Contrasting stochastic and support theory accounts of subadditivity

Numerous studies have found that likelihood judgment typically exhibits subadditivity in which judged probabilities of events are less than the sum of judged probabilities of constituent events. Whereas traditional accounts of subadditivity attribute this phenomenon to deterministic sources, this paper demonstrates both formally and empirically that subadditivity is systematically influenced by the stochastic variability of judged probabilities. First, making rather weak assumptions, we prove that regressive error (or variability) in mapping covert probability judgments to overt responses is sufficient to produce subadditive judgments. Experiments follow in which participants provided repeated probability estimates. The results support our model assumption that stochastic variability is regressive in probability estimation tasks and show the contribution of such variability to subadditivity. The theorems and the experiments focus on within-respondent variability, but most studies use between-respondent designs. Numerical simulations extend the work to contrast within- and between-respondent measures of subadditivity. Methodological implications of all the results are discussed, emphasizing the importance of taking stochastic variability into account when estimating the role of other factors (such as the availability bias) in producing subadditive judgments.     

Enrolling the Citizen in Sustainability: Membership Categorization,Morality and Civic Participation

This article examines the common-sense and methodical ways in which “the citizen” is produced and enrolled as an active participant in “sustainable” regional planning. Using Membership Categorization Analysis, we explicate how the categorization procedures in the Foreword of a draft regional planning policy interactionally produce the identity of “the citizen” and “civic values and obligations” in relation to geographic place and institutional categories. Furthermore, we show how positioning practices establish a relationship between authors (government) and readers (citizens) where both are ascribed with the same moral values and obligations toward the region. Hence, “the citizen” as an active participant in “sustainable” regional planning is viewed as a practical accomplishment that is underpinned by a normative morality associated with the task of producing orderliness in “text-in-interaction.”

学习不良儿童元记忆监测与控制的发展

采用2×3×2的混合设计,在自定步调和对项目逐项评定的学习条件下,对小学四~六年级学习不良儿童的元记忆监测与时间分配策略进行了实验研究。结果表明：在对学习材料难度的有效区分上,学习不良儿童与对照组儿童间无差异,不论学习不良组还是对照组,四年级儿童均不能对实验中配对学习材料难度性质做出明确区分,五、六年级儿童能够很好的区分学习材料难度;在学习判断水平上,五、六年级学习不良儿童均低于对照组儿童,四年级两组之间无差异;从对不同难度学习材料的时间分配来看,四年级学习不良儿童与对照组儿童分配在不同难度材料上的学习时间均无显著差别。五、六年级对照组儿童能够根据学习材料的不同难度分配不同学习时间,而且学习时间分配与难度判断之间存在显著相关。五、六年级学习不良儿童能在一定程度上根据学习材料的不同难度分配不同的学习时间,但这种时间分配与难度判断之间相关未达到显著水平,提示他们尚不能在有效元记忆监测基础上对不同难度学习材料进行合理的时间分配     

类别使用的特征诊断效应

运用预备实验评定过的鱼轮廓图,考察了类别判断和特征预测这两种类别使用方式下的特征诊断效应。被试是48名大学生,学习材料是两类鱼的类别成员,在测验阶段,实验1判断新项目类别标签,实验2预测新项目的缺失特征。结果表明,类别判断条件下,单个特征诊断力加强和诊断性特征数量增加都对类别判断有促进作用;特征预测条件下,只有单个特征诊断力加强可以促进特征预测,诊断性特征数量增加无助于特征预测     

Option fixation: A cognitive contributor to overconfidence

The ASC model of choice and confidence in general knowledge proposes that respondents first Assess the familiarity of presented options, and then use the high-familiarity option as a retrieval cue to Search memory for the purposes of Constructing an explanation about why that high-familiarity option is true. The ASC process implies that overconfidence results in part from a tendency to fixate on the high-familiarity option, to the neglect of the other option. If this implication is true, then judgment tasks requiring respondents to evaluate each option independently should result in reduced overconfidence as compared with standard judgment tasks. Two experiments tested this implication, and found that confidence and overconfidence were reduced when respondents evaluated options independently. The findings support the proposal that option fixation contributes to overconfidence, and also clarify the limitations of random error explanations of overconfidence.     

