Decision-making in healthy children, adolescents and adults explained by the use of increasingly complex proportional reasoning rules

In the standard Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), participants have to choose repeatedly from four options. Each option is characterized by a constant gain, and by the frequency and amount of a probabilistic loss. Crone and van der Molen (2004) reported that school-aged children and even adolescents show marked deficits in IGT performance. In this study, we have re-analyzed the data with a multivariate normal mixture analysis to show that these developmental changes can be explained by a shift from unidimensional to multidimensional proportional reasoning (Siegler, 1981; Jansen & van der Maas, 2002). More specifically, the results show a gradual shift with increasing age from (a) guessing with a slight tendency to consider frequency of loss to (b) focusing on frequency of loss, to (c) considering both frequency and amount of probabilistic loss. In the latter case, participants only considered options with low-frequency loss and then chose the option with the lowest amount of loss. Performance improved in a reversed task, in which punishment was placed up front and gain was delivered unexpectedly. In this reversed task, young children are guessing with already a slight tendency to consider both the frequency and amount of gain; this strategy becomes more pronounced with age. We argue that these findings have important implications for the interpretation of IGT performance, as well as for methods to analyze this performance.     

Psychoanalytische Überlegungen zur Pädophilie

Following the long psychoanalytic tradition in the treatment of paedophiles, in a first step this article tries to define structural components of sexual delinquency that on the one hand correlate with the psychoanalytic model of psychic structures and on the other hand are consistent with the clinical experience of forensic psychotherapeutic practice. In a second step different levels of severity in the structural psychopathology of sexual delinquents are described by taking advantage of the object relationship theoretical conception of personality organisation. Finally, in a third step the psychodynamic features of these patients are highlighted, which have frequently been found and described in the clinical psychoanalytic literature on paedophilia including traumatising mother relationship, narcissistic object choice, inadequate triangulation, self-permuting drive, simulation and disturbance of identification.     

Appraisal Underpinnings of Affective Chronometry: The Role of Appraisals in Emotion Habituation

ABSTRACT In light of the lack of studies examining the cognitive components of affective chronometry, this research examined the appraisals associated with emotion habituation, using anger as the emotion of focus. Anger and its appraisals were assessed repeatedly over a day in the participants' naturalistic contexts. The trajectory of decline in anger over time after its first appearance was found to be a function of chronic coping styles. More importantly, the trajectories of anger-related appraisals generally corresponded to that of anger and were also moderated by coping styles in ways consistent with the moderating effects of coping styles on anger. Implications of these results for affective chronometry research and for appraisal research are discussed.     

How attribution influences aggression: Answers to an old question by using an implicit measure of anger

The present study investigated how aggressive reactions to frustration are influenced by attributional processes. In particular, we examined how the information that another person did not intend a frustration affects anger and aggression. Previous research was inconclusive if attribution to unintentionality decreases anger and aggressive impulses or if it increases the control of aggressive impulses resulting in a selective decrease of aggressive reactions that are controllable. To test these assumptions, two thirds of participants were frustrated by negative evaluations that were paired with aversive sounds from an ostensible team partner. The remaining participants received positive evaluations that were paired with pleasant sounds. Then, half of the frustrated participants obtained a message suggesting that their partner had confused the response scale and had actually meant to deliver an opposite evaluation. This apologizing information was effective in decreasing subsequent aggressive behavior but not in reducing anger as assessed by an implicit measure. This finding is in line with the notion that attribution to unintentionality leads to control of aggressive impulses. We conclude that such attributions influence aggressive behavior mainly via reflective pathways, while impulsive processes remain largely unaffected.     

The Evolution of the Moral Sentiments and the Metaphysics of Morals

So-called evolutionary error theorists, such as Michael Ruse and Richard Joyce, have argued that naturalistic accounts of the moral sentiments lead us to adopt an error theory approach to morality. Roughly, the argument is that an appreciation of the etiology of those sentiments undermines any reason to think that they track moral truth and, furthermore, undermines any reason to think that moral truth actually exists. I argue that this approach offers us a false dichotomy between error theory and some form of moral realism. While accepting the presuppositions of the evolutionary error theorist, I argue that contract-based approaches to morality can be sensitive to those presuppositions while still vindicating morality. Invoking Stephen Darwall’s distinction between contractualism and contractarianism, I go on to offer an evolutionary-based contractarianism.     

On the Autonomy and Justification of Nanoethics

In this paper, I take a critical stance on the emerging field of nanoethics. After an introductory section, “Conceptual Foundations of Nanotechnology” considers the conceptual foundations of nanotechnology, arguing that nanoethics can only be as coherent as nanotechnology itself and then discussing concerns with this latter concept; the conceptual foundations of nanoethics are then explicitly addressed in “Conceptual Foundations of Nanoethics”. “Issues in Nanoethics” considers ethical issues that will be raised through nanotechnology and, in “What’s New?”, it is argued that none of these issues is unique to nanotechnology. In “It’s a Revolution!”, I express skepticism about arguments which hold that, while the issues themselves might not be unique, they nevertheless are instantiated to such a degree that extant moral frameworks will be ill-equipped to handle them. In “What’s Different?”, I draw plausible distinctions between nanoethics and other applied ethics, arguing that these latter might well identify unique moral issues and, as such, distinguish themselves from nanoethics. Finally, in “What Now?”, I explore the conclusions of this result, ultimately arguing that, while nanoethics may fail to identify novel ethical concerns, it is at least the case that nanotechnology is deserving of ethical attention, if not a new associative applied ethic.     

Rule transition on the balance scale task: a case study in belief change

For various domains in proportional reasoning cognitive development is characterized as a progression through a series of increasingly complex rules. A multiplicative relationship between two task features, such as weight and distance information of blocks placed at both sides of the fulcrum of a balance scale, appears difficult to discover. During development, children change their beliefs about the balance scale several times: from a focus on the weight dimension (Rule I) to occasionally considering the distance dimension (Rule II), guessing (Rule III), and applying multiplication (Rule IV; Siegler, 1981). Because of the detailed empirical findings the balance scale task has become a benchmark task for computational models of proportional reasoning. In this article, we present a large empirical study (N = 420) of which the findings provide a challenge for computational models. The effect of feedback and the effect of individually adapted training items on rule transition were tested for children using Rule I or Rule II. Presenting adapted training items initiates belief revision for Rule I but not for Rule II. The experience of making mistakes (by providing feedback) induces a change for both Rule I and Rule II. However, a delayed posttest shows that these changes are preserved after 2 weeks only for children using Rule I. We conclude that the transition from Rule I to Rule II differs from the transition from Rule II to a more complex rule. Concerning these empirical findings, we will review performance of computational models and the implications for a future belief revision model.

It is one Thing, to show a Man that he is in an Error, and another, to put him in possession of Truth. John Locke

     

Extensions of Rasch's multiplicative poisson model

Consideration will be given to a model developed by Rasch that assumes scores observed on some types of attainment tests can be regarded as realizations of a Poisson process. The parameter of the Poisson distribution is assumed to be a product of two other parameters, one pertaining to the ability of the subject and a second pertaining to the difficulty of the test. Rasch's model is expanded by assuming a prior distribution, with fixed but unknown parameters, for the subject parameters. The test parameters are considered fixed. Secondly, it will be shown how additional between- and within-subjects factors can be incorporated. Methods for testing the fit and estimating the parameters of the model will be discussed, and illustrated by empirical examples.