Externally controlled involuntary cognitions and their relations with other representations in consciousness

Percepts and action-related urges often enter consciousness insuppressibly. The Reflexive Imagery Task (RIT) was developed to investigate how high-level cognitions (e.g., subvocalizations), too, can enter consciousness in this manner. Limitations of the paradigm include (a) that no data have confirmed subjects’ introspections about the involuntary subvocalizations, and (b) that, in everyday life, adaptive responses to involuntary cognitions often depend on the nature of the other contents in consciousness. To address a and b, we developed an RIT in which subjects were presented with visual objects and instructed to not think of the object names. If a subvocalization did arise, however, subjects responded motorically only if the subvocalization rhymed with a word held in memory and if there was a visual “go” cue. Subjects successfully (on 0.83 of the trials) emitted this complex, “multi-determined” response, which provides evidence for the occurrence of the involuntary subvocalizations and illuminates the function of consciousness.     

Identifying and prioritizing factors influencing the selection of the top suppliers of e‐procurement using FDEMATEL and FANP

The aim of this study is to identify, rank, and determine the importance of factors influencing the selection of the top supplier of electronic procurement in organizations using a hybrid approach. This is a case study of Irancell Telecommunication Service Company in which fuzzy decision‐making trial and evaluation (FDEMATEL) and fuzzy analytical network process (FANP) were used. FDEMATEL was employed to determine the interaction and interrelationships among the identified criteria and subcriteria, while utilizing FANP to calculate the weights of the criteria and their relevant subcriteria to determine their priorities. Therefore, the research literature was first reviewed to identify the factors influencing the selection of suppliers. For this purpose, the experts on communication networks were interviewed to select 16 final factors as the most important subcriteria that were then categorized as 5 groups (technology, environmental, services, organizational, and commercial) on which the study was based. After extracting the criteria for ranking the suppliers, codifying evaluation questionnaire, and converting the opinions in the Likert scale, 16 criteria were finally chosen with scores above the mean. FDEMATEL was used to determine the weights of subcriteria. In the final step, FANP was employed for prioritization. Results indicate that the organizational criterion is the most influential factor; however, the criterion services is the most permeable factor. The greatest weights were obtained from production capacity and provisions and geographical situation which were weighted 0.097 and 0.039, respectively. They are also regarded as the most and least important criteria for the selection of the top supplier of e‐procurement by the experts.     

Fast and frugal heuristics and naturalistic decision making: a review of their commonalities and differences

Both the fast and frugal heuristics (FFHs) and the naturalistic decision making (NDM) research programmes have identified important areas of inquiry previously neglected in the traditional study of human judgment and decision making, and have greatly contributed to the understanding of people's real-world decision making under environmental constraints. The two programmes share similar theoretical arguments regarding the rationality, optimality, and role of experience in decision making. Their commonalities have made them appealing to each other, and efforts have been made, by their leading academics, to promote synergy and integration. However, there has been little progress towards this during the last decade. This paper seeks to address this gap by seeking to better understand their commonalities and differences. To do so, literature relating to the two programmes is reviewed. The findings of the review indicated that an integration of the two could enhance FFHs' field research in applied settings, facilitate its investigation on boundary conditions of people's decision strategy selection, enable NDM to embrace emerging research opportunities in the age of big data, as well as permit each programme to enlighten the research topics and to validate the research findings of the other.     

Decision-making quality of younger and older adults in familiar and unfamiliar domains

Age-related differences in purchasing decisions were examined as a function of age and familiarity. On each trial, participants received purchasing options which varied in quality but ultimately cost the same amount of money. On half the trials, participants made decisions about items familiar to younger adults and on the other half of the trials, participants made decisions about products familiar to older adults. The participants’ task was to choose the option that provided the best value for the money. We were particularly interested in participants’ performance when inferencing was required to select the optimal option from the two choices. Younger adults outperformed older adults in unfamiliar but not familiar domains. It appeared that both younger and older adults used inferencing and elaborative processing to make the best decision in familiar domains but that only younger adults used inferencing and elaborative processing in unfamiliar domains.     

