天气和空气污染对诚信行为的影响：一项校园丢钱包的现场实验

本文通过两个研究探讨天气状况和空气污染对诚信行为的影响。研究1通过重新分析Cohn, Maréchal, Tannenbaum和Zünd (2019)在全球范围内对诚信行为的研究数据, 发现了天气状况和空气污染对诚信行为的影响; 研究2通过准实验的研究方法, 在3所高校进行了丢钱包的实验并记录当天天气和空气污染状况。两项研究共同表明：(1)在非晴朗的天气下, 人们会做出更多的不诚信行为; (2)空气污染越严重, 人们越有可能出现不诚信的 行为。     

反馈时间、反馈类型和掩蔽类型对概率类别学习的影响

通过操纵反馈时间(即时,延迟)、反馈类型(简单,丰富)和掩蔽类型(塔罗牌,空白矩形),考察概率类别学习的学习机制。结果发现:(1)被试的学习成绩在即时反馈条件下显著优于在延迟反馈条件下;(2)在即时反馈条件下,仅给予简单反馈,被试虽能出色地完成天气预报任务,但是不能正确地判断卡片预测晴天的概率,倾向内隐学习;(3)在其他条件下,被试能正确地判断卡片预测晴天的概率以及各卡片在天气预报任务中预测天气的重要程度,表明被试能外显地意识到这些线索的作用。综上,概率类别学习采用的是双系统学习机制,既依赖内隐学习,又依赖外显学习。     

Sandstorm animations on rural expressways: The impact of variable message sign strategies on driver behavior in low visibility conditions

Problem: Evolving sandstorms on rural expressways in desert countries impair drivers' contrast vision and increase the risk of serious crashes due to delayed speed adjustments. Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) such as Variable Message Signs (VMS) conveying warnings can be activated to address drivers’ speed adaptation before entering a low visibility zone. To improve drivers’ understanding of the hazard, a sandstorm animation visualizing turbulent sand and its consequences was designed and compared with a general warning pictogram, which is applied if no specific weather pictogram is available. Moreover, minimum warning distances of the VMS to the low visibility zone were tested (e.g., 300 m or 500 m).MethodSixty-three participants from the State of Qatar drove in a driving simulator through clear, transition, and low visibility conditions on a rural expressway. A repeated analysis of variances was conducted to examine the impact of the two on-road warning displays on driving behavior.ResultsThe results showed that the sandstorm animation was similarly effective as a generic warning pictogram in reducing driving speeds before entering the transition and low visibility zone, irrespective of being displayed 500 m or 300 m away. However, the sandstorm animation resulted in consistent similar speed reductions within the low visibility zone, whereas the generic warning pictogram did either perform better or worse after several encounters with a sandstorm. Drivers did strongly agree that the animation is clearly referring to the issue of low visibility, which can be beneficial for recurring low visibility conditions.Practical applications: 1.) Displaying a sandstorm animation is beneficial for rural expressway sections with recurring degrading visibility and low traffic densities, whereas a warning pictogram can be more effective in speed reductions if drivers expect additional traffic hazards. 2.) Roadway authorities have the flexibility to activate a VMS sandstorm warning even for minimum warning distances.     

人以天地之气生:气象对人类心理与行为的影响

从情绪波动到文明兴衰,研究者愈来愈意识到大气现象对人类的重要影响。气象心理学涵盖天气和气候这两大类大气现象作用于人类个体和群体的心理与行为乃至文化特征的各种研究。在个体心理层面,温度、湿度、日照等气象因素会影响个体情绪、工作记忆和认知能力。在个体行为层面,人际亲和行为和反社会行为也会被天气左右。在群体和文化层面,从长程上考察,气温和降水量与多尺度人类群体冲突爆发密切相关;气候冷暖和资源多寡也会共同形塑当地族群的文化心理行为特征。人类世界始终嵌入于天气和气候等宏观生态环境中并受其影响,气象心理学应当在心理学研究体系中占有一席之地。     

线索呈现位置对概率类别学习的影响

当前概率类别学习中主要存在多系统和单系统两种观点之争, 而持不同观点的研究者在其实验中分别采用了不同的线索位置呈现方式, 因此本研究采用经典的天气预测任务通过操纵线索位置的呈现方式来进一步探讨其对概率类别学习的影响。本研究包括2个实验：实验1考察所有线索位置固定和随机对概率类别学习系统的影响; 实验2通过单线索模式下线索位置固定考察概率类别学习的策略。结果发现, 当所有线索的呈现位置固定时, 概率类别学习是外显学习; 而当所有线索的呈现位置随机时, 概率类别学习是内隐学习; 而当只在线索单独出现时固定其位置, 概率类别学习仍是内隐学习。结果表明, 线索位置的不同呈现方式会影响概率类别学习中外显和内隐学习系统的竞争, 研究支持了多系统观点, 且概率类别学习的主要策略可能是多线索策略而不是单模式策略。     

