Bayesian inference for psychology. Part I: Theoretical advantages and practical ramifications

Bayesian parameter estimation and Bayesian hypothesis testing present attractive alternatives to classical inference using confidence intervals and p values. In part I of this series we outline ten prominent advantages of the Bayesian approach. Many of these advantages translate to concrete opportunities for pragmatic researchers. For instance, Bayesian hypothesis testing allows researchers to quantify evidence and monitor its progression as data come in, without needing to know the intention with which the data were collected. We end by countering several objections to Bayesian hypothesis testing. Part II of this series discusses JASP, a free and open source software program that makes it easy to conduct Bayesian estimation and testing for a range of popular statistical scenarios (Wagenmakers et al. this issue).     

Ethical Design in the Internet of Things

Even though public awareness about privacy risks in the Internet is increasing, in the evolution of the Internet to the Internet of Things (IoT) these risks are likely to become more relevant due to the large amount of data collected and processed by the “Things”. The business drivers for exploring ways to monetize such data are one of the challenges identified in this paper for the protection of Privacy in the IoT. Beyond the protection of privacy, this paper highlights the need for new approaches, which grant a more active role to the users of the IoT and which address other potential issues such as the Digital Divide or safety risks. A key facet in ethical design is the transparency of the technology and services in how that technology handles data, as well as providing choice for the user. This paper presents a new approach for users’ interaction with the IoT, which is based on the concept of Ethical Design implemented through a policy-based framework. In the proposed framework, users are provided with wider controls over personal data or the IoT services by selecting specific sets of policies, which can be tailored according to users’ capabilities and to the contexts where they operate. The potential deployment of the framework in a typical IoT context is described with the identification of the main stakeholders and the processes that should be put in place.     

On the importance of avoiding shortcuts in applying cognitive models to hierarchical data

Psychological experiments often yield data that are hierarchically structured. A number of popular shortcut strategies in cognitive modeling do not properly accommodate this structure and can result in biased conclusions. To gauge the severity of these biases, we conducted a simulation study for a two-group experiment. We first considered a modeling strategy that ignores the hierarchical data structure. In line with theoretical results, our simulations showed that Bayesian and frequentist methods that rely on this strategy are biased towards the null hypothesis. Secondly, we considered a modeling strategy that takes a two-step approach by first obtaining participant-level estimates from a hierarchical cognitive model and subsequently using these estimates in a follow-up statistical test. Methods that rely on this strategy are biased towards the alternative hypothesis. Only hierarchical models of the multilevel data lead to correct conclusions. Our results are particularly relevant for the use of hierarchical Bayesian parameter estimates in cognitive modeling.     

Underestimation of prior remembering and susceptibility to false memories: two sides of the same coin?

In two studies, we explored whether susceptibility to false memories and the underestimation of prior memories (i.e., forgot-it-all-along effect) tap overlapping memory phenomena. Study 1 investigated this issue by administering the Deese/Roediger–McDermott task (DRM) and the forgot-it-all-along (FIA) task to an undergraduate sample (N = 110). It was furthermore explored how performances on these tasks correlate with clinically relevant traits such as fantasy proneness, dissociative experiences, and cognitive efficiency. Results show that FIA and DRM performances are relatively independent from each other, suggesting that these measures empirically apparently refer to separate dimensions. However, they do not seem to define different profiles in terms of dissociation, fantasy proneness, and cognitive efficiency. Study 2 replicated the finding of relative independence between false memory propensity (as measured with the DRM task) and the underestimation of prior memories (as measured with an autobiographical memory dating task) in people with a history of childhood sexual abuse (N = 35).     

Detection of emotional faces is modulated by the direction of eye gaze

Emotionally expressive faces have shown enhanced detectability over neutral faces, but little is known about the effect of eye gaze on detecting the presence of emotional faces. Emotional expressions and gaze direction are both cues to the intentions of another person, and gaze direction has been shown to affect recognition accuracy and perceived intensity of emotional faces. The current study showed that fearful faces were detected more frequently with an averted gaze than with a direct gaze in an attentional blink task, whereas angry and happy faces were detected more frequently with a direct gaze than with an averted gaze. The results are in line with the shared signal hypothesis and appraisal theory and suggest that selection for awareness was based on a rapid evaluation of the intentions of another person as conveyed by their facial expression and gaze direction.     

Incongruence in number–luminance congruency effects

Congruency tasks have provided support for an amodal magnitude system for magnitudes that have a "spatial" character, but conflicting results have been obtained for magnitudes that do not (e.g., luminance). In this study, we extricated the factors that underlie these number-luminance congruency effects and tested alternative explanations: (unsigned) luminance contrast and saliency. When luminance had to be compared under specific task conditions, we revealed, for the first time, a true influence of number on luminance judgments: Darker stimuli were consistently associated with numerically larger stimuli. However, when number had to be compared, luminance contrast, not luminance, influenced number judgments. Apparently, associations exist between number and luminance, as well as luminance contrast, of which the latter is probably stronger. Therefore, similar tasks, comprising exactly the same stimuli, can lead to distinct interference effects.     

Chronic pain relief after receiving affective touch: A single case report

Affective touch is gentle slow stroking of the skin, which can reduce experimentally induced pain. Our participant, suffering from Parkinson's Disease and chronic pain, received 1 week of non-affective touch and 1 week of affective touch as part of a larger study. Interestingly, after 2 days of receiving affective touch, the participant started to feel less pain. After 7 days, the burning painful sensations fully disappeared. This suggest that affective touch may reduce chronic pain in clinical populations.     

The role of teachers’ motivation and mindsets in predicting a (de)motivating teaching style in higher education: a circumplex approach

Motivation and Emotion - Although different measures for (de)motivating teaching are available for primary and secondary education, a fine-grained instrument to assess a variety of motivating and...