The decision to check in multialternative choices and limited sensitivity to default

Given the rapid proliferation of smartphone applications and data aggregation websites, in many situations people can use decision aids to guide their choices. For example, they may consider whether to use a navigation device to check the fastest route or whether to use a price comparison website to find the cheapest deal. In what circumstances will subjects use a costly comparison decision aid (which I refer to as “checking”) to choose for them? In six studies, I investigate the impact of the number of available alternatives and checking's attractiveness on the decision to check. While at first increasing the attractiveness of checking led to higher checking rates, a further increase in the number of available alternatives (and thus checking's attractiveness) did not increase the checking rate. Surprisingly, even when checking had a 40% higher expected value compared with not checking, the observed checking rate was below 45%, contrary to risk and ambiguity aversion predictions. Furthermore, labeling the checking alternative as the default had no impact on its choice rate. I find large individual differences in decisions to check. Surprisingly, subjects' initial decisions had high predictive power over their subsequent checking rates, even after 100 trials with full feedback. I propose two simple learning models that capture well the aggregated results.     

The Drinking Expectancy Questionnaire: A revised measure of alcohol-related beliefs

Alcohol-related expectancies have been recently proposed as potentially important determinants of drinking behavior. This study describes the development of a New Zealand measure of such beliefs, the Drinking Expectancy Questionnaire (DEQ). Items selected through interviews, literature review, and the modification of other relevant questionnaires were piloted on 333 drinkers in a community sample and 275 college students. Factor analyses of both samples revealed nine alcohol reinforcement domains relating to assertiveness, affective change, sexual enhancement, social enhancement, relaxation, cognitive impairment, dependence, carelessness, and aggression. The potential clinical and research possibilities using this revised expectancy measure are briefly discussed, along with the scale's strength and weaknesses.The financial assistance of the Alcoholic Liquor Advisory Council of New Zealand in conducting this study is gratefully acknowledged.     

Children's affective,behavioral, and cognitive responses to social comparison

Relative outcomes in social commerce with peers are potent determinants of cognitions and behavior in young children. Although there has been considerable attention given to the behavioral consequences of social comparisons following the receipt of rewards, there has been less concern with cognitive or affective consequences. Additionally, little is known about the accrued effects of multiple social comparison experiences that may be consistent or inconsistent with one another. In the present study, young children received a constant level of reward but the amount they saw a peer receive was varied. There were two sequences of reward distribution, and in a given sequence children received either the same number of rewards as the peer (=), more (+), or fewer (?). In a 3 × 3 factorial design all possible combinations occurred. A negative inequality in reward distribution, no matter where it fell in a sequence, made children sad and inclined children to distribute fewer rewards to peers. When a sequence contained an initial experience of positive inequality, children decreased subsequent levels of self-reward. Experiencing a comparison that revealed a negative inequality in reward distribution also disrupted children's accuracy in appraising the overall distribution of rewards: even when an initial negative inequality was completely offset by an equivalent experience of positive inequality, children inaccurately concluded that they had received fewer rewards than their peers.     

Variable-interval schedules of timeout from avoidance

Rats were trained on concurrent schedules in which pressing one lever postponed shock and pressing the other occasionally produced a 2-min timeout during which the shock-postponement schedule was suspended and its correlated stimuli were removed. Throughout, the shock-postponement schedule maintained proficient levels of avoidance. Nevertheless, in Experiment 1 responding on the timeout lever was established rapidly, was maintained at stable levels on variable-interval schedules, was extinguished by withholding timeout, was reestablished when timeout was reintroduced, and was brought under discriminative control with a multiple variable-interval extinction schedule of timeout. These results are in contrast with Verhave's (1962) conclusion that timeout is an ineffective reinforcer when presented to rats on intermittent schedules. In Experiment 2 the consequence of responding on the timeout lever was altered so that the shock-postponement schedule remained in effect even though the stimulus conditions associated with timeout were produced for 2 min. Responding extinguished, indicating that suspension of the shock-postponement schedule, not stimulus change, was the source of reinforcement. By establishing the reinforcing efficacy of timeout with standard variable-interval schedules, these experiments illustrate a procedure for studying negative reinforcement in the same way as positive reinforcement.     

