Trait emotional intelligence profiles of students from different university faculties

This study investigated the trait emotional intelligence (trait EI or trait emotional self‐efficacy) profiles of 512 students from five university faculties: technical studies, natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. Using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, it was hypothesised that (a) social sciences would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (b) arts would score higher than technical studies in Emotionality, (c) arts would score lower than technical studies in Self‐control, and (d) there would be an interaction between gender and faculty, whereby female students would score higher than male students within the social sciences only. Several other exploratory comparisons were also performed. Results supported hypotheses (a), (b), and (d), but not hypothesis (c), although the differences were in the predicted direction.     

A comparison of the effects of providing activity and material choice to children with autism spectrum disorders

The present study compares the effects of providing choice between activities or between materials for completion of activities on the on-task behavior of 4 boys with autism spectrum disorders. Results showed that the participants displayed higher levels of on-task behavior during the choice conditions than in the no-choice condition. However, the type of choice opportunity did not seem to have a differential effect.     

Effects of positive and negative delusional ideation on memory

We investigated the relationship between levels of delusional ideation (whether positive or negative delusions) and the activation and distortion of memory by using pairs of positive and negative adjectives describing personality traits where those adjectives had similar meanings. We presented one of each pair of adjectives in the learning phase. Immediately after the learning phase in Experiment 1, we asked whether each adjective had been presented. Participants with high (positive or negative) delusional ideation were more likely to indicate that they had learned adjectives that they had not actually learned. This finding suggested that non-learned positive (or negative) adjectives that were associated with learned negative (or positive) adjectives were more likely to be activated in participants prone to positive (or negative) delusional ideation. However, in Experiment 2, two forced-choice tests were conducted immediately after the learning phase. In this context, participants, regardless of their proneness to delusional ideation, could almost always correctly distinguish what had and had not been presented, suggesting that the activation of learned items was still stronger than that for non-learned items in the immediate test. As time passed, the proportion of false alarms for positive or negative adjectives was higher in the two forced-choice tests among those with high proneness to (positive or negative) delusional ideation, suggesting that participants with delusional ideation were increasingly likely to depend on internal conditions for retrieval over time. Nous avons examiné la relation entre les niveaux d'idéation illusoire (qu'elle soit positive ou négative) et l'activation et la distorsion de la mémoire, en utilisant des paires d'adjectifs positifs et négatifs à significations similaires décrivant des traits de personnalité. Nous avons présenté un membre de chaque paire d'adjectifs lors d'une phase d'apprentissage. Dans une première expérience, immédiatement après la phase d'apprentissage, nous avons demandé si chaque adjectif avait été présenté. Les participants ayant un niveau d'idéation illusoire (positive ou négative) élevé étaient plus susceptibles d'indiquer qu'ils avaient appris les adjectifs qu'ils n'avaient pas appris. Ce résultat suggérait que les adjectifs positifs (ou négatifs) non appris qui étaient associés à des adjectifs négatifs (ou positifs) appris étaient plus susceptibles d'être activés chez les participants portés à l'idéation illusoire positive (ou négative). Dans une deuxième expérience, deux tests à choix forcés ont été menés immédiatement après la phase d'apprentissage. Dans ce contexte, les participants, indépendamment de leur tendance à l'idéation illusoire, pouvaient presque toujours distinguer correctement ce qui avait été présenté de ce qui n'avait pas été présenté, suggérant que l'activation des items appris était encore plus forte que celle des items non appris dans le test immédiat. Avec le temps, la proportion de fausses alarmes pour les adjectifs positifs ou négatifs était plus élevée dans les deux tests à choix forcés chez les participants portés à l'idéation illusoire (positive ou négative), ce qui suggère que les participants avec idéation illusoire étaient de plus en plus susceptibles de dépendre de leurs conditions internes lors du rappel à mesure que le temps passait. En este estudio se investigó la relación entre los niveles de ideación delusional (tanto delusiones positivas como negativas) y la activación y distorsión de la memoria a través del uso de pares de adjetivos positivos y negativos que describen rasgos de personalidad. Estos pares de adjetivos tenían significados similares. En la fase de aprendizaje se presentó un miembro de cada par de adjetivos. Inmediatamente después de la fase de aprendizaje se realizó el primer experimento, en el cual se preguntó al participanten si es que se le habían presentado cada uno de los adjetivos. Los participantes con elevada ideación delusiva (positiva o negativa) reportaran con una mayor probabilidad haber aprendido adjetivos que en realidad no se les había presentado. Este hallazgo sugiere que adjetivos positivos (o negativos) no aprendidos que estaban asociados con adjetivos negativos (o positivos) aprendidos, tenían una mayor probabilidad de ser activados en participantes propensos a una ideación delusiva positiva (o negativa). En el segundo experimento se llevaron a cabo inmediatamente después de la fase de aprendizaje dos pruebas de decisión forzada. En este contexto se pudo observar que los participantes a pesar de su tendencia hacia una ideación delusional, lograron distinguir en la mayoría de los casos correctamente entre los adjetivos que les fueron presentado y lo que no. Esto sugiere que la activación de los items aprendidos fue mucho más intensa que la de los items no aprendidos en el test. Sin embargo se pudo observar en los participantes de las dos pruebas de decisión forzada que con el paso del tiempo el porcentaje de falso reconocimiento de adjetivos positivos y negativos fue más elevado entre aquellas personas con una alta tendencia hacia una ideación delusional (positiva o negativa). Esto sugiere que en participantes con ideación delusional el reconocimiento de información a lo largo del tiempo probablemente es muy dependiente de condiciones internas.     

