Speed reductions and judgments of travel time loss: Biases and debiasing

Priority decisions concerning maintenance or reconstruction of roads are made with the aim of road improvements with as little traffic disturbance and time loss as possible. However, it cannot be avoided that speed will be reduced and travel time increased during the time of construction. The present study shows how intuitive judgments of travel time losses are biased in a way similar to the times saving bias (Svenson, 2008), but not perfectly corresponding to that bias. This means that when speed is decreased from a slow speed <50 km/h, the time loss is underestimated and when speed is decreased from a high speed >80 km/h it is overestimated. Also, drivers, politicians and policy makers who do not make exact calculations are likely victims of the time loss bias. The time loss bias was weakened but not eliminated by a debiasing instruction including mathematical computations of travel times. When driving speed restrictions are implemented, in particular on fast motorways, it is necessary to consider and counteract the time loss bias and inform the public. This can be done, for example, in communications about travel time facts, by information in driver training and by mounting temporary road signs informing about the average travel time prolongation due to a road work.     

Visual knowledge discovery and machine learning for investment strategy

Knowledge discovery is an important aspect of human cognition. The advantage of the visual approach is in opportunity to substitute some complex cognitive tasks by easier perceptual tasks. However for cognitive tasks such as financial investment decision making this opportunity faces the challenge that financial data are abstract multidimensional and multivariate, i.e., outside of traditional visual perception in 2D or 3D world. This paper presents an approach to find an investment strategy based on pattern discovery in multidimensional space of specifically prepared time series. Visualization based on the lossless Collocated Paired Coordinates (CPC) plays an important role in this approach for building the criteria in the multidimensional space for finding an efficient investment strategy. Criteria generated with the CPC approach allow reducing/compressing space using simple directed graphs with beginnings and the ends located in different time points. The dedicated subspaces constructed for time series include characteristics such as Bollinger Band, difference between moving averages, changes in volume etc. Extensive simulation studies have been performed in learning/testing context. Effective relations were found for one-hour EURUSD pair for recent and historical data. Also the method has been explored for one-day EURUSD time series n 2D and 3D visualization spaces. The main positive result is finding the effective split of a normalized 3D space on 4 × 4 × 4 cubes in the visualization space that leads to a profitable investment decision (long, short position or nothing). The strategy is ready for implementation in algotrading mode.     

Relating lab to life: Decrements in attention over time predict math productivity among children with ADHD

A child’s ability to sustain attention over time (AOT) is critical in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), yet no prior work has examined the extent to which a child’s decrement in AOT on laboratory tasks relates to clinically-relevant behavior. The goal of this study is to provide initial evidence for the criterion validity of laboratory assessments of AOT. A total of 20 children with ADHD (7–12 years of age) who were enrolled in a summer treatment program completed two lab attention tasks (a continuous performance task and a self-paced choice discrimination task) and math seatwork. Analyses focused on relations between attention task parameters and math productivity. Individual differences in overall attention (OA) measures (averaged across time) accounted for 23% of the variance in math productivity, supporting the criterion validity of lab measures of attention. The criterion validity was enhanced by consideration of changes in AOT. Performance on all laboratory attention measures deteriorated as time-on-task increased, and individual differences in the decrement in AOT accounted for 40% of the variance in math productivity. The only variable to uniquely predict math productivity was from the self-paced choice discrimination task. This study suggests that attention tasks in the lab do predict a clinically-relevant target behavior in children with ADHD, supporting their use as a means to study attention processes in a controlled environment. Furthermore, this prediction is improved when attention is examined as a function of time-on-task and when the attentional demands are consistent between lab and life contexts.     

Being articulate: Rede in Heidegger’s Being and Time

Being and Time’s emphasis on practical activities has attracted much attention as an approach to meaning not modelled exclusively on language. However, understanding this emphasis is made more difficult by Heidegger’s notion of Rede (‘Articulacy’ or ‘Discourse’), which he routinely characterizes as both language-like and basic to all disclosure. This paper assesses whether this notion can be both interpreted coherently and reconciled with Heidegger’s emphasis on intelligent nonlinguistic behaviours. It begins by identifying two functions of Articulacy – the demonstrative and articulatory – and a potential source of incoherence in Heidegger’s analysis. Having reviewed some standard approaches to Heideggerian Articulacy, I show how Heidegger’s discussion of predicative judgements (‘Statements’) implies that language can be linked with different kinds of content. This allows Heidegger’s analysis to be read coherently, provided Articulacy is understood as having distinct purposive and predicative modes. The final section shows how this reading preserves a close connection between Articulacy and language while accommodating intelligent nonlinguistic behaviours.     

