Fault Lines in the Great EST Debate

Three fault lines traverse inquiries into empirically supported therapies, along which pro and contra positions can be taken. First, failure to distinguish scientific from artistic properties of therapy has lead to neglect of pervasive personological and cultural variables that are implicated in this field of inquiry. Second, scientific anomalies result from focusing more on what ESTs are than on how they effect change. Psyche is portrayed as a humanistic Cartesian place-holder for an encroaching neuro-endocrinological and systemic understanding of human experiencing. Third, the EST movement is seen as a socio-political and business model, confounded with and eroding scientific objectives.     

Effects of Interspersed Brief Problems on Students' Endurance at Completing Math Work

An alternating treatments design was used to compare the effects of baseline, interspersed brief problems, and interspersed brief problems plus token reinforcement on students' endurance while completing math worksheets. By pairing the completion of brief problems with token reinforcement, the role of problem completion as a conditioned reinforcer was examined consistent with the discrete task completion hypothesis. Four 5th grade students who were low achieving in math participated. Each day the students completed a stack of math worksheets containing 3-digit by 3-digit addition problems with or without interspersed single-digit problems for 10 min. Dependent measures included total digits correct per session and during each min of the 10 min work period (i.e., a measure of endurance). Results indicated that total digits correct per session was highest during the interspersal plus reinforcement condition followed by interspersal and then baseline for three of the four students. In addition, both interspersal conditions resulted in greater endurance than baseline. Limitations of the current study and implications for increasing students' persistence on classroom tasks are discussed.     

TREATING SELF-INJURY: WATER MIST SPRAY VERSUS FACIAL SCREENING OR FORCED ARM EXERCISE

In three experiments, the effect of water mist spray on self-injurious and collateral behaviors was compared with either facial screening or forced arm exercise. Water mist spray was as effective as facial screening in suppressing face-slapping in Experiment 1. However, it was not as effective as facial screening for self-injurious finger-licking in Experiment 2 or forced arm exercise for excessive ear-rubbing in Experiment 3. These results suggest that while water mist spray is effective, it may be less so than alternative procedures. In Experiments 2 and 3 there was a consistent decrease in the occurrence of untreated maladaptive behaviors. In addition, there was a moderate increase in appropriate social interaction in Experiment 2 and a substantial increase in Experiment 3.     

AN ALTERNATING TREATMENTS COMPARISON OF TWO INTENSIVE INTERVENTIONS FOR FOOD REFUSAL

We compared two treatment packages involving negative reinforcement contingencies for 3 children with chronic food refusal. One involved physically guiding the child to accept food contingent on noncompliance, whereas the other involved nonremoval of the spoon until the child accepted the presented food. Subsequent to baseline, an alternating treatments comparison was implemented in a multiple baseline design across subjects. After each child had been exposed to at least nine sessions of each treatment condition and percentage of bites accepted had increased to at least 80%, the child's caregivers selected the preferred treatment package. The results indicated that both treatments were effective in establishing food acceptance. However, physical guidance was associated with fewer corollary behaviors, shorter meal durations, and parental preference.     

自动驾驶汽车与行人交互中的沟通界面设计：基于行人过街决策模型的评估

自动驾驶汽车要进入人车混行的普通道路, 需确保与过街行人之间的交互安全和效率。为解决这一问题, 高等级自动驾驶汽车往往在车辆外部装置显示设备, 即外部人机界面(eHMIs)以和行人沟通信息。在具体设计上, 已有研究主要采用文字、图形、投影等视觉沟通形式, 传达车辆状态(是否在自动驾驶模式)、意图和对行人的过街建议等沟通信息, 并在真实路段实验、虚拟场景及实验室实验等情境中评估了界面的使用对行人过街意向、速度和准确性等指标的影响。然而, 以行人为中心的外部界面设计需系统地支持行人过街决策前各阶段的信息加工需求。因此, 我们结合行人过街决策过程和情境意识理论, 提出行人与自动驾驶汽车交互中的动态过街决策模型, 从行人认知加工视角评估各种界面的沟通效果。评估的结果启示, eHMIs应促进行人对车辆信息的感知、理解和预测。在感知阶段, 应采用多种类型界面、多呈现载体相结合, 增强信息的可识别性。在理解阶段, 需结合文字说明、合理选择沟通视角、信号标准化和培训提高可理解性。在预测阶段, 应结合车辆内隐运动信息, 帮助行人快速准确获取车辆未来行动意图。更重要的是, 未来研究应关注在多行人、多车辆混行情境下的信息沟通设计及其对行人的影响。理论方面, 未来研究也需要关注外部界面如何通过自下而上的通路影响情境意识和心智模型的形成。     

Roles of personal and environmental factors in the red light running propensity of pedestrian: Case study at the urban crosswalks

