Arbaeen Event as an Alternative to Esxisting Bottlenecks

Arbaeen event is the most significant religious tourism event for Shiites. Using the social interpretation approach, this study explores the context for Iranian Shiite participation and understanding of the Arbaeen event. The research methodology is qualitative. Data were collected using ethnography methods and analyzed by grounded theory. According to the results, the inefficiency of the internal decision-making system as a result of the government and its administrative system facing a variety of crises in various political, economic, social, and cultural arenas, as well as social inequality, contribute to this event's attendance. A feeling of religious discrimination and a lack of rights for the participants leads to this inequality. The meaning reconstruction of the pilgrims’ experience and perception serves as a channel for social participation and solidarity, cultural change, and a bridge between stakeholders and officials. The core category also refers to the Arbaeen event as an alternative to existing bottlenecks.     

On the Distinction Between the Motivating Operation and Setting Event Concepts

In recent decades, behavior analysts have generally used two different concepts to speak about motivational influences on operant contingencies: setting event and motivating operation. Although both concepts still appear in the contemporary behavior-analytic literature and were designed to address the same antecedent phenomena, the concepts are quite different. The purpose of the present article is to describe and distinguish the concepts and to illustrate their current usage.     

How will things be the next time? Self in the construction of future events among school-aged children

This study examined among school-aged children the role of the self in perceived valence changes from the past to the future. Nine- to 11-year-old children (N = 57) recalled positive and negative personal events of various situations and imagined a future personal event involving the same situation following each recall. Children’s self-knowledge was assessed in terms of self-concepts for past, present, and future selves, and self-evaluations for social and cognitive competences. Children who viewed their future selves more positively and those who evaluated their cognitive competence more positively anticipated greater upward (positive) changes and smaller downward (negative) changes in their future academic performance. Children who evaluated their social competence more positively anticipated greater upward changes in their future peer relations. Furthermore, children who anticipated greater upward changes and smaller downward changes in their personal futures exhibited greater well-being. These findings shed new light on the role of self in mental time travel.     

Using Ordinal Data to Estimate Cardinal Values

We investigate methods developed in multiple criteria decision‐making that use ordinal information to estimate numerical values. Such methods can be used to estimate attribute weights, attribute values, or event probabilities given ranks or partial ranks. We first review related studies and then develop a generalized rank‐sum (GRS) approach in which we provide a derivation of the rank‐sum approach that had been previously proposed. The GRS approach allows for incorporating the concept of degree of importance (or, difference in likelihood with respect to probabilities and difference in value for attribute values), information that most other rank‐based formulas do not utilize. We then present simulation results comparing the GRS method with other rank‐based formulas such as the rank order centroid method and comparing the GRS methods using as many as three levels of importance (i.e., GRS‐3) with Simos' procedure (which can also incorporate degree of importance). To our surprise, our results show that the incorporation of additional information (i.e., the degree of the importance), both GRS‐3 and Simos' procedure, did not result in better performance than rank order centroid or GRS. Further research is needed to investigate the modelling of such extra information. We also explore the scenario when a decision‐maker has indifference judgments and cannot provide a complete rank order. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tragedy or tragicomedy: Mixed feelings induced by positive and negative emotional events

Based on the theory of appraisal, we predicted that positive and negative events happening to the same people or things in a specific chronological order (i.e., a negative event following a positive event) would induce different mixed feelings than the same events happening to different people or things. Pairs of emotional pictures with different captions were used to create two event groups. In the “tragic event” group, the positive and negative events happened to the same person or things, and in the “tragicomic event” group, the positive and negative events happened to different people or things. We designed two experiments to explore and compare the generation of mixed feelings in those two groups. In Experiment 1, the negative event was shown first, and in Experiment 2, the negative event was shown second (although the chronological order of the depicted events was the same). The participants were 381 undergraduates: 195 in Experiment 1 and 186 in Experiment 2. In both experiments, we found that tragic events introduced less intense mixed feelings than did tragicomic events due to fewer pleasurable feelings induced by the tragic events. There was no significant difference in the report of negative emotions between the groups. Appraisal theory and negative bias effects may explain these results.     

