Do details bug you? Effects of perceptual richness in learning about biological change

People often have difficulty in understanding processes of biological change, and they typically reject drastic life cycle changes such as metamorphosis, except for animals with which they are familiar. Even after a lesson about metamorphosis, people often do not generalize to animals not seen during the lesson. This might be partially due to the perceptual richness of the diagrams typically used during lessons on metamorphosis, which serves to emphasize the individual animal rather than a class of animals. In two studies, we examined whether the perceptual richness of a diagram influences adults' learning and transfer of knowledge about metamorphosis. One study was conducted in a laboratory setting, and the other was online. In both studies, adults who saw the bland diagram during the lesson accurately transferred more than adults who saw the rich diagram during the lesson.     

Moral reasoning,emotion understanding,and callous-unemotional traits in early-to-middle childhood

Relatively little is known about features of moral reasoning among young children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., lack of guilt and empathy). This study tested associations between CU traits and emotion attributions (i.e., identification of others’ emotional states) and justifications (i.e., explanations for those emotional states), across social scenarios involving discreet versus salient distress cues. The participants were boys aged 6-to-10 years (N = 50; M_age = 7 years 7 months), who were interviewed about 12 hypothetical scenarios (eight with discreet and four with salient distress cues). Regression models indicated that CU traits, in interaction with high levels of antisocial behaviour, were associated with reduced emotion attributions of fear in discreet but not salient immoral scenarios. Higher CU traits were also associated with reduced justifications referencing others’ welfare in discreet scenarios, and increased references to action-orientated justifications in salient scenarios. These findings suggest that CU traits are associated with early moral reasoning impairments and that salience of distress may be important to these processes.     

Moral foundations and political attitudes: The moderating role of political sophistication

Political attitudes can be associated with moral concerns. This research investigated whether people's level of political sophistication moderates this association. Based on the Moral Foundations Theory, this article examined whether political sophistication moderates the extent to which reliance on moral foundations, as categories of moral concerns, predicts judgements about policy positions. With this aim, two studies examined four policy positions shown by previous research to be best predicted by the endorsement of Sanctity, that is, the category of moral concerns focused on the preservation of physical and spiritual purity. The results showed that reliance on Sanctity predicted political sophisticates' judgements, as opposed to those of unsophisticates, on policy positions dealing with equal rights for same‐sex and unmarried couples and with euthanasia. Political sophistication also interacted with Fairness endorsement, which includes moral concerns for equal treatment of everybody and reciprocity, in predicting judgements about equal rights for unmarried couples, and interacted with reliance on Authority, which includes moral concerns for obedience and respect for traditional authorities, in predicting opposition to stem cell research. Those findings suggest that, at least for these particular issues, endorsement of moral foundations can be associated with political attitudes more strongly among sophisticates than unsophisticates.     

Implicit sequence learning in ring‐tailed lemurs (Lemur catta)

Implicit learning involves picking up information from the environment without explicit instruction or conscious awareness of the learning process. In nonhuman animals, conscious awareness is impossible to assess, so we define implicit learning as occurring when animals acquire information beyond what is required for successful task performance. While implicit learning has been documented in some nonhuman species, it has not been explored in prosimian primates. Here we ask whether ring‐tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) learn sequential information implicitly. We tested lemurs in a modified version of the serial reaction time task on a touch screen computer. Lemurs were required to respond to any picture within a 2 × 2 grid of pictures immediately after its surrounding border flickered. Over 20 training sessions, both the locations and the identities of the images remained constant and response times gradually decreased. Subsequently, the locations and/or the identities of the images were disrupted. Response times indicated that the lemurs had learned the physical location sequence required in original training but did not learn the identity of the images. Our results reveal that ring‐tailed lemurs can implicitly learn spatial sequences, and raise questions about which scenarios and evolutionary pressures give rise to perceptual versus motor‐implicit sequence learning.     

Counterfactual thinking as an issue between language and pretend play / El pensamiento contrafactual como un problema entre el lenguaje y el juego de simulación

Discussions on counterfactual thinking (CT) have been focused on whether it is a language skill or it emerges spontaneously before language acquisition. This paper surveys the most compelling arguments regarding these frameworks: (1) the approach ‘CT as a language skill’; (2) those who claim that pretending shows that children have CT; (3) those who consider pretend play is a rehearsal for cognitive dispositions. I shall point out that the three approaches on CT are incomplete: (1) neglects pretend play (which prelinguistic children perform) as an instantiation of the CT; (2) puts too much emphasis on the linguistic dimension of pretense; (3) is highly demanding on the cognitive architecture that we ought to have by nature — the so-called children as scientists.     