Reconstructing the times of past and future personal events

Humans have the remarkable ability to mentally travel through past and future times. However, while memory for the times of past events has been much investigated, little is known about how imagined future events are temporally located. Using a think-aloud protocol, we found that the temporal location of past and future events is rarely directly accessed, but instead mostly relies on reconstructive and inferential strategies. References to lifetime periods and factual knowledge (about the self, others, and the world) were most frequently used to determine the temporal location of both past and future events. Event details (e.g., places, persons, or weather conditions) were also used, but mainly for past events. Finally, the results showed that events whose temporal location was directly accessed were judged more important for personal goals. Together, these findings shed new light on the mechanisms involved in locating personal events in past and future times.     

Interaction effects among multiple job demands: an examination of healthcare workers across different contexts

Background and Objectives: Simultaneous exposure to time, cognitive, and emotional demands is a feature of the work environment for healthcare workers, yet effects of these common stressors in combination are not well established. Design: Survey data were collected from 125 hospital employees (Sample 1, Study 1), 93 ambulance service employees (Sample 2, Study 1), and 380 aged care/disability workers (Study 2). Methods: Hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted. Results: In Sample 1, high cognitive demand exacerbated high emotional demand on psychological strain and job burnout, whereas the negative effect of high emotional demand was not present at low cognitive demand. In Sample 2, a similar pattern between emotional demand and time demand on stress-remedial intentions was observed. In Study 2, emotional demand?×?time demand and time demand?×?cognitive demand interactions again revealed that high levels of two demands were stress-exacerbating and low levels of one demand neutralized the other. A three-way interaction on job satisfaction showed the negative impact of emotional demand was exacerbated when both time and cognitive demands were high, creating a “triple disadvantage” of job demands. Conclusions: The results demonstrate that reducing some job demands helps attenuate the stressful effects of other job demands on different employee outcomes.     

一个中枢炎性免疫诱发长时程抑郁样行为的新模型

脂多糖(lipopolysaccharide, LPS)免疫激活模型是研究抑郁症细胞因子假说的重要动物模型, 目前国际上常用外周单次LPS注射诱发抑郁样行为, 但该模型中抑郁样行为持续仅有数小时。为建立诱发较长时程抑郁样行为的免疫激活动物模型, 本研究尝试侧脑室注射LPS激活大鼠中枢免疫炎性反应, 考察单次以及重复中枢LPS注射诱发抑郁样行为的效果, 以及中枢炎性免疫诱发行为改变的时程。结果显示：单次中枢LPS注射后24 h只能诱发旷场自发活动和探索行为下降等部分抑郁样行为, 未能诱导糖水偏好下降和悬尾不动时间增加; 3次重复注射则在末次LPS注射后24 h表现出显著的糖水偏好下降, 自发活动和探索行为减少, 悬尾不动时间增加等行为。且自发活动、探索行为减少和悬尾不动时间增加能够延续至末次LPS注射后72 h。这些结果表明脑室重复LPS注射可诱发较长时程的抑郁样行为, 这种新的中枢炎性免疫激活诱发的抑郁症模型, 为研究抑郁症炎性免疫机制提供了更为有效的动物模型, 有助于深入探讨行为和免疫功能间的复杂关系。     

Do English and Mandarin speakers think about time differently?

Time is a fundamental domain of experience. In this paper we ask whether aspects of language and culture affect how people think about this domain. Specifically, we consider whether English and Mandarin speakers think about time differently. We review all of the available evidence both for and against this hypothesis, and report new data that further support and refine it. The results demonstrate that English and Mandarin speakers do think about time differently. As predicted by patterns in language, Mandarin speakers are more likely than English speakers to think about time vertically (with earlier time-points above and later time-points below).     

Clock time vs. event time: Temporal culture or self-regulation?

Cross-cultural research documented two types of temporal culture governing the way individuals schedule tasks over time: clock-time, where individuals let an external clock dictate when tasks begin/end; and event-time, where tasks are planned relative to other tasks and individuals transition between them when they internally sense that the former task is complete. In contrast with this prior literature - that credits culture as the reason for variation in temporal norms - we show in two experiments that individuals choose clock- vs. event-time as a self-regulation strategy to achieve a regulatory goal (efficiency vs. effectiveness). A third experiment shows that this strategy enhances confidence and performance on a task. Participants solved significantly more math problems when their task scheduling (clock- vs. event-time) matched their regulatory state (promotion vs. prevention). Since clock-/event-time may both lead to superior performance, clock-time is not the single best way to organize productive activities in industrial societies—a result that counters a foundational principle of modern economics.     

Planning in young children: A review and synthesis

Research on the development of planning is reviewed in the context of a framework that considers the role of three types of cognitive flexibility in planning development: event-independent temporal representation, executive function, and self-projection. It is argued that the emergence of planning abilities in the preschool period is dependent upon the development of event-independent temporal representation. Research on the development of executive function suggests that its sub-components, in particular inhibitory control, may be linked to developmental improvements on planning tasks. Recently, new paradigms have established that self-projection to the future appears to develop over the preschool period. We consider how these different forms of cognitive flexibility may themselves be related in development.