A feedback intervention to increase digital and paper checklist performance in technically advanced aircraft simulation

This study examined whether pilots operating a flight simulator completed digital or paper flight checklists more accurately after receiving postflight graphic and verbal feedback. The dependent variable was the number of checklist items completed correctly per flight. Following treatment, checklist completion with paper and digital checklists increased from 38% and 39%, respectively, to nearly 100% and remained close to 100% after feedback and praise for improvement were withdrawn. Performance was maintained at or near 100% during follow-up probes.     

The role of intelligence and feedback in children’s strategy competence

A test-intervention-test study was conducted investigating the role of intelligence on four parameters of strategy competence in the context of a numerosity judgment task. Moreover, the effectiveness of two feedback types on these four parameters was tested. In the two test sessions, the choice/no-choice method was used to assess the strategy repertoire, frequency, efficiency, and adaptivity of a group of low-, average-, and high-intelligence children. During the intervention, half of the participants from each intelligence group were given outcome feedback (OFB), whereas the other half received strategy feedback (SFB). The pretest data showed large differences among the three intelligence groups on all four strategy parameters. These differences had disappeared at the posttest due to a particularly strong improvement on all strategy parameters in the low-intelligence group. Furthermore, it was found that SFB was more beneficial than OFB for all parameters involving strategy selection. These results indicate that intelligence plays an important role in children’s strategy use and suggest that strategy feedback can be a powerful instructional tool, especially for low-intelligence children.     

The effects of humor and depression labels on reactions to social comments

Humor is generally considered to facilitate social relationships, whereas depression has been related to difficulties in relationships. This study investigated the effects of labeling social comments as humorous, as well as labeling the presenter of the comments as feeling depressed, on recipients' reactions to these comments. To this end, 350 university students were presented with vignettes describing four styles of comments (i.e., affiliative, self-enhancing, self-defeating, and aggressive) made by a casual acquaintance. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. These conditions varied in terms of whether the four styles of comments were described as humorous or not, and whether the acquaintance making the comments was described as feeling depressed or not. Findings indicated that humor led to more positive reactions. Labeling the acquaintance as depressed led to more negative reactions than when the acquaintance was labeled non-depressed, particularly when the comments were self-defeating. Interestingly, when the acquaintance was described as feeling depressed, affiliative comments made in a humorous fashion led to more positive reactions than did non-humorous affiliative comments. These findings are discussed in terms of the effects of humor and depression on interpersonal interactions.     

From the Macro to the Micro: A Geographic Examination of the Community Context and Early Adolescent Problem Behaviors

This study examined how multiple dimensions and levels of the community context associated with early adolescent problem behaviors in rural communities. Four thousand, five hundred and nine eighth-grade students in 28 rural and small town school districts in two states participated in surveys regarding substance use and delinquency in 2005. Locations of alcohol retailers, tobacco retailers, youth-serving organizations, and student residences were geocoded. Associations of the number of proximal alcohol and tobacco retailers, and youth-serving organizations with an early-adolescent problem behavior index were tested in Nonlinear Mixed Models that controlled for multiple district-level and individual characteristics. Multi-level model results demonstrated that the number of alcohol and tobacco retail locations within a one-mile radius of each adolescent's home positively associated with student-reported problem behaviors above and beyond the influence of school district and individual characteristics. Results suggest that the proximal community context added significantly to the district context when understanding the occurrence of early adolescent problem behaviors. Recognizing this variability in geographically determined risk within a community will likely enhance the effectiveness of community prevention activities.     

The theory of intelligence and its measurement

Mental chronometry (MC) studies cognitive processes measured by time. It provides an absolute, ratio scale. The limitations of instrumentation and statistical analysis caused the early studies in MC to be eclipsed by the ‘paper-and-pencil’ psychometric tests started by Binet. However, they use an age-normed, rather than a ratio scale, which severely limits the ability of IQ tests to probe the physical basis of differences in cognition. For this reason, Arthur Jensen reinitiated mental chronometry in the 1970s. He designed an apparatus that measures reaction time to a task known as the Hick paradigm that requires the testee to respond to a display of 1 to 8 lights. Faster decision times were related to psychometric g, with theoretically important consequences. He was able to do this, where many other studies had failed, mainly because his apparatus clearly separated movement (MT) from reaction time (RT, also called ‘decision time’.) Interestingly, while RT is clearly related to IQ, MT is not. Principal components analysis reveals RT to be a cognitive variable and MT a motor variable. Failure to distinguish between them drastically obscures the correlation between composite RT (i.e., RT + MT) and cognitive variables. When Jensen (2006) reviewed the literature on MC he found there was a shocking lack of standardization in the administration, recording, and analysis. Consequently, the results of a study conducted in one lab, even though measured in absolute time, could not be compared directly against those from another. Termed “method variance,” this is a major obstacle to the advancement of MC. For that reason, Jensen's Institute of Mental Chronometry commissioned a leading electronics firm to construct a state-of-the-art apparatus to administer, record, and analyze MC experiments.     

