Neurocognitive deficits related to poor decision making in people behind bars

Using a novel quantitative model of repeated choice behavior, we investigated the cognitive processes of criminal offenders incarcerated for various crimes. Eighty-one criminals, including violent offenders, drug and sex offenders, drivers operating a vehicle while impaired, and 18 matched controls were tested. The results were also contrasted with those obtained from neurological patients with focal brain lesions in the orbitofrontal cortex and from drug abusers. Participants performed the computerized version of the Iowa gambling task (Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994), and the results were decomposed into specific component processes, using the expectancy valence model (Busemeyer & Stout, 2002). The findings indicated that whereas all the criminal groups tended to select disadvantageously, the cognitive profiles exhibited by different groups were considerably different. Certain subpopulations--most significantly, drug and sex offenders--overweighted potential gains as compared with losses, similar to chronic cocaine abusers. In contrast, assault/murder criminals tended to make less consistent choices and to focus on immediate outcomes and, in these respects, weremore similar to patients with orbitofrontal damage. The present cognitive model provides a novel way for building a bridge between cognitive neuroscience and complex human behaviors.     

Associations between the repressive adaptive style and self-reported hope in Mexican American and Euro-American children

A large literature has examined the associations between Weinberger, Schwartz, and Davidson's (1979) repressive adaptive style (RAS) construct and various self-report measures of distress or unpleasant emotional states in adults and children. Fewer investigations have examined the role of RAS in self-reported positive psychology constructs. In this investigation, we used Weinberger et al.'s (1979) categorical typology to examine the associations between adaptive style and hope in Euro-American (n = 60) and Mexican American (n = 49) children (M age = 11.4 years) who were students at 1 of 3 parochial schools in a large Midwestern city. Partially supporting the hypotheses, a univariate 2 (ethnic group) x 2 (repressor group) analysis of variance indicated a significant main effect for adaptive style group but no significant main effect for ethnic group and no significant interaction effect. Results extend the literature on the associations between adaptive style and self-report instruments and indicate that (similar to self-reported measures of distress) self-reported hope may be subject to social desirability bias.     

Are people excessive or judicious in their egocentrism? A modeling approach to understanding bias and accuracy in people's optimism

People are often egocentric when judging their likelihood of success in competitions, leading to overoptimism about winning when circumstances are generally easy and to overpessimism when the circumstances are difficult. Yet, egocentrism might be grounded in a rational tendency to favor highly reliable information (about the self) more so than less reliable information (about others). A general theory of probability called extended support theory was used to conceptualize and assess the role of egocentrism and its consequences for the accuracy of people's optimism in 3 competitions (Studies 1-3, respectively). Also, instructions were manipulated to test whether people who were urged to avoid egocentrism would show improved or worsened accuracy in their likelihood judgments. Egocentrism was found to have a potentially helpful effect on one form of accuracy, but people generally showed too much egocentrism. Debias instructions improved one form of accuracy but had no impact on another. The advantages of using the EST framework for studying optimism and other types of judgments (e.g., comparative ability judgments) are discussed.     

Working memory involved in predicting future outcomes based on past experiences

Deficits in working memory have been shown to contribute to poor performance on the Iowa Gambling Task [IGT: Bechara, A., &; Martin, E.M. (2004). Impaired decision making related to working memory deficits in individuals with substance addictions. Neuropsychology, 18, 152–162]. Similarly, a secondary memory load task has been shown to impair task performance [Hinson, J., Jameson, T. &; Whitney, P. (2002). Somatic markers, working memory, and decision making. Cognitive, Affective, &; Behavioural Neuroscience, 2, 341–353]. In the present study, we investigate whether the latter findings were due to increased random responding [Franco-Watkins, A. M., Pashler, H., &; Rickard, T. C. (2006). Does working memory load lead to greater impulsivity? Commentary on Hinson, Jameson, and Whitney’s (2003). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory &; Cognition, 32, 443–447]. Participants were tested under Low Working Memory (LWM; n = 18) or High Working Memory (HWM; n = 17) conditions while performing the Reversed IGT in which punishment was immediate and reward delayed [Bechara, A., Dolan, S., &; Hindes, A. (2002). Decision making and addiction (part II): Myopia for the future or hypersensitivity to reward? Neuropsychologia, 40, 1690–1705]. In support of a role for working memory in emotional decision making, compared to the LWM condition, participants in the HWM condition made significantly greater number of disadvantageous selections than that predicted by chance. Performance by the HWM group could not be fully explained by random responding.     

