Judgments about Work and the Features of Young Adults’ Jobs *

PubMed Central

Johnson, Monica Kirkpatrick; Monserud, Maria

2010-01-01

This study revisits the relationship between adolescent judgments about work and later job characteristics, tackling the twin temporal dimensions of age and history. Drawing on 15 consecutive cohorts of high school seniors, we examine 1) whether adolescents' judgments about work become more strongly predictive of the characteristics of their jobs as they move through their twenties, and 2) whether the relationship between adolescents' judgments about work and their later job characteristics has weakened across cohorts of high school seniors between 1976 and 1990. Findings indicate a limited role of history; the larger life course story of these findings is tied to age. Adolescent judgments about work, measured in the senior year of high school, became more predictive of earnings with age during this period of the life course. They were also most predictive of the level of intrinsic job characteristics at the oldest age we examined, but the pattern was not one of progressive strengthening with age as it was for earnings. PMID:20802796

Teachers' Judgments of the Academic Achievement of Children with and without Characteristics of Inattention, Impulsivity, and Hyperactivity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jenkins, Lyndsay N.; Demaray, Michelle Kilpatrick

2016-01-01

Some evidence suggests that teachers may have a negative bias against and be less accurate in academic judgments of students with behavioral characteristics of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Thus, examining the accuracy of their judgments is an important area of investigation. The current study examined the accuracy of teachers'…

Revisiting Rossion and Pourtois with new ratings for automated complexity, familiarity, beauty, and encounter.

PubMed

Forsythe, Alex; Street, Nichola; Helmy, Mai

2017-08-01

Differences between norm ratings collected when participants are asked to consider more than one picture characteristic are contrasted with the traditional methodological approaches of collecting ratings separately for image constructs. We present data that suggest that reporting normative data, based on methodological procedures that ask participants to consider multiple image constructs simultaneously, could potentially confounded norm data. We provide data for two new image constructs, beauty and the extent to which participants encountered the stimuli in their everyday lives. Analysis of this data suggests that familiarity and encounter are tapping different image constructs. The extent to which an observer encounters an object predicts human judgments of visual complexity. Encountering an image was also found to be an important predictor of beauty, but familiarity with that image was not. Taken together, these results suggest that continuing to collect complexity measures from human judgments is a pointless exercise. Automated measures are more reliable and valid measures, which are demonstrated here as predicting human preferences.

Can we use human judgments to determine the discount rate?

PubMed

Baron, J

2000-12-01

It has been suggested that the long-term discount rate for environmental goods should decrease at longer delays. One justification for this suggestion is that human judgments support it. This article presents an experiment showing that judgments concerning discount rates are internally inconsistent. These results point to potential problems with the use of judgments referenda for determining discount rates in cost-benefit analyses.

Age-related changes to spectral voice characteristics affect judgments of prosodic, segmental, and talker attributes for child and adult speech.

PubMed

Dilley, Laura C; Wieland, Elizabeth A; Gamache, Jessica L; McAuley, J Devin; Redford, Melissa A

2013-02-01

As children mature, changes in voice spectral characteristics co-vary with changes in speech, language, and behavior. In this study, spectral characteristics were manipulated to alter the perceived ages of talkers' voices while leaving critical acoustic-prosodic correlates intact, to determine whether perceived age differences were associated with differences in judgments of prosodic, segmental, and talker attributes. Speech was modified by lowering formants and fundamental frequency, for 5-year-old children's utterances, or raising them, for adult caregivers' utterances. Next, participants differing in awareness of the manipulation (Experiment 1A) or amount of speech-language training (Experiment 1B) made judgments of prosodic, segmental, and talker attributes. Experiment 2 investigated the effects of spectral modification on intelligibility. Finally, in Experiment 3, trained analysts used formal prosody coding to assess prosodic characteristics of spectrally modified and unmodified speech. Differences in perceived age were associated with differences in ratings of speech rate, fluency, intelligibility, likeability, anxiety, cognitive impairment, and speech-language disorder/delay; effects of training and awareness of the manipulation on ratings were limited. There were no significant effects of the manipulation on intelligibility or formally coded prosody judgments. Age-related voice characteristics can greatly affect judgments of speech and talker characteristics, raising cautionary notes for developmental research and clinical work.

Making Judgments on the Basis for Workplace Learning: Towards an Epistemology of Practice.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beckett, David; Hager, Paul

2000-01-01

Interviews illustrating professional judgment support characteristics of informal workplace learning: contingent, practical, process, particular, and affective-social. Growth in the capacity to make judgments occurs in three ways (1) ability to separate initial need from actualization of judgment; (2) ability to interpret conative-emotive and…

Individual Aesthetic Preferences for Faces Are Shaped Mostly by Environments, Not Genes.

PubMed

Germine, Laura; Russell, Richard; Bronstad, P Matthew; Blokland, Gabriëlla A M; Smoller, Jordan W; Kwok, Holum; Anthony, Samuel E; Nakayama, Ken; Rhodes, Gillian; Wilmer, Jeremy B

2015-10-19

Although certain characteristics of human faces are broadly considered more attractive (e.g., symmetry, averageness), people also routinely disagree with each other on the relative attractiveness of faces. That is, to some significant degree, beauty is in the "eye of the beholder." Here, we investigate the origins of these individual differences in face preferences using a twin design, allowing us to estimate the relative contributions of genetic and environmental variation to individual face attractiveness judgments or face preferences. We first show that individual face preferences (IP) can be reliably measured and are readily dissociable from other types of attractiveness judgments (e.g., judgments of scenes, objects). Next, we show that individual face preferences result primarily from environments that are unique to each individual. This is in striking contrast to individual differences in face identity recognition, which result primarily from variations in genes [1]. We thus complete an etiological double dissociation between two core domains of social perception (judgments of identity versus attractiveness) within the same visual stimulus (the face). At the same time, we provide an example, rare in behavioral genetics, of a reliably and objectively measured behavioral characteristic where variations are shaped mostly by the environment. The large impact of experience on individual face preferences provides a novel window into the evolution and architecture of the social brain, while lending new empirical support to the long-standing claim that environments shape individual notions of what is attractive. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Social exclusion: the interplay of group goals and individual characteristics.

PubMed

Richardson, Cameron B; Hitti, Aline; Mulvey, Kelly Lynn; Killen, Melanie

2014-08-01

Past research has shown that adolescents justify social exclusion based on concerns for group functioning, and yet, to date, no study has evaluated whether group functioning justifications shift or remain stable across different exclusion contexts. In this study, we systematically manipulated exclusion context (i.e., competitive or noncompetitive soccer groups) and individual characteristics of the target of exclusion to test the nature of the interaction between these factors during exclusion judgments. Adolescents' (N = 201; 61% Female) exclusion judgments differed across contexts only when an individual's ability was under consideration. Intergroup (i.e., gender, nationality) and interpersonal (i.e., aggression, shyness) characteristics overwhelmed contextual considerations. Results indicate the complexity of factors weighed by adolescents when making exclusion judgments, and suggest the need for extension of the present findings to understand more fully the interaction between the context of exclusion and individual characteristics in exclusion judgments.

The Impact of Sex-Role Stereotyping on Human Development. Monograph, Volume 3, Number 1.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Reilly, Patricia

A stereotype is a standardized mental picture based on a common characteristic of a group of people, representing an oversimplified opinion or an uncritical judgment that is not reality-based. In order to understand the psychological basis of sex-role stereotyping it must be understood that the stereotype of men as strong, independent, and in…

The Effects of Student Characteristics on Teachers' Judgment Accuracy: Disentangling Ethnicity, Minority Status, and Achievement

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaiser, Johanna; Südkamp, Anna; Möller, Jens

2017-01-01

Teachers' judgments of students' academic achievement are not only affected by the achievement themselves but also by several other characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, and minority status. In real-life classrooms, achievement and further characteristics are often confounded. We disentangled achievement, ethnicity and minority status and…

Age-related changes to spectral voice characteristics affect judgments of prosodic, segmental, and talker attributes for child and adult speech

PubMed Central

Dilley, Laura C.; Wieland, Elizabeth A.; Gamache, Jessica L.; McAuley, J. Devin; Redford, Melissa A.

2013-01-01

Purpose As children mature, changes in voice spectral characteristics covary with changes in speech, language, and behavior. Spectral characteristics were manipulated to alter the perceived ages of talkers’ voices while leaving critical acoustic-prosodic correlates intact, to determine whether perceived age differences were associated with differences in judgments of prosodic, segmental, and talker attributes. Method Speech was modified by lowering formants and fundamental frequency, for 5-year-old children’s utterances, or raising them, for adult caregivers’ utterances. Next, participants differing in awareness of the manipulation (Exp. 1a) or amount of speech-language training (Exp. 1b) made judgments of prosodic, segmental, and talker attributes. Exp. 2 investigated the effects of spectral modification on intelligibility. Finally, in Exp. 3 trained analysts used formal prosody coding to assess prosodic characteristics of spectrally-modified and unmodified speech. Results Differences in perceived age were associated with differences in ratings of speech rate, fluency, intelligibility, likeability, anxiety, cognitive impairment, and speech-language disorder/delay; effects of training and awareness of the manipulation on ratings were limited. There were no significant effects of the manipulation on intelligibility or formally coded prosody judgments. Conclusions Age-related voice characteristics can greatly affect judgments of speech and talker characteristics, raising cautionary notes for developmental research and clinical work. PMID:23275414

Determinants of linear judgment: a meta-analysis of lens model studies.

PubMed

Karelaia, Natalia; Hogarth, Robin M

2008-05-01

The mathematical representation of E. Brunswik's (1952) lens model has been used extensively to study human judgment and provides a unique opportunity to conduct a meta-analysis of studies that covers roughly 5 decades. Specifically, the authors analyzed statistics of the "lens model equation" (L. R. Tucker, 1964) associated with 249 different task environments obtained from 86 articles. On average, fairly high levels of judgmental achievement were found, and people were seen to be capable of achieving similar levels of cognitive performance in noisy and predictable environments. Further, the effects of task characteristics that influence judgment (numbers and types of cues, inter-cue redundancy, function forms and cue weights in the ecology, laboratory versus field studies, and experience with the task) were identified and estimated. A detailed analysis of learning studies revealed that the most effective form of feedback was information about the task. The authors also analyzed empirically under what conditions the application of bootstrapping--or replacing judges by their linear models--is advantageous. Finally, the authors note shortcomings of the kinds of studies conducted to date, limitations in the lens model methodology, and possibilities for future research. (Copyright) 2008 APA, all rights reserved.

Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment

PubMed Central

Barrett, H. Clark; Bolyanatz, Alexander; Crittenden, Alyssa N.; Fessler, Daniel M. T.; Fitzpatrick, Simon; Gurven, Michael; Henrich, Joseph; Kanovsky, Martin; Kushnick, Geoff; Pisor, Anne; Scelza, Brooke A.; Stich, Stephen; von Rueden, Chris; Zhao, Wanying; Laurence, Stephen

2016-01-01

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment. PMID:27035959

Small-scale societies exhibit fundamental variation in the role of intentions in moral judgment.

PubMed

Barrett, H Clark; Bolyanatz, Alexander; Crittenden, Alyssa N; Fessler, Daniel M T; Fitzpatrick, Simon; Gurven, Michael; Henrich, Joseph; Kanovsky, Martin; Kushnick, Geoff; Pisor, Anne; Scelza, Brooke A; Stich, Stephen; von Rueden, Chris; Zhao, Wanying; Laurence, Stephen

2016-04-26

Intent and mitigating circumstances play a central role in moral and legal assessments in large-scale industrialized societies. Although these features of moral assessment are widely assumed to be universal, to date, they have only been studied in a narrow range of societies. We show that there is substantial cross-cultural variation among eight traditional small-scale societies (ranging from hunter-gatherer to pastoralist to horticulturalist) and two Western societies (one urban, one rural) in the extent to which intent and mitigating circumstances influence moral judgments. Although participants in all societies took such factors into account to some degree, they did so to very different extents, varying in both the types of considerations taken into account and the types of violations to which such considerations were applied. The particular patterns of assessment characteristic of large-scale industrialized societies may thus reflect relatively recently culturally evolved norms rather than inherent features of human moral judgment.

Human, Nature, Dynamism: The Effects of Content and Movement Perception on Brain Activations during the Aesthetic Judgment of Representational Paintings

PubMed Central

Di Dio, Cinzia; Ardizzi, Martina; Massaro, Davide; Di Cesare, Giuseppe; Gilli, Gabriella; Marchetti, Antonella; Gallese, Vittorio

2016-01-01

Movement perception and its role in aesthetic experience have been often studied, within empirical aesthetics, in relation to the human body. No such specificity has been defined in neuroimaging studies with respect to contents lacking a human form. The aim of this work was to explore, through functional magnetic imaging (f MRI), how perceived movement is processed during the aesthetic judgment of paintings using two types of content: human subjects and scenes of nature. Participants, untutored in the arts, were shown the stimuli and asked to make aesthetic judgments. Additionally, they were instructed to observe the paintings and to rate their perceived movement in separate blocks. Observation highlighted spontaneous processes associated with aesthetic experience, whereas movement judgment outlined activations specifically related to movement processing. The ratings recorded during aesthetic judgment revealed that nature scenes received higher scored than human content paintings. The imaging data showed similar activation, relative to baseline, for all stimuli in the three tasks, including activation of occipito-temporal areas, posterior parietal, and premotor cortices. Contrast analyses within aesthetic judgment task showed that human content activated, relative to nature, precuneus, fusiform gyrus, and posterior temporal areas, whose activation was prominent for dynamic human paintings. In contrast, nature scenes activated, relative to human stimuli, occipital and posterior parietal cortex/precuneus, involved in visuospatial exploration and pragmatic coding of movement, as well as central insula. Static nature paintings further activated, relative to dynamic nature stimuli, central and posterior insula. Besides insular activation, which was specific for aesthetic judgment, we found a large overlap in the activation pattern characterizing each stimulus dimension (content and dynamism) across observation, aesthetic judgment, and movement judgment tasks. These findings support the idea that the aesthetic evaluation of artworks depicting both human subjects and nature scenes involves a motor component, and that the associated neural processes occur quite spontaneously in the viewer. Furthermore, considering the functional roles of posterior and central insula, we suggest that nature paintings may evoke aesthetic processes requiring an additional proprioceptive and sensori-motor component implemented by “motor accessibility” to the represented scenario, which is needed to judge the aesthetic value of the observed painting. PMID:26793087

Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans

PubMed Central

Youyou, Wu; Kosinski, Michal; Stillwell, David

2015-01-01

Judging others’ personalities is an essential skill in successful social living, as personality is a key driver behind people’s interactions, behaviors, and emotions. Although accurate personality judgments stem from social-cognitive skills, developments in machine learning show that computer models can also make valid judgments. This study compares the accuracy of human and computer-based personality judgments, using a sample of 86,220 volunteers who completed a 100-item personality questionnaire. We show that (i) computer predictions based on a generic digital footprint (Facebook Likes) are more accurate (r = 0.56) than those made by the participants’ Facebook friends using a personality questionnaire (r = 0.49); (ii) computer models show higher interjudge agreement; and (iii) computer personality judgments have higher external validity when predicting life outcomes such as substance use, political attitudes, and physical health; for some outcomes, they even outperform the self-rated personality scores. Computers outpacing humans in personality judgment presents significant opportunities and challenges in the areas of psychological assessment, marketing, and privacy. PMID:25583507

Computer-based personality judgments are more accurate than those made by humans.

PubMed

Youyou, Wu; Kosinski, Michal; Stillwell, David

2015-01-27

Judging others' personalities is an essential skill in successful social living, as personality is a key driver behind people's interactions, behaviors, and emotions. Although accurate personality judgments stem from social-cognitive skills, developments in machine learning show that computer models can also make valid judgments. This study compares the accuracy of human and computer-based personality judgments, using a sample of 86,220 volunteers who completed a 100-item personality questionnaire. We show that (i) computer predictions based on a generic digital footprint (Facebook Likes) are more accurate (r = 0.56) than those made by the participants' Facebook friends using a personality questionnaire (r = 0.49); (ii) computer models show higher interjudge agreement; and (iii) computer personality judgments have higher external validity when predicting life outcomes such as substance use, political attitudes, and physical health; for some outcomes, they even outperform the self-rated personality scores. Computers outpacing humans in personality judgment presents significant opportunities and challenges in the areas of psychological assessment, marketing, and privacy.

Judgment of infant cry: The roles of acoustic characteristics and sociodemographic characteristics.

PubMed

Esposito, Gianluca; Nakazawa, Jun; Venuti, Paola; Bornstein, Marc H

2015-04-01

Adult judgments of infant cry are determined by both acoustic properties of the cry and listener sociodemographic characteristics. The main purpose of this research was to investigate how these two sources shape adult judgments of infant cry. We systematically manipulated both the acoustic properties of infant cries and contrasted listener sociodemographic characteristics. Then, we asked participants to listen to several acoustic manipulations of infant cries and to judge the level of distress the infant was expressing and the level of distress participants felt when listening. Finally, as a contrasting condition, participants estimated the age of the crying infant. Using tree-based models, we found that judgments of the level of distress the infant was expressing as well as the level of distress listeners felt are mainly accounted for by select acoustic properties of infant cry (proportion of sound/pause, fundamental frequency, and number of utterances), whereas age estimates of a crying infant are determined mainly by listener sociodemographic characteristics (gender and parental status). Implications for understanding infant cry and its effects as well as early caregiver-infant interactions are discussed.

The Implications of Arendt's Concept of Judgment for Humanistic Teaching in a Postmetaphysical Age

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kwak, Duck-Joo

2015-01-01

In this essay, Duck-Joo Kwak draws on Hannah Arendt's concept of judgment in exploring what it means to teach the humanities as a form of values education in a postmetaphysical age. Arendt's concept of judgment is closely related to Ciceronian humanism, which is concerned with the wisdom to choose one's company while appreciating this pursuit…

Similar Task Features Shape Judgment and Categorization Processes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hoffmann, Janina A.; von Helversen, Bettina; Rieskamp, Jörg

2016-01-01

The distinction between similarity-based and rule-based strategies has instigated a large body of research in categorization and judgment. Within both domains, the task characteristics guiding strategy shifts are increasingly well documented. Across domains, past research has observed shifts from rule-based strategies in judgment to…

Assessment of the Influence of Demographic and Professional Characteristics on Health Care Providers' Pain Management Decisions Using Virtual Humans.

PubMed

Boissoneault, Jeff; Mundt, Jennifer M; Bartley, Emily J; Wandner, Laura D; Hirsh, Adam T; Robinson, Michael E

2016-05-01

Disparities in health care associated with patients' gender, race, and age are well documented. Previous studies using virtual human (VH) technology have demonstrated that provider characteristics may play an important role in pain management decisions. However, these studies have largely emphasized group differences. The aims of this study were to examine dentists' and physicians' use of VH characteristics when making clinical judgments (i.e., cue use) and to identify provider characteristics associated with the magnitude of the impact of these cues (β-weights). Providers (N=152; 76 physicians, 76 dentists) viewed video vignettes of VH patients varying in gender (male/female), race (white/black), and age (younger/older). Participants rated VH patients' pain intensity and unpleasantness and then rated their own likelihood of administering non-opioid and opioid analgesics. Compared to physicians, dentists had significantly lower β-weights associated with VH age cues for all ratings (p<0.001; d>0.69). These effects varied by provider race and gender. For pain intensity, professional differences were present only among non-white providers. White providers had greater β-weights than non-white providers for pain unpleasantness but only among men. Provider differences regarding the use of VH age cues in non-opioid analgesic administration were present among all providers except non-white males. These findings highlight the interaction of patient and provider factors in driving clinical decision making. Although profession was related to use of VH age cues in pain-related clinical judgments, this relationship was modified by providers' personal characteristics. Additional research is needed to understand what aspects of professional training or practice may account for differences between physicians and dentists and what forms of continuing education may help to mitigate the disparities.

Apparent height and body mass index influence perceived leadership ability in three-dimensional faces.

PubMed

Re, Daniel E; Dzhelyova, Milena; Holzleitner, Iris J; Tigue, Cara C; Feinberg, David R; Perrett, David I

2012-01-01

Facial appearance has a well-documented effect on perceived leadership ability. Face judgments of leadership ability predict political election outcomes across the world, and similar judgments of business CEOs predict company profits. Body height is also associated with leadership ability, with taller people attaining positions of leadership more than their shorter counterparts in both politics and in the corporate world. Previous studies have found some face characteristics that are associated with leadership judgments, however there have been no studies with three-dimensional faces. We assessed which facial characteristics drive leadership judgments in three-dimensional faces. We found a perceptual relationship between height and leadership ability. We also found that facial maturity correlated with leadership judgments, and that faces of people with an unhealthily high body mass index received lower leadership ratings. We conclude that face attributes associated with body size and maturity alter leadership perception, and may influence real-world democratic leadership selection.

Judgment, Probability, and Aristotle's Rhetoric.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Warnick, Barbara

1989-01-01

Discusses Aristotle's five means of making judgments: intelligence, "episteme" (scientific knowledge), "sophia" (theoretical wisdom), "techne" (art), and "phronesis" (practical wisdom). Sets Aristotle's theory of rhetorical argument within the context of his overall view of human judgment. Notes that…

How clinicians make (or avoid) moral judgments of patients: implications of the evidence for relationships and research

PubMed Central

2010-01-01

Physicians, nurses, and other clinicians readily acknowledge being troubled by encounters with patients who trigger moral judgments. For decades social scientists have noted that moral judgment of patients is pervasive, occurring not only in egregious and criminal cases but also in everyday situations in which appraisals of patients' social worth and culpability are routine. There is scant literature, however, on the actual prevalence and dynamics of moral judgment in healthcare. The indirect evidence available suggests that moral appraisals function via a complex calculus that reflects variation in patient characteristics, clinician characteristics, task, and organizational factors. The full impact of moral judgment on healthcare relationships, patient outcomes, and clinicians' own well-being is yet unknown. The paucity of attention to moral judgment, despite its significance for patient-centered care, communication, empathy, professionalism, healthcare education, stereotyping, and outcome disparities, represents a blind spot that merits explanation and repair. New methodologies in social psychology and neuroscience have yielded models for how moral judgment operates in healthcare and how research in this area should proceed. Clinicians, educators, and researchers would do well to recognize both the legitimate and illegitimate moral appraisals that are apt to occur in healthcare settings. PMID:20618947

A new machine classification method applied to human peripheral blood leukocytes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rorvig, Mark E.; Fitzpatrick, Steven J.; Vitthal, Sanjay; Ladoulis, Charles T.

1994-01-01

Human beings judge images by complex mental processes, whereas computing machines extract features. By reducing scaled human judgments and machine extracted features to a common metric space and fitting them by regression, the judgments of human experts rendered on a sample of images may be imposed on an image population to provide automatic classification.

Folk-Psychological Interpretation of Human vs. Humanoid Robot Behavior: Exploring the Intentional Stance toward Robots.

PubMed

Thellman, Sam; Silvervarg, Annika; Ziemke, Tom

2017-01-01

People rely on shared folk-psychological theories when judging behavior. These theories guide people's social interactions and therefore need to be taken into consideration in the design of robots and other autonomous systems expected to interact socially with people. It is, however, not yet clear to what degree the mechanisms that underlie people's judgments of robot behavior overlap or differ from the case of human or animal behavior. To explore this issue, participants ( N = 90) were exposed to images and verbal descriptions of eight different behaviors exhibited either by a person or a humanoid robot. Participants were asked to rate the intentionality, controllability and desirability of the behaviors, and to judge the plausibility of seven different types of explanations derived from a recently proposed psychological model of lay causal explanation of human behavior. Results indicate: substantially similar judgments of human and robot behavior, both in terms of (1a) ascriptions of intentionality/controllability/desirability and in terms of (1b) plausibility judgments of behavior explanations; (2a) high level of agreement in judgments of robot behavior - (2b) slightly lower but still largely similar to agreement over human behaviors; (3) systematic differences in judgments concerning the plausibility of goals and dispositions as explanations of human vs. humanoid behavior. Taken together, these results suggest that people's intentional stance toward the robot was in this case very similar to their stance toward the human.

Judgment in crossing a road between objects coming in the opposite lane

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Matsumiya, Kazumichi; Kaneko, Hirohiko

2008-05-01

When cars are oncoming in the opposite lane of a road, a driver is able to judge whether his/her car can cross the road at an intersection without a collision with the oncoming cars. We developed a model for the human judgment used to cross a road between oncoming objects. In the model, in order to make the judgment to cross the road, the human visual system compares the time interval it takes for an oncoming object to pass the observer with the time interval it takes for the observer to cross the road. We conducted a psychophysical experiment to test the model prediction. The result showed that human performance is in good agreement with the theoretical consequence provided by the model, suggesting that the human visual system uses not only the visually timed information of the approaching object but also the timed information of self-action for the judgment about crossing the road.

Automatic prediction of facial trait judgments: appearance vs. structural models.

PubMed

Rojas, Mario; Masip, David; Todorov, Alexander; Vitria, Jordi

2011-01-01

Evaluating other individuals with respect to personality characteristics plays a crucial role in human relations and it is the focus of attention for research in diverse fields such as psychology and interactive computer systems. In psychology, face perception has been recognized as a key component of this evaluation system. Multiple studies suggest that observers use face information to infer personality characteristics. Interactive computer systems are trying to take advantage of these findings and apply them to increase the natural aspect of interaction and to improve the performance of interactive computer systems. Here, we experimentally test whether the automatic prediction of facial trait judgments (e.g. dominance) can be made by using the full appearance information of the face and whether a reduced representation of its structure is sufficient. We evaluate two separate approaches: a holistic representation model using the facial appearance information and a structural model constructed from the relations among facial salient points. State of the art machine learning methods are applied to a) derive a facial trait judgment model from training data and b) predict a facial trait value for any face. Furthermore, we address the issue of whether there are specific structural relations among facial points that predict perception of facial traits. Experimental results over a set of labeled data (9 different trait evaluations) and classification rules (4 rules) suggest that a) prediction of perception of facial traits is learnable by both holistic and structural approaches; b) the most reliable prediction of facial trait judgments is obtained by certain type of holistic descriptions of the face appearance; and c) for some traits such as attractiveness and extroversion, there are relationships between specific structural features and social perceptions.

Subjective scaling of mental workload in a multi-task environment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Daryanian, B.

1982-01-01

Those factors in a multi-task environment that contribute to the operators' "sense" of mental workload were identified. The subjective judgment as conscious experience of mental effort was decided to be the appropriate method of measurement. Thurstone's law of comparative judgment was employed in order to construct interval scales of subjective mental workload from paired comparisons data. An experimental paradigm (Simulated Multi-Task Decision-Making Environment) was employed to represent the ideal experimentally controlled environment in which human operators were asked to "attend" to different cases of Tulga's decision making tasks. Through various statistical analyses it was found that, in general, a lower number of tasks-to-be-processed per unit time (a condition associated with longer interarrival times), results in a lower mental workload, a higher consistency of judgments within a subject, a higher degree of agreement among the subjects, and larger distances between the cases on the Thurstone scale of subjective mental workload. The effects of various control variables and their interactions, and the different characteristics of the subjects on the variation of subjective mental workload are demonstrated.

Reconciling intuitive physics and Newtonian mechanics for colliding objects.

PubMed

Sanborn, Adam N; Mansinghka, Vikash K; Griffiths, Thomas L

2013-04-01

People have strong intuitions about the influence objects exert upon one another when they collide. Because people's judgments appear to deviate from Newtonian mechanics, psychologists have suggested that people depend on a variety of task-specific heuristics. This leaves open the question of how these heuristics could be chosen, and how to integrate them into a unified model that can explain human judgments across a wide range of physical reasoning tasks. We propose an alternative framework, in which people's judgments are based on optimal statistical inference over a Newtonian physical model that incorporates sensory noise and intrinsic uncertainty about the physical properties of the objects being viewed. This noisy Newton framework can be applied to a multitude of judgments, with people's answers determined by the uncertainty they have for physical variables and the constraints of Newtonian mechanics. We investigate a range of effects in mass judgments that have been taken as strong evidence for heuristic use and show that they are well explained by the interplay between Newtonian constraints and sensory uncertainty. We also consider an extended model that handles causality judgments, and obtain good quantitative agreement with human judgments across tasks that involve different judgment types with a single consistent set of parameters.

At the heart of morality lies neuro-visceral integration: lower cardiac vagal tone predicts utilitarian moral judgment

PubMed Central

Kappes, Andreas; Rho, Yeojin; Van Bavel, Jay J.

2016-01-01

To not harm others is widely considered the most basic element of human morality. The aversion to harm others can be either rooted in the outcomes of an action (utilitarianism) or reactions to the action itself (deontology). We speculated that the human moral judgments rely on the integration of neural computations of harm and visceral reactions. The present research examined whether utilitarian or deontological aspects of moral judgment are associated with cardiac vagal tone, a physiological proxy for neuro-visceral integration. We investigated the relationship between cardiac vagal tone and moral judgment by using a mix of moral dilemmas, mathematical modeling and psychophysiological measures. An index of bipolar deontology-utilitarianism was correlated with resting heart rate variability (HRV)—an index of cardiac vagal tone—such that more utilitarian judgments were associated with lower HRV. Follow-up analyses using process dissociation, which independently quantifies utilitarian and deontological moral inclinations, provided further evidence that utilitarian (but not deontological) judgments were associated with lower HRV. Our results suggest that the functional integration of neural and visceral systems during moral judgments can restrict outcome-based, utilitarian moral preferences. Implications for theories of moral judgment are discussed. PMID:27317926

Integration across Time Determines Path Deviation Discrimination for Moving Objects

PubMed Central

Whitaker, David; Levi, Dennis M.; Kennedy, Graeme J.

2008-01-01

Background Human vision is vital in determining our interaction with the outside world. In this study we characterize our ability to judge changes in the direction of motion of objects–a common task which can allow us either to intercept moving objects, or else avoid them if they pose a threat. Methodology/Principal Findings Observers were presented with objects which moved across a computer monitor on a linear path until the midline, at which point they changed their direction of motion, and observers were required to judge the direction of change. In keeping with the variety of objects we encounter in the real world, we varied characteristics of the moving stimuli such as velocity, extent of motion path and the object size. Furthermore, we compared performance for moving objects with the ability of observers to detect a deviation in a line which formed the static trace of the motion path, since it has been suggested that a form of static memory trace may form the basis for these types of judgment. The static line judgments were well described by a ‘scale invariant’ model in which any two stimuli which possess the same two-dimensional geometry (length/width) result in the same level of performance. Performance for the moving objects was entirely different. Irrespective of the path length, object size or velocity of motion, path deviation thresholds depended simply upon the duration of the motion path in seconds. Conclusions/Significance Human vision has long been known to integrate information across space in order to solve spatial tasks such as judgment of orientation or position. Here we demonstrate an intriguing mechanism which integrates direction information across time in order to optimize the judgment of path deviation for moving objects. PMID:18414653

Are You Sure the Library Is That Way? Metacognitive Monitoring of Spatial Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stevens, Christopher A.; Carlson, Richard A.

2016-01-01

Many studies have examined how people recall the locations of objects in spatial layouts. However, little is known about how people monitor the accuracy of judgments based on those memories. The goal of the present experiments was to examine the effect of reference frame characteristics on metacognitive accuracy for spatial judgments. Reference…

Folk-Psychological Interpretation of Human vs. Humanoid Robot Behavior: Exploring the Intentional Stance toward Robots

PubMed Central

Thellman, Sam; Silvervarg, Annika; Ziemke, Tom

2017-01-01

People rely on shared folk-psychological theories when judging behavior. These theories guide people’s social interactions and therefore need to be taken into consideration in the design of robots and other autonomous systems expected to interact socially with people. It is, however, not yet clear to what degree the mechanisms that underlie people’s judgments of robot behavior overlap or differ from the case of human or animal behavior. To explore this issue, participants (N = 90) were exposed to images and verbal descriptions of eight different behaviors exhibited either by a person or a humanoid robot. Participants were asked to rate the intentionality, controllability and desirability of the behaviors, and to judge the plausibility of seven different types of explanations derived from a recently proposed psychological model of lay causal explanation of human behavior. Results indicate: substantially similar judgments of human and robot behavior, both in terms of (1a) ascriptions of intentionality/controllability/desirability and in terms of (1b) plausibility judgments of behavior explanations; (2a) high level of agreement in judgments of robot behavior – (2b) slightly lower but still largely similar to agreement over human behaviors; (3) systematic differences in judgments concerning the plausibility of goals and dispositions as explanations of human vs. humanoid behavior. Taken together, these results suggest that people’s intentional stance toward the robot was in this case very similar to their stance toward the human. PMID:29184519

The Effect of Learning Styles, Critical Thinking Disposition, and Critical Thinking on Clinical Judgment in Senior Baccalaureate Nursing Students during Human Patient Simulation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCormick, Kiyan

2014-01-01

Simulated learning experiences using high-fidelity human patient simulators (HPS) are increasingly being integrated into baccalaureate nursing programs. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine relationships among learning style, critical thinking disposition, critical thinking, and clinical judgment during high-fidelity human patient…

Relatively certain! Comparative thinking reduces uncertainty.

PubMed

Mussweiler, Thomas; Posten, Ann-Christin

2012-02-01

Comparison is one of the most ubiquitous and versatile mechanisms in human information processing. Previous research demonstrates that one consequence of comparative thinking is increased judgmental efficiency: comparison allows for quicker judgments without a loss in accuracy. We hypothesised that a second potential consequence of comparative thinking is reduced judgmental uncertainty. We examined this possibility in three experiments using three different domains of judgment and three different measures of uncertainty. Results consistently demonstrate that procedurally priming participants to rely more heavily on comparative thinking during judgment induces them to feel more certain about their judgment. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Image statistics for surface reflectance perception.

PubMed

Sharan, Lavanya; Li, Yuanzhen; Motoyoshi, Isamu; Nishida, Shin'ya; Adelson, Edward H

2008-04-01

Human observers can distinguish the albedo of real-world surfaces even when the surfaces are viewed in isolation, contrary to the Gelb effect. We sought to measure this ability and to understand the cues that might underlie it. We took photographs of complex surfaces such as stucco and asked observers to judge their diffuse reflectance by comparing them to a physical Munsell scale. Their judgments, while imperfect, were highly correlated with the true reflectance. The judgments were also highly correlated with certain image statistics, such as moment and percentile statistics of the luminance and subband histograms. When we digitally manipulated these statistics in an image, human judgments were correspondingly altered. Moreover, linear combinations of such statistics allow a machine vision system (operating within the constrained world of single surfaces) to estimate albedo with an accuracy similar to that of human observers. Taken together, these results indicate that some simple image statistics have a strong influence on the judgment of surface reflectance.

At the heart of morality lies neuro-visceral integration: lower cardiac vagal tone predicts utilitarian moral judgment.

PubMed

Park, Gewnhi; Kappes, Andreas; Rho, Yeojin; Van Bavel, Jay J

2016-10-01

To not harm others is widely considered the most basic element of human morality. The aversion to harm others can be either rooted in the outcomes of an action (utilitarianism) or reactions to the action itself (deontology). We speculated that the human moral judgments rely on the integration of neural computations of harm and visceral reactions. The present research examined whether utilitarian or deontological aspects of moral judgment are associated with cardiac vagal tone, a physiological proxy for neuro-visceral integration. We investigated the relationship between cardiac vagal tone and moral judgment by using a mix of moral dilemmas, mathematical modeling and psychophysiological measures. An index of bipolar deontology-utilitarianism was correlated with resting heart rate variability (HRV)-an index of cardiac vagal tone-such that more utilitarian judgments were associated with lower HRV. Follow-up analyses using process dissociation, which independently quantifies utilitarian and deontological moral inclinations, provided further evidence that utilitarian (but not deontological) judgments were associated with lower HRV. Our results suggest that the functional integration of neural and visceral systems during moral judgments can restrict outcome-based, utilitarian moral preferences. Implications for theories of moral judgment are discussed. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Leadership Styles and Moral Judgment Competence of Community College Personnel

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McFadden, Cheryl; Miller, Brian; Sypawka, William; Clay, Maria; Hoover-Plonk, Shelly

2013-01-01

This study investigated the convergence of leadership styles and moral judgment competence of community college personnel participating in a leadership institute using the Leadership Orientation Instrument (Bolman & Deal, 1984) and the Moral Judgment Test (Lind, 1978). Results indicated that the human resource and structural frames were the…

Human Judgment and Decision Making: Models and Applications.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Loke, Wing Hong

This document notes that researchers study the processes involved in judgment and decision making and prescribe theories and models that reflect the behavior of the decision makers. It addresses the various models that are used to represent judgment and decision making, with particular interest in models that more accurately represent human…

Individual Moral Judgment and Cultural Ideologies.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Narvaez, Darcia; Getz, Irene; Rest, James R.; Thoma, Stephen J.

1999-01-01

Two studies examined how moral judgment and cultural ideology combine to predict moral thinking in members of a conservative church and a liberal church, and in a secular sample of university undergraduates. Found that a combination of religious ideology, political identity, and moral judgment predicted the church members' opinions on human-rights…

The application of machine vision in fire protection system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rong, Jiang

2018-04-01

Based on the previous research, this paper introduces the theory of wavelet, collects the situation through the video system, and calculates the key information needed in the fire protection system. That is, through the algorithm to collect the information, according to the flame color characteristics and smoke characteristics were extracted, and as the characteristic information corresponding processing. Alarm system set the corresponding alarm threshold, when more than this alarm threshold, the system will alarm. This combination of flame color characteristics and smoke characteristics of the fire method not only improve the accuracy of judgment, but also improve the efficiency of judgments. Experiments show that the scheme is feasible.

You can't drink a word: lexical and individual emotionality affect subjective familiarity judgments.

PubMed

Westbury, Chris

2014-10-01

For almost 30 years, subjective familiarity has been used in psycholinguistics as an explanatory variable, allegedly able to explain many phenomena that have no other obvious explanation (Gernsbacher in J Exp Psychol General 113:256-281, 1984). In this paper, the hypothesis tested is that the subjective familiarity of words is reflecting personal familiarity with or importance of the referents of words. Using an empirically-grounded model of affective force derived from Wundt (Grundriss der Psychologie [Outlines of Psychology]. Engelmann, Leibzig, 1896) and based in a co-occurrence model of semantics (which involves no human judgment), it is shown that affective force can account for the same variance in a large set of human subjective familiarity judgments as other human subjective familiarity judgments, can predict whether people will rate new words of the same objective frequency as more or less familiar, can predict lexical access as well as human subjective familiarity judgments do, and has a predicted relationship to age of acquisition norms. Individuals who have highly affective reactivity [as measured by Carver and White's (J Pers Soc Psychol 67(2):319-333, 1994) Behavioral Inhibition Scale and Behavioral Activation Scales] rate words as significantly more familiar than individuals who have low affective reactivity.

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Riensche, Roderick M.; Haack, Jereme N.

“Gamification”, the application of gameplay to real-world problems, enables the development of human computation systems that support decision-making through the integration of social and machine intelligence. One of gamification’s major benefits includes the creation of a problem solving environment where the influence of cognitive and cultural biases on human judgment can be curtailed through collaborative and competitive reasoning. By reducing biases on human judgment, gamification allows human computation systems to exploit human creativity relatively unhindered by human error. Operationally, gamification uses simulation to harvest human behavioral data that provide valuable insights for the solution of real-world problems.

Individual differences in moral judgment competence influence neural correlates of socio-normative judgments

PubMed Central

Wartenburger, Isabell; Mériau, Katja; Scheibe, Christina; Goodenough, Oliver R.; Villringer, Arno; van der Meer, Elke; Heekeren, Hauke R.

2008-01-01

To investigate how individual differences in moral judgment competence are reflected in the human brain, we used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging, while 23 participants made either socio-normative or grammatical judgments. Participants with lower moral judgment competence recruited the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the left posterior superior temporal sulcus more than participants with greater competence in this domain when identifying social norm violations. Moreover, moral judgment competence scores were inversely correlated with activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during socio-normative relative to grammatical judgments. Greater activity in right DLPFC in participants with lower moral judgment competence indicates increased recruitment of rule-based knowledge and its controlled application during socio-normative judgments. These data support current models of the neurocognition of morality according to which both emotional and cognitive components play an important role. PMID:19015093

Surrogacy and the ECtHR: Reflections on Paradiso and Campanelli v Italy.

PubMed

Iliadou, Marianna

2018-02-21

This case note analyses the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Paradiso and Campanelli v Italy and examines its implications for cross-border surrogacy in Europe. It is argued that this judgment is highly significant, because it sets new standards in terms of the concept of family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This judgment, it is argued, only appears to bring a halt to the (seemingly) backdoor legitimacy of commercial surrogacy established by the findings of the Second Section and previous judgments of the Court. Finally, this case note critiques the Grand Chamber's findings and examines its likely impact on the problem of cross-border surrogacy.

The Adam and Eve syndrome.

PubMed

Sexton, R O; Maddock, R C

1978-07-01

The concept of divine forgiveness is incomprehensible to most, since it involves principles that defy rational interpretation on the level of human cognition. As a result, individuals, and especially those who present themselves for treatment, find themselves caught up in a repetition of self-judgment and selfpunishment, which is a reenactment of the original sin and the disobedience encountered in the Garden of Eden. It can be pointed out to patients that this continuous, repetitious acting out of the functions of self-judgment and selfpunishment represents the worst sin of all-the original sin in which the power and authority of God are usurped and assumed, resulting eventually in a denial of God along with symptoms that are often incapacitating. When these functions are returned to God, punishment can be expected to be much less severe and intense, because of the nature and characteristics of divine forgiveness.

Understanding the coherence of the severity effect and optimism phenomena: Lessons from attention.

PubMed

Harris, Adam J L

2017-04-01

Claims that optimism is a near-universal characteristic of human judgment seem to be at odds with recent results from the judgment and decision making literature suggesting that the likelihood of negative outcomes are overestimated relative to neutral outcomes. In an attempt to reconcile these seemingly contrasting phenomena, inspiration is drawn from the attention literature in which there is evidence that both positive and negative stimuli can have attentional privilege relative to neutral stimuli. This result provides a framework within which I consider three example phenomena that purport to demonstrate that people's likelihood estimates are optimistic: Wishful thinking; Unrealistic comparative optimism and Asymmetric belief updating. The framework clarifies the relationships between these phenomena and stimulates future research questions. Generally, whilst results from the first two phenomena appear reconcilable in this conceptualisation, further research is required in reconciling the third. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Relationship between Functional Status and Judgment/Problem Solving Among Individuals with Dementia

PubMed Central

Mayo, Ann M.; Wallhagen, Margaret; Cooper, Bruce A.; Mehta, Kala; Ross, Leslie; Miller, Bruce

2012-01-01

Objective To determine the relationship between functional status (independent activities of daily living) and judgment/problem solving and the extent to which select demographic characteristics such as dementia subtype and cognitive measures may moderate that relationship in older adult individuals with dementia. Methods The National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center Universal Data Set was accessed for a study sample of 3,855 individuals diagnosed with dementia. Primary variables included functional status, judgment/problem solving, and cognition. Results Functional status was related to judgment/problem solving (r= 0.66; p< .0005). Functional status and cognition jointly predicted 56% of the variance in judgment/problem solving (R-squared = .56, p <.0005). As cognition decreases, the prediction of poorer judgment/problem solving by functional status became stronger. Conclusions Among individuals with a diagnosis of dementia, declining functional status as well as declining cognition should raise concerns about judgment/problem solving. PMID:22786576

Is it a Case of "Work-Anxiety" When Patients Report Bad Workplace Characteristics and Low Work Ability?

PubMed

Muschalla, Beate

2017-03-01

Aims Work-anxiety may produce overly negative views of the workplace that impair provider efforts to assess work ability from patient self-report. This study explores the empirical relationships between patient-reported workplace characteristics, work-anxiety, and subjective and objective work ability measures. Methods 125 patients in medical rehabilitation before vocational reintegration were interviewed concerning their vocational situation, and filled in a questionnaire on work-anxiety, subjective mental work ability and perceived workplace characteristics. Treating physicians gave independent socio-medical judgments concerning the patients' work ability and impairment, and need for supportive means for vocational reintegration. Results Patients with high work-anxiety reported more negative workplace characteristics. Low judgments of work ability were correlated with problematic workplace characteristics. When controlled for work-anxiety, subjective work ability remained related only with social workplace characteristics and with work achievement demands, but independent from situational or task characteristics. Sick leave duration and physicians' judgment of work ability were not significantly related to patient-reported workplace characteristics. Conclusions In socio-medical work ability assessments, patients with high work-anxiety may over-report negative workplace characteristics that can confound provider estimates of work ability. Assessing work-anxiety may be important to assess readiness for returning to work and initiating work-directed treatments.

Numeracy, Ratio Bias, and Denominator Neglect in Judgments of Risk and Probability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Reyna, Valerie F.; Brainerd, Charles J.

2008-01-01

"Numeracy," so-called on analogy with literacy, is essential for making health and other social judgments in everyday life [Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (in press). The importance of mathematics in health and human judgment: Numeracy, risk communication, and medical decision making. "Learning and Individual Differences."]. Recent research on…

A sampling model of social judgment.

PubMed

Galesic, Mirta; Olsson, Henrik; Rieskamp, Jörg

2018-04-01

Studies of social judgments have demonstrated a number of diverse phenomena that were so far difficult to explain within a single theoretical framework. Prominent examples are false consensus and false uniqueness, as well as self-enhancement and self-depreciation. Here we show that these seemingly complex phenomena can be a product of an interplay between basic cognitive processes and the structure of social and task environments. We propose and test a new process model of social judgment, the social sampling model (SSM), which provides a parsimonious quantitative account of different types of social judgments. In the SSM, judgments about characteristics of broader social environments are based on sampling of social instances from memory, where instances receive activation if they belong to a target reference class and have a particular characteristic. These sampling processes interact with the properties of social and task environments, including homophily, shapes of frequency distributions, and question formats. For example, in line with the model's predictions we found that whether false consensus or false uniqueness will occur depends on the level of homophily in people's social circles and on the way questions are asked. The model also explains some previously unaccounted-for patterns of self-enhancement and self-depreciation. People seem to be well informed about many characteristics of their immediate social circles, which in turn influence how they evaluate broader social environments and their position within them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

On the almost inconceivable misunderstandings concerning the subject of value-free social science.

PubMed

Black, Donald

2013-12-01

A value judgment says what is good or bad, and value-free social science simply means social science free of value judgments. Yet many sociologists regard value-free social science as undesirable or impossible and readily make value judgments in the name of sociology. Often they display confusion about such matters as the meaning of value-free social science, value judgments internal and external to social science, value judgments as a subject of social science, the relevance of objectivity for value-free social science, and the difference between the human significance of social science and value-free social science. But why so many sociologists are so value-involved - and generally so unscientific - is sociologically understandable: The closest and most distant subjects attract the least scientific ideas. And during the past century sociologists have become increasingly close to their human subject. The debate about value-free social science is also part of an epistemological counterrevolution of humanists (including many sociologists) against the more scientific social scientists who invaded and threatened to expropriate the human subject during the past century. © London School of Economics and Political Science 2013.

Using critical evaluation to reappraise plausibility judgments: A critical cognitive component of conceptual change

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lombardi, D.

2011-12-01

Plausibility judgments-although well represented in conceptual change theories (see, for example, Chi, 2005; diSessa, 1993; Dole & Sinatra, 1998; Posner et al., 1982)-have received little empirical attention until our recent work investigating teachers' and students' understanding of and perceptions about human-induced climate change (Lombardi & Sinatra, 2010, 2011). In our first study with undergraduate students, we found that greater plausibility perceptions of human-induced climate accounted for significantly greater understanding of weather and climate distinctions after instruction, even after accounting for students' prior knowledge (Lombardi & Sinatra, 2010). In a follow-up study with inservice science and preservice elementary teachers, we showed that anger about the topic of climate change and teaching about climate change was significantly related to implausible perceptions about human-induced climate change (Lombardi & Sinatra, 2011). Results from our recent studies helped to inform our development of a model of the role of plausibility judgments in conceptual change situations. The model applies to situations involving cognitive dissonance, where background knowledge conflicts with an incoming message. In such situations, we define plausibility as a judgment on the relative potential truthfulness of incoming information compared to one's existing mental representations (Rescher, 1976). Students may not consciously think when making plausibility judgments, expending only minimal mental effort in what is referred to as an automatic cognitive process (Stanovich, 2009). However, well-designed instruction could facilitate students' reappraisal of plausibility judgments in more effortful and conscious cognitive processing. Critical evaluation specifically may be one effective method to promote plausibility reappraisal in a classroom setting (Lombardi & Sinatra, in progress). In science education, critical evaluation involves the analysis of how evidentiary data support a hypothesis and its alternatives. The presentation will focus on how instruction promoting critical evaluation can encourage individuals to reappraise their plausibility judgments and initiate knowledge reconstruction. In a recent pilot study, teachers experienced an instructional scaffold promoting critical evaluation of two competing climate change theories (i.e., human-induced and increasing solar irradiance) and significantly changed both their plausibility judgments and perceptions of correctness toward the scientifically-accepted model of human-induced climate change. A comparison group of teachers who did not experience the critical evaluation activity showed no significant change. The implications of these studies for future research and instruction will be discussed in the presentation, including effective ways to increase students' and teachers' ability to be critically evaluative and reappraise their plausibility judgments. With controversial science issues, such as climate change, such abilities may be necessary to facilitate conceptual change.

Action Contribution to Competence Judgments: The Use of the Journey Schema

PubMed Central

Horchak, Oleksandr V.; Giger, Jean-Christophe; Garrido, Margarida V.

2016-01-01

The current research considered the question of how performing an action, or merely preparing the body for action, can have an impact on social judgments related to person perception. Participants were asked to ascribe competence and warmth characteristics to a target person by reading a metaphoric text while their body was manipulated to be prepared for the processing of action-congruent information. In Experiment 1, participants whose forward body action matched the metaphoric action described in the text ascribed more competence characteristics to a politician than did control participants. In Experiment 2, participants whose body was merely prepared for forward movement also ascribed more competence characteristics to a politician than did control participants. In addition, the data from Experiment 2 ruled out an alternative non-embodied explanation (i.e., that effect is due to basic associative processes) grounded in the existing literatures on attitudes by demonstrating that body manipulation had no effect on competence when a non-metaphoric text was used. Finally, no evidence was found that body manipulation affects warmth judgments. These studies converge in demonstrating that forward body movements enhance the favorability of competence judgments when these match the metaphoric forward movements described by text. PMID:27065918

Where is the "meta" in animal metacognition?

PubMed

Kornell, Nate

2014-05-01

Apes, dolphins, and some monkeys seem to have metacognitive abilities: They can accurately evaluate the likelihood that their response in cognitive task was (or will be) correct. These certainty judgments are seen as significant because they imply that animals can evaluate internal cognitive states, which may entail meaningful self-reflection. But little research has investigated what is being reflected upon: Researchers have assumed that when animals make metacognitive judgments they evaluate internal memory strength. Yet decades of research have demonstrated that humans cannot directly evaluate internal memory strength. Instead, they make certainty judgments by drawing inferences from cues they can evaluate, such as familiarity and ease of processing. It seems likely that animals do the same, but this hypothesis has not been tested. I suggest two strategies for investigating the internal cues that underlie animal metacognitive judgments. It is possible that animals, like humans, are capable of making certainty judgments based on internal cues without awareness or meaningful self-reflection. ©2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Context Switch Effects on Acquisition and Extinction in Human Predictive Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rosas, Juan M.; Callejas-Aguilera, Jose E.

2006-01-01

Four experiments tested context switch effects on acquisition and extinction in human predictive learning. A context switch impaired probability judgments about a cue-outcome relationship when the cue was trained in a context in which a different cue underwent extinction. The context switch also impaired judgments about a cue trained in a context…

Children's Thinking about Traits: Implications for Judgments of the Self and Others.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heyman, Gail D.; Dweck, Carol S.

1998-01-01

Investigated the relation between 7- and 8-year-olds' interpretations of human behavior and children's beliefs about the stability of human traits. Found that the belief that traits are stable predicted a greater tendency to make trait judgments in the academic and sociomoral domains, and an increased focus on outcomes such as performance and…

Moral judgment as information processing: an integrative review.

PubMed

Guglielmo, Steve

2015-01-01

How do humans make moral judgments about others' behavior? This article reviews dominant models of moral judgment, organizing them within an overarching framework of information processing. This framework poses two distinct questions: (1) What input information guides moral judgments? and (2) What psychological processes generate these judgments? Information Models address the first question, identifying critical information elements (including causality, intentionality, and mental states) that shape moral judgments. A subclass of Biased Information Models holds that perceptions of these information elements are themselves driven by prior moral judgments. Processing Models address the second question, and existing models have focused on the relative contribution of intuitive versus deliberative processes. This review organizes existing moral judgment models within this framework and critically evaluates them on empirical and theoretical grounds; it then outlines a general integrative model grounded in information processing, and concludes with conceptual and methodological suggestions for future research. The information-processing framework provides a useful theoretical lens through which to organize extant and future work in the rapidly growing field of moral judgment.

Moral judgment as information processing: an integrative review

PubMed Central

Guglielmo, Steve

2015-01-01

How do humans make moral judgments about others’ behavior? This article reviews dominant models of moral judgment, organizing them within an overarching framework of information processing. This framework poses two distinct questions: (1) What input information guides moral judgments? and (2) What psychological processes generate these judgments? Information Models address the first question, identifying critical information elements (including causality, intentionality, and mental states) that shape moral judgments. A subclass of Biased Information Models holds that perceptions of these information elements are themselves driven by prior moral judgments. Processing Models address the second question, and existing models have focused on the relative contribution of intuitive versus deliberative processes. This review organizes existing moral judgment models within this framework and critically evaluates them on empirical and theoretical grounds; it then outlines a general integrative model grounded in information processing, and concludes with conceptual and methodological suggestions for future research. The information-processing framework provides a useful theoretical lens through which to organize extant and future work in the rapidly growing field of moral judgment. PMID:26579022

Referenceless perceptual fog density prediction model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Choi, Lark Kwon; You, Jaehee; Bovik, Alan C.

2014-02-01

We propose a perceptual fog density prediction model based on natural scene statistics (NSS) and "fog aware" statistical features, which can predict the visibility in a foggy scene from a single image without reference to a corresponding fogless image, without side geographical camera information, without training on human-rated judgments, and without dependency on salient objects such as lane markings or traffic signs. The proposed fog density predictor only makes use of measurable deviations from statistical regularities observed in natural foggy and fog-free images. A fog aware collection of statistical features is derived from a corpus of foggy and fog-free images by using a space domain NSS model and observed characteristics of foggy images such as low contrast, faint color, and shifted intensity. The proposed model not only predicts perceptual fog density for the entire image but also provides a local fog density index for each patch. The predicted fog density of the model correlates well with the measured visibility in a foggy scene as measured by judgments taken in a human subjective study on a large foggy image database. As one application, the proposed model accurately evaluates the performance of defog algorithms designed to enhance the visibility of foggy images.

