Attributional bias instrument (ABI): validation of a measure to assess ability and effort explanations for math performance

The present work investigates the validation of a newly developed instrument, the attributional bias instrument, based on achievement attribution theories that distinguish between effort and ability explanations of behavior. The instrument further incorporates the distinction between explanations for success versus failure in academic performance. An important characteristic of the instrument is that it can be used to assess biased attributions. For instance, attributional gender bias is the tendency to generate different attributions (explanations) for female versus male students’ performance in math. Whereas boys’ successes in math are attributed to ability, girls’ successes are attributed to effort; conversely, boys’ failures in math are attributed to a lack of effort and girls’ failures to a lack of ability. Previous research has shown this bias to be committed by teachers, parents, and students themselves. In the present study, high school students in Mexico were administered the instrument and asked to generate attributions for their successes and failures in math. Findings revealed: (1) a factor analysis confirmed the proposed structure of the instrument, (2) boys and girls committed the attributional gender bias, replicating effects in U.S. samples, and (3) additional analyses involving related measures further supported valid use of the instrument.     

Intermittent vision and one-handed catching: the effect of general and specific task experience

In Experiment 1, 15 skilled and 15 less skilled participants performed 1-handed catching in 4 conditions. For both groups, catching performance deteriorated significantly when no visual information was available for 40 ms between 20-ms visual samples (20/40) and continued to decline with subsequent increases in the duration between visual samples (i.e., 20/80 and 20/120). In Experiment 2, 50 participants performed a pretest and a posttest in a 20/80 condition, separated by 4 blocks of practice (N=80). Participants who practiced with intermittent vision (20/40, 20/80, and 20/120) exhibited a significant improvement between pretest and posttest. Although general practice with intermittent vision enabled some adaptation, posttest performance did not equal performance in the 1st block of continuous vision.     

The role of coding time in estimating and interpreting growth curve models

The coding of time in growth curve models has important implications for the interpretation of the resulting model that are sometimes not transparent. The authors develop a general framework that includes predictors of growth curve components to illustrate how parameter estimates and their standard errors are exactly determined as a function of receding time in growth curve models. Linear and quadratic growth model examples are provided, and the interpretation of estimates given a particular coding of time is illustrated. How and why the precision and statistical power of predictors of lower order growth curve components changes over time is illustrated and discussed. Recommendations include coding time to produce readily interpretable estimates and graphing lower order effects across time with appropriate confidence intervals to help illustrate and understand the growth process.     

A comparison of neuronal reactions during classical and instrumental conditioning under similar conditions

During the elaboration of an instrumental reflex, it is not obligatory to use a conditioned stimulus, which signals the necessity to generate an instrumental reaction in order to receive reinforcement. However, the presence of a conditioned stimulus simplifies analysis of instrumental reaction, which in this case is the response to the conditioned stimulus. On the other hand, it is necessary to distinguish between instrumental and classical conditioning, since in both cases the response to a conditioned stimulus increases. We studied neuronal analogs of classical and instrumental conditioning in the identified neurons responsible for the defensive closure of the pneumostome in the Helix mollusk under the same conditions. During classical conditioning, a mollusk received punishment after a tactile stimulus. During instrumental conditioning, a mollusk received punishment when an identified neuron did not generate an action potential in response to a tactile stimulus. The appearance of a painful stimulus did not depend on the generation or failure of a spike in the related control neuron. Another tactile stimulus, which was never paired with an unconditioned stimulus, was used as a discriminated stimulus. We also compared the behavior of such identified neurons during pseudoconditioning. The experiments were carried out in a semi-intact preparation. We examined how responses to the tactile and painful stimuli changed during different forms of training. It was shown that the dynamics of neuronal responses to a conditioned tactile stimulus were much more complex during instrumental conditioning and consisted of several phases. Throughout a learning session, neural system consecutively acquired information as to which kind of learning was presented, whether a reaction of the neural system must be generated or inhibited and which instrumental reaction is correct. We have demonstrated that response to a painful stimulus during classical conditioning decreases after short-term initial increase. However, during instrumental learning, the neurons controlling instrumental action remained highly sensitive to the unconditioned stimulus. Meanwhile, foreign neurons decreased their responses to the unconditioned stimulus. We may tentatively conclude that classical and instrumental paradigms are fundamentally different at the cellular level.     

