The role of prior knowledge in explaining hypothetical events

Having subjects explain a hypothetical future event biases their subjective likelihood estimates for that event. However, Sherman, Zehner, Johnson, and Hirt (1983, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 1127–1143) found that the biasing effects of an explanation task were reduced when subjects formed an initial impression based on the information (prior to the explanation task). Nonetheless, there are no doubt many factors that may influence subjects' ability to form strong initial impressions. The present studies address two of these factors. Experiment 1 used both subjects who were knowledgeable and unknowledgeable (naive) about a stimulus domain (football). Experiment 2 used only knowledgeable subjects, but gave these subjects information about unfamiliar teams and players. Subjects first read information about teams in an upcoming game and were then asked to explain a hypothetical victory by one team. They then made judgments about the actual future game and recalled the information. Only knowledgeable subjects given an initial impression set and given information that was easily integrated with past knowledge were able to resist the explanation bias. All other subjects demonstrated judgments that were strongly biased in the direction of the outcome explained. An examination of the relation between judgment and recall implied that knowledgeable and naive individuals differed in the ways they made judgments.     

Classification of concatenation measurement structures according to scale type

A relational structure is said to be of scale type (M,N) iff M is the largest degree of homogeneity and N the least degree of uniqueness (Narens, 1981a, Narens, 1981b) of its automorphism group.Roberts (in Proceedings of the first Hoboken Symposium on graph theory, New York: Wiley, 1984; in Proceedings of the fifth international conference on graph theory and its applications, New York: Wiley, 1984) has shown that such a structure on the reals is either ordinal or M is less than the order of at least one defining relation (Theorem 1.2). A scheme for characterizing N is outlined in Theorem 1.3. The remainder of the paper studies the scale type of concatenation structures 〈X, ?, ° 〉, where ? is a total ordering and ° is a monotonic operation. Section 2 establishes that for concatenation structures with M>0 and N<∞ the only scale types are (1,1), (1,2), and (2,2), and the structures for the last two are always idempotent. Section 3 is concerned with such structures on the real numbers (i.e., candidates for representations), and it uses general results of Narens for real relational structures of scale type (M, M) (Theorem 3.1) and of Alper (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1985, 29, 73–81) for scale type (1, 2) (Theorem 3.2). For M>0, concatenation structures are all isomorphic to numerical ones for which the operation can be written $\text{x°y = yf(}\text{x}\text{y}\text{)}$, where f is strictly increasing and $\text{f(x)}\text{x}$ is strictly decreasing (unit structures). The equation f(x^?)=f(x)^? is satisfied for all x as follows: for and only for ? = 1 in the (1,1) case; for and only for ?=kⁿ, k > 0 fixed, and n ranging over the integers, in the (1, 2) case; and for all ?>0 in the (2, 2) case (Theorems 3.9, 3.12, and 3.13). Section 4 examines relations between concatenation catenation and conjoint structures, including the operation induced on one component by the ordering of a conjoint structure and the concept of an operation on one component being distributive in a conjoint structure. The results, which are mainly of interest in proving other results, are mostly formulated in terms of the set of right translations of the induced operation. In Section 5 we consider the existence of representations of concatenation structures. The case of positive ones was dealt with earlier (Narens & Luce (Journal of Pure & Applied Algebra27, 1983, 197–233). For idempotent ones, closure, density, solvability, and Archimedean are shown to be sufficient (Theorem 5.1). The rest of the section is concerned with incomplete results having to do with the representation of cases with M>0. A variety of special conditions, many suggested by the conjoint equivalent of a concatenation structure, are studied in Section 6. The major result (Theorem 6.4) is that most of these concepts are equivalent to bisymmetry for idempotent structures that are closed, dense, solvable, and Dedekind complete. This result is important in Section 7, which is devoted to a general theory of scale type (2, 2) for the utility of gambles. The representation is a generalization of the usual SEU model which embodies a distinctly bounded form of rationality; by the results of Section 6 it reduces to the fully rational SEU model when rationality is extended beyond the simplest equivalences. Theorem 7.3 establishes that under plausible smoothness conditions, the ratio scale case does not introduce anything different from the (2, 2) case. It is shown that this theory is closely related to, but somewhat more general, than Kahneman and Tversky's (Econometrica47, 1979, 263–291) prospect theory.     

The roles of event contingencies and reinforcement in human autoshaping and omission responding

Four experiments were conducted to test those features deemed to play an important role in the acquisition and/or maintenance of autoshaping and omission responding with human subjects, viz., event contingencies, reinforcement, stimulus generalization, the type of CS employed, conditioned reinforcement, and response topography. One important aspect of these studies is that the boundary conditions were made to resemble those pertaining to the majority of nonhuman animal studies, i.e., magazine training followed by paired CS-US presentations. The results demonstrated the importance of CS-UR or, alternatively, CS-US contiguity together with generalization and a response-reinforcer contingency for autoshaped response initiation and maintenance, respectively. The conditioned reinforcing effect of CS offset appears to play a part in generating and maintaining some responding during omission training, especially during a response-terminated CS procedure. Similar response topography was observed when the form of the UR was compared to that of the CR or autoshaped response. Taken as a whole the results of these experiments with humans are directly comparable to results previously reported using a wide variety of nonhuman animals.     

