Modeling developmental transitions on the balance scale task

Periods of relatively stable, rule‐like behavior alternated with short transition periods characterize cognitive development on reasoning tasks like the balance scale task. Each transition gives rise to an improvement in behavior, until a phase is reached in which performance is flawless or improvement is not worthwhile given the necessary extra effort. Several computational models have been developed to capture the developmental phenomena associated with the balance scale task. These models, which originate from different computational traditions, explain the main phenomena of development. Recently, empirical phenomena have been reported that these models cannot easily accommodate. We propose a computational model that is implemented in ACT‐R and that is based on the evaluation of success of applied knowledge, combined with a mechanism to construct newknowledge by searching for differences between the left‐ and right‐hand sides of presented balance scale problems. This model accounts for the main empirical phenomena as well as for the recently reported empirical phenomena such as learning without feedback.     

Assessing Deictic Relational Responding in Individuals With Social Anxiety Disorder: Evidence of Perspective-Taking Difficulties

The Psychological Record - The present study uses a relational frame approach (Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, and Roche, 2001) to perspective taking for individuals suffering from social anxiety disorder...     

Influences Between Online‐Exclusive,Conjoint and Offline‐Exclusive Friendship Networks: The Moderating Role of Shyness

Prior research has indicated that shy adolescents are more motivated to form friendships online than to form friendships offline. Little is known about whether having friendships found exclusively online may impact self‐esteem and forming offline friendships for these adolescents. This study therefore aimed to provide insight into the moderating role of shyness in the longitudinal interplay between friendships in online and offline contexts in early adolescence. Adolescents and their friends (193 girls, 196 boys; M_age = 13.29) were followed with three consecutive measurements with intervals of eight months. Results showed that particularly for shy adolescents, having friends exclusively online predicted increases in self‐esteem. Self‐esteem, in turn, was found to predict forming more friendships found both offline and online and forming more friendships found exclusively offline. Thus, findings supported the social compensation perspective that shy adolescents may benefit from having friends exclusively online, as these friendships may increase self‐esteem, thereby facilitating the formation of friendships found partially and completely offline. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Setting Up Spaces for Collaboration in Industry Between Researchers from the Natural and Social Sciences

Policy makers call upon researchers from the natural and social sciences to collaborate for the responsible development and deployment of innovations. Collaborations are projected to enhance both the technical quality of innovations, and the extent to which relevant social and ethical considerations are integrated into their development. This could make these innovations more socially robust and responsible, particularly in new and emerging scientific and technological fields, such as synthetic biology and nanotechnology. Some researchers from both fields have embarked on collaborative research activities, using various Technology Assessment approaches and Socio-Technical Integration Research activities such as Midstream Modulation. Still, practical experience of collaborations in industry is limited, while much may be expected from industry in terms of socially responsible innovation development. Experience in and guidelines on how to set up and manage such collaborations are not easily available. Having carried out various collaborative research activities in industry ourselves, we aim to share in this paper our experiences in setting up and working in such collaborations. We highlight the possibilities and boundaries in setting up and managing collaborations, and discuss how we have experienced the emergence of ‘collaborative spaces.’ Hopefully our findings can facilitate and encourage others to set up collaborative research endeavours.     

What can we learn from Plausible Values?

In this paper, we show that the marginal distribution of plausible values is a consistent estimator of the true latent variable distribution, and, furthermore, that convergence is monotone in an embedding in which the number of items tends to infinity. We use this result to clarify some of the misconceptions that exist about plausible values, and also show how they can be used in the analyses of educational surveys.     

“Those are Your Words,Not Mine!” Defence Strategies for Denying Speaker Commitment

Argumentation - In response to an accusation of having said something inappropriate, the accused may exploit the difference between the explicit contents of their utterance and its implicatures....     

Models of recognition, repetition priming, and fluency: exploring a new framework

We present a new modeling framework for recognition memory and repetition priming based on signal detection theory. We use this framework to specify and test the predictions of 4 models: (a) a single-system (SS) model, in which one continuous memory signal drives recognition and priming; (b) a multiple-systems-1 (MS1) model, in which completely independent memory signals (such as explicit and implicit memory) drive recognition and priming; (c) a multiple-systems-2 (MS2) model, in which there are also 2 memory signals, but some degree of dependence is allowed between these 2 signals (and this model subsumes the SS and MS1 models as special cases); and (d) a dual-process signal detection (DPSD1) model, 1 possible extension of a dual-process theory of recognition (Yonelinas, 1994) to priming, in which a signal detection model is augmented by an independent recollection process. The predictions of the models are tested in a continuous-identification-with-recognition paradigm in both normal adults (Experiments 1-3) and amnesic individuals (using data from Conroy, Hopkins, & Squire, 2005). The SS model predicted numerous results in advance. These were not predicted by the MS1 model, though could be accommodated by the more flexible MS2 model. Importantly, measures of overall model fit favored the SS model over the others. These results illustrate a new, formal approach to testing theories of explicit and implicit memory.     

Social change as an important goal or likely outcome: how regulatory focus affects commitment to collective action

The results of three experiments showed that regulatory focus influences the way in which the importance and likelihood of social change affect individuals' commitment to collective action. In Studies 1 (N= 82) and 2 (N= 153), the strength of participants' chronic regulatory focus was measured. In Study 3 (N= 52), promotion or prevention focus was experimentally induced. The results showed that for individuals under promotion focus, commitment to collective action depended on the perceived likelihood that through this action important social change would be achieved. Individuals under prevention focus were willing to commit to collective action when they attached high importance to its goal, regardless of the extent to which they believed that attainment of this goal was likely. Implications of these results for work on regulatory focus and collective action are discussed.     

The Why and How of Enabling the Integration of Social and Ethical Aspects in Research and Development

New and Emerging Science and Technology (NEST) based innovations, e.g. in the field of Life Sciences or Nanotechnology, frequently raise societal and political concerns. To address these concerns NEST researchers are expected to deploy socially responsible R&D practices. This requires researchers to integrate social and ethical aspects (SEAs) in their daily work. Many methods can facilitate such integration. Still, why and how researchers should and could use SEAs remains largely unclear. In this paper we aim to relate motivations for NEST researchers to include SEAs in their work, and the requirements to establish such integration from their perspectives, to existing approaches that can be used to establish integration of SEAs in the daily work of these NEST researchers. Based on our analyses, we argue that for the successful integration of SEAs in R&D practice, collaborative approaches between researchers and scholars from the social sciences and humanities seem the most successful. The only way to explore whether that is in fact the case, is by embarking on collaborative research endeavours.     

By any means necessary: the effects of regulatory focus and moral conviction on hostile and benevolent forms of collective action

In two studies, we investigate the effect of individuals' promotion and prevention focus on engagement in collective action. We show that responding to group-based disadvantage out of a sense of moral conviction motivates prevention-oriented- but not promotion-oriented- individuals to engage in collective action. Furthermore, holding such strong moral convictions about the fair treatment of their group causes the prevention-oriented to disregard societal rules against hostile forms of collective action (i.e., forms of action that are aimed at harming the interests of those held responsible for the group's disadvantage). Study 1 showed that prevention-oriented individuals, but not promotion-oriented individuals, with a strong moral conviction about the fair treatment of their group are willing to support both hostile and benevolent forms of collective action. Study 2 replicated this effect and showed that for prevention-oriented individuals but not for promotion-oriented individuals, holding a strong moral conviction about the fair treatment of the group overrides moral objections to hostile forms of collective action in the decision to support these forms of action.