Using PPT to Analyze Suboptimal Human–Automation Performance

Diagnostic automation aids are designed to improve human performance by increasing accuracy in event detection tasks. However, human–automation performance has frequently fallen short of expectations, particularly when the aid is highly reliable. In those cases, human–automation performance is often suboptimal, in that a human being augmented with a diagnostic aid does more poorly than the automation itself. Previously, there have been only ambiguous explanations for why this occurs, with few suggestions on how to effectively eliminate suboptimal performance. Fortunately, with the advent of a new general theory of task performance, termed Potential Performance Theory (PPT) by D. Trafimow and S. Rice (2008 Trafimow, D. and Rice, S. 2008. Potential Performance Theory: A general theory of task performance applied to morality. Psychological Review, 115(2): 447–462. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; 2009), one can now determine exactly why suboptimal performance occurs. Results from the present study reveal that inconsistency is the culprit, rather than just poor strategy selection. Furthermore, PPT allows one to determine exactly how much of the performance decrement is because of inconsistency.     

An Operant Electromagnetic Chamber

Forty-eight middle-class fathers having their first child were divided into three groups: An Experimental Group received a demonstration of physical and behavioral characteristics of their own infants resulting in a doubling of the usual time for interaction during the first two days. A Hospital Group spent the same amount of time viewing a prepared videotape of the same characteristics of a newborn infant who was not theirs. An Office Control Group, without experimental intervention, was recruited to control for effects of demand characteristics of the experimental situation. All three groups attended their infants' one-month well-baby examination where outcome measures were obtained. Analyses of variance showed no differences between groups on demographic or pregnancy variables. Further, 108 analyses of variance for 36 father and infant behaviors scored from videotapes did not reveal significant group differences. It is argued that in addition to amount of early contact and sex of parent, crucial socioeconomic factors need to be considered.     

Aspects of Psychosomatic Orchidalgia

Children aged 5 to 9 years matched the shape of (a) small squares embedded in large rectangles and (b) small rectangles embedded in large squares. Predictions made were that (a) the influence of the whole on the perception of the part would be greatest at the 5-year-old level and (b) this effect of the whole would make the parts look to the child somewhat like the whole figure of which the part is a member. Both predictions were supported by the data. The 5-year-olds perceived the small squares as more rectangular, and the small rectangles as more square-like, significantly more than the older age groups, each result representing a shift towards the shape of the whole configuration.     

Threatened masculinity and muscularity: An experimental examination of multiple aspects of muscularity in men

Two studies examined the threatened masculinity theory of male body dissatisfaction, which posits that threats to masculinity result in increased muscle dissatisfaction. In Study 1, a masculinity threat was followed by tasks examining confidence in physical ability and perceptions of current and ideal body shapes. Results showed that men who experienced a masculinity threat reported lower confidence in their physical ability and perceived themselves as less muscular than men who experienced an affirmation of their masculinity. In Study 2, men were asked to report their intention to increase muscularity and their appearance anxiety following a threat to masculinity. Results showed that men reported lower appearance anxiety and drive for muscularity when their masculinity was threatened than when their masculinity was affirmed. This apparent contradiction can be explained by noting that men may be motivated to deny appearance concerns following a threat to masculinity, as such concerns are equated with femininity.     

Filling some gaps in market mavenism research

Since Feick and Price introduced the concept of market mavenism almost 30 years ago, researchers have accumulated a large body of empirical findings describing market maven attitudes, behaviors, and characteristics. Surprisingly, only a few studies examine the relationship between market mavenism and its personality antecedents represented by the Big Five theory. In addition, 2 consequences of mavenism, brand loyalty and frugality, have not been studied. The present study contributes to understanding mavenism by filling some gaps in this body of knowledge by using data from a sample of 351 adult US consumers. The findings reveal moderate positive associations of mavenism with openness to experience, extraversion, and agreeableness and weak positive associations with conscientiousness and emotional stability. They also show that market mavenism is positively related to frugality and negatively related to brand loyalty. The findings also confirm that mavens shop more and buy more than other consumers do. These findings continue to expand our understanding of market mavenism and provide insights that marketing managers might use as they factor mavenism into their strategies. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Systematic Review of the Psychometric Properties of Trait Cognitive Self-Report Measures in Social Anxiety

