The role of intuition and deliberative thinking in experts' superior tactical decision-making

Current theories argue that human decision making is largely based on quick, automatic, and intuitive processes that are occasionally supplemented by slow controlled deliberation. Researchers, therefore, predominantly studied the heuristics of the automatic system in everyday decision making. Our study examines the role of slow deliberation for experts who exhibit superior decision-making outcomes in tactical chess problems with clear best moves. Our study uses advanced computer software to measure the objective value of actions preferred at the start versus the conclusion of decision making. It finds that both experts and less skilled individuals benefit significantly from extra deliberation regardless of whether the problem is easy or difficult. Our findings have important implications for the role of training for increasing decision making accuracy in many domains of expertise.     

Parameter estimation of multiple item response profile model

Multiple item response profile (MIRP) models are models with crossed fixed and random effects. At least one between-person factor is crossed with at least one within-person factor, and the persons nested within the levels of the between-person factor are crossed with the items within levels of the within-person factor. Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of models for binary data with crossed random effects is challenging. This is because the marginal likelihood does not have a closed form, so that MLE requires numerical or Monte Carlo integration. In addition, the multidimensional structure of MIRPs makes the estimation complex. In this paper, three different estimation methods to meet these challenges are described: the Laplace approximation to the integrand; hierarchical Bayesian analysis, a simulation-based method; and an alternating imputation posterior with adaptive quadrature as the approximation to the integral. In addition, this paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these three estimation methods for MIRPs. The three algorithms are compared in a real data application and a simulation study was also done to compare their behaviour.     

The analysis of zero-inflated count data: beyond zero-inflated Poisson regression

Infrequent count data in psychological research are commonly modelled using zero-inflated Poisson regression. This model can be viewed as a latent mixture of an "always-zero" component and a Poisson component. Hurdle models are an alternative class of two-component models that are seldom used in psychological research, but clearly separate the zero counts and the non-zero counts by using a left-truncated count model for the latter. In this tutorial we revisit both classes of models, and discuss model comparisons and the interpretation of their parameters. As illustrated with an example from relational psychology, both types of models can easily be fitted using the R-package pscl.     

Early cognitive profiles of emergent readers: a longitudinal study

This longitudinal study examined the contribution of phonological awareness, phonological memory, and visuospatial ability to reading development in 142 English-speaking children from the start of kindergarten to the middle of Grade 2. Partial cross-lagged analyses revealed significant relationships between early performance on block design and matching letter-like forms tasks and later reading ability. Rhyme awareness correlated with later reading ability during the earliest stages, but onset awareness did not emerge as important until after the children had started reading. Digit span correlated significantly with future reading ability at every stage. These findings indicate that although phonological awareness, phonological memory, and visuospatial ability are all necessary for emergent reading, their relative importance varies across the first 2 years of reading development.     

The development of the SNARC effect: evidence for early verbal coding

In a recent study, Gevers and colleagues (2010, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 139, pp. 180-190) showed that the SNARC (spatial numerical association of response codes) effect in adults results not only from spatial coding of magnitude (e.g., mental number line hypothesis) but also from verbal coding. Because children are surrounded by rulers, number lines, and the like in the classroom, it is intuitively appealing to assume that they first use their mental number line to represent numbers and that only later in development a verbal recoding of magnitude information takes place. However, this hypothesis has never been tested. The goal of the current study was to define the developmental pattern of both accounts (spatial and verbal) in explaining the SNARC effect. To this end, 9- and 11-year-olds were tested in a magnitude comparison task. Surprisingly, clear and robust evidence for verbal coding of magnitude information was observed in both age groups. Our results imply that the ability to use verbal coding of magnitude information is robustly present early in formal schooling.     

Recruiting Through the Stages: A Meta‐Analytic Test of Predictors of Applicant Attraction at Different Stages of the Recruiting Process

We used meta‐analysis and semipartial correlations to examine the relative strength and incremental variance accounted for by 7 categories of recruiting predictors across multiple recruitment stages on applicant attraction. Based on 232 studies (250 samples, 3,518 coefficients, n= 108,632), we found that characteristics of the job, organization, and recruitment process, recruiter behaviors, perceived fit, and hiring expectancies (but not perceived alternatives) accounted for unique variance in applicant attraction at multiple stages. Perceived fit was the strongest relative and unique variance predictor of applicant attraction albeit a nonsignificant predictor of job choice. Although not among the largest zero‐order predictors, recruiter behaviors accounted for substantial incremental variance at the first 2 stages. Organizational characteristics are more heavily weighed by applicants when maintaining applicant status as compared to the stage of application, and recruitment process characteristics are weighed progressively more as the recruitment stages advance. Job characteristics accounted for the greatest unique variance in job choice decisions. Job characteristics are more predictive in field studies, whereas recruiter behaviors, recruitment process characteristics, hiring expectancies, and perceived alternatives produced larger effect sizes in the laboratory. Results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications with future research suggestions.     

