Forgiveness as a mediator of the relationship between PTSD and hostility in survivors of childhood abuse

This paper argues that emotional inferences about characters in a text are not as specific as previously assumed (DeVega, Diaz, & Leon, 1997; DeVega, Leon, & Diaz 1996; Gernsbacher, Goldsmith, & Robertson, 1992; Gernsbacher, Hollada, & Robertson, 1998; Gernsbacher & Robertson, 1992). The emotional information inferred by readers does not differentiate between emotions that are similar, though not identical. In both Experiments 1 and 2, participants read the stories used by Gernsbacher et al. (1992). Results from Experiment 1 (off-line) show that participants judged several emotions consistent with the same story. In Experiment 2 (on-line), participants took longer to read target sentences containing emotions mismatching the stories, but there was no difference between target sentences containing different matching emotions as determined by Experiment 1. Results from Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that the emotional information readers infer from the stories is too broad to determine a specific emotion. The results are consistent with the idea that a general emotional response is evoked, which is compatible with one or more specific emotions.     

Miserliness in human cognition: the interaction of detection,override and mindware

ABSTRACT

Humans are cognitive misers because their basic tendency is to default to processing mechanisms of low computational expense. Such a tendency leads to suboptimal outcomes in certain types of hostile environments. The theoretical inferences made from correct and incorrect responding on heuristics and biases tasks have been overly simplified, however. The framework developed here traces the complexities inherent in these tasks by identifying five processing states that are possible in most heuristics and biases tasks. The framework also identifies three possible processing defects: inadequately learned mindware; failure to detect the necessity of overriding the miserly response; and failure to sustain the override process once initiated. An important insight gained from using the framework is that degree of mindware instantiation is strongly related to the probability of successful detection and override. Thus, errors on such tasks cannot be unambiguously attributed to miserly processing – and correct responses are not necessarily the result of computationally expensive cognition.     

Cognitive biases explain religious belief,paranormal belief,and belief in life’s purpose

Cognitive theories of religion have postulated several cognitive biases that predispose human minds towards religious belief. However, to date, these hypotheses have not been tested simultaneously and in relation to each other, using an individual difference approach. We used a path model to assess the extent to which several interacting cognitive tendencies, namely mentalizing, mind body dualism, teleological thinking, and anthropomorphism, as well as cultural exposure to religion, predict belief in God, paranormal beliefs and belief in life’s purpose. Our model, based on two independent samples (N = 492 and N = 920) found that the previously known relationship between mentalizing and belief is mediated by individual differences in dualism, and to a lesser extent by teleological thinking. Anthropomorphism was unrelated to religious belief, but was related to paranormal belief. Cultural exposure to religion (mostly Christianity) was negatively related to anthropomorphism, and was unrelated to any of the other cognitive tendencies. These patterns were robust for both men and women, and across at least two ethnic identifications. The data were most consistent with a path model suggesting that mentalizing comes first, which leads to dualism and teleology, which in turn lead to religious, paranormal, and life’s-purpose beliefs. Alternative theoretical models were tested but did not find empirical support.     

From Bayesian epistemology to inductive logic

Inductive logic admits a variety of semantics (Haenni et al. (2011) [7, Part 1]). This paper develops semantics based on the norms of Bayesian epistemology (Williamson, 2010 [16, Chapter 7]). Section 1 introduces the semantics and then, in Section 2, the paper explores methods for drawing inferences in the resulting logic and compares the methods of this paper with the methods of Barnett and Paris (2008) [2]. Section 3 then evaluates this Bayesian inductive logic in the light of four traditional critiques of inductive logic, arguing (i) that it is language independent in a key sense, (ii) that it admits connections with the Principle of Indifference but these connections do not lead to paradox, (iii) that it can capture the phenomenon of learning from experience, and (iv) that while the logic advocates scepticism with regard to some universal hypotheses, such scepticism is not problematic from the point of view of scientific theorising.     

