The Influence of Time Estimation and Time‐Saving Preferences on Learning to Make Temporally Dependent Decisions from Experience

In this paper, we merge research related to experiential learning, temporal perception, and the value of time and money by examining decisions where the timing of action (response) determines the outcome received. We predicted that time‐saving preferences and impatience would decrease maximization (i.e., taking action when it returned the largest reward), and that the constraints of temporal perception would compound their effects. Across three studies, participants undershot on average (i.e., responded earlier than the period of time during which a response would return the maximal reward) showed a preference for shorter‐delay options and often did not find the maximal reward. In addition, participants' reliance on temporal perception increased undershooting, increased preferences for shorter‐delay options, and reduced maximization. Nevertheless, participants who found the maximal reward continued to maximize at a high rate rather than opting for shorter delays and smaller rewards. Thus, while most participants appeared to have a preference for saving time, most behaved as reward maximizers rather than temporal discounters. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Unsettled German Discussions of Justification: Abiding Differences and Ecumenical Blessings

Abstract :  This essay provides an analysis of The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification . It argues that the future of ecumenism demands greater attention to doctrinal differences than was evident after 1980 in much of the Roman‐Lutheran dialogue on justification, especially as it unfolded in Germany.     

De‐escalation after repeated negative feedback: emergent expectations of failure

Research on willingness to make marginal investments (e.g., the escalation and sunk cost literatures) has often focused on project completion decisions, such as the “radar‐blank plane.” This paper discusses a fundamentally different type of marginal investment decision, that of couples deciding whether to continue infertility treatment in the face of repeated failures. Two experiments based on this context show that when people face multiple independent chances to achieve a valued goal but are unsure about chances of success, premature quitting or “de‐escalation” is the norm. Repeated negative feedback appears to induce individuals to see each successive failure as more and more diagnostic. As a result, even a short series of failed attempts evokes beliefs that future attempts will also fail. These emergent expectations of failure, generated by causal attribution processes, associative learning, and/or discounting of ambiguous information, appear very compelling and induce people to forgo profitable marginal investments. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Investigating joint attention mechanisms through spoken human-robot interaction

Referential gaze during situated language production and comprehension is tightly coupled with the unfolding speech stream ( [Griffin, 2001] , [Meyer et al., 1998] and [Tanenhaus et al., 1995] ). In a shared environment, utterance comprehension may further be facilitated when the listener can exploit the speaker’s focus of (visual) attention to anticipate, ground, and disambiguate spoken references. To investigate the dynamics of such gaze-following and its influence on utterance comprehension in a controlled manner, we use a human–robot interaction setting. Specifically, we hypothesize that referential gaze is interpreted as a cue to the speaker’s referential intentions which facilitates or disrupts reference resolution. Moreover, the use of a dynamic and yet extremely controlled gaze cue enables us to shed light on the simultaneous and incremental integration of the unfolding speech and gaze movement.We report evidence from two eye-tracking experiments in which participants saw videos of a robot looking at and describing objects in a scene. The results reveal a quantified benefit-disruption spectrum of gaze on utterance comprehension and, further, show that gaze is used, even during the initial movement phase, to restrict the spatial domain of potential referents. These findings more broadly suggest that people treat artificial agents similar to human agents and, thus, validate such a setting for further explorations of joint attention mechanisms.     

预防导尿管相关性感染的临床问题及决策

留置导尿是一项侵袭性操作,易引起尿道黏膜损伤,且留置导尿时间过长,容易引起泌尿系统的逆行感染。为了预防导尿管相关性感染,我们从临床角度讨论是否需要更换一次性尿袋以及更换尿袋的时间,留置导尿尿道外口的清洗,留置导尿膀胱冲洗的必要性及是否应用抗生素,更换导尿管的时间及导尿管的选择等临床问题,为临床人员做该项操作时提供参考,做出正确的临床决策。     

心理距离与后果严重性对人身安全决策的影响

已有研究发现决策者在为自己与不同他人决策时,其风险偏好存在差异。但是当对后果严重性不同的事件进行决策时,上述结果也并不总是如此。为了探究在人身安全情境中决策者面对后果严重程度不同的任务时,为自己和为他人决策时风险偏好的差异,实验一采用人际亲密度和决策所带来消极结果的严重程度分别操纵心理距离与后果严重性,结果发现决策者在后果严重任务中的决策比后果不严重任务更保守,为自己和为陌生人决策均比为最好朋友决策更冒险。这可能是由于决策者知觉到的决策责任不同所致。因此在实验一的基础上实验二引入决策责任这一变量,考察其在心理距离对风险决策影响中的作用,研究结果证明了我们的假设。     

