情景预见对跨期决策的影响机制

为了探究情景预见对跨期决策的影响机制, 研究采用延迟折扣任务范式, 检验了在情景预见对跨期决策的影响中延迟时间知觉起到的中介作用。两个实验分别操纵了情景预见中未来事件与自我有关的信息和未来事件的情绪特征, 结果均发现情景预见通过改变个体对延迟等待时间的时距知觉影响了跨期决策。想象与自己、与母亲有关的未来事件, 想象积极、中性情绪效价的未来事件都使得被试将延迟等待时间知觉为较短的时间段, 更倾向于选择延迟奖励。想象消极情绪效价的未来事件使得被试将延迟等待时间知觉为较长的时间段, 更加偏好即时奖励。本研究有助于增进人们对情景预见影响跨期决策现象的理解。     

‘Torturing things until they confess’: Günther Anders' critique of technology

ELSI (Ethical, Legal and Social Implications) initiatives are frequently attached to major science programmes. The expectation is that ELSI research will produce a practical advanced assessment of the impacts of technological development. Williams' overview of the field demonstrates that this encourages a mechanistic understanding of technological development leading to compressed foresight, i.e. the notion that the future is imminent in the present. The development of the ELSI domain in Canada has been characterised by an affinity between the types of knowledge valorised by the field and modes of legal reasoning, suggesting a legal variant of compressed foresight. The concept of juridification and an analysis of two related modes of legal reasoning (analogy and reflective equilibrium) shed light on the connection between legal reasoning and the ELSI field in Canada. The deployment of the aforementioned modes of legal reasoning enables law to define and operationalise difficult questions by drawing on currently existing principles and precedents. Thus, when legal modes of reasoning are brought to bear on ELSI questions, the future is made a calculable and manageable extension of the present, dovetailing with the ELSI field's requirement of pragmatic, advanced assessment.     

The Origin of Foresight

The purpose of this article is to develop a framework for the origin of foresight. Following a review of arguments for foresight as genetically inherited versus environmentally acquired, the understanding of foresight is expanded through a behaviorist perspective and through an evolutionary perspective. The framework established makes it possible to deploy evolutionary logic to explain foresight as well as to enhance our understanding of foresight, both on individual (e.g., managerial) and aggregated (e.g., organizational) levels.     

What can What-When-Where (WWW) binding tasks tell us about young children's episodic foresight? Theory and two experiments

We analyze theoretical differences between conceptualist and minimalist approaches to episodic processing in young children. The ‘episodic-like’ minimalism of Clayton and Dickinson (1998) is a species of the latter. We asked whether an ‘episodic-like’ task (structurally similar to ones used by Clayton and Dickinson) in which participants had to bind What (kind of object), to Where (location of object) to When (temporal duration from present) - WWW-binding - would produce the often-found developmental trajectory in episodic foresight performance of failure at 3 years, transitional performance at 4 and success at 5. Although failure at 3 years was reproduced, the performance of 4 and 5 year olds was likely affected by the executive challenge of inhibiting reference to the currently preferable item.     

Episodic memory and episodic foresight in 3- and 5-year-old children

In the present study, we examined the development of episodic memory and episodic foresight. Three- and 5-year-olds were interviewed individually using a personalised timeline that included photographs of them at different points in their life. After constructing the timeline with the experimenter, each child was asked to discuss a number of different events: an event that happened yesterday, an event that happened earlier today, an event that would happen later today, and an event that would happen tomorrow. As judged by their parents, children's accounts were highly accurate. After controlling for age and language scores, there was a strong relation between amount of information reported about past and future events. Overall, 5-year-olds reported more total information than 3-year-olds; however, reports by 3-year-olds included a similar proportion of first-person reference as did reports by 5-year-olds. No age difference appeared in proportion of future-oriented talk. We conclude that the present task provides a promising method of exploring the emergence of mental time travel during early childhood.     

Commentary: The past and present of the future

Recent research on children's thinking about the future has taken multiple directions, many of which are illustrated in the contributions to this special issue. In this commentary the topic is discussed in the context of research on children's understanding of time, and some of the adaptive challenges of thinking about the future are considered. The studies in this issue show the emergence of some components of thinking about the future in early childhood. More research will be needed to illuminate abilities acquired at later ages and the representations and processes underlying humans’ thinking about the future.     

小学生预见性偏差及其削弱

采用三种不同去偏差方法,对不同年龄儿童的预见性偏差及削弱进行探讨。实验结果发现,二年级和三年级出现了预见性偏差,五年级没有出现预见性偏差;对于二年级儿童,只有基于理论的去偏差方法才能削弱预见性偏差。而三年级儿童,三种方法都能削弱预见性偏差。结果说明帮助他们建立正确的元认知理论可以有效提高他们元认知监测水平。     

Young Children Have Difficulty Predicting Future Preferences in the Presence of a Conflicting Physiological State

This study examined children's predictions about their future preferences when they were in two different physiological states (thirsty and not thirsty). Ninety 3‐ to 7‐year‐olds were asked to predict what they would prefer tomorrow: pretzels to eat or water to drink after having consumed pretzels, and again after having had the opportunity to quench their thirst with water. Results showed that although children initially preferred pretzels to water at baseline, they more often indicated that they would prefer water the next day after they had consumed pretzels. After consuming water, however, the same children indicated they would prefer pretzels the next day. Children's verbal justifications for their choices rarely made reference to their current or future states, but rather justifications were more likely to make reference to their general preferences when they were no longer thirsty compared to when they were thirsty. Results suggest that current physiological states have a powerful influence on future preferences. The findings are discussed in the context of the development of episodic foresight, the Bischof‐Kohler hypothesis, and the important and often overlooked role that children's current states play in future decision making. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

幼儿的自我投射能力对情景预见的影响:来自典型发展儿童和孤独症谱系障碍儿童的证据

情景预见是个体将自我投射到未来某个特定时间和地点预先体验可能发生的未来事件的一种能力。为了考察幼儿的自我投射能力在情景预见中的可能作用,本研究通过两个实验比较了从自己的视角和从他人视角完成情景预见任务时幼儿的表现。实验1选取236名3~5.5岁典型发展（Typically Developing,TD）幼儿,采用被试间设计发现,总体而言,幼儿为他人做预见优于为自己做预见。实验2采用被试内设计,在TD儿童身上验证了实验1的结果,同时发现,孤独症谱系障碍（Autism Spectrum Disorder,ASD）儿童为自己做预见与为他人做预见没有差异。综上,幼儿不成熟的自我投射能力会干扰其自我卷入的情景预见,而自我投射能力受损的ASD儿童则没有表现出这种影响。