睡眠剥夺对风险决策的影响机制探讨

许多行业的决策者必须在睡眠不足的状态下做出选择与判断。睡眠剥夺是睡眠不足的实验室模型, 被证明能显著影响风险决策, 但内在机制不明。基于前人研究基础提出假设模型, 即睡眠剥夺通过影响个体的反馈加工、风险感知、抑制控制、决策理性, 进而影响风险决策。拟通过实验室研究与现场研究, 采用简单赌博任务、概率折扣任务、双选择Oddball任务等研究范式, 对比睡眠剥夺前后被试在执行上述实验任务时的行为差异, 同时比较执行控制网络、奖赏网络等脑功能网络连接强度, 以及任务诱发的FRN等脑电成分在睡眠剥夺前后的变化, 进而论证上述反应被试反馈加工等心理过程的行为-脑电-脑成像指标的变化与睡眠剥夺后被试风险决策变化的关系。研究结果将科学地解释睡眠剥夺影响风险决策的内在机制, 为进一步探讨如何规避睡眠不足导致的决策失误提供理论与实证依据。     

Information Processing and Decision-Making in Pathological Worriers and their Potential Role in Mechanisms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Systematic information processing and decision-making under uncertainty are key constructs of new conceptions explaining the severity of pathological worry. The current study attempted to analyze their usefulness in subclinical and clinical groups. In the first phase of the study (N = 251) participants were examined with the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ), a GP consultationrelated survey, and a screening survey for generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). In the second phase (N = 220), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the PSWQ, and tasks measuring systematic information processing (SIP) versus heuristic reasoning (HR) were applied. In the third phase (N = 60), GAD (n = 30) and healthy control (n = 30) groups were examined with the above methods and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). In the low risk group, a relationship between mood and the representativeness heuristic (ρ = 0.50), as well as anchoring and adjustment heuristic (anxiety-related stimuli) was found (ρ = −0.53). In the GAD group, significant correlations between the PSWQ score, the IGT loss avoidance score (ρ = 0.40), and total IGT score (ρ = 0.48) were found. The results did not confirm a particular usefulness of the systematic/heuristic information processing construct in subclinical and clinical groups. Theory-consistent results were rather found in the nonclinical groups. Nevertheless, the data revealed some interesting findings supporting potential explanatory power of some theoretical models.     

A tuned-trace theory of interval-timing dynamics

Animals on interval schedules of reinforcement can rapidly adjust a temporal dependent variable, such as wait time, to changes in the prevailing interreinforcement interval. We describe data on the effects of impulse, step, sine-cyclic, and variable-interval schedules and show that they can be explained by a tuned-trace timing model with a one-back threshold-setting rule. The model can also explain steady-state timing properties such as proportional and Weber law timing and the effects of reinforcement magnitude. The model assumes that food reinforcers and other time markers have a decaying effect (trace) with properties that can be derived from the rate-sensitive property of habituation (the multiple-time-scale model). In timing experiments, response threshold is determined by the trace value at the time of the most recent reinforcement. The model provides a partial account for the learning of multiple intervals, but does not account for scalloping and other postpause features of responding on interval schedules and has some problems with square-wave schedules.     

Issues in Parent-Child Agreement: The Case of Structured Diagnostic Interviews

There are three primary purposes of this review. First, the review distinguishes among three types of reliability and describes the importance of evaluating the reliability of child psychopathology assessment instruments for clinical practice and research. Second, parent-child reliability findings from 5 of the more carefully studied and frequently used Structured (semi and highly) diagnostic interviews (The Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-age Children, The Child Assessment Scale, The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children. The Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents, and the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children) are examined. Finally, this review explores factors that have been implicated in terms of their potential effect on parent-child agreement. In addition, future directions for research and clinical practice within this area are identified and potential resolutions to the conundrum of parent-child discordance are discussed.     

Post-decision consolidation: group members in different social settings compared to individual decision makers

Two experiments were conducted to examine how making decisions in a 3-member group affects the degree of post-decision consolidation, defined as attractiveness changes in favor of the chosen alternative. Both experiments were conducted in two sessions one week apart. In the first session (decision phase), participants estimated the importance of each of four different attributes describing two decision alternatives. They were then shown predetermined attractiveness ratings on each of the attributes and were to decide on the two alternatives, either individually or as a group. In the second session (post-decision phase), the participants were to attempt to recall the attractiveness ratings for the attributes as presented to them in session one. In both experiments, significant post-decision consolidation was found for individual decision makers but not for group members. In experiment 2, this result was replicated, no difference in consolidation being found between group members with face-to-face interaction and without.     

