Improving judgmental forecasts with judgmental bootstrapping and task feedback support

This study examines the utility of two widely advocated methods for supporting judgmental forecasts—providing task feedback and providing judgmental bootstrapping support. In a simulated laboratory based experiment that focused on producing composite sales forecasts from three individual components, we compared the effectiveness of these two methods in improving final judgmental forecasts. In the presence of cognitive feedback task, feedback led to better forecasts than providing judgmental bootstrap forecasts. Simply providing bootstrap forecasts was of no additional benefit over a control condition. This was true in terms of the Brunswik Lens model measures of achievement, knowledge, and consistency, and in terms of forecast accuracy. This occurred both in stable environments and when special events (unusual one‐time events requiring adjustments to the forecasts) arose. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Learning in the brain–computer interface: insights about degrees of freedom and degeneracy from a landscape model of motor learning

In this paper, we examine the role of degrees of freedom and their degeneracy in learning in the brain–computer interface paradigm. Though the traditional notion of degrees of freedom in motor learning gave emphasis to muscle and joint activity, the broader concept of dimensions of behavior is relevant to brain–computer interface learning where there is no muscle activity. The role of degeneracy in the dimensions of brain activity is proposed to enhance learning through robustness to stability loss and adaptability in the search for new stable states. Principles for the application of augmented information for learning to coordinate and control the degenerate degrees of freedom in the brain–computer interface are outlined.     

De‐escalation after repeated negative feedback: emergent expectations of failure

Research on willingness to make marginal investments (e.g., the escalation and sunk cost literatures) has often focused on project completion decisions, such as the “radar‐blank plane.” This paper discusses a fundamentally different type of marginal investment decision, that of couples deciding whether to continue infertility treatment in the face of repeated failures. Two experiments based on this context show that when people face multiple independent chances to achieve a valued goal but are unsure about chances of success, premature quitting or “de‐escalation” is the norm. Repeated negative feedback appears to induce individuals to see each successive failure as more and more diagnostic. As a result, even a short series of failed attempts evokes beliefs that future attempts will also fail. These emergent expectations of failure, generated by causal attribution processes, associative learning, and/or discounting of ambiguous information, appear very compelling and induce people to forgo profitable marginal investments. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychologists in Academic Health Settings: Key Contributors to Dynamic Interplay Among Research, Clinical Practice, and Policy Domains

Psychologists in academic health systems are in a unique position to impact the dynamic interplay among research, clinical practice, and policy domains. In addition to their specialty expertise in psychopathology, particular types of physical illness and disease, and health promotion, psychologists have substantial knowledge of human behavior, refined scientific skills, knowledge and experience in the effective delivery of clinical services, strengths in written expression, and a collaborative orientation. This combination of strengths makes psychologists extremely well-suited for (a) interdisciplinary efforts to develop and implement evidence-based assessment and intervention strategies with biological, psychological, behavioral, and social components, and (b) leadership and advocacy efforts that impact the quality and availability of health care services.     

具体情绪及非依随反馈方式对自我妨碍的影响

该研究采用实验法考察了具体情绪以及非依随反馈方式对自我妨碍的影响。被试为104名大学生。结果表明：1）愉快组被试做出的决策型自我妨碍行为较少;恐惧组被试做出的回避型自我妨碍较多。2）两种非依随反馈方式对自我妨碍的影响没有显著差异。3）无论是决策型自我妨碍还是回避型自我妨碍,男生均高于女生。     

Exploring the informational sources of metaperception: the case of Change Blindness Blindness

Perceivers generally show a poor ability to detect changes, a condition referred to as “Change Blindness” (CB). They are, in addition, “blind to their own blindness”. A common explanation of this “Change Blindness Blindness” (CBB) is that it derives from an inadequate, “photographical” folk-theory about perception. This explanation, however, does not account for intra-individual variations of CBB across trials. Our study aims to explore an alternative theory, according to which participants base their self-evaluations on two activity-dependent cues, namely search time and perceived success in prior trials. These cues were found to influence self-evaluation in two orthogonal ways: success-feedback influenced self-evaluation in a global, contextual way, presumably by recalibrating the norm of adequacy for the task. Search time influenced it in a local way, predicting the success of a given trial from its duration.     

任务难度和反馈学习对儿童类比推理能力的影响

该研究采用情景类比任务,通过两个实验对180名小学生进行纸笔测验,探讨了任务难度对儿童类比推理能力的影响.结果发现:进行反馈学习以降低任务难度时,7～8岁儿童能完成更高年龄段儿童才能完成的任务;但增加任务难度,11岁以上儿童也表现出类比推理能力的弱化.结果提示,儿童是否能在类比推理任务中表现出相应的能力可能取决于任务难度,反馈学习可促进一定年龄段内儿童的类比推理能力发展.本结果为有机融合皮亚杰和Goswami等人的观点提供了有效的实验依据.     

成败反馈对大学生核心自我评价的影响：任务重要性、外向性的调节作用

该研究以247名大学生为被试,采用2（反馈类型：成功、失败）×2（任务重要性：重要任务、不重要任务）×2（外向性：内向、外向）组间设计探讨成败反馈对大学生核心自我评价的影响,以及任务重要性和外向性在其中的调节作用。结果表明：（1）反馈类型、任务重要性和外向性对核心自我评价变化的主效应及三者的交互作用效应均显著。（2）成败反馈与任务重要性对核心自我评价变化存在显著的交互作用;简单效应分析表明,在失败反馈条件下,执行重要任务被试核心自我评价的下降幅度显著大于执行不重要任务被试核心自我评价的下降幅度。（3）成败反馈与外向性对核心自我评价变化存在显著的交互作用;简单效应分析显示,在失败反馈条件下,外向被试核心自我评价的下降幅度显著小于内向被试。（4）在失败反馈条件下,任务重要性和外向性对核心自我评价的变化存在交互作用。     

人类的近似数量系统

近似数量系统(Approximate Number System, ANS)指个体在不需要依赖于计算和数量符号的情况下, 对一组数量进行近似表征的系统。通过总结近十年来研究者们在ANS的遗传和神经基础、干预训练等方面取得的新进展, 指出未来应综合运用各种认知神经科学研究手段立足于ANS的基因和脑生理基础研究, 进一步揭示ANS的本质和内在发生发展机制, 并将有关研究发现运用到教育教学中, 对数学困难儿童进行干预, 以提高其数学能力和适应社会的能力。