Contrived motivating operations alter delay‐discounting values of disordered gamblers

The present study required 9 disordered gamblers to make hypothetical selections between smaller and larger amounts of money at varying delays. Participants were also required to respond to the task given the contrived hypothetical conditions of earning twice or half as much as they did at their current jobs. The results demonstrated how participants’ delay discounting was altered via contrived motivating operations, strengthening the argument that discounting may be a state variable.     

Episodic Future Thinking Reduces Delay Discounting of Gains and Losses: The Role of Regulatory Focus1,2

We examined the moderating effect of regulatory foci on the efficacy of episodic future thinking in reducing delay discounting. We hypothesized that the impact of imagining positive future events (vs. recent positive events) on delay discounting of gains would be stronger for individuals with a high promotion focus than for those with a high prevention focus (Hypothesis 1). Conversely, the effects of imagining adverse future events (vs. recent negative events) on delay discounting of losses would be stronger for individuals with a high prevention focus than for those with a high promotion focus (Hypothesis 2). We conducted two experiments in which participants, randomly allocated to episodic future thinking (EFT) or episodic recent thinking (ERT) groups, completed a delayed discounting task of gain (Experiment 1) or loss (Experiment 2). Experiment 1 (N = 73) weakly supported Hypothesis 1; Experiment 2 (N = 99) did not support Hypothesis 2. Our findings suggest positive EFT is particularly effective for individuals with a high promotion focus compared to individuals with a high prevention focus, which further reveals how EFT attenuates delay discounting.     

The probabilistic analysis of language acquisition: theoretical, computational, and experimental analysis

There is much debate over the degree to which language learning is governed by innate language-specific biases, or acquired through cognition-general principles. Here we examine the probabilistic language acquisition hypothesis on three levels: We outline a novel theoretical result showing that it is possible to learn the exact generative model underlying a wide class of languages, purely from observing samples of the language. We then describe a recently proposed practical framework, which quantifies natural language learnability, allowing specific learnability predictions to be made for the first time. In previous work, this framework was used to make learnability predictions for a wide variety of linguistic constructions, for which learnability has been much debated. Here, we present a new experiment which tests these learnability predictions. We find that our experimental results support the possibility that these linguistic constructions are acquired probabilistically from cognition-general principles.     

When good evidence goes bad: the weak evidence effect in judgment and decision-making

An indispensable principle of rational thought is that positive evidence should increase belief. In this paper, we demonstrate that people routinely violate this principle when predicting an outcome from a weak cause. In Experiment 1 participants given weak positive evidence judged outcomes of public policy initiatives to be less likely than participants given no evidence, even though the evidence was separately judged to be supportive. Experiment 2 ruled out a pragmatic explanation of the result, that the weak evidence implies the absence of stronger evidence. In Experiment 3, weak positive evidence made people less likely to gamble on the outcome of the 2010 United States mid-term Congressional election. Experiments 4 and 5 replicated these findings with everyday causal scenarios. We argue that this “weak evidence effect” arises because people focus disproportionately on the mentioned weak cause and fail to think about alternative causes.     

Temporal discounting predicts student responsiveness to exchange delays in a classroom token system

Typical assessments of temporal discounting involve presenting choices between hypothetical monetary outcomes. Participants choose between smaller immediate rewards and larger delayed rewards to determine how the passage of time affects the subjective value of reinforcement. Few studies, however, have compared such discounting to actual manipulations of reward delay. The present study examined the predictive validity of a temporal discounting procedure developed for use with children. Forty-six sixth-grade students completed a brief discounting assessment and were then exposed to a classwide intervention that involved both immediate and delayed reinforcement in a multiple baseline design across classrooms. The parameters derived from two hyperbolic models of discounting correlated significantly with actual on-task behavior under conditions of immediate and delayed exchange. Implications of temporal discounting assessments for behavioral assessment and treatment are discussed.     

TEACHING SELF‐CONTROL WITH QUALITATIVELY DIFFERENT REINFORCERS

This study examined the effectiveness of using qualitatively different reinforcers to teach self‐control to an adolescent boy who had been diagnosed with an intellectual disability. First, he was instructed to engage in an activity without programmed reinforcement. Next, he was instructed to engage in the activity under a two‐choice fixed‐duration schedule of reinforcement. Finally, he was exposed to self‐control training, during which the delay to a more preferred reinforcer was initially short and then increased incrementally relative to the delay to a less preferred reinforcer. Self‐control training effectively increased time on task to earn the delayed reinforcer.     

Social Discounting and Externalizing Behavior Problems in Boys

Social discounting refers to the fact that most people assign more value to the welfare of close affiliates than they do to the welfare of distant affiliates—they discount the latter compared to the former. We report the first study to apply a social discounting paradigm to boys. We were particularly interested in investigating the relations between social discounting, age, and externalizing behavior problems (antisocial behavior). Results showed that (1) preadolescent boys were more likely than adolescent boys to show atypical response patterns in allocating rewards to affiliates; (2) task behavior was well represented as social discounting once boys with atypical response patterns were deleted from the sample, and (3) boys functioning in the clinical range on indices of externalizing behavior problems demonstrated steeper social discounting compared to controls. We conclude that social discounting as a measure of perceived social closeness is feasible for use in adolescent samples. Social discounting may operate similarly to other forms of discounting in impulsive individuals. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

更优更耐心：质量结果对跨期选择的影响

跨期选择以往的研究集中于金钱数量结果。基于维度加工的模型,本文探究了在跨期选择中,人们面对质量差异的结果（如今天的低配版手机还是六个月后的高配版手机）与相对应的金钱结果（如今天的5000元还是六个月后的6000元）的选择偏好差异。三个实验结果表明：人们面对质量结果（相比于金钱结果）的跨期选择表现得更耐心,而这种现象是由于人们面对选择时在结果维度差异感知不同所致。与金钱结果跨期选择相同,质量结果跨期选择的心理加工过程同样遵循维度间差异比较。本研究为基于维度的跨期选择模型提供了新的证据。     

Does a smartphone on the desk drain our brain? No evidence of cognitive costs due to smartphone presence in a short-term and prospective memory task

It has recently been shown that the mere presence of one’s own smartphone on the desk impairs working memory performance. The aim of this study was to follow up on this important finding by assessing the effect of smartphone presence (present on the desk vs. absent from the desk) on different memory functions (short-term memory and prospective memory), and by further examining the moderating role of individual differences in smartphone dependency and impulsiveness. We found no overall effect of smartphone presence on short-term and prospective memory performance. There was a moderating effect for prospective memory: Performance was better when the smartphone was absent versus present for participants with low smartphone dependency. In light of the absence of an overall effect of smartphone presence on memory functions, our results show that previous findings of impairments in working memory due to smartphone presence do not generalize to other domains of memory capacity.