Similar Processes Despite Divergent Behavior in Two Commonly Used Measures of Risky Decision Making

Performance on complex decision-making tasks may depend on a multitude of processes. Two such tasks, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART), are of particular interest because they are associated with real world risky behavior, including illegal drug use. We used cognitive models to disentangle underlying processes in both tasks. Whereas behavioral measures from the IGT and BART were uncorrelated, cognitive models revealed two reliable cross-task associations. Results suggest that the tasks similarly measure loss aversion and decision-consistency processes, but not necessarily the same learning process. Additionally, substance-using individuals (and especially stimulant users) performed worse on the IGT than healthy controls did, and this pattern could be explained by reduced decision consistency.     

The (Gendered) Construction of Diagnosis Interpretation of Medical Signs in Women Patients

Medicine maintains a distinction between the medical symptom -- the patient'ssubjective experience and expression, and the privileged medical sign -- the objective findings observable by the doctor. Although the distinction is not consistently applied, it becomes clearly visible in the undefined, medically unexplained disorders of women patients. Potential impacts of genderized interaction on the interpretation of medical signs are addressed by re-reading the diagnostic process as a matter of social construction, where diagnosis results from human interpretation within a sociopolitical context. The discussion is illustrated by a case story and empirical evidence of the gendering in the doctor-patient relationship. The theoretical analysis is supported by semiotic perspectives of bodily signs, feminist theory on experience, and Foucault'sideas about medical perception and gaze, and concludes that a medical diagnosis is seldom a biological fact, but the outcome of a process where biological, cultural and social elements are interwoven. Further deconstruction of the chain of signs from a feminist perspective, assigning validity to the voice of the woman patient, might broaden the understanding of women'shealth, illness and disease.     

Risky choice as a function of amount and variance in food supply.

In Experiment 1, 4 rats earned their daily food ration by choosing on a trials basis between a "risky" and a "riskless" lever. The risky lever produced either 15 45-mg food pellets or no pellets, and on average provided five pellets per choice. The riskless lever always produced three pellets. Across conditions, the number of trials per session was varied. Body weight and choice of the risky lever decreased as the number of trials per session decreased, even though body weight could only be defended by increased choice of the risky lever. In Experiment 2, trials per session were fixed, but the number of pellets delivered by the risky and riskless levers was either at the same level as in Experiment 1 or tripled from those levels. Now choice of the risky lever was inversely related to the size of reinforcement and to body weight. The results of these experiments show that risk aversion covaries with the amount of food available in a session and the daily variance in the amount of food earned.     

Neonatal imitation, gaze aversion, and mother-infant interaction

A relationship between elicited imitation in neonates and social interaction has been proposed by several investigators. The present work examines if such a relationship can be found when studying neonatal imitation, gaze aversion, and mother-infant interaction. Thirty-two infants were observed at 2 to 3 days, 3 weeks, and 3 months of age. Imitation of tongue protrusion and mouth opening was assessed in all three observations. In addition, a face-to-face interaction between mother and child was included when the child reached 3 months of age. The most striking result was a negative relationship between the infants' brief gaze aversion observed at 3 months of age while interacting with their mothers and the infants' imitative reactions at 2 to 3 days, 3 weeks, and 3 months of age. Behaviorally, these patterns indicate that high-imitating infants tend to display fewer episodes of brief gaze aversion when interacting with their mothers.     

Aversive potency of urine from dominant and subordinate male laboratory mice (Mus musculus): Resolution of a conflict

The present study assessed the aversive potency of urine collected from male albino mice that had been clearly identified as dominants/winners or subordinates/losers of paired aggression tests and then housed either individually or in a quasi-paired situation in which only a wire-mesh divider separated the two mice. This divider permitted constant visual, olfactory, auditory, and some tactile contact. The responses of individually tested, group-housed males were recorded when half of the substrate in a test box was treated with either water or one of the four urine types; the other half remained untreated. Significant preferences for the untreated half were found when the urine of winners or losers housed in individual metabolism cages or that of pair-housed dominants was used as the test stimulus. On the other hand, neither water nor the urine of cohabiting subordinate males was avoided. The present findings confirmed our earlier reports that the urine of dominant male mice was aversive, whereas that of their cohabiting subordinate partners was not. They also identified Sawyer's [1978] procedure of housing winners and losers in individual cages, with the consequent interruption of social contact as the likely reason for his failure to replicate our reports that subordinate male urine lacked aversive properties. The territorial implications of the aversive factor and other urinary signals are discussed.     