Pedestrian is vulnerable to mortality and severe injury in road crashes. Red light running violation of pedestrians is one of the leading causes to the crashes at signalized intersections, at which the crash involvement rates of pedestrians are high. Therefore, it is important to identify the factors that affect the propensity of red light running of pedestrian. In this study, effects of both personal factors (pedestrians’ demographics and behavior) and environmental factors (presence and behavior of other pedestrians, signal time, and traffic condition) on the individual decision of red light running violation are examined, using the video observation surveys at the signalized crossings that are prone to pedestrian-vehicle crashes and have moderate pedestrian and vehicular traffic volumes in the urban area. Crossing behaviors of 6320 pedestrians are captured. Results of a random parameter logit model indicate that pedestrian gender, age, number of lanes, presence of a companion, number of pedestrians around, presence of other violators in the same cycle, time to green, red time, traffic volume, and percentage of heavy vehicles all affect the propensity of red light running violation of pedestrians. Also, there are significant interaction effects by pedestrian’s gender and age, presence of other violators, with a companion, and traffic volume on the propensity. Findings are indicative to the development of effective engineering, enforcement and educational initiatives combating the red light running violation behavior of pedestrians. Therefore, pedestrian safety level at the signalized intersections can be enhanced.     

Staying on or getting off the sidewalk? Testing the Mehrabian-Russell Model on pedestrian behavior

Social and environmental psychology provide a variety of models based on which to understand how built environments can elicit people’s behavioral responses. The Mehrabian-Russell model (MRM), initially presented in 1974, provides a framework that explains avoid–approach behavior towards a place based on a primary emotional response (PER) and affective states elicited by the perceived stimuli from the environment. However, despite the potential applications of the MRM in travel behavior studies, traditional models (e.g., discrete choice models and integrated choice latent variable) do not incorporate this specific psychological process that converts environmental stimuli into behavioral responses. Hence, this paper aims to test the applicability of MRM to urban sidewalks. To fulfill this objective, we developed a two-level structural equation model using latent variables (LV) identified from a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) based on 1056 in-person surveys on 30 different sidewalks in Bogotá, Colombia. We then evaluated the effect of the PER on declared avoidance as a proxy of behavioral intention. The CFA uncovered three LV equivalent to the three affective dimensions of the MRM—arousal, pleasure, and dominance—followed by a fourth LV, representing the PER, which explains the three previous LVs. This confirms the applicability of these kinds of psychological and environmental models in pedestrian behavior evaluation. We found that PER can explain the declared intention of avoidance towards the sidewalk in an urban setting. Proving that this kind of model can explain the way in which the built environment can elicit pedestrians’ emotional responses and subsequent behaviors, provides information that can be used as input in travel behavior studies focusing on the promotion of active traveling and mode change.     

Psychological science treatment

New discoveries in psychological science have changed our understanding of some basic psychological processes. The new science, however, has not of yet been properly incorporated into the practice of psychotherapy. This has created a confusing state of affairs, lacking clear distinctions between therapy interventions rooted in lore and personal insight and those based on systematic scientific inquiry. In this paper, I discuss the problems caused by the current situation and propose a new distinction by which the psychological (science) treatment of psychological disorders is differentiated from psychotherapy. The implications of the proposed distinction for clinical research and training are discussed.     

Identifying Causal Estimands for Time-Varying Treatments Measured with Time-Varying (Age or Grade-Based) Instruments

This commentary discusses causal estimands of same-age and same-grade comparisons for assessing grade-retention effects on student ability and performance. Using potential outcomes notation, we show that same-age and same-grade comparisons refer to different retention–promotion contrasts and therefore assess different causal questions. We also comment on deleting versus censoring records of students who dropped out of the study or do not belong to the treatment regimes under investigation. Whereas deleting entire student records potentially induces collider bias, censoring circumvents bias if censoring is ignorable given the observed pretreatment covariates.     

Introducing human factors in pedestrian crossing behaviour models

The objective of this research is the development of pedestrian crossing choice models on the basis of road, traffic and human factors. For that purpose, a field survey was carried out, in which a panel of 75 pedestrians were asked to take 8 short walking trips (each one corresponding to a different walking and crossing scenario) in the Athens city centre in Greece, allowing to record their crossing behaviour in different road and traffic conditions. The same individuals were asked to fill in a questionnaire on their travel motivations, their mobility characteristics, their risk perceptions and preferences with respect to walking and road crossing, their opinion on drivers, etc. The walking and crossing scenarios’ data were used to develop mixed sequential logit models of pedestrian behaviour on the basis of road and traffic characteristics. The modelling results showed that pedestrian crossing choices are significantly affected by road type, traffic flow and traffic control. The questionnaire data were used to estimate human factors (components) of pedestrian crossing behaviour by means of principal component analysis. The results showed that three components of pedestrian crossing behaviour emerge, namely a “risk-taking and optimisation” component reflecting the tendency to cross at mid-block in order to save time, etc., a “conservative” component, concerning individuals with increased perceived risk of mid-block crossing, who also appear to be frequent public transport users, and a “pedestrian for pleasure” component, bringing together frequent pedestrians, walking for health or pleasure, etc. The introduction of these components as explanatory variables into the choice models resulted in improvement of the modelling results, indicating that human factors have additional explanatory power over road and traffic factors of pedestrian behaviour. Therefore, the development of integrated choice and latent variables models appears to be an appropriate field for further research.