The Smart System 1: evidence for the intuitive nature of correct responding on the bat-and-ball problem

Influential work on reasoning and decision-making has popularised the idea that sound reasoning requires correction of fast, intuitive thought processes by slower and more demanding deliberation. We present seven studies that question this corrective view of human thinking. We focused on the very problem that has been widely featured as the paradigmatic illustration of the corrective view, the well-known bat-and-ball problem. A two-response paradigm in which people were required to give an initial response under time pressure and cognitive load allowed us to identify the presumed intuitive response that preceded the final response given after deliberation. Across our studies, we observe that correct final responses are often non-corrective in nature. Many reasoners who manage to answer the bat-and-ball problem correctly after deliberation already solved it correctly when they reasoned under conditions that minimised deliberation in the initial response phase. This suggests that sound bat-and-ball reasoners do not necessarily need to deliberate to correct their intuitions; their intuitions are often already correct. Pace the corrective view, findings suggest that in these cases, they deliberate to verify correct intuitive insights.     

自主安全动机与安全绩效的多水平模型

自主安全动机对安全绩效的积极作用已引起研究者的关注, 但自主动机与安全绩效多水平的作用机制还未得到深入研究。结合自我决定理论与多水平动机过程, 个体与团队自主安全动机通过安全目标, 进而影响安全绩效; 在安全工作情境中通过对自主支持、工作重塑的干预促进自主安全动机。研究拟结合认知测量和问卷测量, 通过纵向研究、实验、准实验研究等方法探讨上述问题。研究结果一方面可拓展自我决定理论与安全绩效的研究; 另一方面为安全管理实践, 尤其是安全培训提供理论依据, 对高风险企业安全绩效的改善有积极的现实意义。     

空格减少汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童的视觉拥挤效应：来自眼动的证据

使用眼动仪记录汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童、正常年龄匹配和能力匹配儿童阅读插入空格文本时的眼动,考察在字、词以及非词间插入空格呈现文本对汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童阅读加工过程的影响。结果发现,阅读障碍儿童在字间空格条件下平均注视时间减少的程度大于正常儿童,注视次数在字间和词间空格条件下未见显著增加,能力匹配儿童的注视次数在这两种空格条件下却显著增加。结果说明,在字间和词间插入空格能够减少儿童的平均阅读时间,且字间空格文本呈现显著地提高了其阅读效率,说明空格对汉语阅读障碍儿童具有促进作用,这种促进主要是由于空格减少了其视觉拥挤效应所致。     

From Design to Self-organization,or: A Proper Structure for a Proper Function

It is suggested that Charles Sanders Peirce's triadic semiotics provides a framework for a diagrammatic representation of a sign's proper structure. The action of signs is described at the logical and psychological levels. The role of (unconscious) abductive inference is analyzed, and a diagram of reasoning is offered. A series of interpretants transform brute facts into interpretable signs thereby providing human experience with value or meaning. The triadic structure helps in de-mystifying the relations between Penrose's three worlds when the latter are considered as constituting a semiotic triangle. Conference “Dynamic Ontology: An Inquiry into Systems, Emergence, Levels of Reality, and Forms of Causality” University of Trento, Italy, September 7–11, 2004.     

Anxiety, Attributional Thinking, and the Primary Process

In earlier publications, experimental evidence was provided for the existence of the primary vs. secondary process mental organization posited by Freud. A well-established cognitive categorization test based on attributional and relational similarity was found to map on to primary and secondary principles of mental organization respectively, thus offering the opportunity to test hypotheses drawn from psychoanalytic theory independent of the clinical situation. In prior work, primary process shifts occurred under three different conditions-all predicted by psychoanalytic theory: (1) when stimuli were (subliminal) unconscious; (2) when participants were 3-5 years of age; and (3) when tasks were implicit. In the current study, a fourth condition is examined dealing with the relationship of conscious anxiety to primary and secondary processes. In a naturalistic study, 120 patients waiting in medical center waiting rooms rated how anxious they felt on a 10-point scale and then completed a version of the categorization test alluded to above. Those who reported any anxiety at all showed a signifi cant shift toward primary process categorization over those participants who rated themselves as calm. The implications of this fourth fi nding are discussed with respect to signal anxiety and symptom formation.     

