Hierarchical Approximate Bayesian Computation

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is a powerful technique for estimating the posterior distribution of a model’s parameters. It is especially important when the model to be fit has no explicit likelihood function, which happens for computational (or simulation-based) models such as those that are popular in cognitive neuroscience and other areas in psychology. However, ABC is usually applied only to models with few parameters. Extending ABC to hierarchical models has been difficult because high-dimensional hierarchical models add computational complexity that conventional ABC cannot accommodate. In this paper, we summarize some current approaches for performing hierarchical ABC and introduce a new algorithm called Gibbs ABC. This new algorithm incorporates well-known Bayesian techniques to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the ABC approach for estimation of hierarchical models. We then use the Gibbs ABC algorithm to estimate the parameters of two models of signal detection, one with and one without a tractable likelihood function.     

When attention is intact in adults with ADHD

Is covert visuospatial attention—selective processing of information in the absence of eye movements—preserved in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? Previous findings are inconclusive due to inconsistent terminology and suboptimal methodology. To settle this question, we used well-established spatial cueing protocols to investigate the perceptual effects of voluntary and involuntary attention on an orientation discrimination task for a group of adults with ADHD and their neurotypical age-matched and gender-matched controls. In both groups, voluntary attention significantly improved accuracy and decreased reaction times at the relevant location, but impaired accuracy and slowed reaction times at irrelevant locations, relative to a distributed attention condition. Likewise, involuntary attention improved accuracy and speeded responses. Critically, the magnitudes of all these orienting and reorienting attention effects were indistinguishable between groups. Thus, these counterintuitive findings indicate that spatial covert attention remains functionally intact in adults with ADHD.     

Science‐based interviewing: Information elicitation

This article describes an ethical and effective science‐based model of interviewing. An initial planning phase assists the investigative team in separating facts from inferences, decreases the likelihood of errors based on cognitive biases, and prompts careful preparation of the environment. The interview begins with an explanation of why the subject is being questioned. The interviewer then metaphorically hands the interview over to the subject, making him the talker and the interviewer the listener. The interviewer engages in active listening, soliciting as much information from the subject as possible by deploying tactics that enhance memory based on science, including elements of the cognitive interview. Cues to deception are found in the details of the story, rather than in signs of anxiety or nonverbal behaviours, and by deploying Strategic Use of Evidence. This model has been shown to increase cooperation, decrease resistance, and provoke useful information in real‐world criminal interviews.     

On Doubt

Despite the prominence of doubt in philosophy since Descartes, the published philosophical literature includes no extended treatment of the nature of doubt. In this paper, I summarize the main contributions that have been made to the subject and then develop a commonsense functionalist account of doubt by specifying (a significant part of) the functional role of doubt that something is the case. After adding two further wrinkles, I show how the resulting account can be used to address the questions of how doubt is related to belief and whether suspension of judgment can be identified with (some appropriate level or levels of) doubt. Although the account is partisan, it should hold interest for those who favor other positions in the philosophy of mind, since (a) much of the account can be taken on board by those in other camps, and (b) the paper demonstrates how a sufficiently detailed account of doubt can be put to work addressing longstanding questions of interest across philosophical sub-disciplines.     

Effects of guided notes versus completed notes during lectures on college students' quiz performance

We compared the effects of guided lecture notes versus completed lecture notes on pre- to postlecture improvements in quiz performance across two sections of a college course. The results of a counterbalanced multielement design did not reveal consistent differences between the two note formats on students' mean quiz scores. However, fewer errors occurred on complex (analysis-level) quiz questions in the guided notes condition than in the completed notes condition.     

Prayer and Subjective Well-Being: An Examination of Six Different Types of Prayer

Participants (N = 430) were recruited online and completed a measure of six prayer types (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, reception, and obligatory prayer). Measures of subjective well-being (self-esteem, optimism, meaning in life, satisfaction with life) were also administered. Three forms of prayer (adoration, thanksgiving, reception) had consistently positive relations with well-being measures, whereas the other three forms of prayer had negative or null relations with the well-being measures. The prayer types having positive effects appear to be less ego-focused, and more focused on God, whereas the negative types have an opposite nature. These results highlight the role of psychological meaning as a part of the process whereby prayer impacts psychological well-being.     

Hobbes and the Imitation of God

This note discusses the implications of an incorrect quotation that appeared in Ted H. Miller's article, 'Thomas Hobbes and the Constraints that Enable the Imitation of God', from Inquiry42.2 (1999). Although surely inadvertent, this error is significant because the author uses it to support the thesis that Hobbes envisions philosophers imitating God by creating order out of chaos. The correct quotation from Leviathandoes not support such a thesis, and the paragraph in Leviathanfrom which it is taken actually runs counter to it. The correct quotation, taken in its context, and a passage from De Corporecited by Professor Miller reveal that Hobbes encourages philosophers to imitate God by following the order of creation in contemplation. In other words, philosophers imitate God by imitating the creation.