Examining the trade‐off between confidence and optimism in future forecasts

Confident business forecasters are seen as more credible and competent (“confidence heuristic”). We explored a boundary condition of this effect by examining how individuals react to the trade‐off between confidence and optimism. Using hypothetical scenarios, we examined this trade‐off from the perspectives of judges (i.e., business owners who hired analysts to make sales predictions) and forecasters (i.e., the analysts hired to make predictions). Participants were assigned to the role of either judges or forecasters and were asked to rate 2 potential forecasts. In the “no trade‐off” condition, the 2 forecasts were aligned in optimism and confidence (the more confident forecast was also more optimistic); in the “trade‐off” condition, the more confident forecast was less optimistic. In Experiment 1, judges were more likely to positively evaluate confident forecasters when confident forecasters were the more (vs. less) optimistic ones. Experiment 2 demonstrated that forecasters were aware of judges' preferences for optimism and strategically relied on methods that resulted in more optimistic (but less reliable) predictions. Experiment 3 directly compared the perspectives of judges and forecasters, revealing that forecasters overestimated judges' preferences for optimism over confidence. The present studies show that forecasters and judges have different views of the trade‐off between confidence and optimism and that forecasters may unnecessarily sacrifice accuracy for optimism.     

教师背景变量对教师教学效果影响的多层线性分析

用《教师教学效果评价问卷(学生版)》问卷对高校181名教师的教学效果进行调查,用多层次分析法对影响教师教学效果的教师背景变量:教师性别、年龄、学历、职称、所教专业、年级、班级大小以及课程类别对教师教学效果影响程度进行分析,目的在于通过用多层分析法更合理分析教师背景变量对教学效果产生的影响,为客观比较教师教学效果之间的差异提供依据。研究结果表明:(1)多层次分析法得到比传统回归分析和方差分析更合理更准确的结果;(2)教师背景变量教师中性别、学历、专业以及所教班级的大小对于教师教学效果评价效果没有显著影响;(3)教师职称、年龄、所教学生年级、课程类别对教师的教学效果有显著影响;(4)所考察的教师水平背景变量对教学效果各个维度教师水平总变异的解释率介于3351%-4278%之间。     

Rapid eye movement sleep dreaming is characterized by uncoupled EEG activity between frontal and perceptual cortical regions

EEG coherent activity is involved in the binding of spatially separated but temporally correlated stimuli into whole events. Cognitive features of rapid eye movement sleep (REM) dreaming resemble frontal lobe dysfunction. Therefore, temporal coupling of EEG activity between frontal and perceptual regions was analyzed from 10 min prior to dream reports (8 adults) from stage-2 and REM sleep. EEG correlation between frontal and perceptual regions decreased and, among perceptual regions increased during REM. The temporal dissociation of EEG activity between executive and perceptual regions supplies an inadequate mechanism for the binding and interpretation of ongoing perceptual activity resulting in dream bizarreness.     

内隐序列学习与中央执行功能的关系

内隐序列学习与一般认知的关系一直处于争议之中。近年来,越来越多的研究显示内隐序列学习与工作记忆（尤其是中央执行功能）存在显著关联。基于此,本研究通过两个实验来探测两者的相关及机制。实验1从行为与脑电两个角度探讨经典位置序列学习与中央执行功能的相关,发现经典位置序列学习的内隐习得量与中央执行功能的抑制、刷新功能的强度呈负相关,与转换功能没有显著相关,脑电结果也支持了这一结论。实验2在内隐序列学习中加入认知冲突来增加中央执行功能的负荷。结果发现在高抑制功能负荷任务条件下,内隐习得量与抑制功能强度的相关性发生了反转,进一步证明内隐序列学习与中央执行功能的抑制子成分在脑功能上的关系：不同条件下呈现竞争、协作等不同状态。     

The role of the affect heuristic and cancer anxiety in responding to negative information about medical tests

Objective: Little is known about the affective implications of communicating negative information about medical tests. This research explored how affective processes – particularly the Affect Heuristic and cancer anxiety – influence the way in which people respond to such information.

Design: Participants received different types of information about PSA screening for prostate cancer and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans for migraine headaches. This was a 2 (Test harm information: present vs. absent) × 2 (Test benefit information: present vs. absent) × 2 (Test recommendation: present vs. absent) between-participants design.

