The central executive as a search process: priming exploration and exploitation across domains

The trade-off between exploration and exploitation is common to a wide variety of problems involving search in space and mind. The prevalence of this trade-off and its neurological underpinnings led us to propose domain-general cognitive search processes (Hills, Todd, & Goldstone, 2008). We propose further that these are consistent with the idea of a central executive search process that combines goal-handling across subgoal hierarchies. In the present study, we investigate 3 aspects of this proposal. First, the existence of a unitary central executive search process should allow priming from 1 search task to another and at multiple hierarchical levels. We confirm this by showing cross-domain priming from a spatial search task to 2 different cognitive levels within a lexical search task. Second, given the neural basis of the proposed generalized cognitive search process and the evidence that the central executive is primarily engaged during complex tasks, we hypothesize that priming should require search in the sense of a self-regulated making and testing of sequential predictions about the world. This was confirmed by showing that when participants were allowed to collect spatial resources without searching for them, no priming occurred. Finally, we provide a mechanism for the underlying search process and investigate 3 alternative hypotheses for subgoal hierarchies using the central executive as a search process model (CESP). CESP envisions the central executive as having both emergent and unitary processes, with one of its roles being a generalized cognitive search process that navigates goal hierarchies by mediating persistence on and switching between subgoals.     

A longitudinal study of student-teacher relationship quality, difficult temperament, and risky behavior from childhood to early adolescence

This study examines the mediating role of student-teacher relationship quality (conflict and closeness) in grades 4, 5, and 6 on the relation between background characteristics, difficult temperament at age 4½ and risky behavior in 6th grade. The longitudinal sample of participants (N = 1156) was from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate paths from (a) background characteristics to student-teacher relationship quality and risky behavior, (b) temperament to student-teacher relationship quality and risky behavior, and (c) student-teacher relationship quality to risky behavior. Findings indicate that students' family income, gender, receipt of special services, and more difficult temperament were associated with risky behavior. In addition, student-teacher conflict was a mediator. Students with more difficult temperaments were more likely to report risky behavior and to have conflict in their relationships with teachers. More conflict predicted more risky behavior. Closer student-teacher relationships were associated with less risky behavior. Results suggest negative relationships, specifically student-teacher relationships, may increase the risk that certain adolescents will engage in risky behavior.     

A Dual-Process Discrete-Time Survival Analysis Model: Application to the Gateway Drug Hypothesis

The gateway drug model is a popular conceptualization of a progression most substance-users are hypothesized to follow as they try different legal and illegal drugs. Most forms of the gateway hypothesis are that "softer" drugs lead to "harder," illicit drugs. However, the gateway hypothesis has been notably difficult to directly test - i.e., to test as competing hypotheses in a single model that licit drug use might lead to illicit drug use or the reverse. This article presents a novel statistical technique, dual-process discrete-time survival analysis, which enables this comparison. This method uses mixture-modeling software to estimate two concurrent time-to-event processes and their effects on each other. Using this method, support for the gateway hypothesis in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 was weak. However, this paper was not designed as a strong test of causal direction but more as a technical demonstration, and suffered from certain technological limitations. Both these limitations and future directions are discussed.     

Hidden Mission of the Psyche in Abuse and Addiction

Traumatic experiences can become the central mental content in our psychic structure and can deeply mark all our later perceptions and experiences of our surroundings. We can claim something similar also for addictions of all kinds. In this article, we will demonstrate that recurring traumatic experiences and abuse as well as addiction represent a hidden mission of psyche for resolution and a great cry of longing for salvation.     

Underestimating numerosity of items in visual search tasks

Previous research on numerosity judgments addressed attended items, while the present research addresses underestimation for unattended items in visual search tasks. One potential cause of underestimation for unattended items is that estimates of quantity may depend on viewing a large portion of the display within foveal vision. Another theory follows from the occupancy model: estimating quantity of items in greater proximity to one another increases the likelihood of an underestimation error. Three experimental manipulations addressed aspects of underestimation for unattended items: the size of the distracters, the distance of the target from fixation, and whether items were clustered together. Results suggested that the underestimation effect for unattended items was best explained within a Gestalt grouping framework.     

Predictor variables for a 100-km race time in male ultra-marathoners

In 169 male 100-km ultra-marathoners, the variables of anthropometry, training, and prerace experience, in order to predict race time, were investigated. In the bivariate analysis, age (r = .24), body mass (r = .20), Body Mass Index (r = .29), circumference of upper arm (r = .26), percent body fat (r = .45), mean weekly running hours (r = -.21), mean weekly running kilometers (r = -.43), mean speed in training (r=-.56), personal best time in a marathon (r = .65), the number of finished 100-km ultra-runs (r = .24), and the personal best time in a 100-km ultra-run (r = .72) were associated with race time. Stepwise multiple regression showed that training speed (p < .0001), mean weekly running kilometers (p < .0001), and age (p < .0001) were the best correlations for a 100-km race time. Performance may be predicted (n=169, r2 = .43) by the following equation: 100-km race time (min) = 1085.60 - 36.26 x (training speed, km/hr.) - 1.43 x (training volume, km/wk.) + 2.50 x (age, yr.). Overall, intensity of training might be more important for a successful outcome in a 100-km race than anthropometric attributes. Motivation to train intensely for such an ultra-endurance run should be explored as this might be the key for a successful finish.     

The Moral Laboratory: On Kant’s Notion of Pedagogy as a Science

Following Kant, it is clear that, but probably not completely how we are morally obligated. I will point out that there are three possible ways to struggle for an understanding of how we can be obligated as rational beings and also as ordinary human beings. There is (a) the argument from rational feeling (‘Achtung’), (b) the argument from language, and finally (c) the argument from systematization. Reading the later passages of the ‘Critique of pure Reason’ and following its instructions, we will understand why education has to be founded by the same kind of argumentation as the natural sciences. The systematical analysis of Kant’s analogy between the physical body and the moral obligation will explain the suspected gap between our just rational and our whole selves. The most important part of the demanded bridge will be Kant’s Moral Laboratory.     

Prejudice in the police: On the processes underlying the effects of selection and group socialisation

The principal aim of this study is to determine why police officers are generally found to be more prejudiced towards disadvantaged groups than are the standard population. Two independent processes were expected to account for this effect: Selection and group socialisation. Using a cross‐sectional design (N = 170), firstly, we compared, newly recruited police officers with a control population (selection effect), and secondly, police officers with 1 year of training with the newly recruited ones (group socialisation effect). Results reveal a significant effect of both selection and group socialisation, the two being underlined by distinct processes; right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA) in the case of the former and internalisation of a prejudice norm in the case of the latter. Finally, the results show that group identification moderates the change in internalisation of the prejudice norm. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Expanding the study of U.S. religion: Reflections on the state of a subfield

The study of U.S. religion, which dates from the 19th century, expanded its sources, methods, and scope during the last quarter of the 20th century, as specialists offered more inclusive historical narratives. That methodological expansion never went far enough, however, and the impulse toward narrative inclusiveness has been restrained in recent years. The subfield, I argue, now faces a number of challenges that also confront other specializations in the study of religion—contraction, overspecialization, fragmentation, and parochialism. After a focused overview of the subfield’s history, I discuss those challenges. Proposing a tentative response, I suggest that specialists celebrate methodological diversity and theoretical sophistication, encourage comparative and translocative studies, and increase collaboration across disciplinary boundaries and national borders. Finally, I suggest that we expand the subfield’s temporal span and geographical scope and reframe the study of U.S. religion in terms of the Atlantic World, the Pacific World, and the Western Hemisphere.