The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that relevance modulates subsequent non-emotional behaviour, using a personalised mental-imagery-cued relevance manipulation paradigm. Participants had to build positive, negative and neutral mental images based on personalised scenarios that had been selected during an earlier picture-cued imagery phase. Participants imagined situations that were highly relevant for them and situations that were moderately relevant for them, depending on the effects the situations could exert on them. After each mental image, the effect of (...) the relevance manipulation was tested in a two-choice detection task. The interaction of relevance and valence was found to be predictive of the response times. Moreover, in the high-relevance condition, longer response times were observed for positive scenarios compared to negative ones, whereas in the low-relevance condition, shorter response times were observed for positive scenarios compared to negative ones. Results are consistent with the motivational theory of emotions, which posits that low-relevance stimuli trigger valence-specific attention modulations, whereas high-relevance stimuli trigger valence-specific action tendencies. (shrink)

It is a common belief that males have superior visuospatial abilities and that differences in this and other cognitive domains (e.g., math) contribute to the reduced interest and low representation of girls and women in STEM education and professions. However, previous studies show that gender-related implicit associations and explicit beliefs, as well as situational variables, might affect cognitive performance in those gender-stereotyped domains and produce between-gender spurious differences. Therefore, the present study aimed to provide information on when, how and who (...) might be affected by the situational reactivation of stereotypic gender-science beliefs/associations while performing a 3D mental rotation chronometric task (3DMRT). More specifically, we assessed the explicit beliefs and implicit associations (by the Implicit Association Test) held by female and male students of humanities and STEM majors and compared their performance in a 3DMRT after receiving stereotype- congruent, incongruent and nullifying experimental instructions. Our results show that implicit stereotypic gender-science associations correlate with 3DMRT performance in both females and males, but that inter-gender differences emerge only under stereotype-reactivating conditions. We also found that changes in self-confidence mediate these instructions’ effects and that academic specialization moderates them, hence promoting 3DMRT performance differences between male and female humanities, but not STEM, students. Taken together, these observations suggest that the common statement “males have superior mental rotation abilities” simplifies a much more complex reality and might promote stereotypes which, in turn, might induce artefactual performance differences between females and males in such tasks. (shrink)

Avicenna holds that since God has existed from all eternity and is immutable and impassible, he cannot come to have an attribute or feature that he has not had from all eternity. He also claims for the simultaneous causation. A puzzle arises when we consider God’s creating this world. If God is immutable and impassible, then his attributes associated with his creating this world are unchanging. So, God must have been creating the world from all eternity. But then God’s creative (...) act, one might object, seems to be no different from a matter of natural necessity. This is a threat to divine freedom, for God would then have no choice concerning his creative action. Anthony Ruffus and Jon McGinnis argue that this puzzle can be solved in such a way that Avicenna can consistently affirm divine freedom along with divine simplicity. They suggest that Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī’s interpretation might help to show that it is false that Avicenna’s God cannot choose absolutely. For it is still open to him to choose either to create eternally or to refrain from creating anything at all. Ruffus and McGinnis argue that since creating or not creating anything at all do not correspond to two distinct concepts, Avicenna’s account of divine simplicity, which denies any multiplicity in divine mind, is safeguarded along with divine freedom. I claim that God’s omnirationality requiring that he always acts for reasons is a serious threat to such an interpretation. (shrink)

Individuals make decisions under uncertainty every day based on incomplete information concerning the potential outcome of the choice or chance levels. The choices individuals make often deviate from the rational or mathematically objective solution. Accordingly, the dynamics of human decision-making are difficult to capture using conventional, linear mathematical models. Here, we present data from a two-choice task with variable risk between sure loss and risky loss to illustrate how a simple nonlinear dynamical system can be employed to (...) capture the dynamics of human decision-making under uncertainty (i.e., multi-stability, bifurcations). We test the feasibility of this model quantitatively and demonstrate how the model can account for up to 86% of the observed choice behavior. The implications of using dynamical models for explaining the nonlinear complexities of human decision-making are discussed, as well as the degree to which nonlinear dynamical systems theory might offer an alternative framework for understanding human decision-making processes. (shrink)

Two experiments using a realistic version of the selection task examined the relationship between participants' probability estimates of finding a counter example and their selections. Experiment 1 used everyday categories in the context of a scenario to determine whether or not the number of instances in a category affected the estimated probability of a counter-example. Experiment 2 modified the scenario in order to alter participants' estimates of finding a specific counter-example. Unlike Kirby 1994a, but consistent with his proposals, both (...) studies showed that probability estimates significantly predicted selection. Overall results point to the value of understanding selections in terms of their subjective expected utility. (shrink)

In a task requiring speeded bidirectional responses to arrow symbols , “free choice” responses to interspersed bidirectional stimuli are influenced by masked directional primes . By varying stimulus–response compatibility, we tested whether this priming effect is mediated by the conscious instructional set, or instead by pre-existing directional associations to the symbols. In two experiments, one group of participants was instructed to respond with the hand consistent with the implied direction of the arrow symbols, while another group was instructed (...) to make the spatially opposite responses. Both groups showed priming of “free choice” responses. However, such priming was always biased according to the instructional set rather than pre-existing associations. Subliminal priming of “free choice” responses therefore depends on conscious task goals. (shrink)

