The integration of knowledge and experimentation strategies in understanding a physical system

This study investigated how people integrate different kinds of knowledge in coming to understand the functions of components of a physical system. Twenty-three undergraduates worked on a hypothesis-testing task in which they constructed test circuits to decide the identity of electrical components hidden inside boxes. The students' problem-solving was driven by qualitative causal models that included ideas about cause and effect, task demands, and functions of circuits and circuit components. There was a hierarchy of four causal models, with higher levels representing increasing understanding and supporting increasingly successful problem solution. These causal models were associated with characteristic experimentation strategies, including strategies for generating evidence, interpreting evidence, and managing memory requirements. Some of these strategies followed directly from the causal model a student held, whereas others appeared to be more general. The level of understanding a student eventually attained about this physical system was a function of both domain knowledge and proficiency in experimentation strategies.     

A functional model to localize the conflict underlying the stroop phenomenon

Summary A new functional response competition model to describe the cognitive processes underlying the Stroop phenomenon is proposed. The main challenge for any explanation is the asymmetry of the conflict, i.e. the fact that the meaning of the color word disturbs naming the color of an incongruent color-word-color stimulus far more than the irrelevant color disturbs reading the word. The model proposes that the organism processes both competing verbal responses by priming the relevant set and inhibiting the irrelevant set if both responses belong to different sets, and by computing internal delay-time differences if both responses belong to the same set. The model explains most of the existing data about the Stroop phenomenon and is in full accordance with present knowledge on selective attention, stimulus encoding, response selection, and psychological refractory period. It is confirmed by data of a Stroop experiment using a set of verbal color responses disjoint from the set of the stimulus color words. This experiment is based on the strategy often used in Stroop research to try to obtain a reversed Stroop effect in order to find an explanation of the Stroop effect. The data show full symmetry of competition, that is a Stroop effect and a reversed Stroop effect of about the same amount of increased reaction time.This paper is based on an experimental study conducted by Dipl.-Psych. Margrit O. Dolt under the supervision of Dr. W.R. Glaser and submitted as Diplomarbeit.     

Treaters or punishers? The ethical role of mental health clinicians in sex offender programs

Clinicians in sex offender treatment programs are forced to breach traditional mental health ethical principles in order to successfully achieve their outcomes. These breaches include placing the community's interest ahead of those of the offender, restricting confidentiality, and the imposition of involuntary treatment. Unlike breaches in other treatment settings, they are not exceptions to general rules of non-maleficence or beneficence but, rather, must be carried out routinely and universally. Such programs thus take on the characteristics of punishment, rather than treatment, and, unsurprisingly, traditional codes of mental health ethics fail to give any real guidance to clinicians providing them. It is argued that ethical principles justifying and limiting punishment will be of more value in limiting the harms which might be inflicted on offenders participating in these programs while maintaining the integrity of the clinicians working with them.     

Implicit motivation to control prejudice

This research examines whether spontaneous, unintentional discriminatory behavior can be moderated by an implicit (nonconscious) motivation to control prejudice. We operationalize implicit motivation to control prejudice (IMCP) in terms of an implicit negative attitude toward prejudice (NAP) and an implicit belief that oneself is prejudiced (BOP). In the present experiment, an implicit stereotypic association of Blacks (vs. Whites) with weapons was positively correlated with the tendency to “shoot” armed Black men faster than armed White men (the “Shooter Bias”) in a computer simulation. However, participants relatively high in implicit negative attitude toward prejudice showed no relation between the race-weapons stereotype and the shooter bias. Implicit belief that oneself is prejudiced had no direct effect on this relation, but the interaction of NAP and BOP did. Participants who had a strong association between self and prejudice (high BOP) but a weak association between prejudice and bad (low NAP) showed the strongest relation between the implicit race-weapons stereotype and the Shooter Bias, suggesting that these individuals freely employed their stereotypes in their behavior.     

Attitudes of academic and clinical researchers toward financial ties in research: A systematic review

Involvement of industry in academic research is widespread and associated with favorable outcomes for industry. The objective of this study was to review empirical data on the attitudes of researchers toward industry involvement and financial ties in research. A review of the literature for quantitative data from surveys on the attitudes of researchers to financial ties in research, reported in English, resulted in the 17 studies included. Review of these studies revealed that investigators are concerned about the impact of financial ties on choice of research topic, research conduct and publication, but this concern is less among investigators already involved with industry. Researchers approve of industry collaboration and financial ties when the ties are indirectly related to the research, disclosure is upfront, and results and ideas are freely publicized. However, their trust in disclosure as a way to manage conflicts may reveal a lack of awareness of the actual impact of financial incentives on themselves and other researchers. This project was supported by grant number 5 T32 HS00086 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, US Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Glaser, Ph.D., Postgraduate Researcher, is currently Associate Specialist, Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley.     

El curso temporal de la interferencia entre la palabra y el dibujo

Resumen

Si una palabra se imprime dentro de un dibujo lineal de un objeto concreto, se obtiene un efecto de interferencia de tipo Stroop cuando se solicita la denominación del dibujo o se pide que se lea la palabra. Smith y Magee (1980) han demostrado que este efecto cambia drásticamente si la tarea de denominación o de lectura se sustituye por una tarea de categorización. Sus resultados parece que confirman la hipótesis de velocidad relativa, que explica las interferencias de tipo Stroop por un procesamiento del distractor más rápido que del objetivo. Se presentan dos experimentos en los que se analiza el curso temporal de los efectos de interferencia entre el dibujo y la palabra variando sistemáticamente la asincronía de presentación del estímulo (APE) de los dos componentes del estímulo en las tareas de denominación de dibujos, lectura de palabraas. categorización de dibujos y categorización de palabras. Los resultados contradicen la hipótesis de velocidad relativa y sugieren una asimetría de procesamiento interna y funcional entre un tipo de recodificación no susceptible de ser inhibida, efectiva en la lectura de la palabra y en la categorización del dibujo, y un tipo de recodificación susceptible de ser inhibida en la denominación del dibujo y en la categorización de la palabra.