Dynamic Simulation and Static Matching for Action Prediction: Evidence From Body Part Priming

Accurately predicting other people's actions may involve two processes: internal real‐time simulation (dynamic updating) and matching recently perceived action images (static matching). Using a priming of body parts, this study aimed to differentiate the two processes. Specifically, participants played a motion‐controlled video game with either their arms or legs. They then observed arm movements of a point‐light actor, which were briefly occluded from view, followed by a static test pose. Participants judged whether this test pose depicted a coherent continuation of the previously seen action (i.e., “action prediction task”). Evidence of dynamic updating was obtained after compatible effector priming (i.e., arms), whereas incompatible effector priming (i.e., legs) indicated static matching. Together, the results support action prediction as engaging two distinct processes, dynamic simulation and static matching, and indicate that their relative contributions depend on contextual factors like compatibility of body parts involved in performed and observed action.     

Birth of an Abstraction: A Dynamical Systems Account of the Discovery of an Elsewhere Principle in a Category Learning Task

Human participants and recurrent (“connectionist”) neural networks were both trained on a categorization system abstractly similar to natural language systems involving irregular (“strong”) classes and a default class. Both the humans and the networks exhibited staged learning and a generalization pattern reminiscent of the Elsewhere Condition (Kiparsky, 1973). Previous connectionist accounts of related phenomena have often been vague about the nature of the networks’ encoding systems. We analyzed our network using dynamical systems theory, revealing topological and geometric properties that can be directly compared with the mechanisms of non‐connectionist, rule‐based accounts. The results reveal that the networks “contain” structures related to mechanisms posited by rule‐based models, partly vindicating the insights of these models. On the other hand, they support the one mechanism (OM), as opposed to the more than one mechanism (MOM), view of symbolic abstraction by showing how the appearance of MOM behavior can arise emergently from one underlying set of principles. The key new contribution of this study is to show that dynamical systems theory can allow us to explicitly characterize the relationship between the two perspectives in implemented models.     

Integration and Reuse in Cognitive Skill Acquisition

Previous accounts of cognitive skill acquisition have demonstrated how procedural knowledge can be obtained and transformed over time into skilled task performance. This article focuses on a complementary aspect of skill acquisition, namely the integration and reuse of previously known component skills. The article posits that, in addition to mechanisms that proceduralize knowledge into more efficient forms, skill acquisition requires tight integration of newly acquired knowledge and previously learned knowledge. Skill acquisition also benefits from reuse of existing knowledge across disparate task domains, relying on indexicals to reference and share necessary information across knowledge components. To demonstrate these ideas, the article proposes a computational model of skill acquisition from instructions focused on integration and reuse, and applies this model to account for behavior across seven task domains.     

Goal‐Proximity Decision‐Making

Reinforcement learning (RL) models of decision‐making cannot account for human decisions in the absence of prior reward or punishment. We propose a mechanism for choosing among available options based on goal‐option association strengths, where association strengths between objects represent previously experienced object proximity. The proposed mechanism, Goal‐Proximity Decision‐making (GPD), is implemented within the ACT‐R cognitive framework. GPD is found to be more efficient than RL in three maze‐navigation simulations. GPD advantages over RL seem to grow as task difficulty is increased. An experiment is presented where participants are asked to make choices in the absence of prior reward. GPD captures human performance in this experiment better than RL.     

Enhanced Cardiac Perception Is Associated With Increased Susceptibility to Framing Effects

Previous studies suggest in line with dual process models that interoceptive skills affect controlled decisions via automatic or implicit processing. The “framing effect” is considered to capture implicit effects of task‐irrelevant emotional stimuli on decision‐making. We hypothesized that cardiac awareness, as a measure of interoceptive skills, is positively associated with susceptibility to the framing effect. Forty volunteers performed a risky‐choice framing task in which the effect of loss versus gain frames on decisions based on identical information was assessed. The results show a positive association between cardiac awareness and the framing effect, accounting for 24% of the variance in the framing effect. These findings demonstrate that good interoceptive skills are linked to poorer performance in risky choices based on ambivalent information when implicit bias is induced by task‐irrelevant emotional information. These findings support a dual process perspective on decision‐making and suggest that interoceptive skills mediate effects of implicit bias on decisions.     

