measures of anxiety, worry, depression, and other specific phobias, and acceptable test-retest reliability. Moreover, there was a significant positive association between SFQ scores and anxiety ratings following the BAT involving exposure to a virtual thunderstorm and participants with a high fear of storms reported significantly higher SFQ scores than those with a low fear of storms. In sum, the SFQ has good psychometric properties and appears to be a valuable tool for assessing the severity of fear associated with storms and severe weather. Research evaluating the diagnostic and clinical utility of the SFQ is still needed.     

Discussion of Ron Bodansky’s Case Presentation: How We Explain Psychoanalytic Improvement in Patients Who Have Been Severely Traumatized

In this article, I discuss Ron Bodansky’s presentation (this issue), “Release from Developmental Arrest,” from a Viennese perspective. Vienna, Kohut’s birthplace, the town in which he spent his childhood and adolescence, where he studied and had his first analysis with August Aichhorn, was the place to establish the first Self Psychological Training Institute in Europe: the Vienna Circle for Psychoanalysis and Self Psychology, a state recognized Training Institute, founded in 1987.

Which direction has Self Psychology been taking in Austria since then? We began with the exploration of self-structure, moved via empathy to a focus on selfobject experiences and then many of us joined in the appreciation of the importance of intersubjectivity theory. My discussion reflects this particular theoretical orientation, an orientation that makes the attempt to observe and understand both the ongoing process of mutual influence that is at the heart of intersubjectivity theory, as well as the self object needs and transferences that become mobilized in the patient within this process.     

Is the Male Advantage in Mental-Rotation Performance Task Independent? On the Usability of Chronometric Tests and Paper-and-Pencil Tests in Children

This article presents a reanalysis of the data of 862 second and fourth graders collected in two previous studies, focusing on the influence of method (psychometric vs. chronometric) and stimulus type on the gender difference in mental-rotation accuracy. The children had to solve mental-rotation tasks with animal pictures, letters, or cube figures, either in a chronometric condition (computerized) or in a psychometric condition (paper-and-pencil). Results show a slight male advantage in mental-rotation accuracy, which is neither influenced by method nor by stimulus type. However, mental-rotation accuracy differed between the stimulus types, with the highest accuracy in animal pictures and the lowest accuracy in cube figures, and between age groups, with better performance in fourth graders than in second graders in both conditions. Results show that psychometric and chronometric mental-rotation tests with all the stimulus types are more or less similarly usable with children of that age.     

Discussing proximal pasts and far futures

Consumers often share word of mouth, and such interpersonal communication shapes attitudes and purchases. But while some research has examined what consumers talk about, there has been less attention to when consumers discuss. How does the distance from now (i.e., whether something is temporally near or far away) shape the likelihood of discussion? And might the effect of temporal distance on word of mouth vary based on whether those things happened in the past or will happen in the future? Five studies, including analyses of thousands of social media posts, address these questions. They suggest that consumers tend to talk about temporally near things, but that this is moderated by whether they are talking about the past or future (i.e., consumers talk about more temporally distant things when talking about the future). Accessibility seems to play an important role in these effects. While temporally near things tend to be more accessible, on average, goals and plans are more likely to remain active in the future, which shapes what gets discussed. These findings have implications for understanding drivers of word of mouth, how time shapes consumer behavior, and how companies can more effectively manage interpersonal communication.     

On the empirical indistinguishability of knowledge structures

In recent years a number of articles have focused on the identifiability of the basic local independence model. The identifiability issue usually concerns two model parameter sets predicting an identical probability distribution on the response patterns. Both parameter sets are applied to the same knowledge structure. However, nothing is known about cases where different knowledge structures predict the same probability distribution. This situation is referred to as ʻempirical indistinguishabilityʼ between two structures and is the main subject of the present paper. Empirical indistinguishability is a stronger form of unidentifiability, which involves not only the parameters, but also the structural and combinatorial properties of the model. In particular, as far as knowledge structures are concerned, a consequence of empirical indistinguishability is that the existence of certain knowledge states cannot be empirically established. Most importantly, it is shown that model identifiability cannot guarantee that a certain knowledge structure is empirically distinguishable from others. The theoretical findings are exemplified in a number of different empirical scenarios.     

Perception d’attributs des visages parlants par le nouveau-né humain

A visual preference method is used for studying how human newborns can process internal characteristics on speaking faces in a multimodal context. In a first experiment, two mobile faces associated with a speech sound are opposed: one is clear and the other is blurred. A preference for the clear face is observed. A second experiment contrasts two clear faces, showing lip movements respectively congruent and non-congruent with the associated speech sound. No preference is observed in this situation. These results show that newborns process mobile faces by orienting their attention on more information than that corresponding to very low spatial frequencies. It seems however that they cannot detect the correspondences between the lip movements and the associated sounds.     

‘Three is better than two’: Increasing donations with the attraction effect

Five experiments (N_total = 2,503) tested the attraction effect and its boundary conditions in the context of helping behaviour. Participants could choose one donation appeal in a set of either two or three alternatives. The three alternatives set included a decoy – an alternative that resembled but was clearly inferior to a target (i.e., the most beneficial) alternative. A clear and consistent pattern emerged: Participants chose the target alternative more frequently and perceived it as more beneficial (and somewhat less costly) when the decoy was present compared to when it was absent. This finding was robust when the attribute ratings of the alternatives were unclear, when the target alternative offered a bundle of unrelated products, and when participants could refrain from donating altogether, or contribute any amount they wished. Our findings offer concrete and simple strategies that charities can implement at zero cost to increase giving and the perceived benefits that people’s good deed bring about to those in need.