Cognitive factors, including beliefs, thoughts and assumptions have been found to play an important role in the development and maintenance of Social Anxiety Disorder. Trait cognitive self-report measures of social anxiety are widely used in research and clinical settings. It is imperative that only measures with good psychometric properties are used in order to interpret assessment scores accurately, and to make valid and reliable conclusions. The present systematic review evaluated the psychometric properties of trait cognitive self-report measures of social anxiety. Relevant studies were identified via a comprehensive and systematic search of academic databases. The reported psychometric properties of included studies were analysed by applying an appraisal of adequacy tool developed by Terwee et al. (2007). Of the 3091 studies identified, 50 studies met the inclusion criteria, and they included 21 measures. Included studies demonstrated that a number of measures had some adequate psychometric properties, however, no measure fulfilled criteria for all psychometric properties according to the appraisal tool. Findings highlight the need to further establish the psychometric properties of cognitive self-report measures of social anxiety in clinical and research settings through additional empirical studies.     

Whatever Gave You That Idea? False Memories Following Equivalence Training: A Behavioral Account of the Misinformation Effect

The misinformation effect is a term used in the cognitive psychological literature to describe both experimental and real-world instances in which misleading information is incorporated into an account of an historical event. In many real-world situations, it is not possible to identify a distinct source of misinformation, and it appears that the witness may have inferred a false memory by integrating information from a variety of sources. In a stimulus equivalence task, a small number of trained relations between some members of a class of arbitrary stimuli result in a large number of untrained, or emergent relations, between all members of the class. Misleading information was introduced into a simple memory task between a learning phase and a recognition test by means of a match-to-sample stimulus equivalence task that included both stimuli from the original learning task and novel stimuli. At the recognition test, participants given equivalence training were more likely to misidentify patterns than those who were not given such training. The misinformation effect was distinct from the effects of prior stimulus exposure, or partial stimulus control. In summary, stimulus equivalence processes may underlie some real-world manifestations of the misinformation effect.     

Bias versus bias: Harnessing hindsight to reveal paranormal belief change beyond demand characteristics

Psychological change is difficult to assess, in part because self-reported beliefs and attitudes may be biased or distorted. The present study probed belief change, in an educational context, by using the hindsight bias to counter another bias that generally plagues assessment of subjective change. Although research has indicated that skepticism courses reduce paranormal beliefs, those findings may reflect demand characteristics (biases toward desired, skeptical responses). Our hindsight-bias procedure circumvented demand by asking students, following semester-long skepticism (and control) courses, to recall their precourse levels of paranormal belief. People typically remember themselves as previously thinking, believing, and acting as they do now, so current skepticism should provoke false recollections of previous skepticism. Given true belief change, therefore, skepticism students should have remembered themselves as having been more skeptical than they were. They did, at least about paranormal topics that were covered most extensively in the course. Our findings thus show hindsight to be useful in evaluating cognitive change beyond demand characteristics.     

A Terror Management Perspective on the Persuasiveness of Fear Appeals

We use terror management theory (TMT) to show that the nature of the threatening consequences included in fear‐appeal communications influences the responses to the messages promoted in such communications. On the basis of differences between death‐related consequences and non‐death‐related consequences, they provide an explanation for maladaptive responses to fear appeals. Results from 2 experiments indicate that participants who were highly committed to a worldview of drinking alcohol rejected socially acceptable attitudes toward drinking and driving when the message containing such attitudes was accompanied by a fear appeal that contained death as a consequence, but not when fear appeals contained the fear of arrest or serious injury. Participants perceived their level of experienced fear to be the same across the experimental conditions. The results have implications for considering the qualitative nature of the threatening consequence in fear‐appeal research and for using TMT to understand maladaptive responses to fear‐appeal communications.