Stimulus selection with duration as a relevant cue

To date, research has not explicitly examined how duration competes with other stimulus dimensions for control over responding. The present study investigated some familiar selective mechanisms of stimulus control over key pecking in pigeons, with duration and line tilt as discriminative stimuli in successive discrimination procedures. Specifically, pigeon's key pecking was reinforced with food or extinguished following compound stimuli comprising one of two line orientation stimuli presented for one of two different durations. Traditional experimental designs explored stimulus additivity, overshadowing, blocking, and learned irrelevance. Although stimulus additivity was observed, control by duration was masked by line tilt in extinction testing that followed facilitated acquisition with redundant, relevant cues. In addition, although prior training with duration relevant partially blocked subsequent acquisition of control by line tilt when both stimulus dimensions were relevant, there was a tendency for control by duration to decrease with continued compound training. It was suggested that the greater time required to distinguish duration on a trial—compared to more commonly studied stimulus dimensions, which can be distinguished almost immediately—puts duration at a competitive disadvantage in situations where other relevant dimensions are also available.     

The subjective experience of subjects diagnosed with celiac disease in adulthood

Introduction

Celiac disease is estimated to affect between 1 in 100 and 1 in 300 Caucasian subjects. Many quantitative studies have explored the issues encountered by these subjects; however, few studies have addressed the subjective and experiential dimensions of celiac disease.

Plugging the Leaks in Neurath's Ship: A Defense of Naturalistic Epistemology

This paper examines the question whether foundational epistemology (“FE”) can be replaced by naturalized epistemology (“NE”). First, it argues that Quine's defense of NE is inadequate since it is only based on arguments showing the impossibility of the logical empiricist version of FE rather than on arguments for the impossibility of FE as such. Second, it proposes that a more promising argument for the impossibility of FE can be found in the Münchhausen-trilemma which aims at showing that ultimate foundations (and, hence, FE) are unattainable. However, Karl-Otto Apel has shown that this trilemma is unconclusive since it uncritically presupposes the premise that all argumentation is deductive in nature. Apel's argument implies that FE is possible if and only if it is possible to devise a non-deductive foundation (“NDF”). It is argued, however, that the possibility of NDF cannot be demonstrated. This leads to a situation called the Multatuli-dilemma: we cannot prove the possibility of ultimate foundations nor can we prove the impossibility of ultimate foundations. This dilemma shows that the discussion about the possibility of FE is pointless. Thus, it suggests that it is legitimate to replace FE by NE. Barry Stroud and Henri Lauener, however, argue that this replacement is not feasible since NE is not capable of refuting scepticism (Stroud) or justifying methodological rules (Lauener). But these objections are shown to be mistaken: First, epistemological scepticism is practically impossible and, hence, does not pose a serious threat to NE. Second, NE is capable of justifying methodological norms if and only if it makes use of so-called internal justifications. Thus, the final conclusion of this paper is that FE can be replaced by NE. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Interpersonal problem-solving skills training with aggressive young children

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of an interpersonal problem-solving training program with aggressive young children. There were 13 children in the experimental group and 11 children in the contact control group. Both experimental and contact control group children were evaluated at pretest, posttest, and follow-up on the Behavioral Interpersonal Problem Solving Test (BIPS). Experimental group subjects were exposed to the interpersonal problem-solving skills training program for 50 training sessions. The contact control group participated in reading-story sessions during the same time period. Results and discussion reflect the efficacy of the training procedure and the nature of the change in interpersonal problem-solving behavior in aggressive young children.     

The logical and empirical bases of conservation judgements

It is argued that conservation judgements are based on a particular combination of logical necessity and empirical belief. The empirical belief is that a given transformation will not alter a particular quantity (Elkind's conservation of identity). The logical aspect is a transitive deductive argument containing an initial equivalence of two quantities and the conservation of identity belief as premises which lead to the conclusion of maintained equivalence (Elkind's conservation of equivalence). In two experiments, it is shown that conservation of identity beliefs can be manipulated in subjects who have long since developed the capacity for transitive deductive inference. Untrained 10 year olds were unaware of how sublimation acts to alter certain quantities over particular transformations of shape. And untrained adults incorrectly believed that both the area and perimeter of a closed figure would be conserved over transformations which elongated the figure. Both groups of subjects could be trained in the correct conservation of identity beliefs and this affected their conservation of equivalence judgements in predicted ways. It is suggested that the locical aspect of conservation is developmentally stable and that the empirical aspect varies widely across problems and individuals because of its dependence on relevant experience.     

A new processing model for predicting performance on Pascual-Leone's test of M-space

A new model is proposed for explaining children's performance on Pascual-Leone's test of M-space. The model differs from Pascual-Leone's in three regards. (1) It assumes that children do not stop sampling a compound stimulus until every simple stimulus in their field of attention has already been noticed and responded to. (2) It assumes that the probability of sampling different combinations of simple stimuli conforms to the laws of Maxwell-Boltzman statistics rather than Bose-Einstein statistics. (3) It assumes that children's ability to detect all the simple stimuli in a compound stimulus is highly dependent both on the relative saliencies of the simple stimuli and on the length of time for which the compound stimulus is exposed. Using the developmental values of M hypothesized by Pascual-Leone, and standard techniques of computer simulation, the new model is used to generate theoretical performance curves for children at four different age levels and seven different levels of stimulus complexity. It is shown that the predicted performance curves for an exposure time of 5 sec provide a reasonable fit to the data originally reported by Pascual-Leone (1970), and that the predicted performance curves for an exposure time of 10 sec provide a reasonable fit to data obtained more recently by Parkinson (1976). Finally, it is shown that the order of children's responses as well as the number of their responses can be predicted. Two conclusions are drawn. (1) The new processing model offers a viable alternative to the model originally proposed by Pascual-Leone. (2) Regardless of which processing model is employed, the M-values originally postulated by Pascual-Leone are valid.