Investing Even in Uneven Contests: Effects of Asymmetry on Investment in Contests

Many competitions, such as political campaigns, innovative endeavors, sports, or courting rituals, require investment of nonrefundable resources: One contestant wins the prize for the invested amount, whereas all others lose their investments without receiving compensation. Frequently, contests are asymmetric, because of differing resources or prize valuations. Does asymmetry discourage the weaker contestants from investing? Do stronger contestants take this into account and also invest less? Or does the desire to win abolish these differences? Two experiments explored the effects of asymmetry between the contestants—arising from their resources or prizes—on nonrefundable investments. Subjects repeatedly competed in both symmetric and asymmetric contests, enabling within‐subject comparisons. We observed an effect of asymmetry only when it concerned resources: Subjects overall invested less when their resources were unequal, whereas inequality in the prizes did not influence investments. This pattern suggests that winning itself is motivating. The changes between consecutive investments can be explained by reactions to the previous outcome (win or loss): Across all contests, investment decreased following a win and increased following a loss. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A virtual reality scenario for all seasons: the virtual classroom

Treatment and rehabilitation of the cognitive, psychological, and motor sequelae of central nervous system dysfunction often relies on assessment instruments to inform diagnosis and to track changes in clinical status. Typically, these assessments employ paper-and-pencil psychometrics, hands-on analog/computer tests, and rating of behavior within the context of real-world functional environments. Virtual reality offers the option to produce and distribute identical "standard" simulation environments in which performance can be measured and rehabilitated. Within such digital scenarios, normative data can be accumulated for performance comparisons needed for assessment/diagnosis and for treatment/rehabilitation purposes. In this manner, reusable archetypic virtual environments constructed for one purpose can also be applied for applications addressing other clinical targets. This article will provide a review of such a retooling approach using a virtual classroom simulation that was originally developed as a controlled stimulus environment in which attention processes could be systematically assessed in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. This system is now being applied to other clinical targets including the development of tests that address other cognitive functions, eye movement under distraction conditions, social anxiety disorder, and the creation of an earthquake safety training application for children with developmental and learning disabilities.     

The Negative Physical Self Scale: Initial development and validation in samples of Chinese adolescents and young adults

This research presents four studies on the initial development and validation of the 48-item Negative Physical Self Scale (NPS), a multidimensional measure of body image concerns for use with Chinese samples. In Study 1 (N = 1095), exploratory factor analyses identified five dimensions underlying the NPS (General Appearance, Facial Appearance, Shortness, Fatness, Thinness). In Study 2 (N = 1057), confirmatory factor analyses replicated this factor structure. In Studies 3 and 4, the validity of all NPS dimensions except Thinness Concern was supported via their patterns of relation with both objective physical characteristics/behaviors and other self-report measures of body image and general self worth. Because Chinese adolescents and young adults expressed relatively more concerns about General Appearance, Shortness, and Facial Appearance than about Fatness, the NPS may have greater utility for assessing body image disturbances in China than existing measures that focus exclusively on general body satisfaction and body size/weight.     

Experiential avoidance as a generalized psychological vulnerability: comparisons with coping and emotion regulation strategies

Extending previous work, we conducted two studies concerning the toxic influences of experiential avoidance (EA) as a core mechanism in the development and maintenance of psychological distress, and disruption of pleasant, engaging, and spontaneous activity. Of particular interest was whether EA accounted for relationships between coping and emotion regulation strategies on anxiety-related pathology (Study 1) and psychological distress and hedonic functioning over the course of a 21-day monitoring period (Study 2). In Study 1, EA mediated the effects of maladaptive coping, emotional responses styles, and uncontrollability on anxiety-related distress (e.g., anxiety sensitivity, trait anxiety, suffocation fears, and body sensation fears). In Study 2, EA completely mediated the effects of two emotion regulation strategies (i.e., suppression and reappraisal) on daily negative and positive experiences and was associated with diminished daily positive affective experiences and healthy life appraisals, diminished frequency of positive events and more frequent negative life events, and greater negative affective experiences. The present data show that cognitive reappraisal, a primary process of traditional cognitive-behavior therapy, was much less predictive of the quality of psychological experiences and events in everyday life compared with EA. Further consideration of experiential avoidance as a generalized diathesis and toxic process will be useful in improving our understanding of the etiology, phenomenology, and treatment of anxiety conditions, general human suffering, and disruptions in hedonic capacity.     