Not as gloomy as we thought: reassessing how the public understands probability of precipitation forecasts

Prior research on probability of precipitation (PoP) forecasts showed that many people wrongfully believe that PoP forecasts are derived from a percentage of time, a percentage of a region or the strength of agreement among forecasters. We posit that the wording of interpretation selection tasks matters, because different response options are associated with different metacognitive feelings. We hypothesised that the incorrect PoP interpretations are more often chosen by participants because they are more fluent than the correct PoP interpretation. We assessed the role of fluency in correctness perception (Study 1) and reassessed PoP interpretations with a more fluent correct interpretation (Study 2). Fluency perception was positively related with perception of correctness. Furthermore, participants selected the correct fluent interpretation more often than the correct disfluent one. We have drawn a more optimistic picture of people’s PoP forecasts understanding than that shown before and have discussed the methodological and applied implications.     

Clouds make nerds look good: field evidence of the impact of incidental factors on decision making

Abundant experimental research has documented that incidental primes and emotions are capable of influencing people's judgments and choices. This paper examines whether the influence of such incidental factors is large enough to be observable in the field, by analyzing 682 actual university admission decisions. As predicted, applicants' academic attributes are weighted more heavily on cloudier days and non‐academic attributes on sunnier days. The documented effects are of both statistical and practical significance: changes in cloud cover can increase a candidate's predicted probability of admission by an average of up to 11.9%. These results also shed light on the causes behind the long demonstrated unreliability of experts making repeated judgments from the same data. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

WHAT IS CLIMATE CHANGE DOING TO US AND FOR US?

What are we doing to our climate? Emissions from fossil fuel burning have raised carbon dioxide concentrations 35 percent higher than in the past millions of years. This increase is warming our planet via the greenhouse effect. What is climate change doing to and for us ? Dry regions are drier and wet ones wetter. Wildfires have increased threefold, hurricanes more violent, floods setting record heights, glaciers melting, and seas rising. Parts of Earth are increasingly uninhabitable. Climate change requires us to act as a global community. Climate justice enjoins emitters to pay the social‐environmental costs of fossil fuel burning. This would expedite green solar, wind, and next‐generation nuclear energy sources. Individuals should conserve resources, waste less food, and eat a plant‐rich diet.     

Images of Extreme Weather: Symbolising Human Responses to Climate Change

Extreme weather events have been increasingly in the news, accompanied by images. At the end of 2011, when such reports were ever present, the International Panel on Climate Change published a draft report on extreme weather and climate change adaptation. This report itself was covered in the news and illustrated with images. Some of these depicted ‘extreme weather’, in particular with relation to floods, droughts and heat waves, hurricanes and ice/sea-level rise. For this article, these images were studied using visual thematic analysis, with a focus on examining the way they may symbolise certain emotional responses, such as compassion, fear, guilt, vulnerability, helpless, courage or resilience. Climate change communicators have examined the way that evoking such emotions in verbal communication can lead to engagement or disengagements with the topic of climate change. However, while researchers have also become increasingly interested in climate change images, they have not yet studied them with respect to symbolising certain emotions. Various typologies of images have been proposed in the past, distinguishing, for example, between human and natural impact images or iconic and geographically specific images. The images studied here do not neatly map onto these distinctions. They symbolise human suffering and loss and they are sometimes geographically and socially distinctive, but they are also iconic of climate change and they are symbols of its natural impacts. They all, to some extent, symbolise helplessness and may thus lead to disengagement rather than engagement with the issue of climate change.     

Weather and Helping: Additional Evidence of the Effect of the Sunshine Samaritan

ABSTRACT

Pleasant weather conditions (i.e., sunshine) favor positive social relationships and improve mood. However, the effect of sunshine on spontaneous helping still remains in question. In a field experiment, male and female confederates accidentally dropped a glove on the ground while walking in pedestrian streets. The confederate continued walking, apparently unaware of his/her loss. The experiment was conducted on predominantly cloudy or predominantly sunny days, but precaution was taken to control for the temperature and not to solicit participants when it rained. Passers-by helped the confederates more favorably on the sunnier days. Positive mood induced by sun may explain such results.