Abstract When making decisions under uncertainty, we rely on the information we currently have. Presumably, the more information we have, the better our decisions turn out to be. What, though, drives our motivation to seek more information? The current research investigated people's confidence judgments in one's current information and their relationship to seeking more information when making diagnoses when presented with a sequence of medical symptoms. In Experiment 1, we explored people’s confidence judgments in relation to the accumulation of information they received. In Experiment 2, we tested whether a participant’s confidence levels would guide the decision to seek more information. The results showed that (1) people had the most overconfidence with a short period of exposure to medical knowledge (as opposed to a long period or none at all) and (2) that overconfidence was associated with choosing not to seek more information. In short, a "blip of knowledge" can lead to an illusion of knowing, which, in turn, could lead to a sub-optimal decision when it comes to medical diagnosing.
Abstract Auditory alarm deafness is a failure to notice a salient auditory signal in a high-load context, which is one of the major causes of flight accidents. Therefore, it is of great practical significance for aviation safety to explore ways to avoid auditory alarm deafness under a high-load scenario. One potential reason for its occurrence could be the fact that cognitive resources are limited. Working memory (WM) capacity is important for the availability of cognitive resources. The present study investigated the effects of different types of WM ability and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) combined with WM training on auditory alarm sensitivity in a simulated high-load aeronautical decision-making task in two experiments, with participants who were not trained pilots. The results showed that different types of WM storage capacity did not predict auditory alarm deafness. However, individuals with high executive function of WM were more sensitive to the auditory alarm than those with low executive function. During WM training, tDCS over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex not only improved WM executive function but also improved auditory alarm sensitivity under high-load conditions. These findings suggest that the storage and executive function of WM have different roles in auditory alarm sensitivity. WM training based on brain stimulation technology can provide empirical evidence for the enhancement of auditory alarm alertness and cognitive function in the human–machine context.
Elif Karakoç, Richard Vogg, Michele Marziliano
et al.
Abstract Social interactions are crucial for individual health and ultimately fitness, making the choice of social partners evolutionarily relevant. Previous research has shown that individuals who succeed in foraging tasks often receive increased affiliation from group members. Similarly, in a social learning context, individuals who possess valuable information become more attractive social partners. Thus, an individual’s role in a foraging context, specifically, whether it is a successful producer, can influence its social relationships. To explore this effect, we examined the interplay between social learning, producing and scrounging behavior, and social relationships in four groups of wild red-fronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons; N = 29). We conducted an open diffusion experiment with food boxes that required animals to learn one of two techniques to open them. 16 individuals learned to open them. Initial success was better predicted by use of individual than social information, i.e., manipulating the food boxes vs. time spent watching successful individuals or scrounging. Older males were less successful than females. Scrounging occurred in about 26% of events. The technique used, age and sex of the producer did not predict the number of scroungers. Less successful individuals and males scrounged more often. Successful individuals received more affiliative behavior during the experimental period than in the pre-experimental period, which returned to baseline levels during the post-experimental period. Thus, red-fronted lemurs recognize and reward competent foraging partners socially during periods where they can benefit from them immediately. Together, these results highlight the importance of foraging competence for social integration and partner choice.
Abstract In classic visual search, observers typically search for the presence of a target in a scene or display. In foraging tasks, there may be multiple targets in the same display (or “patch”). Observers typically search for and collect these target items in one patch until they decide to leave that patch and move to the next one. This is a highly rule-governed behavior. The current study investigated whether these rules are disrupted when the foraging is interrupted in various manners. In Experiment 1, the foraging was briefly interrupted and then resumed in the same patch. In Experiments 2 and 3, the foraging in each patch either ended voluntarily or compulsorily after a fixed amount of time. In these cases, foraging resumed in a patch only after all patches were visited. Overall, the rules of foraging remained largely intact, though Experiment 2 shows that foraging rules can be overridden by the demand characteristics of the task. The results show that participants tended to perform approximately consistently despite interruptions. The results suggest that foraging behavior in a relatively simple foraging environment is resilient and not easily disrupted by interruption.