Neurons in the human amygdala selective for perceived emotion

PubMed Central

Wang, Shuo; Tudusciuc, Oana; Mamelak, Adam N.; Ross, Ian B.; Adolphs, Ralph; Rutishauser, Ueli

2014-01-01

The human amygdala plays a key role in recognizing facial emotions and neurons in the monkey and human amygdala respond to the emotional expression of faces. However, it remains unknown whether these responses are driven primarily by properties of the stimulus or by the perceptual judgments of the perceiver. We investigated these questions by recording from over 200 single neurons in the amygdalae of 7 neurosurgical patients with implanted depth electrodes. We presented degraded fear and happy faces and asked subjects to discriminate their emotion by button press. During trials where subjects responded correctly, we found neurons that distinguished fear vs. happy emotions as expressed by the displayed faces. During incorrect trials, these neurons indicated the patients’ subjective judgment. Additional analysis revealed that, on average, all neuronal responses were modulated most by increases or decreases in response to happy faces, and driven predominantly by judgments about the eye region of the face stimuli. Following the same analyses, we showed that hippocampal neurons, unlike amygdala neurons, only encoded emotions but not subjective judgment. Our results suggest that the amygdala specifically encodes the subjective judgment of emotional faces, but that it plays less of a role in simply encoding aspects of the image array. The conscious percept of the emotion shown in a face may thus arise from interactions between the amygdala and its connections within a distributed cortical network, a scheme also consistent with the long response latencies observed in human amygdala recordings. PMID:24982200

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks Outperform Feature-Based But Not Categorical Models in Explaining Object Similarity Judgments

PubMed Central

Jozwik, Kamila M.; Kriegeskorte, Nikolaus; Storrs, Katherine R.; Mur, Marieke

2017-01-01

Recent advances in Deep convolutional Neural Networks (DNNs) have enabled unprecedentedly accurate computational models of brain representations, and present an exciting opportunity to model diverse cognitive functions. State-of-the-art DNNs achieve human-level performance on object categorisation, but it is unclear how well they capture human behavior on complex cognitive tasks. Recent reports suggest that DNNs can explain significant variance in one such task, judging object similarity. Here, we extend these findings by replicating them for a rich set of object images, comparing performance across layers within two DNNs of different depths, and examining how the DNNs’ performance compares to that of non-computational “conceptual” models. Human observers performed similarity judgments for a set of 92 images of real-world objects. Representations of the same images were obtained in each of the layers of two DNNs of different depths (8-layer AlexNet and 16-layer VGG-16). To create conceptual models, other human observers generated visual-feature labels (e.g., “eye”) and category labels (e.g., “animal”) for the same image set. Feature labels were divided into parts, colors, textures and contours, while category labels were divided into subordinate, basic, and superordinate categories. We fitted models derived from the features, categories, and from each layer of each DNN to the similarity judgments, using representational similarity analysis to evaluate model performance. In both DNNs, similarity within the last layer explains most of the explainable variance in human similarity judgments. The last layer outperforms almost all feature-based models. Late and mid-level layers outperform some but not all feature-based models. Importantly, categorical models predict similarity judgments significantly better than any DNN layer. Our results provide further evidence for commonalities between DNNs and brain representations. Models derived from visual features other than object parts perform relatively poorly, perhaps because DNNs more comprehensively capture the colors, textures and contours which matter to human object perception. However, categorical models outperform DNNs, suggesting that further work may be needed to bring high-level semantic representations in DNNs closer to those extracted by humans. Modern DNNs explain similarity judgments remarkably well considering they were not trained on this task, and are promising models for many aspects of human cognition. PMID:29062291

Confidence and Professional Judgment in Assessing Children's Risk of Abuse

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Regehr, Cheryl; Bogo, Marion; Shlonsky, Aron; LeBlanc, Vicki

2010-01-01

Objective: Child welfare agencies have moved toward standardized risk assessment measures to improve the reliability with which child's risk of abuse is predicted. Nevertheless, these tools require a degree of subjective judgment. Research to date has not substantially investigated the influence of specific context and worker characteristics on…

International Teachers' Judgment of Gifted Mathematics Student Characteristics

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ficici, Abdullah; Siegle, Del

2008-01-01

Teachers play a key role in the identification and training of talented mathematicians, and their attitudes are important in improving math instruction for gifted students. We surveyed secondary mathematics teachers from South Korea, Turkey, and the United States. These teachers completed a survey instrument called the Teachers' Judgments of…

College Students' Judgment of Others Based on Described Eating Pattern

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pearson, Rebecca; Young, Michael

2008-01-01

Background: The literature available on attitudes toward eating patterns and people choosing various foods suggests the possible importance of "moral" judgments and desirable personality characteristics associated with the described eating patterns. Purpose: This study was designed to replicate and extend a 1993 study of college students'…

Comparison of Cramer classification between Toxtree, the OECD QSAR Toolbox and expert judgment.

PubMed

Bhatia, Sneha; Schultz, Terry; Roberts, David; Shen, Jie; Kromidas, Lambros; Marie Api, Anne

2015-02-01

The Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC) is a pragmatic approach in risk assessment. In the absence of data, it sets up levels of human exposure that are considered to have no appreciable risk to human health. The Cramer decision tree is used extensively to determine these exposure thresholds by categorizing non-carcinogenic chemicals into three different structural classes. Therefore, assigning an accurate Cramer class to a material is a crucial step to preserve the integrity of the risk assessment. In this study the Cramer class of over 1000 fragrance materials across diverse chemical classes were determined by using Toxtree (TT), the OECD QSAR Toolbox (TB), and expert judgment. Disconcordance was observed between TT and the TB. A total of 165 materials (16%) showed different results from the two programs. The overall concordance for Cramer classification between TT and expert judgment is 83%, while the concordance between the TB and expert judgment is 77%. Amines, lactones and heterocycles have the lowest percent agreement with expert judgment for TT and the TB. For amines, the expert judgment agreement is 45% for TT and 55% for the TB. For heterocycles, the expert judgment agreement is 55% for TT and the TB. For lactones, the expert judgment agreement is 56% for TT and 50% for the TB. Additional analyses were conducted to determine the concordance within various chemical classes. Critical checkpoints in the decision tree are identified. Strategies and guidance on determining the Cramer class for various chemical classes are discussed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Bridging the Gap between Human Judgment and Automated Reasoning in Predictive Analytics

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Sanfilippo, Antonio P.; Riensche, Roderick M.; Unwin, Stephen D.

2010-06-07

Events occur daily that impact the health, security and sustainable growth of our society. If we are to address the challenges that emerge from these events, anticipatory reasoning has to become an everyday activity. Strong advances have been made in using integrated modeling for analysis and decision making. However, a wider impact of predictive analytics is currently hindered by the lack of systematic methods for integrating predictive inferences from computer models with human judgment. In this paper, we present a predictive analytics approach that supports anticipatory analysis and decision-making through a concerted reasoning effort that interleaves human judgment and automatedmore » inferences. We describe a systematic methodology for integrating modeling algorithms within a serious gaming environment in which role-playing by human agents provides updates to model nodes and the ensuing model outcomes in turn influence the behavior of the human players. The approach ensures a strong functional partnership between human players and computer models while maintaining a high degree of independence and greatly facilitating the connection between model and game structures.« less

Individual moral judgment and cultural ideologies.

PubMed

Narvaez, D; Getz, I; Rest, J R; Thoma, S J

1999-03-01

Moral judgment cannot be reduced to cultural ideology, or vice versa. But when each construct is measured separately, then combined, the product predicts powerfully to moral thinking. In Study 1, 2 churches (N = 96) were selected for their differences on religious ideology, political identity, and moral judgment. By combining these 3 variables, a multiple correlation of .79 predicted to members' moral thinking (opinions on human rights issues). Study 2 replicated this finding in a secular sample, with the formula established in Study 1 (R = .77). Individual conceptual development in moral judgment and socialization into cultural ideology co-occur, simultaneously and reciprocally, in parallel, and not serially. Individual development in moral judgment provides the epistemological categories for cultural ideology, which in turn influences the course of moral judgment, to produce moral thinking (e.g., opinions about abortion, free speech).

[Clinical judgment is a schema. Conceptual proposals and training perspectives.

PubMed

Nagels, Marc

2017-06-01

Clinical judgment is a critical concept for the development of nursing and nursing education. Its theoretical origins are multiple and its definition is not yet consensus. The analysis of the scientific and professional literature shows heterogeneous and dispersed points of views, notably on the role of intuition, on its cognitive and metacognitive dimensions, and on its proximity to other concepts. Between professional stakes and epistemological constructions, clinical judgment is still an emerging concept.To overcome the obstacle and contribute to the theoretical effort, we will argue that clinical judgment must be analyzed as a schema. It presents all the characteristics : diagnosis and information necessary for reasoning, rational decision-making process, metacognitive control and evaluation of decision-making. Perspectives then open to better understand the nursing activity.In conclusion, recommendations for developing clinical judgment in training will be presented.

Dignity in end-of-life care: results of a national survey of US physicians

PubMed Central

Antiel, Ryan M.; Curlin, Farr A.; James, Katherine M.; Sulmasy, Daniel P.; Tilburt, Jon C.

2014-01-01

Context Debates persist about the relevance of “dignity” as an ethical concept in US healthcare, especially in end-of-life care. Objective To describe the attitudes and beliefs regarding the usefulness and meaning of the concept of dignity and to examine judgments about a clinical scenario in which dignity might be relevant. Methods 2000 practicing U.S. physicians, from all specialties, were mailed a survey. Main measures included physician’s judgments about an end-of-life clinical scenario (criterion variable), attitudes about the concept of dignity (predictors), and their religious characteristics (predictors). Results 1032 eligible physicians (54%) responded. Nine out of ten (90%) physicians reported that dignity was relevant to their practice. After controlling for age, gender, region, and specialty, physicians who judged that the case patient had either some dignity or full dignity, and who agreed that dignity is given by a creator, were all positively associated with believing that the patient’s life was worth living [OR 10.2 (5.8–17.8), OR 20.5 (11.4–36.8), OR 4.7 (3.1–7.0), respectively]. Respondents who strongly agreed that “all living humans have the same amount of dignity” were also more likely to believe that the patient’s life was worth living [OR 1.8 (1.2–2.7)]. Religious characteristics were also associated with believing that the case patient’s life was worth living [OR 4.1 (2.4–7.2), OR 3.2 (1.6–6.3), OR 9.2 (4.3–19.5), respectively]. Conclusion US physicians view the concept of dignity as useful. Those views are associated with their judgments about common end-of-life scenarios in which dignity concepts may be relevant. PMID:22762966

Repetition Blindness for Faces: A Comparison of Face Identity, Expression, and Gender Judgments.

PubMed

Murphy, Karen; Ward, Zoe

2017-01-01

Repetition blindness (RB) refers to the impairment in reporting two identical targets within a rapid serial visual presentation stream. While numerous studies have demonstrated RB for words and picture of objects, very few studies have examined RB for faces. This study extended this research by examining RB when the two faces were complete repeats (same emotion and identity), identity repeats (same individual, different emotion), and emotion repeats (different individual, same emotion) for identity, gender, and expression judgment tasks. Complete RB and identity RB effects were evident for all three judgment tasks. Emotion RB was only evident for the expression and gender judgments. Complete RB effects were larger than emotion or identity RB effects across all judgment tasks. For the expression judgments, there was more emotion than identity RB. The identity RB effect was larger than the emotion RB effect for the gender judgments. Cross task comparisons revealed larger complete RB effects for the expression and gender judgments than the identity decisions. There was a larger emotion RB effect for the expression than gender judgments and the identity RB effect was larger for the gender than for the identity and expression judgments. These results indicate that while faces are subject to RB, this is affected by the type of repeated information and relevance of the facial characteristic to the judgment decision. This study provides further support for the operation of separate processing mechanisms for face gender, emotion, and identity information within models of face recognition.

Repetition Blindness for Faces: A Comparison of Face Identity, Expression, and Gender Judgments

PubMed Central

Murphy, Karen; Ward, Zoe

2017-01-01

Repetition blindness (RB) refers to the impairment in reporting two identical targets within a rapid serial visual presentation stream. While numerous studies have demonstrated RB for words and picture of objects, very few studies have examined RB for faces. This study extended this research by examining RB when the two faces were complete repeats (same emotion and identity), identity repeats (same individual, different emotion), and emotion repeats (different individual, same emotion) for identity, gender, and expression judgment tasks. Complete RB and identity RB effects were evident for all three judgment tasks. Emotion RB was only evident for the expression and gender judgments. Complete RB effects were larger than emotion or identity RB effects across all judgment tasks. For the expression judgments, there was more emotion than identity RB. The identity RB effect was larger than the emotion RB effect for the gender judgments. Cross task comparisons revealed larger complete RB effects for the expression and gender judgments than the identity decisions. There was a larger emotion RB effect for the expression than gender judgments and the identity RB effect was larger for the gender than for the identity and expression judgments. These results indicate that while faces are subject to RB, this is affected by the type of repeated information and relevance of the facial characteristic to the judgment decision. This study provides further support for the operation of separate processing mechanisms for face gender, emotion, and identity information within models of face recognition. PMID:29038663

Using a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to determine product usability: A proposed theoretical framework.

PubMed

Zhou, Ronggang; Chan, Alan H S

2017-01-01

In order to compare existing usability data to ideal goals or to that for other products, usability practitioners have tried to develop a framework for deriving an integrated metric. However, most current usability methods with this aim rely heavily on human judgment about the various attributes of a product, but often fail to take into account of the inherent uncertainties in these judgments in the evaluation process. This paper presents a universal method of usability evaluation by combining the analytic hierarchical process (AHP) and the fuzzy evaluation method. By integrating multiple sources of uncertain information during product usability evaluation, the method proposed here aims to derive an index that is structured hierarchically in terms of the three usability components of effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction of a product. With consideration of the theoretical basis of fuzzy evaluation, a two-layer comprehensive evaluation index was first constructed. After the membership functions were determined by an expert panel, the evaluation appraisals were computed by using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation technique model to characterize fuzzy human judgments. Then with the use of AHP, the weights of usability components were elicited from these experts. Compared to traditional usability evaluation methods, the major strength of the fuzzy method is that it captures the fuzziness and uncertainties in human judgments and provides an integrated framework that combines the vague judgments from multiple stages of a product evaluation process.

Effects of LifeSkills Training on Medical Students' Performance in Dealing with Complex Clinical Cases

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Campo, Ana E.; Williams, Virginia; Williams, Redford B.; Segundo, Marisol A.; Lydston, David; Weiss, Stephen M.'

2008-01-01

Objective: Sound clinical judgment is the cornerstone of medical practice and begins early during medical education. The authors consider the effect of personality characteristics (hostility, anger, cynicism) on clinical judgment and whether a brief intervention can affect this process. Methods: Two sophomore medical classes (experimental,…

An Examination of the Role of Listening in Judgments of Communication Competence in Co-Workers.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Haas, John W.; Arnold, Christa L.

1995-01-01

Shows that listening plays a central role in assessments of communication competence, accounting for approximately one-third of the characteristics perceivers use to evaluate communication competence in coworkers. Finds that organization members differ in their use of listening in judgments of communication competence in several kinds of…

Perceptions of Teacher Characteristics and Student Judgments of Teacher Effectiveness.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Freeman, Harvey R.

1988-01-01

Uses a seven point Likert scale to examine the relationship between perceived teacher attractiveness, expertness, and trustworthiness and student judgment of teacher effectiveness. Correlations suggest that a more accurate view of teaching may be as an instance of social influence process. Urges further research to identify those cues that infer…

Examining corporate reputation judgments with generalizability theory.

PubMed

Highhouse, Scott; Broadfoot, Alison; Yugo, Jennifer E; Devendorf, Shelba A

2009-05-01

The researchers used generalizability theory to examine whether reputation judgments about corporations function in a manner consistent with contemporary theory in the corporate-reputation literature. University professors (n = 86) of finance, marketing, and human resources management made repeated judgments about the general reputations of highly visible American companies. Minimal variability in the judgments is explained by items, time, persons, and field of specialization. Moreover, experts from the different specializations reveal considerable agreement in how they weigh different aspects of corporate performance in arriving at their global reputation judgments. The results generally support the theory of the reputation construct and suggest that stable estimates of global reputation can be achieved with a small number of items and experts. (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

A human judgment approach to epidemiological forecasting

PubMed Central

Farrow, David C.; Brooks, Logan C.; Rosenfeld, Roni

2017-01-01

Infectious diseases impose considerable burden on society, despite significant advances in technology and medicine over the past century. Advanced warning can be helpful in mitigating and preparing for an impending or ongoing epidemic. Historically, such a capability has lagged for many reasons, including in particular the uncertainty in the current state of the system and in the understanding of the processes that drive epidemic trajectories. Presently we have access to data, models, and computational resources that enable the development of epidemiological forecasting systems. Indeed, several recent challenges hosted by the U.S. government have fostered an open and collaborative environment for the development of these technologies. The primary focus of these challenges has been to develop statistical and computational methods for epidemiological forecasting, but here we consider a serious alternative based on collective human judgment. We created the web-based “Epicast” forecasting system which collects and aggregates epidemic predictions made in real-time by human participants, and with these forecasts we ask two questions: how accurate is human judgment, and how do these forecasts compare to their more computational, data-driven alternatives? To address the former, we assess by a variety of metrics how accurately humans are able to predict influenza and chikungunya trajectories. As for the latter, we show that real-time, combined human predictions of the 2014–2015 and 2015–2016 U.S. flu seasons are often more accurate than the same predictions made by several statistical systems, especially for short-term targets. We conclude that there is valuable predictive power in collective human judgment, and we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of this approach. PMID:28282375

A human judgment approach to epidemiological forecasting.

PubMed

Farrow, David C; Brooks, Logan C; Hyun, Sangwon; Tibshirani, Ryan J; Burke, Donald S; Rosenfeld, Roni

2017-03-01

Infectious diseases impose considerable burden on society, despite significant advances in technology and medicine over the past century. Advanced warning can be helpful in mitigating and preparing for an impending or ongoing epidemic. Historically, such a capability has lagged for many reasons, including in particular the uncertainty in the current state of the system and in the understanding of the processes that drive epidemic trajectories. Presently we have access to data, models, and computational resources that enable the development of epidemiological forecasting systems. Indeed, several recent challenges hosted by the U.S. government have fostered an open and collaborative environment for the development of these technologies. The primary focus of these challenges has been to develop statistical and computational methods for epidemiological forecasting, but here we consider a serious alternative based on collective human judgment. We created the web-based "Epicast" forecasting system which collects and aggregates epidemic predictions made in real-time by human participants, and with these forecasts we ask two questions: how accurate is human judgment, and how do these forecasts compare to their more computational, data-driven alternatives? To address the former, we assess by a variety of metrics how accurately humans are able to predict influenza and chikungunya trajectories. As for the latter, we show that real-time, combined human predictions of the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 U.S. flu seasons are often more accurate than the same predictions made by several statistical systems, especially for short-term targets. We conclude that there is valuable predictive power in collective human judgment, and we discuss the benefits and drawbacks of this approach.

Facial expression judgments support a socio-relational model, rather than a negativity bias model of political psychology.

PubMed

Vigil, Jacob M; Strenth, Chance

2014-06-01

Self-reported opinions and judgments may be more rooted in expressive biases than in cognitive processing biases, and ultimately operate within a broader behavioral style for advertising the capacity - versus the trustworthiness - dimension of human reciprocity potential. Our analyses of facial expression judgments of likely voters are consistent with this thesis, and directly contradict one major prediction from the authors' "negativity-bias" model.

A quantum theory account of order effects and conjunction fallacies in political judgments.

PubMed

Yearsley, James M; Trueblood, Jennifer S

2017-09-06

Are our everyday judgments about the world around us normative? Decades of research in the judgment and decision-making literature suggest the answer is no. If people's judgments do not follow normative rules, then what rules if any do they follow? Quantum probability theory is a promising new approach to modeling human behavior that is at odds with normative, classical rules. One key advantage of using quantum theory is that it explains multiple types of judgment errors using the same basic machinery, unifying what have previously been thought of as disparate phenomena. In this article, we test predictions from quantum theory related to the co-occurrence of two classic judgment phenomena, order effects and conjunction fallacies, using judgments about real-world events (related to the U.S. presidential primaries). We also show that our data obeys two a priori and parameter free constraints derived from quantum theory. Further, we examine two factors that moderate the effects, cognitive thinking style (as measured by the Cognitive Reflection Test) and political ideology.

A Critical Meta-Analysis of Lens Model Studies in Human Judgment and Decision-Making

PubMed Central

Kaufmann, Esther; Reips, Ulf-Dietrich; Wittmann, Werner W.

2013-01-01

Achieving accurate judgment (‘judgmental achievement’) is of utmost importance in daily life across multiple domains. The lens model and the lens model equation provide useful frameworks for modeling components of judgmental achievement and for creating tools to help decision makers (e.g., physicians, teachers) reach better judgments (e.g., a correct diagnosis, an accurate estimation of intelligence). Previous meta-analyses of judgment and decision-making studies have attempted to evaluate overall judgmental achievement and have provided the basis for evaluating the success of bootstrapping (i.e., replacing judges by linear models that guide decision making). However, previous meta-analyses have failed to appropriately correct for a number of study design artifacts (e.g., measurement error, dichotomization), which may have potentially biased estimations (e.g., of the variability between studies) and led to erroneous interpretations (e.g., with regards to moderator variables). In the current study we therefore conduct the first psychometric meta-analysis of judgmental achievement studies that corrects for a number of study design artifacts. We identified 31 lens model studies (N = 1,151, k = 49) that met our inclusion criteria. We evaluated overall judgmental achievement as well as whether judgmental achievement depended on decision domain (e.g., medicine, education) and/or the level of expertise (expert vs. novice). We also evaluated whether using corrected estimates affected conclusions with regards to the success of bootstrapping with psychometrically-corrected models. Further, we introduce a new psychometric trim-and-fill method to estimate the effect sizes of potentially missing studies correct psychometric meta-analyses for effects of publication bias. Comparison of the results of the psychometric meta-analysis with the results of a traditional meta-analysis (which only corrected for sampling error) indicated that artifact correction leads to a) an increase in values of the lens model components, b) reduced heterogeneity between studies, and c) increases the success of bootstrapping. We argue that psychometric meta-analysis is useful for accurately evaluating human judgment and show the success of bootstrapping. PMID:24391781

A critical meta-analysis of lens model studies in human judgment and decision-making.

PubMed

Kaufmann, Esther; Reips, Ulf-Dietrich; Wittmann, Werner W

2013-01-01

Achieving accurate judgment ('judgmental achievement') is of utmost importance in daily life across multiple domains. The lens model and the lens model equation provide useful frameworks for modeling components of judgmental achievement and for creating tools to help decision makers (e.g., physicians, teachers) reach better judgments (e.g., a correct diagnosis, an accurate estimation of intelligence). Previous meta-analyses of judgment and decision-making studies have attempted to evaluate overall judgmental achievement and have provided the basis for evaluating the success of bootstrapping (i.e., replacing judges by linear models that guide decision making). However, previous meta-analyses have failed to appropriately correct for a number of study design artifacts (e.g., measurement error, dichotomization), which may have potentially biased estimations (e.g., of the variability between studies) and led to erroneous interpretations (e.g., with regards to moderator variables). In the current study we therefore conduct the first psychometric meta-analysis of judgmental achievement studies that corrects for a number of study design artifacts. We identified 31 lens model studies (N = 1,151, k = 49) that met our inclusion criteria. We evaluated overall judgmental achievement as well as whether judgmental achievement depended on decision domain (e.g., medicine, education) and/or the level of expertise (expert vs. novice). We also evaluated whether using corrected estimates affected conclusions with regards to the success of bootstrapping with psychometrically-corrected models. Further, we introduce a new psychometric trim-and-fill method to estimate the effect sizes of potentially missing studies correct psychometric meta-analyses for effects of publication bias. Comparison of the results of the psychometric meta-analysis with the results of a traditional meta-analysis (which only corrected for sampling error) indicated that artifact correction leads to a) an increase in values of the lens model components, b) reduced heterogeneity between studies, and c) increases the success of bootstrapping. We argue that psychometric meta-analysis is useful for accurately evaluating human judgment and show the success of bootstrapping.

Adaptation and fallibility in experts' judgments of novice performers.

PubMed

Larson, Jeffrey S; Billeter, Darron M

2017-02-01

Competition judges are often selected for their expertise, under the belief that a high level of performance expertise should enable accurate judgments of the competitors. Contrary to this assumption, we find evidence that expertise can reduce judgment accuracy. Adaptation level theory proposes that discriminatory capacity decreases with greater distance from one's adaptation level. Because experts' learning has produced an adaptation level close to ideal performance standards, they may be less able to discriminate among lower-level competitors. As a result, expertise increases judgment accuracy of high-level competitions but decreases judgment accuracy of low-level competitions. Additionally, we demonstrate that, consistent with an adaptation level theory account of expert judgment, experts systematically give more critical ratings than intermediates or novices. In summary, this work demonstrates a systematic change in human perception that occurs as task learning increases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Perceived differences between chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and human (Homo sapiens) facial expressions are related to emotional interpretation.

PubMed

Waller, Bridget M; Bard, Kim A; Vick, Sarah-Jane; Smith Pasqualini, Marcia C

2007-11-01

Human face perception is a finely tuned, specialized process. When comparing faces between species, therefore, it is essential to consider how people make these observational judgments. Comparing facial expressions may be particularly problematic, given that people tend to consider them categorically as emotional signals, which may affect how accurately specific details are processed. The bared-teeth display (BT), observed in most primates, has been proposed as a homologue of the human smile (J. A. R. A. M. van Hooff, 1972). In this study, judgments of similarity between BT displays of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and human smiles varied in relation to perceived emotional valence. When a chimpanzee BT was interpreted as fearful, observers tended to underestimate the magnitude of the relationship between certain features (the extent of lip corner raise) and human smiles. These judgments may reflect the combined effects of categorical emotional perception, configural face processing, and perceptual organization in mental imagery and may demonstrate the advantages of using standardized observational methods in comparative facial expression research. Copyright 2007 APA.

Relations between inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning.

PubMed

Heit, Evan; Rotello, Caren M

2010-05-01

One of the most important open questions in reasoning research is how inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning are related. In an effort to address this question, we applied methods and concepts from memory research. We used 2 experiments to examine the effects of logical validity and premise-conclusion similarity on evaluation of arguments. Experiment 1 showed 2 dissociations: For a common set of arguments, deduction judgments were more affected by validity, and induction judgments were more affected by similarity. Moreover, Experiment 2 showed that fast deduction judgments were like induction judgments-in terms of being more influenced by similarity and less influenced by validity, compared with slow deduction judgments. These novel results pose challenges for a 1-process account of reasoning and are interpreted in terms of a 2-process account of reasoning, which was implemented as a multidimensional signal detection model and applied to receiver operating characteristic data. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Comparison of Two Sepsis Recognition Methods in a Pediatric Emergency Department

PubMed Central

Balamuth, Fran; Alpern, Elizabeth R.; Grundmeier, Robert W.; Chilutti, Marianne; Weiss, Scott L.; Fitzgerald, Julie C.; Hayes, Katie; Bilker, Warren; Lautenbach, Ebbing

2015-01-01

Objectives To compare the effectiveness of physician judgment and an electronic algorithmic alert to identify pediatric patients with severe sepsis/septic shock in a pediatric emergency department (ED). Methods This was an observational cohort study of patients older than 56 days with fever or hypothermia. All patients were evaluated for potential sepsis in real time by the ED clinical team. An electronic algorithmic alert was retrospectively applied to identify patients with potential sepsis independent of physician judgment. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients correctly identified with severe sepsis/septic shock defined by consensus criteria. Test characteristics were determined and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were compared. Results Of 19,524 eligible patient visits, 88 patients developed consensus-confirmed severe sepsis or septic shock. Physician judgment identified 159, and the algorithmic alert identified 3,301 patients with potential sepsis. Physician judgment had sensitivity of 72.7% (95% CI = 72.1% to 73.4%) and specificity 99.5% (95% CI = 99.4% to 99.6%); the algorithmic alert had sensitivity 92.1% (95% CI = 91.7% to 92.4%), and specificity 83.4% (95% CI = 82.9% to 83.9%) for severe sepsis/septic shock. There was no significant difference in the area under the ROC curve for physician judgment (0.86, 95% CI = 0.81 to 0.91) or the algorithm (0.88, 95% CI = 0.85 to 0.91; p = 0.54). A combination method using either positive physician judgment or an algorithmic alert improved sensitivity to 96.6% and specificity to 83.3%. A sequential approach, in which positive identification by the algorithmic alert was then confirmed by physician judgment, achieved 68.2% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity. Positive and negative predictive values for physician judgment vs. algorithmic alert were 40.3% vs. 2.5% and 99.88 % vs. 99.96%, respectively. Conclusions The electronic algorithmic alert was more sensitive but less specific than physician judgment for recognition of pediatric severe sepsis and septic shock. These findings can help to guide institutions in selecting pediatric sepsis recognition methods based on institutional needs and priorities. PMID:26474032

Comparison of Two Sepsis Recognition Methods in a Pediatric Emergency Department.

PubMed

Balamuth, Fran; Alpern, Elizabeth R; Grundmeier, Robert W; Chilutti, Marianne; Weiss, Scott L; Fitzgerald, Julie C; Hayes, Katie; Bilker, Warren; Lautenbach, Ebbing

2015-11-01

The objective was to compare the effectiveness of physician judgment and an electronic algorithmic alert to identify pediatric patients with severe sepsis/septic shock in a pediatric emergency department (ED). This was an observational cohort study of patients older than 56 days with fever or hypothermia. All patients were evaluated for potential sepsis in real time by the ED clinical team. An electronic algorithmic alert was retrospectively applied to identify patients with potential sepsis independent of physician judgment. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients correctly identified with severe sepsis/septic shock defined by consensus criteria. Test characteristics were determined and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were compared. Of 19,524 eligible patient visits, 88 patients developed consensus-confirmed severe sepsis or septic shock. Physician judgment identified 159 and the algorithmic alert identified 3,301 patients with potential sepsis. Physician judgment had sensitivity of 72.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 72.1% to 73.4%) and specificity of 99.5% (95% CI = 99.4% to 99.6%); the algorithmic alert had sensitivity of 92.1% (95% CI = 91.7% to 92.4%) and specificity of 83.4% (95% CI = 82.9% to 83.9%) for severe sepsis/septic shock. There was no significant difference in the area under the ROC curve for physician judgment (0.86, 95% CI = 0.81 to 0.91) or the algorithm (0.88, 95% CI = 0.85 to 0.91; p = 0.54). A combination method using either positive physician judgment or an algorithmic alert improved sensitivity to 96.6% and specificity to 83.3%. A sequential approach, in which positive identification by the algorithmic alert was then confirmed by physician judgment, achieved 68.2% sensitivity and 99.6% specificity. Positive and negative predictive values for physician judgment versus algorithmic alert were 40.3% versus 2.5% and 99.88% versus 99.96%, respectively. The electronic algorithmic alert was more sensitive but less specific than physician judgment for recognition of pediatric severe sepsis and septic shock. These findings can help to guide institutions in selecting pediatric sepsis recognition methods based on institutional needs and priorities. © 2015 by the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.

Is This Object Balanced or Unbalanced? Judgments Are on the Safe Side

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Samuel, Francoise; Kerzel, Dirk

2011-01-01

Do we perceive correctly whether a 2-D object is balanced or unbalanced? What would be the cause of biased equilibrium judgments? In two psychometric studies, we varied independently the characteristics of the objects and the equilibrium states. First, we observed that observers were excessively sensitive to the eccentricity of the object top.…

Some Memories Are Odder than Others: Judgments of Episodic Oddity Violate Known Decision Rules

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

O'Connor, Akira R.; Guhl, Emily N.; Cox, Justin C.; Dobbins, Ian G.

2011-01-01

Current decision models of recognition memory are based almost entirely on one paradigm, single item old/new judgments accompanied by confidence ratings. This task results in receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) that are well fit by both signal-detection and dual-process models. Here we examine an entirely new recognition task, the judgment…

Analysis of nutrition judgments using the Nutrition Facts Panel.

PubMed

González-Vallejo, Claudia; Lavins, Bethany D; Carter, Kristina A

2016-10-01

Consumers' judgments and choices of the nutritional value of food products (cereals and snacks) were studied as a function of using information in the Nutrition Facts Panel (NFP, National Labeling and Education Act, 1990). Brunswik's lens model (Brunswik, 1955; Cooksey, 1996; Hammond, 1955; Stewart, 1988) served as the theoretical and analytical tool for examining the judgment process. Lens model analysis was further enriched with the criticality of predictors' technique developed by Azen, Budescu, & Reiser (2001). Judgment accuracy was defined as correspondence between consumers' judgments and the nutritional quality index, NuVal(®), obtained from an expert system. The study also examined several individual level variables (e.g., age, gender, BMI, educational level, health status, health beliefs, etc.) as predictors of lens model indices that measure judgment consistency, judgment accuracy, and knowledge of the environment. Results showed varying levels of consistency and accuracy depending on the food product, but generally the median values of the lens model statistics were moderate. Judgment consistency was higher for more educated individuals; judgment accuracy was predicted from a combination of person level characteristics, and individuals who reported having regular meals had models that were in greater agreement with the expert's model. Lens model methodology is a useful tool for understanding how individuals perceive the nutrition in foods based on the NFP label. Lens model judgment indices were generally low, highlighting that the benefits of the complex NFP label may be more modest than what has been previously assumed. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

On gender specificity of person characteristics in personnel advertisements: a study among future applications.

PubMed

Taris, T W; Bok, I A

1998-11-01

This research is an examination of how person characteristics mentioned in personnel advertisements influence the judgments of male and female students with regard to their subjective eligibility for, and the attractiveness of, a particular vacancy. The first study showed that many frequently mentioned person characteristics in personnel advertisements applied differently to men and women, but that female characteristics were more in demand than male characteristics. The second study examined to what degree male and female participants felt that they themselves possessed male and female characteristics; results showed that the men were more confident about the degree to which they possessed male and female characteristics than the women were. The third study examined how the type of person characteristics mentioned in personnel advertisements influenced men's and women's judgments regarding their eligibility for and the attractiveness of a particular position. The men found all positions about equally attractive, whereas the women found "male" positions considerably less attractive. Implications of the study are discussed.

Morality constrains the default representation of what is possible.

PubMed

Phillips, Jonathan; Cushman, Fiery

2017-05-02

The capacity for representing and reasoning over sets of possibilities, or modal cognition, supports diverse kinds of high-level judgments: causal reasoning, moral judgment, language comprehension, and more. Prior research on modal cognition asks how humans explicitly and deliberatively reason about what is possible but has not investigated whether or how people have a default, implicit representation of which events are possible. We present three studies that characterize the role of implicit representations of possibility in cognition. Collectively, these studies differentiate explicit reasoning about possibilities from default implicit representations, demonstrate that human adults often default to treating immoral and irrational events as impossible, and provide a case study of high-level cognitive judgments relying on default implicit representations of possibility rather than explicit deliberation.

Relatively Certain! Comparative Thinking Reduces Uncertainty

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mussweiler, Thomas; Posten, Ann-Christin

2012-01-01

Comparison is one of the most ubiquitous and versatile mechanisms in human information processing. Previous research demonstrates that one consequence of comparative thinking is increased judgmental efficiency: Comparison allows for quicker judgments without a loss in accuracy. We hypothesised that a second potential consequence of comparative…

Judging the Probability of Hypotheses Versus the Impact of Evidence: Which Form of Inductive Inference Is More Accurate and Time-Consistent?

PubMed

Tentori, Katya; Chater, Nick; Crupi, Vincenzo

2016-04-01

Inductive reasoning requires exploiting links between evidence and hypotheses. This can be done focusing either on the posterior probability of the hypothesis when updated on the new evidence or on the impact of the new evidence on the credibility of the hypothesis. But are these two cognitive representations equally reliable? This study investigates this question by comparing probability and impact judgments on the same experimental materials. The results indicate that impact judgments are more consistent in time and more accurate than probability judgments. Impact judgments also predict the direction of errors in probability judgments. These findings suggest that human inductive reasoning relies more on estimating evidential impact than on posterior probability. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Disgust sensitivity is primarily associated with purity-based moral judgments.

PubMed

Wagemans, Fieke M A; Brandt, Mark J; Zeelenberg, Marcel

2018-03-01

Individual differences in disgust sensitivity are associated with a range of judgments and attitudes related to the moral domain. Some perspectives suggest that the association between disgust sensitivity and moral judgments will be equally strong across all moral domains (i.e., purity, authority, loyalty, care, fairness, and liberty). Other perspectives predict that disgust sensitivity is primarily associated with judgments of specific moral domains (e.g., primarily purity). However, no study has systematically tested if disgust sensitivity is associated with moral judgments of the purity domain specifically, more generally to moral judgments of the binding moral domains, or to moral judgments of all of the moral domains equally. Across 5 studies (total N = 1,104), we find consistent evidence for the notion that disgust sensitivity relates more strongly to moral condemnation of purity-based transgressions (meta-analytic r = .40) than to moral condemnation of transgressions of any of the other domains (range meta-analytic rs: .07-.27). Our findings are in line with predictions from Moral Foundations Theory, which predicts that personality characteristics like disgust sensitivity make people more sensitive to a certain set of moral issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Using a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to determine product usability: A proposed theoretical framework

PubMed Central

Zhou, Ronggang; Chan, Alan H. S.

2016-01-01

BACKGROUND: In order to compare existing usability data to ideal goals or to that for other products, usability practitioners have tried to develop a framework for deriving an integrated metric. However, most current usability methods with this aim rely heavily on human judgment about the various attributes of a product, but often fail to take into account of the inherent uncertainties in these judgments in the evaluation process. OBJECTIVE: This paper presents a universal method of usability evaluation by combining the analytic hierarchical process (AHP) and the fuzzy evaluation method. By integrating multiple sources of uncertain information during product usability evaluation, the method proposed here aims to derive an index that is structured hierarchically in terms of the three usability components of effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction of a product. METHODS: With consideration of the theoretical basis of fuzzy evaluation, a two-layer comprehensive evaluation index was first constructed. After the membership functions were determined by an expert panel, the evaluation appraisals were computed by using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation technique model to characterize fuzzy human judgments. Then with the use of AHP, the weights of usability components were elicited from these experts. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Compared to traditional usability evaluation methods, the major strength of the fuzzy method is that it captures the fuzziness and uncertainties in human judgments and provides an integrated framework that combines the vague judgments from multiple stages of a product evaluation process. PMID:28035943

Incorporating expert judgments in utility evaluation of bacteroidales qPCR assays for microbial source tracking in a drinking water source.

PubMed

Åström, Johan; Pettersson, Thomas J R; Reischer, Georg H; Norberg, Tommy; Hermansson, Malte

2015-02-03

Several assays for the detection of host-specific genetic markers of the order Bacteroidales have been developed and used for microbial source tracking (MST) in environmental waters. It is recognized that the source-sensitivity and source-specificity are unknown and variable when introducing these assays in new geographic regions, which reduces their reliability and use. A Bayesian approach was developed to incorporate expert judgments with regional assay sensitivity and specificity assessments in a utility evaluation of a human and a ruminant-specific qPCR assay for MST in a drinking water source. Water samples from Lake Rådasjön were analyzed for E. coli, intestinal enterococci and somatic coliphages through cultivation and for human (BacH) and ruminant-specific (BacR) markers through qPCR assays. Expert judgments were collected regarding the probability of human and ruminant fecal contamination based on fecal indicator organism data and subjective information. Using Bayes formula, the conditional probability of a true human or ruminant fecal contamination given the presence of BacH or BacR was determined stochastically from expert judgments and regional qPCR assay performance, using Beta distributions to represent uncertainties. A web-based computational tool was developed for the procedure, which provides a measure of confidence to findings of host-specific markers and demonstrates the information value from these assays.

Incorporating Expert Judgments in Utility Evaluation of Bacteroidales qPCR Assays for Microbial Source Tracking in a Drinking Water Source

PubMed Central

Åström, Johan; Pettersson, Thomas J. R.; Reischer, Georg H.; Norberg, Tommy; Hermansson, Malte

2017-01-01

Several assays for the detection of host-specific genetic markers of the order Bacteroidales have been developed and used for microbial source tracking (MST) in environmental waters. It is recognized that the source-sensitivity and source-specificity are unknown and variable when introducing these assays in new geographic regions, which reduces their reliability and use. A Bayesian approach was developed to incorporate expert judgments with regional assay sensitivity and specificity assessments in a utility evaluation of a human and a ruminant-specific qPCR assay for MST in a drinking water source. Water samples from Lake Rådasjön were analyzed for E. coli, intestinal enterococci and somatic coliphages through cultivation and for human (BacH) and ruminant-specific (BacR) markers through qPCR assays. Expert judgments were collected regarding the probability of human and ruminant fecal contamination based on fecal indicator organism data and subjective information. Using Bayes formula, the conditional probability of a true human or ruminant fecal contamination given the presence of BacH or BacR was determined stochastically from expert judgments and regional qPCR assay performance, using Beta distributions to represent uncertainties. A web-based computational tool was developed for the procedure, which provides a measure of confidence to findings of host-specific markers and demonstrates the information value from these assays. PMID:25545113

Moral Judgments and History Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Black, Hedda

1977-01-01

By providing adolescents with the opportunity to interact with a much extended social environment of humans past and distant, the history teacher is able to promote maturity of moral judgment as an important aspect of social development. Some normative data relating to this transition in adolescents are presented. (Editor/RK)

Relativism, Objectivity and Moral Judgment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Partington, Geoffrey

1979-01-01

Reaction against the naive moral absolutism of past historical writing has frequently led to unconditional moral and cultural relativism which is equally dangerous. A viable solution is contingent relativism in historical judgments, combining explicit and examinable criteria of human values and concern for contexts of time and place. (Author/SJL)

Women's hair as a cue to desired relationship and parenting characteristics.

PubMed

Matz, David C; Hinsz, Verlin B

2017-10-30

We investigated how women's hair color (blond, brown, black) and length (short, medium, long) influences males' judgments about the women's age, health, physical attractiveness, relationship potential, and parenting capability. Results, which are generally consistent with evolutionary psychology approaches, indicate that hair color and, to a lesser extent, length can affect perceptions of personal characteristics. More specifically, we found that lighter hair (blond and brown) compared to darker hair (black) is generally associated with perceptions of youth, health and attractiveness, and generally leads to more positive perceptions of relationship and parenting potential. Furthermore, the relationships between variables suggest that characteristics directly related to reproductive potential may be inferred from more obvious indirect characteristics. These results suggest that males are able to make complex judgments about women concerning their desirable relationship and parenting potential based on discernable characteristics such as hair color and length.

Simultaneous perceptual and response biases on sequential face attractiveness judgments

PubMed Central

Pegors, Teresa K.; Mattar, Marcelo G.; Bryan, Peter B.; Epstein, Russell A.

2015-01-01

Face attractiveness is a social characteristic that we often use to make first-pass judgments about the people around us. However, these judgments are highly influenced by our surrounding social world, and researchers still understand little about the mechanisms underlying these influences. In a series of three experiments, we used a novel sequential rating paradigm that enabled us to measure biases on attractiveness judgments from the previous face and the previous rating. Our results revealed two simultaneous and opposing influences on face attractiveness judgments that arise from our past experience of faces: a response bias in which attractiveness ratings shift towards a previously given rating, and a stimulus bias in which attractiveness ratings shift away from the mean attractiveness of the previous face. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the contrastive stimulus bias (but not the assimilative response bias) is strengthened by increasing the duration of the previous stimulus, suggesting an underlying perceptual mechanism. These results demonstrate that judgments of face attractiveness are influenced by information from our evaluative and perceptual history and that these influences have measurable behavioral effects over the course of just a few seconds. PMID:25867223

Domain-General and Domain-Specific Patterns of Activity Supporting Metacognition in Human Prefrontal Cortex

PubMed Central

2018-01-01

Metacognition is the capacity to evaluate the success of one's own cognitive processes in various domains; for example, memory and perception. It remains controversial whether metacognition relies on a domain-general resource that is applied to different tasks or if self-evaluative processes are domain specific. Here, we investigated this issue directly by examining the neural substrates engaged when metacognitive judgments were made by human participants of both sexes during perceptual and memory tasks matched for stimulus and performance characteristics. By comparing patterns of fMRI activity while subjects evaluated their performance, we revealed both domain-specific and domain-general metacognitive representations. Multivoxel activity patterns in anterior prefrontal cortex predicted levels of confidence in a domain-specific fashion, whereas domain-general signals predicting confidence and accuracy were found in a widespread network in the frontal and posterior midline. The demonstration of domain-specific metacognitive representations suggests the presence of a content-rich mechanism available to introspection and cognitive control. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We used human neuroimaging to investigate processes supporting memory and perceptual metacognition. It remains controversial whether metacognition relies on a global resource that is applied to different tasks or if self-evaluative processes are specific to particular tasks. Using multivariate decoding methods, we provide evidence that perceptual- and memory-specific metacognitive representations coexist with generic confidence signals. Our findings reconcile previously conflicting results on the domain specificity/generality of metacognition and lay the groundwork for a mechanistic understanding of metacognitive judgments. PMID:29519851

Effects of response bias and judgment framing on operator use of an automated aid in a target detection task.

PubMed

Rice, Stephen; McCarley, Jason S

2011-12-01

Automated diagnostic aids prone to false alarms often produce poorer human performance in signal detection tasks than equally reliable miss-prone aids. However, it is not yet clear whether this is attributable to differences in the perceptual salience of the automated aids' misses and false alarms or is the result of inherent differences in operators' cognitive responses to different forms of automation error. The present experiments therefore examined the effects of automation false alarms and misses on human performance under conditions in which the different forms of error were matched in their perceptual characteristics. Young adult participants performed a simulated baggage x-ray screening task while assisted by an automated diagnostic aid. Judgments from the aid were rendered as text messages presented at the onset of each trial, and every trial was followed by a second text message providing response feedback. Thus, misses and false alarms from the aid were matched for their perceptual salience. Experiment 1 found that even under these conditions, false alarms from the aid produced poorer human performance and engendered lower automation use than misses from the aid. Experiment 2, however, found that the asymmetry between misses and false alarms was reduced when the aid's false alarms were framed as neutral messages rather than explicit misjudgments. Results suggest that automation false alarms and misses differ in their inherent cognitive salience and imply that changes in diagnosis framing may allow designers to encourage better use of imperfectly reliable automated aids.

Human vocal attractiveness as signaled by body size projection.

PubMed

Xu, Yi; Lee, Albert; Wu, Wing-Li; Liu, Xuan; Birkholz, Peter

2013-01-01

Voice, as a secondary sexual characteristic, is known to affect the perceived attractiveness of human individuals. But the underlying mechanism of vocal attractiveness has remained unclear. Here, we presented human listeners with acoustically altered natural sentences and fully synthetic sentences with systematically manipulated pitch, formants and voice quality based on a principle of body size projection reported for animal calls and emotional human vocal expressions. The results show that male listeners preferred a female voice that signals a small body size, with relatively high pitch, wide formant dispersion and breathy voice, while female listeners preferred a male voice that signals a large body size with low pitch and narrow formant dispersion. Interestingly, however, male vocal attractiveness was also enhanced by breathiness, which presumably softened the aggressiveness associated with a large body size. These results, together with the additional finding that the same vocal dimensions also affect emotion judgment, indicate that humans still employ a vocal interaction strategy used in animal calls despite the development of complex language.

A Quantum Theoretical Explanation for Probability Judgment Errors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Busemeyer, Jerome R.; Pothos, Emmanuel M.; Franco, Riccardo; Trueblood, Jennifer S.

2011-01-01

A quantum probability model is introduced and used to explain human probability judgment errors including the conjunction and disjunction fallacies, averaging effects, unpacking effects, and order effects on inference. On the one hand, quantum theory is similar to other categorization and memory models of cognition in that it relies on vector…

Source Effects and Plausibility Judgments When Reading about Climate Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lombardi, Doug; Seyranian, Viviane; Sinatra, Gale M.

2014-01-01

Gaps between what scientists and laypeople find plausible may act as a barrier to learning complex and/or controversial socioscientific concepts. For example, individuals may consider scientific explanations that human activities are causing current climate change as implausible. This plausibility judgment may be due-in part-to individuals'…

45 CFR 1150.44 - Can a judgment I have obtained against the United States be used to satisfy a debt that I owe to...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) NATIONAL FOUNDATION ON THE ARTS AND THE HUMANITIES NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS COLLECTION OF CLAIMS Administrative Offset § 1150.44 Can a judgment I have obtained...

45 CFR 1150.44 - Can a judgment I have obtained against the United States be used to satisfy a debt that I owe to...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... Regulations Relating to Public Welfare (Continued) NATIONAL FOUNDATION ON THE ARTS AND THE HUMANITIES NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS COLLECTION OF CLAIMS Administrative Offset § 1150.44 Can a judgment I have obtained...

Quasi-Experimental Analysis: A Mixture of Methods and Judgment.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cordray, David S.

1986-01-01

The role of human judgment in the development and synthesis of evidence has not been adequately developed or acknowledged within quasi-experimental analysis. Corrective solutions need to confront the fact that causal analysis within complex environments will require a more active assessment that entails reasoning and statistical modeling.…

Scaling up the evaluation of psychotherapy: evaluating motivational interviewing fidelity via statistical text classification

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background Behavioral interventions such as psychotherapy are leading, evidence-based practices for a variety of problems (e.g., substance abuse), but the evaluation of provider fidelity to behavioral interventions is limited by the need for human judgment. The current study evaluated the accuracy of statistical text classification in replicating human-based judgments of provider fidelity in one specific psychotherapy—motivational interviewing (MI). Method Participants (n = 148) came from five previously conducted randomized trials and were either primary care patients at a safety-net hospital or university students. To be eligible for the original studies, participants met criteria for either problematic drug or alcohol use. All participants received a type of brief motivational interview, an evidence-based intervention for alcohol and substance use disorders. The Motivational Interviewing Skills Code is a standard measure of MI provider fidelity based on human ratings that was used to evaluate all therapy sessions. A text classification approach called a labeled topic model was used to learn associations between human-based fidelity ratings and MI session transcripts. It was then used to generate codes for new sessions. The primary comparison was the accuracy of model-based codes with human-based codes. Results Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses of model-based codes showed reasonably strong sensitivity and specificity with those from human raters (range of area under ROC curve (AUC) scores: 0.62 – 0.81; average AUC: 0.72). Agreement with human raters was evaluated based on talk turns as well as code tallies for an entire session. Generated codes had higher reliability with human codes for session tallies and also varied strongly by individual code. Conclusion To scale up the evaluation of behavioral interventions, technological solutions will be required. The current study demonstrated preliminary, encouraging findings regarding the utility of statistical text classification in bridging this methodological gap. PMID:24758152

The Impact of Attention on Judgments of Frequency and Duration

PubMed Central

Winkler, Isabell; Glauer, Madlen; Betsch, Tilmann; Sedlmeier, Peter

2015-01-01

Previous studies that examined human judgments of frequency and duration found an asymmetrical relationship: While frequency judgments were quite accurate and independent of stimulus duration, duration judgments were highly dependent upon stimulus frequency. A potential explanation for these findings is that the asymmetry is moderated by the amount of attention directed to the stimuli. In the current experiment, participants' attention was manipulated in two ways: (a) intrinsically, by varying the type and arousal potential of the stimuli (names, low-arousal and high-arousal pictures), and (b) extrinsically, by varying the physical effort participants expended during the stimulus presentation (by lifting a dumbbell vs. relaxing the arm). Participants processed stimuli with varying presentation frequencies and durations and were subsequently asked to estimate the frequency and duration of each stimulus. Sensitivity to duration increased for pictures in general, especially when processed under physical effort. A large effect of stimulus frequency on duration judgments was obtained for all experimental conditions, but a similar large effect of presentation duration on frequency judgments emerged only in the conditions that could be expected to draw high amounts of attention to the stimuli: when pictures were judged under high physical effort. Almost no difference in the mutual impact of frequency and duration was obtained for low-arousal or high-arousal pictures. The mechanisms underlying the simultaneous processing of frequency and duration are discussed with respect to existing models derived from animal research. Options for the extension of such models to human processing of frequency and duration are suggested. PMID:26000712

The impact of attention on judgments of frequency and duration.

PubMed

Winkler, Isabell; Glauer, Madlen; Betsch, Tilmann; Sedlmeier, Peter

2015-01-01

Previous studies that examined human judgments of frequency and duration found an asymmetrical relationship: While frequency judgments were quite accurate and independent of stimulus duration, duration judgments were highly dependent upon stimulus frequency. A potential explanation for these findings is that the asymmetry is moderated by the amount of attention directed to the stimuli. In the current experiment, participants' attention was manipulated in two ways: (a) intrinsically, by varying the type and arousal potential of the stimuli (names, low-arousal and high-arousal pictures), and (b) extrinsically, by varying the physical effort participants expended during the stimulus presentation (by lifting a dumbbell vs. relaxing the arm). Participants processed stimuli with varying presentation frequencies and durations and were subsequently asked to estimate the frequency and duration of each stimulus. Sensitivity to duration increased for pictures in general, especially when processed under physical effort. A large effect of stimulus frequency on duration judgments was obtained for all experimental conditions, but a similar large effect of presentation duration on frequency judgments emerged only in the conditions that could be expected to draw high amounts of attention to the stimuli: when pictures were judged under high physical effort. Almost no difference in the mutual impact of frequency and duration was obtained for low-arousal or high-arousal pictures. The mechanisms underlying the simultaneous processing of frequency and duration are discussed with respect to existing models derived from animal research. Options for the extension of such models to human processing of frequency and duration are suggested.

Moral development in context: Associations of neighborhood and maternal discipline with preschoolers' moral judgments.

PubMed

Ball, Courtney L; Smetana, Judith G; Sturge-Apple, Melissa L; Suor, Jennifer H; Skibo, Michael A

2017-10-01

Associations among moral judgments, neighborhood risk, and maternal discipline were examined in 118 socioeconomically diverse preschoolers (Mage = 41.84 months, SD = 1.42). Children rated the severity and punishment deserved for 6 prototypical moral transgressions entailing physical and psychological harm and unfairness. They also evaluated 3 criteria for assessing maturity in moral judgments: whether acts were considered wrong regardless of rules and wrong independent of authority, as well as whether moral rules were considered unacceptable to alter (collectively called criterion judgments). Mothers reported on their socioeconomic status, neighborhood characteristics and risk, and consistency of discipline; harsh maternal discipline was observed during a mother-child clean-up task. Structural equation modeling indicated that greater neighborhood risk was associated with less mature criterion judgments and ratings that transgressions were less serious and less deserving of punishment, particularly for children who were disciplined less harshly. Although harsh maternal discipline was associated with children's ratings of moral transgressions as more serious and deserving of punishment, this effect for severity judgments was more pronounced when mothers were inconsistent versus consistent in applying harsh discipline. Preschoolers who received consistent harsh discipline had less sophisticated moral criterion judgments than their less consistently or harshly disciplined peers. Results demonstrate the importance of social contexts in preschoolers' developing moral judgments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Can Science Explain the Human Mind? Intuitive Judgments About the Limits of Science.