To avoid post-neurosurgical language deficits, intraoperative mapping of the language function in the brain can be complemented with preoperative mapping with functional magnetic resonance imaging. The validity of an fMRI “language localizer” paradigm crucially depends on the choice of an optimal language task and baseline condition. This study presents a new fMRI “language localizer” in Russian using overt sentence completion, a task that comprehensively engages the language function by involving both production and comprehension at the word and (...) sentence level. The paradigm was validated in 18 neurologically healthy volunteers who participated in two scanning sessions, for estimating test–retest reliability. For the first time, two baseline conditions for the sentence completion task were compared. At the group level, the paradigm significantly activated both anterior and posterior language-related regions. Individual-level analysis showed that activation was elicited most consistently in the inferior frontal regions, followed by posterior temporal regions and the angular gyrus. Test–retest reliability of activation location, as measured by Dice coefficients, was moderate and thus comparable to previous studies. Test–retest reliability was higher in the frontal than temporo-parietal region and with the most liberal statistical thresholding compared to two more conservative thresholding methods. Lateralization indices were expectedly left-hemispheric, with greater lateralization in the frontal than temporo-parietal region, and showed moderate test-retest reliability. Finally, the pseudoword baseline elicited more extensive and more reliable activation, although the syllable baseline appears more feasible for future clinical use. Overall, the study demonstrated the validity and reliability of the sentence completion task for mapping the language function in the brain. The paradigm needs further validation in a clinical sample of neurosurgical patients. Additionally, the study contributes to general evidence on test–retest reliability of fMRI. (shrink)

This study examined students' reasoning about simple repeated choices. Each choice involved ''betting'' on two events, differing in probability. We asked subjects to generate or evaluate alternative strategies such as betting on the most likely event on every trial, betting on it on almost every trial, or employing a ''probability matching'' strategy. Almost half of the college students did not generate or rank strategies according to their expected value, but few subjects preferred a strategy of strict probability matching. High-school (...) students showed greater deviations from expected value than college students. Similar misunderstandings were observed in a choice task involving real (not hypothetical) repeated trials. Large gender differences in prediction strategies and in related computational skills were observed. Subjects who understand the optimal strategy usually do so in terms of independence of successive trials rather than calculation. Some subjects understand the concept of independence but fail to bring it to bear, thinking it can be overridden by intuition or local balancing (representativeness). (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that people often use heuristics in making inferences and that subjective memory experiences, such as recognition or familiarity of objects, can be valid cues for inferences. So far, many researchers have used the binary choice task in which two objects are presented as alternatives (e.g., “Which city has the larger population, city A or city B?”). However, objects can be presented not only as alternatives but also in a question (e.g., “Which country is city (...) X in, country A or country B?”). In such a situation, people can make inferences based on the relationship between the object in the question and each object given as an alternative. In the present study, we call this type of task a “relationships‐comparison task.” We modeled the three inference strategies that people could apply to solve it (familiarity‐matching [FM; a new heuristic we propose in this study], familiarity heuristic [FH], and knowledge‐based inference [KI]) to examine people's inference processes. Through Studies 1, 2, and 3, we found that (a) people tended to rely on heuristics, and that FM (inferences based on similarity in familiarity between objects) well explained participants' inference patterns; (b) FM could work as an ecologically rational strategy for the relationships–comparison task since it could effectively reflect environmental structures, and that the use of FM could be highly replicable and robust; and (c) people could sometimes use a decision strategy like FM, even in their daily lives (consumer behaviors). The nature of the relationships–comparison task and human cognitive processes is discussed. (shrink)

One major assumption in the climate change debate is that because respondents report positive attitudes to the environment and to low carbon lifestyles they will subsequently engage in environmentally friendly/low carbon behaviors when given the right guidance or information. Many governmental agencies have based their climate change strategy on this basic assumption, despite some anxiety about the value-action gap in psychology more generally. Here we test this assumption. We investigated the relationship between explicit and implicit attitudes to carbon footprint, and (...) both self-reports of environmental behavior and low carbon behavioral choices. We found that self-reported attitudes to carbon footprint were significantly associated only with self-reported environmental and self-reported low-carbon behaviors. They were not significantly associated with the choice of low carbon alternatives in a simulated shopping task. Given that the vast majority of studies on attitudes and behavior in the environmental domain use self-report measures of behavior, this may mean that we are generating research findings that could be making policy makers overly complacent about our readiness for actual behavior change. Implicit attitudes were not significantly associated with either measure in terms of group comparisons, but those with a strong positive implicit attitude towards low carbon did choose more low carbon items, but only under time pressure. The opposite trend was found for explicit attitudes – this increased only when participants were not under time pressure. These results suggest that Kahneman’s hypothesis about contrasting systems of human cognition might be highly relevant to the domain of climate change and behavioral adaptation. (shrink)

