The sociotectonics of the Noosphere

Der Ausdruck Soziotektonik bezeichnet das Netzwerk menschlicher Wechselwirkungen, welche durch Symbole und Signale übermittelt werden und die Koordination und Integration verschiedener Sozialsysteme ermöglichen. Jedes Sozialnetzwerk ist zeitbedingt und seine Evolution ist das Ergebnis menschlicher Entscheidungen. Die Entwicklung kann im Rückblick beschrieben werden; im Vorausblick können nur Wahrscheinlichkeitsaussagen gemacht werden. Die Teilsysteme sind nicht hierarchisch untergeordnet, sondern heterarchisch beigeordnet und unterliegen infolgedessen unvereinbaren Einflüssen. Der Grad der möglichen Harmonisierung kann mathematisch-topologisch formuliert werden.

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Anmerkung der Herausgeber: Dr. Taschdjian ist am 3. Mai 1988 verstorben. Wir danken seiner Frau, Claire L. Taschdjian, für die Fahnenkorrektur.     

Conceptions différenciées et non différenciées de la compétence et de l'effort en fonction de l'âge: conséquences sur les affects et sur les stratégies d'auto-handicap

Quatre-vingt seize sujets de 7 à 9 ans et de 13 à 15 ans ont travaillé sur un texte dans deux conditions d'implication (ego versus tâche). Après avoir été crédités de feedback de compétence ou d'incompétence, ils furent requis d'inférer leur niveau d'effort, d'évaluer leurs affects (fierté, embarras et culpabilité) et de donner leurs raisons de l'effort mis en jeu (stratégies d'auto-handicap). Les résultats confirment que les adolescents se réfèrent à une conception différenciée de la compétence et de l'effort en situation d'implication de l'Ego, et utilisent une conception moins différenciée dans des conditions d'implication dans la tâche. Les affects résultent eux-mêmes de ces conceptions. Mais les buts d'implication de l'Ego, qui accentuent les menaces pour l'estime de soi, suscitent en retour des stratégies de protection de soi que les individus appliquent effectivement à eux-mêmes.     

An application of the poisson race model to confidence calibration

In tasks as diverse as stock market predictions and jury deliberations, a person's feelings of confidence in the appropriateness of different choices often impact that person's final choice. The current study examines the mathematical modeling of confidence calibration in a simple dual-choice task. Experiments are motivated by an accumulator model, which proposes that information supporting each alternative accrues on separate counters. The observer responds in favor of whichever alternative's counter first hits a designated threshold. Confidence can then be scaled from the difference between the counters at the time that the observer makes a response. The authors examine the overconfidence result in general and present new findings dealing with the effect of response bias on confidence calibration.     

The Definition of Moral Dilemmas: A Logical Confusion and a Clarification

This discussion note deals with Jurriaan de Haan's paper The Definition of Moral Dilemmas: A Logical Problem (Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 4(3), 2001, pp. 267–284). In the first, critical part I will point out a confusion in the logical analysis of the paper in question. In the second, constructive part I will indicate how the analysis of moral dilemmas should proceed within the framework of a possible world semantics.     

The Tower of London Test: different scoring criteria for diagnosing Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment

The Tower of London (TOL) is used for evaluating planning skills, which is a component of the executive functions. Different versions and scoring criteria were developed for this task, and some of them present with different psychometrical properties. This study aimed to evaluate two specific scoring methods of the TOL in diagnosing Mild Cognitive Impairment and probable Alzheimer's disease. The TOL total scores from 60 patients of each diagnosis were compared with the performance of 60 healthy-aged controls using receiver operating characteristics analysis and multinomial logistic regression. Krikorian method better diagnosed Alzheimer's disease, while Portellas's was better at discriminating healthy controls from Mild Cognitive Impairment, but were not efficient at comparing this last group with Alzheimer's patients. Regression analysis indicates that in addition to screening tests, TOL improves the classification of the three groups. The results suggest the two scoring methods used for this task may be useful for different diagnostic purposes.     

A stochastic lie detector

Surveys on sensitive issues provide distorted prevalence estimates when participants fail to respond truthfully. The randomized-response technique (RRT) encourages more honest responding by adding random noise to responses, thereby removing any direct link between a participant’s response and his or her true status with regard to a sensitive attribute. However, in spite of the increased confidentiality, some respondents still refuse to disclose sensitive attitudes or behaviors. To remedy this problem, we propose an extension of Mangat’s (Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B, 56, 93–95, 1994) variant of the RRT that allows for determining whether participants respond truthfully. This method offers the genuine advantage of providing undistorted prevalence estimates for sensitive attributes even if respondents fail to respond truthfully. We show how to implement the method using both closed-form equations and easily accessible free software for multinomial processing tree models. Moreover, we report the results of two survey experiments that provide evidence for the validity of our extension of Mangat’s RRT approach.     

Encoding, maintenance, and retrieval processes in the lag effect: a multinomial processing tree analysis

Short-term studies on repeated learning of verbatim material have typically revealed an overall benefit of long lags compared to short lags between repetitions. This has been referred to as the lag effect. On educationally relevant time scales, however, an inverted-U-shaped relation between lag and memory performance is often observed. Recently, Cepeda et al. (2009) showed that the optimal lag for relearning depends heavily on the time interval between the last learning session and the final memory test (i.e., the retention interval; RI). In order to explore the cognitive mechanisms underlying this result in more detail we independently manipulated both the lag and the RI in a 3×2 experimental design and analysed our data using a multinomial processing tree model for free-then-cued-recall data. Our results reveal that the lag effect trends are mainly driven by encoding and maintenance processes rather than by retrieval mechanisms. Our findings have important implications for theories of the lag effect.     

Book reviews

>P. P. KIRSCHENMANN. Information and Reflection. D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1970. Pp. xv, 225. Indexed. $14.00.

HUBERT L. DREYFUS, What Computers Can't Do: A Critique of Artificial Reason. New York: Harper and Row, 1972. Pp. xxxv, 259. Indexed.

DONALD M. MACKAY, Information, Mechanism and Meaning. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1969. Pp. ix, 196. Indexed. $2.95 (paper).

YORICK ALEXANDER WILKS, Grammar, Meaning and the Machine Analysis of Language. London : Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972. Pp. 1–198. Indexed. $10.00.     

Direction and Extent Uncertainty in Step-Input Tracking

In 3 experiments, Ss controlled a horizontal lever to track a step input where the degrees of choice of direction and extent of movement were varied systematically. The experiments differed in the way the trials were presented and in the conditions under which these 2 sources of response choice were compared. Increasing choice of direction of movement from 1 to 2 led to an increase in RT of between 34 and 40 msec. No significant increase in RT was found as choice of extent of movement was raised from 1 to 4. Considered with other evidence the results indicate the necessity to distinguish 2 types or levels of decisions associated with response factors. It is suggested that at one level the sequencing of muscle activity is established and at another the fine details of this activity are controlled.