Neural predictive mechanisms and their role in cognitive incrementalism

Many neuroscientists view prediction as one of the core brain functions, especially on account of its support of fast movements in complex environments. This leads to the natural question whether predictive knowledge forms the cornerstone of our common-sense understanding of the world. However, there is little consensus as to the exact nature of predictive information and processes, or of the neural mechanisms that realize them. This paper compares procedural versus declarative notions of prediction, examines how the brain appears to carry out predictive functions, and discusses to what degree, and at what level, these neural mechanisms support cognitive incrementalism: the notion that high-level cognition stems from sensorimotor behavior.     

True Overconfidence in Interval Estimates: Evidence Based on a New Measure of Miscalibration

Overconfidence is often regarded as one of the most prevalent judgment biases. Several studies show that overconfidence can lead to suboptimal decisions of investors, managers, or politicians. Recent research, however, questions whether overconfidence should be regarded as a bias and shows that standard “overconfidence” findings can easily be explained by different degrees of knowledge of agents plus a random error in predictions. We contribute to the current literature and ongoing research by extensively analyzing interval estimates for knowledge questions, for real financial time series, and for artificially generated charts. We thereby suggest a new method to measure overconfidence in interval estimates, which is based on the implied probability mass behind a stated prediction interval. We document overconfidence patterns, which are difficult to reconcile with rationality of agents and which cannot be explained by differences in knowledge as differences in knowledge do not exist in our task. Furthermore, we show that overconfidence measures are reliable in the sense that there exist stable individual differences in the degree of overconfidence in interval estimates, thereby testing an important assumption of behavioral economics and behavioral finance models: stable individual differences in the degree of overconfidence across people. We do this in a “field experiment,” for different levels of expertise of subjects (students on the one hand and professional traders and investment bankers on the other hand), over time, by using different miscalibration metrics, and for tasks that avoid common weaknesses such as a non‐representative selection of trick questions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychometric evaluation and normative data for a Swedish version of the Patient Health Questionnaire 15‐Item Somatic Symptom Severity Scale

The lack of an available Swedish version of the Patient Health Questionnaire 15‐Item Somatic Symptom Severity Scale (PHQ‐15) motivated the present psychometric evaluation of such a version as well as providing normative data for the PHQ‐15. Data from 3,406 individuals who took part in the Västerbotten Environmental Health Study in Sweden were used. The respondents constitute a random sample, aged 18 to 79 years, stratified for age and sex. They responded to a Swedish translation of the PHQ‐15 as well as the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Perceived Stress Scale, and the Shirom Melamed Burnout Questionnaire for assessment of convergent validity. The distribution of PHQ‐15 scores was positively skewed and mesokurtic in shape, and the internal consistency of the PHQ‐15 was satisfactory. Correlation coefficients between PHQ‐15 score and the measures of anxiety, depression, stress and mental/physical exhaustion indicate satisfactory validity. Normative data for PHQ‐15 scores as well as for categories of somatic symptom severity are provided. The favorable psychometric properties of the Swedish version of the PHQ‐15 suggest use of this instrument for quantification of somatization in Swedish and similar populations, and has the advantage of available normative data.     

The Mini-IPIP6: Tiny yet highly stable markers of Big Six personality

We assessed the stability of a short-form six-factor personality measure over a one-year period in a large national probability sample (N = 4289). Personality was assessed using the Mini-IPIP6—a short-form measure assessing Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, Openness to Experience, and Honesty-Humility. Standardized estimates calculated using Bayesian Structural Equation Modelling (BSEM) indicated that all six personality dimensions were extremely stable. An alternative model using Maximum Likelihood estimation, in which residual item variances were associated over repeated assessments, yielded similar findings. These results highlight the stability of personality in the general population, even when assessed using short-form scales. The use of Bayesian models to examine the stability of personality and their application for study of change in specific developmental periods is discussed.     

A comparison of two report formats for alcohol and caffeine use

Abstract

The present study compared two different methods of assessing alcohol and caffeine use in a community sample of adults over a one-year period. Daily reporting of beer/wine intake was more stable over time and showed higher correspondence with Quantity-frequency measures than daily reporting of hard liquor use. Coffee and tea use showed high temporal stability and good alternate form reliability, though a tendency to underreport typical use of coffee use was observed. The psychometric properties of substance use measures appear to vary with type of beverage consumed and report format.     