Spirituality and intentions to engage in Covid-19 protective behaviours

Accumulating evidence points to spirituality as a belief system that contributes to low trust in science, with self-identified spiritual individuals reporting high levels of unwarranted scepticism towards science in general and vaccination specifically. We investigated whether self-identified spirituality also predicts intentions to engage with Covid-19 protective measures during the pandemic. In Studies 1–3 (N = 774), we asked participants to report their spirituality and desire to be vaccinated against Covid-19 shortly after the first vaccine rollout. In Studies 2–3, we included measures of scepticism towards and intentions to comply with Covid-19 prevention measures (handwashing, wearing face coverings, distancing). As expected, stronger self-reported spirituality involved lower desire to be vaccinated, controlling for various worldview and demographic variables. Yet, we found no evidence for spirituality to predict scepticism towards other Covid-19 preventative behaviours or intentions to engage with them. Our findings corroborate and extend previous literature on science rejection, demonstrating that spirituality is uniquely involved in vaccine rejection.     

Customizable Ethics Settings for Building Resilience and Narrowing the Responsibility Gap: Case Studies in the Socio-Ethical Engineering of Autonomous Systems

Science and Engineering Ethics - Ethics settings allow for morally significant decisions made by humans to be programmed into autonomous machines, such as autonomous vehicles or autonomous weapons....     

Socially tolerant lions (Panthera leo) solve a novel cooperative problem

Animal Cognition - Cooperative interactions vary in complexity. The emotional reactivity hypothesis posits that cooperative complexity is constrained by social intolerance. Relaxed social...     

Integration of intermittent visual samples over time and between the eyes

The authors investigated the integration of alternate disparate monocular inputs for binocular perception in 1-handed catching experiments (N = 14, 32, 22, and 15 participants, respectively in Experiments 1-4). They varied the no-vision interval between alternate monocular samples to measure catching performance, and they compared the alternating monocular conditions with binocular and monocular conditions with equal no-vision intervals. They found no evidence of a binocular advantage for one-handed catching in the alternating monocular conditions. Performance in monocular and alternating monocular conditions did not differ across no-vision intervals ranging from 0-80 ms and was particularly worse than performance in binocular viewing conditions when the no-vision interval was 40 ms or more. The authors argue that the dissimilarity between disparate monocular inputs created by the approaching object limited the integration of those inputs and subsequent binocular perception.     

Neuropsychological disorders indicative of postresuscitation encephalopaty in rats

The aim of this research was to study the effect of 12-minute clinical death on innate and acquired behavior, biogenic amine concentration, and the composition and quantity of neural populations in specific brain regions of white rats. The study shows that in animals during the postresuscitation period with formal restoration of neurological status, there are changes in emotional reactivity, orientation-exploration reactions, impairment of learning and memory, decrease in exercise tolerance and pain sensitivity. These processes are accompanied by alterations in serotonin and norepinephrine levels in the frontal cerebral cortex, dopamine and serotonin levels in the striatum, certain biochemical indices in blood plasma and neural loss in the CA1 sector of the hippocampus and lateral portions of the cerebellum.     

Evolutionary models of color categorization based on discrimination

Specifying the factors that contribute to the universality of color categorization across individuals and cultures is a longstanding and still controversial issue in psychology, linguistics, and anthropology. This article approaches this issue through the simulated evolution of color lexicons. It is shown that the combination of a minimal perceptual psychology of discrimination, simple pragmatic constraints involving communication, and simple learning rules is enough to evolve color-naming systems. Implications of this result for psychological theories of color categorization and the evolution of color-naming systems in human societies are discussed.