Hindsight bias redefined: It’s about time

Four experiments introduced a new conceptual and methodological approach to hindsight bias, traditionally defined as the tendency to exaggerate the a priori predictability of outcomes after they become known. By examining likelihood estimates rooted to specific time points during an unfolding event sequence (videos and short text stories), judged both in foresight and hindsight, we conceptualized hindsight bias as a contrast between two “inevitability curves,” which plotted likelihood against time. Taking timing into account, we defined three new indicators of accuracy: linear accuracy (how well hindsight judgments capture the linear trend of foresight judgments over time), rate accuracy (how well hindsight judgments reflect the slope of foresight judgments over time), and temporal accuracy (how well hindsight judgments specify the overall timing of the full envelope of foresight judgments). Results demonstrated that hindsight judgments showed linear and rate accuracy, but were biased only in terms of lack of temporal accuracy. The oft-used catchphrase “knew it all along effect” was found to be a misnomer, in that participants were well aware in hindsight that their earlier foresight judgments reflected uncertainty. The current research therefore points to one way in which retrospective judgments can be considered biased, yet simultaneously suggests that considerable accuracy exists when people render such judgments.     

THE EFFECT OF CULTURE AND GENDER ON SELF-REPORTED ASSERTIVE BEHAVIOR

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between cultural affiliation, gender and assertive behavior in two distinct socio-cultural groups. Ninety-seven Israeli Arab students and 97 Israeli Jewish students, of both sexes, filled out the Assertion Inventory (Gambrill and Richey 1975) during a class meeting. Analysis of the results indicated differences between the two cultural groups. In general, Arab participants showed a lower level of assertiveness than their Jewish counterparts. Differences between gender and interaction of culture x gender were found in certain factors related to behavior in specific social situations. These findings were discussed on the basis of accepted social behavior within various cultural contexts.     

Remapping versus short-term memory in visual stability across saccades

Saccadic eye movements cause displacements of the image of the visual world projected on the retina. Despite the ubiquitous nature of saccades, subjective experience of the world is continuous and stable. In five experiments, we addressed the mechanisms that may support visual stability: matching of pre- and postsaccadic locations of the target by an internal copy of the saccade, or retention of the visual attributes of the target in short-term memory across the saccade. Healthy human adults were instructed to make a saccade to a peripheral Gabor patch. While the saccade was in midflight, the patch could change location, orientation, or both. The change occurred either immediately or following a 250-ms blank during which no visual stimuli were available. In separate experiments, subjects had to report either whether the patch stepped to the left or right or whether the orientation rotated clockwise or counterclockwise. Consistent with previous findings, we found that transsaccadic displacement discrimination was enhanced by the addition of the blank. However, contrary to previous findings reported in the literature, the feature change did not improve performance. Transsaccadic orientation change discrimination did not depend on either an irrelevant temporal blank or a simultaneous irrelevant target displacement. Taken together, these findings suggest that orientation is not a relevant visual feature for transsaccadic correspondence.     

Decomposing task-switching costs with the diffusion model

In four experiments, task-switching processes were investigated with variants of the alternating runs paradigm and the explicit cueing paradigm. The classical diffusion model for binary decisions (Ratcliff, 1978) was used to dissociate different components of task-switching costs. Findings can be reconciled with the view that task-switching processes take place in successive phases as postulated by multiple-components models of task switching (e.g., Mayr & Kliegl, 2003; Ruthruff, Remington, & Johnston, 2001). At an earlier phase, task-set reconfiguration (Rogers & Monsell, 1995) or cue-encoding (Schneider & Logan, 2005) takes place, at a later phase, the response is selected in accord with constraints set in the first phase. Inertia effects (Allport, Styles, & Hsieh, 1994; Allport & Wylie, 2000) were shown to affect this later stage. Additionally, findings support the notion that response caution contributes to both global as well as to local switching costs when task switches are predictable.     

Daily variability in working memory is coupled with negative affect: the role of attention and motivation

Across days, individuals experience varying levels of negative affect, control of attention, and motivation. We investigated whether this intraindividual variability was coupled with daily fluctuations in working memory (WM) performance. In 100 days, 101 younger individuals worked on a spatial N-back task and rated negative affect, control of attention, and motivation. Results showed that individuals differed in how reliably WM performance fluctuated across days, and that subjective experiences were primarily linked to performance accuracy. WM performance was lower on days with higher levels of negative affect, reduced control of attention, and reduced task-related motivation. Thus, variables that were found to predict WM in between-subjects designs showed important relationships to WM at the within-person level. In addition, there was shared predictive variance among predictors of WM. Days with increased negative affect and reduced performance were also days with reduced control of attention and reduced motivation to work on tasks. These findings are in line with proposed mechanisms linking negative affect and cognitive performance.     

Learning different task spaces: how explored density aligns the Quiet Eye

Cognitive Processing - In the current study, predictions of a theoretical account to the explanation of the Quiet Eye (QE) were investigated. To this end, by manipulating the learning environment,...     

A quarter of a century of job transitions in Germany

By examining trends in intra-organizational and inter-organizational job transition probabilities among professional and managerial employees in Germany, we test the applicability of mainstream career theory to a specific context and challenge its implied change assumption. Drawing on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP), we apply linear probability models to show the influence of time, economic cycle and age on the probability of job transitions between 1984 and 2010. Results indicate a slight negative trend in the frequency of job transitions during the analyzed time span, owing to a pronounced decrease in intra-organizational transitions, which is only partly offset by a comparatively weaker positive trend towards increased inter-organizational transitions. The latter is strongly influenced by fluctuations in the economic cycle. Finally, the probability of job transitions keeps declining steadily through the course of one's working life. In contrast to inter-organizational transitions, however, this age effect for intra-organizational transitions has decreased over time.