Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics, Regulatory Challenges

Cognitive enhancement takes many and diverse forms. Various methods of cognitive enhancement have implications for the near future. At the same time, these technologies raise a range of ethical issues. For example, they interact with notions of authenticity, the good life, and the role of medicine in our lives. Present and anticipated methods for cognitive enhancement also create challenges for public policy and regulation.     

Non-transitive Better than Relations and Rational Choice

Philosophia - This paper argues that decision problems and money-pump arguments should not be a deciding factor against accepting non-transitive better than relations. If the reasons to accept...     

Eliciting intelligence from sources informed about counter‐interrogation strategies: An experimental study on the Scharff technique

The Scharff technique aims to elicit information by affecting the source's perception of the interviewer's existing knowledge. Although the technique has been found to be effective for gathering new information, countermeasures to the technique have not been examined. In a 2 × 2 between‐subjects experiment, we informed half of the 120 sources about the counter‐interrogation strategy of carefully considering the interviewer's prior knowledge and the tactic of providing information perceived as already known to the interviewer. After this, sources were interviewed with the Scharff technique or the Direct approach, widely used in human intelligence‐gathering situations and consisting of open‐ended and direct questions. We found that “informed sources” did not succeed in revealing information already known to the interviewer, where informed sources and uninformed sources revealed known information to a similar degree (1.62 pieces vs. 1.65 pieces). Sources interviewed with the Direct approach (vs. Scharff technique) revealed a larger amount of information previously known to the interviewer (2.18 pieces vs. 1.08 pieces). When interviewed with the Scharff technique, sources informed about the counter‐interrogation strategy attempted to adopt more counter‐interrogation strategies. The present study replicates earlier research on the Scharff technique as a technique effective in affecting the source's perception of the interviewer's prior knowledge. The results of the current study indicate that both the Scharff technique and the Direct approach might be similarly robust against counter‐interrogation strategies, in terms of gathering new information. Future studies should focus on implementing more comprehensive training in counter‐interrogation strategies for the sources.     

Realism in Confidence Judgments as a Function of Working in Dyads or Alone

This study compares the realism of confidence judgments made by individuals and pairs of their answers to general knowledge questions, using a within-subjects design. In the initial Control condition, subjects first answered 30 questions and then confidence rated the chosen answer. For the next 30 questions (Condition 2), they wrote down an argument for the chosen answer and then confidence-rated their answer. In the third condition, the 40 subjects were divided into 20 pairs who then answered and confidence-rated the same 30 questions as in Condition 2. Pair members were asked to collaborate on all parts of the task. The results showed that overconfidence decreased in the Pair condition compared with the Single conditions. Analysis of the interaction in the Pair condition showed a higher overconfidence in those instances where one pair member dominated the interaction totally. Other analyses of the interaction in the Pair condition also supported the importance of argumentation between the pair members for realistic confidence judgments. A comparison with previous research suggests that the fact that the subjects first attempted the questions individually may have increased the proportion correct answers and limited the increase in confidence in the Pair condition. A control study, checking for the effect of subjects answering the same questions twice, found no effect of repetition for any of the three calibration measures used.     

Choices between positive and negative reinforcement during treatment for escape-maintained behavior.

Positive reinforcement was more effective than negative reinforcement in promoting compliance and reducing escape‐maintained problem behavior for a child with autism. Escape extinction was then added while the child was given a choice between positive or negative reinforcement for compliance and the reinforcement schedule was thinned. When the reinforcement requirement reached 10 consecutive tasks, the treatment effects became inconsistent and reinforcer selection shifted from a strong preference for positive reinforcement to an unstable selection pattern.     

Toward a model of false recall: Experimental manipulation of encoding context and the collection of verbal reports

The likelihood of false recall in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm was shown to depend on encoding context in two experiments. When fillers had been preselected to decrease the likelihood of encoding the critical lure's semantic features, false recall was virtually eliminated. However, when the same words were presented rearranged in different presentation orders, levels of false recall that were found in earlier DRM studies (Robinson & Roediger, 1997) were replicated. The role of encoding processes in the DRM paradigm was further explored with additional participants completing the experiment while thinking aloud. During encoding of word lists, participants verbalized semantic elaboration of the critical lure while studying the word lists. A path analysis demonstrated that participants' verbalization of critical lures during encoding reliably predicted their level of false recall.     

Testing the Work Environment Hypothesis of Bullying on a Group Level of Analysis: Psychosocial Factors as Precursors of Observed Workplace Bullying

The present paper scrutinises the work environment hypothesis of bullying by examining relationships between psychosocial factors at work and bullying within departments on a group level of analysis, as compared to the many studies executed on an individual level of analysis. Relationships between quantitative demands, job control, role demands, leadership behaviour and social climate, and observed bullying were studied in a convenience sample consisting of 276 departments with a total of 4,064 respondents. Between‐group bivariate correlations showed relatively strong relationships (r > .52) between the predictors social climate, leadership behaviour, and role demands, respectively, and observed bullying in the department. A two‐factor higher‐level model was formulated for the independent variables yielding two latent factors reflecting an interpersonal domain and a task‐oriented domain, where the former was strongly associated with observed bullying at a group level of analysis (Beta =?.73), while the last factor yielded an insignificant contribution. The results confirm that a poor social work environment exists within departments in which bullying takes place, hence, yielding further support to the work environment hypothesis. In line with the present results, future studies on workplace bullying should include a group level of analysis.