眼睛注视：独特的还是不独特的？

眼睛注视作为面孔信息的一个重要成分,越来越多的研究表明其具有特殊的心理学性质。文章从眼睛注视的特殊性出发,综述了眼睛的特殊形态、心理学功能与面孔识别在机制上的独立性,并重点阐述了其在反射性注意中的行为、电生理和脑成像研究,最后探讨了眼睛注视在心理理论、情绪及自我方面的研究。     

ADHD的抑制缺陷和厌恶延迟—来自双通道理论的解释

行为抑制理论认为抑制功能的落后是ADHD的核心缺损所在,Sonuga-Barke的厌恶延迟理论认为ADHD起因是厌恶延迟而非抑制缺损,但该理论并不能解释ADHD的全部症状,Sonuga-Barke将厌恶延迟理论作了修正,提出了双通道模型。该模型认为ADHD的抑制缺陷和厌恶延迟同时存在,相互独立,模型的认知发展通道关注抑制控制缺陷对ADHD的影响,而动机发展通道则认为ADHD儿童是因奖励回路紊乱而引起异常的厌恶延迟的动机风格。本文介绍了双通道理论及相关的研究及其应用于ADHD诊断和干预的价值和局限性。     

自尊与模糊决策中的决策偏好

从自尊的角度出发,与是否需要承担决策结果的责任相结合,探讨了低自尊、中等自尊和高自尊水平下的被试在模糊决策中的决策偏好。结果发现：角色差异对决策偏好没有影响;自尊水平的高低对决策偏好有影响,高自尊被试与中等、低自尊被试相比,更容易模糊规避。支持了高自尊个体比低自尊个体更具有防御反应的理论。     

Myopic loss aversion: Demystifying the key factors influencing decision problem framing

Advancement of myopic loss aversion theory has been hamstrung by conflicting results, methodological inconsistencies, and a piecemeal approach toward understanding the key factors influencing decision problem framing. A series of controlled experiments provides a more holistic view of the variables promoting myopia. Extending the information horizon promotes broad framing, which propels risk. Evaluation frequency and decision frequency interact regardless of information horizon, supporting the notion that restricting either mechanism alleviates myopia. When conducting evaluations infrequently, neither segregating nor aggregating retrospective returns significantly alters risk preferences. Moreover, students and real retirement plan participants exhibit comparable appetites for risk, implying that both groups frame decision problems similarly. Explanations for these findings and avenues for future research are discussed.     

What gaze adds to arrows: Changes in attentional response to gaze versus arrows in childhood and adolescence

From early ages, gaze acts as a cue to infer the interests, behaviours, thoughts and emotions of social partners. Despite sharing attentional properties with other non-social directional stimuli, such as arrows, gaze produces unique effects. A spatial interference task revealed this dissociation. The direction of arrows was identified faster on congruent than on incongruent direction-location trials. Conversely, gaze produced a reversed congruency effect (RCE), with faster identifications on incongruent than congruent trials. To determine the emergence of these gaze-specific attentional mechanisms, 214 Spanish children (4–17 years) divided into 6 age groups, performed the aforementioned task across three experiments. Results showed stimulus-specific developmental trajectories. Whereas the standard effect of arrows was unaffected by age, gaze shifted from an arrow-like effect at age 4 to a gaze-specific RCE at age 12. The orienting mechanisms shared by gaze and arrows are already present in 4-year olds and, throughout childhood, gaze becomes a special social cue with additional attentional properties. Besides orienting attention to a direction, as arrows would do, gaze might orient attention towards a specific object that would be attentionally selected. Such additional components may not fully develop until adolescence. Understanding gaze-specific attentional mechanisms may be crucial for children with atypical socio-cognitive development.