Social influence on predictions of simulated stock prices

Herding in financial markets refers to that investors are influenced by others. This study addresses the importance of consistency for herding. It is suggested that, in financial markets perceptions of consistency are based on repeated observations over time. Consistency may then be perceived as the agreement across time between investors' predictions. In addition, consistency may be related to variance over time in each investor's predictions. In an experiment using a Multiple Cue Probability Learning paradigm, 96 undergraduates made multi‐trial predictions of future stock prices given information about the current price and the predictions made by five fictitious others. Consistency was varied between the others' predictions (correlation) and within the others' predictions (variance). The results showed that the predictions were significantly influenced by the others' predictions when these were correlated. No effect of variance was observed. Hence, participants were influenced by the others when they were in agreement, regardless of whether they varied their predictions over trials or not. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

归因是怎样影响假设思维的

考察了归因这一外力对假设思维的影响。研究发现归因对假设思维的影响与选择原因大小成正比与事件后果严重程度成反比。当选择原因相对后果而言足够大时,假设思维将不服从“特例－常规”规律。在此基础上,根据是否存在外力将事件分为被迫事件和自由事件,并提出“特例－常规”规律（或是“做－不做”规律）只适合自由事件而不是所有事件。这一结果部分地解释了长期存在于实验研究与现场研究中的假设思维所表现出的差异。     

Manda suppresses emotional stress-induced stomach ulcers in rats

Manda, a natural product made by yeast fermentation of many fruits and black sugar, has antioxidant activity. In the present study, manda prevented stomach ulcers caused by immobilization-induced emotional stress. Manda [5% manda solution (w/v)] and saline as control, were administered by a canula into the stomach of each experimental animal subsequently after 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 hours from the start of the emotional stress. We classified the severity of gastric lesion formation induced by immobilization with each rat lying on its back for 6 hours at room temperature on a five-grade scale. The control rats all showed congestion and some degree of bleeding in the mucosa of the stomach. However, of the experimental rats, one showed no hemorrhagic lesions only congestion in four cases, and slight or moderate bleeding in eight cases with no massive bleeding cases. The distribution of these data significantly differ from that of the control rats, which suffered the greater damage (X²=10.589,p<0.05). In light microscopic examinations, the control rats showed necrosis in the gastric mucous membranes, desquamation, and bleeding of gastric mucosa. However, the rats treated with manda showed only congestion and did not show erosion or hemorrhage. These results suggest that manda or manda metabolite(s) was absorbed from the stomach and may have produced these action. In the meantime, we are analyzing manda components to try to isolate the active ingredient(s)     

医疗体制改革应该以二级制为基础——评《哈佛报告》

香港特别行政区政府委托美国哈佛大学一个专家小组对香港的医疗制度作了一个全面评估,并就目前的融资安排（ｆｉｎａｎｃｉａｌａｒｒａｎｇｅｍｅｎｔ）提出改革方案。小组发表的报告对香港医疗制度作了很多中肯批评,但所提出的融资改革方案却极受争议。方案的主要缺点是违背医疗二级制的精神,令自由选择、关怀和社会公义（ｓｏｃｉａｌｊｕｓｔｉｃｅ）等价值难以得到实现。     

Alternative Possibilities and Moral Responsibility: The Flicker of Freedom

Some defenders of the principle of alternative possibilities (PAP) have responded to the challenge of Frankfurt-style counterexamples (FSCs) to PAP by arguing that there remains a flicker of freedom -- that is, an alternative possibility for action -- left to the agent in FSCs. I argue that the flicker of freedom strategy is unsuccessful. The strategy requires the supposition that doing an act-on-one's-own is itself an action of sorts. I argue that either this supposition is confused and leads to counter-intuitive results; or, if the supposition is acceptable, then it is possible to use it to construct a FSC in which there is no flicker of freedom at all. Either way, the flicker of freedom strategy is ineffective against FSCs. Since the flicker of freedom strategy is arguably the best defense of PAP, I conclude that FSCs are successful in showing that PAP is false. An agent can act with moral responsibility without having alternative possibilities available to her.     

