Do People Order Cues by Retrieval Fluency when Making Probabilistic Inferences?

In multiple‐cue probabilistic inferences, people infer alternatives' unknown values on decision criteria, using alternatives' attributes as cues. Some inferential strategies, like take‐the‐best, assume that people consider relevant cues sequentially in order of decreasing validity. This assumption has been deemed cognitively implausible by some, who suggest memory retrieval principles to guide cue order. We test whether memory‐based inferences are better described by a model considering cues in order of validity or in order of memory retrieval. In an experiment, we manipulated the frequency with which cues appeared in a learning phase, increasing retrieval fluency of cue values related to the more frequently appearing cue. In a subsequent decision phase, participants made a series of two‐alternative decisions based on the learned cue values. We compared two sequential sampling models, which differed in whether cues are sampled in order of subjective cue validity or in order of retrieval fluency. To model retrieval order of cues in the fluency sampling model, we used the declarative memory theory embedded in the ACT‐R cognitive architecture. Most participants' decisions were best described by the model sampling cues in order of memory retrieval. Only a minority of participants were classified as sampling cues by validity. Our result suggests that retrieval fluency is the primary driver of cue order in inferences from memory, irrespective of the cues' validities. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Phenomenological Dimension of Meaning: Words,Vowels, Phonemes As Ways To Sing The World,To Celebrate The World,and To Live It

This is commentary on Cornejo’s Intersubjectivity as co-phenomenology: from the holism to the being-in-the-world-with-others, co-phenomenology, in which meaning is defined as a construal of phenomenological experience, it is not an individual creation, but rather an intersubjective one. In this paper the basic question is how language expresses the world and things and, consequently, what vision of the world is expressed by language and what relationship it creates with the real. Language is a set of differences between signs and meanings. It lives for and by this constant aspiration to say the inexpressible, to capture the elusive. Language tries to express the driving inner movement of the real through references and interlacing, by multiplying the relational threads of meanings. For example, the phonetic gesture performs for the speaker and his listener a certain structuring of experience, a certain modulation of existence. This is a communicative dimension in which meaning is always a process. It is the situation of co-feeling between subjects, in which understanding is achieved, as defined by Cornejo in his essay.

How does bilingualism improve executive control? A comparison of active and reactive inhibition mechanisms

It has been claimed that bilingualism enhances inhibitory control, but the available evidence is equivocal. The authors evaluated several possible versions of the inhibition hypothesis by comparing monolinguals and bilinguals with regard to stop signal performance, inhibition of return, and the attentional blink. These three phenomena, it can be argued, tap into different aspects of inhibition. Monolinguals and bilinguals did not differ in stop signal reaction time and thus were comparable in terms of active-inhibitory efficiency. However, bilinguals showed no facilitation from spatial cues, showed a strong inhibition of return effect, and exhibited a more pronounced attentional blink. These results suggest that bilinguals do not differ from monolinguals in terms of active inhibition but have acquired a better ability to maintain action goals and to use them to bias goal-related information. Under some circumstances, this ability may indirectly lead to more pronounced reactive inhibition of irrelevant information.     

Perceived parenting style, self-esteem and psychological distress in adolescents with heart disease

The aim of the study was to assess the relationships between perceived parenting style, depressed mood, anxiety and self-esteem in adolescents with heart disease compared with healthy adolescents. Forty-five adolescents, aged 12-18 with congenital or acquired heart disease and 50 healthy age-matched adolescents answered perceived parental behaviour, self-esteem, depressed mood and anxiety questionnaires. The study group reported higher perceived acceptance and lower perceived parental control than healthy adolescents, but similar levels of depressed mood, anxiety and self-esteem. Fischer's r-to-z transformation and regression analyses showed different associations between perceived parenting style and depressed mood, anxiety and self esteem. In the study group, higher perceived parental acceptance was associated with lower depressed mood and higher self-esteem, whereas these associations were not significant in the control group. In the control, but not the study group, higher perceived parental control was associated with lower depressed mood and lower anxiety. Parenting style proved to exert a differential effect on adolescents with and without heart disease. For the former, perceived parental acceptance had a more substantial effect on psychological well-being than perceived parental control. Professionals caring for these adolescents should be aware of the special importance of parenting style on the well-being of adolescents with heart disease, and address this issue in the clinical setting with the patients and their parents.     

Voicing One’s Ideas: Intragroup Respect as an Antecedent of Assertive Behavior

In this research, we tested equality-based respect from ingroup members as a social antecedent of positive assertiveness (i.e., voicing one’s opinions) and group performance. A pretest with employees at the workplace supported that the variables of interest were indeed correlated. The main experimental study then confirmed that participants who had received high as compared with low intragroup respect displayed more assertive behavior and yielded higher group performance in dyadic intragroup discussions. In contrast, high intergroup respect (i.e., from outgroup members) lowered assertiveness and performance levels in intergroup interactions relative to low respect. We discuss implications for social interactions and discourses.     

Activities, self-referent memory beliefs, and cognitive performance: evidence for direct and mediated relations

In this study, the authors investigated the role of activities and self-referent memory beliefs for cognitive performance in a life-span sample. A factor analysis identified 8 activity factors, including Developmental Activities, Experiential Activities, Social Activities, Physical Activities, Technology Use, Watching Television, Games, and Crafts. A second-order general activity factor was significantly related to a general factor of cognitive function as defined by ability tests. Structural regression models suggested that prediction of cognition by activity level was partially mediated by memory beliefs, controlling for age, education, health, and depressive affect. Models adding paths from general and specific activities to aspects of crystallized intelligence suggested additional unique predictive effects for some activities. In alternative models, nonsignificant effects of beliefs on activities were detected when cognition predicted both variables, consistent with the hypothesis that beliefs derive from monitoring cognition and have no influence on activity patterns.     

Introspection &; remembering

We argue that episodic remembering, understood as the ability to re-experience past events, requires a particular kind of introspective ability and understanding. It requires the understanding that first person experiences can represent actual events. In this respect it differs from the understanding required by the traditional false belief test for children, where a third person attribution (to others or self) of a behavior governing representation is sufficient. The understanding of first person experiences as representations is also required for problem solving with images. In support of this argument we review developmental evidence that children’s episodic remembering is independent of and emerges after mastery of the false belief task but emerges together with the use of imagery for solving visual rotation tasks.     

"Despair" induced by extinction trials in the water maze: relationship with measures of anxiety in aged and adult rats

We have previously reported that extinction of escape behavior in the water maze due to the removal of the platform coincided with the development of behavioral "despair" in aged and adult rats, as assessed by immobility. The present study examines further predictions derived from the hypothesis that the withholding of reinforcement induces behaviors akin to depression. We tested for correlations between extinction performance and immobility, as well as between immobility and measures of anxiety in aged and adult rats. Age comparisons were also performed on these variables. Forty aged and 29 adult male Wistar rats (24 and 3 months old, respectively) were examined in the open field, black/white box and elevated-plus maze followed by 6 days of training in the water maze hidden platform task and 8 days of extinction without the platform. Indices of immobility increased over trials of extinction, with the aged showing higher levels, earlier onsets and larger slope increases of immobility than the adults. A lower resistance-to-extinction was predictive of more "despair" in both age groups. Between-group differences in the open field, black/white box and elevated-plus maze indicated that the aged showed more anxiety-like behavior than the adults and/or explored these environments less. Within the aged group, indicators of fearfulness in the three tests were predictive of higher levels of "despair". The extinction-despair model is held to provide the promise of a conceptual and empirical model of human depression that is the consequence of withdrawal of reinforcement.