PubMed

Gottlieb, Sara; Lombrozo, Tania

2018-01-01

Can science explain romantic love, morality, and religious belief? We documented intuitive beliefs about the limits of science in explaining the human mind. We considered both epistemic evaluations (concerning whether science could possibly fully explain a given psychological phenomenon) and nonepistemic judgments (concerning whether scientific explanations for a given phenomenon would generate discomfort), and we identified factors that characterize phenomena judged to fall beyond the scope of science. Across six studies, we found that participants were more likely to judge scientific explanations for psychological phenomena to be impossible and uncomfortable when, among other factors, they support first-person, introspective access (e.g., feeling empathetic as opposed to reaching for objects), contribute to making humans exceptional (e.g., appreciating music as opposed to forgetfulness), and involve conscious will (e.g., acting immorally as opposed to having headaches). These judgments about the scope of science have implications for science education, policy, and the public reception of psychological science.

Variation in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with differences in moral judgment

PubMed Central

Chaponis, Jonathan; Siburian, Richie; Gallagher, Patience; Ransohoff, Katherine; Wikler, Daniel; Perlis, Roy H.; Greene, Joshua D.

2016-01-01

Moral judgments are produced through the coordinated interaction of multiple neural systems, each of which relies on a characteristic set of neurotransmitters. Genes that produce or regulate these neurotransmitters may have distinctive influences on moral judgment. Two studies examined potential genetic influences on moral judgment using dilemmas that reliably elicit competing automatic and controlled responses, generated by dissociable neural systems. Study 1 (N = 228) examined 49 common variants (SNPs) within 10 candidate genes and identified a nominal association between a polymorphism (rs237889) of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and variation in deontological vs utilitarian moral judgment (that is, judgments favoring individual rights vs the greater good). An association was likewise observed for rs1042615 of the arginine vasopressin receptor gene (AVPR1A). Study 2 (N = 322) aimed to replicate these findings using the aforementioned dilemmas as well as a new set of structurally similar medical dilemmas. Study 2 failed to replicate the association with AVPR1A, but replicated the OXTR finding using both the original and new dilemmas. Together, these findings suggest that moral judgment is influenced by variation in the oxytocin receptor gene and, more generally, that single genetic polymorphisms can have a detectable effect on complex decision processes. PMID:27497314

Variation in the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) is associated with differences in moral judgment.

PubMed

Bernhard, Regan M; Chaponis, Jonathan; Siburian, Richie; Gallagher, Patience; Ransohoff, Katherine; Wikler, Daniel; Perlis, Roy H; Greene, Joshua D

2016-12-01

Moral judgments are produced through the coordinated interaction of multiple neural systems, each of which relies on a characteristic set of neurotransmitters. Genes that produce or regulate these neurotransmitters may have distinctive influences on moral judgment. Two studies examined potential genetic influences on moral judgment using dilemmas that reliably elicit competing automatic and controlled responses, generated by dissociable neural systems. Study 1 (N = 228) examined 49 common variants (SNPs) within 10 candidate genes and identified a nominal association between a polymorphism (rs237889) of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) and variation in deontological vs utilitarian moral judgment (that is, judgments favoring individual rights vs the greater good). An association was likewise observed for rs1042615 of the arginine vasopressin receptor gene (AVPR1A). Study 2 (N = 322) aimed to replicate these findings using the aforementioned dilemmas as well as a new set of structurally similar medical dilemmas. Study 2 failed to replicate the association with AVPR1A, but replicated the OXTR finding using both the original and new dilemmas. Together, these findings suggest that moral judgment is influenced by variation in the oxytocin receptor gene and, more generally, that single genetic polymorphisms can have a detectable effect on complex decision processes. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press.

Causes and Prevention of Laparoscopic Bile Duct Injuries

PubMed Central

Way, Lawrence W.; Stewart, Lygia; Gantert, Walter; Liu, Kingsway; Lee, Crystine M.; Whang, Karen; Hunter, John G.

2003-01-01

Objective To apply human performance concepts in an attempt to understand the causes of and prevent laparoscopic bile duct injury. Summary Background Data Powerful conceptual advances have been made in understanding the nature and limits of human performance. Applying these findings in high-risk activities, such as commercial aviation, has allowed the work environment to be restructured to substantially reduce human error. Methods The authors analyzed 252 laparoscopic bile duct injuries according to the principles of the cognitive science of visual perception, judgment, and human error. The injury distribution was class I, 7%; class II, 22%; class III, 61%; and class IV, 10%. The data included operative radiographs, clinical records, and 22 videotapes of original operations. Results The primary cause of error in 97% of cases was a visual perceptual illusion. Faults in technical skill were present in only 3% of injuries. Knowledge and judgment errors were contributory but not primary. Sixty-four injuries (25%) were recognized at the index operation; the surgeon identified the problem early enough to limit the injury in only 15 (6%). In class III injuries the common duct, erroneously believed to be the cystic duct, was deliberately cut. This stemmed from an illusion of object form due to a specific uncommon configuration of the structures and the heuristic nature (unconscious assumptions) of human visual perception. The videotapes showed the persuasiveness of the illusion, and many operative reports described the operation as routine. Class II injuries resulted from a dissection too close to the common hepatic duct. Fundamentally an illusion, it was contributed to in some instances by working too deep in the triangle of Calot. Conclusions These data show that errors leading to laparoscopic bile duct injuries stem principally from misperception, not errors of skill, knowledge, or judgment. The misperception was so compelling that in most cases the surgeon did not recognize a problem. Even when irregularities were identified, corrective feedback did not occur, which is characteristic of human thinking under firmly held assumptions. These findings illustrate the complexity of human error in surgery while simultaneously providing insights. They demonstrate that automatically attributing technical complications to behavioral factors that rely on the assumption of control is likely to be wrong. Finally, this study shows that there are only a few points within laparoscopic cholecystectomy where the complication-causing errors occur, which suggests that focused training to heighten vigilance might be able to decrease the incidence of bile duct injury. PMID:12677139

Neural substrates of similarity and rule-based strategies in judgment

PubMed Central

von Helversen, Bettina; Karlsson, Linnea; Rasch, Björn; Rieskamp, Jörg

2014-01-01

Making accurate judgments is a core human competence and a prerequisite for success in many areas of life. Plenty of evidence exists that people can employ different judgment strategies to solve identical judgment problems. In categorization, it has been demonstrated that similarity-based and rule-based strategies are associated with activity in different brain regions. Building on this research, the present work tests whether solving two identical judgment problems recruits different neural substrates depending on people's judgment strategies. Combining cognitive modeling of judgment strategies at the behavioral level with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we compare brain activity when using two archetypal judgment strategies: a similarity-based exemplar strategy and a rule-based heuristic strategy. Using an exemplar-based strategy should recruit areas involved in long-term memory processes to a larger extent than a heuristic strategy. In contrast, using a heuristic strategy should recruit areas involved in the application of rules to a larger extent than an exemplar-based strategy. Largely consistent with our hypotheses, we found that using an exemplar-based strategy led to relatively higher BOLD activity in the anterior prefrontal and inferior parietal cortex, presumably related to retrieval and selective attention processes. In contrast, using a heuristic strategy led to relatively higher activity in areas in the dorsolateral prefrontal and the temporal-parietal cortex associated with cognitive control and information integration. Thus, even when people solve identical judgment problems, different neural substrates can be recruited depending on the judgment strategy involved. PMID:25360099

Judgments of Widely Held Beliefs about Psychological Phenomena among South African Postgraduate Psychology Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kagee, A.; Harper, M.; Spies, G.

2008-01-01

Lay understandings of human cognition, affect, and behaviour often diverge from the findings of scientific investigations. The present study examined South African fourth year psychology students' judgments about the factual correctness of statements of psychological phenomena that have been demonstrated to be incorrect by empirical research.…

Determinants of Linear Judgment: A Meta-Analysis of Lens Model Studies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Karelaia, Natalia; Hogarth, Robin M.

2008-01-01

The mathematical representation of E. Brunswik's (1952) lens model has been used extensively to study human judgment and provides a unique opportunity to conduct a meta-analysis of studies that covers roughly 5 decades. Specifically, the authors analyzed statistics of the "lens model equation" (L. R. Tucker, 1964) associated with 249 different…

The not face: A grammaticalization of facial expressions of emotion.

PubMed

Benitez-Quiroz, C Fabian; Wilbur, Ronnie B; Martinez, Aleix M

2016-05-01

Facial expressions of emotion are thought to have evolved from the development of facial muscles used in sensory regulation and later adapted to express moral judgment. Negative moral judgment includes the expressions of anger, disgust and contempt. Here, we study the hypothesis that these facial expressions of negative moral judgment have further evolved into a facial expression of negation regularly used as a grammatical marker in human language. Specifically, we show that people from different cultures expressing negation use the same facial muscles as those employed to express negative moral judgment. We then show that this nonverbal signal is used as a co-articulator in speech and that, in American Sign Language, it has been grammaticalized as a non-manual marker. Furthermore, this facial expression of negation exhibits the theta oscillation (3-8 Hz) universally seen in syllable and mouthing production in speech and signing. These results provide evidence for the hypothesis that some components of human language have evolved from facial expressions of emotion, and suggest an evolutionary route for the emergence of grammatical markers. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Not Face: A grammaticalization of facial expressions of emotion

PubMed Central

Benitez-Quiroz, C. Fabian; Wilbur, Ronnie B.; Martinez, Aleix M.

2016-01-01

Facial expressions of emotion are thought to have evolved from the development of facial muscles used in sensory regulation and later adapted to express moral judgment. Negative moral judgment includes the expressions of anger, disgust and contempt. Here, we study the hypothesis that these facial expressions of negative moral judgment have further evolved into a facial expression of negation regularly used as a grammatical marker in human language. Specifically, we show that people from different cultures expressing negation use the same facial muscles as those employed to express negative moral judgment. We then show that this nonverbal signal is used as a co-articulator in speech and that, in American Sign Language, it has been grammaticalized as a non-manual marker. Furthermore, this facial expression of negation exhibits the theta oscillation (3–8 Hz) universally seen in syllable and mouthing production in speech and signing. These results provide evidence for the hypothesis that some components of human language have evolved from facial expressions of emotion, and suggest an evolutionary route for the emergence of grammatical markers. PMID:26872248

The Influence of Effortful Thought and Cognitive Proficiencies on the Conjunction Fallacy: Implications for Dual-Process Theories of Reasoning and Judgment.

PubMed

Scherer, Laura D; Yates, J Frank; Baker, S Glenn; Valentine, Kathrene D

2017-06-01

Human judgment often violates normative standards, and virtually no judgment error has received as much attention as the conjunction fallacy. Judgment errors have historically served as evidence for dual-process theories of reasoning, insofar as these errors are assumed to arise from reliance on a fast and intuitive mental process, and are corrected via effortful deliberative reasoning. In the present research, three experiments tested the notion that conjunction errors are reduced by effortful thought. Predictions based on three different dual-process theory perspectives were tested: lax monitoring, override failure, and the Tripartite Model. Results indicated that participants higher in numeracy were less likely to make conjunction errors, but this association only emerged when participants engaged in two-sided reasoning, as opposed to one-sided or no reasoning. Confidence was higher for incorrect as opposed to correct judgments, suggesting that participants were unaware of their errors.

Haunted by a doppelgänger: irrelevant facial similarity affects rule-based judgments.

PubMed

von Helversen, Bettina; Herzog, Stefan M; Rieskamp, Jörg

2014-01-01

Judging other people is a common and important task. Every day professionals make decisions that affect the lives of other people when they diagnose medical conditions, grant parole, or hire new employees. To prevent discrimination, professional standards require that decision makers render accurate and unbiased judgments solely based on relevant information. Facial similarity to previously encountered persons can be a potential source of bias. Psychological research suggests that people only rely on similarity-based judgment strategies if the provided information does not allow them to make accurate rule-based judgments. Our study shows, however, that facial similarity to previously encountered persons influences judgment even in situations in which relevant information is available for making accurate rule-based judgments and where similarity is irrelevant for the task and relying on similarity is detrimental. In two experiments in an employment context we show that applicants who looked similar to high-performing former employees were judged as more suitable than applicants who looked similar to low-performing former employees. This similarity effect was found despite the fact that the participants used the relevant résumé information about the applicants by following a rule-based judgment strategy. These findings suggest that similarity-based and rule-based processes simultaneously underlie human judgment.

Not that neglected! Base rates influence related and unrelated judgments.

PubMed

Białek, Michał

2017-06-01

It is claimed that people are unable (or unwilling) to incorporate prior probabilities into posterior assessments, such as their estimation of the likelihood of a person with characteristics typical of an engineer actually being an engineer given that they are drawn from a sample including a very small number of engineers. This paper shows that base rates are incorporated in classifications (Experiment 1) and, moreover, that base rates also affect unrelated judgments, such as how well a provided description of a person fits a stereotypical engineer (Experiment 2). Finally, Experiment 3 shows that individuals who make both types of assessments - though using base rates to the same extent in the former judgments - are able to decrease the extent to which they incorporate base rates in the latter judgments. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Simplification and Shift in Cognition of Political Difference: Applying the Geometric Modeling to the Analysis of Semantic Similarity Judgment

PubMed Central

Kato, Junko; Okada, Kensuke

2011-01-01

Perceiving differences by means of spatial analogies is intrinsic to human cognition. Multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis based on Minkowski geometry has been used primarily on data on sensory similarity judgments, leaving judgments on abstractive differences unanalyzed. Indeed, analysts have failed to find appropriate experimental or real-life data in this regard. Our MDS analysis used survey data on political scientists' judgments of the similarities and differences between political positions expressed in terms of distance. Both distance smoothing and majorization techniques were applied to a three-way dataset of similarity judgments provided by at least seven experts on at least five parties' positions on at least seven policies (i.e., originally yielding 245 dimensions) to substantially reduce the risk of local minima. The analysis found two dimensions, which were sufficient for mapping differences, and fit the city-block dimensions better than the Euclidean metric in all datasets obtained from 13 countries. Most city-block dimensions were highly correlated with the simplified criterion (i.e., the left–right ideology) for differences that are actually used in real politics. The isometry of the city-block and dominance metrics in two-dimensional space carries further implications. More specifically, individuals may pay attention to two dimensions (if represented in the city-block metric) or focus on a single dimension (if represented in the dominance metric) when judging differences between the same objects. Switching between metrics may be expected to occur during cognitive processing as frequently as the apparent discontinuities and shifts in human attention that may underlie changing judgments in real situations occur. Consequently, the result has extended strong support for the validity of the geometric models to represent an important social cognition, i.e., the one of political differences, which is deeply rooted in human nature. PMID:21673959

Simplification and shift in cognition of political difference: applying the geometric modeling to the analysis of semantic similarity judgment.

PubMed

Kato, Junko; Okada, Kensuke

2011-01-01

Perceiving differences by means of spatial analogies is intrinsic to human cognition. Multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) analysis based on Minkowski geometry has been used primarily on data on sensory similarity judgments, leaving judgments on abstractive differences unanalyzed. Indeed, analysts have failed to find appropriate experimental or real-life data in this regard. Our MDS analysis used survey data on political scientists' judgments of the similarities and differences between political positions expressed in terms of distance. Both distance smoothing and majorization techniques were applied to a three-way dataset of similarity judgments provided by at least seven experts on at least five parties' positions on at least seven policies (i.e., originally yielding 245 dimensions) to substantially reduce the risk of local minima. The analysis found two dimensions, which were sufficient for mapping differences, and fit the city-block dimensions better than the Euclidean metric in all datasets obtained from 13 countries. Most city-block dimensions were highly correlated with the simplified criterion (i.e., the left-right ideology) for differences that are actually used in real politics. The isometry of the city-block and dominance metrics in two-dimensional space carries further implications. More specifically, individuals may pay attention to two dimensions (if represented in the city-block metric) or focus on a single dimension (if represented in the dominance metric) when judging differences between the same objects. Switching between metrics may be expected to occur during cognitive processing as frequently as the apparent discontinuities and shifts in human attention that may underlie changing judgments in real situations occur. Consequently, the result has extended strong support for the validity of the geometric models to represent an important social cognition, i.e., the one of political differences, which is deeply rooted in human nature.

Beyond simple pessimism: effects of sadness and anger on social perception.

PubMed

Keltner, D; Ellsworth, P C; Edwards, K

1993-05-01

In keeping with cognitive appraisal models of emotion, it was hypothesized that sadness and anger would exert different influences on causal judgments. Two experiments provided initial support for this hypothesis. Sad Ss perceived situationally caused events as more likely (Experiment 1) and situational forces more responsible for an ambiguous event (Experiment 2) than angry Ss, who, in contrast, perceived events caused by humans as more likely and other people as more responsible. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 showed that the experience of these emotions, rather than their cognitive constituents, mediates these effects. The nonemotional exposure to situational or human agency information did not influence causal judgments (Experiment 3), whereas the induction of sadness and anger without explicit agency information did (Experiments 4 and 5). Discussion is focused on the influence of emotion on social judgment.

Simultaneous perceptual and response biases on sequential face attractiveness judgments.

PubMed

Pegors, Teresa K; Mattar, Marcelo G; Bryan, Peter B; Epstein, Russell A

2015-06-01

Face attractiveness is a social characteristic that we often use to make first-pass judgments about the people around us. However, these judgments are highly influenced by our surrounding social world, and researchers still understand little about the mechanisms underlying these influences. In a series of 3 experiments, we use a novel sequential rating paradigm that enables us to measure biases in attractiveness judgments from the previous face and the previous rating. Our results reveal 2 simultaneous and opposing influences on face attractiveness judgments that arise from past experience of faces: a response bias in which attractiveness ratings shift toward a previously given rating and a stimulus bias in which attractiveness ratings shift away from the mean attractiveness of the previous face. Further, we provide evidence that the contrastive stimulus bias (but not the assimilative response bias) is strengthened by increasing the duration of the previous stimulus, suggesting an underlying perceptual mechanism. These results demonstrate that judgments of face attractiveness are influenced by information from our evaluative and perceptual history and that these influences have measurable behavioral effects over the course of just a few seconds. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Moral judgments, emotions and the utilitarian brain.

PubMed

Moll, Jorge; de Oliveira-Souza, Ricardo

2007-08-01

The investigation of the neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying the moral mind is of paramount importance for understanding complex human behaviors, from altruism to antisocial acts. A new study on patients with prefrontal damage provides key insights on the neurobiology of moral judgment and raises new questions on the mechanisms by which reason and emotion contribute to moral cognition.

How Framing Statistical Statements Affects Subjective Veracity: Validation and Application of a Multinomial Model for Judgments of Truth

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hilbig, Benjamin E.

2012-01-01

Extending the well-established negativity bias in human cognition to truth judgments, it was recently shown that negatively framed statistical statements are more likely to be considered true than formally equivalent statements framed positively. However, the underlying processes responsible for this effect are insufficiently understood.…

A Question of Literacy: Understanding and Renewing the Humanities in a Global World

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gallucci, John A.

2012-01-01

The article discusses the nature of humanistic knowledge. Analyzing the relation between aesthetic judgment, literacy and knowledge as defined by the French seventeenth-century Jansenist school of Port-Royal, the article argues that Port-Royal's interpretation of the enthymeme can be used to define the cognitive basis of aesthetic judgments in the…

Faculty Salary Equity: Issues in Regression Model Selection. AIR 1992 Annual Forum Paper.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moore, Nelle

This paper discusses the determination of college faculty salary inequity and identifies the areas in which human judgment must be used in order to conduct a statistical analysis of salary equity. In addition, it provides some informed guidelines for making those judgments. The paper provides a framework for selecting salary equity models, based…

An Integrative Process Approach on Judgment and Decision Making: The Impact of Arousal, Affect, Motivation, and Cognitive Ability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Roets, Arne; Van Hiel, Alain

2011-01-01

This article aims to integrate the findings from various research traditions on human judgment and decision making, focusing on four process variables: arousal, affect, motivation, and cognitive capacity/ability. We advocate a broad perspective referred to as the integrative process approach (IPA) of decision making, in which these process…

Smelling is Telling: Human Olfactory Cues Influence Social Judgments in Semi-Realistic Interactions.

PubMed

Gaby, Jessica M; Zayas, Vivian

2017-06-01

How does a person's smell affect others' impressions of them? Most body odor research asks perceivers to make social judgments based on armpit sweat without perfume or deodorant, presented on t-shirts. Yet, in real life, perceivers encounter fragranced body odor, on whole bodies. Our "raters" wore blindfolds and earplugs and repeatedly smelled same-sex "donors" in live interactions. In one condition, donors wore their normal deodorant and perfume ("diplomatic" odor) while in the other condition, donors were asked to avoid all outside fragrance influences ("natural" odor). We assessed the reliability of social judgments based on such live interactions, and the relationships between live judgments and traditional t-shirt based judgments, and between natural- and diplomatic odor-based judgments. Raters' repeated live social judgments (e.g., friendliness, likeability) were highly consistent for both diplomatic and natural odor, and converged with judgments based on t-shirts. However, social judgments based on natural odor did not consistently predict social judgments based on diplomatic odor, suggesting that natural and diplomatic body odor may convey different types of social information. Our results provide evidence that individuals can perceive reliable, meaningful social olfactory signals from whole bodies, at social distances, regardless of the presence or absence of perfume. Importantly, however, the social value of these signals is modified by the addition of exogenous fragrances. Further, our focus on judgments in same-sex dyads suggests that these olfactory cues hold social value in non-mating contexts. We suggest that future research employ more ecologically relevant methods. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

On Consistency Test Method of Expert Opinion in Ecological Security Assessment

PubMed Central

Wang, Lihong

2017-01-01

To reflect the initiative design and initiative of human security management and safety warning, ecological safety assessment is of great value. In the comprehensive evaluation of regional ecological security with the participation of experts, the expert’s individual judgment level, ability and the consistency of the expert’s overall opinion will have a very important influence on the evaluation result. This paper studies the consistency measure and consensus measure based on the multiplicative and additive consistency property of fuzzy preference relation (FPR). We firstly propose the optimization methods to obtain the optimal multiplicative consistent and additively consistent FPRs of individual and group judgments, respectively. Then, we put forward a consistency measure by computing the distance between the original individual judgment and the optimal individual estimation, along with a consensus measure by computing the distance between the original collective judgment and the optimal collective estimation. In the end, we make a case study on ecological security for five cities. Result shows that the optimal FPRs are helpful in measuring the consistency degree of individual judgment and the consensus degree of collective judgment. PMID:28869570

On Consistency Test Method of Expert Opinion in Ecological Security Assessment.

PubMed

Gong, Zaiwu; Wang, Lihong

2017-09-04

To reflect the initiative design and initiative of human security management and safety warning, ecological safety assessment is of great value. In the comprehensive evaluation of regional ecological security with the participation of experts, the expert's individual judgment level, ability and the consistency of the expert's overall opinion will have a very important influence on the evaluation result. This paper studies the consistency measure and consensus measure based on the multiplicative and additive consistency property of fuzzy preference relation (FPR). We firstly propose the optimization methods to obtain the optimal multiplicative consistent and additively consistent FPRs of individual and group judgments, respectively. Then, we put forward a consistency measure by computing the distance between the original individual judgment and the optimal individual estimation, along with a consensus measure by computing the distance between the original collective judgment and the optimal collective estimation. In the end, we make a case study on ecological security for five cities. Result shows that the optimal FPRs are helpful in measuring the consistency degree of individual judgment and the consensus degree of collective judgment.

Dignity in end-of-life care: results of a national survey of U.S. physicians.

PubMed

Antiel, Ryan M; Curlin, Farr A; James, Katherine M; Sulmasy, Daniel P; Tilburt, Jon C

2012-09-01

Debates persist about the relevance of "dignity" as an ethical concept in U.S. health care, especially in end-of-life care. To describe the attitudes and beliefs regarding the usefulness and meaning of the concept of dignity and to examine judgments about a clinical scenario in which dignity might be relevant. Two thousand practicing U.S. physicians, from all specialties, were mailed a survey. Main measures included physicians' judgments about an end-of-life clinical scenario (criterion variable), attitudes about the concept of dignity (predictors), and their religious characteristics (predictors). Responses were received from 1032 eligible physicians (54%). Nine (90%) of 10 physicians reported that dignity was relevant to their practice. After controlling for age, gender, region, and specialty, physicians who judged that the case patient had either some dignity or full dignity, and who agreed that dignity is given by a creator, were all positively associated with believing that the patient's life was worth living (odds ratio [OR] 10.2, 95% confidence interval [CI] 5.8-17.8, OR 20.5, 95% CI 11.4-36.8, OR 4.7, 95% CI 3.1-7.0, respectively). Respondents who strongly agreed that "all living humans have the same amount of dignity" were also more likely to believe that the patient's life was worth living (OR 1.8, 95% CI 1.2-2.7). Religious characteristics also were associated with believing that the case patient's life was worth living (OR 4.1, 95% CI 2.4-7.2, OR 3.2, 95% CI 1.6-6.3, OR 9.2, 95% CI 4.3-19.5, respectively). U.S. physicians view the concept of dignity as useful. Those views are associated with their judgments about common end-of-life scenarios in which dignity concepts may be relevant. Copyright © 2012 U.S. Cancer Pain Relief Committee. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The meaning of city noises: Investigating sound quality in Paris (France)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dubois, Daniele; Guastavino, Catherine; Maffiolo, Valerie; Guastavino, Catherine; Maffiolo, Valerie

2004-05-01

The sound quality of Paris (France) was investigated by using field inquiries in actual environments (open questionnaires) and using recordings under laboratory conditions (free-sorting tasks). Cognitive categories of soundscapes were inferred by means of psycholinguistic analyses of verbal data and of mathematical analyses of similarity judgments. Results show that auditory judgments mainly rely on source identification. The appraisal of urban noise therefore depends on the qualitative evaluation of noise sources. The salience of human sounds in public spaces has been demonstrated, in relation to pleasantness judgments: soundscapes with human presence tend to be perceived as more pleasant than soundscapes consisting solely of mechanical sounds. Furthermore, human sounds are qualitatively processed as indicators of human outdoor activities, such as open markets, pedestrian areas, and sidewalk cafe districts that reflect city life. In contrast, mechanical noises (mainly traffic noise) are commonly described in terms of physical properties (temporal structure, intensity) of a permanent background noise that also characterizes urban areas. This connotes considering both quantitative and qualitative descriptions to account for the diversity of cognitive interpretations of urban soundscapes, since subjective evaluations depend both on the meaning attributed to noise sources and on inherent properties of the acoustic signal.

[Development and practice evaluation of blood acid-base imbalance analysis software].

PubMed

Chen, Bo; Huang, Haiying; Zhou, Qiang; Peng, Shan; Jia, Hongyu; Ji, Tianxing

2014-11-01

To develop a blood gas, acid-base imbalance analysis computer software to diagnose systematically, rapidly, accurately and automatically determine acid-base imbalance type, and evaluate the clinical application. Using VBA programming language, a computer aided diagnostic software for the judgment of acid-base balance was developed. The clinical data of 220 patients admitted to the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University were retrospectively analyzed. The arterial blood gas [pH value, HCO(3)(-), arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PaCO₂)] and electrolytes included data (Na⁺ and Cl⁻) were collected. Data were entered into the software for acid-base imbalances judgment. At the same time the data generation was calculated manually by H-H compensation formula for determining the type of acid-base imbalance. The consistency of judgment results from software and manual calculation was evaluated, and the judgment time of two methods was compared. The clinical diagnosis of the types of acid-base imbalance for the 220 patients: 65 cases were normal, 90 cases with simple type, mixed type in 41 cases, and triplex type in 24 cases. The accuracy of the judgment results of the normal and triplex types from computer software compared with which were calculated manually was 100%, the accuracy of the simple type judgment was 98.9% and 78.0% for the mixed type, and the total accuracy was 95.5%. The Kappa value of judgment result from software and manual judgment was 0.935, P=0.000. It was demonstrated that the consistency was very good. The time for software to determine acid-base imbalances was significantly shorter than the manual judgment (seconds:18.14 ± 3.80 vs. 43.79 ± 23.86, t=7.466, P=0.000), so the method of software was much faster than the manual method. Software judgment can replace manual judgment with the characteristics of rapid, accurate and convenient, can improve work efficiency and quality of clinical doctors and has great clinical application promotion value.

Social and Contextual Constraints on Embodied Perception.

PubMed

Schnall, Simone

2017-03-01

A number of papers have challenged research on physiological and psychological influences on perception by claiming to show that such findings can be explained by nonperceptual factors such as demand characteristics. Relatedly, calls for separating perception from judgment have been issued. However, such efforts fail to consider key processes known to shape judgment processes: people's inability to report accurately on their judgments, conversational dynamics of experimental research contexts, and misattribution and discounting processes. Indeed, the fact that initially observed effects of embodied influences disappear is predicted by an extensive amount of literature on judgments studied within social psychology. Thus, findings from such studies suggest that the initially presumed underlying processes are at work-namely, functional considerations that are informative in the context of preparing the body for action. In this article, I provide suggestions on how to conduct research on perception within the social constraints of experimental contexts.

Credibility assessment in child sexual abuse investigations: A descriptive analysis.

PubMed

Melkman, Eran P; Hershkowitz, Irit; Zur, Ronit

2017-05-01

A major challenge in cases of child sexual abuse (CSA) is determining the credibility of children's reports. Consequently cases may be misclassified as false or deemed 'no judgment possible'. Based on a large national sample of reports of CSA made in Israel in 2014, the study examines child and event characteristics contributing to the probability that reports of abuse would be judged credible. National data files of all children aged 3-14, who were referred for investigation following suspected victimization of sexual abuse, and had disclosed sexual abuse, were analyzed. Cases were classified as either 'credible' or 'no judgment possible'. The probability of reaching a 'credible' judgment was examined in relation to characteristics of the child (age, gender, cognitive delay, marital status of the parents,) and of the abusive event (abuse severity, frequency, perpetrator-victim relationship, perpetrator's use of grooming, and perpetrator's use of coercion), controlling for investigator's identity at the cluster level of the analysis. Of 1563 cases analyzed, 57.9% were assessed as credible. The most powerful predictors of a credible judgment were older age and absence of a cognitive delay. Reports of children to married parents, who experienced a single abusive event that involved perpetrator's use of grooming, were also more likely to be judged as credible. Rates of credible judgments found are lower than expected suggesting under-identification of truthful reports of CSA. In particular, those cases of severe and multiple abuse involving younger and cognitively delayed children are the ones with the lowest chances of being assessed as credible. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Explaining sexual harassment judgments: looking beyond gender of the rater.

PubMed

O'Connor, Maureen; Gutek, Barbara A; Stockdale, Margaret; Geer, Tracey M; Melançon, Renée

2004-02-01

In two decades of research on sexual harassment, one finding that appears repeatedly is that gender of the rater influences judgments about sexual harassment such that women are more likely than men to label behavior as sexual harassment. Yet, sexual harassment judgments are complex, particularly in situations that culminate in legal proceedings. And, this one variable, gender, may have been overemphasized to the exclusion of other situational and rater characteristic variables. Moreover, why do gender differences appear? As work by Wiener and his colleagues have done (R. L. Wiener et al., 2002; R. L. Wiener & L. Hurt, 2000; R. L. Wiener, L. Hurt, B. Russell, K. Mannen, & C. Gasper, 1997), this study attempts to look beyond gender to answer this question. In the studies reported here, raters (undergraduates and community adults), either read a written scenario or viewed a videotaped reenactment of a sexual harassment trial. The nature of the work environment was manipulated to see what, if any, effect the context would have on gender effects. Additionally, a number of rater characteristics beyond gender were measured, including ambivalent sexism attitudes of the raters, their judgments of complainant credibility, and self-referencing that might help explain rater judgments. Respondent gender, work environment, and community vs. student sample differences produced reliable differences in sexual harassment ratings in both the written and video trial versions of the study. The gender and sample differences in the sexual harassment ratings, however, are explained by a model which incorporates hostile sexism, perceptions of the complainants credibility, and raters' own ability to put themselves in the complainant's position (self-referencing).

Assessing Medical Students' Moral Judgment over the Course of a Four-Year Professionalism and Humanism Curriculum

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riegle, Sandra E.; Frye, Ann W.; Glenn, Jason; Smith, Kirk L.

2012-01-01

Teachers tasked with developing moral character in future physicians face an array of pedagogic challenges, among them identifying tools to measure progress in instilling the requisite skill set. One validated instrument for assessing moral judgment is the Defining Issues Test (DIT-2). Based on the work of Lawrence Kohlberg, the test's main…

Improving Judgment Calls: Using a Normative Model of Human Inference in the Advanced Preparation of Educational Administrators.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Galvin, Patrick; Ogawa, Rodney T.

The conceptual orientation that guides the University of Utah's field-based doctoral program in educational administration is described in this paper, with a focus on making judgments within the decision-making process. The first part explains the rationale for adopting the conceptual orientation and the second part describes the normative model…

The Effects of Judgment-Based Stratum Classifications on the Efficiency of Stratum Scored CATs.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Finney, Sara J.; Smith, Russell W.; Wise, Steven L.

Two operational item pools were used to investigate the performance of stratum computerized adaptive tests (CATs) when items were assigned to strata based on empirical estimates of item difficulty or human judgments of item difficulty. Items from the first data set consisted of 54 5-option multiple choice items from a form of the ACT mathematics…

45 CFR 61.9 - Reporting civil judgments related to the delivery of a health care item or service.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Reporting civil judgments related to the delivery of a health care item or service. 61.9 Section 61.9 Public Welfare DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION HEALTHCARE INTEGRITY AND PROTECTION DATA BANK FOR FINAL ADVERSE INFORMATION...

45 CFR 61.9 - Reporting civil judgments related to the delivery of a health care item or service.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 1 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Reporting civil judgments related to the delivery of a health care item or service. 61.9 Section 61.9 Public Welfare DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION HEALTHCARE INTEGRITY AND PROTECTION DATA BANK FOR FINAL ADVERSE INFORMATION...

45 CFR 61.9 - Reporting civil judgments related to the delivery of a health care item or service.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 1 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Reporting civil judgments related to the delivery of a health care item or service. 61.9 Section 61.9 Public Welfare DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION HEALTHCARE INTEGRITY AND PROTECTION DATA BANK FOR FINAL ADVERSE INFORMATION...

Human Judgment and the Logic of Evidence: A Critical Examination of Research Methods in Special Education Transition Literature.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Harnisch, Delwyn L.; And Others

This paper describes several common types of research studies in special education transition literature and the threats to their validity. It then describes how the evidential base may be broadened, how diverse sources of evidence can be combined to strengthen causal inferences, and the role of judgment within quasi-experimentation. The paper…

Human errors and measurement uncertainty

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuselman, Ilya; Pennecchi, Francesca

2015-04-01

Evaluating the residual risk of human errors in a measurement and testing laboratory, remaining after the error reduction by the laboratory quality system, and quantifying the consequences of this risk for the quality of the measurement/test results are discussed based on expert judgments and Monte Carlo simulations. A procedure for evaluation of the contribution of the residual risk to the measurement uncertainty budget is proposed. Examples are provided using earlier published sets of expert judgments on human errors in pH measurement of groundwater, elemental analysis of geological samples by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, and multi-residue analysis of pesticides in fruits and vegetables. The human error contribution to the measurement uncertainty budget in the examples was not negligible, yet also not dominant. This was assessed as a good risk management result.

[Ethics and epidemiology].

PubMed

Barata, Rita Barradas

2005-01-01

Human actions take place at the confluence of circumstances that require us to discern the proper way to act. Ethics falls within the terrain of practical knowledge, of knowledge about what is contingent. It belongs to the domain of moral judgments or value judgments. The counterpart of disenchantment with our contemporary world lies in an effort to re-establish an interest in ethics. There are basically three orders of relations between public health and human rights: the quest for balance between the collective good and individual rights; methods and techniques for identifying human rights violations and assessing their negative impact; and the tie between protecting individual rights and promoting health. The relationship between ethics and epidemiology goes beyond the ethical aspects involving research on human beings to encompass political commitments, practices within health services, and the production of knowledge.

Aesthetics by Numbers: Links between Perceived Texture Qualities and Computed Visual Texture Properties.

PubMed

Jacobs, Richard H A H; Haak, Koen V; Thumfart, Stefan; Renken, Remco; Henson, Brian; Cornelissen, Frans W

2016-01-01

Our world is filled with texture. For the human visual system, this is an important source of information for assessing environmental and material properties. Indeed-and presumably for this reason-the human visual system has regions dedicated to processing textures. Despite their abundance and apparent relevance, only recently the relationships between texture features and high-level judgments have captured the interest of mainstream science, despite long-standing indications for such relationships. In this study, we explore such relationships, as these might be used to predict perceived texture qualities. This is relevant, not only from a psychological/neuroscience perspective, but also for more applied fields such as design, architecture, and the visual arts. In two separate experiments, observers judged various qualities of visual textures such as beauty, roughness, naturalness, elegance, and complexity. Based on factor analysis, we find that in both experiments, ~75% of the variability in the judgments could be explained by a two-dimensional space, with axes that are closely aligned to the beauty and roughness judgments. That a two-dimensional judgment space suffices to capture most of the variability in the perceived texture qualities suggests that observers use a relatively limited set of internal scales on which to base various judgments, including aesthetic ones. Finally, for both of these judgments, we determined the relationship with a large number of texture features computed for each of the texture stimuli. We find that the presence of lower spatial frequencies, oblique orientations, higher intensity variation, higher saturation, and redness correlates with higher beauty ratings. Features that captured image intensity and uniformity correlated with roughness ratings. Therefore, a number of computational texture features are predictive of these judgments. This suggests that perceived texture qualities-including the aesthetic appreciation-are sufficiently universal to be predicted-with reasonable accuracy-based on the computed feature content of the textures.

Aesthetics by Numbers: Links between Perceived Texture Qualities and Computed Visual Texture Properties

PubMed Central

Jacobs, Richard H. A. H.; Haak, Koen V.; Thumfart, Stefan; Renken, Remco; Henson, Brian; Cornelissen, Frans W.

2016-01-01

Our world is filled with texture. For the human visual system, this is an important source of information for assessing environmental and material properties. Indeed—and presumably for this reason—the human visual system has regions dedicated to processing textures. Despite their abundance and apparent relevance, only recently the relationships between texture features and high-level judgments have captured the interest of mainstream science, despite long-standing indications for such relationships. In this study, we explore such relationships, as these might be used to predict perceived texture qualities. This is relevant, not only from a psychological/neuroscience perspective, but also for more applied fields such as design, architecture, and the visual arts. In two separate experiments, observers judged various qualities of visual textures such as beauty, roughness, naturalness, elegance, and complexity. Based on factor analysis, we find that in both experiments, ~75% of the variability in the judgments could be explained by a two-dimensional space, with axes that are closely aligned to the beauty and roughness judgments. That a two-dimensional judgment space suffices to capture most of the variability in the perceived texture qualities suggests that observers use a relatively limited set of internal scales on which to base various judgments, including aesthetic ones. Finally, for both of these judgments, we determined the relationship with a large number of texture features computed for each of the texture stimuli. We find that the presence of lower spatial frequencies, oblique orientations, higher intensity variation, higher saturation, and redness correlates with higher beauty ratings. Features that captured image intensity and uniformity correlated with roughness ratings. Therefore, a number of computational texture features are predictive of these judgments. This suggests that perceived texture qualities—including the aesthetic appreciation—are sufficiently universal to be predicted—with reasonable accuracy—based on the computed feature content of the textures. PMID:27493628

Assessing Veterinary and Animal Science Students' Moral Judgment Development on Animal Ethics Issues.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Phillips, Clive J C

2015-01-01

Little has been done to assess veterinarians' moral judgment in relation to animal ethics issues. Following development of the VetDIT, a new moral judgment measure for animal ethics issues, this study aimed to refine and further validate the VetDIT, and to identify effects of teaching interventions on moral judgment and changes in moral judgment over time. VetDIT-V1 was refined into VetDIT-V2, and V3 was developed as a post-intervention test to prevent repetition. To test these versions for comparability, veterinary and animal science students (n=271) were randomly assigned to complete different versions. The VetDIT discriminates between stages of moral judgment, condensed into three schemas: Personal Interest (PI), Maintaining Norms (MN), and Universal Principles (UP). There were no differences in the scores for MN and UP between the versions, and we equated PI scores to account for differences between versions. Veterinary science students (n=130) who completed a three-hour small-group workshop on moral development theory and ethical decision making increased their use of UP in moral reasoning, whereas students (n=271) who received similar information in a 50-minute lecture did not. A longitudinal comparison of matched first- and third-year students (n=39) revealed no moral judgment development toward greater use of UP. The VetDIT is therefore useful for assessing moral judgment of animal and human ethics issues in veterinary and other animal-related professions. Intensive small-group workshops using moral development knowledge and skills, rather than lectures, are conducive to developing veterinary students' moral judgment.

Bridging international law and rights-based litigation: mapping health-related rights through the development of the Global Health and Human Rights Database.

PubMed

Meier, Benjamin Mason; Cabrera, Oscar A; Ayala, Ana; Gostin, Lawrence O

2012-06-15

The O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, the World Health Organization, and the Lawyers Collective have come together to develop a searchable Global Health and Human Rights Database that maps the intersection of health and human rights in judgments, international and regional instruments, and national constitutions. Where states long remained unaccountable for violations of health-related human rights, litigation has arisen as a central mechanism in an expanding movement to create rights-based accountability. Facilitated by the incorporation of international human rights standards in national law, this judicial enforcement has supported the implementation of rights-based claims, giving meaning to states' longstanding obligations to realize the highest attainable standard of health. Yet despite these advancements, there has been insufficient awareness of the international and domestic legal instruments enshrining health-related rights and little understanding of the scope and content of litigation upholding these rights. As this accountability movement evolves, the Global Health and Human Rights Database seeks to chart this burgeoning landscape of international instruments, national constitutions, and judgments for health-related rights. Employing international legal research to document and catalogue these three interconnected aspects of human rights for the public's health, the Database's categorization by human rights, health topics, and regional scope provides a comprehensive means of understanding health and human rights law. Through these categorizations, the Global Health and Human Rights Database serves as a basis for analogous legal reasoning across states to serve as precedents for future cases, for comparative legal analysis of similar health claims in different country contexts, and for empirical research to clarify the impact of human rights judgments on public health outcomes. Copyright © 2012 Meier, Nygren-Krug, Cabrera, Ayala, and Gostin.

Surprisingly rational: probability theory plus noise explains biases in judgment.

PubMed

Costello, Fintan; Watts, Paul

2014-07-01

The systematic biases seen in people's probability judgments are typically taken as evidence that people do not use the rules of probability theory when reasoning about probability but instead use heuristics, which sometimes yield reasonable judgments and sometimes yield systematic biases. This view has had a major impact in economics, law, medicine, and other fields; indeed, the idea that people cannot reason with probabilities has become a truism. We present a simple alternative to this view, where people reason about probability according to probability theory but are subject to random variation or noise in the reasoning process. In this account the effect of noise is canceled for some probabilistic expressions. Analyzing data from 2 experiments, we find that, for these expressions, people's probability judgments are strikingly close to those required by probability theory. For other expressions, this account produces systematic deviations in probability estimates. These deviations explain 4 reliable biases in human probabilistic reasoning (conservatism, subadditivity, conjunction, and disjunction fallacies). These results suggest that people's probability judgments embody the rules of probability theory and that biases in those judgments are due to the effects of random noise. (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Defect window analysis by using SEM-contour based shape quantifying method for sub-20nm node production

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hibino, Daisuke; Hsu, Mingyi; Shindo, Hiroyuki; Izawa, Masayuki; Enomoto, Yuji; Lin, J. F.; Hu, J. R.

2013-04-01

The impact on yield loss due to systematic defect which remains after Optical Proximity Correction (OPC) modeling has increased, and achieving an acceptable yield has become more difficult in the leading technology beyond 20 nm node production. Furthermore Process-Window has become narrow because of the complexity of IC design and less process margin. In the past, the systematic defects have been inspected by human-eyes. However the judgment by human-eyes is sometime unstable and not accurate. Moreover an enormous amount of time and labor will have to be expended on the one-by-one judgment for several thousands of hot-spot defects. In order to overcome these difficulties and improve the yield and manufacturability, the automated system, which can quantify the shape difference with high accuracy and speed, is needed. Inspection points could be increased for getting higher yield, if the automated system achieves our goal. Defect Window Analysis (DWA) system by using high-precision-contour extraction from SEM image on real silicon and quantifying method which can calculate the difference between defect pattern and non-defect pattern automatically, which was developed by Hitachi High-Technologies, has been applied to the defect judgment instead of the judgment by human-eyes. The DWA result which describes process behavior might be feedback to design or OPC or mask. This new methodology and evaluation results will be presented in detail in this paper.

Visual features as stepping stones toward semantics: Explaining object similarity in IT and perception with non-negative least squares.

PubMed

Jozwik, Kamila M; Kriegeskorte, Nikolaus; Mur, Marieke

2016-03-01

Object similarity, in brain representations and conscious perception, must reflect a combination of the visual appearance of the objects on the one hand and the categories the objects belong to on the other. Indeed, visual object features and category membership have each been shown to contribute to the object representation in human inferior temporal (IT) cortex, as well as to object-similarity judgments. However, the explanatory power of features and categories has not been directly compared. Here, we investigate whether the IT object representation and similarity judgments are best explained by a categorical or a feature-based model. We use rich models (>100 dimensions) generated by human observers for a set of 96 real-world object images. The categorical model consists of a hierarchically nested set of category labels (such as "human", "mammal", and "animal"). The feature-based model includes both object parts (such as "eye", "tail", and "handle") and other descriptive features (such as "circular", "green", and "stubbly"). We used non-negative least squares to fit the models to the brain representations (estimated from functional magnetic resonance imaging data) and to similarity judgments. Model performance was estimated on held-out images not used in fitting. Both models explained significant variance in IT and the amounts explained were not significantly different. The combined model did not explain significant additional IT variance, suggesting that it is the shared model variance (features correlated with categories, categories correlated with features) that best explains IT. The similarity judgments were almost fully explained by the categorical model, which explained significantly more variance than the feature-based model. The combined model did not explain significant additional variance in the similarity judgments. Our findings suggest that IT uses features that help to distinguish categories as stepping stones toward a semantic representation. Similarity judgments contain additional categorical variance that is not explained by visual features, reflecting a higher-level more purely semantic representation. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Age-Related Changes to Spectral Voice Characteristics Affect Judgments of Prosodic, Segmental, and Talker Attributes for Child and Adult Speech

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dilley, Laura C.; Wieland, Elizabeth A.; Gamache, Jessica L.; McAuley, J. Devin; Redford, Melissa A.

2013-01-01

Purpose: As children mature, changes in voice spectral characteristics co-vary with changes in speech, language, and behavior. In this study, spectral characteristics were manipulated to alter the perceived ages of talkers' voices while leaving critical acoustic-prosodic correlates intact, to determine whether perceived age differences were…

Exploring relationships of human-automation interaction consequences on pilots: uncovering subsystems.

PubMed

Durso, Francis T; Stearman, Eric J; Morrow, Daniel G; Mosier, Kathleen L; Fischer, Ute; Pop, Vlad L; Feigh, Karen M

2015-05-01

We attempted to understand the latent structure underlying the systems pilots use to operate in situations involving human-automation interaction (HAI). HAI is an important characteristic of many modern work situations. Of course, the cognitive subsystems are not immediately apparent by observing a functioning system, but correlations between variables may reveal important relations. The current report examined pilot judgments of 11 HAI dimensions (e.g., Workload, Task Management, Stress/Nervousness, Monitoring Automation, and Cross-Checking Automation) across 48 scenarios that required airline pilots to interact with automation on the flight deck. We found three major clusters of the dimensions identifying subsystems on the flight deck: a workload subsystem, a management subsystem, and an awareness subsystem. Relationships characterized by simple correlations cohered in ways that suggested underlying subsystems consistent with those that had previously been theorized. Understanding the relationship among dimensions affecting HAI is an important aspect in determining how a new piece of automation designed to affect one dimension will affect other dimensions as well. © 2014, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

Influence of Immersive Human Scale Architectural Representation on Design Judgment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elder, Rebecca L.

Unrealistic visual representation of architecture within our existing environments have lost all reference to the human senses. As a design tool, visual and auditory stimuli can be utilized to determine human's perception of design. This experiment renders varying building inputs within different sites, simulated with corresponding immersive visual and audio sensory cues. Introducing audio has been proven to influence the way a person perceives a space, yet most inhabitants rely strictly on their sense of vision to make design judgments. Though not as apparent, users prefer spaces that have a better quality of sound and comfort. Through a series of questions, we can begin to analyze whether a design is fit for both an acoustic and visual environment.

Controlling uncertainty: a review of human behavior in complex dynamic environments.

PubMed

Osman, Magda

2010-01-01

Complex dynamic control (CDC) tasks are a type of problem-solving environment used for examining many cognitive activities (e.g., attention, control, decision making, hypothesis testing, implicit learning, memory, monitoring, planning, and problem solving). Because of their popularity, there have been many findings from diverse domains of research (economics, engineering, ergonomics, human-computer interaction, management, psychology), but they remain largely disconnected from each other. The objective of this article is to review theoretical developments and empirical work on CDC tasks, and to introduce a novel framework (monitoring and control framework) as a tool for integrating theory and findings. The main thesis of the monitoring and control framework is that CDC tasks are characteristically uncertain environments, and subjective judgments of uncertainty guide the way in which monitoring and control behaviors attempt to reduce it. The article concludes by discussing new insights into continuing debates and future directions for research on CDC tasks.

10 CFR 712.1 - Purpose.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... HUMAN RELIABILITY PROGRAM Establishment of and Procedures for the Human Reliability Program General Provisions § 712.1 Purpose. This part establishes the policies and procedures for a Human Reliability Program... judgment and reliability may be impaired by physical or mental/personality disorders, alcohol abuse, use of...

Roman Catholic beliefs produce characteristic neural responses to moral dilemmas

PubMed Central

Flexas, Albert; de Miguel, Pedro; Cela-Conde, Camilo J.; Munar, Enric

2014-01-01

This study provides exploratory evidence about how behavioral and neural responses to standard moral dilemmas are influenced by religious belief. Eleven Catholics and 13 Atheists (all female) judged 48 moral dilemmas. Differential neural activity between the two groups was found in precuneus and in prefrontal, frontal and temporal regions. Furthermore, a double dissociation showed that Catholics recruited different areas for deontological (precuneus; temporoparietal junction) and utilitarian moral judgments [dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC); temporal poles], whereas Atheists did not (superior parietal gyrus for both types of judgment). Finally, we tested how both groups responded to personal and impersonal moral dilemmas: Catholics showed enhanced activity in DLPFC and posterior cingulate cortex during utilitarian moral judgments to impersonal moral dilemmas and enhanced responses in anterior cingulate cortex and superior temporal sulcus during deontological moral judgments to personal moral dilemmas. Our results indicate that moral judgment can be influenced by an acquired set of norms and conventions transmitted through religious indoctrination and practice. Catholic individuals may hold enhanced awareness of the incommensurability between two unequivocal doctrines of the Catholic belief set, triggered explicitly in a moral dilemma: help and care in all circumstances—but thou shalt not kill. PMID:23160812

The sadistic trait predicts minimization of intention and causal responsibility in moral judgment.

PubMed

Trémolière, Bastien; Djeriouat, Hakim

2016-01-01

The present research tests the hypothesis that specific socially aversive traits-subclinical sadism in particular-are associated with an impaired judgment of moral wrongness, guilt, and punishment in various moral scenarios manipulating intent, cause and consequence of harm. In three online studies (total N=1069), participants completed a battery of tests scaled to assess sadism and the Dark Triad constructs, then faced different situations involving moral issues (attempted harm, intentional harm, accidental harm). Study 1 revealed that a sadistic personality trait was associated with minimization of the importance of harmful intent in moral judgment. Study 2 showed that a sadistic personality trait predicted minimization of the importance of causal mechanisms to harmful consequences in moral judgment. Study 3 showed that these effects were mediated by enjoyment of cruelty, a characteristic unique to sadists. In the light of Cushman's (2008) two-process model of moral judgment, this set of studies provides the first evidence that deficits in the integration of the theory of mind and causality can be observed in personality traits. The independent predictive value of sadism highlights that features other than emotional deficits are essential in explaining impaired moral evaluations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Roman Catholic beliefs produce characteristic neural responses to moral dilemmas.

PubMed

Christensen, Julia F; Flexas, Albert; de Miguel, Pedro; Cela-Conde, Camilo J; Munar, Enric

2014-02-01

This study provides exploratory evidence about how behavioral and neural responses to standard moral dilemmas are influenced by religious belief. Eleven Catholics and 13 Atheists (all female) judged 48 moral dilemmas. Differential neural activity between the two groups was found in precuneus and in prefrontal, frontal and temporal regions. Furthermore, a double dissociation showed that Catholics recruited different areas for deontological (precuneus; temporoparietal junction) and utilitarian moral judgments [dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC); temporal poles], whereas Atheists did not (superior parietal gyrus for both types of judgment). Finally, we tested how both groups responded to personal and impersonal moral dilemmas: Catholics showed enhanced activity in DLPFC and posterior cingulate cortex during utilitarian moral judgments to impersonal moral dilemmas and enhanced responses in anterior cingulate cortex and superior temporal sulcus during deontological moral judgments to personal moral dilemmas. Our results indicate that moral judgment can be influenced by an acquired set of norms and conventions transmitted through religious indoctrination and practice. Catholic individuals may hold enhanced awareness of the incommensurability between two unequivocal doctrines of the Catholic belief set, triggered explicitly in a moral dilemma: help and care in all circumstances-but thou shalt not kill.

Framework for Rapid Situational Awareness in the Field

DTIC Science & Technology

2014-03-01

non-judgmental, non-reactive stance. Often misunderstood as moral or ethical relativism , cultural relativism does not require the investigator to...diverse, shifting, and highly uncertain. When it comes to human behavior, culture is one of the simplest and yet most elusive concepts . As most...about a culture . It is also important to suspend judgment as one learns. This can be practiced through the application of “ cultural relativism ” – a

Brazilian adolescents' prosocial moral judgment and behavior: relations to sympathy, perspective taking, gender-role orientation, and demographic characteristics.