Food-specific inhibition training (FSIT) is a computerised task requiring response inhibition to energy-dense foods within a reaction-time game. Previous work indicates that FSIT can increase the number of healthy foods (relative to energy-dense foods) children choose, and decrease calories consumed from sweets and chocolate. Across two studies, we explored the impact of FSIT variations (e.g., different response signals, different delivery modes) on children’s food choices within a time-limited hypothetical food-choice task. In Study 1, we varied the FSIT (...) Go/No-Go signals to be emotive (happy vs. sad faces) or neutral (green vs. red signs). One-hundred-and-fifty-seven children were randomly allocated to emotive-FSIT, neutral-FSIT, or a non-food control task. Children participated in groups of 4–15. No significant FSIT effects were observed on food choices (all values ofp> 0.160). Healthy-food choices decreased over time regardless of condition (p 0.050). Healthy choices decreased over time in the control group (p= 0.001) but did not change in the two FSIT groups (bothp> 0.300) supporting previous evidence that FSIT may have a beneficial effect on children’s food choices. Ensuring that children perform FSIT with high accuracy (e.g., by using FSIT in quiet environments and avoiding group-testing) may be important for impacts on food choices though. Future research should continue to explore methods of optimising FSIT as a healthy-eating intervention for children. (shrink)

A wide array of species throughout the animal kingdom has shown the ability to distinguish between quantities. Aside from being important for optimal foraging decisions, this ability seems to also be of great relevance in group-living animals as it allows them to inform their decisions regarding engagement in between-group conflicts based on the size of competing groups. However, it is often unclear whether these animals rely on numerical information alone to make these decisions or whether they employ other cues that (...) may covary with the differences in quantity. In this study we used a touch screen paradigm to investigate the quantity discrimination abilities of two closely related group-living species, wolves and dogs, using a simultaneous visual presentation paradigm. Both species were able to successfully distinguish between stimuli of different quantities up to 32 items and ratios up to 0.80, and their results were in accordance with Weber's law (which predicts worse performances at higher ratios). However, our controls showed that both wolves and dogs may have used continuous, non-numerical cues, such as size and shape of the stimuli, in conjunction with the numerical information to solve this task. In line with this possibility, dogs' performance greatly exceeded that which they had shown in other numerical competence paradigms. We discuss the implications these results may have on these species' underlying biases and numerical capabilities, as well as how our paradigm may have affected the animals' ability to solve the task. (shrink)

Because emotion regulation processes operate over time, they potentially change the context in which subsequent ER processes occur. To test this proposal, fifty-two healthy participants completed the ER choice task. Thirty standardized low- and high-intensity negative images were used to generate different emotional contexts in which participants selected between distraction or reappraisal strategies to decrease the intensity of their negative emotion. Participants then implemented their selected strategy and rated their negative emotion. Using a dynamic perspective, we examined as (...) predictors of ER strategy choice, in addition to current stimulus intensity, several contextual factors from the immediately preceding trial: preceding stimulus intensity and strategy choice, and the intensity of negative affect following the previous strategy implementation and thus preceding the current trial. Results replicated earlier findings that participants are more likely to choose distraction for high-intensity images. Extending earlier findings, selecting reappraisal in the preceding trial and greater negative affect preceding the current trial were associated with lower odds of choosing distraction. The lack of significant interactions among the current and preceding trial factors suggests that these effects on ER choice were direct and not through moderating the effect of current stimulus intensity. These findings support dynamic theories of ER. (shrink)

Psychopathy is a personality disorder frequently associated with immoral behaviors. Previous behavioral studies on the influence of psychopathy on moral decision have yielded contradictory results, possibly because they focused either on judgment (abstract evaluation) or on choice of hypothetical action, two processes that may rely on different mechanisms. In this study, we explored the influence of the level of psychopathic traits on judgment and choice of hypothetical action during moral dilemma evaluation. A population of 102 students completed a (...) questionnaire with ten moral dilemmas and nine non-moral dilemmas. The task included questions targeting both judgment (“Is it acceptable to … in order to …?”) and choice of hypothetical action (“Would you … in order to …?”). The level of psychopathic traits of each participant was evaluated with the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy (LSRP) scale. Logistic regression fitted with the generalized estimating equations method analyses were conducted using responses to the judgment and choice tasks as the dependent variables and psychopathy scores as predictor. Results show that a high level of psychopathic traits, and more specifically those related to affective deficit, predicted a greater proportion of utilitarian responses for the choice but not for the judgment question. There was no first-order interaction between the level of psychopathic traits and other potential predictors. The relation between a high level of psychopathic traits and increased utilitarianism in choice of action but not in moral judgment may explain the contradictory results of previous studies where these two processes were not contrasted. It also gives further support to the hypothesis that choice of action endorsement and abstract judgment during moral dilemma evaluation are partially distinct neural and psychological processes. We propose that this distinction should be better taken into account in the evaluation of psychopathic behaviors. (shrink)