The “dual usage problem” in the explanations of “joint attention” and children’s socioemotional development: A reconceptualization

The term “joint attention”, which first gained currency in the early 1960s in studies of the development of language and symbolic thought, remains significant in the developmental literature. However, its meaning is unclear. A definitional problem exists similar to what Patterson [Patterson, M. L. (1982). A sequential functional model of nonverbal exchange. Psychological Review, 89, 231–249] described as the “dual usage” problem in the study of behaviour. The dual usage problem manifests when the behaviours of interest are used interchangeably with the function served by those behaviours. Similarly, the behaviours or skills that are taken to show joint attention are used interchangeably with the functions served by these behaviours. Scant attention is given to how the behaviours are generated and regulated and how they contribute to development. The purpose of the present position paper was: (1) to identify and illustrate the ways in which the behaviours and functions of joint attention have been confounded in the literature; (2) to provide a revised operationalization of joint attention incorporating the idea of Consummative Joint Attention, which is defined as a process variable that integrates these two theoretically different and complementary aspects of “joint attention;” and (3) to test this revised definition with evidence from a sample of hearing mothers and their 18- to 36-month-old hearing or deaf toddlers. We suggest that a reconceptualization and revised definition of joint attention as a process served by a particular sequence of complementary and well-timed events in the behaviour of mother–child interaction are particularly well-suited to testing joint attention as an early prelingual mechanism and to detecting early problems with psychosocial and adaptive development created by ineffective patterns of social interaction.     

The path or the goal? Decision vs. information focus in biased information seeking after preliminary decisions

Research on the phenomenon of selective exposure to information demonstrates that after preliminary or final decisions, people show a preference for supporting rather than conflicting information (confirmation bias). In this article, we examine conditions that increase or decrease distortions in the search for information. We report on four experiments indicating that the confirmation bias is influenced by whether people focus on their decision or on the presented pieces of information during the information search. Focusing on the decision, for example, because a reward for a correct decision is promised or simply because participants repeatedly think of it, increases the confirmation bias. On the other hand, if participants focus on the available pieces of information because they have to invest money in order to search for information or because they have to evaluate the individual pieces of information, the confirmation bias decreases. Implications for theoretical understanding and interventions for decision-making situations are discussed.     

Combining additive representations on subsets into an overall representation

Many traditional conjoint representations of binary preferences are additively decomposable, or additive for short. An important generalization arises under rank-dependence, when additivity is restricted to cones with a fixed ranking of components from best to worst (comonotonicity), leading to configural weighting, rank-dependent utility, and rank- and sign-dependent utility (prospect theory). This paper provides a general result showing how additive representations on an arbitrary collection of comonotonic cones can be combined into one overall representation that applies to the union of all cones considered. The result is applied to a new paradigm for decision under uncertainty developed by Duncan Luce and others, which allows for violations of basic rationality properties such as the coalescing of events and other framing conditions. Through our result, a complete preference foundation of a number of new models by Luce and others can be obtained. We also show how additive representations on different full product sets can be combined into a representation on the union of these different product sets.     

THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PROCEDURAL JUSTICE IN RESPONSES TO PROMOTION DECISIONS

This study used structural equations modeling to examine the mediating role of procedural justice in the relationships between promotion decisions and organizational commitment and between promotion decisions and intent to leave the organization. 156 managers and executives in Italian subsidiaries of two large multinational organizations in the chemical industry were surveyed about their career history within the organization and their reactions to promotion decisions over an 8-year period. The results showed that promotion decisions influenced feelings of organizational commitment through perceptions of procedural justice in promotion decision-making processes. The theoretical and practical implications of the study’s findings are discussed.This research was supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific Research (MURST). A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2000 Academy of Management meetings in Toronto and published in the Best Paper Proceedings. We would like to thank Paula Caliguiri, Jason Shaw, M. Susan Taylor, and two anonymous Academy reviewers for their helpful suggestions on prior drafts of this article.