Research using masked priming and parafoveal preview techniques has shown that visual letter similarity has an impact on word processing during the initial stages in Latin-derived scripts. However, these effects appear to be absent in Arabic. One reason for this discrepancy could be attributed to the distinctive features of the Arabic script, which includes numerous letters sharing a basic form while varying in the location or number of diacritics. To shed light on this issue, the present study employed Arabic letters rather than words in two masked priming experiments: an alphabetic decision task and a letter-matching task. Both experiments showed that visually similar letters were more effective as primes than visually dissimilar letters. These findings suggest that the processes of letter identification in Arabic and Latin scripts may be roughly alike, implying that differences in visual letter similarity across scripts may arise at later stages of processing.
Abstract Across four studies, we examined the how design decisions influenced the effectiveness of fact-checking articles created by CrossCheck France during the 2017 French election. We measured both memory for the article and belief in the false rumor. We saw no difference in fact check efficacy based on the type of headline (question vs negation) or the number of newsroom logos present around the article (one, four, or seven). In addition, informative design features such as an icon identifying the type of misinformation were ignored by readers. Participants failed to remember many of the details from the article, but retrieval practice was beneficial in reducing forgetting over a 1-week delay. In both US and French samples, reading the fact check decreased belief in the false information, even 1 week later. However, the articles were much more effective in the US sample, who lacked relevant prior knowledge and political beliefs. Overall, fact-checking articles can be effective at reducing belief in false information, but readers tend to forget the details and ignore peripheral information.
Miriam Gade, Mathieu Declerck, Andrea M. Philipp
et al.
Two seemingly counterintuitive phenomena – asymmetrical language switch costs and the reversed language dominance effect – prove to be particularly controversial in the literature on language control. Asymmetrical language switch costs refer to the larger costs for switching into the dominant language compared to switching into the less dominant language, both relative to staying in either one language. The reversed language dominance effect refers to longer reaction times when in the more dominant of the two languages in situations that require frequent language switching (i.e., mixed-language blocks). The asymmetrical language switch costs are commonly taken as an index for processes of transient, reactive inhibitory language control, whereas the reversed language dominance effect is taken as an index for sustained, proactive inhibitory language control. In the present meta-analysis, we set out to establish the empirical evidence for these two phenomena using a Bayesian linear mixed effects modelling approach. Despite the observation of both phenomena in some studies, our results suggest that overall, there is little evidence for the generality and robustness of these two effects, and this holds true even when conditions – such as language proficiency and preparation time manipulations – were included as moderators of these phenomena. We conclude that asymmetrical switch costs and the reversed language dominance effect are important for theory development, but their utility for theory testing is limited due to their lack of robustness and the absence of confirmed moderatory variables.
Sarah K. Letang, Shayne S.-H. Lin, Patricia A. Parmelee
et al.
Abstract Systemic racism can have broad impacts on health in ethnoracial minorities. One way is by suppressing socioeconomic status (SES) levels through barriers to achieve higher income, wealth, and educational attainment. Additionally, the weathering hypothesis proposes that the various stressful adversities faced by ethnoracial minorities lead to greater wear and tear on the body, known as allostatic load. In the present study, we extend these ideas to cognitive health in a tri-ethnic sample of young adults—when cognition and brain health is arguably at their peak. Specifically, we tested competing mediation models that might shed light on how two key factors caused by systemic racism—SES and perceived stress—intersect to explain ethnoracial disparities in cognition. We found evidence for partial mediation via a pathway from SES to stress on episodic memory, working memory capacity, and executive function in Black Americans relative to non-Hispanic White Americans. Additionally, we found that stress partially mediated the ethnoracial disparities in working memory updating for lower SES Black and Hispanic Americans relative to non-Hispanic White Americans, showing that higher SES can sometimes reduce the negative effects stress has on these disparities in some cognitive domains. Overall, these findings suggest that multiple pathways exist in which lower SES creates a stressful environment to impact ethnoracial disparities cognition. These pathways differ depending on the specific ethnoracial category and cognitive domain. The present results may offer insight into strategies to help mitigate the late-life risk for neurocognitive disorders in ethnoracial minorities.
