The role of strategies in deciding advantageously in ambiguous and risky situations

In decision situations of everyday life, the potential positive or negative consequences of a decision are often specified and the associated probabilities are known or they are principally calculable ("decisions under risk"). On the basis of correlations reported in patient studies, it has been recently proposed that decisions under risk involve strategic components, i.e. calculation of the risk, as well as emotional processes, i.e. processing feedback from previous decisions. However, the potential impact of calculative strategies on decision-making under risk has not been investigated systematically, so far. In the current study, we examined 42 healthy subjects (21 females) with the Game of Dice Task measuring decisions under risk, and a questionnaire assessing strategy application in items comparable to the choices in the Game of Dice Task. In addition, the subjects performed the Iowa Gambling Task, examining decision-making under ambiguity, and a neuropsychological test battery focusing on executive functions. Results indicate that deciding advantageously in a decision-making task with explicit and stable rules is linked to applying calculative strategies. In contrast, individuals who decide intuitively prefer risky or disadvantageous choices in the Game of Dice Task. Applying calculative strategies was correlated with executive functions but not with performance on the Iowa Gambling Task. The results support the view that calculative processes and strategies may improve decision-making under explicit risk conditions.     

Reorientation in the real world: the development of landmark use and integration in a natural environment

An influential series of studies have argued that young children are unable to use landmark information to reorient. However, these studies have used artificial experimental environments that may lead to an underestimation of the children’s ability. We tested whether young children could reorient using landmarks in an ecologically valid setting. Children aged between 3 and 7 years completed a reorientation task in open parkland, and the properties of the search array (size and distinctiveness) were manipulated in a within-subjects design. Responses were recorded using Global Positioning Systems technology. All age groups performed above chance level, demonstrating that young children can reorient using natural landmarks. This behaviour was modulated by the nature of the search array: children were more accurate when the locations were spaced in a large array, and when the search locations were distinctively coloured. This suggests that the integration between landmarks and search locations, at different spatial scales, is a key factor in characterising human reorientation in the real world.     

Cortical regions activated by the subjective sense of perceptual coherence of environmental sounds: A proposal for a neuroscience of intuition

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, intuition is “the ability to understand or know something immediately, without conscious reasoning.” In other words, people continuously, without conscious attention, recognize patterns in the stream of sensations that impinge upon them. The result is a vague perception of coherence, which subsequently biases thought and behavior accordingly. Within the visual domain, research using paradigms with difficult recognition has suggested that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) serves as a fast detector and predictor of potential content that utilizes coarse facets of the input. To investigate whether the OFC is crucial in biasing task-specific processing, and hence subserves intuitive judgments in various modalities, we used a difficult-recognition paradigm in the auditory domain. Participants were presented with short sequences of distorted, nonverbal, environmental sounds and had to perform a sound categorization task. Imaging results revealed rostral medial OFC activation for such auditory intuitive coherence judgments. By means of a conjunction analysis between the present results and those from a previous study on visual intuitive coherence judgments, the rostral medial OFC was shown to be activated via both modalities. We conclude that rostral OFC activation during intuitive coherence judgments subserves the detection of potential content on the basis of only coarse facets of the input.     

The Relatively Happy Fish Revisited

The anecdote of Zhuangzi and Hui Shi's brief discussion on a bridge above the Hao river gives us a nice piece of reasoning in ancient Chinese texts that may serve as a platform for a productive philosophical exchange between the East and the West. The present study examines Hansen's inferential analysis of Zhuangzi and Hui Shi's discussion in this spirit. It is argued that Hansen's analysis founders. To do justice to both Hui Shi and Zhuangzi, the present study proposes that we apply the logic developed in the later Mohist text, the Lesser Pick, to an analysis of their discussion. The re-analysis shows that the intricate dialectic of the reasoning in which Zhuangzi and Hui Shi engage, neatly accords with the pattern of discourse expounded in the Lesser Pick, and gives us global insight into Zhuangzi's final statement in the anecdote, which is notoriously recondite, or confusing.     

Testing and Training Analogical Responding in Young Children Using A Relational Evaluation Procedure

The Psychological Record - Analogical responding, or relating relations, as operationally defined by relational frame theory (RFT), is ubiquitous in everyday language and cognition, and is a key...     

Zur Dynamik der Interaktion in der Supervision

The manifold functions of a supervisor in following the course of complex processes together with the trainee, are: ? to keep the goals of the supervision in view, ? to establish a teaching alliance and to support the wish and ambitions of the candidate to learn, ? to build a platform for the complex interactions with the trainee with regard to the dynamics of the training situation and keeping in mind the institutional influences, ? to lay down the setting for the work, ? to explore and to reflect how transference and counter-transference influence the interaction between patient and analyst as well as between trainee and supervisor, ? to examine these interactions together focussing continuously on the interaction between candidate and patient, and to encourage the candidate to do the same on his own, ? to continuously formulate hypotheses about the core conflict, the transference phenomena and resistance of the patient, ? to explore and reflect on the cooperative work.