Cronbach's Alpha: Review of Limitations and Associated Recommendations

This paper discusses the limitations of Cronbach's alpha as a sole index of reliability, showing how Cronbach's alpha is analytically handicapped to capture important measurement errors and scale dimensionality, and how it is not invariant under variations of scale length, interitem correlation, and sample characteristics. In addition, the limitations and strengths of several recommendations on how to ameliorate these problems were critically reviewed. It was shown that the reliance on Cronbach's alpha as a sole index of reliability is no longer sufficiently warranted. This requires that other indices of internal consistency be reported along with alpha coefficient, and that when a scale is composed of large number of items, factor analysis should be performed, and appropriate internal consistency estimation method applied. This approach, if adopted, will largely minimize and guard against uncritical use of Cronbach's alpha coefficient.     

Development and Initial Validation of a General Psychological Well-being Scale (GPWS) in an African Context

This study aimed to develop and validate the General Psychological Well-being Scale (GPWS) in an African sample, based on the empirical overlap between hedonic and eudaimonic facets of well-being as found in previous research. The quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted in three phases: secondary data analysis (n = 2005), pilot study (n = 296) and main study (n = 459). The pilot and main study included the GPWS as well as other psychological well-being measures for criterion-related validity. The pilot study yielded satisfactory psychometric properties. The main study yielded a high, reliable Cronbach alpha of.89 and evidence of construct validity. The GPWS appears to be a unidimensional scale suitable for research use with Setswana-speaking people.     

Psychometric properties of the Norwegian version of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (Form A)

The present study reports the reliability and validity of the Norwegian version of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale in non‐clinical and clinical populations. The participants were 344 young male military recruits, 41 healthy controls and 142 psychiatric outpatients. All the participants completed the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale, the Beck Depression Inventory and the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire. The analysis of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale revealed a Cronbach's alpha of 0.85, indicating satisfactory reliability. Evidence for the construct validity was obtained by the correlation between the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory (r?=?0.47) and the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale and the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (r?=?0.47). Finally, the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale significantly discriminated between clinically depressed, non‐depressed psychiatric patients and healthy controls. The results showed that the Norwegian version of the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale possess satisfactory psychometric properties suggesting that this instrument is appropriate for use as a cognitive measure in a Norwegian cultural context.     

Book Review

Repetition priming is one of the most robust phenomena in cognitive psychology, but participants vary substantially on the amount of priming that they produce. The current experiments assessed the reliability of repetition priming within individuals. The results suggest that observed differences in the size of the repetition priming effect across participants are largely reliable and result primarily from systematic processes. We conclude that the unreliability of semantic priming observed by Stolz, Besner, and Carr (2005) is specific to uncoordinated processes in semantic memory, and that this unreliability does not generalize to other processes in visual word recognition. We consider the implications of these results for theories of automatic and controlled processes that contribute to priming. Finally, we emphasize the importance of reliability for researchers who use similar paradigms to study individual and group differences in cognition.     

Procedural and interpersonal fairness moderate the relationship between outcome fairness and acceptance of merit pay

An organizational field study (N = 257) investigated employees' acceptance of a new merit pay system as involving an assessment of whether merit pay can make their earnings more fair, compared to their earnings in the current, seniority-based pay system. We expected that improvement of unfair earnings, and consequently acceptance of merit pay, is considered likely when existing procedures that produce these earnings are unfair, because merit pay improves such procedures. We also expected improvement of unfair earnings, and increased merit pay acceptance, to be likely when employees anticipate fair performance evaluation in a new system, as indicated by fair interpersonal treatment by their supervisor. Results showed that procedural and interpersonal fairness in the existing pay system indeed moderated the relationship between fairness of current outcomes and merit pay acceptance as predicted. Implications for the introduction of merit pay in organizations and for our understanding of the different roles of procedural and interpersonal fairness in outcome evaluations are discussed.