Fragile self-esteem and affective instability in posttraumatic stress disorder

Temporal fluctuations in self-esteem and affect are prominent features of several clinical conditions (e.g., depression), but there is an absence of empirical work examining their role in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Individuals who experience large fluctuations in self-evaluations and affect are considered more vulnerable to psychopathology than individuals able to adequately modulate their self-image and emotional responses. We examined the relevance of self-esteem and affective instability to PTSD. Veterans with and without PTSD completed 14 daily ratings of self-esteem, positive affect, negative affect, and gratitude. Compared to veterans without PTSD, veterans with PTSD exhibited more temporal fluctuations in self-esteem, negative affect, and gratitude, with a smaller effect for positive affect. For all veterans, self-esteem and negative affective instability was associated with diminished well-being. Except for self-esteem instability, most findings were substantially reduced after accounting for variance attributable to PTSD diagnoses and mean intensity levels over the 14-day monitoring period. These data suggest self-esteem instability is important in understanding the lives of veterans with and without PTSD.     

Conjunction errors, recollection-based rejections, and forgetting in a continuous recognition task

Six experiments investigated conjunction memory errors (e.g., falsely remembering blackbird after studying parent words blackmail and jailbird) in a continuous recognition procedure with a parent-conjunction lag manipulation. In 4 experiments (1A, 1B, 2A, and 2B) "recollect" judgments, which indexed recall of parent words, showed that participants can use recollection to prevent conjunction errors. "Recollect" judgments, as well as overt recall of parent words (in Experiments 2A and 2B), dropped sharply from a lag of 0 to 1 word, then stabilized from a lag of 1 to 20 words. Thus, the "recollect" responses and overt recall demonstrate a step function of forgetting over short intervals. These data generalized to cued recall in Experiments 3A and 3B with the first morpheme (e.g., black) as the cue, though recall conjunction errors occurred infrequently relative to recognition conjunction errors. Overall, the results support the idea that automatic and controlled processes contribute to memory performance.     

Transformations of mathematical and stimulus functions

Following a pretest, 8 participants who were unfamiliar with algebraic and trigonometric functions received a brief presentation on the rectangular coordinate system. Next, they participated in a computer-interactive matching-to-sample procedure that trained formula-to-formula and formula-to-graph relations. Then, they were exposed to 40 novel formula-to-graph tests and 10 novel graph-to-formula tests. Seven of the 8 participants showed substantial improvement in identifying formula-to-graph relations; however, in the test of novel graph-to-formula relations, participants tended to select equations in their factored form. Next, we manipulated contextual cues in the form of rules regarding mathematical preferences. First, we informed participants that standard forms of equations were preferred over factored forms. In a subsequent test of 10 additional novel graph-to-formula relations, participants shifted their selections to favor equations in their standard form. This preference reversed during 10 more tests when financial reward was made contingent on correct identification of formulas in factored form. Formula preferences and transformation of novel mathematical and stimulus functions are discussed.     

The prepared mind: neural activity prior to problem presentation predicts subsequent solution by sudden insight

Insight occurs when problem solutions arise suddenly and seem obviously correct, and is associated with an "Aha!" experience. Prior theorizing concerning preparation that facilitates insight focused on solvers' problem-specific knowledge. We hypothesized that a distinct type of mental preparation, manifested in a distinct brain state, would facilitate insight problem solving independently of problem-specific knowledge. Consistent with this hypothesis, neural activity during a preparatory interval before subjects saw verbal problems predicted which problems they would subsequently solve with, versus without, self-reported insight. Specifically, electroencephalographic topography and frequency (Experiment 1) and functional magnetic resonance imaging signal (Experiment 2) both suggest that mental preparation leading to insight involves heightened activity in medial frontal areas associated with cognitive control and in temporal areas associated with semantic processing. The results for electroencephalographic topography suggest that noninsight preparation, in contrast, involves increased occipital activity consistent with an increase in externally directed visual attention. Thus, general preparatory mechanisms modulate problem-solving strategy.     

Effect of distractor sounds on the auditory attentional blink

Four experiments were conducted to determine whether or not the presence and placement of distractors in a rapid serial auditory stream has any influence on the emergence of the auditory attentional blink (AB). Experiment 1 revealed that the presence of distractors is necessary to produce the auditory AB. In Experiments 2 and 3, the auditory AB was reduced when the distractor immediately following the probe was replaced by silence but not when the distractor following the target was replaced by silence. Finally, in Experiment 4, only a very small auditory AB was found to remain when all distractors following the probe were replaced by silence. These results suggest that the auditory AB is affected both by the overwriting of the probe by the distractors following it and by a reduction in discriminability generated by all of the distractors presented in the sequence.