Comparing What to What,on What Scale? The Impact of Item Comparisons and Reference Points in Communicating Risk and Uncertainty

The mandated public availability of individual hospital's audit data for children's heart surgery in the UK creates a challenging scenario for communicating these complex and sensitive data to diverse audiences. On the basis of this scenario, we conducted three experiments with the aim of understanding how best to help lay people understand these data and the practical goal of improving the public presentation of these data. The experiments compared different outcome measures for displaying the survival rate (percentage scale versus the ratio of the predicted/observed rates) and presentation formats (individual hospital versus all hospitals shown) for outcomes data presented relative to prediction intervals generated by a risk model that adjusts for case mix. Our data highlight how easily inappropriate comparisons can influence evaluations of complex data: for instance, both a survival ratio of 1 and the presence of other hospitals seemingly provided reference points that resulted in inappropriately harsh evaluations of some hospitals. By drawing on evaluability theory, we demonstrate how to enhance people's understanding of these complex data while also discouraging inappropriate comparisons, which has implications for communicating risk and uncertainty and for choice architecture design in a range of contexts. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

INTERTRIAL INTERVAL DURATION AND LEARNING IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN

This study investigated the influence of intertrial interval duration on the performance of autistic children during teaching situations. The children were taught under the same conditions existing in their regular programs, except that the length of time between trials was systematically manipulated. With both multiple baseline and repeated reversal designs, two lengths of intertrial interval were employed: short intervals with the S^D for any given trial presented approximately one second following the reinforcer for the previous trial versus long intervals with the S^D presented four or more seconds following the reinforcer for the previous trial. The results showed that: (1) the short intertrial intervals always produced higher levels of correct responding than the long intervals; and (2) there were improving trends in performance and rapid acquisition with the short intertrial intervals, in contrast to minimal or no change with the long intervals. The results are discussed in terms of utilizing information about child and task characteristics in terms of selecting optimal intervals. The data suggest that manipulations made between trials have a large influence on autistic children's learning.     

Approximate interval estimation for a certain intraclass correlation coefficient

When the raters participating in a reliability study are a random sample from a larger population of raters, inferences about the intraclass correlation coefficient must be based on the three mean squares from the analysis of variance table summarizing the results: between subjects, between raters, and error. An approximate confidence interval for the parameter is presented as a function of these three mean squares.Dr. Fleiss is also with the Biometrics Research Unit of the New York State Psychiatric Institute. This work was supported in part by grant DE 04068 from the National Institute of Dental Research.     

"修辞立其诚"的语义学诠释

“修辞立其减”本为孔子读《易》解经之语,但它却对后世的文学评论及修辞学产生了深刻影响,高频率的使用还使它凝结为词——“修辞立诚”。如此,“修辞”与“立诚”在结构上成为平行并列的两个词。但从修辞角度看,二者则有密切的从属关系:“诚”内“辞”外,“诚”主“辞”从,“辞”以“诚”存。“诚”在儒家思想中的主导地位也说明,修辞应以“诚”为本,“辞”要服从并服务于“诚”。所谓“修辞立其诚”,是指以“诚”为前提并以“诚”为主导的“修辞”。