Valuing information and options: an experimental study

Participants in four studies were faced with everyday‐life decision scenarios involving risk, such as purchasing an airline ticket whose price may change. They were asked to state their maximum willingness to pay (WTP) for resolving the uncertainty with either perfect information or an option. The two are strategically equivalent, therefore, should be valued in the same way. Across all experiments, individuals tend to value the option more than the information. In addition, the distributions of responses reveal frequent and gross violations of normative bounds. Contrary to normative predictions, no relationship is found between individuals' valuation of the gamble and their reported WTP for information or option. Furthermore, although participants pay attention to the probabilities of outcomes in valuing the gambles, they ignore the probabilities in valuing uncertainty resolution. Several reasoning heuristics that participants use to come up with a value of information are identified, and it appears that the Information and Option contexts tend to trigger different heuristics. Shift in reference point and regret are consistent with the Information–Option valuation discrepancy. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Resilience and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis reactivity under acute stress in young men

The present study examined the relationship between resilience (measured using the Resilience Scale for Adults) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis reactivity. We examined the subjective and cortisol responses of 28 healthy young men to an acute stressor (public speech task). Eight saliva samples were collected in order to obtain the response curve (anticipation, reactivity, recuperation) for each subject. ANOVA indicated that highly resilient individuals tended to display less mood deterioration than less resilient individuals (marginal p(time x group interaction) = 0.075). They also revealed that the former tended to secrete less cortisol overall than the latter during the experiment (marginal p(main group effect) = 0.087) but this effect was not uniform across time (p(time x group interaction) = 0.029). Additional analyses performed to identify the source of this interaction revealed that resilience moderates cortisol secretion in anticipation of the stressor (i.e. highly resilient individuals secreted less cortisol than less resilient ones, p = 0.05) but that it is not conductive to lower HPA reactivity amidst stress (i.e. there was no difference between groups in the increase in cortisol secretion from baseline to peak). The recovery slopes were likewise not statistically different. The implications of these findings regarding health are discussed.     

Sensed presence as a correlate of sleep paralysis distress, social anxiety and waking state social imagery

Isolated sleep paralysis (ISP) is a common parasomnia characterized by an inability to move or speak and often accompanied by hallucinations of a sensed presence nearby. Recent research has linked ISP, and sensed presence more particularly, with social anxiety and other psychopathologies. The present study used a large sample of respondents to an internet questionnaire (N=193) to test whether these associations are due to a general personality factor, affect distress, which is implicated in nightmare suffering and hypothesized to involve dysfunctional social imagery processes. A new measure, ISP distress, was examined in relation to features of ISP experiences, to self-reported psychopathological diagnosis, to scores on the Leibowitz Social Anxiety Scale and to scores on a new questionnaire subscale assessing social imagery in a variety of waking states. Three main results were found: (1) ISP experiences are only weakly associated with a prior diagnosis of mental disorder, (2) sensed presence during ISP is associated preferentially with ISP distress, and (3) ISP distress is associated with dysfunctional social imagery. A general predisposition to affective distress may influence the distress associated with ISP experiences; overly passive social imagery may, in turn, be implicated in this affect distress influence.     

Field perspective deficit for positive memories characterizes autobiographical memory in euthymic depressed patients

Research on autobiographical memory (AM) and the ability to retrieve specific autobiographical events in euthymic depressed patients yielded divergent results. The main goal of the present study was to further explore episodic specificity of AM among fully remitted depressed patients. Twenty euthymic depressed patients and 20 matched healthy controls were given a semi-structured interview, which assesses episodic specificity of positive and negative autobiographical memories regarding event and details' specificity, autonoetic consciousness (remember/know procedure) and visual perspective (field/observer procedure). Results showed an impairment of episodic specificity of AM in euthymic depressed patients. This impairment was explained by a field perspective deficit for positive memories only. These results suggest that euthymic patients continue to exhibit discrepancy between their current self and their self for positive past behaviors, which maintains an unfavorable view of their current self. Specific cognitive interventions may improve the self-relevance of their positive memories.     