Using an explicit task cuing paradigm, we tested whether masked cues can trigger task-set activation, which would suggest that unconsciously presented stimuli can impact cognitive control processes. Based on a critical assessment of previous findings on the priming of task-set activation, we present two experiments with a new method to approach this subject. Instead of using a prime, we varied the visibility of the cue. These cues either directly signaled particular tasks in Experiment 1, or certain (...) class='Hi'>task transitions in Experiment 2. While both masked task and transition cues affected task choice, only task cues affected the speed of task performance. This observation suggests that task-specific stimulus–response rules can be activated only by masked cues that are uniquely associated with a particular task. Taken together, these results demonstrate that unconsciously presented stimuli have the power to activate corresponding task sets. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by the increasing popularity of efficient designs for stated choice experiments. The objective in efficient designs is to create a stated choice experiment that minimizes the standard errors of the estimated parameters. In order to do so, such designs require specifying prior values for the parameters to be estimated. While there is significant literature demonstrating the efficiency improvements of employing efficient designs, the bulk of the literature tests conditions where the priors used to generate (...) the efficient design are assumed to be accurate. However, there is substantially less literature that compares how different design types perform under varying degree of error of the prior. The literature that does exist assumes small fractions are used, which is in contrast to computer-aided surveys that readily allow for large fractions. Further, the results in the literature are abstract in that there is no reference point to provide clear insight on the magnitude of any issue. Our objective is to analyze the robustness of different designs within a typical stated choice experiment context of a trade-off between price and quality. We use as an example transportation mode choice, where the key parameter to estimate is the value of time. Within this context, we test many designs to examine how robust efficient designs are against a misspecification of the prior parameters. The simple mode choice setting allows for insightful visualizations of the designs themselves and also an interpretable reference point for the range in which each design is robust. Not surprisingly, the D-efficient design is most efficient in the region where the true population VOT is near the prior used to generate the design: the prior is $20/h and the efficient range is $10–$30/h. However, the D-efficient design quickly becomes the most inefficient outside of this range, and the estimation significantly degrades above $50/h. The orthogonal and random designs are robust for a much larger range of VOT. The robustness of Bayesian efficient designs varies depending on the variance that the prior assumes. Implementing two-stage designs that first use a small sample to estimate priors are also not robust relative to uninformative designs. Arguably, the random design performs as well as any design, and it will perform even better if data cleaning is done to remove choice tasks where one alternative dominates the other. (shrink)

Disjunctions in the scope of possibility modals give rise to a conjunctive inference, generally referred to as ‘free choice.’ For example, Emma can take Spanish or Calculus suggests that Emma can take Spanish and can take Calculus. This inference is not valid on standard semantics for modals in combination with a Boolean semantics for disjunction. Hence free choice has sparked a whole industry of theories in philosophy of language and semantics. This paper investigates free choice in sentences (...) involving a non-monotonic modified numeral, under which we embed a possibility modal scoping over disjunction. One example is Exactly one student can take Spanish or Calculus. As we point out, the presence of certain readings of these sentences is a key test for a prominent approach, which analyzes free choice as a kind of scalar implicature. We report on two experiments investigating the readings of such sentences, using an inferential task. Our results are challenging for the implicature approach. We sketch two possible solutions within this approach, either adopting a different recent implicature algorithm, or exploring a different meaning for modified numerals with exactly. Both of them suffer from a variety of problems. We then discuss a third solution, which exploits a recent account of free choice based on homogeneity. This approach can account for our results, in combination with plausible assumptions about homogeneity projection, though it too has open issues with related cases. Regardless of which solution is chosen, non-monotonic contexts turn out to be an important test case for theories of free choice, implicature, and modified numerals. (shrink)

Two‐ and 3‐year‐old children (N = 96) were tested in an object‐choice task with video presentations of peer and adult partners. An immersive, semi‐interactive procedure enabled both the close matching of adult and peer conditions and the combination of participants’ choice behavior with looking time measures. Children were more likely to use information provided by adults. As the effect was more pronounced in the younger age‐group, the observed bias may fade during toddlerhood. As there were no differences (...) in children’s propensity to follow peer and adult gestures with their gaze, these findings provide some of the earliest evidence to date that young children take an interlocutor’s age into account when judging ostensively communicated testimony. (shrink)

In the present study it was shown that decision heuristics and confidence judgements play important roles in the building of preferences. Based on a dual-process account of thinking, the study compared people who did well versus poorly on a series of decision heuristics and overconfidence judgement tasks. The two groups were found to differ with regard to their information search behaviour in introduced multiattribute choice tasks. High performers on the judgemental tasks were less influenced in their decision processes by (...) numerical information format (probabilities vs. frequencies) compared to low performers. They also looked at more attributes and spent more time on the multiattribute choice tasks. The results reveal that performance on decision heuristics and overconfidence tasks has a bearing both on heuristic and analytic processes in multiattribute decision making. (shrink)