Responses

This essay consists in my replies to Professors John Martin Fischer, Patricia Greenspan, Eleonore Stump, Peter van Inwagen and Gary Watson regarding various aspects of my analysis of moral responsibility.     

RALPH WENDELL BURHOE: HIS LIFE AND HIS THOUGHT

Abstract. This third installment in David Breed's intellectual biography of Ralph Wendell Burhoe focuses upon the impact of his thought on the Unitarian Universalist Association and that group's role in Burhoe's career. Dana McLean Greeley, elected president of the American Unitarian Association in 1958, was a key figure in Burhoe's eventual participation in the project, "The Free Church in a Changing World." Burhoe's emphasis on the need for doctrine that could communicate religious wisdom in terms of science stood in tension with free-church tradition. Nevertheless, the section of the project's final report, titled "Theology and the Frontiers of Learning," largely accepted Burhoe's program for a new natural theology based on science. This project brought Burhoe's program to the attention of the denomination and led to the invitation in 1964 from Malcolm Sutherland, on behalf of Meadville/Lombard Theological School in Chicago, of which he was president, for Burhoe to implement his program in the new curriculum of that school. Burhoe accepted.     

Rapid determinations of preference in multiple concurrent-chain schedules.

With concurrent chains arranged for a pigeon's key pecks, pecks on two concurrently available initial-link keys (left and right) respectively produce separately operating terminal links (A and B). Preferences for terminal link A over terminal link B are usually calculated as deviations of relative initial-link response rates (left divided by total pecks) from those during baseline conditions, when A equals B. Baseline preferences, however, are often variable and typically are determined indirectly (e.g., with unequal A and B, reversing left-right assignments of A and B over sessions and estimating the baseline from differences between the relative rates generated). Multiple concurrent-chain schedules, with components each consisting of a pair of concurrent chains, speed the determination of preferences by arranging A and B and their reversal within sessions. In two experiments illustrating the feasibility of this procedure, one component operated with circles projected on initial-link keys and the other with pluses; when left and right initial-link pecks respectively produced terminal links A and B in one component, they produced B and A in the other. Even as the baselines fluctuated, preference was observable within sessions as the difference between relative initial-link response rates in the two components. The first experiment demonstrated the rapid development of preferences when terminal links A and B consisted of fixed-interval 15-s and 30-s schedules. The second demonstrated the sensitivity of the procedure to preference for a fixed-interval 30-s schedule operating for pecks on either of two keys (free choice) over its operating for pecks on only a single key (forced choice).     

Mind,Consciousness, and Free Will

This commentary discusses how philosophy and science can collaborate to understand the human mind, considering dialogues involving three philosophers and three cognitive scientists. Their topics include the relation of philosophy and science, the nature of mind, the problem of consciousness, and the existence of free will. I argue that philosophy is more general and normative than science, but they are interdependent. Philosophy can build on the cognitive sciences to develop a theory of mind I call “multilevel materialism,” which integrates molecular, neural, mental, and social mechanisms. Consciousness is increasingly being understood as resulting from neural mechanisms. Scientific advances make the traditional concept of free will implausible, but “freeish” will is consistent with new theories of decision making and action resulting from brain processes. Philosophers should work closely with scientists to address profound problems about knowledge, reality, and values.     

Centrality ratings,forensic relevance,and production frequency: Which one best identifies central and peripheral items?

Production frequency has often been used to identify central and peripheral information, under the assumption that high frequency implies that the item is central. However, no research to date has tested the relationship between centrality and frequency. Participants watched a video of a bank robbery and completed a free recall test, from which frequency for recalled items was computed. Two groups then watched the same video and rated centrality and forensic relevance for each item. Results showed that most, but not all, items with high frequency were rated as central and forensically relevant but that low frequency items were not diagnostic of either item centrality or forensic relevance. Forensic relevance was a better indicator of item centrality than frequency. We concluded that frequency measures should be avoided to determine centrality. Also, if centrality ratings cannot be collected, forensic relevance ratings may be more appropriate for this purpose.