Perceptual anomalies in schizophrenia co-occur with selective impairments in the gamma frequency component of midlatency auditory ERPs

This study aimed to establish concordance between phenomenological and psychophysiological indices of sensory gating disturbance in schizophrenia. Perceptually normal and deviant subgroups of schizophrenia (SZ) and healthy comparison (HC) participants were empirically determined on the basis of self-rated Sensory Gating Inventory scores. Contrasts by diagnosis and subgroup classification were conducted on event-related brain potential (ERP) response attenuation to paired auditory stimuli, measured in time (P50 ERP) and frequency (low frequency, 1-20 Hz; gamma band, 20-50 Hz) domains. The SZ sample evidenced significantly less low-frequency response attenuation than did HC but comparable P50 and gamma responses. The low-frequency response, however, appeared insensitive to variation in perceptual experience between SZ subgroups. Conversely, smaller P50 amplitude and weaker gamma response attenuation distinguished deviant SZ (n=17) from normal SZ (n=9) and normal HC (n=29) subgroups. Perceptually normal SZ and normal HC subgroups were statistically equivalent across all comparisons. These findings support hypotheses relating perceptual disturbance in schizophrenia to an early sensory input dysfunction, which is thought to involve gamma-mediated thalamocortical integration of sensory stimuli.     

An under-met and over-met expectations model of employee reactions to merit raises

The authors developed a model of how raise expectations influence the relationship between merit pay raises and employee reactions and tested it using a sample of hospital employees. Pay-for-performance (PFP) perceptions were consistently related to personal reactions (e.g., pay raise happiness, pay-level satisfaction, and turnover intentions). Merit pay raises were strongly related to reactions only among employees with high raise expectations and high PFP perceptions. The interactive effects of under-met/over-met expectations and PFP perceptions were mediated by the extent to which participants saw the raise as generous and they were happy with the raises they received. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for expectation-fulfillment theories, merit pay research, and the administration of incentives.     

Generating variable and random schedules of reinforcement using Microsoft Excel macros

Variable reinforcement schedules are used to arrange the availability of reinforcement following varying response ratios or intervals of time. Random reinforcement schedules are subtypes of variable reinforcement schedules that can be used to arrange the availability of reinforcement at a constant probability across number of responses or time. Generating schedule values for variable and random reinforcement schedules can be difficult. The present article describes the steps necessary to write macros in Microsoft Excel that will generate variable-ratio, variable-interval, variable-time, random-ratio, random-interval, and random-time reinforcement schedule values.     

Unpacking outcome dependency: Differentiating effects of dependency and outcome desirability on the processing of goal-relevant information

Outcome dependency has been shown to have a substantial impact on impression formation. Perhaps because the outcome dependency variable is a composite variable (including variation in amount of dependency, desirability of outcome, or both), many different effects have been described by researchers. The current research unpacks the outcome dependency variable by separately examining effects of dependency (when outcome desirability is held constant) and effects of outcome desirability (when amount of dependency is held constant). Using research methods adapted from those used in the attitudes domain, variation in the amount of dependency on a target person influenced the level of objective processing of target information (when outcomes were not substantial, Experiment 1), but variation in the desirability of the outcomes influenced biases in the processing of information (when dependency was relatively high, Experiment 2). Furthermore, personal motivation mediated effects of desirable outcomes on positive biases in processing (Experiment 3).