Do people treat missing information adaptively when making inferences?

When making inferences, people are often confronted with situations with incomplete information. Previous research has led to a mixed picture about how people react to missing information. Options include ignoring missing information, treating it as either positive or negative, using the average of past observations for replacement, or using the most frequent observation of the available information as a placeholder. The accuracy of these inference mechanisms depends on characteristics of the environment. When missing information is uniformly distributed, it is most accurate to treat it as the average, whereas when it is negatively correlated with the criterion to be judged, treating missing information as if it were negative is most accurate. Whether people treat missing information adaptively according to the environment was tested in two studies. The results show that participants were sensitive to how missing information was distributed in an environment and most frequently selected the mechanism that was most adaptive. From these results the authors conclude that reacting to missing information in different ways is an adaptive response to environmental characteristics.     

A comparison between a visual analogue scale and a four point scale as measures of conscious experience of motion

Can participants make use of the large number of response alternatives of visual analogue scales (VAS) when reporting their subjective experience of motion? In a new paradigm, participants adjusted a comparison according to random dot kinematograms with the direction of motion varying between 0° and 360°. After each discrimination response, they reported how clearly they experienced the global motion either using a VAS or a discrete scale with four scale steps. We observed that both scales were internally consistent and were used gradually. The visual analogue scale was more efficient in predicting discrimination error but this effect was mediated by longer report times and was no longer observed when the VAS was discretized into four bins. These observations are consistent with the interpretation that VAS and discrete scales are associated with a comparable degree of metacognitive sensitivity, although the VAS provides a greater amount of information.     

Change in gaze-based attention bias in adolescents with Social Anxiety Disorder

ABSTRACT

Although attention bias (AB) toward threat has been associated with Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), concerns regarding the ability of current measures to detect change in AB following treatment exist. We sought to examine change in bias, as measured via eye-tracking, in adolescents with SAD receiving either attention-bias modification training (ABMT) or attention-control training (ACT). Gaze-based AB was associated (r?=??0.361) with symptoms of social anxiety prior to treatment, whereas there was no association between bias as measured via dot probe and social anxiety. Moreover, gaze-based bias to same-age face stimuli showed change following treatment. Large effects are seen for condition (ABMT or ACT) and for time, independent of treatment condition, in gaze-based AB to same-age stimuli. Findings suggest that further research on gaze-based bias, to assess stability over time outside of treatment and sensitivity to change following intervention, is warranted.     

The effects of attentional training on physiological stress recovery after induced social threat

Abstract

Social stress has been related to both physiological and psychological responses. The recovery of stress is influenced by the way environmental information is processed, i.e., what information is attended to and how it is interpreted. The present study investigated the effect of attention modification training on physiological stress recovery following induced stress. A group of applicants preparing for a job interview were randomly allocated to an attention training condition versus a control condition. Afterwards, they were asked to give an artificial job interview to a real life jury while being videotaped. Participants in both conditions showed decreased heart rate variability during the job interview, which indicates an overall physiological stress response. However, during a 30-minute follow-up period after the training, indices of heart rate variability showed improved stress recovery only in the attention training condition. Attentional training is proposed as a promising strategy to prevent enduring stress reactions.     

自我客体化的女性对身体线索的注意和记忆偏向

采用点探测任务和再认任务探讨高低自我客体化女性对积极身体词和消极身体词的注意和记忆偏向,探讨自我客体化女性的糟糕任务表现的内在机制。结果发现,高自我客体化女性对积极身体词存在注意脱离困难,对积极身体词的反应时显著快于低自我客体化女性。研究结果证实了自我客体化女性存在对身体线索的注意和记忆偏向,说明自我客体化使女性对身体相关信息分配了更多的认知资源,会妨碍任务表现。     

Scene‐context effect in visual memory is independent of retention interval1

The context of a natural scene can facilitate memory for embedded objects. It has been reported that such scene‐context effects can be lost in the flicker paradigm, which alternatively presents a picture, followed by a modified version of the picture after a brief interval. Using a follow‐the‐dot paradigm which instills serial attending, determinants of the scene‐context effect are examined by varying both scene‐context (normal, jumbled) and the retention interval (short, long) between cued and target objects. In this paradigm, a dot cue was sequentially presented on 12 different objects of a scene, then the memory for one of the cued objects was tested. This paradigm requires holding information about multiple objects in memory at once. Retention intervals were varied by manipulating the serial position of the dot on a target object. The results showed that the retention interval did not influence the scene‐context effect. Potential mechanisms for the scene‐context effect are discussed.     

