Learning the Relevance of Relevance and the Trouble with Truth: Evaluating Explanatory Relevance across Childhood

ABSTRACT

In four experiments, we investigate how the ability to detect irrelevant explanations develops. In Experiments 1 and 2, 4- to 8-year-olds and adults rated different types of explanations about “what makes cars go” individually, in the absence of a direct contrast. Each explanation was true and relevant (e.g., “Cars have engines that turn gasoline into power”), true and irrelevant (e.g., “Cars have radios that play music”), or a false statement that would be relevant if it were true (e.g., “Cars have rockets that speed them up”). Participants of all ages spontaneously indicated that false explanations were less helpful than relevant explanations. However, there was a developmental shift for irrelevant explanations: 4-year-olds only detected irrelevant explanations that did not involve internal features of cars (e.g., “Cars have parking lots that they park in”). Crucially, this shift between age 4 and 5 cannot be explained by 4-year-olds’ lack of knowledge since 4-year-olds correctly indicated that relevant explanations were more helpful than irrelevant feature explanations when given a direct contrast in Experiment 3. These results are further clarified in Experiment 4, in which we provided a different explanatory goal (“where to find cars”) and found that even young children have a nuanced understanding of explanatory relevance that is sensitive to differing explanatory goals. Together, these four experiments suggest an early-emerging ability to understand relevance, but a shift between age 4 and 5 in the ability to spontaneously use this understanding when evaluating individual explanations in isolation.     

Continuous Measurement of Breaks in Presence: Psychophysiology and Orienting Responses

Assessing presence using questionnaires can yield interesting insights into the user experience in virtual environments, but is also limited both in terms of reliability and validity. Breaks in presence (BIPs) are an interesting alternative, given that the researcher can assess them correctly. Prior studies on the psychophysiology of BIPs followed an exploratory approach by not providing a cognitive mechanism for BIPs and lacking in external validity. We argue that BIPs can be considered a special form of orienting responses involving both the real and the virtual world. In the first of the presented studies, we investigated which types of BIPs can be differentiated and to what degree they affect the user experience. In the second study, we modified a commercial video game by introducing the previously identified BIPs and recorded psychophysiological measurements. The results are in line with findings on orienting responses and should provide fertile ground for future research.     

IGT-Open: An open-source,computerized version of the Iowa Gambling Task

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is commonly used to understand the processes involved in decision-making. Though the task was originally run without a computer, using a computerized version of the task has become typical. These computerized versions of the IGT are useful, because they can make the task more standardized across studies and allow for the task to be used in environments where a physical version of the task may be difficult or impossible to use (e.g., while collecting brain imaging data). Though these computerized versions of the IGT have been useful for experimentation, having multiple software implementations of the task could present reliability issues. We present an open-source software version of the Iowa Gambling Task (called IGT-Open) that allows for millisecond visual presentation accuracy and is freely available to be used and modified. This software has been used to collect data from human subjects and also has been used to run model-based simulations with computational process models developed to run in the ACT-R architecture.     

The Common Ratio Effect in Choice,Pricing, and Happiness Tasks

The Allais common ratio effect is one of the most robust violations of rational decision making under risk. In this paper, we conduct a novel test of the common ratio effect in which we elicit preferences for the common ratio choice alternatives in choice, pricing, and happiness rating tasks. We find large shifts in preference patterns across tasks, both within and between subjects. In particular, we find that both the consistency and distribution of responses differ systematically across tasks, with modal choices replicating the Allais preference pattern, modal happiness ratings exhibiting consistent risk aversion, and modal prices maximizing expected value. We discuss the predictions of various cognitive explanations of the common ratio effect in the context of our experiment. We find that a dual process framework provides the most complete account of our results. Surprisingly, we also find that although the Allais pattern was the modal behavior in the choice task, none of the 158 respondents in our experiment exhibited the Allais pattern simultaneously in choice, happiness, and pricing tasks. Our results constitute a new paradox for the leading theories of choice under risk. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reasons for Declining Preconception Expanded Carrier Screening Using Genome Sequencing