Children's relative number judgments: One-to-one correspondence,recognition of noncorrespondence,and the influence of cue conflict

Although one-to-one correspondence can be seen as a component of successful counting, number conservation, and relative number judgments, there is evidence of considerable discrepancies between children's competencies in these different tasks. Concerning relative number judgments there are strikingly different claims concerning the ability of young children to make one-to-one correspondence-based judgments. In part these discrepancies reflect differences in criteria. Four experiments are reported in which 5-year-olds' relative number judgments of small and large number displays with and without perceptual aids were studied. Children were found to respond to local rather than global density differences and to benefit from the provision of perceptual aids on both small and large number displays with one exception, namely, large number displays where the longer row is less numerous.     

Arousal and T-maze choice behavior in mice: A convergent paradigm for neophobia constructs and optimal arousal theory

Three experiments investigating the effects of arousal on the T-maze choice behavior of inbred mouse strains are reported. In Experiment 1, CBA and NZB mice were administered unrewarded free choice alternation tests on 10 consecutive days under either No Shock, Shock Start (shocked in the start box), or Shock Choice (shocked at the choice point) treatment conditions. Both strain and treatment effects were observed: In the No-Shock condition, the nonreactive CBA strain alternated, but the reactive NZB strain did not. In the Shock Start condition the CBA strain showed only a suppressed alternation, while the NZB strain administered the same treatment perseverated. Both strains perseverated in the Shock Choice condition. In Experiment 2, NZB mice administered identical shocks in the start box and goal arms on both trials of five consecutive tests conducted once a day perseverated to the same goal arm in which they had been shocked on the first trial. In Experiment 3, NZB mice punished for perseverating (with shock continuation) and simultaneously reinforced for alternating (with shock termination) showed a “punishment paradox”; they perseverated despite the reinforcement contingencies. These results, which are congruent with the optimal arousal theory and several characteristics the theory shares with the emergent neophobia construct, support the contention that arousal mediates a symmetrical relationship between approach and avoidance along a novelty-familiarity continuum.     

Structuring argumentation in a social constructivist framework: A pedagogy with computer support

What we usually think of as higher order skills in argumentation can be profitably viewed as systematic structures for organizing and representing information. Standard terms like line of argument, synthesis, analysis and draft can be viewed as ways of constructing, storing, and accessing data in a social context — data structures for social communication. What makes argument difficult are the multiple structures that arguers have to construct and negotiate when reading and composing. In this paper, we describe the WARRANT project, a project designed to identify data structures of written argument and to design and implement computer tools to aid in the reading and design of argument.     

The effects of cocaine on behavior maintained by timeout from avoidance.

Rats were trained on concurrent schedules under which responses on one lever postponed shock (avoidance) and responses on the other lever produced brief (2-min) periods of signaled timeout from avoidance. For 6 rats, timeout from avoidance was programmed on a variable-interval 45-s schedule that generally resulted in rates that were lower than those on the avoidance lever. For another 6 rats, timeout was arranged on a variable-ratio 15 schedule that produced higher baseline rates. Cocaine (3 to 40 mg/kg) produced large, dose-dependent increases in behavior maintained by timeout in both groups of rats. Avoidance responding was also generally increased by cocaine, but the increases were of lesser magnitude. Increases in response rates were seen across a broad range of doses on behavior maintained by either interval or ratio schedules, an outcome that was unexpected on the basis of most studies of cocaine on food-maintained behavior. These results were similar to those of previous studies of the effects of amphetamine on behavior maintained by timeout from avoidance and suggest that stimulant drugs affect behavior maintained under a shock-postponement schedule differently than they affect behavior maintained by timeout from avoidance.     

Who is Afraid of Figure of Speech?

Aristotle's illustrations of the fallacy of Figure of Speech (or Form of Expression) are none too convincing. They are tied to Aristotle's theory of categories and to peculiarities of Greek grammar that fail to hold appeal for a contemporary readership. Yet, upon closer inspection, Figure of Speech shows many points of contact with views and problems that inhabit 20th-century analytical philosophy. In the paper, some Aristotelian examples will be analyzed to gain a better understanding of this fallacy. The case of the Third Man argument and some modern cases lend plausibility to the claim that Figure of Speech is of more interest as a type of fallacy than has generally been assumed. Finally, a case is made for the view that Figure of Speech, though listed among the fallacies dependent upon language, is not properly classified as a fallacy of ambiguity. More likely, it should be looked upon as a type of non sequitur. This has important consequences for the profile of dialogue associated with this fallacy.