Differential predictability of preferences and choices

A combined multi-attribute utility and expectancy-value model has repeatedly been found to yield a worse fit to choices than to preference ratings. The present study investigated two possible explanations for this finding. First, people's belief-value structures may change in the choice task as they try to find the best alternative. Second, a difficult choice task may cause the decision maker to use simplifying heuristics. In the first of two experiments, subjective belief-value structures were measured on two occasions separated by about one week. Immediately before the second measurement, different groups of subjects performed a choice task, gave preference ratings, or performed a control task. The results did not support an interpretation of the greater difficulty of predicting choices in terms of changes in belief-value structures. However, the notion of simplifying heuristics received support by the finding that adopting simpler versions of the original model improved the predictions of the choices. In the second experiment, beliefs were measured immediately before or after each of a series of choices or preference ratings. The results indicated that although temporary changes in beliefs may occur, they can hardly provide a full account of the differential predictability of preferences and choices.     

Exploring the Context-Sensitivity of Collective Action Motivations and the Mobilizing Role of Social Media: A Comparative Interview Study With Activists in Germany and Turkey

Western scholarship has underlined the relevance of social identity, perceived efficacy, emotions, and cost–benefit assessments as central catalysts of collective action. Little has been done to understand the context-sensitivity of these catalysts by means of cross-culturally comparative designs. The current study explores their context-sensitivity. It aims to find out whether existing opportunity structures in a democratic, nonrepressive country like Germany produce catalysts of collective action different from those produced in an autocratic, repressive country like Turkey. It also aims to understand the role of social media in mobilizing people in these two contexts. Semistandardized interviews with activists were carried out in both countries (n = 18 in Germany and n = 15 in Turkey) and analyzed by means of a cross-culturally comparative inductive coding procedure including initial and focused coding. Results show that collective action is related to different configurations of collective-action catalysts in the two countries. Solidarity concerns at the face of existential risks are more pronounced in Turkey, whereas political-change concerns are more important in Germany. The role of social media accordingly differs, adhering to the different activist goals. Theoretical implications for the role of context in studying collective action are discussed.     

Visual context processing and its development in gamers and non-gamers

Visual context processing was investigated in both action video game players and nonplayers using the Ebbinghaus illusion task (N = 312, 39.4% female) in a cross-sectional study design. When presented in context, players showed markedly poorer target size discrimination accuracy compared with nonplayers in the 6-, 7-, 8-, and 9-years old age groups, but this difference was reduced in 10-years old group and diminished in adults. When presented in isolation (no-context), the two groups displayed similar performance in all age groups. Furthermore, nonplayers (linear) and players (bell curve) showed profoundly different age-related differences in context processing. These findings provide evidence that players might have enhanced perceptual bias to process visual context in the transition from early childhood to early adolescence, and the differences between the two groups start at early ages and continue with distinct developmental profiles.     

Social factors influence solo and rat dyads exploration of an unfamiliar open field

Animal Cognition - Exploring new and unfamiliar environments is critical for survival, providing information on food, shelter, mates, and sources of danger. The open field paradigm is commonly used...     

STUDIES IN VISUAL PERCEPTION OF ARCHITECTURAL SPACES AND ROOMS: II. Judgments of open and closed space by category rating and magnitude estimation

G ärling , T. Studies in visual perception of architectural spaces and rooms. II. Judgments of open and closed space by category rating and magnitude estimation. Scand. J. Psychol ., 1969, 10 , 257–268.—In one experiment, colour photographs of architectural spaces were employed as stimuli and judged with respect to open and closed space. Category scales of open and closed were complementary, magnitude scales were reciprocal. Judged open space correlated positively and judged closed space negatively with physical size of actual spaces. In another experiment, judged size was found to be directly related to judged open space and inversely related to judged closed space. Furthermore, open and closed space judged in situ correlated to a significant degree with corresponding judgments from photographs.     

The organization of motivated and conditional reflex processes

Recent observations on the plasticity of brain and behavior relationships indicate that the temporary connections between environmental and neuroanatomical substrates have tremendous specificity but at the same time are very plastic. Establishment of a conditional reflex by stimulation of the hippocampal pyramidal layer and/or the mesencephalic reticular formation did not interfere with the differential stimulation of very near points in the same structures. These correlations between brain and behavior confirmed the earlier belief that the development of temporary connections between environment and brain is an elementary process of the central nervous system. Complex behavioral functions are organized through both neuronal and humoral afferentation. Data accumulated recently indicate that the descending forebrain influence is inhibitory in the brain stem and diencephalon and controls the sensory input in a somatomotor-specific and situation-specific manner. Humoral factors affecting thresholds can change the dynamic equilibrium existing between ascending excitatory and descending inhibitory systems; these alterations always follow the rule of situation and somatomotor specificity.     

Post‐conversion experiences of native British converts to Islam

Research¹ has been carried out on native British converts to Islam. It was based on formal interviews with 70 converts to Islam, 50 males and 20 females. Interviews were done in various parts of England. The sample consïsted of 66 English, 3 Irish, and 1 Welsh. Fifty‐one had been Anglicans, 12 Catholics, 3 Methodists, and 4 Jews. The research was designed to find out the pre‐conversion, conversion, and post‐conversion experiences of the converts interviewed. The present article is part of the research, looking at the converts’ post‐conversion experiences with regard to intellectual, moral, and social changes, changes in beliefs and practices, behaviour, and social relations.     

The judgment-choice discrepancy: Noncompatibility or restructuring?

The study examines the relative merits of a noncompatibility and a restructuring explanation of the recurrent empirical finding that a prominent attribute looms larger in choices than in judgments. Pairs of equally attractive options were presented to 72 undergraduates who were assigned to six conditions in which they performed (1) only preference judgments or choices, (2) preference judgments or choices preceded by judgments of attractiveness of attribute levels, or (3) preference judgments or choices accompanied by think-aloud reports. The results replicated the prominence effect for choices, but a prominence effect was also found for preference judgments. In accordance with the restructuring explanation, the think-aloud protocols indicated that options were more often restructured in choices than in preference judgments. However, restructuring could not explain the prominence effect observed for preference judgments. A modified compatibility hypothesis is offered as an alternative explanation.     

Sensorimotor synchronization: Motor responses to pseudoregular auditory patterns

Musically trained and untrained subjects (N=30) were asked to synchronize their finger tapping with stimuli in auditory patterns. Each pattern comprised six successive tonal stimuli of the same duration, the first of which was accented by a different frequency. The duration of interstimulus onset intervals (ISIs) gradually increased or decreased in constant steps toward the end of the patterns. Four values of such steps were used in different trials: 20, 30, 45, and 60 msec. Various time-control mechanisms are hypothesized as being simultaneously responsible for subjects’ incorrect reproduction of the internal temporal ratios of the stimulus patterns. The mechanism of assimilation (of a central tendency) led subjects to enforce a regular (isochronous) structure on the patterns. The influence of other time-control mechanisms (distinction, subjective expression of an accent, sequential transfer) was expressed mainly in differences between intertap onset intervals (ITIs) and the corresponding ISIs at the beginning of the patterns. The duration of the first two ITIs was in the majority of the trials in an inverse ratio to the ratio of the respective ISIs. The distortions resulting from the timing mechanisms concerned were more pronounced in the performance of nonmusicians than in that of musicians.