Individual postdecision processes in group settings

In two experiments Differentiation and Consolidation Theory (Diff Con) (Svenson, 1992) was used to investigate individual postdecision making processes in three-member groups. It was predicted that in groups in which the subjects preferred different alternatives (conflict groups), subjects would consolidate their own preferred alternative, and not the group's final decision. A second hypothesis was that no consolidation would be indicated in groups in which all members preferred the same alternative (non-conflict groups). The results showed that in conflict groups, the members who gave up their preferred alternative (minority members) consolidated their own preference, thereby significantly regretting the group decision. In contrast, members who got their own will through in the majority decision (majority members) showed no consolidation of the group decision. The corresponding pattern of results was replicated in a second experiment, using a different decision situation. The results indicated that perceptions of social support, agreement in a group and decreasing responsibility for a group's decision, could all partly substitute consolidation by attractiveness restructuring.     

Postdecision consolidation in a trend prediction task

To be able to learn from experience it is necessary to correctly apprehend experienced feedback and the situation in which it is provided. The results indicate how post-decision consolidation in complex domains may affect learning. The problem may be particularly pertinent in recurrent decision making where considerable risk is involved. The study explores the changes in aspect (signal) importance from pre- to postdiction as a function of outcome information. By postdiction we mean the remembering of an earlier prediction (cf. Hawkins & Hastie, 1990). Subjects were asked to decide on which of four alternative future price developments would follow a historical price trajectory for different commodities, and to rate the importance of each of the chosen alternative's corresponding aspects. The subjects revealed a bias in their support ratings of aspects--seeing support in aspects that traditionally (by themselves and in many contexts) would be seen as neutral or even counter-indicative of the alternative chosen. After an intermission, the subjects were also given information about what was indicated to be the actual development of the market. One group was told that their decisions were correct (irrespective of what the decisions were), another group that they were incorrect but close, a third group that they were incorrect by far, while a fourth group served as a control. Following this information the subjects were again asked to judge the importance of the aspects for their own prior decision on the most likely future development. The results indicated that outcome feed-back had an effect on post decision restructuring of facts. Subjects in the correct condition showed an average consolidation that increased the support, while the wrong conditions lead to negative consolidation (in retrospect indicating that they never found as much support for their decision in the past as they actually did). Thus, in a choice between consolidating their own initial prediction and the price trajectory they would have to live with, the decision makers consolidated the outcome. Therefore, the results of the study were related to the hindsight bias phenomenon (Fischhoff, 1975) and to Kahneman and Miller's (1986) mutability concept.     

Progressive-ratio schedules: effects of later schedule requirements on earlier performances

Four rats were studied with variants of a progressive-ratio schedule with a step size of 6 in which different terminal components followed completion of the 20th ratio: (a) a reversal of the progression, (b) a fixed-ratio 6 schedule, or (c) extinction. Responding in the progressive-ratio components of these schedules was compared to performances under conventional progressive-ratio baselines. Under baseline conditions, postreinforcement pauses increased exponentially as a function of increasing ratio size, whereas running rates showed modest declines. The procedure of linking the progressive-ratio schedule to the reversed progression or to the fixed-ratio component resulted in decreased pausing. Linking the progressive-ratio schedule to the extinction component had the opposite effect, that of producing weakened progressive-ratio performances as evidenced by increased pausing. Subjects whose responses were reinforced on half of the ratios also showed exponential increases; however, pauses were substantially shorter following ratios on which the reinforcer was omitted. The results suggested that progressive-ratio pausing reflects the influence of remote as well as local contingencies.     

Preference and resistance to change with constant-duration schedule components

Previous research on preference between variable-interval terminal links in concurrent chains has most often used variable-duration terminal links ending with a single reinforcer. By contrast, most research on resistance to change in multiple schedules has used constant-duration components that include variable numbers of reinforcers in each presentation. Grace and Nevin (1997) examined both preference and resistance in variable-duration components; here, preference and resistance were examined in constant-duration components. Reinforcer rates were varied across eight conditions, and a generalized-matching-law analysis showed that initial-link preference strongly over-matched terminal-link reinforcer ratios. In multiple schedules, baseline response rates were unaffected by reinforcer rates, but resistance to intercomponent food, to extinction, and to intercomponent food plus extinction was greater in the richer component. The between-component difference in resistance to change exhibited additive effects for the three resistance tests, and was systematically related to reinforcer ratios. However, resistance was less sensitive to reinforcer ratios than was preference. Resistance to intercomponent food and to intercomponent food plus extinction was more sensitive to reinforcer ratios in the present study than in Grace and Nevin (1997). Thus, relative to variable-duration components, constant-duration components increased the sensitivity of both preference and relative resistance, supporting the proposition that these are independent and convergent measures of the effects of a history of reinforcement.     

An evaluation of a brief multiple-stimulus preference assessment with adolescents with emotional-behavioral disorders in an educational setting

Brief multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO) preference assessments were conducted with 3 adolescent boys with emotional-behavioral disorders in the context of their public school educational program. The reinforcing effects of stimuli identified as high, medium, and low preference were then evaluated using an alternating treatments design in which, following an initial baseline, stimuli were delivered contingent on on-task behavior. High-preference stimuli produced the highest percentages of on-task behavior for all 3 participants.