Oneiric activity and the analytical process A semiotic perspective on Willy Baranger's theory of dreams1

This author reconsiders, from a semiotic perspective, the theoretical and technical ideas developed by Willy and Madeleine Baranger, especially W. Baranger's views on the function of dreams, the status of oneiric symbols and the further clinical‐technical use of dreams in the context of the intersubjective dynamic fi eld, together with the basic unconscious fantasy that emerges in the analytic situation. She attempts to relate the Barangers' ideas to others arising from Peirce's analytic semiotics that would support a triadic conceptualization of dreams. The need to incorporate a pragmatic view of communication and of the processes of production of sense as contributions to dream metapsychology and interpretation in the case of non‐neurotic patients is particularly emphasized. On the basis of the hypothesis of a described series of triads underlying the production and retelling of dreams, the acknowledgment of these produced/told dreams as intentional signs allows the presence of a continuous process of semiosis to be proposed. The author introduces clinical material to illustrate the communicative value of dreams through the textual analysis of the report and accompanying associations of three dreams. Such analysis takes a linguistic pragmatics approach that examines those aspects of meaning not accounted for by a restricted semantic theory.     

SPIRIT HEALING,MENTAL HEALTH,AND EMOTION REGULATION

Abstract. Spirit healing is widespread across societies in diverse world regions. Its ritual forms appear in local, popular religions as well as a variety of organized churches. Although aspects of ritual, suchas the identification of spirits and use of symbols and paraphernalia, vary with culture and type of religion, there appear to be basic components of ritual healing process shared by its diverse forms. Using data on Spiritist healing in Puerto Rico as a case example, I first examine aspects of the interface between mental illness as defined by psychiatry and spirit healing. I then raise the question: If spirit healing is effective with some emotional disorders (as I have discussed in previous reports), how does it work? Emotional transactions could be considered foundational to most or all spirit healing rituals as they are to some psychotherapeutic and alternative‐medicine modalities. One model of emotion regulation is proposed as a lens through which to view specific processes of change in feelings and emotions in the context of culturally specified ritual structures.     

Establishing visual category boundaries between objects: a PET study

Individuals with Alzheimer's disease (AD) often have problems in recognizing common objects. This visual agnosia may stem from difficulties in establishing appropriate visual boundaries between visually similar objects. In support of this hypothesis, showed that AD subjects have difficulties in establishing visual category boundaries between continuously graded shapes. In an attempt to investigate the neural basis of these impairments, the current study required a group of neurologically healthy elderly participants to categorically classify a series of ellipses varying in width while regional blood flow changes were measured using positron emission tomography (PET). Two categorization conditions were compared in order to isolate changes in cortical activity that dissociated the categorization of shapes situated either near or far from a category boundary that divided the width continuum. The participants produced a discontinuity in the probability and speed of categorizing the shapes at some point along the continuum, suggesting that the objects were classified into distinct categories. Moreover, a comparison of the PET scans obtained while the subjects were categorizing the shapes situated near vs. far form the category boundary revealed significant differences in cortical activity in the parietal and frontal brain areas. These findings suggest that both visuo-spatial and decision making mechanisms may be involved in establishing categorical distinctions between continuously graded stimuli. It is proposed that the functional role of the parietal and frontal cortical regions in establishing visual boundaries between categories of objects may be relevant for understanding object recognition impairments in AD.     

Sketches from a design process: creative cognition inferred from intermediate products

Novice designers produced a sequence of sketches while inventing a logo for a novel brand of soft drink. The sketches were scored for the presence of specific objects, their local features and global composition. Self-assessment scores for each sketch and art critics' scores for the end products were collected. It was investigated whether the design evolves in an essentially random fashion or according to an overall heuristic. The results indicated a macrostructure in the evolution of the design, characterized by two stages. For the majority of participants, the first stage is marked by the introduction and modification of novel objects and their local and global aspects; the second stage is characterized by changes in their global composition. The minority that showed the better designs has a different strategy, in which most global changes were made in the beginning. Although participants did not consciously apply these strategies, their self-assessment scores reflect the stages of the process.