Dividing Attention Between Tasks: Testing Whether Explicit Payoff Functions Elicit Optimal Dual‐Task Performance

We test people's ability to optimize performance across two concurrent tasks. Participants performed a number entry task while controlling a randomly moving cursor with a joystick. Participants received explicit feedback on their performance on these tasks in the form of a single combined score. This payoff function was varied between conditions to change the value of one task relative to the other. We found that participants adapted their strategy for interleaving the two tasks, by varying how long they spent on one task before switching to the other, in order to achieve the near maximum payoff available in each condition. In a second experiment, we show that this behavior is learned quickly (within 2–3 min over several discrete trials) and remained stable for as long as the payoff function did not change. The results of this work show that people are adaptive and flexible in how they prioritize and allocate attention in a dual‐task setting. However, it also demonstrates some of the limits regarding people's ability to optimize payoff functions.     

Normative and Maladaptive Personality Trait Models of Mood,Psychotic, and Substance Use Disorders

The Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) is a questionnaire developed to assess the five domains represented in the alternative model for personality disorders proposed in Section III of the DSM-5. This study examined the ability of the PID-5 to distinguish between different mental disorders compared to a questionnaire measure of the five-factor model (FFM) of normative personality. The study included the administration of the PID-5 and Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R), a measure of the FFM, to treatment-seeking individuals with Depressive, Bipolar, Psychotic, and Alcohol Use Disorders (AUD). Diagnostic groups were compared at the domain level of PID-5 and NEO PI-R, with sex and age as covariates. The main findings on the PID-5 included higher Detachment scores for Bipolar and Depressive Disorders than Psychotic and AUDs, lower Psychoticism/higher Disinhibition scores for the AUD group compared to all other groups, and lower Negative Affect for the Psychotic Disorders versus AUD group. On the NEO PI-R, the AUD diagnostic group was associated with lower Conscientiousness and Agreeableness scores compared to all other groups, and lower Neuroticism scores than the Bipolar and Depressive groups. Group pairwise comparisons did not appear to show many differences between the PID-5 and NEO PI-R. The results suggest that the alternative DSM-5 model for personality disorders may have clinical utility in distinguishing personality profiles between diagnostic groups. These findings emphasize the importance of additional research on the capacity of maladaptive personality to contribute to the assessment of differential diagnoses.     

Simple games as dynamic, coupled systems: randomness and other emergent properties

From a game theory perspective the ability to generate random behaviors is critical. However, psychological studies have consistently found that individuals are poor at behaving randomly. In this paper we investigated the possibility that the randomness mechanism lies not within the individual players but in the interaction between the players. Provided that players are influenced by their opponent’s past behavior, their relationship may constitute a state of reciprocal causation [Cognitive Science 21 (1998) 461], in which each player simultaneously affects and is affected by the other player. The result of this would be a dynamic, coupled system. Using neural networks to represent the individual players in a game of paper, rock, and scissors, a model of this process was developed and shown to be capable of generating chaos-like behaviors as an emergent property. In addition, it was found that by manipulating the control parameters of the model, corresponding to the amount of working memory and the perceived values of different outcomes, that the game could be biased in favor of one player over the other, an outcome not predicted by game theory. Human data was collected and the results show that the model accurately describes human behavior. The results and the model are discussed in light of recent theoretical advances in dynamic systems theory and cognition.     

Quantitative abilities of invertebrates: a methodological review

Animal Cognition - Quantitative abilities are widely recognized to play important roles in several ecological contexts, such as foraging, mate choice, and social interaction. Indeed, such abilities...     

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Decision-Making in Offender Populations with Mental Disorder

Neuropsychology Review - Decision-making has many different definitions and is measured in varied ways using neuropsychological tasks. Offenders with mental disorder habitually make disadvantageous...     

How Polysemy Affects Concreteness Ratings: The Case of Metaphor

Concreteness ratings are frequently used in a variety of disciplines to operationalize differences between concrete and abstract words and concepts. However, most ratings studies present items in isolation, thereby overlooking the potential polysemy of words. Consequently, ratings for polysemous words may be conflated, causing a threat to the validity of concreteness‐ratings studies. This is particularly relevant to metaphorical words, which typically describe something abstract in terms of something more concrete. To investigate whether perceived concreteness ratings differ for metaphorical versus non‐metaphorical word meanings, we obtained concreteness ratings for 96 English nouns from 230 participants. Results show that nouns are perceived as less concrete when a metaphorical (versus non‐metaphorical) meaning is triggered. We thus recommend taking metaphoricity into account in future concreteness‐ratings studies to further improve the quality and reliability of such studies, as well as the consistency of the empirical studies that rely on these ratings.