Maximizing,choice freedom,and duration judgments in choice making

This paper examines (a) whether people are less accurate in judging choice time as choice tasks involve more choice options, more choice information, or a combination of both and (b) whether people with a higher tendency to look for the best option in choice making (maximizers) have less accurate duration judgments of choice time as compared to people who are more easily settling for a choice outcome that is satisfactory (satisficers). A multilevel analysis is used to explore the relationships of interest using data collected through a series of choice tasks. In general, the results suggest that people seem to misjudge time durations when making choices. Moreover, empirical evidence demonstrates that people with an outspoken tendency to maximize in choice making do not differ significantly in estimating choice time accurately as compared to people who experience almost no need to maximize.     

航空决策模型及其影响因素分析

航空决策指在航空飞行驾驶过程中,飞行员面对特定情境做出最佳决策时的心理过程。情景评估和风险评估是航空决策模型中最重要的两个阶段。个体认知因素、疲劳和动机因素以及知识经验的限制会导致不良航空决策,组织压力和社会因素则通过混淆飞行员对飞行安全的看法间接影响航空决策。在未来的研究中,研究者应当重视构建更合理的航空决策模型,从辩证的角度全面看待知识经验与飞行安全的关系,加强对动机因素和环境因素的调查分析和实验性研究。     

基于努力决策任务在精神分裂症患者动机缺失评估中的应用

国外运用基于努力决策任务,与阴性症状量表和访谈相结合,对精神分裂症患者的阴性症状特别是动机缺失进行研究。本文从基于努力决策任务出发,重点介绍该任务范式及其在精神分裂症患者动机缺失评估中的最新研究,并从心理学、神经生物学和脑神经科学三个维度,阐述动机缺失的认知神经机制,论文结尾讨论了该任务范式在评估精神分裂症患者或其他患者动机缺失中可能遇到的挑战,以及未来的发展趋势。     

On psychoanalytic supervision

The author provides both a theoretical context for, and clinical illustrations of, the way in which he thinks and works as a psychoanalytic supervisor. The analytic supervisory experience is conceived of as a form of 'guided dreaming'. In the supervisory relationship, the supervisor helps the analyst to dream (to do conscious and unconscious psychological work with) aspects of the analytic relationship that the analyst is unable to dream or is only partially able to dream. It is the task of the supervisory pair to 'dream up' the patient, that is, to create a 'fi ction' that is true to the supervisee's emotional experience with the analysand. To carry out this work, the supervisor must provide a frame that ensures the supervisee's freedom to think and dream and be alive to what is occurring in the analytic and the supervisory relationship, as well as in the interplay between the two. In one of the clinical illustrations presented, the author illustrates his conception of the importance of the feeling on the part of supervisor and supervisee that (at least occasionally) they have 'time to waste'. Such a state of mind may provide an opportunity for a type of freely associative thinking that enhances the range and depth of what can be learned from the supervisory experience. In another clinical example, the author describes his own experience in supervision with Harold Searles, which contributed to his conception of the supervisory process.     

The role of desires in sequential impulsive choices

The present research provides evidence for a sequential mitigation effect, which is the phenomenon that participation in a prior impulsive choice task significantly reduces the decision maker’s likelihood of choosing impulsively in a subsequent task. The results of five experiments: (a) provide evidence for the Sequential Mitigation Effect using different study materials and contexts (Experiments 1–3), (b) show that prior impulsive (as opposed to non-impulsive) choice is required for the effect to occur (Experiment 4), and (c) find that the decision maker’s chronic sensitivity to positive and negative outcomes moderates the effect (Experiment 5). The results support the notion that desire for impulsive options functions as a limited motivational resource, and being consumed in the first task, is experienced to a lesser extent in the second task. The sequential mitigation effect may be characterized as a motivational contextual influence on decision making, complementing existing research showing that cognitive context effects influence sequential choices.