The effect of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug on two important predictors for accidental falls: Postural balance and manual reaction time. A randomized, controlled pilot study

Accidental falls in older individuals are a major health and research topic. Increased reaction time and impaired postural balance have been determined as reliable predictors for those at risk of falling and are important functions of the central nervous system (CNS). An essential risk factor for falls is medication exposure. Amongst the medications related to accidental falls are the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). About 1-10% of all users experience CNS side effects. These side effects, such as dizziness, headaches, drowsiness, mood alteration, and confusion, seem to be more common during treatment with indomethacin. Hence, it is possible that maintenance of (static) postural balance and swift reactions to stimuli are affected by exposure to NSAIDs, indomethacin in particular, consequently putting older individuals at a greater risk for accidental falls. The present study investigated the effect of a high indomethacin dose in healthy middle-aged individuals on two important predictors of falls: postural balance and reaction time. Twenty-two healthy middle-aged individuals (59.5 ± 4.7 years) participated in this double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized crossover trial. Three measurements were conducted with a week interval each. A measurement consisted of postural balance as a single task and while concurrently performing a secondary cognitive task and reaction time tasks. For the first measurement indomethacin 75 mg (slow-release) or a visually identical placebo was randomly assigned. In total, five capsules were taken orally in the 2.5 days preceding assessment. The second measurement was without intervention, for the final one the first placebo group got indomethacin and vice versa. Repeated measures GLM revealed no significant differences between indomethacin, placebo, and baseline in any of the balance tasks. No differences in postural balance were found between the single and dual task conditions, or on the performance of the dual task itself. Similarly, no differences were found on the manual reaction time tasks. The present study showed that a high indomethacin dose does not negatively affect postural balance and manual reaction time in this healthy middle-aged population. Although the relatively small and young sample limits the direct ability to generalize the results to a population at risk of falling, the results indicate that indomethacin alone is not likely to increase fall risk, as far as this risk is related to abovementioned important functions of the CNS, and not affected by comorbidities.     

Components of disinhibition (vs. constraint) differentially predict aggression and alcohol use

Disinhibition (vs. Constraint; DvC), which has been shown to represent a central aspect of the externalizing domain, consists of several correlated but distinguishable underlying traits, which may have different patterns of association with various externalizing indicators. In a sample of 18‐ to 19‐year old undergraduate students (N = 430; 71.1% female), we examined the specificity and generality of the association between lower order components of DvC and both aggression and alcohol use, externalizing‐related behavioural constructs that have well‐established links to DvC. All three components of DvC—including Disagreeableness, low Self‐Control and low Accomplishment—were associated independently with Reactive Aggression, but only Disagreeableness was correlated significantly with Proactive Aggression. Also, only low Self‐Control was associated with alcohol use. Thus, aggression was broadly associated with components of DvC—although much more strongly with the Disagreeableness domain—whereas alcohol use was specifically correlated with low Self‐Control. These results suggest that lower order components of DvC have distinct patterns of associations with externalizing‐related outcomes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Do military decision makers behave as predicted by prospect theory?

Four experiments were conducted to explore the robustness of risky choice framing among military decision makers. In the first experiment the original version of the Asian disease problem was administered. In contrast to Tversky and Kahneman's ( 1981 ) original findings, military decision makers were not influenced by the gain and loss framing. They demonstrated risk‐seeking behavior in both domains. In the second experiment, we administered a military version of the Asian disease problem. We found a significant framing effect, but it was unidirectional: The decision makers were risk seeking in both domains, but significantly more risk seeking in the loss domain. To explore the strength of this risk‐seeking preference, we altered the problem in a third experiment, making the risky alternative 12.5% less attractive than the certain one. Again, we found risk‐seeking behavior in both domains. Finally, we explored reasons for these deviations from prospect theory by comparing the responses of business students and military officers. In this analysis, we observed significantly higher levels of self‐efficacy in the military sample, as compared to the civil sample, and that the self‐efficacy influenced risk seeking only in the military sample. In a post hoc analysis we also found that years of education reduced risk‐seeking preference. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond the three snares: Implications of James’ ‘psychologist’s fallacy’ for 21st century science

William James in his Principles of Psychology (1890, pp. 194–197) warned psychologists against their own habits of assuming that other human beings are like they are. He outlined “three snares” which he considered as obstacles for psychology becoming a science: 1. The misleading influence of language, 2. The confusion of one’s own standpoint with that of mental fact, and 3. The assumption of conscious reflection in the participant as that is the case for the researcher. His challenges remain valid to the discipline also in our 21st century, yet an unsolved problem remains: development of formal theoretical systems that generalize from the “pure experience” of living in irreversible time to basic principles of meaning-making. By pointing to the three snares 125 years ago, William James himself created a new one—that of pragmatism.     

Multi-attribute,multi-alternative models of choice: Choice,reaction time,and process tracing

The first aim of this research is to compare computational models of multi-alternative, multi-attribute choice when attribute values are explicit. The choice predictions of utility (standard random utility & weighted valuation), heuristic (elimination-by-aspects, lexicographic, & maximum attribute value), and dynamic (multi-alternative decision field theory, MDFT, & a version of the multi-attribute linear ballistic accumulator, MLBA) models are contrasted on both preferential and risky choice data. Using both maximum likelihood and cross-validation fit measures on choice data, the utility and dynamic models are preferred over the heuristic models for risky choice, with a slight overall advantage for the MLBA for preferential choice. The response time predictions of these models (except the MDFT) are then tested. Although the MLBA accurately predicts response time distributions, it only weakly accounts for stimulus-level differences. The other models completely fail to account for stimulus-level differences. Process tracing measures, i.e., eye and mouse tracking, were also collected. None of the qualitative predictions of the models are completely supported by that data. These results suggest that the models may not appropriately represent the interaction of attention and preference formation. To overcome this potential shortcoming, the second aim of this research is to test preference-formation assumptions, independently of attention, by developing the models of attentional sampling (MAS) model family which incorporates the empirical gaze patterns into a sequential sampling framework. An MAS variant that includes attribute values, but only updates the currently viewed alternative and does not contrast values across alternatives, performs well in both experiments. Overall, the results support the dynamic models, but point to the need to incorporate a framework that more accurately reflects the relationship between attention and the preference-formation process.