Genomic carrier screening can identify more disease-associated variants than existing carrier screening methodologies, but its utility from patients’ perspective is not yet established. A randomized controlled trial for preconception genomic carrier screening provided an opportunity to understand patients’ decisions about whether to accept or decline testing. We administered a survey to potential genomic carrier screening recipients who declined participation (N = 240) to evaluate their reasons for doing so. Two thirds of women declined participation. We identified major themes describing reasons these individuals declined to participate; the most common were time limitation, lack of interest, not wanting to know the information, and potential cause of worry or anxiety. Most women eligible for genomic carrier screening indicated that their reasons for opting out were due to logistical issues rather than opposing the rationale for testing. As expanded carrier screening and genomic sequencing become a more routine part of clinical care, it is anticipated there will be variable uptake from individuals for this testing. Thus, the advancement of clinical carrier screening from single genes, to expanded screening panels, to an exome- or genome-wide platform, will require approaches that respect individual choice to receive genetic testing for reproductive risk assessment.     

Visual selective attention with virtual barriers

Previous studies have shown that interference effects in the flanker task are reduced when physical barriers (e.g., hands) are placed around rather than below a target flanked by distractors. One explanation of this finding is the referential coding hypothesis, whereby the barriers serve as reference objects for allocating attention. In five experiments, the generality of the referential coding hypothesis was tested by investigating whether interference effects are modulated by the placement of virtual barriers (e.g., parentheses). Modulation of flanker interference was found only when target and distractors differed in size and the virtual barriers were beveled wood-grain objects. Under these conditions and those of previous studies, the author conjectures that an impression of depth was produced when the barriers were around the target, such that the target was perceived to be on a different depth plane than the distractors. Perception of depth in the stimulus display might have led to referential coding of the stimuli in three-dimensional (3-D) space, influencing the allocation of attention beyond the horizontal and vertical dimensions. This 3-D referential coding hypothesis is consistent with research on selective attention in 3-D space that shows flanker interference is reduced when target and distractors are separated in depth.     

Popular or unpopular? Therapists' use of structured interviews and their estimation of patient acceptance

An accurate diagnosis is an important precondition for effective psychotherapeutic treatment. The use of structured interviews provides the gold standard for reliable diagnosis. Suppiger et al. (2009) showed that structured interviews have a high acceptance among patients. On a scale from 0 (not at all satisfied) to 100 (totally satisfied) patients rated overall satisfaction with a structured interview at M = 86.55. Nevertheless, therapists rarely seem to use structured interviews in clinical practice. The aim of this study was to assess how frequently therapists use structured interviews in daily practice. Secondly, we hypothesized that therapists underestimate patient acceptance of structured interviews. As a third goal, we explored further reasons why therapists choose not to use structured interviews. We conducted an online survey of 1,927 psychiatrists and psychotherapists in Switzerland and asked them how frequently they used structured interviews and how they estimated patient satisfaction with these interviews. Furthermore, we asked therapists why they chose to use or not use structured interviews. Therapists reported using structured interviews on average with about 15% of their patients. Furthermore, therapists estimated significantly lower patient acceptance than patients themselves indicated (M_therapist = 49.41, M_patient = 86.55). Our data suggest lack of familiarity with these instruments as well as an overestimation of the utility of open clinical interviews as further reasons for not using structured interviews.     

An integrated theory of whole number and fractions development

This article proposes an integrated theory of acquisition of knowledge about whole numbers and fractions. Although whole numbers and fractions differ in many ways that influence their development, an important commonality is the centrality of knowledge of numerical magnitudes in overall understanding. The present findings with 11- and 13-year-olds indicate that, as with whole numbers, accuracy of fraction magnitude representations is closely related to both fractions arithmetic proficiency and overall mathematics achievement test scores, that fraction magnitude representations account for substantial variance in mathematics achievement test scores beyond that explained by fraction arithmetic proficiency, and that developing effective strategies plays a key role in improved knowledge of fractions. Theoretical and instructional implications are discussed.