Isabel Loução-de-Amorim, Carla Bentes, Ana Rita Peralta
Objective: To evaluate the response to CPAP in patients with chronic insomnia disorder (CID)
with OSAS in an unselected patient population including all OSAS severity groups. As a secondary
objective, we also wanted to evaluate the differences between patients that improve insomnia
symptoms with CPAP and patients that do not improve, specifically evaluating possible gender differences.
Methods: Retrospective study of patients with a diagnosis of OSAS treated with CPAP
and CID at the first clinical visit, selected from a database of an outpatient sleep clinic of University
Hospital. Results: From a database of total of 827 patient, 90 patients were identified with OSAS
and CID (53.3% women). Middle / moderate OSAS was diagnosed in 68.9% and severe OSA in
31.1%. Most patients (61.1%) improved insomnia symptoms after CPAP therapy. In the responders
group, 58.2% had initial insomnia, 63.6% middle insomnia and 12.7% late insomnia. Responders
to CPAP were more frequently women (women 61.8%, men 38.2%, p = 0.035) and there was no
other difference between responders and non-responders. On subgroup analysis, this difference
was significant only in severe OSAS (women 88.9%, men 31.6%, p = 0.013). Conclusion: In most
patients with CID and OSA, there is a consistent reduction of insomnia symptoms with the CPAP
use. This factor emphasizes the importance of performing PSG in CID. Insomnia in men with severe
OSAS responds less frequently to CPAP suggesting that in these cases the insomnia phenotype
is less dependent on the respiratory symptoms.
In this paper the authors, on the basis of a systemic approach, analyze the methodological potential of a cognitive model representing the pyramid of the person’s spiritual being. This article focuses on the main requirements for modeling cognitive processes on the plane of the individual’s spiritual being differentiated into existential, mental, transcendental spheres, and consciousness. Research results emphasize that, in the existential sphere of the individual’s spiritual being, cognitive processes are based on his/her emotional (unconscious) thinking. The mental sphere, which together with the transcendental one forms a sub-conscious psychic level, is characterized by emotional type of thinking. In the transcendental sphere, the acts of cognition are realized by means of rational thinking, while the consciousness controls the results of cognitive processes’ self-development solely on a logical basis. By synthesizing the ideas of modern most productive systemic and synergetic methods, the authors substantiate the use of a systemic approach to the formation of a universal synergetic model of the self-development of speaking-and-thinking and thinking-and-acting processes in the person’s spiritual sphere. The paper also proves practically unlimited methodological potential of the cognitive universal model of the pyramid of the individual’s spiritual being; and draws up a methodological perspective of its wider application not only in the field of linguistic, psychological and social studies, but also in historical, economic, political and other areas of knowledge that deal with the individual’s speaking-and-thinking and thinking-and-acting activities in the processes of person’s communicative, intellectual and transformative behavior.
Problem setting. In modern philosophy, the pursuit of the authenticity of a reality ends in the fact that it finds itself in a simulative field of virtuality. Virtual reality is guaranteed by special technologies of reproduction and visualization, openness and self-organization of systems. The problem of the meaning and effectiveness of law today can also be solved through the methodology of virtuality, visual means of reproduction and ways of expressing the law, as well as the principle of dynamism. It is an attempt to re-read the concept of the dynamism of law along with the search for new forms of its being presented in this study.
Recent research and publications analysis. Philosophical tradition of the dynamic nature of law is now developed by I. Chestnov, V. Chetvernin, A. Polyakov, S. Maksimov, A. Stovba and other Russian and Ukrainian philosophers. Significant experience in this area belongs to the European representatives of the communicative paradigm. J. Austin in the framework of communicative philosophy developed the theory of performative discourse. According to this theory, speech acts that have the character of an order, demands or vows are not statements, but actions. H. Hart applied the theory of performative statements to legal texts and discourses. Among the Russian scientists V. Ogleznev, J. Gryaznova, J. Kupchenko are engaged in the problem of legal performative.