Attention Bias for Threatening Information in Children Following a Distressing Medical Procedure

Attention bias is common in adults with post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) but is less studied in children. Children (n = 22) who experienced a potentially distressing procedure in an outpatient clinic (removal of K‐wires from orthopaedic fractures) and a group of medically unwell children (illness group; n = 27) were compared with healthy controls (n = 32). Children's baseline level of PTS symptoms were indexed prior to the medical procedure, and again at 1‐week follow‐up. Immediately after the K‐wire removal, children completed a dot probe task using two categories of target words (medical threatening and emotionally threatening). While K‐wire children showed an overall bias away from negative words relative to healthy controls, the illness group did not significantly differ from healthy controls. Attention bias in K‐wire and illness groups was unrelated to later PTS symptoms.     

情绪性注意与外源性注意的竞争作用

注意选择机制并不是一个单一的系统,而是多个具有不同选择标准和功能的复合系统.情绪性注意与外源性注意这两种注意选择过程是否可以同时作用,它们之间是否会相互干扰,抑或某一种注意过程是否占优势？本研究以30名在校大学生为被试,采用经典点探测任务的变式,对50ms和500ms两种SOA条件下,以愉快面孔和恐惧面孔作为情绪性注意的提示线索,对情绪性注意与外源性注意的相互关系进行探讨.发现两种注意是相互竞争的,都对注意产生效应.在短SOA条件下,恐惧面孔作为情绪性提示的线索时,情绪性注意和外源性注意会发生相互作用.而愉快面孔作为情绪性提示线索时,外源性注意更占主导作用.说明恐惧面孔比愉快面孔更能引发情绪性注意;在SOA为500ms时,情绪性注意和外源性注意均不再产生效应.再次说明,这两种注意是反射性、迅速的、自下而上的.     

A Comparison of Multilevel Imputation Schemes for Random Coefficient Models: Fully Conditional Specification and Joint Model Imputation with Random Covariance Matrices

Abstract

Literature addressing missing data handling for random coefficient models is particularly scant, and the few studies to date have focused on the fully conditional specification framework and “reverse random coefficient” imputation. Although it has not received much attention in the literature, a joint modeling strategy that uses random within-cluster covariance matrices to preserve cluster-specific associations is a promising alternative for random coefficient analyses. This study is apparently the first to directly compare these procedures. Analytic results suggest that both imputation procedures can introduce bias-inducing incompatibilities with a random coefficient analysis model. Problems with fully conditional specification result from an incorrect distributional assumption, whereas joint imputation uses an underparameterized model that assumes uncorrelated intercepts and slopes. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that biases from these issues are tolerable if the missing data rate is 10% or lower and the sample is composed of at least 30 clusters with 15 observations per group. Furthermore, fully conditional specification tends to be superior with intraclass correlations that are typical of crosssectional data (e.g., ICC?=?.10), whereas the joint model is preferable with high values typical of longitudinal designs (e.g., ICC?=?.50).     

The role of visible persistence for perception of visual bilateral symmetry1

Abstract: Although the detection of visual bilateral symmetry has been claimed to be highly efficient, the possible involvement and function of visual memory in such efficient mechanisms has rarely been examined. We hypothesized that symmetry perception is rapid, as it can be achieved from rapidly decaying information of visible persistence. To test this hypothesis, we employed a temporal integration paradigm. A symmetric dot pattern was randomly divided into two asymmetric patterns and presented successively with a blank screen presented between patterns. Observers could detect symmetry when the two patterns were presented close in time (Experiment 1), indicating that observers perceived symmetry presumably utilizing visible persistence. In addition, the inverse‐intensity effect of visible persistence (Di Lollo & Bischof, 1995) was evident in our temporal integration task of symmetry (Experiment 2). The results of the current study clearly demonstrate that the detection of symmetry can be achieved based on the visible persistence. The large capacity and high spatial precision of visible persistence might be adequate for the rapid and spatially global encoding of visual symmetry.