“To eat or not to be eaten?” Collective risk-monitoring in groups

The importance of risk-monitoring has been increasing in many key aspects of our modern lives. This paper examines how individuals monitor such risks collectively by extending a behavioral ecological model of animal foraging to human groups. Just as animals must forage for food under predatory risk, humans must divide valuable material and psychological resources between foraging activity and risk-monitoring activity. We predicted that game-theoretic aspects of the group situation complicate such a trade-off decision in resource allocation, eventually yielding a mixed equilibrium in a group. When the equilibrium is reached, only a subset of members engage in the risk-monitoring activity while others free-ride, concentrating mainly on their own foraging activity. Laboratory groups engaging in foraging under moderate risk provided a support to this prediction. When the risk-level was set higher, however, “herding behavior” (conforming to the dominant behavior) interfered with the emergence of equilibrium. Implications for risk management are discussed.     

The moderating role of attitude strength in selective exposure to information

Individuals prefer to receive information that is consistent with their attitudes. Three experiments examined whether attitude strength moderates this selective exposure effect. Experiments 1A and 1B found that participants preferred attitudinally consistent information but that this effect was more pronounced to the extent that the attitude was strongly held. Experiment 2 replicated these findings and ruled out an alternative interpretation that a general tendency to hold strong attitudes rather than issue-specific attitude strength moderates selective exposure. Discussion concerns the implications of these findings and the possibility that other variables moderate the selective exposure effect.     

The role of visual perspective in information processing

Social events can be described from the perspective of either a person in the situation in which the event occurs (e.g., “John came into…”) or that of an outside observer (“John went into…”). We find that when individuals are disposed to form visual images, they have difficulty comprehending both verbal statements and pictures when the perspective from which the event is described differs from the perspective from which they have encountered similar events in daily life. Furthermore, the disposition to form visual images increases the intensity of emotional reactions to an event when the event is described from the perspective of someone in the situation in which it occurs. These effects are not evident, however, among individuals who typically process information semantically without forming visual images.     

The Limitations of Heuristics for Political Elites

Despite the extensive literature on citizens' use of cognitive heuristics in political settings, far less is known about how political elites use these shortcuts. Legislative elites benefit from the efficiency of the accessibility heuristic, but their judgments can also be flawed if accessible information is incomplete or unrepresentative. Using personal interviews and a quasi-experimental design, this paper examines the use of the accessibility heuristic by professional legislative staff when assessing the importance of natural resources issues to their constituents. Staff members recall only a small subset of the relevant constituents in the district, and this subset is biased in favor of active and resource-rich constituents over other, equally relevant constituents. This paper provides a new application of cognitive psychology to political elites and addresses important normative questions about the importance of information processing for political representation. By drawing on the psychology literature on heuristics, this paper identifies the cognitive mechanisms of congressional representation and provides new evidence of old biases.     

Depressive symptoms and parenting competence: An analysis of 13 regulatory processes

Mechanisms that lead depressive symptoms to undermine parenting are poorly understood. This review examines cognitive, affective, and motivational processes thought to be responsible for the impact of depressive symptoms on parenting. We present a five-step, action-control model and review 152 studies relevant to 13 regulatory processes. Evidence suggests that depressive symptoms undermine parenting because they reduce child-oriented goals, undermine attention to child input, increase negative appraisals of children and parenting competence, activate low-positive and high-negative emotion, and increase positive evaluations of coercive parenting. Yet, this review reveals significant limitations in knowledge of these processes. Evidence that they mediate depression-parenting relations is scare; important processes remain unstudied; conceptions of regulation are undifferentiated; children’s contributions are largely unexamined; moderating variables are largely unexplored; and methods fail to capture the dynamics of processing input from children. Rigorous testing of such process models holds promise for clarifying the basis of depression-related parenting problems.     

文本检索模型综述

文本检索是信息检索一个重要的分支。随着互联网信息的迅速膨胀,如何检索到用户最需要的信息变得越来越关键。文本检索模型是文本检索中的核心技术,其性能直接影响到搜索引擎的检索质量。本文对当前的经典检索模型及其研究进展进行介绍,并分析各个模型之间的优缺点。     

Incorporating prior theory in covariance structure analysis: A bayesian approach

A Bayesian approach to the testing of competing covariance structures is developed. The method provides approximate posterior probablities for each model under consideration without prior specification of individual parameter distributions. The method is based on ayesian updating using cross-validated pseudo-likelihoods. Given that the observed variables are the samefor all competing models, the approximate posterior probabilities may be obtained easily from the chi square values and other known constants, using only a hand calculator. The approach is illustrated using and example which illustrates how the prior probabilities can alter the results concerning which model specification is preferred.     

Diagnosticity,confidence, and the need for information

Recent research has suggested that people prefer to use the most diagnostic available information as the basis for their choices and decisions, and are most confident in those decisions when information is highly diagnostic. However, the effect of information diagnosticity on the need for additional information has yet to be investigated; that is, in an optional stopping task, will the amount of information requested depend upon information diagnosticity? Three models of the role of diagnosticity in information use were examined; expected value, a confidence criterion, and information cost. Subjects attempted to categorize stimuli with the aid of information of varying costs and diagnosticity levels. They requested more information when it was obtained at a low cost. More importantly, across cost conditions, subjects consistently requested greater amounts of information when that information was of a low diagnosticity. These data seem most consistent with use of a confidence criterion that is adjusted for information costs.     

A call for a statement of expectations for the global information infrastructure

This paper considers the relationship between ethics, technology and law, and the roles and limitations each has in this relationship. It argues that ethics has the key role in establishing a resilient, comprehensive and sensitive information infrastructure. It puts forward a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for the electronic community.

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The effects of classification structure on organized free recall in children

A sorting presentation procedure was used to study the effects of three classification schemes (self-generated, thematic, or taxonomic) on the organized free recall of second and fifth graders. Recall and clustering were significantly higher for subjects who used self-generated organizations than for subjects given the experimenter-prescribed taxonomic classification. The results indicated that memory performance benefitted when the organization of stimulus materials was consonant with children's personal classification structures.