PubMed

Eisenberg, N; Zhou, Q; Koller, S

2001-01-01

The goal of this study was to examine demographic and individual difference variables that predict level of prosocial moral judgment and self-reported prosocial behavior and to test mediating or moderating relations among predictors. The relations of prosocial moral reasoning and self-reported prosocial behavior to perspective taking, sympathy, age, sociometric status, and gender-role orientation were examined with a sample of 149 Brazilian adolescents who completed a series of questionnaire measures. Prosocial moral judgment was expected to be predicted by both sympathy and perspective taking, whereas sympathy or prosocial moral judgment was expected to mediate the relations of femininity and perspective taking to prosocial behavior. Self-reported perspective taking and sympathy interacted when predicting prosocial moral judgment; adolescents who were high in either sympathy or perspective taking (or both) scored high in prosocial moral reasoning. A feminine orientation predicted sympathy and perspective taking, perspective taking predicted prosocial moral reasoning and sympathy, and sympathy had both direct and indirect paths (through moral judgment) to prosocial behavior. The findings generally were consistent with the contention that both the tendency to take others' perspectives and to sympathize are related to level of prosocial moral reasoning, which in turn motivates prosocial behavior. Moreover, patterns of correlations among variables were similar to those found in the United States.

Advances in the assessment and prediction of interpersonal violence.

PubMed

Mills, Jeremy F

2005-02-01

This article underscores the weakness of clinical judgment as a mechanism for prediction with examples from other areas in the psychological literature. Clinical judgment has as its Achilles'heel the reliance on a person to incorporate multiple pieces of information while overcoming human judgment errors--a feat insurmountable thus far. The actuarial approach to risk assessment has overcome many of the weaknesses of clinical judgment and has been shown to be a much superior method. Nonetheless, the static/historical nature of the risk factors associated with most actuarial approaches is limiting. Advances in risk prediction will be found in part in the development of dynamic actuarial instruments that will measure both static/historical and changeable risk factors. The dynamic risk factors can be reevaluated on an ongoing basis, and it is proposed that the level of change in dynamic factors necessary to represent a significant change in overall risk will be an interactive function with static risk factors.

An assisted navigation training framework based on judgment theory using sparse and discrete human-machine interfaces.

PubMed

Lopes, Ana C; Nunes, Urbano

2009-01-01

This paper aims to present a new framework to train people with severe motor disabilities steering an assisted mobile robot (AMR), such as a powered wheelchair. Users with high level of motor disabilities are not able to use standard HMIs, which provide a continuous command signal (e. g. standard joystick). For this reason HMIs providing a small set of simple commands, which are sparse and discrete in time must be used (e. g. scanning interface, or brain computer interface), making very difficult to steer the AMR. In this sense, the assisted navigation training framework (ANTF) is designed to train users driving the AMR, in indoor structured environments, using this type of HMIs. Additionally it provides user characterization on steering the robot, which will later be used to adapt the AMR navigation system to human competence steering the AMR. A rule-based lens (RBL) model is used to characterize users on driving the AMR. Individual judgment performance choosing the best manoeuvres is modeled using a genetic-based policy capturing (GBPC) technique characterized to infer non-compensatory judgment strategies from human decision data. Three user models, at three different learning stages, using the RBL paradigm, are presented.

Virtual test: A student-centered software to measure student's critical thinking on human disease

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rusyati, Lilit; Firman, Harry

2016-02-01

The study "Virtual Test: A Student-Centered Software to Measure Student's Critical Thinking on Human Disease" is descriptive research. The background is importance of computer-based test that use element and sub element of critical thinking. Aim of this study is development of multiple choices to measure critical thinking that made by student-centered software. Instruments to collect data are (1) construct validity sheet by expert judge (lecturer and medical doctor) and professional judge (science teacher); and (2) test legibility sheet by science teacher and junior high school student. Participants consisted of science teacher, lecturer, and medical doctor as validator; and the students as respondent. Result of this study are describe about characteristic of virtual test that use to measure student's critical thinking on human disease, analyze result of legibility test by students and science teachers, analyze result of expert judgment by science teachers and medical doctor, and analyze result of trial test of virtual test at junior high school. Generally, result analysis shown characteristic of multiple choices to measure critical thinking was made by eight elements and 26 sub elements that developed by Inch et al.; complete by relevant information; and have validity and reliability more than "enough". Furthermore, specific characteristic of multiple choices to measure critical thinking are information in form science comic, table, figure, article, and video; correct structure of language; add source of citation; and question can guide student to critical thinking logically.

Probability judgments under ambiguity and conflict

PubMed Central

Smithson, Michael

2015-01-01

Whether conflict and ambiguity are distinct kinds of uncertainty remains an open question, as does their joint impact on judgments of overall uncertainty. This paper reviews recent advances in our understanding of human judgment and decision making when both ambiguity and conflict are present, and presents two types of testable models of judgments under conflict and ambiguity. The first type concerns estimate-pooling to arrive at “best” probability estimates. The second type is models of subjective assessments of conflict and ambiguity. These models are developed for dealing with both described and experienced information. A framework for testing these models in the described-information setting is presented, including a reanalysis of a multi-nation data-set to test best-estimate models, and a study of participants' assessments of conflict, ambiguity, and overall uncertainty reported by Smithson (2013). A framework for research in the experienced-information setting is then developed, that differs substantially from extant paradigms in the literature. This framework yields new models of “best” estimates and perceived conflict. The paper concludes with specific suggestions for future research on judgment and decision making under conflict and ambiguity. PMID:26042081

Probability judgments under ambiguity and conflict.

PubMed

Smithson, Michael

2015-01-01

Whether conflict and ambiguity are distinct kinds of uncertainty remains an open question, as does their joint impact on judgments of overall uncertainty. This paper reviews recent advances in our understanding of human judgment and decision making when both ambiguity and conflict are present, and presents two types of testable models of judgments under conflict and ambiguity. The first type concerns estimate-pooling to arrive at "best" probability estimates. The second type is models of subjective assessments of conflict and ambiguity. These models are developed for dealing with both described and experienced information. A framework for testing these models in the described-information setting is presented, including a reanalysis of a multi-nation data-set to test best-estimate models, and a study of participants' assessments of conflict, ambiguity, and overall uncertainty reported by Smithson (2013). A framework for research in the experienced-information setting is then developed, that differs substantially from extant paradigms in the literature. This framework yields new models of "best" estimates and perceived conflict. The paper concludes with specific suggestions for future research on judgment and decision making under conflict and ambiguity.

Integrative moral judgment: dissociating the roles of the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

PubMed

Shenhav, Amitai; Greene, Joshua D

2014-03-26

A decade's research highlights a critical dissociation between automatic and controlled influences on moral judgment, which is subserved by distinct neural structures. Specifically, negative automatic emotional responses to prototypically harmful actions (e.g., pushing someone off of a footbridge) compete with controlled responses favoring the best consequences (e.g., saving five lives instead of one). It is unknown how such competitions are resolved to yield "all things considered" judgments. Here, we examine such integrative moral judgments. Drawing on insights from research on self-interested, value-based decision-making in humans and animals, we test a theory concerning the respective contributions of the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) to moral judgment. Participants undergoing fMRI responded to moral dilemmas, separately evaluating options for their utility (Which does the most good?), emotional aversiveness (Which feels worse?), and overall moral acceptability. Behavioral data indicate that emotional aversiveness and utility jointly predict "all things considered" integrative judgments. Amygdala response tracks the emotional aversiveness of harmful utilitarian actions and overall disapproval of such actions. During such integrative moral judgments, the vmPFC is preferentially engaged relative to utilitarian and emotional assessments. Amygdala-vmPFC connectivity varies with the role played by emotional input in the task, being the lowest for pure utilitarian assessments and the highest for pure emotional assessments. These findings, which parallel those of research on self-interested economic decision-making, support the hypothesis that the amygdala provides an affective assessment of the action in question, whereas the vmPFC integrates that signal with a utilitarian assessment of expected outcomes to yield "all things considered" moral judgments.

Implementing psychophysiology in clinical assessments of adolescent social anxiety: use of rater judgments based on graphical representations of psychophysiology.

PubMed

De Los Reyes, Andres; Augenstein, Tara M; Aldao, Amelia; Thomas, Sarah A; Daruwala, Samantha; Kline, Kathryn; Regan, Timothy

2015-01-01

Social stressor tasks induce adolescents' social distress as indexed by low-cost psychophysiological methods. Unknown is how to incorporate these methods within clinical assessments. Having assessors judge graphical depictions of psychophysiological data may facilitate detections of data patterns that may be difficult to identify using judgments about numerical depictions of psychophysiological data. Specifically, the Chernoff Face method involves graphically representing data using features on the human face (eyes, nose, mouth, and face shape). This method capitalizes on humans' abilities to discern subtle variations in facial features. Using adolescent heart rate norms and Chernoff Faces, we illustrated a method for implementing psychophysiology within clinical assessments of adolescent social anxiety. Twenty-two clinic-referred adolescents completed a social anxiety self-report and provided psychophysiological data using wireless heart rate monitors during a social stressor task. We graphically represented participants' psychophysiological data and normative adolescent heart rates. For each participant, two undergraduate coders made comparative judgments between the dimensions (eyes, nose, mouth, and face shape) of two Chernoff Faces. One Chernoff Face represented a participant's heart rate within a context (baseline, speech preparation, or speech-giving). The second Chernoff Face represented normative heart rate data matched to the participant's age. Using Chernoff Faces, coders reliably and accurately identified contextual variation in participants' heart rate responses to social stress. Further, adolescents' self-reported social anxiety symptoms predicted Chernoff Face judgments, and judgments could be differentiated by social stress context. Our findings have important implications for implementing psychophysiology within clinical assessments of adolescent social anxiety.

Moral judgment reloaded: a moral dilemma validation study

PubMed Central

Christensen, Julia F.; Flexas, Albert; Calabrese, Margareta; Gut, Nadine K.; Gomila, Antoni

2014-01-01

We propose a revised set of moral dilemmas for studies on moral judgment. We selected a total of 46 moral dilemmas available in the literature and fine-tuned them in terms of four conceptual factors (Personal Force, Benefit Recipient, Evitability, and Intention) and methodological aspects of the dilemma formulation (word count, expression style, question formats) that have been shown to influence moral judgment. Second, we obtained normative codings of arousal and valence for each dilemma showing that emotional arousal in response to moral dilemmas depends crucially on the factors Personal Force, Benefit Recipient, and Intentionality. Third, we validated the dilemma set confirming that people's moral judgment is sensitive to all four conceptual factors, and to their interactions. Results are discussed in the context of this field of research, outlining also the relevance of our RT effects for the Dual Process account of moral judgment. Finally, we suggest tentative theoretical avenues for future testing, particularly stressing the importance of the factor Intentionality in moral judgment. Additionally, due to the importance of cross-cultural studies in the quest for universals in human moral cognition, we provide the new set dilemmas in six languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Catalan, and Danish). The norming values provided here refer to the Spanish dilemma set. PMID:25071621

Can model-free reinforcement learning explain deontological moral judgments?

PubMed

Ayars, Alisabeth

2016-05-01

Dual-systems frameworks propose that moral judgments are derived from both an immediate emotional response, and controlled/rational cognition. Recently Cushman (2013) proposed a new dual-system theory based on model-free and model-based reinforcement learning. Model-free learning attaches values to actions based on their history of reward and punishment, and explains some deontological, non-utilitarian judgments. Model-based learning involves the construction of a causal model of the world and allows for far-sighted planning; this form of learning fits well with utilitarian considerations that seek to maximize certain kinds of outcomes. I present three concerns regarding the use of model-free reinforcement learning to explain deontological moral judgment. First, many actions that humans find aversive from model-free learning are not judged to be morally wrong. Moral judgment must require something in addition to model-free learning. Second, there is a dearth of evidence for central predictions of the reinforcement account-e.g., that people with different reinforcement histories will, all else equal, make different moral judgments. Finally, to account for the effect of intention within the framework requires certain assumptions which lack support. These challenges are reasonable foci for future empirical/theoretical work on the model-free/model-based framework. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Judgments of learning are significantly higher following feedback on relatively good versus relatively poor trials despite no actual learning differences.

PubMed

Carter, Michael J; Smith, Victoria; Ste-Marie, Diane M

2016-02-01

Studies have consistently shown that prospective metacognitive judgments of learning are often inaccurate because humans mistakenly interpret current performance levels as valid indices of learning. These metacognitive discrepancies are strongly related to conditions of practice. Here, we examined how the type of feedback (after good versus poor trials) received during practice and awareness (aware versus unaware) of this manipulation affected judgments of learning and actual learning. After each six-trial block, participants received feedback on their three best trials or three worst trials and half of the participants were made explicitly aware of the type of feedback they received while the other half were unaware. Judgments of learning were made at the end of each six-trial block and before the 24-h retention test. Results indicated no motor performance differences between groups in practice or retention; however, receiving feedback on relatively good compared to relatively poor trials resulted in significantly higher judgments of learning in practice and retention, irrespective of awareness. These results suggest that KR on relatively good versus relatively poor trials can have dissociable effects on judgments of learning in the absence of actual learning differences, even when participants are made aware of their feedback manipulation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Visual perception as retrospective Bayesian decoding from high- to low-level features

PubMed Central

Ding, Stephanie; Cueva, Christopher J.; Tsodyks, Misha; Qian, Ning

2017-01-01

When a stimulus is presented, its encoding is known to progress from low- to high-level features. How these features are decoded to produce perception is less clear, and most models assume that decoding follows the same low- to high-level hierarchy of encoding. There are also theories arguing for global precedence, reversed hierarchy, or bidirectional processing, but they are descriptive without quantitative comparison with human perception. Moreover, observers often inspect different parts of a scene sequentially to form overall perception, suggesting that perceptual decoding requires working memory, yet few models consider how working-memory properties may affect decoding hierarchy. We probed decoding hierarchy by comparing absolute judgments of single orientations and relative/ordinal judgments between two sequentially presented orientations. We found that lower-level, absolute judgments failed to account for higher-level, relative/ordinal judgments. However, when ordinal judgment was used to retrospectively decode memory representations of absolute orientations, striking aspects of absolute judgments, including the correlation and forward/backward aftereffects between two reported orientations in a trial, were explained. We propose that the brain prioritizes decoding of higher-level features because they are more behaviorally relevant, and more invariant and categorical, and thus easier to specify and maintain in noisy working memory, and that more reliable higher-level decoding constrains less reliable lower-level decoding. PMID:29073108

The law and ethics in relation to dentists treating HIV-positive patients: two recent court cases.

PubMed

Graham, P E; Miller, N M; Harel-Raviv, M

1995-06-01

Two recent Canadian judgements regarding the application of human rights legislation to dentistry and HIV-seropositive patients are summarized and discussed. In the Ontario case of Jerome v. DeMarco, the Ontario Human Rights tribunal found that seropositivity constitutes a "handicap" under human rights legislation. However, the tribunal dismissed the claim by a seropositive patient that he had been illegally discriminated against by a dentist who, on learning the patient was seropositive, delayed treating him until the end of the day. This decision served as a precedent in the lengthy Quebec small claims court judgment of Hamel v. Malaxos. In this case, the dentist was held to have violated Quebec human rights legislation by trying to refer an HIV-seropositive patient to a hospital treatment centre rather than performing the appropriate dental treatment himself. Court judgments regarding this problem are reported and discussed.

Thermophysiological Responses of Human Volunteers to Whole Body RF Exposure at 220 MHz

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-05-19

could make judgments of sensations and the test. A Fiso temperature probe was also taped to the thermal comfort at intervals during the test (cf. Table...general trends in individual responses. These responses sensation, thermal comfort , perceived sweating, and included six skin temperatures and weighted...Tankle). similar fashion, mean judgments of thermal sensation, The two right panels of the figure show M (upper) and thermal comfort , thermal preference

Clinical versus actuarial judgment.

PubMed

Dawes, R M; Faust, D; Meehl, P E

1989-03-31

Professionals are frequently consulted to diagnose and predict human behavior; optimal treatment and planning often hinge on the consultant's judgmental accuracy. The consultant may rely on one of two contrasting approaches to decision-making--the clinical and actuarial methods. Research comparing these two approaches shows the actuarial method to be superior. Factors underlying the greater accuracy of actuarial methods, sources of resistance to the scientific findings, and the benefits of increased reliance on actuarial approaches are discussed.

Integration of individual and social information for decision-making in groups of different sizes.

PubMed

Park, Seongmin A; Goïame, Sidney; O'Connor, David A; Dreher, Jean-Claude

2017-06-01

When making judgments in a group, individuals often revise their initial beliefs about the best judgment to make given what others believe. Despite the ubiquity of this phenomenon, we know little about how the brain updates beliefs when integrating personal judgments (individual information) with those of others (social information). Here, we investigated the neurocomputational mechanisms of how we adapt our judgments to those made by groups of different sizes, in the context of jury decisions for a criminal. By testing different theoretical models, we showed that a social Bayesian inference model captured changes in judgments better than 2 other models. Our results showed that participants updated their beliefs by appropriately weighting individual and social sources of information according to their respective credibility. When investigating 2 fundamental computations of Bayesian inference, belief updates and credibility estimates of social information, we found that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) computed the level of belief updates, while the bilateral frontopolar cortex (FPC) was more engaged in individuals who assigned a greater credibility to the judgments of a larger group. Moreover, increased functional connectivity between these 2 brain regions reflected a greater influence of group size on the relative credibility of social information. These results provide a mechanistic understanding of the computational roles of the FPC-dACC network in steering judgment adaptation to a group's opinion. Taken together, these findings provide a computational account of how the human brain integrates individual and social information for decision-making in groups.

The impact of stigma, experience, and group referent on HIV risk assessments and HIV testing intentions in Namibia.

PubMed

Smith, Rachel A; Morrison, Daniel

2006-11-01

People often perceive risks for others and themselves differently. This study examines whether personal beliefs about HIV and experience with those living with HIV influence personal risk assessments of contracting HIV in an interview sample of northern Namibians (N=400), but not others' assessments as explained by singular-distribution theory [Klar, Medding, & Sarel (1996). Nonunique invulnerability: Singular versus distributional probabilities and unrealistic optimism in comparative risk judgments. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 67, 229-245]. Findings indicate that personal risk perceptions decrease with more HIV stigmatizing beliefs and increase with greater experience, but that those characteristics had no impact on assessments for others' risk. The study also examines whether the size and characteristics of the referent group, peers and the general Namibian population, influence others' risk assessments. Optimistic biases for personal risk versus others' risk appear with the highest discrepancy emerging between personal and general population risk assessments. Further, we found that personal risk perceptions did not mediate the relationship between personal characteristics, beliefs and experiences, and intentions to seek HIV testing.

45 CFR 46.109 - IRB review of research.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... Public Welfare DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS Basic HHS Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects § 46.109 IRB review of research. (a) An... judgment the information would meaningfully add to the protection of the rights and welfare of subjects. (c...

34 CFR 97.109 - IRB review of research.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... Office of the Secretary, Department of Education PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (Basic ED Policy for Protection of Human Research Subjects) § 97.109 IRB review... subjects when in the IRB's judgment the information would meaningfully add to the protection of the rights...

The Development of Gender Stereotype Components.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martin, Carol Lynn; And Others

1990-01-01

Children of 4 to 10 years of age were told about children whose sex was not specified and who had a masculine or feminine toy or characteristic. Results indicated that children first learn characteristics relevant to their own sex, and that older children's stereotypic judgments about gender are more extreme than those of younger children. (BC)

Characteristics of Reticent and Disruptive Children As Identified by the Barclay Classroom Climate Inventory.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barclay, James R.

The Barclay Classroom Climate Inventory was employed to identify the psychometric characteristics of reticent and disruptive children. The BCCI utilizes self-competency judgments, peer nominations, vocational interests and teacher adjectival ratings in an effort to measure the various expectations which interact in the elementary classroom. A…

The Impact of Power on Humanity: Self-Dehumanization in Powerlessness

PubMed Central

Yang, Wenqi; Jin, Shenghua; He, Surina; Fan, Qian; Zhu, Yijie

2015-01-01

Power gives people the ability to control themselves and their environment, and this control is considered a fundamental human need. We investigated whether experiencing powerlessness induces the experience of self-dehumanization using three methods: priming, role-playing, and cueing. People in a position of low power viewed themselves (Experiments 1–3) as less human relative to people in a position of high power; furthermore, people with low power believed that they were viewed as less human by others as well (Experiments 2–3). In all of the experiments, human nature traits were most negatively affected by powerlessness in self-perception judgments, and uniquely human traits were most negatively affected by powerlessness in meta-perception judgments. Furthermore, the powerless believed they were viewed as less human not only by the powerful people but also the outside observers of the power dynamic. Self-dehumanization also appears to be a consequence of powerlessness rather than an incidental result of a change in mood or a negative self-view. Our findings are an important extension of previous work on the adverse effects of powerlessness and dehumanization. PMID:26020267

Instrumental and perceptual evaluations of two related singers.

PubMed

Buder, Eugene H; Wolf, Teresa

2003-06-01

The primary goal of this study was to characterize a performer's singing and speaking voice. One woman was not admitted to a premier choral group, but her sister, who was comparable in physical characteristics and background, was admitted and provided a valuable control subject. The perceptual judgment of a vocal coach who conducted the group's auditions was decisive in discriminating these 2 singers. The singer not admitted to the group described a history of voice pathology, lacked a functional head register, and spoke with a voice characterized by hoarseness. Multiple listener judgments and acoustic and aerodynamic evaluations of both singers provided a more systematic basis for determining: 1) the phonatory basis for this judgment; 2) whether similar judgments would be made by groups of vocal coaches and speech-language pathologists; and 3) whether the type of tasks (e.g., sung vs. spoken) would influence these judgments. Statistically significant differences were observed between the ratings of vocal health provided by two different groups of listeners. Significant interactions were also observed as a function of the types of voice samples heard by these listeners. Instrumental analyses provided evidence that, in comparison to her sister, the rejected singer had a compromised vocal range, glottal insufficiencies as assessed aerodynamically and electroglottographically, and impaired acoustic quality, especially in her speaking voice.

Electrophysiological brain dynamics during the esthetic judgment of human bodies and faces.

PubMed

Muñoz, Francisco; Martín-Loeches, Manuel

2015-01-12

This experiment investigated how the esthetic judgment of human body and face modulates cognitive and affective processes. We hypothesized that judgments on ugliness and beauty would elicit separable event-related brain potentials (ERP) patterns, depending on the esthetic value of body and faces in both genders. In a pretest session, participants evaluated images in a range from very ugly to very beautiful, what generated three sets of beautiful, ugly and neutral faces and bodies. In the recording session, they performed a task consisting in a beautiful-neutral-ugly judgment. Cognitive and affective effects were observed on a differential pattern of ERP components (P200, P300 and LPC). Main findings revealed a P200 amplitude increase to ugly images, probably the result of a negativity bias in attentional processes. A P300 increase was found mostly to beautiful images, particularly to female bodies, consistent with the salience of these stimuli, particularly for stimulus categorization. LPC appeared significantly larger to both ugly and beautiful images, probably reflecting later, decision processes linked to keeping information in working memory. This finding was especially remarkable for ugly male faces. Our findings are discussed on the ground of evolutionary and adaptive value of esthetics in person evaluation. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Hold Item. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Detecting Abnormal Word Utterances in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders: Machine-Learning-Based Voice Analysis Versus Speech Therapists.

PubMed

Nakai, Yasushi; Takiguchi, Tetsuya; Matsui, Gakuyo; Yamaoka, Noriko; Takada, Satoshi

2017-10-01

Abnormal prosody is often evident in the voice intonations of individuals with autism spectrum disorders. We compared a machine-learning-based voice analysis with human hearing judgments made by 10 speech therapists for classifying children with autism spectrum disorders ( n = 30) and typical development ( n = 51). Using stimuli limited to single-word utterances, machine-learning-based voice analysis was superior to speech therapist judgments. There was a significantly higher true-positive than false-negative rate for machine-learning-based voice analysis but not for speech therapists. Results are discussed in terms of some artificiality of clinician judgments based on single-word utterances, and the objectivity machine-learning-based voice analysis adds to judging abnormal prosody.

How Well Can Analytic Hierarchy Process be Used to Elicit Individual Preferences? Insights from a Survey in Patients Suffering from Age-Related Macular Degeneration.

PubMed

Danner, Marion; Vennedey, Vera; Hiligsmann, Mickaël; Fauser, Sascha; Gross, Christian; Stock, Stephanie

2016-10-01

In this study, we tested the feasibility of an interviewer-assisted analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in a special patient population with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). One aim was to generate preference weights regarding AMD treatment characteristics. A secondary aim was to explore the consistency of preference judgments and reasons for inconsistency. We generated quantitative importance weights for decision criteria using the matrix multiplication method. A qualitative study component in the form of asking patients to think aloud throughout their judgments was implemented to facilitate understanding of quantitative findings. Consistency ratios were calculated as a measure of logical judgment performance within AHP. If consistency ratios exceeded 0.2, we explored reasons for inconsistency. We interviewed 86 patients and generated preference weights for criteria. Patients rated the injection's effect on visual function the highest (0.44), followed by the frequency of monitoring visits (0.18), approval status (0.13), injection frequency (0.13), and side effects (0.12). Inconsistency in judgments was prevalent at the subcriteria level. Whereas much of the observed inconsistency was due to an excessive use of high/extreme value judgments, these judgments seemed to result from patients reasonably trying to highlight their strong preferences. Our study combines quantitative with qualitative data to explore patients' preference weights and decision processes using the AHP. It suggests that the type of inconsistency observed in judgments of AMD patients mostly results from rational decision making, not from error or lack of understanding. Further research should address which type and extent of inconsistency might be acceptable in different AHP settings.

Comparison of Alvarado score evaluation and clinical judgment in acute appendicitis.

PubMed

Abou Merhi, Bassem; Khalil, Mahmoud; Daoud, Nabil

2014-01-01

Acute appendicitis is the most common surgical emergency in children, but its diagnosis is sometimes difficult. The aim of this study is to evaluate retrospectively the Alvarado score in relation to the surgical management based on clinical judgment. Medical files of 232 children who underwent appendectomy at Makassed General Hospital from January 1997 till December 2006 were reviewed. Demographic characteristics, symptoms and signs, laboratory results and imaging findings for all children were recorded. The positive predictive value of our clinical judgment was 86.4% and the negative appendectomy rate was 13.6% based on the pathology results. The reliability of Alvarado score in our population found a PPV of 80.7% and a negative appendectomy rate of 11.3%. A multivariate analysis revealed that anorexia, neutrophils left shift and rebound tenderness are significantly correlated with a correct diagnosis of appendicitis (p = 0.012, 0.023 and 0.046 respectively). Although, Alvarado score provides measurably useful diagnostic information in evaluating children with suspected appendicitis, we found that good clinical judgment remain the main stay of correct diagnosis of appendicitis.

Comparison of Alvarado Score Evaluation and Clinical Judgment in Acute Appendicitis

PubMed Central

Merhi, Bassem Abou; Khalil, Mahmoud; Daoud, Nabil

2014-01-01

ABSTRACT Background: Acute appendicitis is the most common surgical emergency in children, but its diagnosis is sometimes difficult. The aim: of this study is to evaluate retrospectively the Alvarado score in relation to the surgical management based on clinical judgment. Methods: Medical files of 232 children who underwent appendectomy at Makassed General Hospital from January 1997 till December 2006 were reviewed. Demographic characteristics, symptoms and signs, laboratory results and imaging findings for all children were recorded. Results: The positive predictive value of our clinical judgment was 86.4% and the negative appendectomy rate was 13.6% based on the pathology results. The reliability of Alvarado score in our population found a PPV of 80.7% and a negative appendectomy rate of 11.3%. A multivariate analysis revealed that anorexia, neutrophils left shift and rebound tenderness are significantly correlated with a correct diagnosis of appendicitis (p = 0.012, 0.023 and 0.046 respectively). Conclusion: Although, Alvarado score provides measurably useful diagnostic information in evaluating children with suspected appendicitis, we found that good clinical judgment remain the main stay of correct diagnosis of appendicitis. PMID:24783903

Semantic extraction and processing of medical records for patient-oriented visual index

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zheng, Weilin; Dong, Wenjie; Chen, Xiangjiao; Zhang, Jianguo

2012-02-01

To have comprehensive and completed understanding healthcare status of a patient, doctors need to search patient medical records from different healthcare information systems, such as PACS, RIS, HIS, USIS, as a reference of diagnosis and treatment decisions for the patient. However, it is time-consuming and tedious to do these procedures. In order to solve this kind of problems, we developed a patient-oriented visual index system (VIS) to use the visual technology to show health status and to retrieve the patients' examination information stored in each system with a 3D human model. In this presentation, we present a new approach about how to extract the semantic and characteristic information from the medical record systems such as RIS/USIS to create the 3D Visual Index. This approach includes following steps: (1) Building a medical characteristic semantic knowledge base; (2) Developing natural language processing (NLP) engine to perform semantic analysis and logical judgment on text-based medical records; (3) Applying the knowledge base and NLP engine on medical records to extract medical characteristics (e.g., the positive focus information), and then mapping extracted information to related organ/parts of 3D human model to create the visual index. We performed the testing procedures on 559 samples of radiological reports which include 853 focuses, and achieved 828 focuses' information. The successful rate of focus extraction is about 97.1%.

A Quantum Probability Model of Causal Reasoning

PubMed Central

Trueblood, Jennifer S.; Busemeyer, Jerome R.

2012-01-01

People can often outperform statistical methods and machine learning algorithms in situations that involve making inferences about the relationship between causes and effects. While people are remarkably good at causal reasoning in many situations, there are several instances where they deviate from expected responses. This paper examines three situations where judgments related to causal inference problems produce unexpected results and describes a quantum inference model based on the axiomatic principles of quantum probability theory that can explain these effects. Two of the three phenomena arise from the comparison of predictive judgments (i.e., the conditional probability of an effect given a cause) with diagnostic judgments (i.e., the conditional probability of a cause given an effect). The third phenomenon is a new finding examining order effects in predictive causal judgments. The quantum inference model uses the notion of incompatibility among different causes to account for all three phenomena. Psychologically, the model assumes that individuals adopt different points of view when thinking about different causes. The model provides good fits to the data and offers a coherent account for all three causal reasoning effects thus proving to be a viable new candidate for modeling human judgment. PMID:22593747

Beyond procedure's content: the role of accessibility experiences and personal uncertainty in procedural justice judgements.

PubMed

Greifeneder, Rainer; Müller, Patrick; Stahlberg, Dagmar; Van den Bos, Kees; Bless, Herbert

2011-01-01

Procedural justice concerns play a critical role in economic settings, politics, and other domains of human life. Despite the vast evidence corroborating their relevance, considerably less is known about how procedural justice judgments are formed. Whereas earlier theorizing focused on the systematic integration of content information, the present contribution provides a new perspective on the formation of justice judgments by examining the influence of accessibility experiences. Specifically, we hypothesize that procedural justice judgments may be formed based on the ease or difficulty with which justice-relevant information comes to mind. Three experiments corroborate this prediction in that procedures were evaluated less positively when the retrieval of associated unfair aspects was easy compared to difficult. Presumably this is because when it feels easy (difficult) to retrieve unfair aspects, these are perceived as frequent (infrequent), and hence the procedure as unjust (just). In addition to demonstrating that ease-of-retrieval may influence justice judgments, the studies further revealed that reliance on accessibility experiences is high in conditions of personal certainty. We suggest that this is because personal uncertainty fosters systematic processing of content information, whereas personal certainty may invite less taxing judgmental strategies such as reliance on ease-of-retrieval.

Association between Ability Emotional Intelligence and Left Insula during Social Judgment of Facial Emotions.

PubMed

Quarto, Tiziana; Blasi, Giuseppe; Maddalena, Chiara; Viscanti, Giovanna; Lanciano, Tiziana; Soleti, Emanuela; Mangiulli, Ivan; Taurisano, Paolo; Fazio, Leonardo; Bertolino, Alessandro; Curci, Antonietta

2016-01-01

The human ability of identifying, processing and regulating emotions from social stimuli is generally referred as Emotional Intelligence (EI). Within EI, Ability EI identifies a performance measure assessing individual skills at perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotions. Previous models suggest that a brain "somatic marker circuitry" (SMC) sustains emotional sub-processes included in EI. Three primary brain regions are included: the amygdala, the insula and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Here, our aim was to investigate the relationship between Ability EI scores and SMC activity during social judgment of emotional faces. Sixty-three healthy subjects completed a test measuring Ability EI and underwent fMRI during a social decision task (i.e. approach or avoid) about emotional faces with different facial expressions. Imaging data revealed that EI scores are associated with left insula activity during social judgment of emotional faces as a function of facial expression. Specifically, higher EI scores are associated with greater left insula activity during social judgment of fearful faces but also with lower activity of this region during social judgment of angry faces. These findings indicate that the association between Ability EI and the SMC activity during social behavior is region- and emotion-specific.

Absence of significant dissent should be sufficient for deceased donor organ procurement in New Zealand.

PubMed

Douglas, Thomas M; Douglas, Nicholas M

2009-10-01

New Zealand's organ donation rates are among the lowest in the OECD. In a bid to increase organ availability, the New Zealand Human Tissue Act 2008 introduces new consent arrangements for deceased donor organ procurement. This article assesses these new arrangements and presents the case for further reform. Our assessment and arguments are based on philosophical analysis informed by empirical data on the effectiveness of alternative consent systems. We: 1) Identify widely held ethical judgments about policies and practices relevant to organ donation (e.g. those relating to coronial post-mortems), 2) Assess the implications of these judgments for the Human Tissue Act and the assumptions that underpin it, and 3) Derive policy recommendations that are consistent with the judgments. The Human Tissue Act 2008 retains a strong consent requirement for organ procurement: organs may not be transplanted unless either the deceased or the family consents. We argue that organ availability could and should be increased by shifting from a model that requires consent to one that requires the absence of significant dissent. We recommend that New Zealand adopt either 1) an organ donation system similar to the existing system for ordering coronial post-mortems, or 2) a variant of the 'opt-out' system already in place in several other countries.

The effect of sleep deprivation on vocal expression of emotion in adolescents and adults.

PubMed

McGlinchey, Eleanor L; Talbot, Lisa S; Chang, Keng-Hao; Kaplan, Katherine A; Dahl, Ronald E; Harvey, Allison G

2011-09-01

Investigate the impact of sleep deprivation on vocal expression of emotion. Within-group repeated measures analysis involving sleep deprivation and rested conditions. Experimental laboratory setting. Fifty-five healthy participants (24 females), including 38 adolescents aged 11-15 y and 17 adults aged 30-60 y. A multimethod approach was used to examine vocal expression of emotion in interviews conducted at 22:30 and 06:30. On that night, participants slept a maximum of 2 h. Interviews were analyzed for vocal expression of emotion via computerized text analysis, human rater judgments, and computerized acoustic properties. Computerized text analysis and human rater judgments indicated decreases in positive emotion in all participants at 06:30 relative to 22:30, and adolescents displayed a significantly greater decrease in positive emotion via computerized text analysis relative to adults. Increases in negative emotion were observed among all participants using human rater judgments. Results for the computerized acoustic properties indicated decreases in pitch, bark energy (intensity) in certain high frequency bands, and vocal sharpness (reduction in high frequency bands > 1000 Hz). These findings support the importance of sleep for healthy emotional functioning in adults, and further suggest that adolescents are differentially vulnerable to the emotional consequences of sleep deprivation.

Visual perception as retrospective Bayesian decoding from high- to low-level features.

PubMed

Ding, Stephanie; Cueva, Christopher J; Tsodyks, Misha; Qian, Ning

2017-10-24

When a stimulus is presented, its encoding is known to progress from low- to high-level features. How these features are decoded to produce perception is less clear, and most models assume that decoding follows the same low- to high-level hierarchy of encoding. There are also theories arguing for global precedence, reversed hierarchy, or bidirectional processing, but they are descriptive without quantitative comparison with human perception. Moreover, observers often inspect different parts of a scene sequentially to form overall perception, suggesting that perceptual decoding requires working memory, yet few models consider how working-memory properties may affect decoding hierarchy. We probed decoding hierarchy by comparing absolute judgments of single orientations and relative/ordinal judgments between two sequentially presented orientations. We found that lower-level, absolute judgments failed to account for higher-level, relative/ordinal judgments. However, when ordinal judgment was used to retrospectively decode memory representations of absolute orientations, striking aspects of absolute judgments, including the correlation and forward/backward aftereffects between two reported orientations in a trial, were explained. We propose that the brain prioritizes decoding of higher-level features because they are more behaviorally relevant, and more invariant and categorical, and thus easier to specify and maintain in noisy working memory, and that more reliable higher-level decoding constrains less reliable lower-level decoding. Published under the PNAS license.

Feature-location binding in 3D: Feature judgments are biased by 2D location but not position-in-depth

PubMed Central

Finlayson, Nonie J.; Golomb, Julie D.

2016-01-01

A fundamental aspect of human visual perception is the ability to recognize and locate objects in the environment. Importantly, our environment is predominantly three-dimensional (3D), but while there is considerable research exploring the binding of object features and location, it is unknown how depth information interacts with features in the object binding process. A recent paradigm called the spatial congruency bias demonstrated that 2D location is fundamentally bound to object features (Golomb, Kupitz, & Thiemann, 2014), such that irrelevant location information biases judgments of object features, but irrelevant feature information does not bias judgments of location or other features. Here, using the spatial congruency bias paradigm, we asked whether depth is processed as another type of location, or more like other features. We initially found that depth cued by binocular disparity biased judgments of object color. However, this result seemed to be driven more by the disparity differences than the depth percept: Depth cued by occlusion and size did not bias color judgments, whereas vertical disparity information (with no depth percept) did bias color judgments. Our results suggest that despite the 3D nature of our visual environment, only 2D location information – not position-in-depth – seems to be automatically bound to object features, with depth information processed more similarly to other features than to 2D location. PMID:27468654

Feature-location binding in 3D: Feature judgments are biased by 2D location but not position-in-depth.

PubMed

Finlayson, Nonie J; Golomb, Julie D

2016-10-01

A fundamental aspect of human visual perception is the ability to recognize and locate objects in the environment. Importantly, our environment is predominantly three-dimensional (3D), but while there is considerable research exploring the binding of object features and location, it is unknown how depth information interacts with features in the object binding process. A recent paradigm called the spatial congruency bias demonstrated that 2D location is fundamentally bound to object features, such that irrelevant location information biases judgments of object features, but irrelevant feature information does not bias judgments of location or other features. Here, using the spatial congruency bias paradigm, we asked whether depth is processed as another type of location, or more like other features. We initially found that depth cued by binocular disparity biased judgments of object color. However, this result seemed to be driven more by the disparity differences than the depth percept: Depth cued by occlusion and size did not bias color judgments, whereas vertical disparity information (with no depth percept) did bias color judgments. Our results suggest that despite the 3D nature of our visual environment, only 2D location information - not position-in-depth - seems to be automatically bound to object features, with depth information processed more similarly to other features than to 2D location. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Perceptual fluency and judgments of vocal aesthetics and stereotypicality.

PubMed

Babel, Molly; McGuire, Grant

2015-05-01

Research has shown that processing dynamics on the perceiver's end determine aesthetic pleasure. Specifically, typical objects, which are processed more fluently, are perceived as more attractive. We extend this notion of perceptual fluency to judgments of vocal aesthetics. Vocal attractiveness has traditionally been examined with respect to sexual dimorphism and the apparent size of a talker, as reconstructed from the acoustic signal, despite evidence that gender-specific speech patterns are learned social behaviors. In this study, we report on a series of three experiments using 60 voices (30 females) to compare the relationship between judgments of vocal attractiveness, stereotypicality, and gender categorization fluency. Our results indicate that attractiveness and stereotypicality are highly correlated for female and male voices. Stereotypicality and categorization fluency were also correlated for male voices, but not female voices. Crucially, stereotypicality and categorization fluency interacted to predict attractiveness, suggesting the role of perceptual fluency is present, but nuanced, in judgments of human voices. © 2014 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

The role of the human pulvinar in visual attention and action: evidence from temporal-order judgment, saccade decision, and antisaccade tasks.

PubMed

Arend, Isabel; Machado, Liana; Ward, Robert; McGrath, Michelle; Ro, Tony; Rafal, Robert D

2008-01-01

The pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus has been considered as a key structure for visual attention functions (Grieve, K.L. et al. (2000). Trends Neurosci., 23: 35-39; Shipp, S. (2003). Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci., 358(1438): 1605-1624). During the past several years, we have studied the role of the human pulvinar in visual attention and oculomotor behaviour by testing a small group of patients with unilateral pulvinar lesions. Here we summarize some of these findings, and present new evidence for the role of this structure in both eye movements and visual attention through two versions of a temporal-order judgment task and an antisaccade task. Pulvinar damage induces an ipsilesional bias in perceptual temporal-order judgments and in saccadic decision, and also increases the latency of antisaccades away from contralesional targets. The demonstration that pulvinar damage affects both attention and oculomotor behaviour highlights the role of this structure in the integration of visual and oculomotor signals and, more generally, its role in flexibly linking visual stimuli with context-specific motor responses.

Application of data fusion technology based on D-S evidence theory in fire detection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cai, Zhishan; Chen, Musheng

2015-12-01

Judgment and identification based on single fire characteristic parameter information in fire detection is subject to environmental disturbances, and accordingly its detection performance is limited with the increase of false positive rate and false negative rate. The compound fire detector employs information fusion technology to judge and identify multiple fire characteristic parameters in order to improve the reliability and accuracy of fire detection. The D-S evidence theory is applied to the multi-sensor data-fusion: first normalize the data from all sensors to obtain the normalized basic probability function of the fire occurrence; then conduct the fusion processing using the D-S evidence theory; finally give the judgment results. The results show that the method meets the goal of accurate fire signal identification and increases the accuracy of fire alarm, and therefore is simple and effective.

Toward Cosmopolitan Ethics in Teacher Education: An Ontological Dimension of Learning Human Rights

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Adami, Rebecca

2014-01-01

There is a globalization trend in teacher education, emphasizing the role of teachers to make judgments based on human rights in their teaching profession. Rather than emphasizing the epistemological dimension of acquiring knowledge "about" human rights through teacher education, an ontological dimension is emphasized in this paper of…

Laterality judgments are not impaired in patients with chronic whiplash associated disorders.

PubMed

Pedler, Ashley; Motlagh, Helena; Sterling, Michele

2013-02-01

Impaired integration of the body schema with motor processes may contribute to painful and/or restricted movement in chronic pain. Laterality judgment tasks assess this integration of the body schema with motor processes. The purpose of this study was to assess if patients with chronic whiplash associated disorders (WAD) are impaired on laterality judgment tasks. Accuracy (ACC) and reaction time (RT) for foot and neck laterality tasks were assessed in 64 (35 female) patients with chronic (>6 months) WAD and 24 (14 female) asymptomatic subjects. Pain characteristics, post-traumatic stress symptoms, cold pain thresholds (CPT) and pressure pain thresholds (PPT) were collected for patients with WAD. The effect of WAD and body part on laterality task performance was assessed. For patients with WAD, the correlations between neck task performance and pain characteristics, post-traumatic stress symptoms and pain thresholds were assessed. There was no effect of group on laterality performance. Subjects showed better RT (p < 0.001) and ACC (p = 0.001) on the neck task in comparison to the foot task. There was a significant correlation between CPT and ACC (r = 0.33) and RT (r = -0.33) on the neck laterality task in patients with WAD. Cervical spine PPT were significantly correlated with accuracy (r = 0.36) and RT (r = 0.29) in patients with WAD. These findings suggest that patients with chronic WAD are not impaired on neck or foot laterality judgment tasks. Laterality training is not indicated in the management of chronic WAD. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Blind image quality assessment via probabilistic latent semantic analysis.

PubMed

Yang, Xichen; Sun, Quansen; Wang, Tianshu

2016-01-01

We propose a blind image quality assessment that is highly unsupervised and training free. The new method is based on the hypothesis that the effect caused by distortion can be expressed by certain latent characteristics. Combined with probabilistic latent semantic analysis, the latent characteristics can be discovered by applying a topic model over a visual word dictionary. Four distortion-affected features are extracted to form the visual words in the dictionary: (1) the block-based local histogram; (2) the block-based local mean value; (3) the mean value of contrast within a block; (4) the variance of contrast within a block. Based on the dictionary, the latent topics in the images can be discovered. The discrepancy between the frequency of the topics in an unfamiliar image and a large number of pristine images is applied to measure the image quality. Experimental results for four open databases show that the newly proposed method correlates well with human subjective judgments of diversely distorted images.

Diagnostic Hypothesis Generation and Human Judgment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thomas, Rick P.; Dougherty, Michael R.; Sprenger, Amber M.; Harbison, J. Isaiah

2008-01-01

Diagnostic hypothesis-generation processes are ubiquitous in human reasoning. For example, clinicians generate disease hypotheses to explain symptoms and help guide treatment, auditors generate hypotheses for identifying sources of accounting errors, and laypeople generate hypotheses to explain patterns of information (i.e., data) in the…

Measuring Musical Consonance and Dissonance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

LoPresto, Michael C.

2015-01-01

Most combinations of musical tones are perceived as either "consonant," "pleasing" to the human ear, or "dissonant," which is "not pleasing." Despite being largely subjective in nature, sensations of consonance and dissonance can be quantified and then compared to the judgments of human subjects. The…

The Effect of Task Characteristics on the Availability Heuristic for Judgments under Uncertainty.

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-05-01

RICE UNIVERSITY Houston, Texas 7 7001 * Department of Psycholgsy ~ A0 Reserch Report Series dAOTbik has eD dis~fuomis =liited. -~~~ ~ - - 0...The experimental design Involved the manipulation of event characteristics in order to induce a heuristic processing strategy for designated available...40 References .... .......... .o.................. o...................... 41 Appendix A. Experimental Questionnaires

Integration of individual and social information for decision-making in groups of different sizes

PubMed Central

Goïame, Sidney; O'Connor, David A.; Dreher, Jean-Claude

2017-01-01

When making judgments in a group, individuals often revise their initial beliefs about the best judgment to make given what others believe. Despite the ubiquity of this phenomenon, we know little about how the brain updates beliefs when integrating personal judgments (individual information) with those of others (social information). Here, we investigated the neurocomputational mechanisms of how we adapt our judgments to those made by groups of different sizes, in the context of jury decisions for a criminal. By testing different theoretical models, we showed that a social Bayesian inference model captured changes in judgments better than 2 other models. Our results showed that participants updated their beliefs by appropriately weighting individual and social sources of information according to their respective credibility. When investigating 2 fundamental computations of Bayesian inference, belief updates and credibility estimates of social information, we found that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) computed the level of belief updates, while the bilateral frontopolar cortex (FPC) was more engaged in individuals who assigned a greater credibility to the judgments of a larger group. Moreover, increased functional connectivity between these 2 brain regions reflected a greater influence of group size on the relative credibility of social information. These results provide a mechanistic understanding of the computational roles of the FPC-dACC network in steering judgment adaptation to a group’s opinion. Taken together, these findings provide a computational account of how the human brain integrates individual and social information for decision-making in groups. PMID:28658252

Noisy probability judgment, the conjunction fallacy, and rationality: Comment on Costello and Watts (2014).

PubMed

Crupi, Vincenzo; Tentori, Katya

2016-01-01

According to Costello and Watts (2014), probability theory can account for key findings in human judgment research provided that random noise is embedded in the model. We concur with a number of Costello and Watts's remarks, but challenge the empirical adequacy of their model in one of their key illustrations (the conjunction fallacy) on the basis of recent experimental findings. We also discuss how our argument bears on heuristic and rational thinking. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Face recognition accuracy of forensic examiners, superrecognizers, and face recognition algorithms.

PubMed

Phillips, P Jonathon; Yates, Amy N; Hu, Ying; Hahn, Carina A; Noyes, Eilidh; Jackson, Kelsey; Cavazos, Jacqueline G; Jeckeln, Géraldine; Ranjan, Rajeev; Sankaranarayanan, Swami; Chen, Jun-Cheng; Castillo, Carlos D; Chellappa, Rama; White, David; O'Toole, Alice J

2018-06-12

Achieving the upper limits of face identification accuracy in forensic applications can minimize errors that have profound social and personal consequences. Although forensic examiners identify faces in these applications, systematic tests of their accuracy are rare. How can we achieve the most accurate face identification: using people and/or machines working alone or in collaboration? In a comprehensive comparison of face identification by humans and computers, we found that forensic facial examiners, facial reviewers, and superrecognizers were more accurate than fingerprint examiners and students on a challenging face identification test. Individual performance on the test varied widely. On the same test, four deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs), developed between 2015 and 2017, identified faces within the range of human accuracy. Accuracy of the algorithms increased steadily over time, with the most recent DCNN scoring above the median of the forensic facial examiners. Using crowd-sourcing methods, we fused the judgments of multiple forensic facial examiners by averaging their rating-based identity judgments. Accuracy was substantially better for fused judgments than for individuals working alone. Fusion also served to stabilize performance, boosting the scores of lower-performing individuals and decreasing variability. Single forensic facial examiners fused with the best algorithm were more accurate than the combination of two examiners. Therefore, collaboration among humans and between humans and machines offers tangible benefits to face identification accuracy in important applications. These results offer an evidence-based roadmap for achieving the most accurate face identification possible. Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

Absolute judgment for one- and two-dimensional stimuli embedded in Gaussian noise

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kvalseth, T. O.

1977-01-01

This study examines the effect on human performance of adding Gaussian noise or disturbance to the stimuli in absolute judgment tasks involving both one- and two-dimensional stimuli. For each selected stimulus value (both an X-value and a Y-value were generated in the two-dimensional case), 10 values (or 10 pairs of values in the two-dimensional case) were generated from a zero-mean Gaussian variate, added to the selected stimulus value and then served as the coordinate values for the 10 points that were displayed sequentially on a CRT. The results show that human performance, in terms of the information transmitted and rms error as functions of stimulus uncertainty, was significantly reduced as the noise variance increased.

Using Videos Derived from Simulations to Support the Analysis of Spatial Awareness in Synthetic Vision Displays

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Boton, Matthew L.; Bass, Ellen J.; Comstock, James R., Jr.

2006-01-01

The evaluation of human-centered systems can be performed using a variety of different methodologies. This paper describes a human-centered systems evaluation methodology where participants watch 5-second non-interactive videos of a system in operation before supplying judgments and subjective measures based on the information conveyed in the videos. This methodology was used to evaluate the ability of different textures and fields of view to convey spatial awareness in synthetic vision systems (SVS) displays. It produced significant results for both judgment based and subjective measures. This method is compared to other methods commonly used to evaluate SVS displays based on cost, the amount of experimental time required, experimental flexibility, and the type of data provided.

Five-Year Olds, but Not Chimpanzees, Attempt to Manage Their Reputations

PubMed Central

Engelmann, Jan M.; Herrmann, Esther; Tomasello, Michael

2012-01-01

Virtually all theories of the evolution of cooperation require that cooperators find ways to interact with one another selectively, to the exclusion of cheaters. This means that individuals must make reputational judgments about others as cooperators, based on either direct or indirect evidence. Humans, and possibly other species, add another component to the process: they know that they are being judged by others, and so they adjust their behavior in order to affect those judgments – so-called impression management. Here, we show for the first time that already preschool children engage in such behavior. In an experimental study, 5-year-old human children share more and steal less when they are being watched by a peer than when they are alone. In contrast, chimpanzees behave the same whether they are being watched by a groupmate or not. This species difference suggests that humans' concern for their own self-reputation, and their tendency to manage the impression they are making on others, may be unique to humans among primates. PMID:23119015

Western oil shale development: a technology assessment. Volume 1. Main report

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Not Available

1981-11-01

The general goal of this study is to present the prospects of shale oil within the context of (1) environmental constraints, (2) available natural and economic resources, and (3) the characteristics of existing and emerging technology. The objectives are: to review shale oil technologies objectively as a means of supplying domestically produced fuels within environmental, social, economic, and legal/institutional constraints; using available data, analyses, and experienced judgment, to examine the major points of uncertainty regarding potential impacts of oil shale development; to resolve issues where data and analyses are compelling or where conclusions can be reached on judgmental grounds; tomore » specify issues which cannot be resolved on the bases of the data, analyses, and experienced judgment currently available; and when appropriate and feasible, to suggest ways for the removal of existing uncertainties that stand in the way of resolving outstanding issues.« less

Instructional Storytelling: Application of the Clinical Judgment Model in Nursing.

PubMed

Timbrell, Jessica

2017-05-01

Little is known about the teaching and learning implications of instructional storytelling (IST) in nursing education or its potential connection to nursing theory. The literature establishes storytelling as a powerful teaching-learning method in the educational, business, humanities, and health sectors, but little exploration exists that is specific to nursing. An example of a story demonstrating application of the domains of Tanner's clinical judgment model links storytelling with learning outcomes appropriate for the novice nursing student. Application of Tanner's clinical judgment model offers consistency of learning experience while preserving the creativity inherent in IST. Further research into student learning outcomes achievement using IST is warranted as a step toward establishing best practices with IST in nursing education. [J Nurs Educ. 2017;56(5):305-308.]. Copyright 2017, SLACK Incorporated.

When standards are wide of the mark: nonselective superiority and inferiority biases in comparative judgments of objects and concepts.

PubMed

Giladi, Eilath E; Klar, Yechiel

2002-12-01

People are frequently required to judge how particular group members measure up against others in their group. According to the local-comparisons-general-standards (LOGE) approach, in these member-to-group comparisons, people fail to use the normatively appropriate local (group) standard and are infelicitously affected by a more general standard (involving instances from outside the judged group). Within positive groups, target group members are judged superior to the other members of the group, and within negative groups, inferior. To date, these nonselective superiority and inferiority biases have been demonstrated solely in judgments about human beings. In 6 experiments, nonselective biases were found in perceptual, affective, and cognitive judgments of nonhuman targets, objects, and concepts, thus supporting a cognitive rather than a social account.

Imitative Production of Rising Speech Intonation in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Recipients

PubMed Central

Peng, Shu-Chen; Tomblin, J. Bruce; Spencer, Linda J.; Hurtig, Richard R.

2011-01-01

Purpose This study investigated the acoustic characteristics of pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients' imitative production of rising speech intonation, in relation to the perceptual judgments by listeners with normal hearing (NH). Method Recordings of a yes–no interrogative utterance imitated by 24 prelingually deafened children with a CI were extracted from annual evaluation sessions. These utterances were perceptually judged by adult NH listeners in regard with intonation contour type (non-rise, partial-rise, or full-rise) and contour appropriateness (on a 5-point scale). Fundamental frequency, intensity, and duration properties of each utterance were also acoustically analyzed. Results Adult NH listeners' judgments of intonation contour type and contour appropriateness for each CI participant 's utterances were highly positively correlated. The pediatric CI recipients did not consistently use appropriate intonation contours when imitating a yes–no question. Acoustic properties of speech intonation produced by these individuals were discernible among utterances of different intonation contour types according to NH listeners' perceptual judgments. Conclusions These findings delineated the perceptual and acoustic characteristics of speech intonation imitated by prelingually deafened children and young adults with a CI. Future studies should address whether the degraded signals these individuals perceive via a CI contribute to their difficulties with speech intonation production. PMID:17905907

Global loudness of rising- and falling-intensity tones: How temporal profile characteristics shape overall judgments.

