Lexical and sublexical processes in the perception of transposed-letter anagrams

Evidence from priming and lexical decision tasks suggests that nonwords created by transposing adjacent letter pairs (TL nonwords) are very effective in activating lexical representations of their base words, because the process of orthographic matching tolerates minor changes in letter position. However, this account disregards the possible role of sublexical processing in reading. TL nonwords are perceptually ambiguous, with lexical and sublexical processing giving rise to conflicting interpretations. The consequences of this ambiguity were investigated in a lexical decision experiment with primes that were either high or low bigram frequency TL versions of target words. Priming effects were much larger for low BF primes (e.g., pucnh-PUNCH) than for high BF primes (e.g., panit-PAINT). This finding is interpreted as evidence that lexical activation can be inhibited by competing output resulting from sublexical processing of TL letter string. We conclude that phonological processing is an important determinant of responses to TL stimuli, and we consider how this interpretation might be accommodated within the dual-route cascaded (DRC) model of word recognition.     

Turning failures into successes: a methodological shortcoming in empirical research on surrogate accuracy

Decision making for incompetent patients is a much-discussed topic in bioethics. According to one influential decision making standard, the substituted judgment standard, a surrogate decision maker ought to make the decision that the incompetent patient would have made, had he or she been competent. Empirical research has been conducted in order to find out whether surrogate decision makers are sufficiently good at doing their job, as this is defined by the substituted judgment standard. This research investigates to what extent surrogates are able to predict what the patient would have preferred in the relevant circumstances. In this paper we address a methodological shortcoming evident in a significant number of studies. The mistake consists in categorizing responses that only express uncertainty as predictions that the patient would be positive to treatment, on the grounds that the clinical default is to provide treatment unless it is refused. We argue that this practice is based on confusion and that it risks damaging the research on surrogate accuracy.

Santé et travail : le cas des facteurs de risque des troubles musculo-squelettiques du membre supérieur

The study proposes us to define and to treat the social questions that the musculoskeletal disorders suppose. Indeed, an optimal prevention is articulated around the two poles of musculoskeletal disorders factors of risk, which are the biomechanics and psychosocial factors of risk. The aim of this article is also to create a collective reaction for mobilise every one which are concerned by this subject. The musculoskeletal disorders are one of the first causes of compensation working disease. The factors of risk in their occurred are mainly the repetitivite gesture, the implementation of the muscular force, the extreme articular amplitudes and also, but in a less proportion, the psychological stress felt by a person during his working time. All these elements will be developing in this study.     

Preference for oddity: uniqueness heuristic or hierarchical choice process?

Traditional economic theories assume decision makers in multialternative choice tasks "assign" a value to each option and then express rational preferences. Here, I report an apparent violation of such rationality in gray jays (Perisoreus canadensis). I tested the jays' preference in a quaternary choice task where three options were the same color and the fourth option was a different color. All options offered an identical food reward and so the strictly rational expectation was that subjects would choose the odd-colored option in 25% of choices. In clear disagreement, every subject chose the odd option more frequently than expected. I speculate as to how this surprising preference for oddity might have been ecologically rational: by using a unique-choice heuristic, the jays might have been able to bypass a deliberative phase of the decision process and devote more attention to scanning for predators. Alternatively, it is conceivable that the jays did not prefer oddity per se. Instead, they might have used a hierarchical process, assigning options to color categories and then choosing between categories. If so, their behavior matches expectation after all (on average, subjects chose the odd option 50% of the time). It should be straightforward to test these competing hypotheses. The current results can be viewed as a new example of how simple mechanisms sometimes produce economically puzzling yet ecologically rational decision making.     

