Do not fear your opponent: suboptimal changes of a prevention strategy when facing stronger opponents

The time spent making a decision and its quality define a widely studied trade-off. Some models suggest that the time spent is set to optimize reward, as verified empirically in simple-decision making experiments. However, in a more complex perspective compromising components of regulation focus, ambitions, fear, risk and social variables, adjustment of the speed-accuracy trade-off may not be optimal. Specifically, regulatory focus theory shows that people can be set in a promotion mode, where focus is on seeking to approach a desired state (to win), or in a prevention mode, focusing to avoid undesired states (not to lose). In promotion, people are eager to take risks increasing speed and decreasing accuracy. In prevention, strategic vigilance increases, decreasing speed and improving accuracy. When time and accuracy have to be compromised, one can ask which of these 2 strategies optimizes reward, leading to optimal performance. This is investigated here in a unique experimental environment. Decision making is studied in rapid-chess (180 s per game), in which the goal of a player is to mate the opponent in a finite amount of time or, alternatively, time-out of the opponent with sufficient material to mate. In different games, players face strong and weak opponents. It was observed that (a) players adopt a more conservative strategy when facing strong opponents, with slower and more accurate moves, and (b) this strategy is suboptimal: Players increase their winning likelihood against strong opponents using the policy they adopt when confronting opponents with similar strength.     

Culture and the distinctiveness motive: constructing identity in individualistic and collectivistic contexts

The motive to attain a distinctive identity is sometimes thought to be stronger in, or even specific to, those socialized into individualistic cultures. Using data from 4,751 participants in 21 cultural groups (18 nations and 3 regions), we tested this prediction against our alternative view that culture would moderate the ways in which people achieve feelings of distinctiveness, rather than influence the strength of their motivation to do so. We measured the distinctiveness motive using an indirect technique to avoid cultural response biases. Analyses showed that the distinctiveness motive was not weaker-and, if anything, was stronger-in more collectivistic nations. However, individualism-collectivism was found to moderate the ways in which feelings of distinctiveness were constructed: Distinctiveness was associated more closely with difference and separateness in more individualistic cultures and was associated more closely with social position in more collectivistic cultures. Multilevel analysis confirmed that it is the prevailing beliefs and values in an individual's context, rather than the individual's own beliefs and values, that account for these differences.     

Memory traces compete under regimes of limited Arc protein synthesis: Implications for memory interference

Recently encoded information can be lost in the presence of new information, a process called 'retrograde interference'. Retrograde interference has been extensively described for more than a century; however, little is known about its underlying mechanisms. Different approaches agree on the need of the synthesis of plasticity related proteins (PRPs) to consolidate a long-term memory (LTM). Our hypothesis is that when PRPs are limited, interference of a task over LTM formation of another may be due to the utilization of protein resources common to both tasks. Here, by combining the tasks of inhibitory avoidance (IA) and open field (OF) exploration in rats, we show that memory traces compete for their stabilization if PRPs are limited. As a result, LTM is formed for only one of the tasks with a consequent decrease in the memory for the other. Furthermore, infusing Arc antisense oligonucleotide into the dorsal hippocampus, we found that Arc is necessary for LTM formation of these two types of learning tasks and is one of the PRPs that can be shared between them when animals are trained in both OF and IA. In sum, these findings suggest that under conditions of reduced protein availability, a learning task interferes with LTM formation of another by using the available PRPs.     

The many faces of autonomy

What does autonomy mean from a moral point of view? Throughout Western history, autonomy has had no less than four different meanings. The first is political: the capacity of old cities and modern states to give themselves their own laws. The second is metaphysical, and was introduced by Kant in the second half of the 18th century. In this meaning, autonomy is understood as an intrinsic characteristic of all rational beings. Opposed to this is the legal meaning, in which actions are called autonomous when performed with due information and competency and without coercion. This last meaning, the most frequently used in bioethics, is primarily legal instead of moral. Is there a proper moral meaning of the word autonomy? If so, this would be a fourth meaning. Acts can only be called moral when they are postconventional (using the terminology coined by Lawrence Kohlberg), inner-directed (as expressed by David Riesman), and responsible (according to Hannah Arendt). Such acts are autonomous in this new, fourth, and to my mind, the only one proper, moral meaning. The goal of ethics cannot be other than forming human beings capable of making autonomous and responsible decisions, and doing so because they think this is their duty and not because of any other nonmoral motivation, like comfort, convenience, or satisfaction. The goal of ethics is to promote postconventional and mature human beings. This was what Socrates tried to do with the young people of Athens. And it is also the objective of every course of ethics and of any process of training.     