The Polish researcher E. Domanskaya notes that performativity is becoming a new modern paradigm of cognition and methodology of science. The technique of performance in art and its expressive possibilities are the subject of research by S. Kornev, P. Waibel, S. Zizek, K. Malabu. Performance as an ontological space for the production of presence and a special technique for provoking the corporeality of things is the subject of research by V. Rybakov, H. Gumbrecht. At the same time, the question of the possibility of using the performance tactics in the practice of reproduction of justice remains open. In this study, performance is seen as a special way of being the law. The law-performance equips the presence of a subject in it.
Paper objective. The purpose of this study is to study the expressive possibilities of artistic performance, as well as the ontological analysis of legal reality in a format of performance. The dynamic structure of the law-performance is regarded here as a guarantee of inter-action of the mutual influence of the legal reality and the understanding subject.
Paper main body. If the communicative theory of law saw the effectiveness of law in the language performative structures, the latter methodological experiments went beyond the text and justify the use of artistic practice of performance in the field of being and understanding of law. Text as a form of being does not exhaust the essence of law. A multi-layer self-organized structure of law needs more complex expression systems than representations. Such a system is a performance. It provokes more and more possibilities of law, forms of its being.
The goal of the performance in modern philosophy and art is to get rid of the comments. The goal of performance as a method of law is to rid the law of excessive semantic stability and the dictates of values. The language and text of the law should be in the service of the event, things and the body, and not vice versa. At first glance, the replacement of a legal statement or verdict with an open event, as well as the replacement of a retired arbiter-lawyer by a participant experiencing this event, make legal practice very far from legal science and legal truth. However, the reproduced life event is closest to the thing that the legal sciences call justice. Therefore, the degree of the presence of law in the reconstituted situation should not be determined by interpretation and imposition of legal myths (norms and precedents). Such a living justice can not be established by anyone. In the performance, this justice is actualized from the event itself in the format of an open presence.
A legal event is a pure performance of its participants - the author and the viewer. It generates an unexpected, but true justice, which can not be fixed without depriving it of meaning. A new and new reset of the situation with the help of performances can multiply legal justice in its performative corporeality. At the same time, legal sentences, decisions, norms and interpretations that have frozen in their senses, contain the law formally, but they are farther away from its actual presence in fact.
Conclusions of the research. Thus, from the lost validity of law, through its virtual effectiveness in performance, the subject comes to the presence of law in life and the presence of itself in the reality of law. This significantly changes the representation of modern man about the meaning and possibilities of law, brings to his consciousness not legal truths, but the very truth of law, which should be understood as the main value.
Boris eKotchoubey, Jury ePavlov, Jury ePavlov
et al.
According to a prevailing view, the visual system works by dissecting stimuli into primitives, whereas the auditory system processes simple and complex stimuli with their corresponding features in parallel. This makes musical stimulation particularly suitable for patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC), because the processing pathways related to complex stimulus features can be preserved even when those related to simple features are no longer available. An additional factor speaking in favor of musical stimulation in DoC is the low efficiency of visual stimulation due to prevalent maladies of vision or gaze fixation in DOC patients. Hearing disorders, in contrast, are much less frequent in DoC, which allows us to use auditory stimulation at various levels of complexity. The current paper overviews empirical data concerning the four main domains of brain functioning in DoC patients that musical stimulation can address: perception (e.g., pitch, timbre, and harmony), cognition (e.g., musical syntax and meaning), emotions, and motor functions. Music can approach basic levels of patients’ self-consciousness, which may even exist when all higher-level cognitions are lost, whereas music induced emotions and rhythmic stimulation can affect the dopaminergic reward-system and activity in the motor system respectively, thus serving as a starting point for rehabilitation.