This inquiry focuses on the problem of human freedom in the thought of Augustine and two of his early critics, John Cassian and Faustus of Riez. Two issues are of primary importance: the issue concerning the nature of free choice of will, and the issue concerning how free choice of will is to be reconciled with divine election. These issues arise as a result of a change that occurred in Augustine's thinking on human freedom in 396, the year (...) that he grasped the true significance of Paul's doctrine of divine election. To Augustine that doctrine entailed that the will's movement towards the Good was only possible if divine Good Itself worked within the fallen will to make it good. Cassian and Faustus, however, questioned how Augustine could affirm the reality of free choice of will when he insisted that the fallen moral agent lacked the natural ability to do good. ;In order to come to terms with this dilemma, this inquiry views Augustine's later doctrine of human freedom as a form of classical Christian compatibilism. Beginning with H. A. Wolfson's observation that in the Pelagian Controversy Augustine Christianized the pagan Stoic doctrine of fate, the study seeks to develop the implications of this observation in the context of the semi-Augustinian Controversy . Thus it attempts to carry out a task that Wolfson himself had intended to undertake but had never in fact been able to accomplish. ;In keeping with this objective, the inquiry develops Wolfson's claim by situating Augustine's response to the semi-Augustinians against the background of two key texts: Cicero's De fato and Augustine's De civitate dei . A careful study of these texts indicates not only a remarkable similarity between Chrysippus' and Augustine's solution to the problem of human freedom but also Augustine's own awareness of his indebtedness to the Stoics. With this background in mind, the inquiry proceeds, initially, to unravel Augustine's doctrine of human freedom and, subsequently, to view it in relation to Cassian's and Faustus' doctrine of human freedom. After drawing out the implications of these three doctrines of human freedom, a concluding chapter calls attention to the fact that Stoicism exerted a much more pervasive influence on the development of Augustine's doctrine of human freedom than has hitherto been suspected. (shrink)

One hundred and ninety participants (95 undergraduates and 95 employees) responded to a factorial survey in which a number of case-based organizational allocation tasks were described. Participants were asked to imagine themselves as employees in fictitious organizations and chose among three allocations of employee development schemes invested by the manager in different work groups. The allocations regarded how such investments should be allocated between two parties. Participants chose twice, once picking the fairest and once the best allocation. One between-subjects factor (...) varied whether the parties represented social (i.e., choosing among allocations between two different work groups) or temporal comparisons (i.e., choosing among allocations between the present and the following year). Another between-subjects factor varied whether participants’ in-group was represented by the parties or not. One allocation maximized the outcome to one party, another maximized the joint outcome received by both parties, and a third provided both parties with equal but lower outcomes. It was predicted that equality, although always deficient to both parties, would be the preferred allocation when parties represented social comparisons and when choices were based on fairness. When parties represented temporal comparisons, and when choices were based on preference, maximizing the joint outcome was hypothesized to be the preferred allocation. Results supported these hypotheses. Against what was predicted, whether the in-group was represented by the parties or not did not moderate the results, indicating that participants’ allocation preferences were not affected by self-interest. The main message is that people make sensible distinctions between what they prefer and what they regard as fair. The results were the same for participating students who imagined themselves as being employees and participants who were true employees, suggesting that no serious threats to external validity are committed when university students are used as participants. (shrink)

The majority of the studies on attentional focus have shown that participants who were instructed to focus externally performed better than those who were taught to focus internally. However, in most of these studies the participants performed complex motor tasks. Due to the scarcity of data on the effects of attentional focus specifically on simple motor tasks, our purpose in the current study was to examine these effects on two simple reaction time tasks. The study was conducted on a cloud-based (...) experimental software. Participants were allocated to three experimental groups: an external focus group, an internal focus group, and a control group. The participants performed two tasks: a choice-RT task and a Simon task. Participants in all three groups practiced eight blocks of 20 trials from each task in a counterbalanced order – a total of 180 trials for each task. The sole difference between the three groups was the administered attentional focus instructions. The findings suggest that attentional focus instructions do not affect the performance of a choice-RT task or a Simon-task in a computerized online study. It is possible that the simple RT-based tasks in the current study were not sensitive to the attentional focus manipulation, since in such simple tasks there are not many actions that internal focus can disrupt. Although we asked the participants to what extent they followed the instructions, we cannot say whether their responses represent their actual attentional focus when performing the tasks. (shrink)

Experimental investigations into children’s interpretation of scalar terms show that children have difficulties with scalar implicatures in tasks. In contrast with adults, they are for instance not able deriving the pragmatic interpretation that “some” means “not all” (Noveck, 2001; Papafragou & Musolino, 2003). However, there is also substantial experimental evidence that children are not incapable of drawing scalar inferences and that they are aware of the pragmatic potential of scalar expressions. In these kinds of studies, the prime interest is to (...) discover what conditions facilitate implicature production for children. One of the factors that seem to be difficult for children is the generation of the scalar alternative. In a Felicity Judgment Task (FJT) the alternative is given. Participants are presented with a pair of utterances and were asked to choose the most felicitous description. In such a task, even five-year-old children showed a very good performance (Chierchia et al., 2001; Foppolo, Guasti, & Chierchia, 2012). Our study wants to build on this tradition, by using a FJT where not only “some-all” choices are given, but also “some-many” and “many-all”. We compared performance of 59 five-year-old children with 34 11-year-old children. The results indicated that performance of both age-groups was clearly above chance. With respect to the ‘some-all’ choice, we find in both age-groups very high accuracy, replicating Foppolo et al. (2012). However, for the five-year-old children, the critical and ambiguous items were more difficult than the control items and they also performed worse on these two items than the eleven-year-old children. Interestingly with respect to the issue of scalar diversity, the eleven-year-old children were also presented temporal items, which turned out to be more difficult than the quantitative ones. (shrink)