The Pedagogy of Self-Fashioning: A Foucaultian Study of Montaigne’s “On Educating Children”

In this paper I interpret Montaigne??s essay, ??On Educating Children??, as a pedagogical text through its performance of a distinct epistolary function, one that addresses the letter-recipient for the purpose of shaping the ideas, actions, and beliefs of that individual. At the same time, I also read ??On Educating Children?? within the context of the wider project of Montaigne??s Essays, which, as I suggest, is an ethical-aesthetic project of self-fashioning and self-cultivation. The net result is an interpretation of teaching as an ethical-aesthetic practice of the self, one that is in concert with the interpretation of Montaigne??s writing of the Essays as a similar practice of the self. In order to build this case, I employ Michel Foucault??s fourfold schema of ethical subjectivity, mapping that schema onto ??On Educating Children??, so as to reveal a unique pedagogy of self-formation??a pedagogy that works as much upon the self of the teacher as it does the self of the student.     

Predicting Transitions in Low and High Levels of Risk Behavior from Early to Middle Adolescence: The TRAILS Study

The present study examined the joint development of substance use and externalizing problems in early and middle adolescence. First, it was tested whether the relevant groups found in previous studies i.e., those with an early onset, a late onset, and no onset or low levels of risk behavior could be identified, while using a developmental model of a single, underlying construct of risk behavior. Second, departing from Moffitt's taxonomy of antisocial behavior, it was tested if early, but not late, onset risk behavior is predicted by a problematic risk profile in childhood. Data were used from TRAILS, a population based cohort study, starting at age 11 with two follow-ups at mean ages of 13.6 and 16.3 years. Latent transition analyses demonstrated that, both in early and middle adolescence, a single underlying construct of risk behavior, consisting of two classes (labeled as low and high risk behavior), adequately represented the data. Respondents could be clearly classified into four possible transition patterns from early to middle adolescence, with a transition from high to low being almost non-existent (2.5 %), low to low (39.4 %) and low to high (41.8 %) being the most prevalent, and high to high (16.2 %) substantial. As hypothesized, only the high-high group was characterized by a clear adverse predictor profile in late childhood, while the low-high group was not. This study demonstrates that the development of substance use is correlated with externalizing problems and underscores the theory that etiologies of early and later onset risk behavior are different.     

Sulcal morphology and volume of Broca's area linked to handedness and sex

We investigated the effect of handedness and sex on: (i) sulcal contours defining PO and PTR and (ii) volume estimates of PO and PTR subfields in 40 left- and 42 right-handers. Results show an effect of handedness on discontinuity of the inferior frontal sulcus (IFS: P < 0.01). Discontinuity of IFS was observed in: 43% left- and 62% right hemispheres in right-handers and in 65% left- and 48% right-hemispheres in left-handers. PO volume asymmetry was rightward in left-handed males (P = 0.007) and females (P = 0.02), showed a leftward trend in right-handed males (P = 0.06), and was non-asymmetrical in right-handed females (P = 0.96, i.e. left- and right-hemisphere PO volumes did not differ significantly). PO volume asymmetry in males differed significantly between handedness groups (P = 0.001). Findings indicate a high degree of variability in the sulcal contours of PO and PTR and volume asymmetry of PO: the factors sex and handedness can explain some of this variability.     

Effects of thinning the rate at which the alternative behavior is reinforced on resurgence of an extinguished instrumental response

Three experiments with rats examined the effects of thinning the rate of reinforcement for the alternative behavior in the resurgence paradigm. In all experiments, pressing one lever (L1) was first reinforced and then extinguished while pressing a second alternative lever (L2) was then reinforced. When L2 responding was then extinguished, L1 responses "resurged." Resurgence was always observed when L2 was reinforced on an unchanging reinforcement schedule during Phase 2. However, other rats received systematic decreases in the rate of L2 reinforcement before extinction of L2 began. Such a "thinning" procedure was predicted to reduce final resurgence by associating L1 extinction with longer and longer periods without a reinforcer. The procedure did reduce the resurgence effect observed when L2 was put on extinction (Experiment 3). However, in each experiment, thinned groups also returned to L1 responding, and continued to make L1 responses, while the reinforcement schedule for L2 was being thinned. Fine-grained analysis of behavior in time suggested that this early resurgence was not due to adventitious reinforcement of L1, occasion setting of L1 by reinforcer presentation, or the entrainment of L1 as a schedule-induced interim behavior. The results are overall consistent with the hypothesis that resurgence is a renewal effect in which extinguished L1 responding recovers when the context provided by the L2 reinforcement schedule is changed. Challenges for this view are also discussed.