甲流了解程度、疫苗安全感知、接种行为及其影响机制

采用问卷调查的方法, 对甲流了解程度、疫苗安全感知、接种行为及其影响机制进行了研究, 并运用结构方程对提出的模型进行了验证和调整。结果表明：(1)民众对甲流疫情基本情况、疫苗接种要求和传播途径等方面有较高的了解程度, 但对预防措施和疫苗信息了解较少。(2)交流卷入对了解程度不存在显著影响; 而新闻卷入对了解程度有显著正向影响, 并且新闻卷入对感知疫苗安全程度的正向影响受到了解程度的部分中介。(3)感知甲流疫苗越安全, 越倾向于选择接种疫苗。(4)人格对疫苗的风险认知存在显著影响, 个人随和性(Agreeableness)程度越高, 则感知疫苗的安全程度越高, 而年龄和性别对其均没有显著影响。     

过度医疗的原因及其应对策略探讨

近年来,过度医疗问题引起社会各界的广泛关注。过度医疗问题已不再是单纯的伦理问题,更深层次意义上已经变成一个重要的社会问题,其与医药卫生领域中的矛盾是紧密相关的。分析了过度医疗与现存的医疗体制、医疗经营机制、医生医疗实践和风险、医疗观念误区和疾病谱变化之间的关系及其影响,并提出了应对策略。     

The influence of reasons on interpretations of probability forecasts

When providing a probability estimate for an event, experts often supply reasons that they expect will clarify and support that estimate. We investigated the possible unintended influence that these reasons might have on a listener's intuitive interpretation of the event's likelihood. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that people who read positive reasons for a doctor's probability estimate regarding a hypothetical surgery were more optimistic than those who read negative reasons for the identical estimate. Experiment 3 tested whether a doctor's failure forecast for a surgery would result in differing levels of pessimism when the potential risk was attributed to one complication that had a probability of 0.30 versus three complications that had a disjunctive probability of 0.30. Overall, the findings are consistent with the argument that a probability estimate, albeit numerically precise, can be flexibly interpreted at an intuitive level depending on the reasons that the forecaster provides as the basis for the estimate. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The role of competition and knowledge in the Ellsberg task

Ambiguity avoidance denotes people's preference for gambling situations with known over unknown, or ambiguous, probability distributions. In four experiments we provide evidence for the interaction between competitiveness and knowledge in Ellsberg's task, in which people have a choice between a risky box (distribution of balls known) and an ambiguous box (distribution of balls not known). If the situation is perceived as competitive (the experimenter or an opponent is responsible for composing the boxes) people avoid ambiguity by betting on the box with the known probability distribution. If the task is perceived as cooperative (a partner or friend is composing the boxes) people are indifferent toward ambiguity or even ambiguity seeking. In addition, we find that people expect their winning odds to be less than even in the ambiguous box. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Validity of the decisional process inventory

Empirical research on career indecision has been criticized for lacking theoretical conceptualization. To address this problem we examined the validity of the decisional process inventory (DPI), a measure of career decision making derived from a model based in Gestalt psychotherapy theory. Undergraduate college students (91 women, 110 men) responded to the DPI and criterion measures of career indecision and vocational identity. Results supported hypothesized relations between and among DPI items and subscales, and the ability of the measure to differentiate individuals by expressed career choice status. Significant intercorrelations among DPI subscales and criterion measures supported the concurrent validity of the DPI. Confirmatory maximum likelihood factor analysis of the DPI items did not support the hypothesized structure of the DPI to measure three career decision-making process dimensions: readiness, action, and resistance. Although results supported the basic psychometric properties of the DPI as a brief measure of career decision making, additional research is needed to clarify the underlying factor structure of the instrument.     

Framing and Risky Choice as Influenced by Comparison of One's Achievements with Others: The Case of Investment in the Stock Exchange

Based on social comparison theory and equity theory, the first aim of this study was to examine the hypothesis that framing is affected not only by previous success or failure, but also by comparisons with relevant others' outcomes as well. The second aim of the study was to examine prospect theory propositions that people are risk aversive for gains and risk seeking for losses. A total of 220 students were administered scenarios that described outcomes of their stock investments (gains or losses). In addition, they were provided with information about their close friends' outcomes investing in similar stocks. Generally, the hypothesis regarding the influence of others' outcomes on framing was confirmed. However, results showed that, in contradiction to prospect theory, gain framing rather than loss framing was related to risk seeking behavior. Specifically, in the gain framing situation, the readiness to take risks was highest when the others' outcomes were equal to those of the participants. The limitations of prospect theory are discussed.