两种时空线索条件下表面颜色特征线索对客体保持的作用*

采用客体回溯范式,以客体预览利化效应(object specific previewing benefit, OSPB)作为指标,考察表面特征线索对客体保持的作用。实验1使用双向隧道创建时空线索不明确的条件,研究表面颜色特征线索的作用。实验2使用单向隧道使时空线索明确,研究表面颜色特征线索与时空线索一致、冲突情境下的客体保持。实验1和实验2均出现了OSPB效应,且实验2冲突情境的OSPB效应低于一致情境。研究结果表明在时空线索不明确的条件下,仅凭表面颜色特征线索就能实现客体保持;在时空线索明确的条件下,时空线索是客体保持的主要线索,同时表面颜色特征线索也起一定的作用。     

THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN RELIGIOUS LEADERS AND ORGAN DONATION AMONG MUSLIMS

Bioethics and health researchers often turn to Islamic jurisconsults (fuqahā’) and their verdicts (fatāwā) to understand how Islam and health intersect. Yet when using fatwā to promote health behavior change, researchers have often found less than ideal results. In this article we examine several health behavior change interventions that partnered with Muslim religious leaders aiming at promoting organ donation. As these efforts have generally met with limited success, we reanalyze these efforts through the lens of the theory of planned behavior, and in light of two distinct scholarly imperatives of Muslim religious leaders, the ?ilmī and the islāhī. We argue for a new approach to health behavior change interventions within the Muslim community that are grounded in theoretical frameworks from the science of behavior change, as well the religious leadership paradigms innate to the Islamic tradition. We conclude by exploring the implications of our proposed model for applied Islamic bioethics and health research.     

Qualitative sales research: an exposition of grounded theory

The dominant research paradigm in sales research involves testing theory through empirical research. Nascent or underdeveloped research areas, however, may lack or have inadequate existing theories to explain sales-related phenomena. In these cases, sales researchers require a theory-generating methodological approach. Qualitative research designs are useful in this pursuit. The purpose of this article is to provide an exposition of one such qualitative research design – grounded theory. To this end, the foundational processes of grounded theory methodology are discussed. The results of a review of grounded theory examinations conducted in sales research are also provided, and current practices utilized by sales grounded theorists are discussed. Based on this review, future directions in substantive areas and methodological practices are provided. This article aims to serve as a resource for sales scholars wishing to know what grounded theory examinations have been conducted, how to implement grounded theory research and what avenues are available for future grounded theory sales research.     

Health beliefs and breast examination behaviors: Analyses of linear structural relations

Abstract

A survey of 619 Detroit-area women was conducted in order to understand why women do or do not perform breast self-examination and obtain or not obtain professional breast examinations. The survey assessed these behaviors and women's beliefs about (a) their susceptibility to breast cancer, (b) the seventy or seriousness of breast cancer, (c) the benefits of breast examinations and (d) the costs or disadvantages of the examinations. Separate sets of questions measured seventy of breast cancer when it is treated (a) late (seventy-late) and (b) promptly (seventy-early). Predictions were derived by combining the health belief model with the theory of subjective expected utility. Path analysis supported most predictions of the combined theory. As predicted, high severity-late increased perceived benefit, high seventy-early decreased benefit, and perceived benefit mediated the effects of seventy on behavior. Implications for understanding health decisions, measuring health beliefs, and modifying health behaviors are discussed.     

Conceptual overlap between moral norms and anticipated regret in the prediction of intention: Implications for theory of planned behaviour research

Moral norms and anticipated regret are widely used extensions to the theory of planned behaviour, yet there is some evidence to suggest that these constructs may conceptually overlap as predictors of intention. Two health-related behaviours with distinct moral implications (Study 1: organ donation registration, N?=?352 and Study 2: condom usage, N?=?1815) were therefore examined to ascertain whether moral norms and anticipated regret are indeed conceptually distinct. While evidence consistent with conceptual overlap was identified in Study 1, the evidence for such overlap in Study 2 was more ambiguous. In Study 3, a meta-analysis of existing literature revealed that the relationship between moral norms and anticipated regret was moderated by the extent of the moral implications arising from the behaviour under examination. Taken together, these findings suggest that conceptual overlap between moral norms and anticipated regret is more likely to occur among behaviours with obvious moral implications. Researchers wishing to examine the predictive utility of moral norms and anticipated regret among such behaviours would therefore be advised to aggregate these measures to form a composite variable (personal norms).