In the current study, 24- to 27-month-old children (N = 37) used pointing gestures in a cooperative object choice task with either peer or adult partners. When indicating the location of a hidden toy, children pointed equally accurately for adult and peer partners but more often for adult partners. When choosing from one of three hiding places, children used adults’ pointing to find a hidden toy significantly more often than they used peers’. In interaction with peers, children’s (...) class='Hi'>choice behavior was at chance level. These results suggest that toddlers ascribe informative value to adults’ but not peers’ pointing gestures, and highlight the role of children’s social expecta- tions in their communicative development. (shrink)

Visual information follows at least two branches in the human nervous system, following a common input stage: a cognitive ''what'' branch governs perception and experience, while a sensorimotor ''how'' branch handles visually guided behavior though its outputs are unconscious. The sensorimotor system is probed with an isomorphic task, requiring a 1:1 relationship between target position and motor response. The cognitive system, in contrast, is probed with a forced qualitative decision, expressed verbally, about the location of a target. Normally, the (...) cognitive system is influenced by context-induced illusions of visual direction, while the sensorimotor system is not. Here, we inquire whether the process of making a spatially based decision is critical in forcing subjects to use the information in the cognitive system for spatial tasks. Subjects hear a tone that determines whether they jab an ''X'' or an ''O'' with the forefinger. Despite making a decision about which target to contact, the jab is not influenced by the position of a surrounding frame, indicating that choice can be handled within the context-insensitive sensorimotor system. (shrink)

The legacy of Nisbett and Wilson’s classic article, Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes , is mixed. It is perhaps the most cited article in the recent history of consciousness studies, yet no empirical research program currently exists that continues the work presented in the article. To remedy this, we have introduced an experimental paradigm we call choice blindness [Johansson, P., Hall, L., Sikström, S., & Olsson, A. . Failure to detect mismatches between intention (...) and outcome in a simple decision task. Science, 310, 116–119.]. In the choice blindness paradigm participants fail to notice mismatches between their intended choice and the outcome they are presented with, while nevertheless offering introspectively derived reasons for why they chose the way they did. In this article, we use word-frequency and latent semantic analysis to investigate a corpus of introspective reports collected within the choice blindness paradigm. We contrast the introspective reasons given in non-manipulated vs. manipulated trials, but find very few differences between these two groups of reports. (shrink)

In the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, people are often faced with uncertain risky choice. Risky choice will be affected by different descriptions of the event’s gain or loss framework, this phenomenon is known as the framing effect. With the continuous expansion and in-depth study of frame effects in the field of risky choice, researchers have found that the are quite different in different situations. People have different interpretations of the same event at different psychological distances, and (...) will also be affected by their own emotions. Therefore, the current study examines the common influence of task frame, spatial distance, and trait emotion on risky choice through two studies. Study 1 used a 2 × 2 inter-subject design, and the dependent variable is the choice of the rescue plan for the classic “Asian disease” problem. The results revealed that trait anger did not predict individuals’ risky choice preferences, and high trait anxiety led individuals to be more risk-averse. The framing effect exists in risky choice, and individuals prefer risk seeking in the loss frame. Study 2 used a 2 × 2 × 2 three-factor inter-subject design in which the dependent variable is the choice of rescue plan. The results indicate that the framing effect also exists in risky choice, and individuals prefer risk seeking in a loss frame. High trait anxiety lead individuals to be more risk-averse, while trait anger has no significant predictive effect on risk preference. Distant spatial distance lead individuals to increase their preference for risk-seeking under the gain frame, which leads to the disappearance of the framing effect. In conclusion, trait anxiety and spatial distance have a certain degree of influence on risky choice under the framework of gain and loss. (shrink)

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Soochow Gambling Task (SGT) are two experience-based risky decision-making tasks for examining decision-making deficits in clinical populations. Several cognitive models, including the expectancy-valence learning model (EVL) and the prospect valence learning model (PVL), have been developed to disentangle the motivational, cognitive, and response processes underlying the explicit choices in these tasks. The purpose of the current study was to develop an improved model that can fit empirical data better than the EVL (...) and PVL models and, in addition, produce more consistent parameter estimates across the IGT and SGT. Twenty-six opiate users (mean age 34.23; SD 8.79) and 27 control participants (mean age 35; SD 10.44) completed both tasks. Eighteen cognitive models varying in evaluation, updating, and choice rules were fit to individual data and their performances were compared to that of a statistical baseline model to find a best fitting model. The results showed that the model combining the prospect utility function treating gains and losses separately, the decay-reinforcement updating rule, and the trial-independent choice rule performed the best in both tasks. Furthermore, the winning model produced more consistent individual parameter estimates across the two tasks than any of the other models. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of numeracy and the emotion of fear on the decision-making process. While previous research demonstrated that these factors are independently related to search effort, search policy and choice in a decision from experience task, less is known about how their interaction contributes to processing information under uncertainty. We attempted to address this problem and to fill this gap. In the present study, we hypothesized that more numerate people would (...) sample more information about a decision problem and that the effect of fear would depend on the source of this emotion: whether it is integral (i.e., relevant) or incidental (i.e., irrelevant) to a decision problem. Additionally, we tested how these factors predict choices. We addressed these hypotheses in a series of two experiments. In each experiment, we used a sampling paradigm to measure search effort, search policy and choice in nine binary problems included in a decision from experience task. In Experiment 1, before the sampling task we elicited incidental fear by asking participants to recall fearful events from their life. In Experiment 2, integral fear was elicited by asking participants to make choices concerning medical treatment. Decision problems and their payoff distributions were the same in the two experiments and across each condition. In both experiments, we assessed objective statistical numeracy and controlled for a change in the current emotional state. We found that more numerate people sampled more information about a decision problem and switched less frequently between alternatives. Incidental fear marginally predicted search effort. Integral fear led to larger sample sizes, but only among more numerate people. Neither numeracy nor fear were related to the number of choices that maximized expected values. However, across two experiments sample sizes predicted the number of choices that maximized experienced mean returns. The findings suggest that people with higher numeracy may be more sensitive to integral emotions; this may result in more effortful sampling of relevant information leading to choices maximizing experienced returns. (shrink)

