Searching for the variables that control human rule‐governed “insensitivity”

Verbal rules or instructions often exert obvious and meaningful control over human behavior. Sometimes instructions benefit the individual by enabling faster acquisition of a skill or by obviating an aversive consequence. However, research has also suggested a clear disadvantage: “insensitivity” to changing underlying contingencies. The two experiments described here investigated the variables that control initial rule‐following behavior and rule‐following insensitivity. When the initial rule was inaccurate, behavior was consistent with the rule for approximately half of participants and all participants' behavior was mostly insensitive to changing contingencies. When the initial rule was accurate, behavior of all participants was consistent with it and behavior for nearly all participants was insensitive to changes in underlying contingencies. These findings have implications for how best to establish and maintain rule‐following behavior in applied settings when deviant behavior would be more reinforcing to the individual.     

Choice among two and three alternatives

Although choice between two alternatives has been widely researched, fewer studies have examined choice across multiple (more than two) alternatives. Past models of choice behavior predict that the number of alternatives should not affect relative response allocation, but more recent research has found violations of this principle. Five pigeons were presented with three concurrently scheduled alternatives. Relative reinforcement rates across these alternatives were assigned 9:3:1. In some conditions three keys were available; in others, only two keys were available. The number of available alternatives did not affect relative response rates for pairs of alternatives; there were no significant differences in behavior between the two and three key conditions. For two birds in the three‐alternative conditions and three birds in the two‐alternative conditions, preference was more extreme for the pair of alternatives with the lower overall pairwise reinforcer rate (3:1) than the pair with higher overall reinforcer rate (9:3). However, when responding during the changeover was removed three birds showed the opposite pattern in the three‐alternative conditions; preference was more extreme for the pair of alternatives with the higher overall reinforcer rate. These findings differ from past research and do not support established theories of choice behavior.     

Plato's Theory of Punishment and Penal Code in the Laws

I argue that the degree to which a criminal should be punished is determined by three elements: a baseline amount that proportionally compensates the victim and an additional penalty that, first, reforms the criminal and, second, deters others from becoming unjust. My interpretation provides a solution to the interpretive puzzle that has most vexed commentators: the alleged tension between Plato's philosophical theory of punishment and the content of his penal code. I defend a two-step solution to the puzzle. First, on my interpretation, because of the broad role that deterrence must play, this alleged tension is—to a degree—merely apparent. Second, the actual tension can be explained by Plato's commitment to the rule of law, given the epistemic limitations of actual people.     

医学职业显规则何以不再“败走麦城”

近些年来,医学职业显规则接连受挫,医学职业生态呈现非常态甚至反常态。其根本原因在于,医学职业显规则与潜规则二者并存且此消彼长。职业规则是职业精神的核心。若要真正颠覆医学职业潜规则,让医学职业显规则回归医学职业生活,从而恢复或重构医学职业精神,就必须克服现存的医学职业显规则的致命性缺欠,进行自身优化,即强化自己的权威性、情境性与实用性。     

Instructional effects on performance in a matching-to-sample study

Conducting studies using an undergraduate participant pool is fraught with difficulties. Among them are problems with adequately motivating subjects both to come to the study, and once there, to actively engage the experimental task. Thirty-one college students participated in a matching-to-sample (MTS) study involving substantial training, testing, retraining, and retesting of conditional discriminations and equivalence relations among four 4-member classes of nonsensical words. The study was conducted during the end of the semester, when performance often had been observed to be poorer than at other points in the semester. Eleven of the participants, in addition to standard instructions about the task, received additional instructions specifying molar consequences for high rates of "correct" responses throughout the procedure. This subset of participants displayed markedly improved performance as compared to those who did not receive the additional instructions. Results suggest that specification of molar contingencies improves participants' sensitivity to molecular contingencies within the study. Instructions that specify and increase the consequential functions of feedback provided during MTS trials may be one means of reducing unwanted variability in human MTS performance.     

