Ability evaluation by proxy: role of maximal performance and related attributes in social comparison

Four experiments tested the effects of information about a proxy's related attributes and maximal effort in social comparisons of ability. In Study 1, a proxy's prior performance at maximal effort exerted systematic effects on participants' personal performance predictions for a novel task. When information about the proxy's effort was ambiguous (Study 2). information about related attribute similarity was used in the formulation of performance predictions. In Studies 3 and 4, 2-way interaction terms revealed that participants used related attribute information in generating performance predictions when the proxy's maximum effort was unknown. However, related attribute information was disregarded when proxy's maximum effort was unambiguous. Results were consistent with the proxy comparison model of ability self-evaluation (L. Wheeler, R. Martin, & J. Suls, 1997).     

Visual habituation at five months: short-term reliability of measures obtained with a new polynomial regression criterion

Using a new polynomial regression criterion, the authors investigated empirically the short-term reliability of infants' visual habituation measures. Twenty-one 5-month-old infants were tested twice with a 1-day interval. Results revealed many reliable habituation measures, a reliable reaction to novelty measure, and a new reliable measure of interest. The 2nd-order polynomial regression criterion probably produced this improvement because it uses all of the available looking time data.     

Developmental and content effects in reasoning with causal conditionals

Two predictions derived from Markovits and Barrouillet's (2001) developmental model of conditional reasoning were tested in a study in which 72 twelve-year-olds, 80 fifteen-year-olds, and 104 adults received a paper-and-pencil test of conditional reasoning with causal premises ("if cause P then effect Q"). First, we predicted that conditional premises would induce more correct uncertainty responses to the Affirmation of the consequent and Denial of the antecedent forms when the antecedent term is weakly associated to the consequent than when the two are strongly associated and that this effect would decrease with age. Second, uncertainty responding to the Denial of the antecedent form ("P is not true") should be easier when the formulation of the minor premise invites retrieval of alternate antecedents ("if something other than P is true"). The results were consistent with the hypotheses and indicate the importance of retrieval processes in understanding developmental patterns in conditional reasoning with familiar premises.     

Reviews: Books, Art

POLITICS ON THE COUCH: CITIZENSHIP AND THE INTERNAL LIFE. By Andrew Samuels, 235 pp. New York: Karnac (Other Press). $16.00. MARTHA, MARTHA: HOW CHRISTIANS WORRY. By Elaine Leong Eng, M.D. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, Inc., 2000. $14.95. SPILT MILK: PERINATAL LOSS AND BREAKDOWN. Edited by Joan Raphael-Leff. 100 pp. London: Institute of Psychoanalysis, 2000. MOTHERHOOD AND SEXUALITY. By Marie Langer, 305 pp. New York: Other Press, 2000. $30.00. BRANCHING STREAMS FLOW IN THE DARKNESS: ZEN TALKS ON THE SANDOKAI. By S. Suzuki. Eds: M. Weitsman and M. Wegner. 193 pp. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. $22.50. RESTORED HARMONY: AN EVIDENCE BASED APPROACH FOR INTEGRATING TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE INTO COMPLEMENTARY CANCER CARE. By Stephen Sagar, MD. xviii + 134 pp. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: Dreaming Dragonfly Communications, 2001. $19.95 (US); $29.95 (Can.), paperback. (ISBN: 0-9689488-0-4). CHIYO-NI, WOMAN HAIKU MASTER. By Patricia Donegan and Yoshie Ishibashi, 184 pp. Boston: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1998. $16.95. THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB: A STORY OF IDEAS IN AMERICA. By Louis Menand, 442 pp. New York: Farrrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2001. $27.00. BUDDHISM WITHOUT BELIEFS: A CONTEMPORARY GUIDE TO AWAKENING. By Stephen Bachelor, 127 pp. Riverhead Books, 1997. $21.95. Video Art is Dead, Long Live Video Art     

Lack of association of computer use and ability with spontaneous mental visualization

Relationships between frequency of computer use or ability to use the computer effectively with the tendency to construct and process visual mental images were investigated by administering a computer-use questionnaire and a visualization questionnaire to a sample of 185 Italian and Spanish undergraduates. Analysis did not support associations between either (a) frequent computer use of any kind or (b) high competence in using the computer for various purposes and spontaneous use of imagery.     

Causal conditional reasoning and semantic memory retrieval: a test of the semantic memory framework

This study tested and refined a framework that proposes a mechanism for retrieving alternative causes and disabling conditions (Cummins, 1995) during reasoning. Experiment 1 examined the relation between different factors affecting retrieval. The test revealed high correlations between the number of possible alternative causes or disabling conditions and their strength of association and plausibility. Experiment 2 explored the hypothesis that due to a more extended search process, conditional inferences would last longer when many alternative causes or disabling conditions were available. Affirmation of the consequent (AC) and modus ponens (MP) latencies showed the hypothesized pattern. Denial of the antecedent (DA) and modus tollens (MT) inferences did not show latency effects. The experiment also identified an effect of the number of disabling conditions on AC and DA acceptance. Experiment 3 measured efficiency of disabler retrieval by a limited time, disabler generation task. As predicted, better disabler retrieval was related to lower acceptance of the MP and MT inferences.     

Background beliefs in Bayesian inference

We report five experiments in which the role of background beliefs in social judgments of posterior probability was investigated. From a Bayesian perspective, people should combine prior probabilities (or base rates) and diagnostic evidence with equal weighting, although previous research shows that base rates are often underweighted. These experiments were designed so that either piece of information was supplied either by personal beliefs or by presented statistics, and regression analyses were performed on individual participants to assess the relative influence of information. We found that both prior probabilities and diagnostic information significantly influenced judgments, whether supplied by beliefs or by statistical information, but that belief-based information tended to dominate the judgments made.     

Satisfiability Testing for Boolean Formulas Using Δ-trees

The tree-based data structure of -tree for propositional formulas is introduced in an improved and optimised form. The -trees allow a compact representation for negation normal forms as well as for a number of reduction strategies in order to consider only those occurrences of literals which are relevant for the satisfiability of the input formula. These reduction strategies are divided into two subsets (meaning- and satisfiability-preserving transformations) and can be used to decrease the size of a negation normal form A at (at most) quadratic cost. The reduction strategies are aimed at decreasing the number of required branchings and, therefore, these strategies allow to limit the size of the search space for the SAT problem.     

Is there an effect of handedness on the position of the egocentric reference?

Forty normal subjects (20 left-handed; 20 right-handed) were submitted to a proprioceptive straight ahead pointing task while blindfolded to study the effect of the hand used and of the hand preference on the estimation of the subjective sagittal middle. Results showed that left-handed and right-handed subjects both deviated to the left of the objective sagittal middle and presented an effect of the hand used and of the starting point affecting their straight ahead performance in a similar way. In all subjects whatever their manual preference, using the left hand and starting 30 degrees to left induced a tendency to deviate to the same side, whereas using the right hand and starting 30 degrees to right induced a tendency to place the subjective middle to the right of the objective middle. These results are interpreted with regard to the hypothesis of a cortical control of the position of the egocentric reference.