PubMed

Ponsot, Emmanuel; Susini, Patrick; Meunier, Sabine

2017-07-01

The mechanisms underlying global loudness judgments of rising- or falling-intensity tones were further investigated in two magnitude estimation experiments. By manipulating the temporal characteristics of such stimuli, it was examined whether judgments could be accounted for by an integration of their loudest portion over a certain temporal window associated to a "decay mechanism" downsizing this integration over time for falling ramps. In experiment 1, 1-kHz intensity-ramps were stretched in time between 1 and 16 s keeping their dynamics (difference between maximum and minimum levels) unchanged. While global loudness of rising tones increased up to 6 s, evaluations of falling tones increased at a weaker rate and slightly decayed between 6 and 16 s, resulting in significant differences between the two patterns. In experiment 2, ramps were stretched in time between 2 and 12 s keeping their slopes (rate of change in dB/s) unchanged. In this context, the main effect of duration became non-significant and the interaction between the two profiles remained, although the decay of falling tones was not significant. These results qualitatively support the view that the global loudness computation of intensity-ramps involves an integration of their loudest portions; the presence of a decay mechanism could, however, not be attested.

Some Memories are Odder than Others: Judgments of Episodic Oddity Violate Known Decision Rules

PubMed Central

O’Connor, Akira R.; Guhl, Emily N.; Cox, Justin C.; Dobbins, Ian G.

2011-01-01

Current decision models of recognition memory are based almost entirely on one paradigm, single item old/new judgments accompanied by confidence ratings. This task results in receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) that are well fit by both signal-detection and dual-process models. Here we examine an entirely new recognition task, the judgment of episodic oddity, whereby participants select the mnemonically odd members of triplets (e.g., a new item hidden among two studied items). Using the only two known signal-detection rules of oddity judgment derived from the sensory perception literature, the unequal variance signal-detection model predicted that an old item among two new items would be easier to discover than a new item among two old items. In contrast, four separate empirical studies demonstrated the reverse pattern: triplets with two old items were the easiest to resolve. This finding was anticipated by the dual-process approach as the presence of two old items affords the greatest opportunity for recollection. Furthermore, a bootstrap-fed Monte Carlo procedure using two independent datasets demonstrated that the dual-process parameters typically observed during single item recognition correctly predict the current oddity findings, whereas unequal variance signal-detection parameters do not. Episodic oddity judgments represent a case where dual- and single-process predictions qualitatively diverge and the findings demonstrate that novelty is “odder” than familiarity. PMID:22833695

Implicit Theories and Offender Representativeness in Judgments About Sexual Crime.

PubMed

Harper, Craig A; Bartels, Ross M

2018-04-01

Implicit theories structure the way people understand and respond to various human actions. Typically, people believe attributes are either fixed (entitists) or malleable (incrementalists). The present study aimed to examine (a) whether attitudes toward sexual offenders differ depending upon one's implicit theory about human nature and sexual offenders, and (b) whether implicit theories are associated with judgments made about different types of child abusers. A sample of 252 community participants was recruited. Their attitudes, implicit theories, and political orientation were assessed via self-report. One of three vignettes describing an incidence of child sexual abuse was then presented. The cases were identical except the perpetrator was either an adult male, an adult female, or a male juvenile. Participants then made judgments about the offender's deserved sentence and moral character. Entitists (across both domains) held more negative attitudes than incrementalists, although the magnitude of the difference was greatest when examining implicit theories about sexual offenders. Compared with those with an incremental theory of sexual offenders, entity theorists judged sexual offending to be more (a) indicative of the perpetrator's moral character and (b) deserving of punishment. However, scores were greater toward the adult male relative to the adult female and juvenile. The findings suggest that implicit theories about sexual offenders are domain specific. They also indicate that judgments made by those with an entity theory (about sexual offenders) are affected by whether a case is representative of a stereotypical sexual offender. Implications of the findings are discussed, along with limitations and future research.

Forensic comparison and matching of fingerprints: using quantitative image measures for estimating error rates through understanding and predicting difficulty.

PubMed

Kellman, Philip J; Mnookin, Jennifer L; Erlikhman, Gennady; Garrigan, Patrick; Ghose, Tandra; Mettler, Everett; Charlton, David; Dror, Itiel E

2014-01-01

Latent fingerprint examination is a complex task that, despite advances in image processing, still fundamentally depends on the visual judgments of highly trained human examiners. Fingerprints collected from crime scenes typically contain less information than fingerprints collected under controlled conditions. Specifically, they are often noisy and distorted and may contain only a portion of the total fingerprint area. Expertise in fingerprint comparison, like other forms of perceptual expertise, such as face recognition or aircraft identification, depends on perceptual learning processes that lead to the discovery of features and relations that matter in comparing prints. Relatively little is known about the perceptual processes involved in making comparisons, and even less is known about what characteristics of fingerprint pairs make particular comparisons easy or difficult. We measured expert examiner performance and judgments of difficulty and confidence on a new fingerprint database. We developed a number of quantitative measures of image characteristics and used multiple regression techniques to discover objective predictors of error as well as perceived difficulty and confidence. A number of useful predictors emerged, and these included variables related to image quality metrics, such as intensity and contrast information, as well as measures of information quantity, such as the total fingerprint area. Also included were configural features that fingerprint experts have noted, such as the presence and clarity of global features and fingerprint ridges. Within the constraints of the overall low error rates of experts, a regression model incorporating the derived predictors demonstrated reasonable success in predicting objective difficulty for print pairs, as shown both in goodness of fit measures to the original data set and in a cross validation test. The results indicate the plausibility of using objective image metrics to predict expert performance and subjective assessment of difficulty in fingerprint comparisons.

So it is, so it shall be: Group regularities license children’s prescriptive judgments

PubMed Central

Roberts, Steven O.; Gelman, Susan A.; Ho, Arnold K.

2016-01-01

When do descriptive regularities (what characteristics individuals have) become prescriptive norms (what characteristics individuals should have)? We examined children’s (4–13 years) and adults’ use of group regularities to make prescriptive judgments, employing novel groups (Hibbles and Glerks) that engaged in morally neutral behaviors (e.g., eating different kinds of berries). Participants were introduced to conforming or non-conforming individuals (e.g., a Hibble who ate berries more typical of a Glerk). Children negatively evaluated non-conformity, with negative evaluations declining with age (Study 1). These effects were replicable across competitive and cooperative intergroup contexts (Study 2), and stemmed from reasoning about group regularities rather than reasoning about individual regularities (Study 3). These data provide new insights into children’s group concepts and have important implications for understanding the development of stereotyping and norm enforcement. PMID:27914116

Recollection and familiarity make independent contributions to memory judgments.

PubMed

Evans, Lisa H; Wilding, Edward L

2012-05-23

Recognition memory can be supported by the processes of recollection and familiarity. Recollection is recovery of qualitative information about a prior event. Familiarity is a scalar strength signal that permits judgments of prior occurrence. There is vigorous debate about how these processes are conceptualized, how they contribute to memory judgments, and which brain regions support them. One popular method for investigating these questions is the Remember/Know procedure, where subjects give a Remember response to studied stimuli for which they can recover contextual details of the study encounter, and a Know response when details are not recovered but subjects nevertheless believe that a stimulus was studied. According to one model, Remember responses are strong memories that are typically associated with relatively high levels of recollection and familiarity. Know responses are weaker memories and are typically associated with lower levels of both processes. Data inconsistent with this account were obtained in this experiment, where magnetoencephalographic (MEG) measures of neural activity were acquired in the test phase of a verbal memory task where healthy human volunteers made Remember, Know, or New judgments to studied and unstudied words. An MEG index of the process of recollection was larger for Remember than Know judgments, whereas the reverse was true for a MEG index of familiarity. Critically, this result is predicted by a model where recollection and familiarity make independent contributions to Remember and Know judgments, and provides a powerful constraint when mapping memory processes onto their neural substrates.

Portraits made to measure: manipulating social judgments about individuals with a statistical face model.

PubMed

Walker, Mirella; Vetter, Thomas

2009-10-13

The social judgments people make on the basis of the facial appearance of strangers strongly affect their behavior in different contexts. However, almost nothing is known about the physical information underlying these judgments. In this article, we present a new technology (a) to quantify the information in faces that is used for social judgments and (b) to manipulate the image of a human face in a way which is almost imperceptible but changes the personality traits ascribed to the depicted person. This method was developed in a high-dimensional face space by identifying vectors that capture maximum variability in judgments of personality traits. Our method of manipulating the salience of these vectors in faces was successfully transferred to novel photographs from an independent database. We evaluated this method by showing pairs of face photographs which differed only in the salience of one of six personality traits. Subjects were asked to decide which face was more extreme with respect to the trait in question. Results show that the image manipulation produced the intended attribution effect. All response accuracies were significantly above chance level. This approach to understanding and manipulating how a person is socially perceived could be useful in psychological research and could also be applied in advertising or the film industries.

Dissociable patterns of brain activity for mentalizing about known others: a role for attachment

PubMed Central

Laurita, Anne C.; Hazan, Cindy

2017-01-01

Abstract The human brain tracks dynamic changes within the social environment, forming and updating representations of individuals in our social milieu. This mechanism of social navigation builds an increasingly complex map of persons with whom we are familiar and form attachments to guide adaptive social behaviors. We examined the neural representation of known others along a continuum of attachment using fMRI. Heterosexual adults (N = 29, 16 females), in romantic relationships for more than 2 years, made trait judgments for a romantic partner, parent, close friend, familiar acquaintance and self-during scanning. Multivariate analysis, partial least squares, was used to identify whole-brain patterns of brain activation associated with trait judgments of known others across a continuum of attachment. Across conditions, trait judgments engaged the default network and lateral prefrontal cortex. Judgments about oneself and a partner were associated with a common activation pattern encompassing anterior and middle cingulate, posterior superior temporal sulcus, as well as anterior insula. Parent and close friend judgments engaged medial and anterior temporal lobe regions. These results provide novel evidence that mentalizing about known familiar others results in differential brain activity. We provide initial evidence that the representation of adult attachment is a distinguishing feature of these differences. PMID:28407150

Association between Ability Emotional Intelligence and Left Insula during Social Judgment of Facial Emotions

PubMed Central

Quarto, Tiziana; Blasi, Giuseppe; Maddalena, Chiara; Viscanti, Giovanna; Lanciano, Tiziana; Soleti, Emanuela; Mangiulli, Ivan; Taurisano, Paolo; Fazio, Leonardo; Bertolino, Alessandro; Curci, Antonietta

2016-01-01

The human ability of identifying, processing and regulating emotions from social stimuli is generally referred as Emotional Intelligence (EI). Within EI, Ability EI identifies a performance measure assessing individual skills at perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotions. Previous models suggest that a brain “somatic marker circuitry” (SMC) sustains emotional sub-processes included in EI. Three primary brain regions are included: the amygdala, the insula and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Here, our aim was to investigate the relationship between Ability EI scores and SMC activity during social judgment of emotional faces. Sixty-three healthy subjects completed a test measuring Ability EI and underwent fMRI during a social decision task (i.e. approach or avoid) about emotional faces with different facial expressions. Imaging data revealed that EI scores are associated with left insula activity during social judgment of emotional faces as a function of facial expression. Specifically, higher EI scores are associated with greater left insula activity during social judgment of fearful faces but also with lower activity of this region during social judgment of angry faces. These findings indicate that the association between Ability EI and the SMC activity during social behavior is region- and emotion-specific. PMID:26859495

Moral reasoning about great apes in research

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Okamoto, Carol Midori

2006-04-01

This study explored how individuals (biomedical scientists, Great Ape Project activists, lay adults, undergraduate biology and environmental studies students, and Grade 12 and 9 biology students) morally judge and reason about using great apes in biomedical and language research. How these groups perceived great apes' mental capacities (e.g., pain, logical thinking) and how these perceptions related to their judgments were investigated through two scenarios. In addition, the kinds of informational statements (e.g., biology, economics) that may affect individuals' scenario judgments were investigated. A negative correlation was found between mental attributions and scenario judgments while no clear pattern occurred for the informational statements. For the biomedical scenario, all groups significantly differed in mean judgment ratings except for the biomedical scientists, GAP activists and Grade 9 students. For the language scenario, all groups differed except for the GAP activists, and undergraduate environmental studies and Grade 9 students. An in-depth qualitative analysis showed that although the biomedical scientists, GAP activists and Grade 9 students had similar judgments, they produced different mean percentages of justifications under four moral frameworks (virtue, utilitarianism, deontology, and welfare). The GAP activists used more virtue reasoning while the biomedical scientists and Grade 9 students used more utilitarian and welfare reasoning, respectively. The results are discussed in terms of developing environmental/humane education curricula.

What Do People Find Incompatible With Causal Determinism?

PubMed

Bear, Adam; Knobe, Joshua

2016-11-01

Four studies explored people's judgments about whether particular types of behavior are compatible with determinism. Participants read a passage describing a deterministic universe, in which everything that happens is fully caused by whatever happened before it. They then assessed the degree to which different behaviors were possible in such a universe. Other participants evaluated the extent to which each of these behaviors had various features (e.g., requiring reasoning). We assessed the extent to which these features predicted judgments about whether the behaviors were possible in a deterministic universe. Experiments 1 and 2 found that people's judgments about whether a behavior was compatible with determinism were not predicted by their judgments about whether that behavior relies on physical processes in the brain and body, is uniquely human, is unpredictable, or involves reasoning. Experiment 3, however, found that a distinction between what we call "active" and "passive" behaviors can explain people's judgments. Experiment 4 extended these findings, showing that we can measure this distinction in several ways and that it is robustly predicted by two different cues. Taken together, these results suggest that people carve up mentally guided behavior into two distinct types-understanding one type to be compatible with determinism, but another type to be fundamentally incompatible with determinism. Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Visual features as stepping stones toward semantics: Explaining object similarity in IT and perception with non-negative least squares

PubMed Central

Jozwik, Kamila M.; Kriegeskorte, Nikolaus; Mur, Marieke

2016-01-01

Object similarity, in brain representations and conscious perception, must reflect a combination of the visual appearance of the objects on the one hand and the categories the objects belong to on the other. Indeed, visual object features and category membership have each been shown to contribute to the object representation in human inferior temporal (IT) cortex, as well as to object-similarity judgments. However, the explanatory power of features and categories has not been directly compared. Here, we investigate whether the IT object representation and similarity judgments are best explained by a categorical or a feature-based model. We use rich models (>100 dimensions) generated by human observers for a set of 96 real-world object images. The categorical model consists of a hierarchically nested set of category labels (such as “human”, “mammal”, and “animal”). The feature-based model includes both object parts (such as “eye”, “tail”, and “handle”) and other descriptive features (such as “circular”, “green”, and “stubbly”). We used non-negative least squares to fit the models to the brain representations (estimated from functional magnetic resonance imaging data) and to similarity judgments. Model performance was estimated on held-out images not used in fitting. Both models explained significant variance in IT and the amounts explained were not significantly different. The combined model did not explain significant additional IT variance, suggesting that it is the shared model variance (features correlated with categories, categories correlated with features) that best explains IT. The similarity judgments were almost fully explained by the categorical model, which explained significantly more variance than the feature-based model. The combined model did not explain significant additional variance in the similarity judgments. Our findings suggest that IT uses features that help to distinguish categories as stepping stones toward a semantic representation. Similarity judgments contain additional categorical variance that is not explained by visual features, reflecting a higher-level more purely semantic representation. PMID:26493748

Neural Correlates of Visual Aesthetics – Beauty as the Coalescence of Stimulus and Internal State

PubMed Central

Jacobs, Richard H. A. H.; Renken, Remco; Cornelissen, Frans W.

2012-01-01

How do external stimuli and our internal state coalesce to create the distinctive aesthetic pleasures that give vibrance to human experience? Neuroaesthetics has so far focused on the neural correlates of observing beautiful stimuli compared to neutral or ugly stimuli, or on neural correlates of judging for beauty as opposed to other judgments. Our group questioned whether this approach is sufficient. In our view, a brain region that assesses beauty should show beauty-level-dependent activation during the beauty judgment task, but not during other, unrelated tasks. We therefore performed an fMRI experiment in which subjects judged visual textures for beauty, naturalness and roughness. Our focus was on finding brain activation related to the rated beauty level of the stimuli, which would take place exclusively during the beauty judgment. An initial whole-brain analysis did not reveal such interactions, yet a number of the regions showing main effects of the judgment task or the beauty level of stimuli were selectively sensitive to beauty level during the beauty task. Of the regions that were more active during beauty judgments than roughness judgments, the frontomedian cortex and the amygdala demonstrated the hypothesized interaction effect, while the posterior cingulate cortex did not. The latter region, which only showed a task effect, may play a supporting role in beauty assessments, such as attending to one's internal state rather than the external world. Most of the regions showing interaction effects of judgment and beauty level correspond to regions that have previously been implicated in aesthetics using different stimulus classes, but based on either task or beauty effects alone. The fact that we have now shown that task-stimulus interactions are also present during the aesthetic judgment of visual textures implies that these areas form a network that is specifically devoted to aesthetic assessment, irrespective of the stimulus type. PMID:22384006

Neural correlates of visual aesthetics--beauty as the coalescence of stimulus and internal state.

PubMed

Jacobs, Richard H A H; Renken, Remco; Cornelissen, Frans W

2012-01-01

How do external stimuli and our internal state coalesce to create the distinctive aesthetic pleasures that give vibrance to human experience? Neuroaesthetics has so far focused on the neural correlates of observing beautiful stimuli compared to neutral or ugly stimuli, or on neural correlates of judging for beauty as opposed to other judgments. Our group questioned whether this approach is sufficient. In our view, a brain region that assesses beauty should show beauty-level-dependent activation during the beauty judgment task, but not during other, unrelated tasks. We therefore performed an fMRI experiment in which subjects judged visual textures for beauty, naturalness and roughness. Our focus was on finding brain activation related to the rated beauty level of the stimuli, which would take place exclusively during the beauty judgment. An initial whole-brain analysis did not reveal such interactions, yet a number of the regions showing main effects of the judgment task or the beauty level of stimuli were selectively sensitive to beauty level during the beauty task. Of the regions that were more active during beauty judgments than roughness judgments, the frontomedian cortex and the amygdala demonstrated the hypothesized interaction effect, while the posterior cingulate cortex did not. The latter region, which only showed a task effect, may play a supporting role in beauty assessments, such as attending to one's internal state rather than the external world. Most of the regions showing interaction effects of judgment and beauty level correspond to regions that have previously been implicated in aesthetics using different stimulus classes, but based on either task or beauty effects alone. The fact that we have now shown that task-stimulus interactions are also present during the aesthetic judgment of visual textures implies that these areas form a network that is specifically devoted to aesthetic assessment, irrespective of the stimulus type.

Emotional and Utilitarian Appraisals of Moral Dilemmas Are Encoded in Separate Areas and Integrated in Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex

PubMed Central

Montaser-Kouhsari, Leila; Woodward, James; Rangel, Antonio

2015-01-01

Moral judgment often requires making difficult tradeoffs (e.g., is it appropriate to torture to save the lives of innocents at risk?). Previous research suggests that both emotional appraisals and more deliberative utilitarian appraisals influence such judgments and that these appraisals often conflict. However, it is unclear how these different types of appraisals are represented in the brain, or how they are integrated into an overall moral judgment. We addressed these questions using an fMRI paradigm in which human subjects provide separate emotional and utilitarian appraisals for different potential actions, and then make difficult moral judgments constructed from combinations of these actions. We found that anterior cingulate, insula, and superior temporal gyrus correlated with emotional appraisals, whereas temporoparietal junction and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex correlated with utilitarian appraisals. Overall moral value judgments were represented in an anterior portion of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Critically, the pattern of responses and functional interactions between these three sets of regions are consistent with a model in which emotional and utilitarian appraisals are computed independently and in parallel, and passed to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex where they are integrated into an overall moral value judgment. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Popular accounts of moral judgment often describe it as a battle for control between two systems, one intuitive and emotional, the other rational and utilitarian, engaged in winner-take-all inhibitory competition. Using a novel fMRI paradigm, we identified distinct neural signatures of emotional and utilitarian appraisals and used them to test different models of how they compete for the control of moral behavior. Importantly, we find little support for competitive inhibition accounts. Instead, moral judgments resembled the architecture of simple economic choices: distinct regions represented emotional and utilitarian appraisals independently and passed this information to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex for integration into an overall moral value signal. PMID:26354924

Emotional and Utilitarian Appraisals of Moral Dilemmas Are Encoded in Separate Areas and Integrated in Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex.

PubMed

Hutcherson, Cendri A; Montaser-Kouhsari, Leila; Woodward, James; Rangel, Antonio

2015-09-09

Moral judgment often requires making difficult tradeoffs (e.g., is it appropriate to torture to save the lives of innocents at risk?). Previous research suggests that both emotional appraisals and more deliberative utilitarian appraisals influence such judgments and that these appraisals often conflict. However, it is unclear how these different types of appraisals are represented in the brain, or how they are integrated into an overall moral judgment. We addressed these questions using an fMRI paradigm in which human subjects provide separate emotional and utilitarian appraisals for different potential actions, and then make difficult moral judgments constructed from combinations of these actions. We found that anterior cingulate, insula, and superior temporal gyrus correlated with emotional appraisals, whereas temporoparietal junction and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex correlated with utilitarian appraisals. Overall moral value judgments were represented in an anterior portion of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Critically, the pattern of responses and functional interactions between these three sets of regions are consistent with a model in which emotional and utilitarian appraisals are computed independently and in parallel, and passed to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex where they are integrated into an overall moral value judgment. Significance statement: Popular accounts of moral judgment often describe it as a battle for control between two systems, one intuitive and emotional, the other rational and utilitarian, engaged in winner-take-all inhibitory competition. Using a novel fMRI paradigm, we identified distinct neural signatures of emotional and utilitarian appraisals and used them to test different models of how they compete for the control of moral behavior. Importantly, we find little support for competitive inhibition accounts. Instead, moral judgments resembled the architecture of simple economic choices: distinct regions represented emotional and utilitarian appraisals independently and passed this information to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex for integration into an overall moral value signal. Copyright © 2015 the authors 0270-6474/15/3512593-14$15.00/0.

29 CFR 1990.144 - Criteria for consideration of arguments on certain issues.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... evaluated based upon scientific and policy judgments. (a) Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies. Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies regarding the substance... years' exposure of a group of subjects to the substance and at least 30 years' observation of the...

29 CFR 1990.144 - Criteria for consideration of arguments on certain issues.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... evaluated based upon scientific and policy judgments. (a) Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies. Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies regarding the substance... years' exposure of a group of subjects to the substance and at least 30 years' observation of the...

29 CFR 1990.144 - Criteria for consideration of arguments on certain issues.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... evaluated based upon scientific and policy judgments. (a) Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies. Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies regarding the substance... years' exposure of a group of subjects to the substance and at least 30 years' observation of the...

29 CFR 1990.144 - Criteria for consideration of arguments on certain issues.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... evaluated based upon scientific and policy judgments. (a) Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies. Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies regarding the substance... years' exposure of a group of subjects to the substance and at least 30 years' observation of the...

29 CFR 1990.144 - Criteria for consideration of arguments on certain issues.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... evaluated based upon scientific and policy judgments. (a) Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies. Non-positive results obtained in human epidemiologic studies regarding the substance... years' exposure of a group of subjects to the substance and at least 30 years' observation of the...

Does market competition explain fairness?

PubMed

Descioli, Peter

2013-02-01

The target article by Baumard et al. uses their previous model of bargaining with outside options to explain fairness and other features of human sociality. This theory implies that fairness judgments are determined by supply and demand but humans often perceive prices (divisions of surplus) in competitive markets to be unfair.

40 CFR 26.109 - IRB review of research.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 26.109 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY GENERAL PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS Basic EPA Policy for Protection of Subjects in Human Research Conducted or Supported by EPA § 26.109 IRB... subjects when in the IRB's judgment the information would meaningfully add to the protection of the rights...

A Rational Analysis of Rule-Based Concept Learning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Goodman, Noah D.; Tenenbaum, Joshua B.; Feldman, Jacob; Griffiths, Thomas L.

2008-01-01

This article proposes a new model of human concept learning that provides a rational analysis of learning feature-based concepts. This model is built upon Bayesian inference for a grammatically structured hypothesis space--a concept language of logical rules. This article compares the model predictions to human generalization judgments in several…

Bridging Social Circles: Need for Cognition, Prejudicial Judgments, and Personal Social Network Characteristics

PubMed Central

Curşeu, Petru L.; de Jong, Jeroen P.

2017-01-01

Various factors pertaining to the social context (availability of plausible social contacts) as well as personality traits influence the emergence of social ties that ultimately compose one’s personal social network. We build on a situational selection model to argue that personality traits influence the cognitive processing of social cues that in turn influences the preference for particular social ties. More specifically, we use a cross-lagged design to test a mediation model explaining the effects of need for cognition (NFC) on egocentric network characteristics. We used the data available in the LISS panel, in which a probabilistic sample of Dutch participants were asked to fill in surveys annually. We tested our model on data collected in three successive years and our results show that people scoring high in NFC tend to revolve in information-rich egocentric networks, characterized by high demographic diversity, high interpersonal dissimilarity, and high average education. The results also show that the effect of NFC on social network characteristics is mediated by non-prejudicial judgments. PMID:28790948

Perceived Masculinity Predicts U.S. Supreme Court Outcomes.

PubMed

Chen, Daniel; Halberstam, Yosh; Yu, Alan C L

2016-01-01

Previous studies suggest a significant role of language in the court room, yet none has identified a definitive correlation between vocal characteristics and court outcomes. This paper demonstrates that voice-based snap judgments based solely on the introductory sentence of lawyers arguing in front of the Supreme Court of the United States predict outcomes in the Court. In this study, participants rated the opening statement of male advocates arguing before the Supreme Court between 1998 and 2012 in terms of masculinity, attractiveness, confidence, intelligence, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness. We found significant correlation between vocal characteristics and court outcomes and the correlation is specific to perceived masculinity even when judgment of masculinity is based only on less than three seconds of exposure to a lawyer's speech sample. Specifically, male advocates are more likely to win when they are perceived as less masculine. No other personality dimension predicts court outcomes. While this study does not aim to establish any causal connections, our findings suggest that vocal characteristics may be relevant in even as solemn a setting as the Supreme Court of the United States.

Perceived Masculinity Predicts U.S. Supreme Court Outcomes

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

Previous studies suggest a significant role of language in the court room, yet none has identified a definitive correlation between vocal characteristics and court outcomes. This paper demonstrates that voice-based snap judgments based solely on the introductory sentence of lawyers arguing in front of the Supreme Court of the United States predict outcomes in the Court. In this study, participants rated the opening statement of male advocates arguing before the Supreme Court between 1998 and 2012 in terms of masculinity, attractiveness, confidence, intelligence, trustworthiness, and aggressiveness. We found significant correlation between vocal characteristics and court outcomes and the correlation is specific to perceived masculinity even when judgment of masculinity is based only on less than three seconds of exposure to a lawyer’s speech sample. Specifically, male advocates are more likely to win when they are perceived as less masculine. No other personality dimension predicts court outcomes. While this study does not aim to establish any causal connections, our findings suggest that vocal characteristics may be relevant in even as solemn a setting as the Supreme Court of the United States. PMID:27737008

How to explain receptivity to conjunction-fallacy inhibition training: evidence from the Iowa gambling task.

PubMed

Cassotti, Mathieu; Moutier, Sylvain

2010-04-01

Intuitive predictions and judgments under conditions of uncertainty are often mediated by judgment heuristics that sometimes lead to biases. Using the classical conjunction bias example, the present study examines the relationship between receptivity to metacognitive executive training and emotion-based learning ability indexed by Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) performance. After completing a computerised version of the IGT, participants were trained to avoid conjunction bias on a frequency judgment task derived from the works of Tversky and Kahneman. Pre- and post-test performances were assessed via another probability judgment task. Results clearly showed that participants who produced a biased answer despite the experimental training (individual patterns of the biased --> biased type) mainly had less emotion-based learning ability in IGT. Better emotion-based learning ability was observed in participants whose response pattern was biased --> logical. These findings argue in favour of the capacity of the human mind/brain to overcome reasoning bias when trained under executive programming conditions and as a function of emotional warning sensitivity. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sociocultural patterning of neural activity during self-reflection.

PubMed

Ma, Yina; Bang, Dan; Wang, Chenbo; Allen, Micah; Frith, Chris; Roepstorff, Andreas; Han, Shihui

2014-01-01

Western cultures encourage self-construals independent of social contexts, whereas East Asian cultures foster interdependent self-construals that rely on how others perceive the self. How are culturally specific self-construals mediated by the human brain? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we monitored neural responses from adults in East Asian (Chinese) and Western (Danish) cultural contexts during judgments of social, mental and physical attributes of themselves and public figures to assess cultural influences on self-referential processing of personal attributes in different dimensions. We found that judgments of self vs a public figure elicited greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in Danish than in Chinese participants regardless of attribute dimensions for judgments. However, self-judgments of social attributes induced greater activity in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) in Chinese than in Danish participants. Moreover, the group difference in TPJ activity was mediated by a measure of a cultural value (i.e. interdependence of self-construal). Our findings suggest that individuals in different sociocultural contexts may learn and/or adopt distinct strategies for self-reflection by changing the weight of the mPFC and TPJ in the social brain network.

[On the necessity to distinguishing judgment from subjective choice in the cognitive neuroscience of morality].

PubMed

Tassy, Sébastien

2011-10-01

Recently, cognitive neuroscience has shed new light on our understanding of the neural underpinning of humans' morality. These findings allow for a fundamental questioning and rethinking of the alleged dichotomy between reason and emotion, that has profoundly shaped both moral philosophy and moral psychology. Functional neuroimaging and neuropsychology studies have provided strong arguments favoring a dynamic and interdependent interaction between rational and emotional processes in the brain. Yet another fundamental issue remains largely unexplored: the dissociation between certain behaviours and the moral judgments that seem to precede them. The importance of this dissociation was highlighted in a study of psychopathic patients during which they preserved their moral judgments while frequently engaging in completely non moral behaviour. Such dissociation could result from the cognitive difference between an objective moral judgement with no personal consequence, and a subjective behavioural choice that has effective or potential personal consequences. Consequently, the results of moral dilemma experiments would differ widely depending whether they explore objective or subjective moral evaluations. That these evaluations involve two distinct neural processes should be taken into account when exploring the neural bases of human morality. © 2011 médecine/sciences – Inserm / SRMS.

Psychophysical experiments on the PicHunter image retrieval system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Papathomas, Thomas V.; Cox, Ingemar J.; Yianilos, Peter N.; Miller, Matt L.; Minka, Thomas P.; Conway, Tiffany E.; Ghosn, Joumana

2001-01-01

Psychophysical experiments were conducted on PicHunter, a content-based image retrieval (CBIR) experimental prototype with the following properties: (1) Based on a model of how users respond, it uses Bayes's rule to predict what target users want, given their actions. (2) It possesses an extremely simple user interface. (3) It employs an entropy- based scheme to improve convergence. (4) It introduces a paradigm for assessing the performance of CBIR systems. Experiments 1-3 studied human judgment of image similarity to obtain data for the model. Experiment 4 studied the importance of using: (a) semantic information, (b) memory of earlier input, and (c) relative and absolute judgments of similarity. Experiment 5 tested an approach that we propose for comparing performances of CBIR systems objectively. Finally, experiment 6 evaluated the most informative display-updating scheme that is based on entropy minimization, and confirmed earlier simulation results. These experiments represent one of the first attempts to quantify CBIR performance based on psychophysical studies, and they provide valuable data for improving CBIR algorithms. Even though they were designed with PicHunter in mind, their results can be applied to any CBIR system and, more generally, to any system that involves judgment of image similarity by humans.

Influence of Learning Style and Learning Flexibility on Clinical Judgment of Prelicensure Nursing Students within a Human Patient Computer Simulation Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Robison, Elizabeth Sharon

2012-01-01

Nursing education is experiencing a transition in how students are exposed to clinical situations. Technology, specifically human patient computer simulation, is replacing human exposure in clinical education (Nehring, 2010b). Kaakinen and Arwood (2009) discuss the need to apply learning theories to instructional designs involving simulation for…

Deep--deeper--deepest? Encoding strategies and the recognition of human faces.

PubMed

Sporer, S L

1991-03-01

Various encoding strategies that supposedly promote deeper processing of human faces (e.g., character judgments) have led to better recognition than more shallow processing tasks (judging the width of the nose). However, does deeper processing actually lead to an improvement in recognition, or, conversely, does shallow processing lead to a deterioration in performance when compared with naturally employed encoding strategies? Three experiments systematically compared a total of 8 different encoding strategies manipulating depth of processing, amount of elaboration, and self-generation of judgmental categories. All strategies that required a scanning of the whole face were basically equivalent but no better than natural strategy controls. The consistently worst groups were the ones that rated faces along preselected physical dimensions. This can be explained by subjects' lesser task involvement as revealed by manipulation checks.

Pervasive influence of idiosyncratic associative biases during facial emotion recognition.

PubMed

El Zein, Marwa; Wyart, Valentin; Grèzes, Julie

2018-06-11

Facial morphology has been shown to influence perceptual judgments of emotion in a way that is shared across human observers. Here we demonstrate that these shared associations between facial morphology and emotion coexist with strong variations unique to each human observer. Interestingly, a large part of these idiosyncratic associations does not vary on short time scales, emerging from stable inter-individual differences in the way facial morphological features influence emotion recognition. Computational modelling of decision-making and neural recordings of electrical brain activity revealed that both shared and idiosyncratic face-emotion associations operate through a common biasing mechanism rather than an increased sensitivity to face-associated emotions. Together, these findings emphasize the underestimated influence of idiosyncrasies on core social judgments and identify their neuro-computational signatures.

Similarity Judgments: From Classical to Complex Vector Psychological Spaces

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barque Duran, Albert; Pothos, Emmanuel M.; Yearsley, James M.; Hampton, James A.; Busemeyer, Jerome R.; Trueblood, Jennifer S.

This chapter reviews progress with applications of quantum theory in understanding human similarity judgments. We first motivate and subsequently describe the quantum similarity model (QSM), which was proposed by Pothos, Busemeyer and Trueblood (2013), primarily as a way to cover the empirical findings reported in Tversky (1977). We then show how the QSM encompasses Tversky's (1977) results, specifically in relation to violations of symmetry, violations of the triangle inequality and the diagnosticity effect. We next consider a list of challenges of the QSM and open issues for further research.

A quantum probability framework for human probabilistic inference.

PubMed

Trueblood, Jennifer S; Yearsley, James M; Pothos, Emmanuel M

2017-09-01

There is considerable variety in human inference (e.g., a doctor inferring the presence of a disease, a juror inferring the guilt of a defendant, or someone inferring future weight loss based on diet and exercise). As such, people display a wide range of behaviors when making inference judgments. Sometimes, people's judgments appear Bayesian (i.e., normative), but in other cases, judgments deviate from the normative prescription of classical probability theory. How can we combine both Bayesian and non-Bayesian influences in a principled way? We propose a unified explanation of human inference using quantum probability theory. In our approach, we postulate a hierarchy of mental representations, from 'fully' quantum to 'fully' classical, which could be adopted in different situations. In our hierarchy of models, moving from the lowest level to the highest involves changing assumptions about compatibility (i.e., how joint events are represented). Using results from 3 experiments, we show that our modeling approach explains 5 key phenomena in human inference including order effects, reciprocity (i.e., the inverse fallacy), memorylessness, violations of the Markov condition, and antidiscounting. As far as we are aware, no existing theory or model can explain all 5 phenomena. We also explore transitions in our hierarchy, examining how representations change from more quantum to more classical. We show that classical representations provide a better account of data as individuals gain familiarity with a task. We also show that representations vary between individuals, in a way that relates to a simple measure of cognitive style, the Cognitive Reflection Test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of dentists' body-weight size on student social judgments of dental skill and patients' behavioural intentions: a vignette study.

PubMed

Asimakopoulou, Koula; Ignatius, Jessica; While, Alison; Newton, Tim

2015-02-01

Where previous work has suggested that over-weight individuals may be subject to negative social judgments, a finding also seen in judgments applied to healthcare professionals (HCPs), this study investigated whether these findings extend to judgments made about dental practitioners. A photo of a normal weight male and one of a normal weight female dentist were digitally modified to reliably show them as overweight, giving a total of 4 conditions. In a single-blind quasi-randomised controlled study of 302 undergraduate and postgraduate student participants used a 5 point Likert scale to appraise a single, gender-matched colour photograph as to whether they thought the dentist depicted was competent, professional, caring, had patients' best interests at heart, and was a good dentist. They further rated their future intentions to follow behavioural advice (reduce snacking and take-up flossing) given by the depicted dentist. The data were analysed using independent sample t-tests. There were no differences in outcomes as a function of the weight status of the depicted dentist in any of the variables explored with the exception of the normal-weight images being rated as more caring than the overweight ones (p<.04). Images of overweight dentists do not receive lower social judgement ratings than images of normal-weight dentists. Previous research in medicine reporting adverse social judgments made of over-weight HCPs does not apply to dental practitioners. Future research should focus on factors that may explain these findings. Dentists appear to be protected from the adverse effect of overweight on social judgments of their personal characteristics and on their health-promoting advice. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Adaptive Anchoring Model: How Static and Dynamic Presentations of Time Series Influence Judgments and Predictions.

PubMed

Kusev, Petko; van Schaik, Paul; Tsaneva-Atanasova, Krasimira; Juliusson, Asgeir; Chater, Nick

2018-01-01

When attempting to predict future events, people commonly rely on historical data. One psychological characteristic of judgmental forecasting of time series, established by research, is that when people make forecasts from series, they tend to underestimate future values for upward trends and overestimate them for downward ones, so-called trend-damping (modeled by anchoring on, and insufficient adjustment from, the average of recent time series values). Events in a time series can be experienced sequentially (dynamic mode), or they can also be retrospectively viewed simultaneously (static mode), not experienced individually in real time. In one experiment, we studied the influence of presentation mode (dynamic and static) on two sorts of judgment: (a) predictions of the next event (forecast) and (b) estimation of the average value of all the events in the presented series (average estimation). Participants' responses in dynamic mode were anchored on more recent events than in static mode for all types of judgment but with different consequences; hence, dynamic presentation improved prediction accuracy, but not estimation. These results are not anticipated by existing theoretical accounts; we develop and present an agent-based model-the adaptive anchoring model (ADAM)-to account for the difference between processing sequences of dynamically and statically presented stimuli (visually presented data). ADAM captures how variation in presentation mode produces variation in responses (and the accuracy of these responses) in both forecasting and judgment tasks. ADAM's model predictions for the forecasting and judgment tasks fit better with the response data than a linear-regression time series model. Moreover, ADAM outperformed autoregressive-integrated-moving-average (ARIMA) and exponential-smoothing models, while neither of these models accounts for people's responses on the average estimation task. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Cognitive Science published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Cognitive Science Society.

Human judgment vs. quantitative models for the management of ecological resources.

PubMed

Holden, Matthew H; Ellner, Stephen P

2016-07-01

Despite major advances in quantitative approaches to natural resource management, there has been resistance to using these tools in the actual practice of managing ecological populations. Given a managed system and a set of assumptions, translated into a model, optimization methods can be used to solve for the most cost-effective management actions. However, when the underlying assumptions are not met, such methods can potentially lead to decisions that harm the environment and economy. Managers who develop decisions based on past experience and judgment, without the aid of mathematical models, can potentially learn about the system and develop flexible management strategies. However, these strategies are often based on subjective criteria and equally invalid and often unstated assumptions. Given the drawbacks of both methods, it is unclear whether simple quantitative models improve environmental decision making over expert opinion. In this study, we explore how well students, using their experience and judgment, manage simulated fishery populations in an online computer game and compare their management outcomes to the performance of model-based decisions. We consider harvest decisions generated using four different quantitative models: (1) the model used to produce the simulated population dynamics observed in the game, with the values of all parameters known (as a control), (2) the same model, but with unknown parameter values that must be estimated during the game from observed data, (3) models that are structurally different from those used to simulate the population dynamics, and (4) a model that ignores age structure. Humans on average performed much worse than the models in cases 1-3, but in a small minority of scenarios, models produced worse outcomes than those resulting from students making decisions based on experience and judgment. When the models ignored age structure, they generated poorly performing management decisions, but still outperformed students using experience and judgment 66% of the time. © 2016 by the Ecological Society of America.

Do Social Conditions Affect Capuchin Monkeys' (Cebus apella) Choices in a Quantity Judgment Task?

PubMed

Beran, Michael J; Perdue, Bonnie M; Parrish, Audrey E; Evans, Theodore A

2012-01-01

Beran et al. (2012) reported that capuchin monkeys closely matched the performance of humans in a quantity judgment test in which information was incomplete but a judgment still had to be made. In each test session, subjects first made quantity judgments between two known options. Then, they made choices where only one option was visible. Both humans and capuchin monkeys were guided by past outcomes, as they shifted from selecting a known option to selecting an unknown option at the point at which the known option went from being more than the average rate of return to less than the average rate of return from earlier choices in the test session. Here, we expanded this assessment of what guides quantity judgment choice behavior in the face of incomplete information to include manipulations to the unselected quantity. We manipulated the unchosen set in two ways: first, we showed the monkeys what they did not get (the unchosen set), anticipating that "losses" would weigh heavily on subsequent trials in which the same known quantity was presented. Second, we sometimes gave the unchosen set to another monkey, anticipating that this social manipulation might influence the risk-taking responses of the focal monkey when faced with incomplete information. However, neither manipulation caused difficulty for the monkeys who instead continued to use the rational strategy of choosing known sets when they were as large as or larger than the average rate of return in the session, and choosing the unknown (riskier) set when the known set was not sufficiently large. As in past experiments, this was true across a variety of daily ranges of quantities, indicating that monkeys were not using some absolute quantity as a threshold for selecting (or not) the known set, but instead continued to use the daily average rate of return to determine when to choose the known versus the unknown quantity.

Modeling Confidence Judgments, Response Times, and Multiple Choices in Decision Making: Recognition Memory and Motion Discrimination

PubMed Central

Ratcliff, Roger; Starns, Jeffrey J.

2014-01-01

Confidence in judgments is a fundamental aspect of decision making, and tasks that collect confidence judgments are an instantiation of multiple-choice decision making. We present a model for confidence judgments in recognition memory tasks that uses a multiple-choice diffusion decision process with separate accumulators of evidence for the different confidence choices. The accumulator that first reaches its decision boundary determines which choice is made. Five algorithms for accumulating evidence were compared, and one of them produced proportions of responses for each of the choices and full response time distributions for each choice that closely matched empirical data. With this algorithm, an increase in the evidence in one accumulator is accompanied by a decrease in the others so that the total amount of evidence in the system is constant. Application of the model to the data from an earlier experiment (Ratcliff, McKoon, & Tindall, 1994) uncovered a relationship between the shapes of z-transformed receiver operating characteristics and the behavior of response time distributions. Both are explained in the model by the behavior of the decision boundaries. For generality, we also applied the decision model to a 3-choice motion discrimination task and found it accounted for data better than a competing class of models. The confidence model presents a coherent account of confidence judgments and response time that cannot be explained with currently popular signal detection theory analyses or dual-process models of recognition. PMID:23915088

Children’s imagination and belief: Prone to flights of fancy or grounded in reality?

PubMed Central

Lane, Jonathan D.; Ronfard, Samuel; Francioli, Stéphane P.; Harris, Paul L.

2016-01-01

Children ranging from 4 to 8 years (n = 39) reported whether they could imagine various improbable phenomena (e.g., a person making onion juice) as well as various impossible phenomena (e.g., a person turning an onion into a banana) and then described what they imagined. In their descriptions, children mentioned ordinary causes much more often than extraordinary causes. Descriptions of such ordinary causes were provided more often in relation to improbable (rather than impossible) phenomena. Following these imaginative efforts, children judged if each phenomenon could really happen. To check whether these reality judgments were affected by children’s attempts to imagine, a control group (n = 39) made identical reality judgments but were not first prompted to imagine each phenomenon. Children across the age range judged that impossible phenomena cannot really happen but, with increasing age, judged that improbable phenomena can happen. This pattern emerged in both the imagination and control groups; thus simply prompting children to imagine did not alter their reality judgments. However, within the imagination group, judgments that phenomena can really happen were associated with children’s claims to have successfully imagined the phenomena and with certain characteristics of their descriptions: imagining ordinary causes and imagining phenomena obtain. Results highlight close links between imagination and reality judgments in childhood. Contrary to the notion that young children have a rich imagination that readily defies reality, results indicate that their imagination is grounded in reality, as are their beliefs. PMID:27060420

"Ren-li", Reciprocity, Judgment, and the Question of Openness to the Other in the Confucian "Lunyu"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wu, Meiyao

2013-01-01

Here the author takes "ren"-humanity to be, as Confucius says, an underlying, ineffable, potentially universal human quality, and draws a distinction between three different types of moral capacity in the "Lunyu": the man of "ren's" capacity for "li"-proper interactions, his capacity for total…

Self Assessment for Socializing

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McDonald, Betty

2011-01-01

Socializing is an integral part of human relations and auger well for the human development. Defined as "the involvement of students in identifying standards and/or criteria to apply to their work and making judgments about the extent to which they have met these criteria and standards", self assessment by its nature teaches students how to…

No Compelling Evidence that Preferences for Facial Masculinity Track Changes in Women's Hormonal Status.

PubMed

Jones, Benedict C; Hahn, Amanda C; Fisher, Claire I; Wang, Hongyi; Kandrik, Michal; Han, Chengyang; Fasolt, Vanessa; Morrison, Danielle; Lee, Anthony J; Holzleitner, Iris J; O'Shea, Kieran J; Roberts, S Craig; Little, Anthony C; DeBruine, Lisa M

2018-06-01

Although widely cited as strong evidence that sexual selection has shaped human facial-attractiveness judgments, findings suggesting that women's preferences for masculine characteristics in men's faces are related to women's hormonal status are equivocal and controversial. Consequently, we conducted the largest-ever longitudinal study of the hormonal correlates of women's preferences for facial masculinity ( N = 584). Analyses showed no compelling evidence that preferences for facial masculinity were related to changes in women's salivary steroid hormone levels. Furthermore, both within-subjects and between-subjects comparisons showed no evidence that oral contraceptive use decreased masculinity preferences. However, women generally preferred masculinized over feminized versions of men's faces, particularly when assessing men's attractiveness for short-term, rather than long-term, relationships. Our results do not support the hypothesized link between women's preferences for facial masculinity and their hormonal status.

Single-Dose Testosterone Administration Impairs Cognitive Reflection in Men.

PubMed

Nave, Gideon; Nadler, Amos; Zava, David; Camerer, Colin

2017-10-01

In nonhumans, the sex steroid testosterone regulates reproductive behaviors such as fighting between males and mating. In humans, correlational studies have linked testosterone with aggression and disorders associated with poor impulse control, but the neuropsychological processes at work are poorly understood. Building on a dual-process framework, we propose a mechanism underlying testosterone's behavioral effects in humans: reduction in cognitive reflection. In the largest study of behavioral effects of testosterone administration to date, 243 men received either testosterone or placebo and took the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT), which estimates the capacity to override incorrect intuitive judgments with deliberate correct responses. Testosterone administration reduced CRT scores. The effect remained after we controlled for age, mood, math skills, whether participants believed they had received the placebo or testosterone, and the effects of 14 additional hormones, and it held for each of the CRT questions in isolation. Our findings suggest a mechanism underlying testosterone's diverse effects on humans' judgments and decision making and provide novel, clear, and testable predictions.

Blind image quality assessment based on aesthetic and statistical quality-aware features

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jenadeleh, Mohsen; Masaeli, Mohammad Masood; Moghaddam, Mohsen Ebrahimi

2017-07-01

The main goal of image quality assessment (IQA) methods is the emulation of human perceptual image quality judgments. Therefore, the correlation between objective scores of these methods with human perceptual scores is considered as their performance metric. Human judgment of the image quality implicitly includes many factors when assessing perceptual image qualities such as aesthetics, semantics, context, and various types of visual distortions. The main idea of this paper is to use a host of features that are commonly employed in image aesthetics assessment in order to improve blind image quality assessment (BIQA) methods accuracy. We propose an approach that enriches the features of BIQA methods by integrating a host of aesthetics image features with the features of natural image statistics derived from multiple domains. The proposed features have been used for augmenting five different state-of-the-art BIQA methods, which use statistical natural scene statistics features. Experiments were performed on seven benchmark image quality databases. The experimental results showed significant improvement of the accuracy of the methods.

Perception of male drinkers as a function of their alcoholic beverage preference.

PubMed

Curtin, L; Fisher, R D

1993-05-01

The present study examined perception of a man's likelihood of driving after drinking and his ability to do so as a function of his choice of beverage. Perceptions of his social characteristics were also examined. The sample was composed of 200 volunteer undergraduate psychology students. Equal numbers of male and female subjects read one of four vignettes which varied only in the male protagonist's choice of beverage: beer, wine, shots of distilled spirits, or cola. After reading the story, subjects answered multiple-choice questions about the character, tapping social judgments, situational judgments and drinking and driving judgments. Subject drinking habits were also assessed. The most notable result was the consistently positive perception of the protagonist portrayed as an abstainer. The lack of a consistent alcoholic beverage distinction implies that the beer-spirits double standard is far from a clear-cut discrimination. Possible explanations for results are discussed. This study questions the robustness of the alcoholic beverage type bias and reflects the need for future research.

Factors involved in making post-performance judgments in mathematics problem-solving.

PubMed

García Fernández, Trinidad; Kroesbergen, Evelyn; Rodríguez Pérez, Celestino; González-Castro, Paloma; González-Pienda, Julio A

2015-01-01

This study examines the impact of executive functions, affective-motivational variables related to mathematics, mathematics achievement and task characteristics on fifth and sixth graders’ calibration accuracy after completing two mathematical problems. A sample of 188 students took part in the study. They were divided into two groups as function of their judgment accuracy after completing the two tasks (accurate= 79, inaccurate= 109). Differences between these groups were examined. The discriminative value of these variables to predict group membership was analyzed, as well as the effect of age, gender, and grade level. The results indicated that accurate students showed better levels of executive functioning, and more positive feelings, beliefs, and motivation related to mathematics. They also spent more time on the tasks. Mathematics achievement, perceived usefulness of mathematics, and time spent on Task 1 significantly predicted group membership, classifying 71.3% of the sample correctly. These results support the relationship between academic achievement and calibration accuracy, suggesting the need to consider a wide range of factors when explaining performance judgments.

Mothers' and Graduate Trainees' Judgments of Children: Some Effects of Labeling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Seitz, Sue; Geske, David

1977-01-01

Twenty graduate students and 20 mothers randomly chosen from a university community were asked to rate retarded and nonretarded children (1-5 years old) on characteristics reflecting social competence and interpersonal attractiveness and also on a social distance scale. (Author)

Weighting Mean and Variability during Confidence Judgments

PubMed Central

de Gardelle, Vincent; Mamassian, Pascal

2015-01-01

Humans can not only perform some visual tasks with great precision, they can also judge how good they are in these tasks. However, it remains unclear how observers produce such metacognitive evaluations, and how these evaluations might be dissociated from the performance in the visual task. Here, we hypothesized that some stimulus variables could affect confidence judgments above and beyond their impact on performance. In a motion categorization task on moving dots, we manipulated the mean and the variance of the motion directions, to obtain a low-mean low-variance condition and a high-mean high-variance condition with matched performances. Critically, in terms of confidence, observers were not indifferent between these two conditions. Observers exhibited marked preferences, which were heterogeneous across individuals, but stable within each observer when assessed one week later. Thus, confidence and performance are dissociable and observers’ confidence judgments put different weights on the stimulus variables that limit performance. PMID:25793275

Two forms of touch perception in the human brain.

PubMed

Spitoni, Grazia Fernanda; Galati, Gaspare; Antonucci, Gabriella; Haggard, Patrick; Pizzamiglio, Luigi

2010-12-01

We compared the judgment of distance between two simultaneous tactile stimuli applied to different body parts, with judgment of intensity of skin contact of the very same stimulation. Results on normal subjects showed that both tasks bilaterally activate parietal and frontal areas. However, the evaluation of distances on the body surface selectively activated the angular gyrus and the temporo-parieto-occipital junction in the right hemisphere. The different involvement of the brain areas in the two tactile tasks is interpreted as the need for using a Mental Body Representation (MBR) in the distance task, while the judgment of the intensity of skin deflection can be performed without the mediation of the MBR. The present study suggests that the cognitive processes underlying the two tasks are supported by partially different brain networks. In particular, our results show that metric spatial evaluation is lateralized to the right hemisphere.

Fuzzy, crisp, and human logic in e-commerce marketing data mining

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hearn, Kelda L.; Zhang, Yanqing

2001-03-01

In today's business world there is an abundance of available data and a great need to make good use of it. Many businesses would benefit from examining customer habits and trends and making marketing and product decisions based on that analysis. However, the process of manually examining data and making sound decisions based on that data is time consuming and often impractical. Intelligent systems that can make judgments similar to human judgments are sorely needed. Thus, systems based on fuzzy logic present themselves as an option to be seriously considered. The work described in this paper attempts to make an initial comparison between fuzzy logic and more traditional hard or crisp logic to see which would make a better substitute for human intervention. In this particular case study, customers are classified into categories that indicate how desirable the customer would be as a prospect for marketing. This classification is based on a small set of customer data. The results from these investigations make it clear that fuzzy logic is more able to think for itself and make decisions that more closely match human decision and is therefore significantly closer to human logic than crisp logic.

Social Information Is Integrated into Value and Confidence Judgments According to Its Reliability.

PubMed

De Martino, Benedetto; Bobadilla-Suarez, Sebastian; Nouguchi, Takao; Sharot, Tali; Love, Bradley C

2017-06-21

How much we like something, whether it be a bottle of wine or a new film, is affected by the opinions of others. However, the social information that we receive can be contradictory and vary in its reliability. Here, we tested whether the brain incorporates these statistics when judging value and confidence. Participants provided value judgments about consumer goods in the presence of online reviews. We found that participants updated their initial value and confidence judgments in a Bayesian fashion, taking into account both the uncertainty of their initial beliefs and the reliability of the social information. Activity in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex tracked the degree of belief update. Analogous to how lower-level perceptual information is integrated, we found that the human brain integrates social information according to its reliability when judging value and confidence. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The field of perceptual decision making has shown that the sensory system integrates different sources of information according to their respective reliability, as predicted by a Bayesian inference scheme. In this work, we hypothesized that a similar coding scheme is implemented by the human brain to process social signals and guide complex, value-based decisions. We provide experimental evidence that the human prefrontal cortex's activity is consistent with a Bayesian computation that integrates social information that differs in reliability and that this integration affects the neural representation of value and confidence. Copyright © 2017 De Martino et al.

