Foregoing the labor for the fruits: The effect of just world threat on the desire for immediate monetary rewards

Previous theorizing and research suggest that the need to believe in a just world develops when children begin to understand the benefits of foregoing their immediate gratifications for more desirable, long-term outcomes. Drawing on this previous work, we propose that an extant just world threat may induce a desire for smaller, immediate rewards at the expense of larger, delayed rewards. Participants were exposed to the suffering of an innocent or non-innocent victim and then, in a different context, completed a temporal discounting task that assessed, across six time delays, their preferences for smaller, immediate monetary rewards versus a constant, larger, delayed reward. Consistent with our reasoning, participants exposed to the suffering of an innocent versus non-innocent victim more steeply discounted the value of the delayed reward—that is, they were willing to accept smaller immediate rewards in place of the larger, delayed reward. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.     

The philosophical novelty of computer simulation methods

Reasons are given to justify the claim that computer simulations and computational science constitute a distinctively new set of scientific methods and that these methods introduce new issues in the philosophy of science. These issues are both epistemological and methodological in kind.     

How and how not to make predictions with temporal Copernicanism

Gott (Nature 363:315–319, 1993) considers the problem of obtaining a probabilistic prediction for the duration of a process, given the observation that the process is currently underway and began a time t ago. He uses a temporal Copernican principle according to which the observation time can be treated as a random variable with uniform probability density. A simple rule follows: with a 95% probability,

Brain correlates of early auditory processing are attenuated by expectations for time and pitch

The present study investigated how auditory processing is modulated by expectations for time and pitch by analyzing reaction times and event-related potentials (ERPs). In two experiments, tone sequences were presented to the participants, who had to discriminate whether the last tone of the sequence contained a short gap or was continuous (Experiment 1: go/nogo, Experiment 2: choice reaction). Expectations were induced by varying the temporal and pitch regularity of the sequence. Results were consistent across both experiments. Expectations for both time and pitch were associated with faster responding. Both temporal and pitch expectations led to an attenuation of the auditory N1, thus indicating a modulation of early, perceptual processing by temporal and pitch expectations. Effects of temporal expectations were also evident in a P300-like deflection, suggesting that temporal expectations also affect decision- or response-related processing stages.     

Deontic action logic, atomic boolean algebras and fault-tolerance

We introduce a deontic action logic and its axiomatization. This logic has some useful properties (soundness, completeness, compactness and decidability), extending the properties usually associated with such logics. Though the propositional version of the logic is quite expressive, we augment it with temporal operators, and we outline an axiomatic system for this more expressive framework. An important characteristic of this deontic action logic is that we use boolean combinators on actions, and, because of finiteness restrictions, the generated boolean algebra is atomic, which is a crucial point in proving the completeness of the axiomatic system. As our main goal is to use this logic for reasoning about fault-tolerant systems, we provide a complete example of a simple application, with an attempt at formalization of some concepts usually associated with fault-tolerance.     

Ethnicity, education, and the temporal stability of personality traits in the East Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area study

We examined the influence of age, gender, Black vs. White ethnicity, and education on five indices of personality stability and change across an average interval of 8 years in the East Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area study. In the full sample (n = 505, aged 30–88), examination of structural, rank-order, ipsative, and mean level stability, as well as indices of reliable change suggested that NEO-PI-R personality traits showed moderate to high levels of stability over time. There were few age and gender effects on temporal stability but rank-order, ipsative, and mean level stability were lower among Blacks and individuals with lower education. Future research should explore additional demographic predictors of temporal plasticity in a diverse range of samples, and employ observer ratings to assess personality.     

Dare to compare: Fact-based versus simulation-based comparison in daily life

We examined the relative frequency of social, counterfactual, past-temporal, and future-temporal comparison in daily life using an experience-sampling method, in which participants were randomly prompted to record thought samples using palmtop computers carried for two weeks. Comparative thought accounted for 12% of all thoughts, and all four comparison types occurred with equivalent frequency. Comparisons may be either fact-based (i.e., based on actuality, as in social and past-temporal comparison) or simulation-based (i.e., based on imagination, as in counterfactual and future-temporal comparison). Because the latter are more “unbounded,” and because greater perceived opportunity invites greater self-improvement, we predicted and found that counterfactual and future-temporal comparison were more likely to be upward (vs. downward) than social and past-temporal comparison. All comparison types focused on approach more than avoidance motives, except for counterfactuals, which showed equivalent focus on both. These findings reveal the prominence of comparative thought in daily life, and underscore the value of an integrative theory that describes social, counterfactual, or temporal comparison using a common theoretical platform.     

时间分层加工研究述评

为了探讨数秒内不同层级时间加工的特性,研究者分别从“时间信息加工”和“信息加工的计时特性”角度开展了一系列研究。Münsterberg (1889)、Michon(1985) 、Lewis 和 Miall(2003) 及Vierodt(1868)从前一角度,分别指出1/3秒、1/2秒、1秒及3秒可能是数秒以内时距加工机制的分界点,分界点以下与以上的加工机制存在差异。P?ppel(1997, 2009)则从后一角度指出限制信息加工过程的两类时间窗,一类时间窗是以20-60毫秒振荡周期运行的高频系统,属于初级整合单元;另一类时间窗主要是处理2-3秒以内事件系列的低频系统,属于高级整合单元。前一类时间窗可以为信息加工整合基本的心理事件,后一类时间窗则是把2-3秒内的心理事件整合为基本知觉单元。基于以往研究的剖析,我们认为1/3秒、1/2秒及1秒等分界点的真伪性尚需进一步验证,并进一步假设40毫秒以内时间不能觉察为时距;40毫秒至3秒之间,随着长度增加,自动化加工减弱,控制性加工增强;3秒以上主要为控制性加工,涉及记忆过程。     

The effect of level of construal on the temporal distance of activity enactment

A series of four studies demonstrates that, across different operationalizations of level of construal, different types of activities, and for both the self and another person as targets, construing activities in high-level terms fosters perception of the more distal future as appropriate for their enactment. Specifically, the studies show that thinking about superordinate “why” (rather than subordinate “how”) aspects of actions, about the implications of actions for one’s personality (rather than the objects that would be used in performing the action), and about abstract (rather than concrete) aspects of actions leads people to expect the actions to be performed in the more distant future. These results suggest that the association of level of construal and time perspective is bi-directional, in that time perspective affects level of construal and, in addition, level of construal affects time perspective.