Bayesian inference for psychology,part III: Parameter estimation in nonstandard models

We demonstrate the use of three popular Bayesian software packages that enable researchers to estimate parameters in a broad class of models that are commonly used in psychological research. We focus on WinBUGS, JAGS, and Stan, and show how they can be interfaced from R and MATLAB. We illustrate the use of the packages through two fully worked examples; the examples involve a simple univariate linear regression and fitting a multinomial processing tree model to data from a classic false-memory experiment. We conclude with a comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the packages. Our example code, data, and this text are available via https://osf.io/ucmaz/.     

Behavioral contrast: Research and areas for investigation

Behavioral contrast occurs when a change in reinforcement rate in one context results in a change in behavior in the opposite direction in an unchanged context. Despite decades of study by basic researchers, behavioral contrast has remained largely an unstudied phenomenon among applied researchers. The purpose of this paper is to occasion translational and applied research on behavioral contrast with the aim of predicting and controlling socially significant behavior in unchanged contexts. We present a brief history of contrast and related definitions, review research with human and nonhuman subjects, and suggest future directions for applied and translational researchers.     

The Interplay of Parental Response to Anger,Adolescent Anger Regulation,and Externalizing and Internalizing Problems: A Longitudinal Study

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - Numerous studies have reported substantive correlations between anger socialization, children’s anger regulation, and...     

Correction to: A psychophysiological investigation of mourning: There are two sides to the story

Motivation and Emotion -     

Modality Effects Examined by Means of an Online Sentence-Picture Comparison Task

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - Are oral sentences accompanied by pictures easier to understand than written sentences accompanied by the same pictures? This question—intensely...     

Teilstationäre Psychotherapie

Psychotherapeutic day clinics increasingly take over responsibility for the treatment of patients who cannot be cared for satisfactorily, respectively, at all in an inpatient setting. Psychotherapy in a day clinic setting is a treatment in its own right which has progressively established itself between inpatient and outpatient treatment. Empirically raised up to date data prove the efficacy and the efficiency of psychotherapeutic treatment in day clinics. Accordingly, the goal of the present study is to investigate the outcomes of psychotherapeutic treatment in a day clinic with a psychodynamic concept. Since 1996 the psychotherapeutic day clinic Basel empirically assesses the treatment course of all admitted patients. Patients and therapists fill in questionnaires upon admittance, two months into the course of treatment and upon discharge (SCL-90-R, PSKB-Se-R, OPD etc.) Our results indicate that significant improvements of symptoms as well as of socio-communicative competency can be achieved during treatment which remain stable even after discharge (first follow-up three months after discharge). Comparing outcome data of patients treated in full-time inpatient setting and of patients who undergo partial hospitalization we found that outcome was at least equivalent. Additionally we found that the diagnosis of a personality disorder influenced treatment results significantly in some symptom specific spheres.     

The Peace Work and Witness of the Churches in the German Democratic Republic and the World Disorder of the 21st Century

This article is an edited translation of an address given in Erfurt, Germany, on 12 May 2019, to celebrate the 90th birthday of Heino Falcke, dean (provost) of Erfurt from 1973 until his retirement in 1994. Falcke, who was also a member of the working group on Church and Society of the World Council of Churches, played a central role in developing the theological and ethical response of Protestant churches in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to the threats to peace in a nuclear age. This was expressed in the “renunciation of the spirt, logic, and practice of deterrence.” This article seeks to set out the insights from the peace work and witness of the churches in the GDR against the background of the “world disorder of the 21st century.”     

Reach/Grasp Times with Lateral Reach Obstructions

When moving to grasp an object having adjacent obstacles that limit the space available for placing the fingers, the time for the reach/grasp is dependent on the distance of reaching and the space available for finger placement. Here we model the time taken in terms of these variables and develop mathematical models for the reach and grasp phases of the task and the location of obstacles. Data show that the movement to the target may be made under visual control and that, when the obstacles are close to the target object, a visually-controlled movement is made that is modeled by a modified form of Fitts' law. The time for the two components of the reach/grasp appear to be independent and linearly additive.     

Integrating commons dilemma findings in a general dynamic model of cooperative behavior in resource crises

The research on commons dilemmas is characterized by innumerable published findings, each standing relatively isolated from the other. To date there is little integration of the findings under a unified concept. The present contribution aims to integrate already existing findings in a general dynamic model of cooperative behavior in resource crises by means of computer simulation. The model postulates that people base their decisions regarding resource use on both ecological and social information. Whether or not ecological or social information will dominate, however, depends on people's social values, attributions, and their perceptions of the state of the resource. The advantage of the simulation method used is that successful integration of the findings can be shown explicitly, as the simulation then replicates the experimental data. With the model presented here, it is also possible to let variables work together whose interaction has not yet been investigated in real experiments. For instance, the simulation model allows us to hypothesize that people, in dependency upon their resource uncertainty and in dependency upon their attributions, utilize a resource completely differently if the resource is in an optimal or sub‐optimal condition. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.