Experimental Design and Data Analysis in Receiver Operating Characteristic Studies: Lessons Learned from Reports in Radiology from 1997 to 20061

PubMed Central

Shiraishi, Junji; Pesce, Lorenzo L.; Metz, Charles E.; Doi, Kunio

2009-01-01

Purpose: To provide a broad perspective concerning the recent use of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis in medical imaging by reviewing ROC studies published in Radiology between 1997 and 2006 for experimental design, imaging modality, medical condition, and ROC paradigm. Materials and Methods: Two hundred ninety-five studies were obtained by conducting a literature search with PubMed with two criteria: publication in Radiology between 1997 and 2006 and occurrence of the phrase “receiver operating characteristic.” Studies returned by the query that were not diagnostic imaging procedure performance evaluations were excluded. Characteristics of the remaining studies were tabulated. Results: Two hundred thirty-three (79.0%) of the 295 studies reported findings based on observers' diagnostic judgments or objective measurements. Forty-three (14.6%) did not include human observers, with most of these reporting an evaluation of a computer-aided diagnosis system or functional data obtained with computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. The remaining 19 (6.4%) studies were classified as reviews or meta-analyses and were excluded from our subsequent analysis. Among the various imaging modalities, MR imaging (46.0%) and CT (25.7%) were investigated most frequently. Approximately 60% (144 of 233) of ROC studies with human observers published in Radiology included three or fewer observers. Conclusion: ROC analysis is widely used in radiologic research, confirming its fundamental role in assessing diagnostic performance. However, the ROC studies reported in Radiology were not always adequate to support clear and clinically relevant conclusions. © RSNA, 2009 Supplemental material: http://radiology.rsna.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1148/radiol.2533081632/-/DC1 PMID:19864510

Neural correlates of economic value and valuation context: an event-related potential study.

PubMed

Tyson-Carr, John; Kokmotou, Katerina; Soto, Vicente; Cook, Stephanie; Fallon, Nicholas; Giesbrecht, Timo; Stancak, Andrej

2018-05-01

The value of environmental cues and internal states is continuously evaluated by the human brain, and it is this subjective value that largely guides decision making. The present study aimed to investigate the initial value attribution process, specifically the spatiotemporal activation patterns associated with values and valuation context, using electroencephalographic event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants completed a stimulus rating task in which everyday household items marketed up to a price of £4 were evaluated with respect to their desirability or material properties. The subjective values of items were evaluated as willingness to pay (WTP) in a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction. On the basis of the individual's subjective WTP values, the stimuli were divided into high- and low-value items. Source dipole modeling was applied to estimate the cortical sources underlying ERP components modulated by subjective values (high vs. low WTP) and the evaluation condition (value-relevant vs. value-irrelevant judgments). Low-WTP items and value-relevant judgments both led to a more pronounced N2 visual evoked potential at right frontal scalp electrodes. Source activity in right anterior insula and left orbitofrontal cortex was larger for low vs. high WTP at ∼200 ms. At a similar latency, source activity in right anterior insula and right parahippocampal gyrus was larger for value-relevant vs. value-irrelevant judgments. A stronger response for low- than high-value items in anterior insula and orbitofrontal cortex appears to reflect aversion to low-valued item acquisition, which in an auction experiment would be perceived as a relative loss. This initial low-value bias occurs automatically irrespective of the valuation context. NEW & NOTEWORTHY We demonstrate the spatiotemporal characteristics of the brain valuation process using event-related potentials and willingness to pay as a measure of subjective value. The N2 component resolves values of objects with a bias toward low-value items. The value-related changes of the N2 component are part of an automatic valuation process.

Modelling Influence and Opinion Evolution in Online Collective Behaviour

PubMed Central

Gend, Pascal; Rentfrow, Peter J.; Hendrickx, Julien M.; Blondel, Vincent D.

2016-01-01

Opinion evolution and judgment revision are mediated through social influence. Based on a large crowdsourced in vitro experiment (n = 861), it is shown how a consensus model can be used to predict opinion evolution in online collective behaviour. It is the first time the predictive power of a quantitative model of opinion dynamics is tested against a real dataset. Unlike previous research on the topic, the model was validated on data which did not serve to calibrate it. This avoids to favor more complex models over more simple ones and prevents overfitting. The model is parametrized by the influenceability of each individual, a factor representing to what extent individuals incorporate external judgments. The prediction accuracy depends on prior knowledge on the participants’ past behaviour. Several situations reflecting data availability are compared. When the data is scarce, the data from previous participants is used to predict how a new participant will behave. Judgment revision includes unpredictable variations which limit the potential for prediction. A first measure of unpredictability is proposed. The measure is based on a specific control experiment. More than two thirds of the prediction errors are found to occur due to unpredictability of the human judgment revision process rather than to model imperfection. PMID:27336834

Sex differences present in auditory looming perception, absent in auditory recession

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Neuhoff, John G.; Seifritz, Erich

2005-04-01

When predicting the arrival time of an approaching sound source, listeners typically exhibit an anticipatory bias that affords a margin of safety in dealing with looming objects. The looming bias has been demonstrated behaviorally in the laboratory and in the field (Neuhoff 1998, 2001), neurally in fMRI studies (Seifritz et al., 2002), and comparatively in non-human primates (Ghazanfar, Neuhoff, and Logothetis, 2002). In the current work, male and female listeners were presented with three-dimensional looming sound sources and asked to press a button when the source was at the point of closest approach. Females exhibited a significantly greater anticipatory bias than males. Next, listeners were presented with sounds that either approached or receded and then stopped at three different terminal distances. Consistent with the time-to-arrival judgments, female terminal distance judgments for looming sources were significantly closer than male judgments. However, there was no difference between male and female terminal distance judgments for receding sounds. Taken together with the converging behavioral, neural, and comparative evidence, the current results illustrate the environmental salience of looming sounds and suggest that the anticipatory bias for auditory looming may have been shaped by evolution to provide a selective advantage in dealing with looming objects.

Contrasting Semantic versus Inhibitory Processing in the Angular Gyrus: An fMRI Study.

PubMed

Lewis, Gwyneth A; Poeppel, David; Murphy, Gregory L

2018-06-06

Recent studies of semantic memory have focused on dissociating the neural bases of two foundational components of human thought: taxonomic categories, which group similar objects like dogs and seals based on features, and thematic categories, which group dissimilar objects like dogs and leashes based on events. While there is emerging consensus that taxonomic concepts are represented in the anterior temporal lobe, there is disagreement over whether thematic concepts are represented in the angular gyrus (AG). We previously found AG sensitivity to both kinds of concepts; however, some accounts suggest that such activity reflects inhibition of irrelevant information rather than thematic activation. To test these possibilities, an fMRI experiment investigated both types of conceptual relations in the AG during two semantic judgment tasks. Each task trained participants to give negative responses (inhibition) or positive responses (activation) to word pairs based on taxonomic and thematic criteria of relatedness. Results showed AG engagement during both negative judgments and thematic judgments, but not during positive judgments about taxonomic pairs. Together, the results suggest that activity in the AG reflects functions that include both thematic (but not taxonomic) processing and inhibiting irrelevant semantic information.

Sociocultural patterning of neural activity during self-reflection

PubMed Central

Ma, Yina; Bang, Dan; Wang, Chenbo; Allen, Micah; Frith, Chris; Roepstorff, Andreas; Han, Shihui

2014-01-01

Western cultures encourage self-construals independent of social contexts, whereas East Asian cultures foster interdependent self-construals that rely on how others perceive the self. How are culturally specific self-construals mediated by the human brain? Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we monitored neural responses from adults in East Asian (Chinese) and Western (Danish) cultural contexts during judgments of social, mental and physical attributes of themselves and public figures to assess cultural influences on self-referential processing of personal attributes in different dimensions. We found that judgments of self vs a public figure elicited greater activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in Danish than in Chinese participants regardless of attribute dimensions for judgments. However, self-judgments of social attributes induced greater activity in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) in Chinese than in Danish participants. Moreover, the group difference in TPJ activity was mediated by a measure of a cultural value (i.e. interdependence of self-construal). Our findings suggest that individuals in different sociocultural contexts may learn and/or adopt distinct strategies for self-reflection by changing the weight of the mPFC and TPJ in the social brain network. PMID:22956678

ALE meta-analysis on facial judgments of trustworthiness and attractiveness.

PubMed

Bzdok, D; Langner, R; Caspers, S; Kurth, F; Habel, U; Zilles, K; Laird, A; Eickhoff, Simon B

2011-01-01

Faces convey a multitude of information in social interaction, among which are trustworthiness and attractiveness. Humans process and evaluate these two dimensions very quickly due to their great adaptive importance. Trustworthiness evaluation is crucial for modulating behavior toward strangers; attractiveness evaluation is a crucial factor for mate selection, possibly providing cues for reproductive success. As both dimensions rapidly guide social behavior, this study tests the hypothesis that both judgments may be subserved by overlapping brain networks. To this end, we conducted an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis on 16 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies pertaining to facial judgments of trustworthiness and attractiveness. Throughout combined, individual, and conjunction analyses on those two facial judgments, we observed consistent maxima in the amygdala which corroborates our initial hypothesis. This finding supports the contemporary paradigm shift extending the amygdala's role from dominantly processing negative emotional stimuli to processing socially relevant ones. We speculate that the amygdala filters sensory information with evolutionarily conserved relevance. Our data suggest that such a role includes not only "fight-or-flight" decisions but also social behaviors with longer term pay-off schedules, e.g., trustworthiness and attractiveness evaluation. © Springer-Verlag 2010

Development and evaluation of masterbody forms for 3- and 6-year-old-child dummies.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1976-07-01

This study defines and evaluates the size, shape, and mass distribution characteristics of masterbody forms representative of 3-year-old and 6-year-old U.S. children. Based on the author's collective judgment of available data, 98 anthropometric dime...

Climate Change Education in Formal Settings, K-14: A Workshop Summary

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beatty, Alexandra

2012-01-01

Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems. Each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted commits us to further change and greater risks. In the judgment of the Committee on America's Climate Choices, the environmental, economic, and…

Evidence Evaluation: Measure "Z" Corresponds to Human Utility Judgments Better than Measure "L" and Optimal-Experimental-Design Models

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rusconi, Patrice; Marelli, Marco; D'Addario, Marco; Russo, Selena; Cherubini, Paolo

2014-01-01

Evidence evaluation is a crucial process in many human activities, spanning from medical diagnosis to impression formation. The present experiments investigated which, if any, normative model best conforms to people's intuition about the value of the obtained evidence. Psychologists, epistemologists, and philosophers of science have proposed…

ADJUSTING DEVELOPMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY CRITERIA

EPA Science Inventory

Sustainability in any ecosystem is conditioned by properties established by nature. Intervention into ecosystems for the purposes of developing the built/socio-physical environment involves value judgments regarding human well-being. Therefore, if development is sustainable, it m...

Economic Profits Enhance Trust, Perceived Integrity and Memory of Fairness in Interpersonal Judgment

PubMed Central

Eto, Keisuke; Watanabe, Shigeru; Kawabata, Hideaki

2012-01-01

Does money lead to trust in personality and intention of others? Humans have a strong tendency to judge the intention of others from their sequent behaviors. In general, people trust others who behave fairly, but not always. Here we show that judgments of both intentional aspects and memory of intentional behavior are automatically influenced by unintentional benefits from the behaviors of others. We conducted a reward-manipulated and repeated trust game by using real participants interacting with moving image partners on a computer screen. The participants assessed likability, trustworthiness, and perceived integrity of the partners in pre- and post-game questionnaires. The results of judgments of all three dimensions and the memory of frequency of each partner's fair behavior (sharing) were strongly influenced by profitability in the trust game, even though all partners shared 75% of the profit and participants were told that profitability was randomly assigned to each partner. Furthermore, these effects were moderated by the gender of the participants: males were more sensitive to monetary profits than were females. The results reveal that humans automatically trust, approve the integrity of, and recall well the fair behavior of others who provide affectively positive outcomes such as monetary profits. We call this phenomenon the “affect ripple effect”. PMID:23251552

The organization of verbs of knowing: evidence for cultural commonality and variation in theory of mind.

PubMed

Schwanenflugel, P J; Martin, M; Takahashi, T

1999-09-01

Cross-cultural commonality and variation in folk theories of knowing were studied by examining the organization of verbs of knowing in German and Japanese adults. German and Japanese adults performed one of two tasks: a similarity judgment task and an attribute rating task. Organizational structure was assessed for the similarity judgment task using multidimensional scaling and additive similarity tree analyses. The attribute rating task was used to describe the characteristics that organized the dimensions and clusters emerging from the scaling solutions. The folk theory of mind displayed was an information processing model with constructive components, although the constructive aspects were more salient for the Germans than for the Japanese.

The Clinical Threat Assessment of the Lone-Actor Terrorist.

PubMed

Meloy, J Reid; Genzman, Jacqueline

2016-12-01

The Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18) is a structured professional judgment instrument for the assessment of individuals who present a concern for lone-actor terrorism. It consists of eight proximal warning behaviors and 10 distal characteristics. Previous research has demonstrated its interrater reliability and some concurrent and postdictive validity. In this article, TRAP-18 is retrospectively applied to the case of US Army psychiatrist and jihadist Malik Nidal Hasan, who committed a mass murder at Fort Hood, Texas in 2009. The strengths and limitations of TRAP-18 as a structured professional judgment instrument for mental health clinicians are discussed, and clinical risk management suggestions are made. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Between-domain relations of students' academic emotions and their judgments of school domain similarity

PubMed Central

Goetz, Thomas; Haag, Ludwig; Lipnevich, Anastasiya A.; Keller, Melanie M.; Frenzel, Anne C.; Collier, Antonie P. M.

2014-01-01

With the aim to deepen our understanding of the between-domain relations of academic emotions, a series of three studies was conducted. We theorized that between-domain relations of trait (i.e., habitual) emotions reflected students' judgments of domain similarities, whereas between-domain relations of state (i.e., momentary) emotions did not. This supposition was based on the accessibility model of emotional self-report, according to which individuals' beliefs tend to strongly impact trait, but not state emotions. The aim of Study 1 (interviews; N = 40; 8th and 11th graders) was to gather salient characteristics of academic domains from students' perspective. In Study 2 (N = 1709; 8th and 11th graders) the 13 characteristics identified in Study 1 were assessed along with academic emotions in four different domains (mathematics, physics, German, and English) using a questionnaire-based trait assessment. With respect to the same domains, state emotions were assessed in Study 3 (N = 121; 8th and 11th graders) by employing an experience sampling approach. In line with our initial assumptions, between-domain relations of trait but not state academic emotions reflected between-domain relations of domain characteristics. Implications for research and practice are discussed. PMID:25374547

The role of domain expertise and judgment in dealing with unexpected events

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kochan, Janeen Adrion

Unexpected events, particularly those creating surprise, interrupt ongoing mental and behavioral processes, creating an increased potential for unwanted outcomes to the situation. Human reactions to unexpected events vary. One can hypothesize a number of reasons for this variation, including level of domain expertise, previous experience with similar events, emotional connotation, and the contextual surround of the event. Whereas interrupting ongoing activities and focusing attention temporarily on a surprising event may be a useful evolutionary response to a threatening situation, the same process may be maladaptive in today's highly dynamic world. The purpose of this study was to investigate how different aspects of expertise affected one's ability to detect and react to an unexpected event. It was hypothesized that there were two general types of expertise, domain expertise and judgment (Hammond, 2000), which influenced one's performance on dealing with an unexpected event. The goal of the research was to parse out the relative contribution of domain expertise, so the role of judgment could be revealed. The research questions for this study were: (a) Can we identify specific knowledges and skills which enhance one's ability to deal with unexpected events? (b) Are these skills "automatically" included in domain expertise? (c) How does domain expertise improve or deter one's reaction and response to unexpected events? (d) What role does judgment play in responding to surprise? The general hypothesis was that good judgment would influence the process of surprise at different stages and in different ways than would domain expertise. The conclusions from this research indicated that good judgment had a significant positive effect in helping pilots deal with unexpected events. This was most pronounced when domain expertise was low.

Evidence for different processes involved in the effects of nontemporal stimulus size and numerical digit value on duration judgments.

PubMed

Rammsayer, Thomas H; Verner, Martin

2016-05-01

Perceived duration has been shown to be positively related to task-irrelevant, nontemporal stimulus magnitude. To account for this finding, Walsh's (2003) A Theory of Magnitude (ATOM) model suggests that magnitude of time is not differentiated from magnitude of other nontemporal stimulus characteristics and collectively processed by a generalized magnitude system. In Experiment 1, we investigated the combined effects of stimulus size and numerical quantity, as two nontemporal stimulus dimensions covered by the ATOM model, on duration judgments. Participants were required to reproduce the duration of target intervals marked by Arabic digits varying in physical size and numerical value. While the effect of stimulus size was effectively moderated by target duration, the effect of numerical value appeared to require attentional resources directed to the numerical value in order to become effective. Experiment 2 was designed to further elucidate the mediating influence of attention on the effect of numerical value on duration judgments. An effect of numerical value was only observed when participants' attention was directed to digit value, but not when participants were required to pay special attention to digit parity. While the ATOM model implies a common metrics and generalized magnitude processing for time, size, and quantity, the present findings provided converging evidence for the notion of two qualitatively different mechanisms underlying the effects of nontemporal stimulus size and numerical value on duration judgments. Furthermore, our data challenge the implicit common assumption that the effect of numerical value on duration judgments represents a continuously increasing function of digit magnitude.

Do People Agree on What Makes One Feel Loved? A Cognitive Psychometric Approach to the Consensus on Felt Love.

PubMed

Oravecz, Zita; Muth, Chelsea; Vandekerckhove, Joachim

2016-01-01

This pragmatic study examines love as a mode of communication. Our focus is on the receiver side: what makes an individual feel loved and how felt love is defined through daily interactions. Our aim is to explore everyday life scenarios in which people might experience love, and to consider people's converging and diverging judgments about which scenarios indicate felt love. We apply a cognitive psychometric approach to quantify a receiver's ability to detect, understand, and know that they are loved. Through crowd-sourcing, we surveyed lay participants about whether various scenarios were indicators of felt love. We thus quantify these responses to make inference about consensus judgments of felt love, measure individual levels of agreement with consensus, and assess individual response styles. More specifically, we (1) derive consensus judgments on felt love; (2) describe its characteristics in qualitative and quantitative terms, (3) explore individual differences in both (a) participant agreement with consensus, and (b) participant judgment when uncertain about shared knowledge, and (4) test whether individual differences can be meaningfully linked to explanatory variables. Results indicate that people converge towards a shared cognitive model of felt love. Conversely, respondents showed heterogeneity in knowledge of consensus, and in dealing with uncertainty. We found that, when facing uncertainty, female respondents and people in relationships more frequently judge scenarios as indicators of felt love. Moreover, respondents from smaller households tend to know more about consensus judgments of felt love, while respondents from larger households are more willing to guess when unsure of consensus.

Do People Agree on What Makes One Feel Loved? A Cognitive Psychometric Approach to the Consensus on Felt Love

PubMed Central

Oravecz, Zita; Muth, Chelsea; Vandekerckhove, Joachim

2016-01-01

This pragmatic study examines love as a mode of communication. Our focus is on the receiver side: what makes an individual feel loved and how felt love is defined through daily interactions. Our aim is to explore everyday life scenarios in which people might experience love, and to consider people’s converging and diverging judgments about which scenarios indicate felt love. We apply a cognitive psychometric approach to quantify a receiver’s ability to detect, understand, and know that they are loved. Through crowd-sourcing, we surveyed lay participants about whether various scenarios were indicators of felt love. We thus quantify these responses to make inference about consensus judgments of felt love, measure individual levels of agreement with consensus, and assess individual response styles. More specifically, we (1) derive consensus judgments on felt love; (2) describe its characteristics in qualitative and quantitative terms, (3) explore individual differences in both (a) participant agreement with consensus, and (b) participant judgment when uncertain about shared knowledge, and (4) test whether individual differences can be meaningfully linked to explanatory variables. Results indicate that people converge towards a shared cognitive model of felt love. Conversely, respondents showed heterogeneity in knowledge of consensus, and in dealing with uncertainty. We found that, when facing uncertainty, female respondents and people in relationships more frequently judge scenarios as indicators of felt love. Moreover, respondents from smaller households tend to know more about consensus judgments of felt love, while respondents from larger households are more willing to guess when unsure of consensus. PMID:27035569

Grammaticality, Acceptability, and Probability: A Probabilistic View of Linguistic Knowledge.

PubMed

Lau, Jey Han; Clark, Alexander; Lappin, Shalom

2017-07-01

The question of whether humans represent grammatical knowledge as a binary condition on membership in a set of well-formed sentences, or as a probabilistic property has been the subject of debate among linguists, psychologists, and cognitive scientists for many decades. Acceptability judgments present a serious problem for both classical binary and probabilistic theories of grammaticality. These judgements are gradient in nature, and so cannot be directly accommodated in a binary formal grammar. However, it is also not possible to simply reduce acceptability to probability. The acceptability of a sentence is not the same as the likelihood of its occurrence, which is, in part, determined by factors like sentence length and lexical frequency. In this paper, we present the results of a set of large-scale experiments using crowd-sourced acceptability judgments that demonstrate gradience to be a pervasive feature in acceptability judgments. We then show how one can predict acceptability judgments on the basis of probability by augmenting probabilistic language models with an acceptability measure. This is a function that normalizes probability values to eliminate the confounding factors of length and lexical frequency. We describe a sequence of modeling experiments with unsupervised language models drawn from state-of-the-art machine learning methods in natural language processing. Several of these models achieve very encouraging levels of accuracy in the acceptability prediction task, as measured by the correlation between the acceptability measure scores and mean human acceptability values. We consider the relevance of these results to the debate on the nature of grammatical competence, and we argue that they support the view that linguistic knowledge can be intrinsically probabilistic. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Gender differences in the neural underpinning of perceiving and appreciating the beauty of the body.

PubMed

Cazzato, Valentina; Mele, Sonia; Urgesi, Cosimo

2014-05-01

Although previous studies have suggested a certain degree of right hemisphere dominance for the response of extrastriate body area (EBA) during body perception, recent evidence suggests that this functional lateralization may differ between men and women. It is unknown, however, whether and how gender differences in body perception affect appreciating the beauty of the body of conspecifics. Here, we applied five 10-Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) pulses over left and right EBA and over the vertex to investigate the contribution of visual body representations in the two hemispheres on esthetic body perception. Female and male healthy volunteers were requested to judge how much they liked opposite- and same-gender virtual model bodies or to judge their weight, thus allowing us to compare the effects of right- and left-EBA rTMS on esthetic (liking) and perceptual (weight) judgments of human bodies. The analysis of the esthetic judgments provided by women revealed that right-EBA rTMS increased the liking judgments of opposite- but not same-gender models, as compared to both vertex and left EBA stimulation. Conversely, in men the liking judgments of opposite-gender models decreased after virtual disruption of both right and left EBA as compared to vertex stimulation. Crucially, no significant effect was found for the perceptual task, showing that left- and right-EBA rTMS did not affect weight perception. Our results provide evidence of gender difference in the hemispheric asymmetry of EBA in the esthetic processing of human bodies, with women showing stronger right hemisphere dominance in comparison with men. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Towards an understanding of adult judgments of synergistic health benefits.

PubMed

Dawson, Ian G J; Dohle, Simone

2016-02-01

Numerous scientific studies show that certain combinations of dietary and/or lifestyle factors produce health benefits which are greater than the sum of the benefits associated with each factor alone. To address an existing knowledge gap, we assessed the extent to which individuals understand that certain combinations present these 'synergistic health benefits'. Health benefit judgments were obtained from lay adults for a range of dietary and/or lifestyle combinations that have been found to present synergistic benefits. Association between these judgments and socio-cognitive characteristics such as numeracy, education, and health interest (HI) were examined. Three hundred and fifty-two Swiss adults were presented with a description of one of eight synergistically beneficial combinations. Each participant provided a categorical benefit judgment (i.e., subadditive, additive, or synergistic) for the combination and explained the cognitive reasoning underlying their judgment. Participants completed measures of numeracy and HI. The proportion of combinations judged to present a synergistic benefit was modest for 'macro-level' combinations (e.g., diet and exercise), but low for 'micro-level' combinations (e.g., two phytochemicals). Cognitive reasoning data showed that a higher proportion of judgments for micro-level (cf. macro-level) combinations were based on greater subjective epistemic uncertainty. Higher interest in health was associated with a better understanding of synergistic benefits, but numeracy and education level were not. There is considerable scope to improve the extent to which lay adults understand that specific combination of diet and lifestyle behaviours can synergistically benefit their health. Our results enable us to make informed recommendations for public health interventions. What is already known on this subject? Combining certain dietary and/or lifestyle factors can result in synergistic health benefits. People could maintain/enhance their health by combining these synergistic combinations. No previous studies have assessed the extent to which people understand that certain factors produce synergistic health benefits. What does this study add? This is the first study to identify that lay awareness of synergistic health benefits could be substantially improved. Neither education level nor numeracy moderate judgments of synergistic benefits, but health interest does. Individuals better understand that broad lifestyle behaviours (cf. specific foods and phytochemicals) are synergistic. © 2015 The British Psychological Society.

COUNTERACTING ECOSYSTEM LOSSES DUE TO DEVELOPMENT

EPA Science Inventory

Sustainability in any ecosystem is conditioned by properties established by nature. Intervention into ecosystems for the purposes of developing the built/socio-physical environment involves value judgments regarding human well-being. Therefore, if development is sustainable, it m...

Mental Health: The Search for a Definition

PubMed Central

Tucker, D. K.; le Riche, W. Harding

1964-01-01

Various attempts to define the concept of “mental health” are examined. Value judgments permeate much mental health literature. Their use militates against obtaining an objective definition, capable of universal application. The acceptance of a definition including a value judgment implies taking an attitude toward a particular society and its social ideals. Present limits of competence only allow us to describe “mental health” conceptually. Such “untechnical” proposals are liable to be confused with “technical” (“scientific”) propositions. Multiple criteria are likely to be helpful in improving our concept of “mental health”. The intrusion of morals into the world of health is discussed as part of the contemporary intellectual dilemma of determined human behaviour versus human responsibility and the reality of moral values. It is suggested that “mental health” might consist simply of an individual's possession of insight into his own personality, combined with an honest recognition and acceptance of his condition. PMID:14145470

Using hybrid magnetic bearings to completely suspend the impeller of a ventricular assist device.

PubMed

Khanwilkar, P; Olsen, D; Bearnson, G; Allaire, P; Maslen, E; Flack, R; Long, J

1996-06-01

Clinically available blood pumps and those under development suffer from poor mechanical reliability and poor biocompatibility related to anatomic fit, hemolysis, and thrombosis. To alleviate these problems concurrently in a long-term device is a substantial challenge. Based on testing the performance of a prototype, and on our judgment of desired characteristics, we have configured an innovative ventricular assist device, the CFVAD4, for long-term use. The design process and its outcome, the CFVAD4 system configuration, is described. To provide unprecedented reliability and biocompatibility, magnetic bearings completely suspend the rotating pump impeller. The CFVAD4 uses a combination of passive (permanent) and active (electric) magnetic bearings, a mixed flow impeller, and a slotless 3-phase brushless DC motor. These components are shaped, oriented, and integrated to provide a compact, implantable, pancake-shaped unit for placement in the left upper abdominal quadrant of adult humans.

Friction properties of biological functional materials: PVDF membranes.

PubMed

Chen, Long; Di, Changan; Chen, Xuguang; Li, Zhengzhi; Luo, Jia

2017-01-02

Touch is produced by sensations that include approaching, sliding, pressing, and temperature. This concept has become a target of research in biotechnology, especially in the field of bionic biology. This study measured sliding and pressing with traditional tactile sensors in order to improve a machine operator's judgment of surface roughness. Based on the theory of acoustic emission, this study combined polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) with a sonic transducer to produce tactile sensors that can detect surface roughness. Friction between PVDF films and experimental materials generated tiny acoustic signals that were transferred into electrical signals through a sonic transducer. The characteristics of the acoustic signals for the various materials were then analyzed. The results suggest that this device can effectively distinguish among different objects based on roughness. Tactile sensors designed using this principle and structure function very similarly to the human body in recognizing the surface of an object.

Cognition and Language: From Apprehension to Judgment -- Quantum Conjectures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arecchi, F. T.

2014-12-01

We critically discuss the two moments of human cognition, namely, apprehension (A), whereby a coherent perception emerges from the recruitment of neuronal groups, and judgment (B), that entails the comparison of two apprehensions acquired at different times, coded in a suitable language and recalled by memory. (B) requires selfconsciousness, in so far as the agent who expresses the judgment must be aware that the two apprehensions are submitted to his/her own scrutiny and that it is his/her duty to extract a mutual relation. Since (B) lasts around 3 seconds, the semantic value of the pieces under comparison must be decided within this time. This implies a fast search of the memory contents. As a fact, exploring human subjects with sequences of simple words, we find evidence of a limited time window, corresponding to the memory retrieval of a linguistic item in order to match it with the next one in a text flow (be it literary, or musical,or figurative). Classifying the information content of spike trains, an uncertainty relation emerges between the bit size of a word and its duration. This uncertainty is ruled by a constant that can be given a numerical value and that has nothing to do with Planck's constant. A "quantum conjecture" in the above sense might explain the onset and decay of the memory window connecting successive pieces of a linguistic text. The conjecture here formulated is applicable to other reported evidences of quantum effects in human cognitive processes, so far lacking a plausible framework since no efforts to assign a quantum constant have been associated.

Rumor diffusion in heterogeneous networks by considering the individuals' subjective judgment and diverse characteristics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Jing; Zhu, He

2018-06-01

In this study, we propose a novel rumor spreading model in consideration of the individuals' subjective judgment and diverse characteristics. To reflect the diversity of the individuals' characteristics, we introduce two probability distribution functions, which could be chosen arbitrarily or given by empirical data, to characterize individuals' mastering degree of knowledge with respect to the domain of a specific rumor and individuals' rationality degree. Different from existing models, no two persons in our model are identical, and each individual can judge the authenticity of the information, e.g., rumors, with his distinctive characteristics. In addition, by means of the mean-field method, we establish the expression of the dynamics of the rumor propagation in the complex heterogeneous networks and derive the rumor spreading threshold. Through the theoretical analysis, we find that the threshold is independent of the forms of the two introduced functions. Furthermore, we prove the stability of the rumor-free equilibrium set E0. That is if and only if R0 < 1, the rumor-free equilibrium set E0 is globally asymptotically stable. Finally, we conduct a series of numerical simulations to verify the theoretical results and comprehensively illustrate the evolution of the model. The simulation results show that because of the diversity of individuals' characteristics, it becomes more difficult for the rumor to disseminate in the networks and the higher the mean of knowledge and the mean of rationality are, the more time it will take for the model to evolve to the steady state.

Mindfulness and Discussing "Thorny" Issues in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Alexakos, Konstantinos; Pride, Leah D.; Amat, Arnau; Tsetsakos, Panagiota; Lee, Kristi J.; Paylor-Smith, Christian; Zapata, Corinna; Wright, Shequana; Smith, Theila

2016-01-01

Being in the moment, showing compassion, being non-judgmental, acknowledging deep emotional challenges without getting stuck: these are mindfulness characteristics important to us as teachers, yet not often included in teacher preparation. These concerns become magnified when we focus on difficult knowledge and thorny issues, like topics related…

Imitative Production of Rising Speech Intonation in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Recipients

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Peng, Shu-Chen; Tomblin, J. Bruce; Spencer, Linda J.; Hurtig, Richard R.

2007-01-01

Purpose: This study investigated the acoustic characteristics of pediatric cochlear implant (CI) recipients' imitative production of rising speech intonation, in relation to the perceptual judgments by listeners with normal hearing (NH). Method: Recordings of a yes-no interrogative utterance imitated by 24 prelingually deafened children with a CI…

Evaluation of Interruption Behavior by Naive Encoders.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coon, Christine A.; Schwanenflugel, Paula J.

1996-01-01

Determines the characteristics of interactions that influence judgments of interruption behavior in naive observers. Asks subjects to decide whether an example of an interruption was an interruption and then rate it in terms of how "good" or "bad" it was. Finds that naive observers use some of the same features described in…

Justice as a Dynamic Construct: Effects of Individual Trajectories on Distal Work Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hausknecht, John P.; Sturman, Michael C.; Roberson, Quinetta M.

2011-01-01

Despite an amassing organizational justice literature, few studies have directly addressed the temporal patterning of justice judgments and the effects that changes in these perceptions have on important work outcomes. Drawing from Gestalt characteristics theory (Ariely & Carmon, 2000, 2003), we examine the concept of justice trajectories…

White American Pre-Service Teachers' Judgments of Anglo and Hispanic Student Behaviors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chan, Kam Chi; Lam, Shui-Fong; Covault, Jacquelyn M.

2009-01-01

Previous research has linked ethical caring, high expectations, and instructional practices relevant to student culture as three fundamental characteristics of exemplary teachers for children from ethnic minority groups in the American school system. Praise and criticism, as overt behaviors of care and expectations, were examined in a…

Judging Mental Disorder in Youths: Effects of Client, Clinician, and Contextual Differences

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pottick, Kathleen J.; Kirk, Stuart A.; Hsieh, Derek K.; Tian, Xin

2007-01-01

Using a vignette-based, mailed survey of 1,401 experienced psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, the authors examined how clients' race/ethnicity and clinicians' professional and social characteristics affect their judgment of mental disorder among antisocially behaving youths. Vignettes described problematic behaviors meeting the …

Skeptics on the Internet: Teaching Students to Read Critically

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ostenson, Jonathan

2009-01-01

There are three strategies for critically evaluating information on the Internet: (1) examining initial markers (superficial characteristics of a website that can help make an initial judgment); (2) corroborating information (looking to other trusted sources to verify information); and (3) determining author bias (analyzing the author's intent for…

How Haptic Size Sensations Improve Distance Perception

PubMed Central

Battaglia, Peter W.; Kersten, Daniel; Schrater, Paul R.

2011-01-01

Determining distances to objects is one of the most ubiquitous perceptual tasks in everyday life. Nevertheless, it is challenging because the information from a single image confounds object size and distance. Though our brains frequently judge distances accurately, the underlying computations employed by the brain are not well understood. Our work illuminates these computions by formulating a family of probabilistic models that encompass a variety of distinct hypotheses about distance and size perception. We compare these models' predictions to a set of human distance judgments in an interception experiment and use Bayesian analysis tools to quantitatively select the best hypothesis on the basis of its explanatory power and robustness over experimental data. The central question is: whether, and how, human distance perception incorporates size cues to improve accuracy. Our conclusions are: 1) humans incorporate haptic object size sensations for distance perception, 2) the incorporation of haptic sensations is suboptimal given their reliability, 3) humans use environmentally accurate size and distance priors, 4) distance judgments are produced by perceptual “posterior sampling”. In addition, we compared our model's estimated sensory and motor noise parameters with previously reported measurements in the perceptual literature and found good correspondence between them. Taken together, these results represent a major step forward in establishing the computational underpinnings of human distance perception and the role of size information. PMID:21738457

Time Frame Affects Vantage Point in Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Memory: Evidence from Response Latencies

PubMed Central

Karylowski, Jerzy J.; Mrozinski, Blazej

2017-01-01

Previous research suggests that, with the passage of time, representations of self in episodic memory become less dependent on their initial (internal) vantage point and shift toward an external perspective that is normally characteristic of how other people are represented. The present experiment examined this phenomenon in both episodic and semantic autobiographical memory using latency of self-judgments as a measure of accessibility of the internal vs. the external perspective. Results confirmed that in the case of representations of the self retrieved from recent autobiographical memories, trait-judgments regarding unobservable self-aspects (internal perspective) were faster than trait judgments regarding observable self-aspects (external perspective). Yet, in the case of self-representations retrieved from memories of a more distant past, judgments regarding observable self-aspects were faster. Those results occurred for both self-representations retrieved from episodic memory and for representations retrieved from the semantic memory. In addition, regardless of the effect of time, greater accessibility of unobservable (vs. observable) self-aspects was associated with the episodic rather than semantic autobiographical memory. Those results were modified by neither declared trait’s self-descriptiveness (yes vs. no responses) nor by its desirability (highly desirable vs. moderately desirable traits). Implications for compatibility between how self and others are represented and for the role of self in social perception are discussed. PMID:28473793

Time Frame Affects Vantage Point in Episodic and Semantic Autobiographical Memory: Evidence from Response Latencies.

PubMed

Karylowski, Jerzy J; Mrozinski, Blazej

2017-01-01

Previous research suggests that, with the passage of time, representations of self in episodic memory become less dependent on their initial (internal) vantage point and shift toward an external perspective that is normally characteristic of how other people are represented. The present experiment examined this phenomenon in both episodic and semantic autobiographical memory using latency of self-judgments as a measure of accessibility of the internal vs. the external perspective. Results confirmed that in the case of representations of the self retrieved from recent autobiographical memories, trait-judgments regarding unobservable self-aspects (internal perspective) were faster than trait judgments regarding observable self-aspects (external perspective). Yet, in the case of self-representations retrieved from memories of a more distant past, judgments regarding observable self-aspects were faster. Those results occurred for both self-representations retrieved from episodic memory and for representations retrieved from the semantic memory. In addition, regardless of the effect of time, greater accessibility of unobservable (vs. observable) self-aspects was associated with the episodic rather than semantic autobiographical memory. Those results were modified by neither declared trait's self-descriptiveness ( yes vs. no responses) nor by its desirability (highly desirable vs. moderately desirable traits). Implications for compatibility between how self and others are represented and for the role of self in social perception are discussed.

New evidence of a rhythmic priming effect that enhances grammaticality judgments in children.

PubMed

Chern, Alexander; Tillmann, Barbara; Vaughan, Chloe; Gordon, Reyna L

2018-09-01

Musical rhythm and the grammatical structure of language share a surprising number of characteristics that may be intrinsically related in child development. The current study aimed to understand the potential influence of musical rhythmic priming on subsequent spoken grammar task performance in children with typical development who were native speakers of English. Participants (ages 5-8 years) listened to rhythmically regular and irregular musical sequences (within-participants design) followed by blocks of grammatically correct and incorrect sentences upon which they were asked to perform a grammaticality judgment task. Rhythmically regular musical sequences improved performance in grammaticality judgment compared with rhythmically irregular musical sequences. No such effect of rhythmic priming was found in two nonlinguistic control tasks, suggesting a neural overlap between rhythm processing and mechanisms recruited during grammar processing. These findings build on previous research investigating the effect of rhythmic priming by extending the paradigm to a different language, testing a younger population, and employing nonlanguage control tasks. These findings of an immediate influence of rhythm on grammar states (temporarily augmented grammaticality judgment performance) also converge with previous findings of associations between rhythm and grammar traits (stable generalized grammar abilities) in children. Taken together, the results of this study provide additional evidence for shared neural processing for language and music and warrant future investigations of potentially beneficial effects of innovative musical material on language processing. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Translation and Rotation Trade Off in Human Visual Heading Estimation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Stone, Leland S.; Perrone, John A.; Null, Cynthia H. (Technical Monitor)

1996-01-01

We have previously shown that, during simulated curvilinear motion, humans can make reasonably accurate and precise heading judgments from optic flow without either oculomotor or static-depth cues about rotation. We now systematically investigate the effect of varying the parameters of self-motion. We visually simulated 400 ms of self-motion along curved paths (constant rotation and translation rates, fixed retinocentric heading) towards two planes of random dots at 10.3 m and 22.3 m at mid-trial. Retinocentric heading judgments of 4 observers (2 naive) were measured for 12 different combinations of translation (T between 4 and 16 m/s) and rotation (R either 8 or 16 deg/s). In the range tested, heading bias and uncertainty decrease quasilinearly with T/R, but the bias also appears to depend on R. If depth is held constant, the ratio T/R can account for much of the variation in the accuracy and precision of human visual heading estimation, although further experiments are needed to resolve whether absolute rotation rate, total flow rate, or some other factor can account for the observed -2 deg shift between the bias curves.

The Influence of Emotional State and Pictorial Cues on Perceptual Judgments

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kimberly R. Raddatz; Abigail Werth; Tuan Q. Tran

2007-10-01

Perspective displays (e.g., CDTI) are commonly used as decision aids in environments characterized by periods of high emotional arousal (e.g., terrain enhanced primary flight displays). However, little attention has been devoted to understanding how emotional state, independently or in conjunction with other perceptual factors (e.g., pictorial depth cues), can impact perceptual judgments. Preliminary research suggests that induced emotional state (positive or negative) adversely impacts size comparisons in perspective displays (Tran & Raddatz, 2006). This study further investigated how size comparisons are affected by emotional state and pictorial depth cues while attenuating the limitations of the Tran & Raddatz (2006) study.more » Results confirmed that observers do make slower judgments under induced emotional state. However, observers under negative emotional state showed higher sensitivity (d’) and required more evidence to respond that a size difference exists (response bias) than observers under positive emotional state. Implications for display design and human performance are discussed.« less

Face value: amygdala response reflects the validity of first impressions.

PubMed

Rule, Nicholas O; Moran, Joseph M; Freeman, Jonathan B; Whitfield-Gabrieli, Susan; Gabrieli, John D E; Ambady, Nalini

2011-01-01

The human amygdala responds to first impressions of people as judged from their faces, such as normative judgments about the trustworthiness of strangers. It is unknown, however, whether amygdala responses to first impressions can be validated by objective criteria. Here, we examined amygdala responses to faces of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) where real-world outcomes could be measured objectively by the amounts of profits made by each CEO's company. During fMRI scanning, participants made incidental judgments about the symmetry of each CEO's face. After scanning, participants rated each CEO's face on leadership ability. Parametric analyses showed that greater left amygdala response to the CEOs' faces was associated with higher post-scan ratings of the CEOs' leadership ability. In addition, greater left amygdala response was also associated with greater profits made by the CEOs' companies and this relationship was statistically mediated by external raters' perceptions of arousal. Thus, amygdala response reflected both subjective judgments and objective measures of leadership ability based on first impressions. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cognitive Demands of Lower Paleolithic Toolmaking

PubMed Central

Stout, Dietrich; Hecht, Erin; Khreisheh, Nada; Bradley, Bruce; Chaminade, Thierry

2015-01-01

Stone tools provide some of the most abundant, continuous, and high resolution evidence of behavioral change over human evolution, but their implications for cognitive evolution have remained unclear. We investigated the neurophysiological demands of stone toolmaking by training modern subjects in known Paleolithic methods (“Oldowan”, “Acheulean”) and collecting structural and functional brain imaging data as they made technical judgments (outcome prediction, strategic appropriateness) about planned actions on partially completed tools. Results show that this task affected neural activity and functional connectivity in dorsal prefrontal cortex, that effect magnitude correlated with the frequency of correct strategic judgments, and that the frequency of correct strategic judgments was predictive of success in Acheulean, but not Oldowan, toolmaking. This corroborates hypothesized cognitive control demands of Acheulean toolmaking, specifically including information monitoring and manipulation functions attributed to the "central executive" of working memory. More broadly, it develops empirical methods for assessing the differential cognitive demands of Paleolithic technologies, and expands the scope of evolutionary hypotheses that can be tested using the available archaeological record. PMID:25875283

Do intuitive and deliberate judgments rely on two distinct neural systems? A case study in face processing

PubMed Central

Mega, Laura F.; Gigerenzer, Gerd; Volz, Kirsten G.

2015-01-01

Arguably the most influential models of human decision-making today are based on the assumption that two separable systems – intuition and deliberation – underlie the judgments that people make. Our recent work is among the first to present neural evidence contrary to the predictions of these dual-systems accounts. We measured brain activations using functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants were specifically instructed to either intuitively or deliberately judge the authenticity of emotional facial expressions. Results from three different analyses revealed both common brain networks of activation across decision mode and differential activations as a function of strategy adherence. We take our results to contradict popular dual-systems accounts that propose a clear-cut dichotomy of the processing systems, and to support rather a unified model. According to this, intuitive and deliberate judgment processes rely on the same rules, though only the former are thought to be characterized by non-conscious processing. PMID:26379523

A Bayesian perspective on magnitude estimation.

PubMed

Petzschner, Frederike H; Glasauer, Stefan; Stephan, Klaas E

2015-05-01

Our representation of the physical world requires judgments of magnitudes, such as loudness, distance, or time. Interestingly, magnitude estimates are often not veridical but subject to characteristic biases. These biases are strikingly similar across different sensory modalities, suggesting common processing mechanisms that are shared by different sensory systems. However, the search for universal neurobiological principles of magnitude judgments requires guidance by formal theories. Here, we discuss a unifying Bayesian framework for understanding biases in magnitude estimation. This Bayesian perspective enables a re-interpretation of a range of established psychophysical findings, reconciles seemingly incompatible classical views on magnitude estimation, and can guide future investigations of magnitude estimation and its neurobiological mechanisms in health and in psychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Development of a quantitative validation method for forensic investigation of human spermatozoa using a commercial fluorescence staining kit (SPERM HY-LITER™ Express).

PubMed

Takamura, Ayari; Watanabe, Ken; Akutsu, Tomoko

2016-11-01

In investigations of sexual assaults, as well as in identifying a suspect, the detection of human sperm is important. Recently, a kit for fluorescent staining of human spermatozoa, SPERM HY-LITER™, has become available. This kit allows for microscopic observation of the heads of human sperm using an antibody tagged with a fluorescent dye. This kit is specific to human sperm and provides easy detection by luminescence. However, criteria need to be established to objectively evaluate the fluorescent signals and to evaluate the staining efficiency of this kit. These criteria will be indispensable for investigation of forensic samples. In the present study, the SPERM HY-LITER™ Express kit, which is an improved version of SPERM HY-LITER™, was evaluated using an image analysis procedure using Laplacian and Gaussian methods. This method could be used to automatically select important regions of fluorescence produced by sperm. The fluorescence staining performance was evaluated and compared under various experimental conditions, such as for aged traces and in combination with other chemical staining methods. The morphological characteristics of human sperm were incorporated into the criteria for objective identification of sperm, based on quantified features of the fluorescent spots. Using the criteria, non-specific or insignificant fluorescent spots were excluded, and the specificity of the kit for human sperm was confirmed. The image analysis method and criteria established in this study are universal and could be applied under any experimental conditions. These criteria will increase the reliability of operator judgment in the analysis of human sperm samples in forensics.

Effects of knowledge and internal locus of control in groups of health care workers judging likelihood of pathogen transfer.

PubMed

McLaughlin, Anne Collins; Walsh, Fran; Bryant, Michelle

2013-08-01

A study was conducted to measure the effects of attitudes and beliefs on the risk judgments of health care workers. Lack of hand hygiene compliance is a worldwide issue in health care, contributing to infections, fatalities, and increased health care costs. Human factors methods are a promising solution to the problem of compliance, although thus far, the concentration has been on process and engineering methods, such as the design of no-touch sinks. Factors internal to the health care worker, such as their attitudes and beliefs about hand hygiene, have received less attention. For this study, three groups of health care workers completed measures of attitudes, control beliefs, and hand hygiene knowledge. They then provided risk judgments of touching various surfaces via a factorial survey. Attitudes, knowledge, control beliefs, and surface type all predicted the risk judgments of the sample of health care workers, with differences between professional groups. Health care workers perceive less risk when touching surfaces,which may explain historically low rates of hand hygiene compliance after surface contact. Although more research is needed to directly connect risk judgments to failures of hand hygiene, the current results can inform interventions targeting the internal attitudes and beliefs of health care workers.

The relation between body semantics and spatial body representations.

PubMed

van Elk, Michiel; Blanke, Olaf

2011-11-01

The present study addressed the relation between body semantics (i.e. semantic knowledge about the human body) and spatial body representations, by presenting participants with word pairs, one below the other, referring to body parts. The spatial position of the word pairs could be congruent (e.g. EYE / MOUTH) or incongruent (MOUTH / EYE) with respect to the spatial position of the words' referents. In addition, the spatial distance between the words' referents was varied, resulting in word pairs referring to body parts that are close (e.g. EYE / MOUTH) or far in space (e.g. EYE / FOOT). A spatial congruency effect was observed when subjects made an iconicity judgment (Experiments 2 and 3) but not when making a semantic relatedness judgment (Experiment 1). In addition, when making a semantic relatedness judgment (Experiment 1) reaction times increased with increased distance between the body parts but when making an iconicity judgment (Experiments 2 and 3) reaction times decreased with increased distance. These findings suggest that the processing of body-semantics results in the activation of a detailed visuo-spatial body representation that is modulated by the specific task requirements. We discuss these new data with respect to theories of embodied cognition and body semantics. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The good, the bad, and the timely: how temporal order and moral judgment influence causal selection

PubMed Central

Reuter, Kevin; Kirfel, Lara; van Riel, Raphael; Barlassina, Luca

2014-01-01

Causal selection is the cognitive process through which one or more elements in a complex causal structure are singled out as actual causes of a certain effect. In this paper, we report on an experiment in which we investigated the role of moral and temporal factors in causal selection. Our results are as follows. First, when presented with a temporal chain in which two human agents perform the same action one after the other, subjects tend to judge the later agent to be the actual cause. Second, the impact of temporal location on causal selection is almost canceled out if the later agent did not violate a norm while the former did. We argue that this is due to the impact that judgments of norm violation have on causal selection—even if the violated norm has nothing to do with the obtaining effect. Third, moral judgments about the effect influence causal selection even in the case in which agents could not have foreseen the effect and did not intend to bring it about. We discuss our findings in connection to recent theories of the role of moral judgment in causal reasoning, on the one hand, and to probabilistic models of temporal location, on the other. PMID:25477851

Neonatal Candidiasis: Epidemiology, Risk Factors, and Clinical Judgment

PubMed Central

Benjamin, Daniel K.; Stoll, Barbara J.; Gantz, Marie G.; Walsh, Michele C.; Sanchez, Pablo J.; Das, Abhik; Shankaran, Seetha; Higgins, Rosemary D.; Auten, Kathy J.; Miller, Nancy A.; Walsh, Thomas J.; Laptook, Abbot R.; Carlo, Waldemar A.; Kennedy, Kathleen A.; Finer, Neil N.; Duara, Shahnaz; Schibler, Kurt; Chapman, Rachel L.; Van Meurs, Krisa P.; Frantz, Ivan D.; Phelps, Dale L.; Poindexter, Brenda B.; Bell, Edward F.; O’Shea, T. Michael; Watterberg, Kristi L.; Goldberg, Ronald N.

2011-01-01

OBJECTIVE Invasive candidiasis is a leading cause of infection-related morbidity and mortality in extremely low-birth-weight (<1000 g) infants. We quantify risk factors predicting infection in high-risk premature infants and compare clinical judgment with a prediction model of invasive candidiasis. METHODS The study involved a prospective observational cohort of infants <1000 g birth weight at 19 centers of the NICHD Neonatal Research Network. At each sepsis evaluation, clinical information was recorded, cultures obtained, and clinicians prospectively recorded their estimate of the probability of invasive candidiasis. Two models were generated with invasive candidiasis as their outcome: 1) potentially modifiable risk factors and 2) a clinical model at time of blood culture to predict candidiasis. RESULTS Invasive candidiasis occurred in 137/1515 (9.0%) infants and was documented by positive culture from ≥ 1 of these sources: blood (n=96), cerebrospinal fluid (n=9), urine obtained by catheterization (n=52), or other sterile body fluid (n=10). Mortality was not different from infants who had positive blood culture compared to those with isolated positive urine culture. Incidence varied from 2–28% at the 13 centers enrolling ≥ 50 infants. Potentially modifiable risk factors (model 1) included central catheter, broad-spectrum antibiotics (e.g., third-generation cephalosporins), intravenous lipid emulsion, endotracheal tube, and antenatal antibiotics. The clinical prediction model (model 2) had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.79, and was superior to clinician judgment (0.70) in predicting subsequent invasive candidiasis. Performance of clinical judgment did not vary significantly with level of training. CONCLUSION Prior antibiotics, presence of a central catheter, endotracheal tube, and center were strongly associated with invasive candidiasis. Modeling was more accurate in predicting invasive candidiasis than clinical judgment. PMID:20876174

Audiovisual Temporal Processing and Synchrony Perception in the Rat.

PubMed

Schormans, Ashley L; Scott, Kaela E; Vo, Albert M Q; Tyker, Anna; Typlt, Marei; Stolzberg, Daniel; Allman, Brian L

2016-01-01

Extensive research on humans has improved our understanding of how the brain integrates information from our different senses, and has begun to uncover the brain regions and large-scale neural activity that contributes to an observer's ability to perceive the relative timing of auditory and visual stimuli. In the present study, we developed the first behavioral tasks to assess the perception of audiovisual temporal synchrony in rats. Modeled after the parameters used in human studies, separate groups of rats were trained to perform: (1) a simultaneity judgment task in which they reported whether audiovisual stimuli at various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) were presented simultaneously or not; and (2) a temporal order judgment task in which they reported whether they perceived the auditory or visual stimulus to have been presented first. Furthermore, using in vivo electrophysiological recordings in the lateral extrastriate visual (V2L) cortex of anesthetized rats, we performed the first investigation of how neurons in the rat multisensory cortex integrate audiovisual stimuli presented at different SOAs. As predicted, rats ( n = 7) trained to perform the simultaneity judgment task could accurately (~80%) identify synchronous vs. asynchronous (200 ms SOA) trials. Moreover, the rats judged trials at 10 ms SOA to be synchronous, whereas the majority (~70%) of trials at 100 ms SOA were perceived to be asynchronous. During the temporal order judgment task, rats ( n = 7) perceived the synchronous audiovisual stimuli to be "visual first" for ~52% of the trials, and calculation of the smallest timing interval between the auditory and visual stimuli that could be detected in each rat (i.e., the just noticeable difference (JND)) ranged from 77 ms to 122 ms. Neurons in the rat V2L cortex were sensitive to the timing of audiovisual stimuli, such that spiking activity was greatest during trials when the visual stimulus preceded the auditory by 20-40 ms. Ultimately, given that our behavioral and electrophysiological results were consistent with studies conducted on human participants and previous recordings made in multisensory brain regions of different species, we suggest that the rat represents an effective model for studying audiovisual temporal synchrony at both the neuronal and perceptual level.

Audiovisual Temporal Processing and Synchrony Perception in the Rat

PubMed Central

Schormans, Ashley L.; Scott, Kaela E.; Vo, Albert M. Q.; Tyker, Anna; Typlt, Marei; Stolzberg, Daniel; Allman, Brian L.