Ranking Theory and Conditional Reasoning

Ranking theory is a formal epistemology that has been developed in over 600 pages in Spohn's recent book The Laws of Belief, which aims to provide a normative account of the dynamics of beliefs that presents an alternative to current probabilistic approaches. It has long been received in the AI community, but it has not yet found application in experimental psychology. The purpose of this paper is to derive clear, quantitative predictions by exploiting a parallel between ranking theory and a statistical model called logistic regression. This approach is illustrated by the development of a model for the conditional inference task using Spohn's (2013) ranking theoretic approach to conditionals.     

不同任务类型条件下4～6年级儿童比例推理策略的表现

随机选取小学4~6年级被试86名,从辅助策略、比例推理策略的策略选择和策略效用三方面,通过五种类型的天平任务考察儿童比例推理策略的表现。结果表明:(1)儿童最常使用手指动作辅助加工基本数量信息。辅助策略的使用率随年龄增长而减少,五年级开始使用出声思维,反映出元认知能力的发展。(2)在正式学习比例知识之前,各年级儿童都能使用两种以上策略,也能根据任务难度自发产生新策略,具备策略选择的多样性和适应性。其中,三个年级均能使用定性比例推理策略(双维策略,IIIA策略,补偿策略),表明儿童初步认识了距离和重量两个维度的共变关系。此外,六年级儿童能使用"运货车策略"将冲突问题灵活地化解为简单问题。(3)儿童的错误策略表现为:在冲突任务中盲目使用补偿策略、简单策略或加法策略。(4)分层回归分析表明,在控制年龄后,儿童的一般推理能力越高,其对重量策略的依赖性越低,且可能更容易发掘距离维度的意义,其使用运货车策略的频次更多。此外,一般推理能力对解决冲突类天平任务的正确次数有正向预测作用。     

When will is not the same as should: The role of modals in reasoning with legal conditionals

Naïve reasoners reject logically valid conclusions from conditional rules if they can think of exceptions in which the antecedent is true, but the consequent is not. However, when reasoning with legal conditionals (e.g., “If a person kills another human, then this person should be punished for manslaughter”) people hardly consider exceptions but evaluate conclusions depending on their own sense of justice. We show that participants’ reluctance to consider exceptions in legal reasoning depends on the modal auxiliary used. In two experiments we phrased legal conditionals either with the modal “should” (i.e., “ . . . then this person should be punished”), or with “will” (i.e., “ . . . then this person will be punished”) and presented them as modus ponens or modus tollens inferences. Participants had to decide whether the offender should or will be punished (modus ponens) or whether the offender indeed committed the offence (modus tollens). For modus ponens inferences phrased with “should” we replicate previous findings showing that participants select conclusions on the basis of their own sense of justice (Experiments 1 and 2). Yet, when the legal conditional is phrased with the modal “will” this effect is attenuated (Experiments 1 and 2), and exceptions are considered (Experiment 1). The modal auxiliary did not affect modus tollens inferences.     

Considering too few alternatives: The mental model theory of extensional reasoning

When solving a simple probabilistic problem, people tend to build an incomplete mental representation. We observe this pattern in responses to probabilistic problems over a set of premises using the conjunction, disjunction, and conditional propositional connectives. The mental model theory of extensional reasoning explains this bias towards underestimating the number of possibilities: In reckoning with different interpretations of the premises (logical rules, mental model theoretical, and, specific to conditional premises, conjunction and biconditional interpretation) the mental model theory accounts for the majority of observations. Different interpretations of a premise result in a build-up of mental models that are often incomplete. These mental models are processed using either an extensional strategy relying on proportions amongst models, or a conflict monitoring strategy. The consequence of considering too few possibilities is an erroneous probability estimate akin to that faced by decision makers who fail to generate and consider all alternatives, a characteristic of bounded rationality. We compare our results to the results published by Johnson-Laird, Legrenzi, Girotto, Legrenzi, and Caverni [Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], 62 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]–88 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. doi:10 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar].1037 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]/0033 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]-295X Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar].106 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar].1 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar].62 Johnson-Laird, P., Legrenzi, P., Girotto, V., Legrenzi, M., &; Caverni, J. (1999). Naive probability: A mental model theory of extensional reasoning. Psychological Review, 106, 62–88. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.1.62[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], and we observe lower performance levels than those in the original article.