Outcome Measures: Perceived risk, perceived benefit and general attitudes towards PSA and MRI testing, cancer anxiety, preferences to receive the tests vs. not.

Results: As predicted by the Affect Heuristic, test harm information reduced perceived test benefits. However, information about uncertain test benefit did not increase perceived test risks. Information about the test reduced cancer anxiety, indicating defensive coping. These variables – affect, anxiety, perceived risks and benefits – all uniquely predicted test preferences.

Conclusion: Affective processes play an important role in how people respond to and interpret negative information about medical tests. Information about harms and information about the lack of benefit can both make a test seem less beneficial, and will reduce cancer anxiety as a result.     

世界大学排名比较中的再认启发式和线索推断

针对三种世界大学排名比较任务(综合实力、商业与管理专业、农业与林业专业),用问卷调查了208名大学生并考察其利用再认启发式和额外线索作推断的情况。结果发现:(1)被试在前两种任务中的正确率均超过60%,选择可再认学校的比率及其正确率也较高;(2)比较类别对再认的选择率及其正确率均有显著影响,效应量很大;(3)再认效度较低或无法利用再认时,被试的选择在不同程度上符合外国线索或专长线索的预测;(4)多出一条不利线索时,再认选择率比只有再认线索时有所降低但不低于50%,多出一条有利线索时,再认选择率的变化因线索而异,不一定显著地增加。     

A necessity illusion for modal inferences from conditionals

Three experiments examined how people reason about what is possible or necessary when a conditional is true. Participants were asked to indicate whether it was necessary, possible or impossible for a specific instance to conform to one of the truth-table cases (pq, p¬q, ¬pq and ¬p¬q) (¬ = not), given the truth of the conditional. It was found that most participants, inconsistently, judged the pq case as necessary but the ¬pq or ¬p¬q cases as possible. Logically, these two kinds of judgments are contradictory. Moreover, a true conditional doesn’t imply that a specific instance under the conditional must be pq . Therefore, people demonstrate a necessity illusion for pq cases which contradicts their commitment to the possibility of ¬pq or ¬p¬q cases. Existing accounts of conditionals are unable to explain the contradiction and the necessity illusion. We propose an inference dissociation account and explore the theoretical implications of this necessity illusion.     

Comparing dependent robust correlations

Let r₁ and r₂ be two dependent estimates of Pearson's correlation. There is a substantial literature on testing H₀ : ρ₁ = ρ₂, the hypothesis that the population correlation coefficients are equal. However, it is well known that Pearson's correlation is not robust. Even a single outlier can have a substantial impact on Pearson's correlation, resulting in a misleading understanding about the strength of the association among the bulk of the points. A way of mitigating this concern is to use a correlation coefficient that guards against outliers, many of which have been proposed. But apparently there are no results on how to compare dependent robust correlation coefficients when there is heteroscedasicity. Extant results suggest that a basic percentile bootstrap will perform reasonably well. This paper reports simulation results indicating the extent to which this is true when using Spearman's rho, a Winsorized correlation or a skipped correlation.     

Contributions to Estimation of Polychoric Correlations

This research concerns the estimation of polychoric correlations in the context of fitting structural equation models to observed ordinal variables by multistage estimation. The first main contribution of this research is to propose and evaluate a Monte Carlo estimator for the asymptotic covariance matrix (ACM) of the polychoric correlation estimates. In multistage estimation, the ACM plays a prominent role, as overall test statistics, derived fit indices, and parameter standard errors all depend on this quantity. The ACM, however, must itself be estimated. Established approaches to estimating the ACM use a sample-based version, which can yield poor estimates with small samples. A simulation study demonstrates that the proposed Monte Carlo estimator can be more efficient than its sample-based counterpart. This leads to better calibration for established test statistics, in particular with small samples. The second main contribution of this research is a further exploration of the consequences of violating the normality assumption for the underlying response variables. We show the consequences depend on the type of nonnormality, and the number and location of thresholds. The simulation study also demonstrates that overall test statistics have little power to detect the studied forms of nonnormality, regardless of the ACM estimator.