2017-01-01

Extensive research on humans has improved our understanding of how the brain integrates information from our different senses, and has begun to uncover the brain regions and large-scale neural activity that contributes to an observer’s ability to perceive the relative timing of auditory and visual stimuli. In the present study, we developed the first behavioral tasks to assess the perception of audiovisual temporal synchrony in rats. Modeled after the parameters used in human studies, separate groups of rats were trained to perform: (1) a simultaneity judgment task in which they reported whether audiovisual stimuli at various stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) were presented simultaneously or not; and (2) a temporal order judgment task in which they reported whether they perceived the auditory or visual stimulus to have been presented first. Furthermore, using in vivo electrophysiological recordings in the lateral extrastriate visual (V2L) cortex of anesthetized rats, we performed the first investigation of how neurons in the rat multisensory cortex integrate audiovisual stimuli presented at different SOAs. As predicted, rats (n = 7) trained to perform the simultaneity judgment task could accurately (~80%) identify synchronous vs. asynchronous (200 ms SOA) trials. Moreover, the rats judged trials at 10 ms SOA to be synchronous, whereas the majority (~70%) of trials at 100 ms SOA were perceived to be asynchronous. During the temporal order judgment task, rats (n = 7) perceived the synchronous audiovisual stimuli to be “visual first” for ~52% of the trials, and calculation of the smallest timing interval between the auditory and visual stimuli that could be detected in each rat (i.e., the just noticeable difference (JND)) ranged from 77 ms to 122 ms. Neurons in the rat V2L cortex were sensitive to the timing of audiovisual stimuli, such that spiking activity was greatest during trials when the visual stimulus preceded the auditory by 20–40 ms. Ultimately, given that our behavioral and electrophysiological results were consistent with studies conducted on human participants and previous recordings made in multisensory brain regions of different species, we suggest that the rat represents an effective model for studying audiovisual temporal synchrony at both the neuronal and perceptual level. PMID:28119580

Quality of clinical brain tumor MR spectra judged by humans and machine learning tools.

PubMed

Kyathanahally, Sreenath P; Mocioiu, Victor; Pedrosa de Barros, Nuno; Slotboom, Johannes; Wright, Alan J; Julià-Sapé, Margarida; Arús, Carles; Kreis, Roland

2018-05-01

To investigate and compare human judgment and machine learning tools for quality assessment of clinical MR spectra of brain tumors. A very large set of 2574 single voxel spectra with short and long echo time from the eTUMOUR and INTERPRET databases were used for this analysis. Original human quality ratings from these studies as well as new human guidelines were used to train different machine learning algorithms for automatic quality control (AQC) based on various feature extraction methods and classification tools. The performance was compared with variance in human judgment. AQC built using the RUSBoost classifier that combats imbalanced training data performed best. When furnished with a large range of spectral and derived features where the most crucial ones had been selected by the TreeBagger algorithm it showed better specificity (98%) in judging spectra from an independent test-set than previously published methods. Optimal performance was reached with a virtual three-class ranking system. Our results suggest that feature space should be relatively large for the case of MR tumor spectra and that three-class labels may be beneficial for AQC. The best AQC algorithm showed a performance in rejecting spectra that was comparable to that of a panel of human expert spectroscopists. Magn Reson Med 79:2500-2510, 2018. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Forensic Comparison and Matching of Fingerprints: Using Quantitative Image Measures for Estimating Error Rates through Understanding and Predicting Difficulty

PubMed Central

Kellman, Philip J.; Mnookin, Jennifer L.; Erlikhman, Gennady; Garrigan, Patrick; Ghose, Tandra; Mettler, Everett; Charlton, David; Dror, Itiel E.

2014-01-01

Latent fingerprint examination is a complex task that, despite advances in image processing, still fundamentally depends on the visual judgments of highly trained human examiners. Fingerprints collected from crime scenes typically contain less information than fingerprints collected under controlled conditions. Specifically, they are often noisy and distorted and may contain only a portion of the total fingerprint area. Expertise in fingerprint comparison, like other forms of perceptual expertise, such as face recognition or aircraft identification, depends on perceptual learning processes that lead to the discovery of features and relations that matter in comparing prints. Relatively little is known about the perceptual processes involved in making comparisons, and even less is known about what characteristics of fingerprint pairs make particular comparisons easy or difficult. We measured expert examiner performance and judgments of difficulty and confidence on a new fingerprint database. We developed a number of quantitative measures of image characteristics and used multiple regression techniques to discover objective predictors of error as well as perceived difficulty and confidence. A number of useful predictors emerged, and these included variables related to image quality metrics, such as intensity and contrast information, as well as measures of information quantity, such as the total fingerprint area. Also included were configural features that fingerprint experts have noted, such as the presence and clarity of global features and fingerprint ridges. Within the constraints of the overall low error rates of experts, a regression model incorporating the derived predictors demonstrated reasonable success in predicting objective difficulty for print pairs, as shown both in goodness of fit measures to the original data set and in a cross validation test. The results indicate the plausibility of using objective image metrics to predict expert performance and subjective assessment of difficulty in fingerprint comparisons. PMID:24788812

Culture and the quest for universal principles in moral reasoning.

PubMed

Sachdeva, Sonya; Singh, Purnima; Medin, Douglas

2011-06-01

The importance of including cultural perspectives in the study of human cognition has become apparent in recent decades, and the domain of moral reasoning is no exception. The present review focuses on moral cognition, beginning with Kohlberg's model of moral development which relies heavily on people's justifications for their judgments and then shifting to more recent theories that rely on rapid, intuitive judgments and see justifications as more or less irrelevant to moral cognition. Despite this dramatic shift, analyses of culture and moral decision-making have largely been framed as a quest for and test of universal principles of moral judgment. In this review, we discuss challenges that remain in trying to understand crosscultural variability in moral values and the processes that underlie moral cognition. We suggest that the universalist framework may lead to an underestimation of the role of culture in moral reasoning. Although the field has made great strides in incorporating more and more cultural perspectives in order to understand moral cognition, theories of moral reasoning still do not allow for substantial variation in how people might conceptualize the domain of the moral. The processes that underlie moral cognition may not be a human universal in any simple sense, because moral systems may play different roles in different cultures. We end our review with a discussion of work that remains to be done to understand cultural variation in the moral domain.

Ambiguity and Uncertainty in Probabilistic Inference.

DTIC Science & Technology

1984-06-01

Bulletin, 1967, 68, 29-46. *Rappoport, A., a Wllston, T. S . *individual decision behavior . Annual Review of Psychology, 1972, 23, 131-176. * Savage, L... Behavior and Human Performance, 1973, 10 40-423. Shafer , G. A. A mathematical theory of evidence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976.- *~-7... S . Comparison of Bayesian and regression approaches to the study of information processing in judgment. Organizational Behavior and Human

Duration, distance, and speed judgments of two moving objects by 4- to 11-year olds.

PubMed

Matsuda, F

1996-11-01

Four- to 11-year-old children (N = 133) made duration, distance, and speed judgments on a Piagetian task where two cars ran on two parallel tracks. Special effort was made to make duration judgment tasks and distance judgment tasks comparable. Among younger children, difficulties of duration judgments and distance judgments were approximately the same. Additionally, temporal attributes had nearly the same effects on duration judgments as spatial attributes had on distance judgments, and spatial attributes had nearly the same effects on duration judgments as temporal attributes had on distance judgments. Among older children, distance judgments were easier than duration judgments, and the above-mentioned symmetry in effects of temporal and spatial attributes decreased somewhat. Temporal and spatial attributes affected speed judgments equally, across age groups.

Visualizing surgical quality data with treemaps.

PubMed

Hugine, Akilah L; Guerlain, Stephanie A; Turrentine, Florence E

2014-09-01

Treemaps are space-constrained visualizations for displaying hierarchical data structures using nested rectangles. The visualization allows large amounts of data to be examined in one display. The objective of this research was to examine the effects of using treemap visualizations to help surgeons assess surgical quality data from the American College of Surgeons created the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database in a quick and timely manner. A controlled human subjects experiment was conducted to assess the ability of individuals to make quick and accurate judgments on surgery data by visualizing a treemap, with data hierarchically displayed by surgeon group, surgeon, and patient. Participants were given 20 task questions to complete involving examining the treemap and comparing surgeons' patients based on outcomes (dead or alive) and length of stay days. The outcomes measured were error (incorrect or correct) and task completion time. 120 participants completed 20 task questions for a total of 2400 responses. The main effects of layout and node size were found to be significant for absolute error, P < 0.0505 and P < 0.0185, respectively. The average judgment time to complete a task was 24 s with an accuracy rate of approximately 68%. This study served as a proof of concept to determine if treemaps could be beneficial in assessing surgical data retrospectively by allowing surgeons and healthcare administrators to make quick visual judgments. The study found that factors about the layout design affect judgment performance. Future research is needed to examine whether implementing the treemap within a dashboard system will improve on judgment accuracy for surgical quality questions. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Preferential amygdala reactivity to the negative assessment of neutral faces.

PubMed

Blasi, Giuseppe; Hariri, Ahmad R; Alce, Guilna; Taurisano, Paolo; Sambataro, Fabio; Das, Saumitra; Bertolino, Alessandro; Weinberger, Daniel R; Mattay, Venkata S

2009-11-01

Prior studies suggest that the amygdala shapes complex behavioral responses to socially ambiguous cues. We explored human amygdala function during explicit behavioral decision making about discrete emotional facial expressions that can represent socially unambiguous and ambiguous cues. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, 43 healthy adults were required to make complex social decisions (i.e., approach or avoid) about either relatively unambiguous (i.e., angry, fearful, happy) or ambiguous (i.e., neutral) facial expressions. Amygdala activation during this task was compared with that elicited by simple, perceptual decisions (sex discrimination) about the identical facial stimuli. Angry and fearful expressions were more frequently judged as avoidable and happy expressions most often as approachable. Neutral expressions were equally judged as avoidable and approachable. Reaction times to neutral expressions were longer than those to angry, fearful, and happy expressions during social judgment only. Imaging data on stimuli judged to be avoided revealed a significant task by emotion interaction in the amygdala. Here, only neutral facial expressions elicited greater activity during social judgment than during sex discrimination. Furthermore, during social judgment only, neutral faces judged to be avoided were associated with greater amygdala activity relative to neutral faces that were judged as approachable. Moreover, functional coupling between the amygdala and both dorsolateral prefrontal (social judgment > sex discrimination) and cingulate (sex discrimination > social judgment) cortices was differentially modulated by task during processing of neutral faces. Our results suggest that increased amygdala reactivity and differential functional coupling with prefrontal circuitries may shape complex decisions and behavioral responses to socially ambiguous cues.

Preferential Amygdala Reactivity to the Negative Assessment of Neutral Faces

PubMed Central

Blasi, Giuseppe; Hariri, Ahmad R.; Alce, Guilna; Taurisano, Paolo; Sambataro, Fabio; Das, Saumitra; Bertolino, Alessandro; Weinberger, Daniel R.; Mattay, Venkata S.

2010-01-01

Background Prior studies suggest that the amygdala shapes complex behavioral responses to socially ambiguous cues. We explored human amygdala function during explicit behavioral decision making about discrete emotional facial expressions that can represent socially unambiguous and ambiguous cues. Methods During functional magnetic resonance imaging, 43 healthy adults were required to make complex social decisions (i.e., approach or avoid) about either relatively unambiguous (i.e., angry, fearful, happy) or ambiguous (i.e., neutral) facial expressions. Amygdala activation during this task was compared with that elicited by simple, perceptual decisions (sex discrimination) about the identical facial stimuli. Results Angry and fearful expressions were more frequently judged as avoidable and happy expressions most often as approachable. Neutral expressions were equally judged as avoidable and approachable. Reaction times to neutral expressions were longer than those to angry, fearful, and happy expressions during social judgment only. Imaging data on stimuli judged to be avoided revealed a significant task by emotion interaction in the amygdala. Here, only neutral facial expressions elicited greater activity during social judgment than during sex discrimination. Furthermore, during social judgment only, neutral faces judged to be avoided were associated with greater amygdala activity relative to neutral faces that were judged as approachable. Moreover, functional coupling between the amygdala and both dorsolateral prefrontal (social judgment > sex discrimination) and cingulate (sex discrimination > social judgment) cortices was differentially modulated by task during processing of neutral faces. Conclusions Our results suggest that increased amygdala reactivity and differential functional coupling with prefrontal circuitries may shape complex decisions and behavioral responses to socially ambiguous cues. PMID:19709644

Right supramarginal gyrus is crucial to overcome emotional egocentricity bias in social judgments.

PubMed

Silani, Giorgia; Lamm, Claus; Ruff, Christian C; Singer, Tania

2013-09-25

Humans tend to use the self as a reference point to perceive the world and gain information about other people's mental states. However, applying such a self-referential projection mechanism in situations where it is inappropriate can result in egocentrically biased judgments. To assess egocentricity bias in the emotional domain (EEB), we developed a novel visuo-tactile paradigm assessing the degree to which empathic judgments are biased by one's own emotions if they are incongruent to those of the person we empathize with. A first behavioral experiment confirmed the existence of such EEB, and two independent fMRI experiments revealed that overcoming biased empathic judgments is associated with increased activation in the right supramarginal gyrus (rSMG), in a location distinct from activations in right temporoparietal junction reported in previous social cognition studies. Using temporary disruption of rSMG with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation resulted in a substantial increase of EEB, and so did reducing visuo-tactile stimulation time as shown in an additional behavioral experiment. Our findings provide converging evidence from multiple methods and experiments that rSMG is crucial for overcoming emotional egocentricity. Effective connectivity analyses suggest that this may be achieved by early perceptual regulation processes disambiguating proprioceptive first-person information (touch) from exteroceptive third-person information (vision) during incongruency between self- and other-related affective states. Our study extends previous models of social cognition. It shows that although shared neural networks may underlie emotional understanding in some situations, an additional mechanism subserved by rSMG is needed to avoid biased social judgments in other situations.

Ordinality and the nature of symbolic numbers.

PubMed

Lyons, Ian M; Beilock, Sian L

2013-10-23

The view that representations of symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers are closely tied to one another is widespread. However, the link between symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers is almost always inferred from cardinal processing tasks. In the current work, we show that considering ordinality instead points to striking differences between symbolic and nonsymbolic numbers. Human behavioral and neural data show that ordinal processing of symbolic numbers (Are three Indo-Arabic numerals in numerical order?) is distinct from symbolic cardinal processing (Which of two numerals represents the greater quantity?) and nonsymbolic number processing (ordinal and cardinal judgments of dot-arrays). Behaviorally, distance-effects were reversed when assessing ordinality in symbolic numbers, but canonical distance-effects were observed for cardinal judgments of symbolic numbers and all nonsymbolic judgments. At the neural level, symbolic number-ordering was the only numerical task that did not show number-specific activity (greater than control) in the intraparietal sulcus. Only activity in left premotor cortex was specifically associated with symbolic number-ordering. For nonsymbolic numbers, activation in cognitive-control areas during ordinal processing and a high degree of overlap between ordinal and cardinal processing networks indicate that nonsymbolic ordinality is assessed via iterative cardinality judgments. This contrasts with a striking lack of neural overlap between ordinal and cardinal judgments anywhere in the brain for symbolic numbers, suggesting that symbolic number processing varies substantially with computational context. Ordinal processing sheds light on key differences between symbolic and nonsymbolic number processing both behaviorally and in the brain. Ordinality may prove important for understanding the power of representing numbers symbolically.

The processing of linear perspective and binocular information for action and perception.

PubMed

Bruggeman, Hugo; Yonas, Albert; Konczak, Jürgen

2007-04-08

To investigate the processing of linear perspective and binocular information for action and for the perceptual judgment of depth, we presented viewers with an actual Ames trapezoidal window. The display, when presented perpendicular to the line of sight, provided perspective information for a rectangular window slanted in depth, while binocular information specified a planar surface in the fronto-parallel plane. We compared pointing towards the display-edges with perceptual judgment of their positions in depth as the display orientation was varied under monocular and binocular view. On monocular trials, pointing and depth judgment were based on the perspective information and failed to respond accurately to changes in display orientation because pictorial information did not vary sufficiently to specify the small differences in orientation. For binocular trials, pointing was based on binocular information and precisely matched the changes in display orientation whereas depth judgment was short of such adjustment and based upon both binocular and perspective-specified slant information. The finding, that on binocular trials pointing was considerably less responsive to the illusion than perceptual judgment, supports an account of two separate processing streams in the human visual system, a ventral pathway involved in object recognition and a dorsal pathway that produces visual information for the control of actions. Previously, similar differences between perception and action were explained by an alternate explanation, that is, viewers selectively attend to different parts of a display in the two tasks. The finding that under monocular view participants responded to perspective information in both the action and the perception task rules out the attention-based argument.

Biasing Influences on Test Level Assignments for Hearing Impaired Students.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wolk, Steve

1985-01-01

Possible biasing influences of student characteristics were considered for teachers' judgments of appropriate test level assignments for about 1,300 hearing impaired special education students. Analyses indicated the presence of strong influences of race and severity of handicapping condition, as well as of sex, upon change in level assignments,…

The Effect of Perceived Height on Judgments of Women's Personality Orientations.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hensley, Wayne E.

A number of past investigations have documented a relationship between height and personality for males and children. A study was conducted to discover the perceived personality characteristics dependent on women's heights. Subjects, 501 college students, responded to one of four pictures of two women, via a questionnaire, estimating personality…

Conflicts, Commitments, and Cliques in the University: Moral Seduction as a Threat to Trustee Independence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bastedo, Michael N.

2009-01-01

The ability of trustees to make independent judgments in the best interests of the university is a fundamental characteristic of an effective governing board. Trustee independence is increasingly threatened, however, as the university becomes more deeply embedded in government, industry, networks, and the professions. This topic is investigated…

Admirer-Celebrity Relationships among Young Adults: Explaining Perceptions of Celebrity Influence on Identity.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Boon, Susan D.; Lomore, Christine D.

2001-01-01

Investigates undergraduate students' judgments regarding the degree to which relationships with celebrity idols influenced their sense of identity and feelings of self-worth. Discusses the characteristics of the sample of idols participants reported as well as descriptive data concerning the degree to which participants perceived these idols as…

A STUDY OF THE CRITICAL REQUIREMENTS FOR DIRECTORS IN EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION STATIONS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

ADKINS, GALE R.

THIS RESEARCH STUDY WAS DESIGNED TO ANSWER 3 QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE DIRECTION AND DIRECTORS OF EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION STATIONS--(1) WHAT ELEMENTS OF DIRECTOR BEHAVIOR APPEAR MOST OFTEN IN JUDGMENTS OF DIRECTOR EFFECTIVENESS MADE BY TV STATION MANAGEMENT PERSONNEL, (2) WHAT ARE THE NON-BEHAVIORAL CHARACTERISTICS (I.E., AGE, EDUCATION, WORK…

The effects of context on multidimensional spatial cognitive models. Ph.D. Thesis - Arizona Univ.

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dupnick, E. G.

1979-01-01

Spatial cognitive models obtained by multidimensional scaling represent cognitive structure by defining alternatives as points in a coordinate space based on relevant dimensions such that interstimulus dissimilarities perceived by the individual correspond to distances between the respective alternatives. The dependence of spatial models on the context of the judgments required of the individual was investigated. Context, which is defined as a perceptual interpretation and cognitive understanding of a judgment situation, was analyzed and classified with respect to five characteristics: physical environment, social environment, task definition, individual perspective, and temporal setting. Four experiments designed to produce changes in the characteristics of context and to test the effects of these changes upon individual cognitive spaces are described with focus on experiment design, objectives, statistical analysis, results, and conclusions. The hypothesis is advanced that an individual can be characterized as having a master cognitive space for a set of alternatives. When the context changes, the individual appears to change the dimension weights to give a new spatial configuration. Factor analysis was used in the interpretation and labeling of cognitive space dimensions.

Methodologies and Methods for User Behavioral Research.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wang, Peiling

1999-01-01

Discusses methodological issues in empirical studies of information-related behavior in six specific research areas: information needs and uses; information seeking; relevance judgment; online searching (including online public access catalog, online database, and the Web); human-system interactions; and reference transactions. (Contains 191…

45 CFR 81.112 - Improper conduct.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... Welfare DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE FOR HEARINGS... communications media, by paid advertisement or otherwise, designed to influence the judgment of any officer... person to solicit communications to any such officer, or his decisional staff, other than proper...

Measures for curtailment of iatrogenic exposure. Guide to correct x-ray examinations (in Japanese)

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Misonoo, K.

1973-08-01

Of the coposure dose for humans from various radiation sources, introgenic exposure amounts to 1/2 to twice the natural radiation source. Although the mechanism of induction of malignant tumor by radiation is not clanified, it is evident that it is induced after receiving a dose above 100 rads. However, the presence of a threshold, under which it does not develop, is unknown. Tabulated were ICRP's calculations on the degree of risk of injury and the estimated values of genetic injury due to 1 rad. In order to estimate the harmful effect of exposure in x-ray diagnosis, the dose in themore » critical tissue of the human body and the types and the frequency of radiation examinations are important. The judgment of genetic injury is expressed by the genetically significant dose, which is calculated from the dose in the genital gland received by individuals. The impcrtant criterion for the judgment of physical injury is the mean annual dose per person in the marrow (mean dose in the red marrow). The dose in the genital organ is important as the dose related to the evaluation of the degree of genetic risk. The characteristics of iatrogenic exposure are partial and acute exposure and a high dose rate. Tabulated individually were the frequency of x-ray examinations, the mean dose in the genital organ according urce. The radiation dose during x-ray pelvimetry to 51 patients was estimated, and the cytogenetic response of peripheral lymphocytes was determined in 25 of their newborn babies. The calculations resulted in an average midline fetal dose of 1,035 and 1,860 mrads for the patients receiving 2 projections and more than 2 projections, respectively. There was no evidence of radioinduced chromosomal darnage in the newborn infants following x-ray exposure in utero. (auth)« less

Loudness function derives from data on electrical discharge rates in auditory nerve fibers

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Howes, W. L.

1973-01-01

Judgements of the loudness of pure-tone sound stimuli yield a loudness function which relates perceived loudness to stimulus amplitude. A loudness function is derived from physical evidence alone without regard to human judgments. The resultant loudness function is L=K(q-q0), where L is loudness, q is effective sound pressure (specifically q0 at the loudness threshold), and K is generally a weak function of the number of stimulated auditory nerve fibers. The predicted function is in agreement with loudness judgment data reported by Warren, which imply that, in the suprathreshold loudness regime, decreasing the sound-pressure level by 6 db results in halving the loudness.

Dispositional logic

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Le Balleur, J. C.

1988-01-01

The applicability of conventional mathematical analysis (based on the combination of two-valued logic and probability theory) to problems in which human judgment, perception, or emotions play significant roles is considered theoretically. It is shown that dispositional logic, a branch of fuzzy logic, has particular relevance to the common-sense reasoning typical of human decision-making. The concepts of dispositionality and usuality are defined analytically, and a dispositional conjunctive rule and dispositional modus ponens are derived.

The Constructive Role of Decisions: Implications from a quantum Approach

DTIC Science & Technology

2016-12-01

objectives. The first was to explore the nature of constructive influences in decision making . The second concerned understanding decision making in...Prisoner’s Dilemma. **First objective; constructive judgments. This is the idea that sometimes making a decision can alter the underlying relevant mental...the performance of the agent. 15.  SUBJECT TERMS EOARD, Quantum Probability, Human Modeling, Human Decision Making 16.  SECURITY CLASSIFICATION OF

Behind Human Error: Cognitive Systems, Computers and Hindsight

DTIC Science & Technology

1994-12-01

evaluations • Organize and/or conduct workshops and conferences CSERIAC is a Department of Defense Information Analysis Cen- ter sponsored by the Defense...Process 185 Neutral Observer Criteria 191 Error Analysis as Causal Judgment 193 Error as Information 195 A Fundamental Surprise 195 What is Human...Kahnemann, 1974), and in risk analysis (Dougherty and Fragola, 1990). The discussions have continued in a wide variety of forums, includ- ing the

Stereotype Directionality and Attractiveness Stereotyping: Is Beauty Good or is Ugly Bad?

PubMed Central

Griffin, Angela M.; Langlois, Judith H.

2005-01-01

Dion, Berscheid, and Walster (1972), in their seminal article, labeled the attribution of positive characteristics to attractive people the “beauty-is-good” stereotype. The stereotyping literature since then provides extensive evidence for the differential judgment and treatment of attractive versus unattractive people, but does not indicate whether it is an advantage to be attractive or a disadvantage to be unattractive. Two studies investigated the direction of attractiveness stereotyping by comparing judgments of positive and negative attributes for medium vs. low and medium vs. high attractive faces. Taken together, results for adults (Experiment 1) and children (Experiment 2) suggest that most often, unattractiveness is a disadvantage, consistent with negativity bias (e.g., Rozin & Royzman, 2001) but contrary to the “beauty-is-good” aphorism. PMID:17016544

Surprise braking trials, time-to-collision judgments, and "first look" maneuvers under realistic rear-end crash scenarios

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2005-08-01

This project continues to build upon the foundation provided by the human factors experimentation conducted in the previous Crash Avoidance Metrics Partnership (CAMP) Forward Collision Warning (FCW) system efforts. As in the previous CAMP FCW researc...

Development of heuristic bias detection in elementary school.

PubMed

De Neys, Wim; Feremans, Vicky

2013-02-01

Although human reasoning is often biased by intuitive heuristics, recent studies have shown that adults and adolescents detect the biased nature of their judgments. The present study focused on the development of this critical bias sensitivity by examining the detection skills of young children in elementary school. Third and 6th graders were presented with child-friendly versions of classic base-rate problems in which a cued heuristic response could be inconsistent or consistent with the base rates. After each problem children were asked to indicate their subjective response confidence to assess their bias detection skills. Results indicated that 6th graders showed a clear confidence decrease when they gave a heuristic response that conflicted with the base rates. However, this confidence decrease was not observed for 3rd graders, suggesting that they did not yet acknowledge that their judgment was not fully warranted. Implications for the development of efficient training programs and the debate on human rationality are discussed. (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

An improved probabilistic account of counterfactual reasoning.

PubMed

Lucas, Christopher G; Kemp, Charles

2015-10-01

When people want to identify the causes of an event, assign credit or blame, or learn from their mistakes, they often reflect on how things could have gone differently. In this kind of reasoning, one considers a counterfactual world in which some events are different from their real-world counterparts and considers what else would have changed. Researchers have recently proposed several probabilistic models that aim to capture how people do (or should) reason about counterfactuals. We present a new model and show that it accounts better for human inferences than several alternative models. Our model builds on the work of Pearl (2000), and extends his approach in a way that accommodates backtracking inferences and that acknowledges the difference between counterfactual interventions and counterfactual observations. We present 6 new experiments and analyze data from 4 experiments carried out by Rips (2010), and the results suggest that the new model provides an accurate account of both mean human judgments and the judgments of individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

A neural model of motion processing and visual navigation by cortical area MST.

PubMed

Grossberg, S; Mingolla, E; Pack, C

1999-12-01

Cells in the dorsal medial superior temporal cortex (MSTd) process optic flow generated by self-motion during visually guided navigation. A neural model shows how interactions between well-known neural mechanisms (log polar cortical magnification, Gaussian motion-sensitive receptive fields, spatial pooling of motion-sensitive signals and subtractive extraretinal eye movement signals) lead to emergent properties that quantitatively simulate neurophysiological data about MSTd cell properties and psychophysical data about human navigation. Model cells match MSTd neuron responses to optic flow stimuli placed in different parts of the visual field, including position invariance, tuning curves, preferred spiral directions, direction reversals, average response curves and preferred locations for stimulus motion centers. The model shows how the preferred motion direction of the most active MSTd cells can explain human judgments of self-motion direction (heading), without using complex heading templates. The model explains when extraretinal eye movement signals are needed for accurate heading perception, and when retinal input is sufficient, and how heading judgments depend on scene layouts and rotation rates.

Psychotherapy is an ethical endeavor: Balancing science and humanism in clinical practice.

PubMed

Allen, Jon G

2013-01-01

The author proposes that psychotherapy is best grounded in scienceinformed humanism and, more specifically, that psychotherapists at least implicitly promote ethical, moral--and indeed, virtuous--behavior. In doing so, therapists are challenged continually to engage in making evaluative moral judgments without being judgmental. He contends that psychotherapists, and psychologists especially, are overly reliant on science and might benefit from being more explicit in their ethical endeavors by being better informed about the illuminating philosophical literature on ethics. He highlights the concept of mentalizing, that is, attentiveness to mental states in self and others, such as needs, feelings, and thoughts. He proposes that mentalizing in the context of attachment relationships is common to all psychotherapies, and that this common process is best understood conjointly from the perspectives of developmental psychology and ethics. The author defends the thesis that employing psychotherapy to promote ethical, moral, and virtuous functioning can be justified on scientific grounds insofar as this functioning is conducive to health.

Medial prefrontal cortex subserves diverse forms of self-reflection.

PubMed

Jenkins, Adrianna C; Mitchell, Jason P

2011-01-01

The ability to think about oneself--to self--reflect--is one of the defining features of the human mind. Recent research has suggested that this ability may be subserved by a particular brain region: the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). However, although humans can contemplate a variety of different aspects of themselves, including their stable personality traits, current feelings, and physical attributes, no research has directly examined the extent to which these different forms of self-reflection are subserved by common mechanisms. To address this question, participants were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while making judgments about their own personality traits, current mental states, and physical attributes as well as those of another person. Whereas some brain regions responded preferentially during only one form of self-reflection, a robust region of MPFC was engaged preferentially during self-reflection across all three types of judgment. These results suggest that--although dissociable--diverse forms of self-referential thought draw on a shared cognitive process subserved by MPFC.

Grouping by proximity and the visual impression of approximate number in random dot arrays.

PubMed

Im, Hee Yeon; Zhong, Sheng-Hua; Halberda, Justin

2016-09-01

We address the challenges of how to model human perceptual grouping in random dot arrays and how perceptual grouping affects human number estimation in these arrays. We introduce a modeling approach relying on a modified k-means clustering algorithm to formally describe human observers' grouping behavior. We found that a default grouping window size of approximately 4° of visual angle describes human grouping judgments across a range of random dot arrays (i.e., items within 4° are grouped together). This window size was highly consistent across observers and images, and was also stable across stimulus durations, suggesting that the k-means model captured a robust signature of perceptual grouping. Further, the k-means model outperformed other models (e.g., CODE) at describing human grouping behavior. Next, we found that the more the dots in a display are clustered together, the more human observers tend to underestimate the numerosity of the dots. We demonstrate that this effect is independent of density, and the modified k-means model can predict human observers' numerosity judgments and underestimation. Finally, we explored the robustness of the relationship between clustering and dot number underestimation and found that the effects of clustering remain, but are greatly reduced, when participants receive feedback on every trial. Together, this work suggests some promising avenues for formal models of human grouping behavior, and it highlights the importance of a 4° window of perceptual grouping. Lastly, it reveals a robust, somewhat plastic, relationship between perceptual grouping and number estimation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Improving Adolescent Judgment and Decision Making

PubMed Central

Dansereau, Donald F.; Knight, Danica K.; Flynn, Patrick M.

2013-01-01

Human judgment and decision making (JDM) has substantial room for improvement, especially among adolescents. Increased technological and social complexity “ups the ante” for developing impactful JDM interventions and aids. Current explanatory advances in this field emphasize dual processing models that incorporate both experiential and analytic processing systems. According to these models, judgment and decisions based on the experiential system are rapid and stem from automatic reference to previously stored episodes. Those based on the analytic system are viewed as slower and consciously developed. These models also hypothesize that metacognitive (self-monitoring) activities embedded in the analytic system influence how and when the two systems are used. What is not included in these models is the development of an intersection between the two systems. Because such an intersection is strongly suggested by memory and educational research as the basis of wisdom/expertise, the present paper describes an Integrated Judgment and Decision-Making Model (IJDM) that incorporates this component. Wisdom/expertise is hypothesized to contain a collection of schematic structures that can emerge from the accumulation of similar episodes or repeated analytic practice. As will be argued, in comparisons to dual system models, the addition of this component provides a broader basis for selecting and designing interventions to improve adolescent JDM. Its development also has implications for generally enhancing cognitive interventions by adopting principles from athletic training to create automated, expert behaviors. PMID:24391350

Determinants of Judgments of Explanatory Power: Credibility, Generality, and Statistical Relevance.

PubMed

Colombo, Matteo; Bucher, Leandra; Sprenger, Jan

2017-01-01

Explanation is a central concept in human psychology. Drawing upon philosophical theories of explanation, psychologists have recently begun to examine the relationship between explanation, probability and causality. Our study advances this growing literature at the intersection of psychology and philosophy of science by systematically investigating how judgments of explanatory power are affected by (i) the prior credibility of an explanatory hypothesis, (ii) the causal framing of the hypothesis, (iii) the perceived generalizability of the explanation, and (iv) the relation of statistical relevance between hypothesis and evidence. Collectively, the results of our five experiments support the hypothesis that the prior credibility of a causal explanation plays a central role in explanatory reasoning: first, because of the presence of strong main effects on judgments of explanatory power, and second, because of the gate-keeping role it has for other factors. Highly credible explanations are not susceptible to causal framing effects, but they are sensitive to the effects of normatively relevant factors: the generalizability of an explanation, and its statistical relevance for the evidence. These results advance current literature in the philosophy and psychology of explanation in three ways. First, they yield a more nuanced understanding of the determinants of judgments of explanatory power, and the interaction between these factors. Second, they show the close relationship between prior beliefs and explanatory power. Third, they elucidate the nature of abductive reasoning.

Determinants of Judgments of Explanatory Power: Credibility, Generality, and Statistical Relevance

PubMed Central

Colombo, Matteo; Bucher, Leandra; Sprenger, Jan

2017-01-01

Explanation is a central concept in human psychology. Drawing upon philosophical theories of explanation, psychologists have recently begun to examine the relationship between explanation, probability and causality. Our study advances this growing literature at the intersection of psychology and philosophy of science by systematically investigating how judgments of explanatory power are affected by (i) the prior credibility of an explanatory hypothesis, (ii) the causal framing of the hypothesis, (iii) the perceived generalizability of the explanation, and (iv) the relation of statistical relevance between hypothesis and evidence. Collectively, the results of our five experiments support the hypothesis that the prior credibility of a causal explanation plays a central role in explanatory reasoning: first, because of the presence of strong main effects on judgments of explanatory power, and second, because of the gate-keeping role it has for other factors. Highly credible explanations are not susceptible to causal framing effects, but they are sensitive to the effects of normatively relevant factors: the generalizability of an explanation, and its statistical relevance for the evidence. These results advance current literature in the philosophy and psychology of explanation in three ways. First, they yield a more nuanced understanding of the determinants of judgments of explanatory power, and the interaction between these factors. Second, they show the close relationship between prior beliefs and explanatory power. Third, they elucidate the nature of abductive reasoning. PMID:28928679

Deciding about Decision Models of Remember and Know Judgments: A Reply to Murdock (2006)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Macmillan, Neil A.; Rotello, Caren M.

2006-01-01

B. B. Murdock (2006; see record 2006-08257-009) has interpreted remember-know data within a decision space defined by item and associative information, the fundamental variables in his general recognition memory model TODAM (B. B. Murdock, 1982). He has related parameters of this extended model to stimulus characteristics for several classic…

Psychotherapists' Gender Stereotypes: Perceiver Characteristics, Target Age, and Target Sex.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turner, Barbara F.; And Others

The literature on social cognition and intergroup relations suggests that gender and age are social concepts which, because they are at the same level of abstraction, may produce interactive effects on person perception judgments. The purpose of this study was to explore gender stereotypes that therapists hold about people who differ in age;…

Visual Analysis of Multiple Baseline across Participants Graphs when Change Is Delayed

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lieberman, Rebecca G.; Yoder, Paul J.; Reichow, Brian; Wolery, Mark

2010-01-01

A within-subjects group experimental design was used to test whether three manipulated characteristics of multiple baseline across participants (MBL-P) data showing at least a month delayed change in slope affected experts' inference of a functional relation and agreement on this judgment. Thirty-six experts completed a survey composed of 16 MBL-P…

Child Rearing Antecedents of Identification Model in Young Adult Men: Dominance and Emotional Intimacy.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Luetgert, M. J.; Greenwald, Barry S.

Seventy-five male Ph.D. candidates were interviewed individually to determine which parent seemed more influential as an identification model. The interview also yielded judgments as to which parent offered more emotional intimacy and which parent was dominant in the family. A chi-square analysis between these characteristics and judged…

Decision support aids with anthropomorphic characteristics influence trust and performance in younger and older adults.

PubMed

Pak, Richard; Fink, Nicole; Price, Margaux; Bass, Brock; Sturre, Lindsay

2012-01-01

This study examined the use of deliberately anthropomorphic automation on younger and older adults' trust, dependence and performance on a diabetes decision-making task. Research with anthropomorphic interface agents has shown mixed effects in judgments of preferences but has rarely examined effects on performance. Meanwhile, research in automation has shown some forms of anthropomorphism (e.g. etiquette) have effects on trust and dependence on automation. Participants answered diabetes questions with no-aid, a non-anthropomorphic aid or an anthropomorphised aid. Trust and dependence in the aid was measured. A minimally anthropomorphic aide primarily affected younger adults' trust in the aid. Dependence, however, for both age groups was influenced by the anthropomorphic aid. Automation that deliberately embodies person-like characteristics can influence trust and dependence on reasonably reliable automation. However, further research is necessary to better understand the specific aspects of the aid that affect different age groups. Automation that embodies human-like characteristics may be useful in situations where there is under-utilisation of reasonably reliable aids by enhancing trust and dependence in that aid. Practitioner Summary: The design of decision-support aids on consumer devices (e.g. smartphones) may influence the level of trust that users place in that system and their amount of use. This study is the first step in articulating how the design of aids may influence user's trust and use of such systems.

Sentence durations and accentedness judgments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bond, Z. S.; Stockmal, Verna; Markus, Dace

2003-04-01

Talkers in a second language can frequently be identified as speaking with a foreign accent. It is not clear to what degree a foreign accent represents specific deviations from a target language versus more general characteristics. We examined the identifications of native and non-native talkers by listeners with various amount of knowledge of the target language. Native and non-native speakers of Latvian provided materials. All the non-native talkers spoke Russian as their first language and were long-term residents of Latvia. A listening test, containing sentences excerpted from a short recorded passage, was presented to three groups of listeners: native speakers of Latvian, Russians for whom Latvian was a second language, and Americans with no knowledge of either of the two languages. The listeners were asked to judge whether each utterance was produced by a native or non-native talker. The Latvians identified the non-native talkers very accurately, 88%. The Russians were somewhat less accurate, 83%. The American listeners were least accurate, but still identified the non-native talkers at above chance levels, 62%. Sentence durations correlated with the judgments provided by the American listeners but not with the judgments provided by native or L2 listeners.

42 CFR 52c.5 - Grant awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... research; (3) The benefits that can be expected to accrue to the institution and its students; (4) The... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GRANTS MINORITY BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH... biomedical research programs which will, in the Secretary's judgment, best promote the purposes of this part...

42 CFR 52c.5 - Grant awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... research; (3) The benefits that can be expected to accrue to the institution and its students; (4) The... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GRANTS MINORITY BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH... biomedical research programs which will, in the Secretary's judgment, best promote the purposes of this part...

42 CFR 52c.5 - Grant awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... research; (3) The benefits that can be expected to accrue to the institution and its students; (4) The... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GRANTS MINORITY BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH... biomedical research programs which will, in the Secretary's judgment, best promote the purposes of this part...

42 CFR 52c.5 - Grant awards.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... research; (3) The benefits that can be expected to accrue to the institution and its students; (4) The... PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GRANTS MINORITY BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH... biomedical research programs which will, in the Secretary's judgment, best promote the purposes of this part...

45 CFR 81.112 - Improper conduct.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 1 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Improper conduct. 81.112 Section 81.112 Public Welfare DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE FOR HEARINGS... communications media, by paid advertisement or otherwise, designed to influence the judgment of any officer...

45 CFR 81.112 - Improper conduct.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 1 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Improper conduct. 81.112 Section 81.112 Public Welfare Department of Health and Human Services GENERAL ADMINISTRATION PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE FOR HEARINGS... communications media, by paid advertisement or otherwise, designed to influence the judgment of any officer...

45 CFR 81.112 - Improper conduct.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 1 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Improper conduct. 81.112 Section 81.112 Public Welfare DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE FOR HEARINGS... communications media, by paid advertisement or otherwise, designed to influence the judgment of any officer...

45 CFR 81.112 - Improper conduct.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... 45 Public Welfare 1 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Improper conduct. 81.112 Section 81.112 Public Welfare DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GENERAL ADMINISTRATION PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE FOR HEARINGS... communications media, by paid advertisement or otherwise, designed to influence the judgment of any officer...

Toward Machine Understanding of Information Quality.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tang, Rong; Ng, K. B.; Strzalkowski, Tomek; Kantor, Paul B.

2003-01-01

Reports preliminary results of a study to develop and automate new metrics for assessment of information quality in text documents, particularly in news. Through focus group studies, quality judgment experiments, and textual feature extraction and analysis, nine quality aspects were generated and applied in human assessments. Experiments were…

Assessing product image quality for online shopping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Goswami, Anjan; Chung, Sung H.; Chittar, Naren; Islam, Atiq

2012-01-01

Assessing product-image quality is important in the context of online shopping. A high quality image that conveys more information about a product can boost the buyer's confidence and can get more attention. However, the notion of image quality for product-images is not the same as that in other domains. The perception of quality of product-images depends not only on various photographic quality features but also on various high level features such as clarity of the foreground or goodness of the background etc. In this paper, we define a notion of product-image quality based on various such features. We conduct a crowd-sourced experiment to collect user judgments on thousands of eBay's images. We formulate a multi-class classification problem for modeling image quality by classifying images into good, fair and poor quality based on the guided perceptual notions from the judges. We also conduct experiments with regression using average crowd-sourced human judgments as target. We compute a pseudo-regression score with expected average of predicted classes and also compute a score from the regression technique. We design many experiments with various sampling and voting schemes with crowd-sourced data and construct various experimental image quality models. Most of our models have reasonable accuracies (greater or equal to 70%) on test data set. We observe that our computed image quality score has a high (0.66) rank correlation with average votes from the crowd sourced human judgments.

Development of a moral judgment measure for veterinary education.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Phillips, Clive J C

2014-01-01

Veterinarians increasingly face animal ethics issues, conflicts, and dilemmas, both in practice and in policy, such as the tension between clients' and animals' interests. Little has been done to measure the capacity of veterinarians to make ethical judgments to prevent and address these issues or to identify the effectiveness of strategies to build this capacity. The objectives of this study were, first, to develop a test to identify the capacity of veterinarians to make ethical decisions in relation to animal ethics issues and, second, to assess students' perceptions of the usefulness of three methods for the development of ethical decision making. The Veterinary Defining Issues Test (VetDIT) was piloted with 88 first-year veterinary students at an Australian university. The veterinary students were at a variety of reasoning stages in their use of the Personal Interest (PI), Maintaining Norms (MN), and Universal Principles (UP) reasoning methods in relation to both human ethics and animal ethics issues and operated at a higher level of reasoning for animal than human ethics. Thirty-eight students assessed three methods for developing ethical decision-making skills and identified these as being helpful in clarifying their positions, clarifying others' positions, increasing awareness of the complexity of making ethical decisions, using ethical frameworks and principles, and improving moral reasoning skills, with two methods identified as most helpful. These methods and the VetDIT have the potential to be used as tools for development and assessment of moral judgment in veterinary education to address animal ethics issues.

Expert judgment and uncertainty regarding the protection of imperiled species.

PubMed

Heeren, Alexander; Karns, Gabriel; Bruskotter, Jeremy; Toman, Eric; Wilson, Robyn; Szarek, Harmony

2017-06-01

Decisions concerning the appropriate listing status of species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) can be controversial even among conservationists. These decisions may determine whether a species persists in the near term and have long-lasting social and political ramifications. Given the ESA's mandate that such decisions be based on the best available science, it is important to examine what factors contribute to experts' judgments concerning the listing of species. We examined how a variety of factors (such as risk perception, value orientations, and norms) influenced experts' judgments concerning the appropriate listing status of the grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) population in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Experts were invited to complete an online survey examining their perceptions of the threats grizzly bears face and their listing recommendation. Although experts' assessments of the threats to this species were strongly correlated with their recommendations for listing status, this relationship did not exist when other cognitive factors were included in the model. Specifically, values related to human use of wildlife and norms (i.e., a respondent's expectation of peers' assessments) were most influential in listing status recommendations. These results suggest that experts' decisions about listing, like all human decisions, are subject to the use of heuristics (i.e., decision shortcuts). An understanding of how heuristics and related biases affect decisions under uncertainty can help inform decision making about threatened and endangered species and may be useful in designing effective processes for protection of imperiled species. © 2016 Society for Conservation Biology.

Understanding Human Error in Naval Aviation Mishaps.

PubMed

Miranda, Andrew T

2018-04-01

To better understand the external factors that influence the performance and decisions of aviators involved in Naval aviation mishaps. Mishaps in complex activities, ranging from aviation to nuclear power operations, are often the result of interactions between multiple components within an organization. The Naval aviation mishap database contains relevant information, both in quantitative statistics and qualitative reports, that permits analysis of such interactions to identify how the working atmosphere influences aviator performance and judgment. Results from 95 severe Naval aviation mishaps that occurred from 2011 through 2016 were analyzed using Bayes' theorem probability formula. Then a content analysis was performed on a subset of relevant mishap reports. Out of the 14 latent factors analyzed, the Bayes' application identified 6 that impacted specific aspects of aviator behavior during mishaps. Technological environment, misperceptions, and mental awareness impacted basic aviation skills. The remaining 3 factors were used to inform a content analysis of the contextual information within mishap reports. Teamwork failures were the result of plan continuation aggravated by diffused responsibility. Resource limitations and risk management deficiencies impacted judgments made by squadron commanders. The application of Bayes' theorem to historical mishap data revealed the role of latent factors within Naval aviation mishaps. Teamwork failures were seen to be considerably damaging to both aviator skill and judgment. Both the methods and findings have direct application for organizations interested in understanding the relationships between external factors and human error. It presents real-world evidence to promote effective safety decisions.

Do humans (Homo sapiens) and fish (Pterophyllum scalare) make similar numerosity judgments?

PubMed

Miletto Petrazzini, Maria Elena; Agrillo, Christian; Izard, Véronique; Bisazza, Angelo

2016-11-01

Numerous studies have shown that many animal species can be trained to discriminate between stimuli differing in numerosity. However, in the absence of generalization tests with untrained numerosities, what decision criterion was used by subjects remains unclear: the subjects may succeed by selecting a specific number of items (a criterion over absolute numerosities), or by applying a more general relative numerosity rule, for example, selecting the larger/smaller quantity of items. The latter case may require more powerful representations, supporting judgments of order ("more/less") beyond simple "same/different" judgments, but a relative numerosity rule may also be more adaptive. In previous research, we showed that guppies (Poecilia reticulata) spontaneously prefer relative numerosity rules. To date it is unclear whether this preference is shared by other fish and, more broadly, other species. Here we compared the performance of angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) with that of human adults (Homo sapiens) in a task in which subjects were initially trained to select arrays containing 10 dots (either in 5 vs. 10 or 10 vs. 20 comparisons). Subsequently they were tested with the previously trained numerosity and a novel numerosity (respectively, 20 or 5). In the absence of explicit instructions, both species spontaneously favored a relative rule, selecting the novel numerosity. These similarities demonstrate that, beyond shared representations for numerical quantities, vertebrate species may also share a system for taking decisions about quantities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Reflexive intergroup bias in third-party punishment.

PubMed

Yudkin, Daniel A; Rothmund, Tobias; Twardawski, Mathias; Thalla, Natasha; Van Bavel, Jay J

2016-11-01

Humans show a rare tendency to punish norm-violators who have not harmed them directly-a behavior known as third-party punishment. Research has found that third-party punishment is subject to intergroup bias, whereby people punish members of the out-group more severely than the in-group. Although the prevalence of this behavior is well-documented, the psychological processes underlying it remain largely unexplored. Some work suggests that it stems from people's inherent predisposition to form alliances with in-group members and aggress against out-group members. This implies that people will show reflexive intergroup bias in third-party punishment, favoring in-group over out-group members especially when their capacity for deliberation is impaired. Here we test this hypothesis directly, examining whether intergroup bias in third-party punishment emerges from reflexive, as opposed to deliberative, components of moral cognition. In 3 experiments, utilizing a simulated economic game, we varied participants' group relationship to a transgressor, measured or manipulated the extent to which they relied on reflexive or deliberative judgment, and observed people's punishment decisions. Across group-membership manipulations (American football teams, nationalities, and baseball teams) and 2 assessments of reflexive judgment (response time and cognitive load), reflexive judgment heightened intergroup bias, suggesting that such bias in punishment is inherent to human moral cognition. We discuss the implications of these studies for theories of punishment, cooperation, social behavior, and legal practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Perceptual Learning in the Absence of Task or Stimulus Specificity

PubMed Central

Webb, Ben S.; Roach, Neil W.; McGraw, Paul V.

2007-01-01

Performance on most sensory tasks improves with practice. When making particularly challenging sensory judgments, perceptual improvements in performance are tightly coupled to the trained task and stimulus configuration. The form of this specificity is believed to provide a strong indication of which neurons are solving the task or encoding the learned stimulus. Here we systematically decouple task- and stimulus-mediated components of trained improvements in perceptual performance and show that neither provides an adequate description of the learning process. Twenty-four human subjects trained on a unique combination of task (three-element alignment or bisection) and stimulus configuration (vertical or horizontal orientation). Before and after training, we measured subjects' performance on all four task-configuration combinations. What we demonstrate for the first time is that learning does actually transfer across both task and configuration provided there is a common spatial axis to the judgment. The critical factor underlying the transfer of learning effects is not the task or stimulus arrangements themselves, but rather the recruitment of commons sets of neurons most informative for making each perceptual judgment. PMID:18094748

Event-related brain potential correlates of two states of conscious awareness in memory

PubMed Central

Düzel, Emrah; Yonelinas, Andrew P.; Mangun, George R.; Heinze, Hans-Jochen; Tulving, Endel

1997-01-01

We report an event-related potential (ERP) experiment of human recognition memory that explored the relation between conscious awareness and electrophysiological activity of the brain. We recorded ERPs from healthy adults while they made “remember” and “know” recognition judgments about previously seen words. These two kinds of judgments reflect “autonoetic” and “noetic” awareness, respectively. The ERP effects differed between the two kinds of awareness while they were similar for “true” and “false” recognition. Noetic awareness was associated with a temporoparietal positivity in the N400 range (325–600 ms) and a late (600–1,000 ms) frontocentral negativity, whereas autonoetic awareness was associated with a widespread, late, bifrontal and left parietotemporal (600–1000 ms) positivity. In the very late (1,300–1,900 ms) time window, a right frontal positivity was observed for both remember and know judgments of both true and false targets. These results provide physiological evidence for two types of conscious awareness in episodic memory retrieval. PMID:9159185

The face of fear and anger: Facial width-to-height ratio biases recognition of angry and fearful expressions.

PubMed

Deska, Jason C; Lloyd, E Paige; Hugenberg, Kurt

2018-04-01

The ability to rapidly and accurately decode facial expressions is adaptive for human sociality. Although judgments of emotion are primarily determined by musculature, static face structure can also impact emotion judgments. The current work investigates how facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), a stable feature of all faces, influences perceivers' judgments of expressive displays of anger and fear (Studies 1a, 1b, & 2), and anger and happiness (Study 3). Across 4 studies, we provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that perceivers more readily see anger on faces with high fWHR compared with those with low fWHR, which instead facilitates the recognition of fear and happiness. This bias emerges when participants are led to believe that targets displaying otherwise neutral faces are attempting to mask an emotion (Studies 1a & 1b), and is evident when faces display an emotion (Studies 2 & 3). Together, these studies suggest that target facial width-to-height ratio biases ascriptions of emotion with consequences for emotion recognition speed and accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's developing metaethical judgments.

PubMed

Schmidt, Marco F H; Gonzalez-Cabrera, Ivan; Tomasello, Michael

2017-12-01

Human adults incline toward moral objectivism but may approach things more relativistically if different cultures are involved. In this study, 4-, 6-, and 9-year-old children (N=136) witnessed two parties who disagreed about moral matters: a normative judge (e.g., judging that it is wrong to do X) and an antinormative judge (e.g., judging that it is okay to do X). We assessed children's metaethical judgment, that is, whether they judged that only one party (objectivism) or both parties (relativism) could be right. We found that 9-year-olds, but not younger children, were more likely to judge that both parties could be right when a normative ingroup judge disagreed with an antinormative extraterrestrial judge (with different preferences and background) than when the antinormative judge was another ingroup individual. This effect was not found in a comparison case where parties disagreed about the possibility of different physical laws. These findings suggest that although young children often exhibit moral objectivism, by early school age they begin to temper their objectivism with culturally relative metaethical judgments. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Scope of Our Affective Influences: When and How Naturally Occurring Positive, Negative, and Neutral Affects Alter Judgment.

PubMed

Gasper, Karen; Danube, Cinnamon L

2016-03-01

To determine how naturally arising affect alters judgment, we examined whether (a) affective states exert a specific, rather than a general, influence on valenced-specific judgments; (b) neutral affect is associated with increased neutral judgments, independent of positive, negative, and ambivalent affects, and whether neutral judgments are associated with behavioral disengagement; and (c) the informational value of naturally arising states may be difficult to alter via salience and relevance manipulations. The results support several conclusions: (a) Affective states exerted a judgment-specific effect-positive affect was most strongly associated with positive judgments, negative affect with negative judgments, and neutral affect with neutral judgments. (b) Neutral affect influenced judgments, taking into account positive, negative, and ambivalent affects; and neutral judgments predicted behavioral disengagement. (c) With the exception of negative affect, naturally arising affective states typically influenced judgments regardless of their salience and relevance. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Dispositional logic

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zadeh, L.A.

1988-01-01

The applicability of conventional mathematical analysis (based on the combination of two-valued logic and probability theory) to problems in which human judgment, perception, or emotions play significant roles is considered theoretically. It is shown that dispositional logic, a branch of fuzzy logic, has particular relevance to the common-sense reasoning typical of human decision-making. The concepts of dispositionality and usuality are defined analytically, and a dispositional conjunctive rule and dispositional modus ponens are derived. 7 references.

Olympic Medals as Fruits of Comparison? Assimilation and Contrast in Sequential Performance Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Damisch, Lysann; Mussweiler, Thomas; Plessner, Henning

2006-01-01

The authors investigated the evaluative consequences of sequential performance judgments. Recent social comparison research has suggested that performance judgments may be influenced by judgments about a preceding performance. Specifically, performance judgments may be assimilated to judgments of the preceding performance if judges focus on…

On the relativity of athletic performance: a comparison perspective on performance judgments in sports.

PubMed

Damisch, Lysann; Mussweiler, Thomas

2009-01-01

Identifying the best performance at a specific point in time constitutes the central purpose of all competitive sports. In many sports, this decision is based on subjective performance judgments. In the present chapter, we consider how these judgments are formed by emphasizing the relative nature of person judgments and athletic performance judgments in particular. Specifically, we argue that athletic judgments are influenced by comparisons with prior performances thereby leading to similar judgmental consequences as have been observed in other comparison domains (e.g., social comparison). Particularly, we demonstrate that performance judgments are assimilated to judgments of the preceding performance if judges focus on similarities between the two. If judges focus on differences, however, contrast ensues. Strategies for preventing or correcting this judgmental bias are discussed.

