Age differences in contingency judgement linked to perceptual segregation

We demonstrate large differences in judging positive and null contingencies between younger and older adults with a task commonly used to explore cue competition in both contingency and causality judgements. The one-phase blocking task uses two cues, with separate contingencies with the same outcome. The age differences persisted even when participants knew in advance which of the two contingencies to judge. The age differences disappeared, however, when the stimulus display contained markers aiding perceptual segregation. We suggest that the age differences elicited in the one-phase blocking task are linked to decrements in perceptual segregation.     

The probability of causal conditionals

Conditionals in natural language are central to reasoning and decision making. A theoretical proposal called the Ramsey test implies the conditional probability hypothesis: that the subjective probability of a natural language conditional, P(if p then q), is the conditional subjective probability, P(q/p). We report three experiments on causal indicative conditionals and related counterfactuals that support this hypothesis. We measured the probabilities people assigned to truth table cases, P(pq), P(p notq), P( notpq) and P( notp notq). From these ratings, we computed three independent predictors, P(p), P(q/p) and P(q/ notp), that we then entered into a regression equation with judged P(if p then q) as the dependent variable. In line with the conditional probability hypothesis, P(q/p) was by far the strongest predictor in our experiments. This result is inconsistent with the claim that causal conditionals are the material conditionals of elementary logic. Instead, it supports the Ramsey test hypothesis, implying that common processes underlie the use of conditionals in reasoning and judgments of conditional probability in decision making.     

Expectancy bias and the persistence of posttraumatic stress

Anxious individuals tend to overestimate the probability that encounters with anxiogenic stimuli (CS) will be followed by aversive consequences (UCS). This study examined whether such (biased) UCS expectancies predict the persistence of PTSD symptoms. A total of 265 soldiers were recruited before a four-month deployment to Iraq in 2004. About 2-5 months after deployment, 171 (65%) soldiers completed self-report scales about adverse events in Iraq and PTSD symptoms, and a UCS expectancy task. In this task, participants were exposed to a series of deployment-related and deployment-unrelated (control) picture stimuli. For each trial, the participants indicated the subjective probability that a particular slide would be followed by an imminent loud noise. Around 15 months after deployment, 130 (76%) soldiers completed surveys about PTSD symptoms again. Only a small group of participants had high levels of PTSD symptoms. Regression analyses showed that the level of PTSD symptoms at 15 months was predicted by earlier PTSD symptoms, but also and independently by an enhanced UCS expectancy to deployment-related stimuli. The findings support the notion that UCS expectancy bias contributes to the persistence of PTSD symptoms.     

Spider fear and covariation bias in children and adolescents

Covariation bias can be defined as phobic people's tendency to overestimate the association between fear-relevant stimuli and negative outcomes. The current article presents two studies that examined this type of cognitive bias in children and adolescents aged 8-16 years. Study 1 was concerned with a thought experiment during which youths (N=150) were asked to imagine that they participated in an experiment during which they had to view a series of pictures showing spiders, guns, and flowers, that were occasionally followed by a negative outcome (i.e., a mild electric shock). Participants were asked to estimate the relation between each type of picture and the negative outcome. The results indicated that youths with higher levels of spider fear displayed a specific tendency to relate spider pictures to a negative outcome. In Study 2, youths (N=220) actually participated in a computer game during which they were confronted with pictures of spiders, guns, and flowers, each of which was equally often followed by a negative (i.e., losing candy), positive (i.e., winning candy), or neutral outcome. After the game, participants had to estimate the relation between each type of picture and various outcomes. It was found that youths with higher levels of spider fear estimated more negative and less positive outcomes in relation to spider pictures. Taken together, these findings provide support for a fear-related covariation bias in youths. Further developmental analyses indicated that this type of cognitive bias seems to be more consistently present among adolescents than among children.     

Effects of verbal information on fear-related reasoning biases in children

The present study made an attempt to induce fear-related reasoning biases by providing children with negative information about a novel stimulus. For this purpose, non-clinical children aged 9-12 years (N = 318) were shown a picture of an unknown animal for which they received either negative, ambiguous, positive, or no information. Then children completed a series of tests for measuring various types of reasoning biases (i.e., confirmation bias and covariation bias) in relation to this animal. Results indicated that children in the negative and, to a lesser extent, the ambiguous information groups displayed higher scores on tests of fear-related reasoning biases than children in the positive and no information groups. Altogether, these results support the idea that learning via negatively tinted information plays a role in the development of fear-related cognitive distortions in youths.     

Covariation and quantifier polarity: what determines causal attribution in vignettes?

Tests of causal attribution often use verbal vignettes, with covariation information provided through statements quantified with natural language expressions. The effect of covariation information has typically been taken to show that set size information affects attribution. However, recent research shows that quantifiers provide information about discourse focus as well as covariation information. In the attribution literature, quantifiers are used to depict covariation, but they confound quantity and focus. In four experiments, we show that focus explains all (Experiment 1) or some (Experiment 2-4) of the impact of covariation information on the attributions made, confirming the importance of the confound. Attribution experiments using vignettes that present covariation information with natural language quantifiers may overestimate the impact of set size information, and ignore the impact of quantifier-induced focus.     

The use of social and salience cues in early word learning

This article explores young infants' ability to learn new words in situations providing tightly controlled social and salience cues to their reference. Four experiments investigated whether, given two potential referents, 15-month-olds would attach novel labels to (a) an image toward which a digital recording of a face turned and gazed, (b) a moving image versus a stationary image, (c) a moving image toward which the face gazed, and (d) a gazed-on image versus a moving image. Infants successfully used the recorded gaze cue to form new word-referent associations and also showed learning in the salience condition. However, their behavior in the salience condition and in the experiments that followed suggests that, rather than basing their judgments of the words' reference on the mere presence or absence of the referent's motion, infants were strongly biased to attend to the consistency with which potential referents moved when a word was heard.     

Accuracy of retrospective memory and covariation estimation in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Assessment methods relying on biased or inaccurate retrospective recall may distort knowledge about the nature of disorders and lead to faulty clinical inferences. Despite concerns about the accuracy of retrospective recall in general and in particular with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) patients, the accuracy of retrospective recall for one's own symptoms assessed in vivo is unknown in this population. This study used a prospective ecological momentary assessment (EMA) methodology to create a criterion against which to assess recall accuracy in OCD patients. Although results indicated that patients’ retrospective recall of OCD symptoms was fairly accurate, they consistently overestimated the magnitude of OCD symptom covariation with non-OCD facets (e.g., sleep duration, contemporaneous stress level, etc.). Findings suggest that even when recall of OCD symptoms is accurate, patients may be inaccurate in estimating symptom covariation. The findings have implications for the research, case conceptualization, and assessment of OCD, and may extend to other disorders.     

Adaptive non-interventional heuristics for covariation detection in causal induction: model comparison and rational analysis

In this article, 41 models of covariation detection from 2 × 2 contingency tables were evaluated against past data in the literature and against data from new experiments. A new model was also included based on a limiting case of the normative phi-coefficient under an extreme rarity assumption, which has been shown to be an important factor in covariation detection (McKenzie & Mikkelsen, 2007) and data selection (Hattori, 2002; Oaksford & Chater, 1994, 2003). The results were supportive of the new model. To investigate its explanatory adequacy, a rational analysis using two computer simulations was conducted. These simulations revealed the environmental conditions and the memory restrictions under which the new model best approximates the normative model of covariation detection in these tasks. They thus demonstrated the adaptive rationality of the new model.