Acquired Crossed Aphasia in Dextral Children Revisited

In contrast to the estimated low incidence of crossed aphasia in dextral adults (among 1%), crossed aphasia in children has been considered a common finding for almost a century. However, reviewing the literature on crossed aphasia in dextrals (CAD) and its related topics from 1975 onward, we encountered only 5 children in a corpus of 180 cases (2.7%). Critical analysis rendered three of the reported cases ambiguous and hence not suitable to draw potentially relevant conclusions. In this review, the neurobehavioral manifestations of the two representative childhood CAD cases are analyzed and compared with adult CAD and acquired childhood aphasia (ACA). In the light of our findings, which support the position of innate cerebral specialization for language, the long-standing controversy as to whether lateralized hemispheric specialization for language is innate or develops progressively during maturation is briefly discussed.     

Black–White differences on the g-factor in South Africa: a “Jensen Effect” on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children — revised

A test is made to determine whether South African Black–White differences on various tests of cognitive performance are like the Black–White differences in the United States in being positively associated with a test's g loadings, where g is the general factor of intelligence. Data are analyzed from Skuy, Schutte, Fridjhon and O'Carroll [Skuy, M., Schutte, E., Fridjhon, P., & O'Carroll, S. (2001). Suitability of published neuropsychological test norms for urban African secondary school strudents in South Africa. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 1413–1425) of 154 13- to 15-year-old secondary school students in Soweto, Johannesburg, on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Revised (WISC-R). The more highly correlated a sub-test was with g, the more it predicted the African–White difference (r =0.77, p=0.05). The effect remained even when the Vocabulary sub-test was excluded or when g was extracted from the Black rather than from the White standardization sample (r=0.60, P<0.05), as it did as well if Spearman's rho was used instead of Pearson's r (g from Whites=0.74, g from Blacks=0.74, P< 0.005). Understanding observed Black–White differences around the world requires new research on the nature and nurture of g.     

Usage of spatial scales for the categorization of faces, objects, and scenes

The role of spatial scales (or spatial frequencies) in the processing of faces, objects, and scenes has recently seen a surge of research activity. In this review, we will critically examine two main theories of scale usage. The fixed theory proposes that spatial scales are used in a fixed, perceptually determined order (coarse to fine). The flexible theory suggests instead that usage of spatial scales is flexible, depending on the requirements of visual information for the categorization task at hand. The implications of the theories are examined for face, object, and scene categorization, attention, perception, and representation.     

Does Optimization Imply Rationality?

The relations between rationality and optimizationhave been widely discussed in the wake of HerbertSimon's work, with the common conclusion that therationality concept does not imply the optimizationprinciple. The paper is partly concerned with addingevidence for this view, but its main, more challengingobjective is to question the converse implication fromoptimization to rationality, which is accepted even bybounded rationality theorists. We discuss three topicsin succession: (1) rationally defensible cyclicalchoices, (2) the revealed preference theory ofoptimization, and (3) the infinite regress ofoptimization. We conclude that (1) and (2) provideevidence only for the weak thesis that rationalitydoes not imply optimization. But (3) is seen todeliver a significant argument for the strong thesisthat optimization does not imply rationality.     

Subliminal priming of motivational orientation in educational settings: Effect on academic performance moderated by mindfulness

Recent literature indicates that a motivational orientation can be unconsciously primed. This study examined whether motivational priming influences students’ academic performance within an educational setting and whether this effect is moderated by students’ degree of mindfulness. Two randomly assigned groups of students received an identical lesson. However, the teacher’s slideshow contained different subliminal words according to the condition (autonomous vs. controlled motivation). Results demonstrated an interaction between students’ dispositional mindfulness and priming conditions. The more mindful students were immune to the manipulation whereas the less mindful students were affected by the priming: those primed with autonomous motivation obtained better results than those primed with controlled motivation. These findings contribute to priming research specifying individual differences of priming responsiveness.     

Cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories and autobiographical memory: specificity, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective

Autobiographical memory (AM) specificity is impaired in depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Previous studies emphasised the role of cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories in this impairment. This study aimed to examine the association of cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories with specificity, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective. A total of 38 healthy participants were given the revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-R) and an AM task designed to assess positive and negative memories regarding specificity, autonoetic consciousness (remember/know procedure), and self-perspective (field/observer procedure). Taking into account age, verbal IQ, mood, harm avoidance, and executive resources, the IES-R avoidance subscale was negatively correlated with specificity and remember responses for positive memories, and with remember and field responses for negative memories. These findings suggest that cognitive avoidance of intrusive memories is associated with a decrease of the episodic components of AM retrieval.