ACQUISITION OF INTRAVERBAL BEHAVIOR: TEACHING CHILDREN WITH AUTISM TO MAND FOR ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

Four boys with autism were taught via echoic prompting and constant prompt delay to mand for answers to questions by saying “I don't know please tell me” (IDKPTM). This intervention resulted in acquisition of the IDKPTM response for all 4 participants and in acquisition of correct answers to most of the previously unknown questions for 2 participants. For 1 participant, tangible reinforcement resulted in increased frequency of correct answers, and direct prompting of correct answers was eventually conducted for the final participant. The IDKPTM response generalized to untargeted unknown questions with 3 participants. Results of person and setting generalization probes varied, but some generalization eventually occurred for all participants following additional training or interspersal of probe trials with training trials.     

Revisiting the role of bad news in maintaining human observing behavior

Results from studies of observing responses have suggested that stimuli maintain observing owing to their special relationship to primary reinforcement (the conditioned-reinforcement hypothesis), and not because they predict the availability and nonavailability of reinforcement (the information hypothesis). The present article first reviews a study that challenges that conclusion and then reports a series of five brief experiments that provide further support for the conditioned-reinforcement view. In Experiments 1 through 3, participants preferred occasional good news (a stimulus correlated with reinforcement) or no news (a stimulus uncorrelated with reinforcement) to occasional bad news (a stimulus negatively correlated with reinforcement). In Experiment 4 bad news was preferred to no news when the absence of stimulus change following a response to the bad-news option was reliably associated with good news. When this association was weakened in Experiment 5 the results were intermediate. The results support the conclusion that information is reinforcing only when it is positive or useful. As required by the conditioned-reinforcement hypothesis, useless information does not maintain observing.     

Conditioned reinforcement and response strength

Stimuli associated with primary reinforcers appear themselves to acquire the capacity to strengthen behavior. This paper reviews research on the strengthening effects of conditioned reinforcers within the context of contemporary quantitative choice theories and behavioral momentum theory. Based partially on the finding that variations in parameters of conditioned reinforcement appear not to affect response strength as measured by resistance to change, long-standing assertions that conditioned reinforcers do not strengthen behavior in a reinforcement-like fashion are considered. A signposts or means-to-an-end account is explored and appears to provide a plausible alternative interpretation of the effects of stimuli associated with primary reinforcers. Related suggestions that primary reinforcers also might not have their effects via a strengthening process are explored and found to be worthy of serious consideration.     

Why pigeons say what they do: reinforcer magnitude and response requirement effects on say responding in say-do correspondence

The effects of reinforcer magnitude and response requirement on pigeons' say choices in an experimental homologue of human say-do correspondence were assessed in two experiments. The procedure was similar to a conditional discrimination procedure except the pigeons chose both a sample stimulus (the say component) and a comparison stimulus that corresponded to it (the do component). Correspondence was trained on red, green, and white key colors before the duration of food presentations following correspondence on each key color (Experiment 1) and the number of key pecks required as the say response on each key color (Experiment 2) were manipulated in an attempt to influence the initial say response. The frequency of say responses on each key color coincided with programmed changes in the duration of food presentations and the key-peck requirements assigned to each key color. Correspondence accuracy remained stable in all conditions, even those in which the say responding occurred primarily on two of the three key colors. Implications for human behavior are discussed.     

A Signal Detection Model for Multiple-Choice Exams

A model for multiple-choice exams is developed from a signal-detection perspective. A correct alternative in a multiple-choice exam can be viewed as being a signal embedded in noise (incorrect alternatives). Examinees are assumed to have perceptions of the plausibility of each alternative, and the decision process is to choose the most plausible alternative. It is also assumed that each examinee either knows or does not know each item. These assumptions together lead to a signal detection choice model for multiple-choice exams. The model can be viewed, statistically, as a mixture extension, with random mixing, of the traditional choice model, or similarly, as a grade-of-membership extension. A version of the model with extreme value distributions is developed, in which case the model simplifies to a mixture multinomial logit model with random mixing. The approach is shown to offer measures of item discrimination and difficulty, along with information about the relative plausibility of each of the alternatives. The model, parameters, and measures derived from the parameters are compared to those obtained with several commonly used item response theory models. An application of the model to an educational data set is presented.     

How do ordered questions bias eyewitnesses?

ABSTRACT

Background: Suggestive techniques can distort eyewitness memory (Wells & Loftus, 2003, Eyewitness memory for people and events. In A. M. Goldstein (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Forensic Psychology, Vol. 11 (pp. 149–160). Hoboken, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc). Recently, we found that suggestion is unnecessary: Simply reversing the arrangement of questions put to eyewitnesses changed what they believed (Michael & Garry, 2016, Ordered questions bias eyewitnesses and jurors. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23, 601–608. doi:10.3758/s13423-015-0933-1). But why? One explanation might be that early questions set an anchor that eyewitnesses then adjust away from insufficiently. Methods: We tracked how eyewitness beliefs changed over the course of questioning. We then investigated the influence of people’s need to engage in and enjoy effortful cognition. This factor, “Need for Cognition,” (NFC) affects the degree to which people adjust (Cacioppo, Petty, & Feng Kao, 1984, The efficient assessment of need for cognition. Journal of Personality Assessment, 48, 306–307. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa4803_13; Epley & Gilovich, 2006, The anchoring-and-adjustment heuristic: Why the adjustments are insufficient. Psychological Science, 17, 311–318. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01704.x). Results: In our first two experiments we found results consistent with an anchoring-and-adjustment account. But in Experiments 3 and 4 we found that NFC provided only partial support for that account. Conclusions: Taken together, these findings have implications for understanding how people form beliefs about the accuracy of their memory.