Properties of bootstrap tests for N‐of‐1 studies

N‐of‐1 study designs involve the collection and analysis of repeated measures data from an individual not using an intervention and using an intervention. This study explores the use of semi‐parametric and parametric bootstrap tests in the analysis of N‐of‐1 studies under a single time series framework in the presence of autocorrelation. When the Type I error rates of bootstrap tests are compared to Wald tests, our results show that the bootstrap tests have more desirable properties. We compare the results for normally distributed errors with those for contaminated normally distributed errors and find that, except when there is relatively large autocorrelation, there is little difference between the power of the parametric and semi‐parametric bootstrap tests. We also experiment with two intervention designs: ABAB and AB, and show the ABAB design has more power. The results provide guidelines for designing N‐of‐1 studies, in the sense of how many observations and how many intervention changes are needed to achieve a certain level of power and which test should be performed.     

Event rate and reaction time performance in ADHD: Testing predictions from the state regulation deficit hypothesis using an ex-Gaussian model

According to the state regulation deficit (SRD) account, ADHD is associated with a problem using effort to maintain an optimal activation state under demanding task settings such as very fast or very slow event rates. This leads to a prediction of disrupted performance at event rate extremes reflected in higher Gaussian response variability that is a putative marker of activation during motor preparation. In the current study, we tested this hypothesis using ex-Gaussian modeling, which distinguishes Gaussian from non-Gaussian variability. Twenty-five children with ADHD and 29 typically developing controls performed a simple Go/No-Go task under four different event-rate conditions. There was an accentuated quadratic relationship between event rate and Gaussian variability in the ADHD group compared to the controls. The children with ADHD had greater Gaussian variability at very fast and very slow event rates but not at moderate event rates. The results provide evidence for the SRD account of ADHD. However, given that this effect did not explain all group differences (some of which were independent of event rate) other cognitive and/or motivational processes are also likely implicated in ADHD performance deficits.     

WISC-IV GAI and CPI profiles in healthy children and children with learning disabilities

IntroductionIn addition to the FSIQ, the General Ability Index (GAI) and the Cognitive Proficiency Index (CPI) are two ancillary scores that can be calculated for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale. The GAI and the CPI have been proposed to assist in identifying cognitive strengths and weaknesses, and thus to provide different views into individual's cognitive abilities.ObjectiveThe purpose of the present study is to provide the frequency of GAI/CPI score difference by direction, the frequency of FSIQ/GAI score difference, and the frequency of FSIQ/CPI score difference, for the French Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and Adolescents–Fourth Edition (WISC-IV).MethodThese frequencies are provided for a sample of healthy children (n = 483), and for a sample of children with learning disabilities (LD, n = 370). The GAI comprises verbal comprehension and perceptual reasoning subtests, while CPI comprises working memory and processing speed subtests.ResultsResults indicated that the healthy sample performed better than the LD sample for all composite scores. The FSIQ was lower than the GAI for both groups and this difference was slightly larger for the LD sample (−1.35 points vs. −3.22 points). The GAI was higher than the CPI for both samples, but this difference was not significantly larger for the LD sample (4.2 points vs. 6.16 points). Finally, while the FSIQ was higher than the CPI for both groups, this difference was not larger for the LD sample (2.85 points vs. 2.95 points).ConclusionThese findings support the use of the GAI and the CPI, in addition to the FSIQ.     

The effects of presentation rate and retention interval on memory for items and associations in younger adults: A simulation of older adults’ associative memory deficit

Older adults show an associative deficit in episodic memory compared to younger adults. Previous research suggests both strategic and automatic binding deficits contribute to older adults’ poorer memory performance. Using behavioral manipulations designed to affect strategic and automatic binding of associations, three experiments attempted to simulate an associative deficit in younger adults. In these experiments participants learned face-scene pairs and then were given item and associative recognition memory tests. We manipulated the time allotted at encoding and retrieval to simulate strategic deficits, and the length of the retention interval to simulate automatic deficits. Results indicate that both manipulations separately contribute to a differential decline in associative memory, similar to the one shown by older adults, especially as reflected in the differential increase in false alarm rate in the associative memory test more than in the item memory test. Considerations of possible underlying brain mechanisms are discussed.