Working memory capacity and a notorious brain teaser: the case of the Monty Hall Dilemma

The Monty Hall Dilemma (MHD) is an intriguing example of the discrepancy between people's intuitions and normative reasoning. This study examines whether the notorious difficulty of the MHD is associated with limitations in working memory resources. Experiment 1 and 2 examined the link between MHD reasoning and working memory capacity. Experiment 3 tested the role of working memory experimentally by burdening the executive resources with a secondary task. Results showed that participants who solved the MHD correctly had a significantly higher working memory capacity than erroneous responders. Correct responding also decreased under secondary task load. Findings indicate that working memory capacity plays a key role in overcoming salient intuitions and selecting the correct switching response during MHD reasoning.     

Automatic-heuristic and executive-analytic processing during reasoning: Chronometric and dual-task considerations

Human reasoning has been shown to overly rely on intuitive, heuristic processing instead of a more demanding analytic inference process. Four experiments tested the central claim of current dual-process theories that analytic operations involve time-consuming executive processing whereas the heuristic system would operate automatically. Participants solved conjunction fallacy problems and indicative and deontic selection tasks. Experiment 1 established that making correct analytic inferences demanded more processing time than did making heuristic inferences. Experiment 2 showed that burdening the executive resources with an attention-demanding secondary task decreased correct, analytic responding and boosted the rate of conjunction fallacies and indicative matching card selections. Results were replicated in Experiments 3 and 4 with a different secondary-task procedure. Involvement of executive resources for the deontic selection task was less clear. Findings validate basic processing assumptions of the dual-process framework and complete the correlational research programme of K. E. Stanovich and R. F. West (2000).     

Dual processing in reasoning: two systems but one reasoner

Human reasoning has been characterized as an interplay between an automatic belief-based system and a demanding logic-based reasoning system. The present study tested a fundamental claim about the nature of individual differences in reasoning and the processing demands of both systems. Participants varying in working memory capacity performed a reasoning task while their executive resources were burdened with a secondary task. Results were consistent with the dual-process claim: The executive burden hampered correct reasoning when the believability of a conclusion conflicted with its logical validity, but not when beliefs cued the correct response. However, although participants with high working memory spans performed better than those with lower spans in cases of a conflict, all reasoners showed similar effects of load. The findings support the idea that there are two reasoning systems with differential processing demands, but constitute evidence against qualitative individual differences in the human reasoning machinery.     

Numbers and space: a computational model of the SNARC effect

The SNARC (spatial numerical associations of response codes) effect reflects the tendency to respond faster with the left hand to relatively small numbers and with the right hand to relatively large numbers (S. Dehaene, S. Bossini, & P. Giraux, 1993). Using computational modeling, the present article aims to provide a framework for conceptualizing the SNARC effect. In line with models of spatial stimulus-response congruency, the authors modeled the SNARC effect as the result of parallel activation of preexisting links between magnitude and spatial representation and short-term links created on the basis of task instructions. This basic dual-route model simulated all characteristics associated with the SNARC effect. In addition, 2 experiments tested and confirmed new predictions derived from the model.     

Shared spatial representations for numbers and space: the reversal of the SNARC and the Simon effects

In 4 experiments, the authors investigated the reversal of spatial congruency effects when participants concurrently practiced incompatible mapping rules (J. G. Marble & R. W. Proctor, 2000). The authors observed an effect of an explicit spatially incompatible mapping rule on the way numerical information was associated with spatial responses. The authors also observed an effect of an incompatible numerical mapping rule (if smaller than 5, press right; if larger than 5, press left) on the Simon effect. This effect was observed only when both tasks used the same effectors. The results point to a shared spatial representation for explicit spatial information (locations) and implicit spatial information (numbers).     

Longitudinal Associations Between Personality Profile Stability and Adjustment in College Students: Distinguishing Among Overall Stability,Distinctive Stability,and Within‐Time Normativeness

ABSTRACT In the present study, longitudinal associations of 3 aspects of personality profile stability (i.e., overall stability, distinctive stability, and within‐time normativeness) with 3 adjustment measures (i.e., depressive symptoms, self‐esteem, and delinquency) were examined, using 4 waves of longitudinal data on a Belgian college sample (N=565). Longitudinal path models revealed strong longitudinal associations between adjustment and overall stability. Subsequent analyses showed that it is not the degree to which one's personality profile consistently diverges from the average personality profile within a population (i.e., distinctive stability) that is related to adjustment but the degree to which a personality profile of an individual matches the average personality profile within the sample at a certain point in time (i.e., within‐time normativeness). The current study thereby underscores the importance of distinguishing normativeness and distinctiveness when examining personality profile stability.     

Psychiatry Residents' Attitudes on Ethics and Professionalism: Multisite Survey Results

Recent studies show that psychiatry residents express a relatively greater need for ethics curricula than their colleagues in other specialties. Such studies have been limited in their generalizability because they were conducted at one site. This study of 151 psychiatry residents at seven U.S. psychiatry programs aims to address that limitation. Residents were surveyed on issues pertaining to ethics and professionalism education. Participants were found to support such curricula during training and to value its relevance to the practice of psychiatry. Gender differences and the influence of the “hidden curriculum” on such results merit further study.     

Validation of a Theory-Driven Profile Interpretation of the Dutch Short Form of the MMPI Using the TAT Social Cognitions and Object Relations Scale (SCORS)

Sixty psychiatric inpatients were assigned to one of three groups on the basis of F and K MMPI validity scales. Staff ratings of patient behavior and recorded incidents of "acting-out" behavior were obtained for patients with: (a) "plea for help" validity profiles, (b) hyper-defensive profiles, and (c) average profiles. Patients with "plea for help"profiles were perceived as "acting out" more frequently and engendering more feelings of frustration than patients in the other groups. These patients account for 77% of the incidents of inappropriate, destructive behavior and 83% of the seclusions in the patients sampled. Although the "plea for help"profile is considered invalid in some scoring systems, results suggest that this validity profile may be useful in treatment planning.