El estudio experimental del castigo: una revisión

Resumen

El presente trabajo trata desde un punto de vista histórico, algunos de los aspectos del castigo. Señala como, actualmente, a la luz de numerosos experimentos, se aceptan como válidas las dos caras de la ley simétrica del efecto (ley positiva del efecto y ley negativa del efecto). Simetría que Thorndike, su formulador, desechó en los inicios de la década de los años treinta. También se ofrece evidencia de la capital importancia de la contingencia dentro del procedimiento de castigo (superioridad del castigo frente a R.E.C.). Finalmente se da cuenta de una serie de parámetros que ejercen una gran influencia en los efectos del castigo.     

Atribución de la causalidad y motivación de logro. I: estudio evolutivo de la utilización de información en la realización de juicios de atribución

Resumen

Este estudio ha examinado los cambios que se producen entre los seis y los once años en la utilización de información al realizar juicios de atribución para explicar el éxito y el fracaso. Se han examinado 30 niños y 30 niñas de 1.°, 3.° y 5.° de EGB, 180 en total. A estos sujetos se les facilitó información sobre una actividad cuyo resultado podía ser éxito o fracaso (resultado inmediato de la misma, historia de resultados obtenidos anteriormente en la tarea, tiempo empleado por el sujeto en realizarla, resultados obtenidos por otros sujetos habitualmente y naturaleza de la tarea). En cada caso se les pedía que atribuyesen el resultado observado (éxito o fracaso) a alguno de los factores causales «habilidad», «esfuerzo», «dificultad de la tarea» y «suerte». Los datos han puesto de manifiesto que el uso de los distintos indicios de información, tanto individualmente como en distintas combinaciones, se desarrolla siguiendo pautas particulares diferentes para cada factor causal.     

Psicobiología del síndrome de Down

Resumen

En este artículo revisamos los conocimientos que existen en la actualidad sobre el síndrome de Down, atendiendo a todos aquellos aspectos que, por su relevancia, facilitan una mejor comprensión de esta cromosomopatía. Después de una breve reseña histórica, y tras definir lo que se entiende por síndrome de Down, pasamos a ocuparnos de la alteración genética que lo determina, así como de los factores que parecen estar relacionados con su origen. A continuación estudiamos las alteraciones específicas que acompañan a este síndrome, considerando principalmente los aspectos morfológicos externos, el problema de la hipotonía muscular y otros trastornos biomédicos, el retraso mental y las diversas anomalías neuroanatómicas y neurofisiológicas que presentan los sujetos afectados. Por último, indicamos las nuevas perspectivas que se abren en el estudio de esta alteración genética.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to identify what I take to be the main conceptual problem in Lewis’ semantics for counterfactuals when the Limit Assumption (LA) is not satisfied, what I call the Discrimination Problem (DP), and to present and discuss a modification of Lewis’ semantics that aims at solving DP. First, I outline Lewis’ semantics, highlighting the aspects that will be relevant for our discussion. Second, I present DP and discuss it with a heuristic example. Third, I present the new proposal and comment some formal consequences and the objections they give rise to. Fourth, I present an allegedly equivalent version of the proposal and discuss the difference between counterfactuals and strict conditionals. Finally, I defend that the two proposals are different and argue for the first one as the best way of capturing two intuitions that seem in conflict when the LA is not satisfied. I conclude with a dilemma: either the proposal here defended works or LA is inescapable. Thus, if the proposal doesn’t work, the paper must then be considered as an indirect defense of the Limit Assumption.