Stress induction reduces people's ability to modify their instrumental choices following changes in the value of outcomes, but the mechanisms underpinning this effect have not been specified because previous studies have lacked crucial control conditions. To address this, the current study had participants learn two instrumental responses for food and water, respectively, before water was devalued by specific satiety. Choice between these two responses was then measured in extinction, reacquisition and Pavlovian to instrumental transfer tests. Concurrently during these tests, (...) a negative emotional appraisal group evaluated aversive images, whereas a control group evaluated neutral images, at the same time as choosing between the two instrumental responses. Negative emotional appraisal abolished the impact of water devaluation on instrumental choice in the extinction test, but did not affect instrumental choice in the reacquisition or PIT tests. These findings suggest that negative emotional appraisal selectively impaired participants’ ability to retrieve the expected value of outcomes required to make goal-directed instrumental choices in the extinction test, and that this effect was not due to task disengagement, nullification of the devaluation treatment or impaired knowledge of response-outcome relationships. (shrink)

The present research seeks to better understand research conditions in laboratory research, with special attention paid to the informed consent process and experimenter characteristics. The first study tested the impact of language perspective and experimenter demeanor upon participant retention of the informed consent information, attitudes toward the research project, and performance on experimental tasks. The second study examined the impact of experimenter attire. Across the two studies, our results suggest that there was no impact of language perspective, whereas the number (...) of other participants in the laboratory, experimenter attire, and experimenter demeanor influence participant behaviors in the laboratory. (shrink)

Past research found performance differences between monolingual and bilingual children in the domain of executive functions. Furthermore, recent studies have reported advantages in processing efficiency or mental effort in bilingual adults and children. These studies mostly focused on the investigation of “cold” EF tasks. Studies including measures of “hot” EF, i.e., tasks operating in an emotionally significant setting, are limited and hence results are inconclusive. In the present study, we extend previous research by investigating performance in a task of (...) the “hot” EF domain by both behavioral data and mental effort via pupillary changes during task performance. Seventy-three monolingual and bilingual school children solved the Iowa Gambling Task in two different conditions. In the standard task, characterized by constant gains and occasional losses, children did not learn to improve their decision-making behavior. In a reversed task version, characterized by constant losses and occasional gains, both monolinguals and bilinguals learned to improve their decision-making behavior over the course of the task. In both versions of the task, children switched choices more often after losses than after gains. Bilinguals switched their choices less often than monolinguals in the reversed task, indicating a slightly more mature decision-making strategy. Mental effort did not differ between monolinguals and bilinguals. Conclusions of these findings for the bilingual advantage assumption will be discussed. (shrink)

A sense of agency over wilful actions is thought to be dependent on the level of choice and the nature of the outcome. In a preregistered study, we manipulated choice and valence of outcome to assess the relationship between SoA across the depression and psychosis continuum. Participants completed a Libet Clock task, in which they had either a free or forced choice to press one of two buttons and received either a rewarding or punishing outcome. Participants (...) also completed questionnaires on depressive and psychosis-like traits. Rewarding outcomes increased intentional binding. The evidence favoured no effect of choice on average, but this was influenced by inter-individual differences. Individuals reporting more depressive traits had less of a difference in intentional binding between free and forced choice conditions. We show that implicit SoA is sensitive to outcome valence and the effect of choice differs across the depression continuum. (shrink)

Recently, reliable interindividual differences were found for the way how individuals process multiple tasks and how they organize their responses. Previous studies have shown mixed results with respect to the flexibility of these preferences. On the one hand, individuals tend to adjust their preferred task processing mode to varying degrees of risk of crosstalk between tasks. On the other, response strategies were observed to be highly stable under varying between-resource competition. In the present study, we investigated whether the stability (...) of response strategies also persists with increased risk of crosstalk or whether individuals adjust their choice of response strategy, similar to what has been found at the level of task processing modes. Besides, related differences in multitasking efficiency were assessed. For this purpose, 53 participants performed the Free Concurrent Dual-Tasking paradigm, which allows them to control their task scheduling and response organization. The participants completed the FCDT paradigm under two conditions including task pairs characterized by either low or high levels of risk of crosstalk. The free choice of task scheduling resulted in the previously found distinct response patterns, best described as blocking, switching or response grouping. Remarkably, we did not find any notable adjustments of strategies of response organization to the extent of crosstalk. However, we observed suspected performance decrements of a switching strategy in the condition of high risk of crosstalk. The results suggest that individual strategies of response organization are stable habits. Further, they illustrate disadvantages of switching vs. blocking strategies of response organization in case of high task similarity. (shrink)

