Jury simulation studies: To exclude or not to exclude participants based on a lack of comprehension of the case?

Jury simulation research has been the subject of longstanding criticism in regards to ecological validity. One additional factor that has received little attention that may also impact the generalizability of this research relates to excluding participants based on their memory of, or their attention paid to, the case. In order to determine how common this exclusion is, the authors conducted a scoping review of jury simulation studies within the last 10 years across three major legal psychology journals. The review revealed variability in if and how studies excluded on the basis of poor attention or for failing manipulation or general memory checks. In addition, studies that did exclude on this basis varied greatly in the proportion of the sample that was excluded. Recommendations are provided in order to assist jury researchers in future with how best to manage exclusions on the basis of juror memory and attention.     

Developmental changes in probabilistic reasoning: The role of cognitive capacity,instructions, thinking styles,and relevant knowledge

In three experiments we explored developmental changes in probabilistic reasoning, taking into account the effects of cognitive capacity, thinking styles, and instructions. Normative responding increased with grade levels and cognitive capacity in all experiments, and it showed a negative relationship with superstitious thinking. The effect of instructions (in Experiments 2 and 3) was moderated by level of education and cognitive capacity. Specifically, only higher-grade students with higher cognitive capacity benefited from instructions to reason on the basis of logic. The implications of these findings for research on the development of probabilistic reasoning are also discussed.     

The phantom limb in dreams

Mulder and colleagues [Mulder, T., Hochstenbach, J., Dijkstra, P. U., Geertzen, J. H. B. (2008). Born to adapt, but not in your dreams. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1266–1271.] report that a majority of amputees continue to experience a normally-limbed body during their night dreams. They interprete this observation as a failure of the body schema to adapt to the new body shape. The present note does not question this interpretation, but points to the already existing literature on the phenomenology of the phantom limb in dreams. A summary of published investigations is complemented by a note on phantom phenomena in the dreams of paraplegic patients and persons born without a limb. Integration of the available data allows the recommendation for prospective studies to consider dream content in more detail. For instance, “adaptation” to the loss of a limb can also manifest itself by seeing oneself surrounded by amputees. Such projective types of anosognosia (“transitivism”) in nocturnal dreams should also be experimentally induced in normally-limbed individuals, and some relevant techniques are mentioned.     

历史的轮回——关于马蹄内翻足的治疗体会

先天性马蹄内翻足是一种儿童先天性疾病,畸形非常复杂,治疗方式多种多样,从简单的手法矫形（Ponseti方法）到各种复杂的手术松解,再回到简单的手法矫形,治疗的理念发生了颠覆性的改变,从长期随诊结果来看,简单的手法矫形（Ponseti方法）是治疗先矢性马蹄内翻足的首选方法。     

Unravelling the riddle of exhibitionism: a lesson in the power tactics of perverse interpersonal relationships

Through an examination of the varied paradoxes embedded within the phenomenon of genital exhibitionism, the author establishes exhibitionism as a paradigm for interpersonal relations whereby one individual entices another to lose himself, to a benign or dangerous degree, in a presented portrayal/enactment. Efforts to entice that cause an extreme loss of the subject's sense of self--making it exceedingly hard to break free of--are designed to render the subject powerless and take psychic possession of him. The perpetrator accomplishes this feat by interacting with his victim in ways capable of producing a sudden and profound regression with sufficient loss of autonomous ego functioning that the subject finds it hard, if not impossible, to act on his own behalf. The essential feature of the perpetrator's efforts is his violation of the unspoken but understood rules of interpersonal engagement that, when violated, cause extreme disorientation and a loss of trust in one's most basic assumptions about how humans treat one another. When this happens, we would describe the interaction as having been perverted to serve the exclusive needs of the predator--to gain as complete control over the other as possible.     

Seeing is not enough: manipulating choice options causes focusing and preference change in multiattribute risky decision‐making

We show that preferences depend on the attributes that can be directly manipulated when people need to integrate multiple sources of information because direct manipulation causes focusing bias. This effect appears even when all relevant information is simultaneously and explicitly presented at the time the decisions are made. Participants decided how much to save, what investment risk to take and observed the future financial consequences in terms of the mean and variability of the expected retirement income. Participants who manipulated only the future income distribution saved more and took less risk. This effect disappears when the risk‐related variables are removed, which indicates that task complexity is a mediator of such focusing effects. A more balanced trade‐off between the choice attributes was selected when all attributes were manipulated. However, when there is a dichotomy between manipulating versus observing choice attributes, then decisions were based mostly on the manipulated attributes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Attributionism and Counterfactual Robustness

In this journal (AJP 2016), Vishnu Sridharan presents a novel objection to attributionism, the view according to which agents are responsible for their conduct when it reflects who they are or what they value. The key to Sridharan's objection is that agents can fulfil all attributionist conditions for responsibility while being under the control of a manipulator. In this paper, we show that Sridharan's objection falls prey to a dilemma—either his manipulator is counterfactually robust, or she is not—and that neither of its horns undermines attributionism.     

Approach-avoidance responses to infant facial expressions in nulliparous women: Associations with early experience and mood induction

Infant expressions are important signals for eliciting caregiving behaviors in parents. The present study sought to test if infant expressions affect adults’ behavioral response, taking into account the role of a mood induction and childhood caregiving experiences. A modified version of the Approach Avoidance Task (AAT) was employed to study nulliparous female university students’ implicit responses to infant faces with different expressions. Study 1 showed that sad, neutral and sleepy expressions elicit a tendency for avoidance, while no tendency for approach or avoidance was found for happy faces. Notably, differences between approach and avoidance response latencies for sad faces and participants’ negative caregiving experiences were positively correlated (r = 0.30, p = 0.04, Bonferroni corrected), indicating that individuals who experienced insensitive parental care show more bias toward sad infant faces. In Study 2, we manipulated participants' current mood (inducing sad and happy mood by asking to recall a happy or sad event of their recent life) before the AAT. Results showed that sad mood enhanced the bias toward sad faces that is buffered by positive mood induction. In conclusion, these findings indicate that implicit approach avoidance behaviors in females depend on the emotional expression of infant faces and are associated with childhood caregiving experiences and current mood.     

DENNETT ON FREEDOM

Abstract: In his Freedom Evolves (2003) Daniel Dennett criticizes a view I defend in Autonomous Agents (1995) about the importance of agents' histories for autonomy, freedom, and moral responsibility and defends a competing view. Our disagreement on this issue is the major focus of this article. Additional topics are manipulation, avoidance, and avoidability.     

青少年脊柱侧弯的临床诊治进展

青少年特发性脊柱侧弯（AIS）既对患儿及家庭所造成的痛苦,也对患者家庭和国家财政都造成沉重的经济负担,引发各国及各级政府的高度关注。但是,随着对AIS了解的深入,质疑和犹豫也逐渐产生。本文回顾当前关于AIS的临床和基础研究结果,发现其中许多研究结论都充满了临床悖论。本文还通过总结作者单位的临床经验,提出的AIS诊治新原则。该原则利用脊柱对于AIS的充分代偿能力,改变聚焦于纠正脊柱畸形的传统理念,尽量维护脊柱的代偿平衡,同时避免对AIS患儿的歧视性宣传,避免诱导其发生心理自卑感。通过借鉴“代偿稳定、阴阳自和”等中医哲学理念可以在AIS等脊柱损伤退变性疾病的临床诊治过程中为患者争取最为实效的临床利益。