An associative theory of estimating past dates and past prices

The theory—a location theory, in W. J. Friedman’s (1993) terminology—assumes that time information such as the date of an event is increasingly likely to become unavailable with passing time. The theory suggests that when people are asked to date events whose time is unknown, they find and supply time information for the most similar event and context for which it is available. Simulations of the dating process were compared with experimental results and produced similar patterns of error and bias. The theory is extended to explain errors and biases in how people estimate past prices.     

Truth in Frege's ‘law of truth’

I wish to thank Peter Hylton, from whom I have learned much in discussion of these issues, and whose comments upon a previous draft of this paper helped to give it its present shape. I must also thank two anonymous referees, who were most helpful on both specific and general points, and Axel Boldt, who helped with the German.     

Construction of activity duration and time management potential

Two experiments examined the estimation of event duration. In Experiment 1 subjects estimated the expected duration of five everyday activities, performed the activities, and then made retrospective estimates of the duration of the activities. Expected and retrospective estimates were positively correlated, even when actual duration was taken into account suggesting both estimates may have been constructed partly from general knowledge of activity duration. Experiment 2 examined the ability to predict activity duration within a time management framework. Results indicated that subjects' accuracy in predicting the duration of a series of events was not related to time management ability as measured by the Time Structure Questionnaire (TSQ). Subjects generally made overestimations, and this tendency may be a strategy that gives a feeling of control over time and helps avoid stress caused by an inability to complete tasks in the allocated time. No relationship was found between expected duration estimation ability and academic performance.     

Feasibility and acceptability of a brief suicide intervention for youth involved with the family court

As efforts to develop models for suicide prevention and intervention in the juvenile justice (JJ) system continue to grow, research to understand the feasibility and acceptability of implementing these models is critical. Examining organizational readiness for implementation, ensuring leadership and staff buy‐in for delivering the intervention, and planning for sustainability of staff participation in implementation efforts is essential. The current study involved semi‐structured formative evaluation interviews with key JJ stakeholders (n = 10) to determine perspectives on the acceptability (perceived need and fit of the intervention) and feasibility (organizational readiness for change) of a proposed brief safety planning intervention for youth with suicidal ideation delivered by nonclinical staff and integrated into the existing system. Qualitative data revealed stakeholders' perceived need for the intervention in the family court context and their agreement that the aims of the intervention were congruent with the goals of the family court. Some barriers to successful implementation were noted, which, addressed through selection of appropriate implementation strategies, can be overcome in a future test of the safety intervention.     

Uh‐Oh! What Have We Missed? A Qualitative Investigation into Everyday Insight Experience

This study takes a novel qualitative approach to the investigation of everyday insight experience. It offers ecological validation to findings principally rendered, prior to this research, from a quantitative, cognitive standpoint. In addition, it considers emotional as well as cognitive components of insight. Participants were given different (or no) definitions of insight to ensure experiences collected did not simply mirror the examples of insight provided. This avoided the circularity problem of previous insight research. With the use of an open‐ended questionnaire (online or hardcopy), first‐hand textual accounts of insight instances were recorded. Data collected from 76 participants were analyzed using an adapted qualitative methodology, Integrative Thematic Analysis. This enabled the researchers to identify themes from the data, building a new typology of insight: Content (Personal, Intellectual, Practical), Process (Social Facilitation, Time Away, Active Search) and Feelings (Positive Feelings, Negative Feelings) aspects of insight. The findings suggest everyday experience of insight reaches beyond cognitive problem solving to include elements related to applied psychology, namely Personal (counseling psychology) and Social Facilitation (occupational psychology). Notably, this study offers examples of negative insight, Uh‐oh moments, for the first time. Future research should focus on the interaction of cognitive and affective components in insight moments.     

Inductive reasoning about causally transmitted properties

Different intuitive theories constrain and guide inferences in different contexts. Formalizing simple intuitive theories as probabilistic processes operating over structured representations, we present a new computational model of category-based induction about causally transmitted properties. A first experiment demonstrates undergraduates’ context-sensitive use of taxonomic and food web knowledge to guide reasoning about causal transmission and shows good qualitative agreement between model predictions and human inferences. A second experiment demonstrates strong quantitative and qualitative fits to inferences about a more complex artificial food web. A third experiment investigates human reasoning about complex novel food webs where species have known taxonomic relations. Results demonstrate a double-dissociation between the predictions of our causal model and a related taxonomic model [Kemp, C., & Tenenbaum, J. B. (2003). Learning domain structures. In Proceedings of the 25th annual conference of the cognitive science society]: the causal model predicts human inferences about diseases but not genes, while the taxonomic model predicts human inferences about genes but not diseases. We contrast our framework with previous models of category-based induction and previous formal instantiations of intuitive theories, and outline challenges in developing a complete model of context-sensitive reasoning.     

Collaborative recall and collective memory: what happens when we remember together?

Studies of collective memory have traditionally been the domain of philosophers and sociologists, while cognitive psychologists have largely investigated memory at the level of the individual. However, within cognitive psychology there is a variety of psychological theories and experimental paradigms that have been used to study the process and outcomes of remembering in groups. In this paper we review the research on group remembering and draw together findings from different traditions. In doing so, we aim to answer a series of questions about the outcomes and consequences of recalling in groups, and the particular features of groups and of memories that may be conducive to the formation of a collective memory. In clarifying what we know and what is yet to be studied about group memory, we point the way forward for a cognitive psychological study of collective memory.     

The development of stimulus control over tics: A potential explanation for contextually-based variability in the symptoms of Tourette syndrome

Research has demonstrated that providing reinforcement for tic-free intervals can decrease tic frequency in controlled analogue settings. The aim of the current study was to determine whether reinforcement could be used to create stimulus control over tic expression. Ten children with chronic tic disorders (including Tourette syndrome) completed four discrimination training sessions. Each session consisted of three exposures to each of three, 5 min conditions presented in a random order. In one condition, participants were reinforced for tic absence on a 10-s fixed interval schedule in the presence of a purple light. In a second condition, participants were instructed to suppress their tics, but were not reinforced for doing so in the presence of an orange light. In a third condition, participants were instructed not to suppress their tics in the presence of two non-illuminated lights. Confirming findings from other studies, results showed that reinforcing tic suppression reduced tic frequency to a greater extent than only providing instructions to suppress. To test for stimulus control, a fifth session was conducted following the aforementioned discrimination training sessions. The fifth session consisted of three exposures to each of three 5 min conditions presented in a random order. In one condition, a purple light was illuminated. In a second condition, an orange light was illuminated. In a third condition, neither light was illuminated. Across all three conditions, instructions to suppress (or not suppress) tics were not provided, and reinforcers for successful suppression were not delivered. Results indicated that in the presence of the purple light, tics were significantly lower than when neither light was illuminated. These findings provide preliminary support for the idea that a history of differential reinforcement in various contexts may play a role explaining variability in tic symptom expression.