Confirmation as partial entailment: A representation theorem in inductive logic

The most prominent research program in inductive logic – here just labeled The Program, for simplicity – relies on probability theory as its main building block and aims at a proper generalization of deductive-logical relations by a theory of partial entailment. We prove a representation theorem by which a class of ordinally equivalent measures of inductive support or confirmation is singled out as providing a uniquely coherent way to work out these two major sources of inspiration of The Program.     

Psychological biases of individual investors and financial satisfaction

Traditional finance theory is based on the principle of maximization of utility and explains how choices are made by rational people. Although the theory provides numerous insights, observation of actual behavior of people was seen to be different from what the theory predicted. The homo economicus is in reality a homo sapien who has emotions and beliefs that help to filter the content from his or her environment. These beliefs and preferences that arise due to cognitive limitations, presence of emotions, and various psychological motives guide or bias his or her decisions. Much literature states that the biases should be corrected as they negatively impact financial behaviour and individual's well‐being. However, evolutionary psychology considers biases as design features of human mind. Thus, biases are not always bad, as at times, these biases can help the individual investor to choose the best course of action from the multiple possibilities and enable committing the less costly mistakes, thereby helping the individual to achieve satisficing behaviour. This paper aims to explore the investor biases and see whether they are related to the financial satisfaction of the individuals. Financial satisfaction is the measure of satisfaction with one's financial situation. The results showed that overconfidence bias, reliance on expert bias, and self‐control bias have a positive and significant association with financial satisfaction levels. Association of a few other biases with financial satisfaction was also observed under certain control conditions. This study provides further insights on investor behavior and paves the way for various possibilities for future research.     

Brooding rumination and attentional biases in currently non-depressed individuals: an eye-tracking study

Both rumination and attentional biases have been proposed as key components of the RDoC Negative Valence Systems construct of Loss. Although theorists have proposed that rumination, particularly brooding rumination, should be associated with increased sustained attention to depression-relevant information, it is not clear whether this link would be observed in a non-depressed sample or whether it is specific to brooding versus reflective rumination. To address these questions, the current study examined the link between brooding rumination and attentional biases in a sample of non-depressed individuals (n?=?105). Attentional biases were assessed using eye tracking during a passive viewing task in which participants were presented with 2?×?2 arrays of angry, happy, sad, and neutral faces. In line with predictions, higher levels of brooding rumination were associated with greater sustained attention to sad faces and less sustained attention to happy faces. These results remained significant after controlling for participants’ prior history of major depression and current nonclinical level of depressive symptoms, suggesting that the link between brooding rumination and attentional biases is at least partially independent of current or past depression.     

Phonological Concept Learning

Linguistic and non‐linguistic pattern learning have been studied separately, but we argue for a comparative approach. Analogous inductive problems arise in phonological and visual pattern learning. Evidence from three experiments shows that human learners can solve them in analogous ways, and that human performance in both cases can be captured by the same models. We test GMECCS (Gradual Maximum Entropy with a Conjunctive Constraint Schema), an implementation of the Configural Cue Model (Gluck & Bower, 1988a ) in a Maximum Entropy phonotactic‐learning framework (Goldwater & Johnson, 2003 ; Hayes & Wilson, 2008 ) with a single free parameter, against the alternative hypothesis that learners seek featurally simple algebraic rules (“rule‐seeking”). We study the full typology of patterns introduced by Shepard, Hovland, and Jenkins ( 1961 ) (“SHJ”), instantiated as both phonotactic patterns and visual analogs, using unsupervised training. Unlike SHJ, Experiments 1 and 2 found that both phonotactic and visual patterns that depended on fewer features could be more difficult than those that depended on more features, as predicted by GMECCS but not by rule‐seeking. GMECCS also correctly predicted performance differences between stimulus subclasses within each pattern. A third experiment tried supervised training (which can facilitate rule‐seeking in visual learning) to elicit simple rule‐seeking phonotactic learning, but cue‐based behavior persisted. We conclude that similar cue‐based cognitive processes are available for phonological and visual concept learning, and hence that studying either kind of learning can lead to significant insights about the other.