Detecting affiliation in colaughter across 24 societies

PubMed Central

Bryant, Gregory A.; Fessler, Daniel M. T.; Clint, Edward; Aarøe, Lene; Apicella, Coren L.; Petersen, Michael Bang; Bickham, Shaneikiah T.; Bolyanatz, Alexander; Chavez, Brenda; De Smet, Delphine; Díaz, Cinthya; Fančovičová, Jana; Fux, Michal; Giraldo-Perez, Paulina; Hu, Anning; Kamble, Shanmukh V.; Kameda, Tatsuya; Li, Norman P.; Luberti, Francesca R.; Prokop, Pavol; Quintelier, Katinka; Scelza, Brooke A.; Shin, Hyun Jung; Soler, Montserrat; Stieger, Stefan; van den Hende, Ellis A.; Viciana-Asensio, Hugo; Yildizhan, Saliha Elif; Yong, Jose C.; Yuditha, Tessa; Zhou, Yi

2016-01-01

Laughter is a nonverbal vocal expression that often communicates positive affect and cooperative intent in humans. Temporally coincident laughter occurring within groups is a potentially rich cue of affiliation to overhearers. We examined listeners’ judgments of affiliation based on brief, decontextualized instances of colaughter between either established friends or recently acquainted strangers. In a sample of 966 participants from 24 societies, people reliably distinguished friends from strangers with an accuracy of 53–67%. Acoustic analyses of the individual laughter segments revealed that, across cultures, listeners’ judgments were consistently predicted by voicing dynamics, suggesting perceptual sensitivity to emotionally triggered spontaneous production. Colaughter affords rapid and accurate appraisals of affiliation that transcend cultural and linguistic boundaries, and may constitute a universal means of signaling cooperative relationships. PMID:27071114

Brain correlates of aesthetic judgment of beauty.

PubMed

Jacobsen, Thomas; Schubotz, Ricarda I; Höfel, Lea; Cramon, D Yves V

2006-01-01

Functional MRI was used to investigate the neural correlates of aesthetic judgments of beauty of geometrical shapes. Participants performed evaluative aesthetic judgments (beautiful or not?) and descriptive symmetry judgments (symmetric or not?) on the same stimulus material. Symmetry was employed because aesthetic judgments are known to be often guided by criteria of symmetry. Novel, abstract graphic patterns were presented to minimize influences of attitudes or memory-related processes and to test effects of stimulus symmetry and complexity. Behavioral results confirmed the influence of stimulus symmetry and complexity on aesthetic judgments. Direct contrasts showed specific activations for aesthetic judgments in the frontomedian cortex (BA 9/10), bilateral prefrontal BA 45/47, and posterior cingulate, left temporal pole, and the temporoparietal junction. In contrast, symmetry judgments elicited specific activations in parietal and premotor areas subserving spatial processing. Interestingly, beautiful judgments enhanced BOLD signals not only in the frontomedian cortex, but also in the left intraparietal sulcus of the symmetry network. Moreover, stimulus complexity caused differential effects for each of the two judgment types. Findings indicate aesthetic judgments of beauty to rely on a network partially overlapping with that underlying evaluative judgments on social and moral cues and substantiate the significance of symmetry and complexity for our judgment of beauty.

Teaching Sexuality from Divergent Life-Style Viewpoints.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Moy, Caryl T.; Hotvedt, Mary

A unique approach to teaching human sexuality at the college level is to present the content and raise sociological and interpersonal value questions from different lifestyle viewpoints. Developing a course such as this has involved securing approval and encouragement from university administration who trust faculty judgment but who are under…

The Role of Information about "Convention," "Design," and "Goal" in Representing Artificial Kinds

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

German, Tim P.; Truxaw, Danielle; Defeyter, Margaret Anne

2007-01-01

Artifact knowledge requires integration of information from different areas of human commonsense knowledge--our everyday understanding of object mechanics and our everyday psychology. Here, we address the question of artifact conceptual structure, outlining evidence from tasks involving categorization, function judgments, and problem solving.

9 CFR 590.5 - Terms defined.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

...) a color additive) which may in the judgment of the Secretary, make such article unfit for human food... section 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; (4) If it bears or contains any color additive... definition shall nevertheless be deemed adulterated if use of the pesticide chemical, food additive, or color...

9 CFR 590.5 - Terms defined.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

...) a color additive) which may in the judgment of the Secretary, make such article unfit for human food... section 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; (4) If it bears or contains any color additive... definition shall nevertheless be deemed adulterated if use of the pesticide chemical, food additive, or color...

9 CFR 590.5 - Terms defined.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

...) a color additive) which may in the judgment of the Secretary, make such article unfit for human food... section 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; (4) If it bears or contains any color additive... definition shall nevertheless be deemed adulterated if use of the pesticide chemical, food additive, or color...

9 CFR 590.5 - Terms defined.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

...) a color additive) which may in the judgment of the Secretary, make such article unfit for human food... section 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act; (4) If it bears or contains any color additive... definition shall nevertheless be deemed adulterated if use of the pesticide chemical, food additive, or color...

Project Solo; Newsletter Number Four.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pittsburgh Univ., PA. Project Solo.

A paper titled "Myopia, Cornucopia and Utopia" makes up the major portion of this Project Solo Newsletter. It emphasizes the danger involved in the belief that the larger the system the better, and points out that although the computer utilizes technology, the human with judgment utilizes the computer. Some details of the Project Solo…

Outdoor Leadership Evaluation: Nature and Scope of the Problem.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

James, Leroy M.

Beyond the ability to exhibit good judgment and common sense while performing duties as a leader under stress and pressure, an outdoor adventure program leader should possess technical skills, human relations skills, and philosophical understanding of outdoor programming. Technical skills include knowledge of initiatives/ropes course activities,…

Human Performance Task Batteries and Models: An Abilities-Based Directory

DTIC Science & Technology

1986-12-01

8217. BATTERY/TASKLS^ f^ODELYS^ none located to date Sanders Stamina The ability to withstand considerable physical exertion without becoming winded or...Tha Frnfi Pmsg I Jerison, H.J. & Arginteau, J. (1958). Time judgment, acoustic noise and judgement drift (Technical Report No. 57-474). Dayton, OH

Personal and Impersonal Stimuli Differentially Engage Brain Networks during Moral Reasoning

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Xue, Shao-Wei; Wang, Yan; Tang, Yi-Yuan

2013-01-01

Moral decision making has recently attracted considerable attention as a core feature of all human endeavors. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging studies about moral judgment have identified brain areas associated with cognitive or emotional engagement. Here, we applied graph theory-based network analysis of event-related potentials…

Influence of Familiar Features on Diagnosis: Instantiated Features in an Applied Setting

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dore, Kelly L.; Brooks, Lee R.; Weaver, Bruce; Norman, Geoffrey R.

2012-01-01

Medical diagnosis can be viewed as a categorization task. There are two mechanisms whereby humans make categorical judgments: "analytical reasoning," based on explicit consideration of features and "nonanalytical reasoning," an unconscious holistic process of matching against prior exemplars. However, there is evidence that prior experience can…

Student Metacognitive Monitoring: Predicting Test Achievement from Judgment Accuracy

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Valdez, Alfred

2013-01-01

Metacognitive monitoring processes have been shown to be critical determinants of human learning. Metacognitive monitoring consist of various knowledge estimates that enable learners to engage in self-regulatory processes important for both the acquisition of knowledge and the monitoring of one's knowledge when engaged in assessment. This study…

Emotions about Teaching about Human-Induced Climate Change

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lombardi, Doug; Sinatra, Gale M.

2013-01-01

Global climate change is receiving increasing attention as a classroom topic. At the same time, research has shown that individuals have strong emotions about the topic. Emotions about controversial topics and individuals' dispositions toward knowledge have been shown to influence judgments about these topics. This study examined the relationships…

76 FR 12271 - Human Reliability Program: Identification of Reviewing Official

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-03-07

... authority to issue a final written decision to recertify or revoke the certification of an individual in the... and facilitates timely final agency decision-making. This amendment modifies internal agency... identify, in a timely manner, individuals whose judgment may be impaired by physical or mental/personality...

Learning, Judgment, and the Rooted Particular

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McCabe, David

2012-01-01

This article begins by acknowledging the general worry that scholarship in the humanities lacks the rigor and objectivity of other scholarly fields. In considering the validity of that criticism, I distinguish two models of learning: the covering law model exemplified by the natural sciences, and the model of rooted particularity that…

Gendered Perspectives about Water Risks and Policy Strategies: A Tripartite Conceptual Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Larson, Kelli L.; Ibes, Dorothy C.; White, Dave D.

2011-01-01

Previous research has examined gendered perspectives on a variety of environmental risks. Mixed results complicate the ability to make generalizations about human-ecological judgments, largely because of the use of inconsistent conceptual and methodological approaches in previous work. Following the tripartite model, we examine differences between…

14 CFR Appendix E to Part 141 - Airline Transport Pilot Certification Course

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... performance in normal and abnormal flight regimes; (11) Human factors; (12) Aeronautical decision making and judgment; and (13) Crew resource management to include crew communication and coordination. 4. Flight... contracting State to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. 3. Aeronautical knowledge areas. (a) Each...

14 CFR Appendix E to Part 141 - Airline Transport Pilot Certification Course

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... performance in normal and abnormal flight regimes; (11) Human factors; (12) Aeronautical decision making and judgment; and (13) Crew resource management to include crew communication and coordination. 4. Flight... contracting State to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. 3. Aeronautical knowledge areas. (a) Each...

14 CFR Appendix E to Part 141 - Airline Transport Pilot Certification Course

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... performance in normal and abnormal flight regimes; (11) Human factors; (12) Aeronautical decision making and judgment; and (13) Crew resource management to include crew communication and coordination. 4. Flight... contracting State to the Convention on International Civil Aviation. 3. Aeronautical knowledge areas. (a) Each...

Construction of Trust Judgments within Cooperative Dyads

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Evin, Agathe; Sève, Carole; Saury, Jacques

2014-01-01

Introduction: One of the aims of physical education (PE) is to develop social skills such as cooperation, teamwork, and mutual helping among students. Cooperation is a broad research topic, implicating several disciplines in the human sciences (e.g. psychology, sociology, linguistics, philosophy). It is also an important topic in various domains…

The Development of Generosity and Moral Cognition across Five Cultures

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cowell, Jason M.; Lee, Kang; Malcolm-Smith, Susan; Selcuk, Bilge; Zhou, Xinyue; Decety, Jean

2017-01-01

Morality is an evolved aspect of human nature, yet is heavily influenced by cultural environment. This developmental study adopted an integrative approach by combining measures of socioeconomic status (SES), executive function, affective sharing, empathic concern, theory of mind, and moral judgment in predicting sharing behavior in children (N =…

Preparing for Disruption by Creating Future Possible Selves

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bridglall, Beatrice L.

2018-01-01

It is perhaps more evident now than at any other time in human history that current technologies are racing ahead while skills and organizations are lagging behind. In the context of such uncertainty, Maxine Greene's and Theodore Sizer's ideas about empowering students to develop resiliency, perspective, judgment, and flexibility, as well…

Judgments of Cause and Blame: Sensitivity to Intentionality in Asperger's Syndrome

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Channon, Shelley; Lagnado, David; Fitzpatrick, Sian; Drury, Helena; Taylor, Isabelle

2011-01-01

Sensitivity to intentionality in people with Asperger's syndrome (AS) and matched controls was investigated using two scenario-based tasks. The first compared intentional and unintentional human actions and physical events leading to the same negative outcomes. The second compared intentional actions that varied in their subjective and objective…

Minimizing Accidents and Risks in High Adventure Outdoor Pursuits.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Meier, Joel

The fundamental dilemma in adventure programming is eliminating unreasonable risks to participants without also reducing levels of excitement, challenge, and stress. Most accidents are caused by a combination of unsafe conditions, unsafe acts, and error judgments. The best and only way to minimize critical human error in adventure programs is…

The mismeasure of morals: antisocial personality traits predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas.

PubMed

Bartels, Daniel M; Pizarro, David A

2011-10-01

Researchers have recently argued that utilitarianism is the appropriate framework by which to evaluate moral judgment, and that individuals who endorse non-utilitarian solutions to moral dilemmas (involving active vs. passive harm) are committing an error. We report a study in which participants responded to a battery of personality assessments and a set of dilemmas that pit utilitarian and non-utilitarian options against each other. Participants who indicated greater endorsement of utilitarian solutions had higher scores on measures of Psychopathy, machiavellianism, and life meaninglessness. These results question the widely-used methods by which lay moral judgments are evaluated, as these approaches lead to the counterintuitive conclusion that those individuals who are least prone to moral errors also possess a set of psychological characteristics that many would consider prototypically immoral. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Descriptive and evaluative judgment processes: behavioral and electrophysiological indices of processing symmetry and aesthetics.

PubMed

Jacobsen, Thomas; Höfel, Lea

2003-12-01

Descriptive symmetry and evaluative aesthetic judgment processes were compared using identical stimuli in both judgment tasks. Electrophysiological activity was recorded while participants judged novel formal graphic patterns in a trial-by-trial cuing setting using binary responses (symmetric, not symmetric; beautiful, not beautiful). Judgment analyses of a Phase 1 test and main experiment performance resulted in individual models, as well as group models, of the participants' judgment systems. Symmetry showed a strong positive correlation with beautiful judgments and was the most important cue. Descriptive judgments were performed faster than evaluative judgments. The ERPs revealed a phasic, early frontal negativity for the not-beautiful judgments. A sustained posterior negativity was observed in the symmetric condition. All conditions showed late positive potentials (LPPs). Evaluative judgment LPPs revealed a more pronounced right lateralization. It is argued that the present aesthetic judgments engage a two-stage process consisting of early, anterior frontomedian impression formation after 300 msec and right-hemisphere evaluative categorization around 600 msec after onset of the graphic patterns.

Unpacking the neural associations of emotion and judgment in emotion-congruent judgment

PubMed Central

Beer, Jennifer S.

2012-01-01

The current study takes a new approach to understand the neural systems that support emotion-congruent judgment. The bulk of previous neural research has inferred emotional influences on judgment from disadvantageous judgments or non-random individual differences. The current study manipulated the influence of emotional information on judgments of stimuli that were equivocally composed of positive and negative attributes. Emotion-congruent processing was operationalized in two ways: neural activation significantly associated with primes that lead to emotionally congruent judgments and neural activation significantly associated with judgments that were preceded by emotionally congruent primes. Distinct regions of medial orbitofrontal cortex were associated with these patterns of emotion-congruent processing. Judgments that were incongruent with preceding primes were associated with dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and lateral orbitofrontal cortex activity. The current study demonstrates a new approach to investigate the neural systems associated with emotion-congruent judgment. The findings suggest that medial OFC may support attentional processes that underlie emotion-congruent judgment. PMID:21511825

Early Career Teachers' Ability to Focus on Typical Students Errors in Relation to the Complexity of a Mathematical Topic

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pankow, Lena; Kaiser, Gabriele; Busse, Andreas; König, Johannes; Blömeke, Sigrid; Hoth, Jessica; Döhrmann, Martina

2016-01-01

The paper presents results from a computer-based assessment in which 171 early career mathematics teachers from Germany were asked to anticipate typical student errors on a given mathematical topic and identify them under time constraints. Fast and accurate perception and knowledge-based judgments are widely accepted characteristics of teacher…

Douglas-fir site as a basis for selecting Christmas tree lands.

Treesearch

Elmer W. Shaw

1954-01-01

Owners of Douglas-fir reproduction stands often ask, "Is this land suited for Christmas tree production, or should I hold it for timber?" In answering this question, foresters will find a consideration of site will usually be helpful as a supplement to personal judgment and experience. The following table shows how some of the stand characteristics, important...

Some Practical Solutions to Standard-Setting Problems: The Georgia Teacher Certification Test Experience.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cramer, Stephen E.

A standard-setting procedure was developed for the Georgia Teacher Certification Testing Program as tests in 30 teaching fields were revised. A list of important characteristics of a standard-setting procedure was derived, drawing on the work of R. A. Berk (1986). The best method was found to be a highly formalized judgmental, empirical Angoff…

The Reading Essential Skill Screener--Preschool Version (RESS-P): Studies of Reliability and Validity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Erford, Bradley T.

2004-01-01

Technical characteristics of the Reading Essential Skill Screener--Preschool Version (RESS-P) were studied using four independent samples of boys and girls aged 3-5 years. A decision efficiency study (N = 91) resulted in a total predictive value (TPV) of .85 when compared with the criterion of teacher report/judgment of emerging literacy at-risk…

Methodology for characterizing potential adversaries of Nuclear Material Safeguards Systems

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kirkwood, C.W.; Pollock, S.M.

1978-11-01

The results are described of a study by Woodward--Clyde Consultants to assist the University of California Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in the development of methods to analyze and evaluate Nuclear Material Safeguards (NMS) Systems. The study concentrated on developing a methodology to assist experts in describing, in quantitative form, their judgments about the characteristics of potential adversaries of NMS Systems.

The Effects of Race on Patient Preferences and Spouse Substituted Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pruchno, Rachel; Cartwright, Francine P.; Wilson-Genderson, Maureen

2009-01-01

Knowledge about the ways in which race affects decision-making at the end of life is minimal, yet this information is critical for providing culturally sensitive care at the end of life. Data matching socio-demographic characteristics of 34 black and 34 white patients with end-stage renal disease and their spouses reveal that there are no…

Individual Differences in Skilled Adult Readers Reveal Dissociable Patterns of Neural Activity Associated with Component Processes of Reading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Welcome, Suzanne E.; Joanisse, Marc F.

2012-01-01

We used fMRI to examine patterns of brain activity associated with component processes of visual word recognition and their relationships to individual differences in reading skill. We manipulated both the judgments adults made on written stimuli and the characteristics of the stimuli. Phonological processing led to activation in left inferior…

A comparison of four measures of moral reasoning.

PubMed

Wilmoth, G H; McFarland, S G

1977-08-01

Kohlberg's Moral Judgment Scale, Gilligan et al.'s Sexual Moral Judgment Scale, Maitland and Goldman's Objective Moral Judgment Scale, and Hogan's Maturity of Moral Judgment Scale, were examined for reliability and inter-scale relationships. All measures except the Objective Moral Judgment Scale had good reliabilities. The obtained relations between the Moral Judgment Scale and the Sexual Moral Judgment Scale replicated previous research. The Objective Moral Judgment Scale was not found to validly assess the Kohlberg stages. The Maturity of Moral Judgment Scale scores were strongly related to the subjects's classification on the Kohlberg stages, and the scale appears to offer a reliable, quickly scored, and valid index of mature thought, although the scale's continuous scores do not permit clear stage classification.

The effects of alphabet and expertise on letter perception

PubMed Central

Wiley, Robert W.; Wilson, Colin; Rapp, Brenda

2016-01-01

Long-standing questions in human perception concern the nature of the visual features that underlie letter recognition and the extent to which the visual processing of letters is affected by differences in alphabets and levels of viewer expertise. We examined these issues in a novel approach using a same-different judgment task on pairs of letters from the Arabic alphabet with two participant groups—one with no prior exposure to Arabic and one with reading proficiency. Hierarchical clustering and linear mixed-effects modeling of reaction times and accuracy provide evidence that both the specific characteristics of the alphabet and observers’ previous experience with it affect how letters are perceived and visually processed. The findings of this research further our understanding of the multiple factors that affect letter perception and support the view of a visual system that dynamically adjusts its weighting of visual features as expert readers come to more efficiently and effectively discriminate the letters of the specific alphabet they are viewing. PMID:26913778

Using Hybrid Magnetic Bearings to Completely Suspend the Impeller of a Ventricular Assist Device.

PubMed

Khanwilkar, Pratap; Olsen, Don; Bearnson, Gill; Allaire, Paul; Maslen, Eric; Flack, Ron; Long, James

1996-05-01

Clinically available blood pumps and those under development suffer from poor mechanical reliability and poor biocompatibility related to anatomic fit, hemolysis, and thrombosis. To alleviate these problems concurrently in a long-term device is a substantial challenge. Based on testing the performance of a prototype, and on our judgment of desired characteristics, we have configured an innovative ventricular assist device, the CF-VAD4, for long-term use. The design process and its outcome, the CFVAD4 system configuration, is described. To provide unprecedented reliability and biocompatibility, magnetic bearings completely suspend the rotating pump impeller. The CFVAD4 uses a combination of passive (permanent) and active (electric) magnetic bearings, a mixed flow impeller, and a slotless 3-phase brushless DC motor. These components are shaped, oriented, and integrated to provide a compact, implantable, pancake-shaped unit for placement in the left upper abdominal quadrant of adult humans. © 1996 International Society for Artificial Organs.

Accuracy of clinicians and models for estimating the probability that a pulmonary nodule is malignant.

PubMed

Balekian, Alex A; Silvestri, Gerard A; Simkovich, Suzanne M; Mestaz, Peter J; Sanders, Gillian D; Daniel, Jamie; Porcel, Jackie; Gould, Michael K

2013-12-01

Management of pulmonary nodules depends critically on the probability of malignancy. Models to estimate probability have been developed and validated, but most clinicians rely on judgment. The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of clinical judgment with that of two prediction models. Physician participants reviewed up to five clinical vignettes, selected at random from a larger pool of 35 vignettes, all based on actual patients with lung nodules of known final diagnosis. Vignettes included clinical information and a representative slice from computed tomography. Clinicians estimated the probability of malignancy for each vignette. To examine agreement with models, we calculated intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and kappa statistics. To examine accuracy, we compared areas under the receiver operator characteristic curve (AUC). Thirty-six participants completed 179 vignettes, 47% of which described patients with malignant nodules. Agreement between participants and models was fair for the Mayo Clinic model (ICC, 0.37; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.23-0.50) and moderate for the Veterans Affairs model (ICC, 0.46; 95% CI, 0.34-0.57). There was no difference in accuracy between participants (AUC, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.62-0.77) and the Mayo Clinic model (AUC, 0.71; 95% CI, 0.62-0.80; P = 0.90) or the Veterans Affairs model (AUC, 0.72; 95% CI, 0.64-0.80; P = 0.54). In this vignette-based study, clinical judgment and models appeared to have similar accuracy for lung nodule characterization, but agreement between judgment and the models was modest, suggesting that qualitative and quantitative approaches may provide complementary information.

A Device for Human Ultrasonic Echolocation.

PubMed

Sohl-Dickstein, Jascha; Teng, Santani; Gaub, Benjamin M; Rodgers, Chris C; Li, Crystal; DeWeese, Michael R; Harper, Nicol S

2015-06-01

We present a device that combines principles of ultrasonic echolocation and spatial hearing to provide human users with environmental cues that are 1) not otherwise available to the human auditory system, and 2) richer in object and spatial information than the more heavily processed sonar cues of other assistive devices. The device consists of a wearable headset with an ultrasonic emitter and stereo microphones with affixed artificial pinnae. The goal of this study is to describe the device and evaluate the utility of the echoic information it provides. The echoes of ultrasonic pulses were recorded and time stretched to lower their frequencies into the human auditory range, then played back to the user. We tested performance among naive and experienced sighted volunteers using a set of localization experiments, in which the locations of echo-reflective surfaces were judged using these time-stretched echoes. Naive subjects were able to make laterality and distance judgments, suggesting that the echoes provide innately useful information without prior training. Naive subjects were generally unable to make elevation judgments from recorded echoes. However, trained subjects demonstrated an ability to judge elevation as well. This suggests that the device can be used effectively to examine the environment and that the human auditory system can rapidly adapt to these artificial echolocation cues. Interpreting and interacting with the external world constitutes a major challenge for persons who are blind or visually impaired. This device has the potential to aid blind people in interacting with their environment.

A device for human ultrasonic echolocation

PubMed Central

Gaub, Benjamin M.; Rodgers, Chris C.; Li, Crystal; DeWeese, Michael R.; Harper, Nicol S.

2015-01-01

Objective We present a device that combines principles of ultrasonic echolocation and spatial hearing to provide human users with environmental cues that are 1) not otherwise available to the human auditory system and 2) richer in object, and spatial information than the more heavily processed sonar cues of other assistive devices. The device consists of a wearable headset with an ultrasonic emitter and stereo microphones with affixed artificial pinnae. The goal of this study is to describe the device and evaluate the utility of the echoic information it provides. Methods The echoes of ultrasonic pulses were recorded and time-stretched to lower their frequencies into the human auditory range, then played back to the user. We tested performance among naive and experienced sighted volunteers using a set of localization experiments in which the locations of echo-reflective surfaces were judged using these time stretched echoes. Results Naive subjects were able to make laterality and distance judgments, suggesting that the echoes provide innately useful information without prior training. Naive subjects were generally unable to make elevation judgments from recorded echoes. However trained subjects demonstrated an ability to judge elevation as well. Conclusion This suggests that the device can be used effectively to examine the environment and that the human auditory system can rapidly adapt to these artificial echolocation cues. Significance Interpreting and interacting with the external world constitutes a major challenge for persons who are blind or visually impaired. This device has the potential to aid blind people in interacting with their environment. PMID:25608301

The difference of being human: Morality

PubMed Central

Ayala, Francisco J.

2010-01-01

In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, published in 1871, Charles Darwin wrote: “I fully … subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between man and the lower animals the moral sense or conscience is by far the most important.” I raise the question of whether morality is biologically or culturally determined. The question of whether the moral sense is biologically determined may refer either to the capacity for ethics (i.e., the proclivity to judge human actions as either right or wrong), or to the moral norms accepted by human beings for guiding their actions. I propose that the capacity for ethics is a necessary attribute of human nature, whereas moral codes are products of cultural evolution. Humans have a moral sense because their biological makeup determines the presence of three necessary conditions for ethical behavior: (i) the ability to anticipate the consequences of one's own actions; (ii) the ability to make value judgments; and (iii) the ability to choose between alternative courses of action. Ethical behavior came about in evolution not because it is adaptive in itself but as a necessary consequence of man's eminent intellectual abilities, which are an attribute directly promoted by natural selection. That is, morality evolved as an exaptation, not as an adaptation. Moral codes, however, are outcomes of cultural evolution, which accounts for the diversity of cultural norms among populations and for their evolution through time. PMID:20445091

49 CFR 821.17 - Motions to dismiss, for judgment on the pleadings and for summary judgment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... shall be filed within 10 days after service of the law judge's order on the motion. (b) Motions to... a matter of law. (d) Motions for summary judgment. A party may file a motion for summary judgment on... dismissal, judgment on the pleadings and summary judgment orders. When a law judge grants a motion to...

49 CFR 821.17 - Motions to dismiss, for judgment on the pleadings and for summary judgment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... shall be filed within 10 days after service of the law judge's order on the motion. (b) Motions to... a matter of law. (d) Motions for summary judgment. A party may file a motion for summary judgment on... dismissal, judgment on the pleadings and summary judgment orders. When a law judge grants a motion to...

49 CFR 821.17 - Motions to dismiss, for judgment on the pleadings and for summary judgment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... shall be filed within 10 days after service of the law judge's order on the motion. (b) Motions to... a matter of law. (d) Motions for summary judgment. A party may file a motion for summary judgment on... dismissal, judgment on the pleadings and summary judgment orders. When a law judge grants a motion to...

49 CFR 821.17 - Motions to dismiss, for judgment on the pleadings and for summary judgment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... shall be filed within 10 days after service of the law judge's order on the motion. (b) Motions to... a matter of law. (d) Motions for summary judgment. A party may file a motion for summary judgment on... dismissal, judgment on the pleadings and summary judgment orders. When a law judge grants a motion to...

49 CFR 821.17 - Motions to dismiss, for judgment on the pleadings and for summary judgment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... shall be filed within 10 days after service of the law judge's order on the motion. (b) Motions to... a matter of law. (d) Motions for summary judgment. A party may file a motion for summary judgment on... dismissal, judgment on the pleadings and summary judgment orders. When a law judge grants a motion to...

Interpretation of the margin of exposure for genotoxic carcinogens - elicitation of expert knowledge about the form of the dose response curve at human relevant exposures.

PubMed

Boobis, Alan; Flari, Villie; Gosling, John Paul; Hart, Andy; Craig, Peter; Rushton, Lesley; Idahosa-Taylor, Ehi

2013-07-01

The general approach to risk assessment of genotoxic carcinogens has been to advise reduction of exposure to "as low as reasonably achievable/practicable" (ALARA/P). However, whilst this remains the preferred risk management option, it does not provide guidance on the urgency or extent of risk management actions necessary. To address this, the "Margin of Exposure" (MOE) approach has been proposed. The MOE is the ratio between the point of departure for carcinogenesis and estimated human exposure. However, interpretation of the MOE requires implicit or explicit consideration of the shape of the dose-response curve at human relevant exposures. In a structured elicitation exercise, we captured expert opinion on available scientific evidence for low dose-response relationships for genotoxic carcinogens. This allowed assessment of: available evidence for the nature of dose-response relationships at human relevant exposures; the generality of judgments about such dose-response relationships; uncertainties affecting judgments on the nature of such dose-response relationships; and whether this last should differ for different classes of genotoxic carcinogens. Elicitation results reflected the variability in experts' views on the form of the dose-response curve for low dose exposure and major sources of uncertainty affecting the assumption of a linear relationship. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

40 CFR 194.26 - Expert judgment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... judgment elicitation processes and the reasoning behind those results. Documentation of interviews used to elicit judgments from experts, the questions or issues presented for elicitation of expert judgment... expert judgment elicitation comports with the level of knowledge required by the questions or issues...

40 CFR 194.26 - Expert judgment.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... judgment elicitation processes and the reasoning behind those results. Documentation of interviews used to elicit judgments from experts, the questions or issues presented for elicitation of expert judgment... expert judgment elicitation comports with the level of knowledge required by the questions or issues...

Immediate memory for “when, where and what”: Short‐delay retrieval using dynamic naturalistic material

PubMed Central

Macaluso, Emiliano

2015-01-01

Abstract We investigated the neural correlates supporting three kinds of memory judgments after very short delays using naturalistic material. In two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments, subjects watched short movie clips, and after a short retention (1.5–2.5 s), made mnemonic judgments about specific aspects of the clips. In Experiment 1, subjects were presented with two scenes and required to either choose the scene that happened earlier in the clip (“scene‐chronology”), or with a correct spatial arrangement (“scene‐layout”), or that had been shown (“scene‐recognition”). To segregate activity specific to seen versus unseen stimuli, in Experiment 2 only one probe image was presented (either target or foil). Across the two experiments, we replicated three patterns underlying the three specific forms of memory judgment. The precuneus was activated during temporal‐order retrieval, the superior parietal cortex was activated bilaterally for spatial‐related configuration judgments, whereas the medial frontal cortex during scene recognition. Conjunction analyses with a previous study that used analogous retrieval tasks, but a much longer delay (>1 day), demonstrated that this dissociation pattern is independent of retention delay. We conclude that analogous brain regions mediate task‐specific retrieval across vastly different delays, consistent with the proposal of scale‐invariance in episodic memory retrieval. Hum Brain Mapp 36:2495–2513, 2015. © 2015 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. PMID:25773646

Judgments about Judgments: The Dissociation of Consideration Price and Transaction Commitment Judgments

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Janiszewski, Chris; Lichtenstein, Donald R.; Belyavsky, Julia

2008-01-01

There are many contexts in which people make judgments about prior judgments. For example, Internet shopping bots (e.g., NexTag.com) allow consumers to search for products and, if the price is too high, list a price at which they would consider making the purchase (i.e., base judgment). If the price drops to this level, the vendor generates an…

[Structure and characteristics of technical support that psychiatric social workers of prefectural governments provide for municipalities].

PubMed

Okada, Takashi

2017-01-01

Objectives　The support to municipalities by prefectural governments has become necessary in the fields of mental health and welfare. Therefore, psychiatric social workers (PSW) ordered from the prefectural governor has been providing technical support (TS) that promote community activities of the municipality and improve staff support for persons with mental disabilities. The purpose of this study was to identify empirical structure and characteristics of TS that PSW provide for municipality staff.Method　Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven certified PSW randomly selected from the membership list of the National Psychiatric Social Worker Organization. Inclusion criteria required participants to have more than 10 years of experience at the prefectural government and experience providing TS in the last five years. Interviews focused on two situations: a casework and a project related to mental health. Interview data were analyzed using a qualitative content method, setting a framework for the consultation process.Results　The analysis included five categories < > and 15 subcategories [ ], which consisted of 37 concepts. In category with municipalities consisted of [complementary relationship] and [partnership]. The category included two subcategories, [analyze/judgment from the conditions spread in front of] and [analyze/judgment be the accumulated skills and knowledge in person]. In category , six policies were considered as important, including [problem solving and promoting action], [fostering person centered care perspective], [promoting the understanding of residents], [provide psychological support to the staff], [clarify responsibility as the municipal officials], and [coordinate to improve the environment]. Category consisted of both [support indirectly] and [support cooperatively]. The last category, included three subcategories, [lead to the maintenance and improvement of the system], [have the staff pleasure/contribute to the community], and [consider whether it can be applied to other regions]. The results showed that the characteristics of TS had a consultation function, and the support function utilized complementarity and collaboration between prefecture and municipality providing services to residents.Conclusion　This study has clarified the characteristics of TS, which have not been clarified in previous research. We should accumulate the knowledge and establish a method for spreading through various regions.

50% off or buy one get one free? Frame preference as a function of consumable nature in dairy products.

PubMed

Li, Shu; Sun, Yan; Wang, Yong

2007-08-01

Previous studies on how framing differentially affects consumer perceptions of value from equivalent deals indicate that perceptions of deal value from price-saving versus extra-product promotions are moderated by the stock-up characteristic of the category. In this study, the authors explored the relationship between stock-up characteristic and frame preference and the influence of the consumable nature of goods on frame preference. An experiment involving 223 student participants showed that consumable nature, but not stock-up characteristic, affected frame preference. The authors discuss the implications of this finding for the study of information framing and how it impacts consumer judgment and decision making.

First impressions: making up your mind after a 100-ms exposure to a face.

PubMed

Willis, Janine; Todorov, Alexander

2006-07-01

People often draw trait inferences from the facial appearance of other people. We investigated the minimal conditions under which people make such inferences. In five experiments, each focusing on a specific trait judgment, we manipulated the exposure time of unfamiliar faces. Judgments made after a 100-ms exposure correlated highly with judgments made in the absence of time constraints, suggesting that this exposure time was sufficient for participants to form an impression. In fact, for all judgments-attractiveness, likeability, trustworthiness, competence, and aggressiveness-increased exposure time did not significantly increase the correlations. When exposure time increased from 100 to 500 ms, participants' judgments became more negative, response times for judgments decreased, and confidence in judgments increased. When exposure time increased from 500 to 1,000 ms, trait judgments and response times did not change significantly (with one exception), but confidence increased for some of the judgments; this result suggests that additional time may simply boost confidence in judgments. However, increased exposure time led to more differentiated person impressions.

Attentional Drift: An Exploratory Study into the Development of an Attention Level Monitoring System Based on Human Eye Fixation

DTIC Science & Technology

2010-03-01

1979). As drivers’ daily commuting times increase, and as new technologies such as Blackberrys , navigation systems, DVDs, etc., become more pervasive...Thomas, L.C., & Wickens, C.D. (2001). Visual displays and cognitive tunneling : frames of reference effects on spatial judgments and change

Natural and Artifactual Kinds: Are Children Realists or Relativists about Categories?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kalish, Charles

1998-01-01

Four studies assessed whether children and adults saw categorization decisions as objective matters of fact or as invented conventions. Found that preschoolers treated basic-level animal and human-made artifact category decisions as objective, with kinds of animals treated as more objective than kinds of artifacts. Adults' judgments were similar…

Teaching Applied Ethics to the Righteous Mind

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Murphy, Peter

2014-01-01

What does current empirically informed moral psychology imply about the goals that can be realistically achieved in college-level applied ethics courses? This paper takes up this question from the vantage point of Jonathan Haidt's Social Intuitionist Model of human moral judgment. I summarize Haidt's model, and then consider a variety of…

Relatively Random: Context Effects on Perceived Randomness and Predicted Outcomes

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Matthews, William J.

2013-01-01

This article concerns the effect of context on people's judgments about sequences of chance outcomes. In Experiment 1, participants judged whether sequences were produced by random, mechanical processes (such as a roulette wheel) or skilled human action (such as basketball shots). Sequences with lower alternation rates were judged more likely to…

Grammaticality, Acceptability, and Probability: A Probabilistic View of Linguistic Knowledge

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lau, Jey Han; Clark, Alexander; Lappin, Shalom

2017-01-01

The question of whether humans represent grammatical knowledge as a binary condition on membership in a set of well-formed sentences, or as a probabilistic property has been the subject of debate among linguists, psychologists, and cognitive scientists for many decades. Acceptability judgments present a serious problem for both classical binary…

Development of Heuristic Bias Detection in Elementary School

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

De Neys, Wim; Feremans, Vicky

2013-01-01

Although human reasoning is often biased by intuitive heuristics, recent studies have shown that adults and adolescents detect the biased nature of their judgments. The present study focused on the development of this critical bias sensitivity by examining the detection skills of young children in elementary school. Third and 6th graders were…

42 CFR 37.6 - Chest roentgenographic examinations conducted by the Secretary.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... the Secretary. 37.6 Section 37.6 Public Health PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN...) Where, in the judgment of the Secretary, due to the lack of adequate medical or other necessary... fails to comply with the approved plan. (b) The operator of the mine shall reimburse the Secretary or...

Plausibility Reappraisals and Shifts in Middle School Students' Climate Change Conceptions

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lombardi, Doug; Sinatra, Gale M.; Nussbaum, E. Michael

2013-01-01

Plausibility is a central but under-examined topic in conceptual change research. Climate change is an important socio-scientific topic; however, many view human-induced climate change as implausible. When learning about climate change, students need to make plausibility judgments but they may not be sufficiently critical or reflective. The…

Education of Civic Consciousness in George Kershenshteyner's Creativity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Belentsov, Sergei I.; Fahrutdinova, Anastasia V.; Okulich-Kazarin, Valery

2017-01-01

Relevance of the publication is caused by need of judgment of realities and prospects of development of the Russian society. The education system is the main factor of updating of tenor of life of the state and further development of democratic institutes. Therefore questions of a humanization of Russian education become defining in historical and…

Terrain Classification of Norwegian Slab Avalanche Accidents

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hallandvik, Linda; Aadland, Eivind; Vikene, Odd Lennart

2016-01-01

It is difficult to rely on snow conditions, weather, and human factors when making judgments about avalanche risk because these variables are dynamic and complex; terrain, however, is more easily observed and interpreted. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate (1) the type of terrain in which historical fatal snow avalanche accidents in Norway…

Predicting Sentencing for Low-Level Crimes: Comparing Models of Human Judgment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

von Helversen, Bettina; Rieskamp, Jorg

2009-01-01

Laws and guidelines regulating legal decision making are often imposed without taking the cognitive processes of the legal decision maker into account. In the case of sentencing, this raises the question of whether the sentencing decisions of prosecutors and judges are consistent with legal policy. Especially in handling low-level crimes, legal…

Gradual Growth versus Shape Invariance in Perceptual Decision Making

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rouder, Jeffrey N.; Yue, Yu; Speckman, Paul L.; Pratte, Michael S.; Province, Jordan M.

2010-01-01

A dominant theme in modeling human perceptual judgments is that sensory neural activity is summed or integrated until a critical bound is reached. Such models predict that, in general, the shape of response time distributions change across conditions, although in practice, this shape change may be subtle. An alternative view is that response time…

Contribution of Self-Compassion to Competence and Mental Health in Social Work Students

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ying, Yu-Wen

2009-01-01

This study examined the potential contribution of self-compassion to perceived competence and mental health in master's of social work students (N=65). It was hypothesized that the components of self-compassion (i.e., mindfulness, common humanity, self-kindness, overidentification, isolation, and self-judgment) would impact perceived competence…

Applications of Text Analysis Tools for Spoken Response Grading

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Crossley, Scott; McNamara, Danielle

2013-01-01

This study explores the potential for automated indices related to speech delivery, language use, and topic development to model human judgments of TOEFL speaking proficiency in second language (L2) speech samples. For this study, 244 transcribed TOEFL speech samples taken from 244 L2 learners were analyzed using automated indices taken from…

The value of decision models: Using ecologically based invasive plant management as an example

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Humans have both fast and slow thought processes which influence our judgment and decision-making. The fast system is intuitive and valuable for decisions which do not require multiple steps or the application of logic or statistics. However, many decisions in natural resources are complex and req...

YY v TURKEY: INFERTILITY AS A PRE-CONDITION FOR GENDER CONFIRMATION SURGERY.

PubMed

Dunne, Peter

2015-01-01

In YY v Turkey, the Second Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) held that Turkey's refusal, over a period of many years, to authorise gender confirmation surgery because the applicant remained capable of procreating was a violation of the right to private life under Art. 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Second Chamber's judgment acknowledges, and gives practical effect to, the 'physical and moral security' of transgender persons. YY has the potential to revolutionise gender confirming health care in Europe and will hopefully ensure that, where individuals do seek to medically transition, they need only access to treatments that are both necessary and desired. The ECtHR's decision may also impact upon the legal recognition of transgender identities. While not the direct focus of the Second Chamber's assessment, legal gender recognition is a constant theme throughout the judgment, and many of the Court's arguments are equally applicable to legal schemes for acknowledging preferred gender. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The visual discrimination of bending.

PubMed

Norman, J Farley; Wiesemann, Elizabeth Y; Norman, Hideko F; Taylor, M Jett; Craft, Warren D

2007-01-01

The sensitivity of observers to nonrigid bending was evaluated in two experiments. In both experiments, observers were required to discriminate on any given trial which of two bending rods was more elastic. In experiment 1, both rods bent within the same oriented plane, and bent either in a frontoparallel plane or bent in depth. In experiment 2, the two rods within any given trial bent in different, randomly chosen orientations in depth. The results of both experiments revealed that human observers are sensitive to, and can reliably detect, relatively small differences in bending (the average Weber fraction across experiments 1 and 2 was 9.0%). The performance of the human observers was compared to that of models that based their elasticity judgments upon either static projected curvature or mean and maximal projected speed. Despite the fact that all of the observers reported compelling 3-D perceptions of bending in depth, their judgments were both qualitatively and quantitatively consistent with the performance of the models. This similarity suggests that relatively straightforward information about the elasticity of simple bending objects is available in projected retinal images.

The influence of leg-to-body ratio (LBR) on judgments of female physical attractiveness: assessments of computer-generated images varying in LBR.

PubMed

Frederick, David A; Hadji-Michael, Maria; Furnham, Adrian; Swami, Viren

2010-01-01

The leg-to-body ratio (LBR), which is reliably associated with developmental stability and health outcomes, is an understudied component of human physical attractiveness. Several studies examining the effects of LBR on aesthetic judgments have been limited by the reliance on stimuli composed of hand-drawn silhouettes. In the present study, we developed a new set of female computer-generated images portraying eight levels of LBR that fell within the typical range of human variation. A community sample of 207 Britons in London and students from two samples drawn from a US university (Ns=940, 114) rated the physical attractiveness of the images. We found that mid-ranging female LBRs were perceived as maximally attractive. The present research overcomes some of the problems associated with past work on LBR and aesthetic preferences through use of computer-generated images rather than hand-drawn images and provides an instrument that may be useful in future investigations of LBR preferences. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Human Decision Processes: Implications for SSA Support Tools

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Picciano, P.

2013-09-01

Despite significant advances in computing power and artificial intelligence (AI), few critical decisions are made without a human decision maker in the loop. Space Situational Awareness (SSA) missions are both critical and complex, typically adhering to the human-in-the-loop (HITL) model. The collection of human operators injects a needed diversity of expert knowledge, experience, and authority required to successfully fulfill SSA tasking. A wealth of literature on human decision making exists citing myriad empirical studies and offering a varied set of prescriptive and descriptive models of judgment and decision making (Hastie & Dawes, 2001; Baron, 2000). Many findings have been proven sufficiently robust to allow information architects or system/interface designers to take action to improve decision processes. For the purpose of discussion, these concepts are bifurcated in two groups: 1) vulnerabilities to mitigate, and 2) capabilities to augment. These vulnerabilities and capabilities refer specifically to the decision process and should not be confused with a shortcoming or skill of a specific human operator. Thus the framing of questions and orders, the automated tools with which to collaborate, priming and contextual data, and the delivery of information all play a critical role in human judgment and choice. Evaluating the merits of any decision can be elusive; in order to constrain this discussion, ‘rational choice' will tend toward the economic model characteristics such as maximizing utility and selection consistency (e.g., if A preferred to B, and B preferred to C, than A should be preferred to C). Simple decision models often encourage one to list the pros and cons of a decision, perhaps use a weighting schema, but one way or another weigh the future benefit (or harm) of making a selection. The result (sought by the rationalist models) should drive toward higher utility. Despite notable differences in researchers' theses (to be discussed in the full paper), one opinion shared is that the rational, economic, deliberate listing/evaluation of all options is NOT representative of how many decision are made. A framework gaining interest lately describes two systems predominantly at work: intuition and reasoning (Kahneman, 2003). Intuition is fast, automatic, and parallel contrasted with the more effortful, deliberative, and sequential reasoning. One of the issues of contention is that considerable research is stacked supporting both sides claiming that intuition is: • A hallmark of expertise responsible for rapid, optimal decisions in the face of adversity • A vulnerability where biases serve as decision traps leading to wrong choices Using seminal studies from a range of domains and tasking, potential solutions for SSA decision support will be offered. Important issues such as managing uncertainty, framing inquiries, and information architecture, and contextual cues will be discussed. The purpose is to provide awareness of the human limitations and capabilities in complex decision making so engineers and designers can consider such factors in their development of SSA tools.

Extracting Depth From Motion Parallax in Real-World and Synthetic Displays

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hecht, Heiko; Kaiser, Mary K.; Aiken, William; Null, Cynthia H. (Technical Monitor)

1994-01-01

In psychophysical studies on human sensitivity to visual motion parallax (MP), the use of computer displays is pervasive. However, a number of potential problems are associated with such displays: cue conflicts arise when observers accommodate to the screen surface, and observer head and body movements are often not reflected in the displays. We investigated observers' sensitivity to depth information in MP (slant, depth order, relative depth) using various real-world displays and their computer-generated analogs. Angle judgments of real-world stimuli were consistently superior to judgments that were based on computer-generated stimuli. Similar results were found for perceived depth order and relative depth. Perceptual competence of observers tends to be underestimated in research that is based on computer generated displays. Such findings cannot be generalized to more realistic viewing situations.

Benefit of the doubt: a new view of the role of the prefrontal cortex in executive functioning and decision making

PubMed Central

Asp, Erik; Manzel, Kenneth; Koestner, Bryan; Denburg, Natalie L.; Tranel, Daniel

2013-01-01

The False Tagging Theory (FTT) is a neuroanatomical model of belief and doubt processes that proposes a single, unique function for the prefrontal cortex. Here, we review evidence pertaining to the FTT, the implications of the FTT regarding fractionation of the prefrontal cortex, and the potential benefits of the FTT for new neuroanatomical conceptualizations of executive functions. The FTT provides a parsimonious account that may help overcome theoretical problems with prefrontal cortex mediated executive control such as the homunculus critique. Control in the FTT is examined via the “heuristics and biases” psychological framework for human judgment. The evidence indicates that prefrontal cortex mediated doubting is at the core of executive functioning and may explain some biases of intuitive judgments. PMID:23745103

A Completely Blind Video Integrity Oracle.

PubMed

Mittal, Anish; Saad, Michele A; Bovik, Alan C

2016-01-01

Considerable progress has been made toward developing still picture perceptual quality analyzers that do not require any reference picture and that are not trained on human opinion scores of distorted images. However, there do not yet exist any such completely blind video quality assessment (VQA) models. Here, we attempt to bridge this gap by developing a new VQA model called the video intrinsic integrity and distortion evaluation oracle (VIIDEO). The new model does not require the use of any additional information other than the video being quality evaluated. VIIDEO embodies models of intrinsic statistical regularities that are observed in natural vidoes, which are used to quantify disturbances introduced due to distortions. An algorithm derived from the VIIDEO model is thereby able to predict the quality of distorted videos without any external knowledge about the pristine source, anticipated distortions, or human judgments of video quality. Even with such a paucity of information, we are able to show that the VIIDEO algorithm performs much better than the legacy full reference quality measure MSE on the LIVE VQA database and delivers performance comparable with a leading human judgment trained blind VQA model. We believe that the VIIDEO algorithm is a significant step toward making real-time monitoring of completely blind video quality possible.

Selecting Cooking Methods to Decrease Persistent Organic Pollutant Concentrations in Food of Animal Origin Using a Consensus Decision-Making Model.

PubMed

Tan, Xiao; Gong, Zaiwu; Huang, Minji; Wang, Zhou-Jing

2017-02-14

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) pose serious threats to human health. Increasing attention has been paid to POPs to protect the environment and prevent disease. Humans are exposed to POPs through diet (the major route), inhaling air and dust and skin contact. POPs are very lipophilic and hydrophobic, meaning that they accumulate in fatty tissues in animals and can biomagnify. Humans can therefore be exposed to relatively high POP concentrations in food of animal origin. Cooking animal products can decrease the POP contents, and different cooking methods achieve different reduction rates. Here, a consensus decision-making model with interval preference relations is used to prioritize cooking methods for specific animal products in terms of reducing POP concentrations. Two consistency mathematical expressions ( I -consistency and I I -consistency) are defined, then the ideal interval preference relations are determined for the cooking methods with respect to different social choice principles. The objective is to minimize disparities between individual judgments and the ideal consensus judgment. Consistency is used as a constraint to determine the rationality of the consistency definitions. A numerical example indicated that baking is the best cooking method for decreasing POP concentrations in grass carp. The I -consistency results were more acceptable than the I I -consistency results.

Selecting Cooking Methods to Decrease Persistent Organic Pollutant Concentrations in Food of Animal Origin Using a Consensus Decision-Making Model

PubMed Central

Tan, Xiao; Gong, Zaiwu; Huang, Minji; Wang, Zhou-Jing

2017-01-01

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) pose serious threats to human health. Increasing attention has been paid to POPs to protect the environment and prevent disease. Humans are exposed to POPs through diet (the major route), inhaling air and dust and skin contact. POPs are very lipophilic and hydrophobic, meaning that they accumulate in fatty tissues in animals and can biomagnify. Humans can therefore be exposed to relatively high POP concentrations in food of animal origin. Cooking animal products can decrease the POP contents, and different cooking methods achieve different reduction rates. Here, a consensus decision-making model with interval preference relations is used to prioritize cooking methods for specific animal products in terms of reducing POP concentrations. Two consistency mathematical expressions (I-consistency and II-consistency) are defined, then the ideal interval preference relations are determined for the cooking methods with respect to different social choice principles. The objective is to minimize disparities between individual judgments and the ideal consensus judgment. Consistency is used as a constraint to determine the rationality of the consistency definitions. A numerical example indicated that baking is the best cooking method for decreasing POP concentrations in grass carp. The I-consistency results were more acceptable than the II-consistency results. PMID:28216589

Differences in Moral Judgment on Animal and Human Ethics Issues between University Students in Animal-Related, Human Medical and Arts Programs.

PubMed

Verrinder, Joy M; Ostini, Remo; Phillips, Clive J C

2016-01-01

Moral judgment in relation to animal ethics issues has rarely been investigated. Among the research that has been conducted, studies of veterinary students have shown greater use of reasoning based on universal principles for animal than human ethics issues. This study aimed to identify if this was unique to students of veterinary and other animal-related professions. The moral reasoning of first year students of veterinary medicine, veterinary technology, and production animal science was compared with that of students in non-animal related disciplines of human medicine and arts. All students (n = 531) completed a moral reasoning test, the VetDIT, with animal and human scenarios. When compared with reasoning on human ethics issues, the combined group of students evaluating animal ethics issues showed higher levels of Universal Principles reasoning, lower levels of Personal Interest reasoning and similar levels of Maintaining Norms reasoning. Arts students showed more personal interest reasoning than students in most animal-related programs on both animal and human ethics issues, and less norms-based reasoning on animal ethics issues. Medical students showed more norms-based reasoning on animal ethics issues than all of the animal-related groups. There were no differences in principled reasoning on animal ethics issues between program groups. This has implications for animal-related professions and education programs showing that students' preference for principled reasoning on animal ethics issues is not unique to animal-related disciplines, and highlighting the need to develop student (and professional) capacity to apply principled reasoning to address ethics issues in animal industries to reduce the risk of moral distress.

Differences in Moral Judgment on Animal and Human Ethics Issues between University Students in Animal-Related, Human Medical and Arts Programs

PubMed Central

Verrinder, Joy M.; Ostini, Remo; Phillips, Clive J. C.

2016-01-01

Moral judgment in relation to animal ethics issues has rarely been investigated. Among the research that has been conducted, studies of veterinary students have shown greater use of reasoning based on universal principles for animal than human ethics issues. This study aimed to identify if this was unique to students of veterinary and other animal-related professions. The moral reasoning of first year students of veterinary medicine, veterinary technology, and production animal science was compared with that of students in non-animal related disciplines of human medicine and arts. All students (n = 531) completed a moral reasoning test, the VetDIT, with animal and human scenarios. When compared with reasoning on human ethics issues, the combined group of students evaluating animal ethics issues showed higher levels of Universal Principles reasoning, lower levels of Personal Interest reasoning and similar levels of Maintaining Norms reasoning. Arts students showed more personal interest reasoning than students in most animal-related programs on both animal and human ethics issues, and less norms-based reasoning on animal ethics issues. Medical students showed more norms-based reasoning on animal ethics issues than all of the animal-related groups. There were no differences in principled reasoning on animal ethics issues between program groups. This has implications for animal-related professions and education programs showing that students’ preference for principled reasoning on animal ethics issues is not unique to animal-related disciplines, and highlighting the need to develop student (and professional) capacity to apply principled reasoning to address ethics issues in animal industries to reduce the risk of moral distress. PMID:26934582

Response Errors Explain the Failure of Independent-Channels Models of Perception of Temporal Order

PubMed Central

García-Pérez, Miguel A.; Alcalá-Quintana, Rocío

2012-01-01

Independent-channels models of perception of temporal order (also referred to as threshold models or perceptual latency models) have been ruled out because two formal properties of these models (monotonicity and parallelism) are not borne out by data from ternary tasks in which observers must judge whether stimulus A was presented before, after, or simultaneously with stimulus B. These models generally assume that observed responses are authentic indicators of unobservable judgments, but blinks, lapses of attention, or errors in pressing the response keys (maybe, but not only, motivated by time pressure when reaction times are being recorded) may make observers misreport their judgments or simply guess a response. We present an extension of independent-channels models that considers response errors and we show that the model produces psychometric functions that do not satisfy monotonicity and parallelism. The model is illustrated by fitting it to data from a published study in which the ternary task was used. The fitted functions describe very accurately the absence of monotonicity and parallelism shown by the data. These characteristics of empirical data are thus consistent with independent-channels models when response errors are taken into consideration. The implications of these results for the analysis and interpretation of temporal order judgment data are discussed. PMID:22493586