A Process Model of Causal Reasoning

How do we make causal judgments? Many studies have demonstrated that people are capable causal reasoners, achieving success on tasks from reasoning to categorization to interventions. However, less is known about the mental processes used to achieve such sophisticated judgments. We propose a new process model—the mutation sampler—that models causal judgments as based on a sample of possible states of the causal system generated using the Metropolis–Hastings sampling algorithm. Across a diverse array of tasks and conditions encompassing over 1,700 participants, we found that our model provided a consistently closer fit to participant judgments than standard causal graphical models. In particular, we found that the biases introduced by mutation sampling accounted for people's consistent, predictable errors that the normative model by definition could not. Moreover, using a novel experimental methodology, we found that those biases appeared in the samples that participants explicitly judged to be representative of a causal system. We conclude by advocating sampling methods as plausible process-level accounts of the computations specified by the causal graphical model framework and highlight opportunities for future research to identify not just what reasoners compute when drawing causal inferences, but also how they compute it.     

论中西医结合的过程与层次

中西医结合是一个长期困扰人们的难题。中医理论研究人体外部现象的变化规律,以古代哲学思想为指导,具有整体联系、动态把握的合理内核。而目前现代医学对人体结构和功能的认识,并不能完全揭示生命现象本质,因而也不能完全解释中医现象。这种认识有一个不断发展和深化的过程,自然辩证法观点认为层次越低、结合越紧密。分子导次是具有生物意义的最低层次。人类“基因组”计划的实现可能在一个新的高度阐明人体本质,也使中医现象     

A process ontology for persons and their development

Persons are socio-cultural emergents—emerging progressively in the bio-psychological development of the individual. Persons are special kinds of agents, crucially characterized by their abilities to participate in the constitution of emergent social ontologies. I will present a model of these special bio-cultural relationships, and argue that modeling these relationships requires revisions in conceptions about the ontology of social realities, the relationships between agency and cognition, and naturalism and normativity.     

Réflexions autour du processus de parentalité : quelles étapes et quelles spécificités dans l’adoption ?

Parenthood is a process lead by the desire of child and its project. The expectation of a child generates psychological reorganization but its reality will induce modification for the parental couple. We are questioning the process of parenthood amid the encounter of 18 couples divided according to crossed variables: nature of parenthood and its time. Childhood attachment patterns are questioned. The insecure attachment models with more perceived stress are frequent for new parents, the child being biological or adopted. This suggests the necessity to think the welcoming of the child and the couple's preparation to the welcoming together with an accompaniment for at least the first year of the child.     

Response to Algarabel et al., 2012 “Recognition memory deficits in mild cognitive impairment”. Reconsidering claims of familiarity disruptions in mild cognitive impairment

There is some debate over the relative impairment of recollection and familiarity in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). A recent publication by Algarabel et al. (2012, Recognition memory deficits in mild cognitive impairment, Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 19, 608–619) claims to undermine previous studies reporting preserved familiarity in patients with MCI. Here, we respond to their main criticisms, concluding that they are not sufficiently supported by the data presented. The role of recollection and familiarity in MCI remains unresolved and further work will be required to disentangle the mixed literature.     

Indigenizing CBPR: Evaluation of a Community-Based and Participatory Research Process Implementation of the Elluam Tungiinun (Towards Wellness) Program in Alaska

The process that community based participatory research (CBPR) implementation takes in indigenous community contexts has serious implications for health intervention outcomes and sustainability. An evaluation of the Elluam Tungiinun (Towards Wellness) Project aimed to explore the experience of a Yup'ik Alaska Native community engaged within a CBPR process and describe the effects of CBPR process implementation from an indigenous community member perspective. CBPR is acknowledged as an effective strategy for engaging American Indian and Alaska Native communities in research process, but we still know very little about the experience from a local, community member perspective. What are the perceived outcomes of participation in CBPR from a local, community member perspective? Qualitative methods were used to elicit community member perspectives of participation in a CBPR process engaged with one Yup'ik community in southwest Alaska. Results focus on community member perceptions of CBPR implementation, involvement in the process and partnership, ownership of the project with outcomes observed and perceived at the community, family and individual levels, and challenges. A discussion of findings demonstrates how ownership of the intervention arose from a translational and indigenizing process initiated by the community that was supported and enhanced through the implementation of CBPR. Community member perspectives of their participation in the research reveal important process points that stand to contribute meaningfully to implementation science for interventions developed by and for indigenous and other minority and culturally diverse peoples.     

Weak Consistency for Ensuring Priority Vectors Reliability

Consistency and transitivity are important and leading research topics in the study of decision‐making in terms of pairwise comparison matrices. In this paper, we search for conditions that, in case of inconsistency, guarantee ordinal compatibility between ordinal ranking (actual ranking) derived from a transitive matrix and cardinal rankings provided by the most usual priority vectors proposed in the scientific literature. We provide the notion of weak consistency; it is a condition weaker than consistency and stronger than transitivity and ensures that vectors associated with a matrix, by means of a strictly increasing synthesis functional, provide a preference order, on the related set of decision elements, equal to the actual ranking. This notion extends, to the case in which the decision‐maker can be indifferent between two or more alternatives/criteria, weak consistency introduced in previous papers under constraint of no indifference. Finally, we introduce an order relation on the rows of the matrix, that is, a simple order if and only if weak consistency is satisfied; this simple order allows us to easily determine the actual ranking on the set of decision elements. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differential Effects of Right‐Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation on Dimensions of Generalized Prejudice in Brazil

Previous research within a dual‐process cognitive‐motivational theory of ideology and prejudice has indicated that dimensions of generalized prejudice are structured around attitudes towards dangerous, derogated and dissident groups, and that these prejudice dimensions are differentially predicted by the ideological attitudes of Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). However, to date, these findings have been restricted to New Zealand samples. We describe two studies examining whether the structure of prejudiced attitudes and the differential prediction by RWA and SDO replicate in the Brazilian context, incorporating context‐relevant examples of each group—politicians, those from the northeast region of Brazil, and environmentalists. Results broadly supported the three‐factor structure of dangerous, derogated, and dissident groups. Consistent with previous research, regression and structural equation analyses showed that RWA explained prejudice against dangerous groups, SDO explained prejudice against derogated groups, and both RWA and SDO explained prejudice against dissident groups. This research provides some evidence for the generalizability of the three‐dimensional structure of generalized prejudice and differential prediction by RWA and SDO. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology     

A Video Recall Study of In‐session Changes in Sentiment Override

This study examines in‐session changes in sentiment override over the first three sessions of couple therapy. Couples viewed a video recording of therapy sessions immediately after each of the first three sessions and continuously rated their level of sentiment override. Ninety‐eight changes were randomly chosen for analysis. Three talk turns prior to each change was coded using the Family Relational Communication Control Coding System. Results show that changes in sentiment override occur frequently. Repeated incidents of communication control were related to negative change in sentiment override for females. Repeated incidents of being left out of the conversation were related to negative changes in sentiment override for females and positive changes for males.