Reasoning with conditionals

This paper reviews the psychological investigation of reasoning with conditionals, putting an emphasis on recent work. In the first part, a few methodological remarks are presented. In the second part, the main theories of deductive reasoning (mental rules, mental models, and the probabilistic approach) are considered in turn; their content is summarised and the semantics they assume for if and the way they explain formal conditional reasoning are discussed, in particular in the light of experimental work on the probability of conditionals. The last part presents the recent shift of interest towards the study of conditional reasoning in context, that is, with large knowledge bases and uncertain premises.     

The effect of prior knowledge on understanding from text: Evidence from primed recognition

We investigated the relationships that readers with different levels of prior knowledge established between the elements of a procedural text. More specifically, we examined the relationships between the goal, a sequence of actions, and their outcome. Our hypothesis was that the main difference between the prior knowledge organisation of beginner, intermediate, and advanced participants can be described in terms of these relationships. To test this hypothesis, we investigated participants' reading times and used a primed recognition task with the goal as prime and both the outcome and the actions as targets. As we assumed, results indicated that the beginner participants did not establish a relationship between the goal and the outcome when they were distant in the surface structure of the text, whereas the intermediate and advanced participants did. The Construction-Integration model of Kintsch (1998) was used to simulate the recognition results and to reproduce the effect of prior knowledge on the retrieval of textual information.     

A spatial explanation for synchrony biases in perceptual grouping: consequences for the temporal-binding hypothesis

If two images are shown in rapid sequential order, they are perceived as a single, fused image. Despite this, recent studies have revealed that fundamental perceptual processes are influenced by extremely brief temporal offsets in stimulus presentation. Some researchers have suggested that this is due to the action of a cortical temporal-binding mechanism, which would serve to keep multiple mental representations of one object distinct from those of other objects. There is now gathering evidence that these studies should be reassessed. This article describes evidence for sensitivity to fixational eye and head movements, which provides a purely spatial explanation for the earlier results. Taken in conjunction with other studies, the work serves to undermine the current body of behavioral evidence for a temporal-binding mechanism.     

Two reference frames for visual perception in two gravity conditions

The processing and storage of visual information concerning the orientation of objects in space is carried out in anisotropic reference frames in which all orientations are not treated equally. The perceptual anisotropies, and the implicit reference frames that they define, are evidenced by the observation of 'oblique effects' in which performance on a given perceptual task is better for horizontally and vertically oriented stimuli. The question remains how the preferred horizontal and vertical reference frames are defined. In these experiments cosmonaut subjects reproduced the remembered orientation of a visual stimulus in 1g (on the ground) and in 0g, both attached to a chair and while free-floating within the International Space Station. Results show that while the remembered orientation of a visual stimulus may be stored in a multimodal reference frame that includes gravity, an egocentric reference is sufficient to elicit the oblique effect when all gravitational and haptic cues are absent.     

Media exposure, mood, and body image dissatisfaction: an experimental test of person versus product priming

In the current study, 138 college females were randomly assigned to four media exposure conditions based on the presence or absence of an attractive person (fashion model) and the presence or absence of an appearance-related product. Outcome measures consisted of visual analogue ratings of multiple body image and mood variables. The results revealed a significant main effect for person, indicating that the presence of a model increased levels of body dissatisfaction and negative mood. No product effect emerged and there was no significant interaction between person and product. These findings suggest that the appearance priming effect of media exposure on body dissatisfaction and mood is specific to a person stimulus, with no additional effect promoted by a generic appearance-relevant stimulus.     

The perceived vulnerability to disease scale: Cross-cultural measurement invariance and associations with fear of COVID-19 across 16 countries

Using cross-sectional data from N = 4274 young adults across 16 countries during the COVID-19 pandemic, we examined the cross-cultural measurement invariance of the perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD) scale and tested the hypothesis that the association between PVD and fear of COVID-19 is stronger under high disease threat [that is, absence of COVID-19 vaccination, living in a country with lower Human Development Index (HDI) or higher COVID-19 mortality]. Results supported a bi-factor Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling model where items loaded on a global PVD factor, and on the sub-factors of Perceived Infectability and Germ Aversion. However, cross-national invariance could only be obtained on the configural level with a reduced version of the PVD scale (PVD-r), suggesting that the concept of PVD may vary across nations. Moreover, higher PVD-r was consistently associated with greater fear of COVID-19 across all levels of disease threat, but this association was especially pronounced among individuals with a COVID-19 vaccine, and in contexts where COVID-19 mortality was high. The present research brought clarity into the dimensionality of the PVD measure, discussed its suitability and limitations for cross-cultural research, and highlighted the pandemic-related conditions under which higher PVD is most likely to go along with psychologically maladaptive outcomes, such as fear of COVID-19.     

Impact of Rater Beliefs Regarding Performance Appraisal and Its Organizational Context on Appraisal Quality

The relationship between attitudes and beliefs regarding performance appraisal and its organizational context and three measures of rating quality (i.e., rating level, discrimination among ratees, discrimination among rating dimensions) were examined. Eighteen of twenty-four directional predictions about the correlations between attitudinal measures and rating behavior measures were supported. However, because of the expected weak to moderate relationships between predictors and criteria and the use of small samples, statistical power was generally low, and many of the individual observed correlations failed to reach significance. Nevertheless, the consistent pattern of support for the directional predictions suggests that the attitudes and beliefs studied here provide a useful basis for understanding performance appraisal behaviors.     

Perceptions of self-oriented and other-oriented help-providers

Two studies were conducted to assess the relationship between an individual's self-described motivation for being a help-provider (i.e., a lawyer in Study 1 and a physi-cian in Study 2) and college undergraduates' perceptions of, and desire to seek assis-tance from, that help-provider. The major findings were incongruent with the notion inferred from the helping literature that altruistically motivated help-providers would be consistently evaluated more favorably than, and preferred over, egoistically moti-vated help-providers. Specifically, whereas the other-oriented help-providers were rated as more likable, honest, and less devious than the self-oriented help-providers, the self-oriented help-providers were rated as more ambitious, competent, and as earning more money than the other-oriented help-providers. Moreover, although the participants' “desire to hire” a particular help-provider was found to be associated with: (1) their perceptions of the help-provider's characteristics (Studies 1 and 2), (2) their own self-reported characteristics (Study 1), and (3) their anticipated affective state prior to seeking assistance (Studies 1 and 2), no clear relation was found in either study between the help-provider's motivation and the participants' desire to seek assistance from that help-provider. In contrast to the ambivalence demonstrated in response to the altruistically and egoistically motivated professional help-providers in Studies 1 and 2, participants in a preliminary study of perceptions of “everyday” helpers demonstrated a clear preference for altruistically motivated assistance (al-though these participants' evaluations were found to be influenced by the closeness of the relationship between the helper and recipient, the type of help provided, the participants' gender, and the gender of the helper-recipient dyad). Considered to-gether, the pattern of results suggests the broad range of situational and individual difference variables that may affect perceptions of, and reactions to, self-oriented and other-oriented help-providers.