We tested the hypothesis that choices determined by Type 1 processes are compelling because they are fluent, and for this reason they are less subject to analytic thinking than other answers. A total of 104 participants completed a modified version of Wason's selection task wherein they made decisions about one card at a time using a two-response paradigm. In this paradigm participants gave a fast, intuitive response, rated their feeling of rightness for that response, and were then allowed free (...) time to reconsider their answers. As we predicted, answers consistent with a matching heuristic were made more quickly than other answers, were given higher FOR ratings, and received less subsequent analysis as measured by rethinking time and the probability of changing answers. These data suggest that reasoning biases may be compelling because they are fluently generated; this is turn creates a strong FOR, which acts as a signal that further analysis is not necessary. (shrink)

The sources, extent and margins of parental obligations in taking decisions regarding their children’s medical care are subjects of ongoing debates. Balancing children’s immediate welfare with keeping their future open is a delicate task. In this paper, we briefly present two examples of situations in which parents may be confronted with the choice of whether to authorise or demand non-therapeutic interventions on their children for the purpose of fertility preservation. The first example is that of children facing cancer (...) treatment, and the second of children with Klinefelter syndrome. We argue that, whereas decisions of whether to preserve fertility may be prima facie within the limits of parental discretion, the right to an open future does not straightforwardly put parents under an obligation to take actions that would detect or relieve future infertility in their children—and indeed in some cases taking such actions is problematic. (shrink)

We report on two experiments investigating the effect of an increased cognitive load for speakers on the choice of referring expressions. Speakers produced story continuations to addressees, in which they referred to characters that were either salient or non-salient in the discourse. In Experiment 1, referents that were salient for the speaker were non-salient for the addressee, and vice versa. In Experiment 2, all discourse information was shared between speaker and addressee. Cognitive load was manipulated by the presence or (...) absence of a secondary task for the speaker. The results show that speakers under load are more likely to produce pronouns, at least when referring to less salient referents. We take this finding as evidence that speakers under load have more difficulties taking discourse salience into account, resulting in the use of expressions that are more economical for themselves. (shrink)

Experimental research has studied the emergence of fairness criteria such as merit and equality at increasingly younger ages. How much does the recognition and practice of these principles depend on the influence of central aspects of Western educated and industrialized societies? In an attempt to answer these questions, this article provides evidence regarding the choices of children in the Kogi indigenous community of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a traditional society living in the mountains of Northern Colombia that practices (...) swidden agriculture, cattle-raising, and enjoys a special cultural status granted by the Colombian Constitution. Two groups of 6–7 and 10–11 year olds were tested on a modified dictator game and several scenarios from a resource distribution task including different fairness criteria. Our results point to the lack of focality of the idea of merit among Kogi children at these ages when deciding on third-party allocation tasks, even when the design prevented equal distribution. (shrink)

This paper brings the intellectual tools of cognitive science to bear on resolving the “paradox of the active user” [Interfacing Thought: Cognitive Aspects of Human–Computer Interaction, Cambridge, MIT Press, MA, USA]—the persistent use of inefficient procedures in interactive tasks by experienced or even expert users when demonstrably more efficient procedures exist. The goal of this paper is to understand the roots of this paradox by finding regularities in these inefficient procedures. We examine three very different data sets. For each data (...) set, we first satisfy ourselves that the preferred procedures used by some subjects are indeed less efficient than the recommended procedures. We then amass evidence, for each set, and conclude that when a preferred procedure is used instead of a more efficient, recommended procedure, the preferred procedure tends to have two major characteristics: (1) the preferred procedure is a well‐practiced, generic procedure that is applicable either within the same task environment in different contexts or across different task environments, and (2) the preferred procedure is composed of interactive components that bring fast, incremental feedback on the external problem states. The support amassed for these characteristics leads to a new understanding of the paradox. In interactive tasks, people are biased towards the use of general procedures that start with interactive actions. These actions require much less cognitive effort as each action results in an immediate change to the external display that, in turn, cues the next action. Unfortunately for the users, the bias to use interactive unit tasks leads to a path that requires more effort in the long run. Our data suggest that interactive behavior is composed of a series of distributed choices; that is, people seldom make a once‐and‐for‐all decision on procedures. This series of biased selection of interactive unit tasks often leads to a stable suboptimal level of performance. (shrink)

Research on social influences often distinguishes between social and quality incentives to ascribe meaning to the value that popularity conveys. This study examines the neural correlates of those incentives through which popularity influences preferences. This research reports an functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment and a behavioral task in which respondents evaluated popular products with three focus perspectives; unspecified focus, focus on social aspects, and focus on quality. The results show that value derived with a social focus reflects inferences of (...) approval and reward value, and positively affects preferences. Value derived with a quality focus reflects inferences of quality and negatively affects preferences. This study provides evidence of two distinct inferential routes on both a neurological level, represented by different regions in the brain, and a behavioral level. These results provide the first evidence that a single popularity cue can in different ways influence the value derived from product popularity. (shrink)