The Problem of Confucian Moral Cultivation and Its Solution: Using Ritual Propriety to Support Rule by Law

Thinking about the decline of morality in post-reform China,the author analyzes the development of virtuous governance based on moral education,and concludes that the reason why ancient rulers were so infatuated with it was the inhibitive function of public evaluation on moral transgressions in familiar neighborhoods.However,as China transforms into a dynamic and commercial society,and its people move from familiar neighborhoods to alienated communities in the cities,public evaluation is losing its power over moral transgressors.To prevent the collapse of the moral system,it is necessary to use rule by law to foster people's sense of justice and rule-consciousness-not to simply hope for the appearance of more altruists.This is possible because law is the embodiment of moral principle,and because legal restraints and penalties can be internalized as habits.After a sense of justice and rule-consciousness has been established in people,we can again take up Confucian virtue education to nurture people's sense of shame and dignity,and their humane and righteous mind.However,to stop the current chaos and corruption,it is urgent that we adopt rule by law and supplement it with moral education.     

The Development of Traditional Chinese View of Rule of Law and Its Modern Transformation

In the traditional order of the “rule of rites,” social status and relationships always held priority positions, which apparently went against the realization of social justice; Legalists thought highly of objectivity and avoided subjective randomness, and were more reasonable in this regard. However, following the integration of rites and law in the Han Dynasty, the technical aspect of Legalism emphasizing control of society and of the populace was strengthened, and in the meanwhile, their “true spirit” became concealed before long. The main signs of this are follows: (1) In the order of the “rule of rites,” the objectivity of law was gradually devoured by the subjectivity of human beings, thus the tradition where “human relationships replace law” came into being; (2) The law, which had shown the spirit of equality to a certain extent in the guise of Legalism, now degraded into a tool to maintain a hierarchy; (3) Rights were separated from duties, that is, some people enjoyed “rights without duties” as much as they wanted, while the rest were forced to carry out “duties without rights.” As history has warned us, in ruling a country, one cannot stake even the least bit of fortune upon human nature, and there can be only one bottom line and criterion, that is, common strict observance of and respect to “rules.” That should be the great value of the lesson that the pre-Qin Legalism has left for future generations.     

内隐学习中的知识习得及其无意识性测量*

本研究采用经典的人工语法范式,并引入迁移任务探讨在记忆和规则探索两种指导语条件下,被试所习得的究竟是规则还是组块？同时采用结构知识主观测量的方法,对内隐学习习得知识的无意识性进行测量。结果发现记忆指导语条件下的被试能成功区分合法串和非法串,即出现语法学习效应,但规则探索指导语条件下的被试并没有表现出语法或组块学习效应,结构知识的主观测量发现这种内隐学习的优势效应主要来自无意识结构知识的贡献;在迁移研究中发现附带学习组和有意学习组均在迁移任务上表现出语法学习效应,这表明在人工语法学习中所获得的语法规则是抽象的和可迁移的。     

贝叶斯网在认知诊断属性层级结构确定中的应用

K. K. Tatsuoka和她同事研究的规则空间模型(RSM)是一种在国内外有较大影响的认知诊断模型, 但是Tatsuoka的RSM是由学科专家先从已编制的测验中抽取出属性, 然后给出测验的关联Q阵, 再由该Q阵导出属性间的层级关系。已有研究证明, 这种做法所得到的属性间的层级关系难以保证是正确的, 甚至难以保证属性间的层级关系是唯一确定的。这里利用贝叶斯网进行结构学习, 从被试的属性掌握模式中挖掘出属性间的层级关系, 学习所得到的层级关系可以用来验证由RSM中的方法得到的层级关系。模拟实验和实证研究的结果都显示了该方法所得到的属性层级关系是有参考价值的, 可以为命题或测量专家带来有用的信息。     

The use of recognition in group decision-making

Goldstein and Gigerenzer (2002) [Models of ecological rationality: The recognition heuristic. Psychological Review, 109 (1), 75-90] found evidence for the use of the recognition heuristic. For example, if an individual recognizes only one of two cities, they tend to infer that the recognized city has a larger population. A prediction that follows is that of the less-is-more effect: Recognizing fewer cities leads, under certain conditions, to more accurate inferences than recognizing more cities. We extend the recognition heuristic to group decision-making by developing majority and lexicographic models of how recognition information is used by groups. We formally show when the less-is-more effect is predicted in groups and we present a study where three-member groups performed the population comparison task. Several aspects of our data indicate that members who can use the recognition heuristic are, not in all but in most cases, more influential in the group decision process than members who cannot use the heuristic. We also observed the less-is-more effect and found that models assuming that members who can use the recognition heuristic are more influential better predict when the effect occurs.