Model-based recursive partitioning of extended redundancy analysis with an application to nicotine dependence among US adults

Extended redundancy analysis (ERA) is used to reduce multiple sets of predictors to a smaller number of components and examine the effects of these components on a response variable. In various social and behavioural studies, auxiliary covariates (e.g., gender, ethnicity) can often lead to heterogeneous subgroups of observations, each of which involves distinctive relationships between predictor and response variables. ERA is currently unable to consider such covariate-dependent heterogeneity to examine whether the model parameters vary across subgroups differentiated by covariates. To address this issue, we combine ERA with model-based recursive partitioning in a single framework. This combined method, MOB-ERA, aims to partition observations into heterogeneous subgroups recursively based on a set of covariates while fitting a specified ERA model to data. Upon the completion of the partitioning procedure, one can easily examine the difference in the estimated ERA parameters across covariate-dependent subgroups. Moreover, it produces a tree diagram that aids in visualizing a hierarchy of partitioning covariates, as well as interpreting their interactions. In the analysis of public data concerning nicotine dependence among US adults, the method uncovered heterogeneous subgroups characterized by several sociodemographic covariates, each of which yielded different directional relationships between three predictor sets and nicotine dependence.     

Empirical underidentification in estimating random utility models: The role of choice sets and standardizations

A standard approach to distinguishing people’s risk preferences is to estimate a random utility model using a power utility function to characterize the preferences and a logit function to capture choice consistency. We demonstrate that with often-used choice situations, this model suffers from empirical underidentification, meaning that parameters cannot be estimated precisely. With simulations of estimation accuracy and Kullback–Leibler divergence measures we examined factors that potentially mitigate this problem. First, using a choice set that guarantees a switch in the utility order between two risky gambles in the range of plausible values leads to higher estimation accuracy than randomly created choice sets or the purpose-built choice sets common in the literature. Second, parameter estimates are regularly correlated, which contributes to empirical underidentification. Examining standardizations of the utility scale, we show that they mitigate this correlation and additionally improve the estimation accuracy for choice consistency. Yet, they can have detrimental effects on the estimation accuracy of risk preference. Finally, we also show how repeated versus distinct choice sets and an increase in observations affect estimation accuracy. Together, these results should help researchers make informed design choices to estimate parameters in the random utility model more precisely.     

No need to fake it: reproduction of the Asch experiment without confederates

In the present experiment, we replicated Asch's seminal study on social conformity without using confederates. We adapted a presentation trick in order to present two different stimuli secretly to groups of participants to create minorities and majorities without utilizing confederates. One hundred and four Japanese undergraduates (40 men and 64 women) carried out Asch-equivalent tasks in same-sex groups of four. In each group, we adapted the fMORI Technique to present the tasks such that one person (minority participant) observed different stimuli than the other three people (majority participants). The same nine stimulus sets that Asch had used were carefully reproduced as PowerPoint slides and projected onto a half-transparent screen. As for the critical tasks, the top part of the standard lines appeared in either green or magenta so that two groups of participants would see them differently when they wore two types of polarizing sunglasses that filtered either green or magenta to make the lines appear longer or shorter. A post-experimental questionnaire confirmed that no participant among either the minority or majority viewers noticed the presentation trick. The results showed that, in line with Asch's basic findings, the minority women participants conformed to the majority. However, our study produced two different results: While minority women conformed, minority men did not. Contrary to Asch's findings, the frequency of conformity of minority participants was almost the same regardless of whether the majority answered unanimously or not.     

Song recognition in zebra finches: Are there sensitive periods for song memorization?

Male zebra finches learn to sing songs that they hear between 25 and 65 days of age, the sensitive period for song learning. In this experiment, male and female zebra finches were exposed to zebra finch songs either before (n = 9) or during (n = 4) the sensitive period. Following song exposure, recognition memory for the songs was assessed with an operant discrimination between familiar and novel songs. Zebra finches that were exposed to songs between 22 and 30 days of age discriminated between familiar and novel songs; zebra finches exposed to songs from 9 to 17 days of age did not. Failure to memorize songs heard prior to the sensitive period may contribute to the exclusion of those songs from the repertoire of songbirds.     

A Developmental Evaluation of Frequency Memory for Actions Presented in Lists,Scripts, and Stories

Although some research suggests that misinformation provided by a co-witness could be more influential than that obtained from other sources, most of this research has compared the effect of co-witness information against non-social forms of misinformation only. To better understand the influence of co-witnesses we compared the influence of co-witness misinformation with the influence of misinformation provided by an interviewer. Across two experiments using the MORI paradigm we found no evidence that a co-witness is particularly influential relative to another social source of post-event misinformation. In fact, the source of the misinformation delivered by our interviewer was less likely to be correctly recalled than the source of the misinformation delivered by a co-witness. There was some evidence that misinformation delivered by both a co-witness and an interviewer has a stronger effect on witnesses' accuracy and confidence than misinformation obtained from either source alone. Finally, our results suggest that the opportunity to provide an early individual memory account might protect against the effect of subsequently-encountered co-witness misinformation. These results have important implications for the way that criminal investigations are conducted.     

The Psychology of the persecutor — With reference to Costa Gavras's film Music Box

This paper is based on the author's interpretation of the film Music Box by Costa Gavras. The external and internal preconditions in the development of a persecutor are discussed in an attempt to understand the process from a socio-psychological as well as psychoanalytic viewpoint. During crises of a social nature, earlier coping strategies lose their validity, resulting in a narcissistic blow to the individual's ego. Earlier repressed primitive aspects of the personality are reactivated. When the individual is exposed to a totalitarian ideology which promises salvation from anxiety, paranoid processes become anchored and may dominate.

The protagonist in the film is approached as a case-study. By reviewing his present and past actions, the process by which the young man became a persecutor is exemplified as well as the long-term effects upon his object relations.     

On the nature and standing of psychoanalytic psychotherapy

In this paper, I offer some reflections on the standing of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in the National Health Service (NHS), with special reference to contemporary forms of evidence-based thinking. I consider what may follow when a narrow view of science or psychotherapeutic practice becomes conventional wisdom and assumes dominance. I place stress on the potential loss to NHS psychology and psychiatry if psychoanalytic psychotherapy becomes increasingly marginalized on the one hand, or overly standardized on the other.