异同比较中的维度转移效应

以有颜色的实心几何图形为刺激材料进行了4个实验,考察异同比较中异反应之间的序列效应,被试为北京农业工程大学本科生77名。实验1a和1b中前后刺激对完全平衡,而实验2a和2b中前后刺激对随机平衡。实验1a,2a和2b发现了维度转移效应,表现为对于异反应后的异反应,前后2次异反应的差异维度一致时的反应快于不一致时的反应。本文以认知神经科学已有的相关证据解释了该效应产生的原因,并指出该效应反映了选择性注意在异反应判断中起重要作用,而且当任务要求注意在刺激维度上的分配不断变化时,注意按照当前刺激的特点做实时的分配     

Teachers facing school failure: the social valorization of effort in the school context

This paper describes two studies concerning teachers’ classroom interventions facing school failure. The role of two main variables is investigated: the lack of effort as a cause of failure students are held responsible for by teachers, and teacher’s social representations of intelligence. The first study (Study 1) explored the impact of “lack of effort” causal attribution for student’s failure on the intervention strategies adopted by 122 high school teachers. Study 2 analyzed the impact of social representations of intelligence, held by 202 high school teachers, on “lack of effort” causal inference and on behavioral interventions. Results highlight that teachers mostly choose more severe educational interventions with retributive purpose when failure is ascribable to an absence of effort expenditure by the student. Moreover, the findings support the role of teachers’ social representations of intelligence in failure explanations and in educational practices, showing that “lack of effort” attribution and practices with retributive purpose are predicted by the social representation of intelligence “as a gift”. Results are analyzed and discussed by considering the effort as a normative parameter of the school environment. This research was supported financially in part by MURST “University funds, 2004 (Ex 40%)”. Portions of these results were presented at the 8th International Conference on Social Representations, Rome.     

Imagining human enhancement: whose future,which rationality?

This article critically evaluates bettering human life. Because this involves lives that do not exist yet, the article investigates human eugenics and enhancement through the social prism of ‘the imaginary’ (defined ‘as a set of assumptions and concepts for thinking and speaking about human enhancement and its future direction’) [1]. “Exploring basic assumptions underlying the idea of human enhancement” investigates underlying assumptions and claims for human enhancement. Firstly, human eugenics and enhancement entangles a factual as well as a normative claim about what improvement/betterment maybe constitutive of. Secondly, claims about what a better life is, is often a future orientated claim about whether certain kinds of life that do not exist yet should ever exist. Moral images of thought are introduced and how they work to make normative judgments about lives that do not exist. This implicates the moral problem of difference, where an image of a ‘better’ life—classically expressed in eugenics as a ‘superior’ and/or ‘normal’ life—necessarily entails inferiority and/or deviance from a norm. “Moral imagination in contemporary fiction and the history of old eugenics”, introduces moral images in history of eugenics and demonstrates how examples fall foul of the problem. “The new (liberal) eugenics and the moral image of therapy” examines progress in contemporary debates, the move from authoritarian to non-authoritarian eugenics (human enhancement), and how, to some extent, this has solved the problem of difference, through liberal defence of personal choice. “The heart of the eugenic issue” suggests that personal choice in liberal non-authoritarian eugenics is not immune to basic drive behind all eugenic arguments; desire as lack which is expressed as the continual dissatisfaction of not having our future expectations met.

德性儒学的成就、困境与走向

Beginning with the promotion of morality in Confucianism, a Neo-Confucian movement in modern Chinese philosophy was initiated, in which Confucianism underwent a transition from tradition to modernity. However, Moral Confucianism did not successfully develop the “new kingliness without” from its “sageliness within,” respond to modernization marked by science and democracy, and provide moral impetus for the development of a modern Chinese society or appeal to many beyond the small circle of “elite Confucianists.” The fundamental reason is that it was caught in a web of moral idealism, overemphasizing what ought to be without confronting what actually was. Translated by Huang Deyuan from Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Xuebao 中国人民大学学报 (Journal of Renmin University of China), 2006, (1): 9–15     

Precision and accuracy of judgmental estimation

Whereas probabilistic calibration has been a central normative concept of accuracy in previous research on interval estimates, we suggest here that normative approaches for the evaluation of judgmental estimates should consider the communicative interaction between the individuals who produce the judgments and those who receive or use them for making decisions. We analyze precision and error in judgment and consider the role of the accuracy–informativeness trade-off (Yaniv and Foster, 1995) in the communication of estimates. The results shed light on puzzling findings reported earlier in the literature concerning the calibration of subjective confidence intervals. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.