The Wished‐For Always Wins Until the Winner Was Inevitable All Along: Motivated Reasoning and Belief Bias Regulate Emotion During Elections

How do biases affect political information processing? A variant of the Wason selection task, which tests for confirmation bias, was used to characterize how the dynamics of the recent U.S. presidential election affected how people reasoned about political information. Participants were asked to evaluate pundit‐style conditional claims like “The incumbent always wins in a year when unemployment drops” either immediately before or immediately after the 2012 presidential election. A three‐way interaction between ideology, predicted winner (whether the proposition predicted that Obama or Romney would win), and the time of test indicated complex effects of bias on reasoning. Before the election, there was partial evidence of motivated reasoning—liberals performed especially well at looking for falsifying information when the pundit's claim predicted Romney would win. After the election, once the outcome was known, there was evidence of a belief bias—people sought to falsify claims that were inconsistent with the real‐world outcome rather than their ideology. These results suggest that people seek to implicitly regulate emotion when reasoning about political predictions. Before elections, people like to think their preferred candidate will win. After elections, people like to think the winner was inevitable all along.     

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。     

假言推理的否定词效应

介绍假言推理中的4种否定词效应,以及相关的理论模型。被试在进行假言推理时,对前提或结论所表示的事件加进了否定词, 产生了一系列的心理效应。研究发现,范畴前提含有否定词,被试更难做出正确的推论;如果结论中含有否定词,被试却更容易做出正确的推论。为此,心理模型理论,规则理论,概率模型理论以及我国的学者对该问题都作了研究和阐述。     

任务难度和反馈学习对儿童类比推理能力的影响

该研究采用情景类比任务,通过两个实验对180名小学生进行纸笔测验,探讨了任务难度对儿童类比推理能力的影响.结果发现:进行反馈学习以降低任务难度时,7～8岁儿童能完成更高年龄段儿童才能完成的任务;但增加任务难度,11岁以上儿童也表现出类比推理能力的弱化.结果提示,儿童是否能在类比推理任务中表现出相应的能力可能取决于任务难度,反馈学习可促进一定年龄段内儿童的类比推理能力发展.本结果为有机融合皮亚杰和Goswami等人的观点提供了有效的实验依据.     

An ERP investigation of conditional reasoning with emotional and neutral contents

In two experiments we investigate conditional reasoning using event-related potentials (ERPs). Our goal was to examine the time course of inference making in two conditional forms, one logically valid (Modus Ponens, MP) and one logically invalid (Affirming the Consequent, AC). We focus particularly on the involvement of semantically-based inferential processes potentially marked by modulations of the N400. We also compared reasoning about emotional and neutral contents with separate sets of stimuli of differing linguistic complexity across the two experiments. Both MP and AC modulated the N400 component, suggesting the involvement of a semantically-based inferential mechanism common across different logical forms, content types, and linguistic features of the problems. Emotion did not have an effect on early components, and did not interact with components related to inference making. There was a main effect of emotion in the 800–1050 ms time window, consistent with an effect on sustained attention. The results suggest that conditional reasoning is not a purely formal process but that it importantly implicates semantic processing, and that the effect of emotion on reasoning does not primarily operate through a modulation of early automatic stages of information processing.     

Framing deductive reasoning with emotional content: An fMRI study

In the literature concerning the study of emotional effect on cognition, several researches highlight the mechanisms of reasoning ability and the influence of emotions on this ability. However, up to now, no neuroimaging study was specifically devised to directly compare the influence on reasoning performance of visual task-unrelated with semantic task-related emotional information.In the present functional fMRI study, we devised a novel paradigm in which emotionally negative vs. neutral visual stimuli (context) were used as primes, followed by syllogisms composed of propositions with emotionally negative vs. neutral contents respectively. Participants, in the MR scanner, were asked to assess the logical validity of the syllogisms. We have therefore manipulated the emotional state and arousal induced by the visual prime as well as the emotional interference exerted by the syllogism content.fMRI data indicated a medial prefrontal cortex deactivation and lateral/dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation in conditions with negative context. Furthermore, a lateral/dorsolateral prefrontal cortex modulation caused by syllogism content was observed. Finally, behavioral data confirmed the influence of emotional task-related stimuli on reasoning ability, since the performance was worse in conditions with syllogisms involving negative emotions. Therefore, on the basis of these data, we conclude that emotional states can impair the performance in reasoning tasks by means of the delayed general reactivity, whereas the emotional content of the target may require a larger amount of top-down resources to be processed.     

“直觉调整差误”偏向对贝叶斯推理成绩的影响

采用贝叶斯推理问题作为实验材料,探讨被试解决贝叶斯推理问题的启发式策略,从认知偏向的角度分析该问题的困难原因。结果发现:(1)贝叶斯推理问题解决过程中的可得性启发与后验概率估计过程中的直觉调整差误密切相关;(2)贝叶斯推理问题解决过程中文、理科被试都同样会产生直觉调整差误偏向;(3)贝叶斯推理问题解决过程中的后验概率估计值和对推理问题中包括虚报率信息的命题的可得性测量所得主观概率之间存在显著的负相关。     

莫扎特音乐对幼儿时空推理能力影响的研究

音乐对幼儿身心发展起重要的促进作用.利用实验法探讨莫扎特“D大调双钢琴奏鸣曲”(K.448)对幼儿时空推理能力的影响,并试图探究“莫扎特效应”产生的机制.采用相同唤醒度和情绪效价但不同结构化和周期性的三首音乐为刺激,共342名大班幼儿参与实验.结果显示:高度结构化、长时程周期性的莫扎特音乐K.448显著提高了女童时空推理能力,而在男童未发现此效应;而不具备高度结构化与周期性的科普兰“猫和老鼠”类似无声静息,对幼儿时空推理能力无显著影响.综上,产生“莫扎特效应”,音乐需具备长时程周期性和高度结构化特点,支持“直接启动说”理论.     

相似性、相似性组合及元认知监控对问题类比推理的影响研究

以改编Holyoak等设计的“汇聚问题”为实验材料,同时自编元认知监控问卷测试被试的元认知监控水平,考察相似性的不同水平,源问题个数,两个源问题情境下源问题的组合方式以及被试的元认知监控水平对类比迁移的影响。结果表明,一个源问题呈现情境下,源、靶问题不同的相似性水平差异显著,表面相似性显著促进类比迁移;两个源问题呈现情境下,源问题的不同组合方式差异显著;无论是呈现一个源问题,还是呈现两个源问题,元认知监控差异均显著,类比迁移主要是控制性加工;源问题个数差异显著。     

Political Attitudes and the Processing of Misinformation Corrections

Misinformation often continues to influence people’s memory and inferential reasoning after it has been retracted; this is known as the continued influence effect (CIE). Previous research investigating the role of attitude‐based motivated reasoning in this context has found conflicting results: Some studies have found that worldview can have a strong impact on the magnitude of the CIE, such that retractions are less effective if the misinformation is congruent with a person’s relevant attitudes, in which case the retractions can even backfire. Other studies have failed to find evidence for an effect of attitudes on the processing of misinformation corrections. The present study used political misinformation—specifically fictional scenarios involving misconduct by politicians from left‐wing and right‐wing parties—and tested participants identifying with those political parties. Results showed that in this type of scenario, partisan attitudes have an impact on the processing of retractions, in particular (1) if the misinformation relates to a general assertion rather than just a specific singular event and (2) if the misinformation is congruent with a conservative partisanship.