Believe It or Not: Examining the Case for Intuitive Logic and Effortful Beliefs

The overall objective of this thesis was to test the Default Interventionist (DI) account of belief-bias in human reasoning using the novel methodology introduced by Handley, Newstead & Trippas (2011). DI accounts focus on how our prior beliefs are the intuitive output that bias our reasoning process (Evans, 2006), whilst judgments based on logical validity require effortful processing. However, recent research has suggested that reasoning on the basis of beliefs may not be as fast and automatic as previous accounts claim. In order to investigate whether belief based judgments are resource demanding we instructed participants to reason on the basis of both the validity and believability of a conclusion whilst simultaneously engaging in a secondary task (Experiment 1 - 5). We used both a within and between subjects design (Experiment 5) examining both simple and complex arguments (Experiment 4 – 9). We also analysed the effect of incorporating additional instructional conditions (Experiment 7 – 9) and tested the relationships between various individual differences (ID) measures under belief and logic instruction (Experiment 4, 5, 7, 8, & 9). In line with Handley et al.’s findings we found that belief based judgments were more prone to error and that the logical structure of a problem interfered with judging the believability of its conclusion, contrary to the DI account of reasoning. However, logical outputs sometimes took longer to complete and were more affected by random number generation (RNG) (Experiment 5). To reconcile these findings we examined the role of Working Memory (WM) and Inhibition in Experiments 7 – 9 and found, contrary to Experiment 5, belief judgments were more demanding of executive resources and correlated with ID measures of WM and inhibition. Given that belief based judgments resulted in more errors and were more impacted on by the validity of an argument the behavioural data does not fit with the DI account of reasoning. Consequently, we propose that there are two routes to a logical solution and present an alternative Parallel Competitive model to explain the data. We conjecture that when instructed to reason on the basis of belief an automatic logical output completes and provides the reasoner with an intuitive logical cue which requires inhibiting in order for the belief based response to be generated. This creates a Type 1/Type 2 conflict, explaining the impact of logic on belief based judgments. When explicitly instructed to reason logically, it takes deliberate Type 2 processing to arrive at the logical solution. The engagement in Type 2 processing in order to produce an explicit logical output is impacted on by demanding secondary tasks (RNG) and any task that interferes with the integration of premise information (Experiments 8 and 9) leading to increased latencies. However the relatively simple nature of the problems means that accuracy is less affected. We conclude that the type of instructions provided along with the complexity of the problem and the inhibitory demands of the task all play key roles in determining the difficulty and time course of logical and belief based responses

Eye movements, pupil dilation, and conflict detection in reasoning: Exploring the evidence for intuitive logic

A controversial claim in recent dual process accounts of reasoning is that intuitive processes not only lead to bias, but are also sensitive to the logical status of an argument. The intuitive logic hypothesis draws upon evidence that reasoners take longer and are less confident on belief-logic conflict problems, irrespective of whether they give the correct logical response. In this paper we examine conflict detection under conditions in which participants are asked to either judge the logical validity or believability of a presented conclusion, accompanied by measures of eye movement and pupil dilation. The findings show an effect of conflict, under both types of instruction, on accuracy, latency, gaze shifts and pupil dilation. Importantly these effects extend to conflict trials in which participants give a belief-based response (incorrectly under logic instructions, or correctly under belief instructions) demonstrating both behavioural and physiological evidence in support of the logical intuition hypothesis

Morality meters and their impacts on moral choices in videogames: a qualitative study

Morality meters are a commonly used mechanic in many ethically notable video games. However, there have been several theoretical critiques of such meters, including that people can find them alienating, they can instrumentalise morality, and they reduce morality to a binary of good and evil with no room for complexity. While there has been much theoretical discussion of these issues, there has been far less empirical investigation. We address this gap through a qualitative study that involved participants playing a custom-built visual novel game (The Great Fire) with different intuitive and counter-intuitive morality meter settings. Overall, we found that players’ attitudes towards the morality meter in this game was complex, context sensitive and variable throughout gameplay and that the intuitiveness of the meter encouraged participants to treat the meter more ‘as a moral guide’ that prompts reflection and less ‘as a score’ to be engaged with reactively

Morality meters and their impacts on moral choices in videogames: a qualitative study

Morality meters are a commonly used mechanic in many ethically notable video games. However, there have been several theoretical critiques of such meters, including that people can find them alienating, they can instrumentalise morality, and they reduce morality to a binary of good and evil with no room for complexity. While there has been much theoretical discussion of these issues, there has been far less empirical investigation. We address this gap through a qualitative study that involved participants playing a custom-built visual novel game (The Great Fire) with different intuitive and counter-intuitive morality meter settings. Overall, we found that players’ attitudes towards the morality meter in this game was complex, context sensitive and variable throughout gameplay and that the intuitiveness of the meter encouraged participants to treat the meter more ‘as a moral guide’ that prompts reflection and less ‘as a score’ to be engaged with reactively

A comparison of countermovement jump performance and kinetics at the start and end of an international Rugby Sevens season

The countermovement jump (CMJ) is used to profile and monitor lower body neuromuscular performance in a variety of sports. While jump height, peak power and peak force are commonly reported CMJ variables (CMJ-TYP), several temporal and rate-limited kinetic “alternative” (CMJ-ALT) variables have shown greater response to acute and chronic load, but this has not been examined in male Rugby Sevens (7s) athletes. We evaluated changes in CMJ-ALT and CMJ-TYP variables at the start and end of a World 7s Series season. We compared mean values for CMJ-ALT and CMJ-TYP variables in three CMJs performed by elite male rugby 7s players (n = 12) close to the start and at the end of the season. Potential differences were determined with repeated measures t-tests and magnitude of change quantified using effect sizes. Comparing the start and the end of the season, there were significant differences with very large and large effect sizes in concentric peak force and in a number of CMJ-ALT variables such as concentric duration, countermovement depth, concentric impulse-100ms, concentric rate of power development, eccentric deceleration rate of force development, RSI-modified and FT:CT, with effect sizes ranging between d = 0.98 to 1.39 and p values ranging between p < 0.001 to 0.04. There was no significant change in jump height or concentric peak power. Season-long exposure to matches and training blocks led to improvements in specific CMJ kinetic variables, the majority which were temporal or rate-limited kinetic or CMJ-ALT variables, but not in jump height and peak power or eccentric deceleration impulse. When aiming to quantify chronic response to loading using the CMJ, monitoring of a limited number of ‘typical’ variables may lead to misleading null conclusions about the response of these athletes to long-term/season long loading. In contrast, a more comprehensive kinetic analysis may reveal improvements in aspects of neuromuscular performance

Utilisation of the STEAP protein family in a diagnostic setting may provide a more comprehensive prognosis of prostate cancer

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosed in men worldwide; however, few patients are affected by clinically significant disease within their lifetime. Unfortunately, the means to discriminate between patients with indolent disease and those who progress to aggressive prostate cancer is currently unavailable, resulting in over-treatment of patients. We therefore aimed to determine biomarkers of prostate cancer that can be used in the clinic to aid the diagnosis and prognosis. Immunohistochemistry analysis was carried out on prostate cancer specimens with a range of Gleason scores. Samples were stained and analysed for intensity of the Seven Transmembrane Epithelial Antigen of the Prostate (STEAP)-1, -2, -3, -4 and the Divalent Metal Transporter 1 (DMT1) proteins to determine suitable biomarkers for classification of patients likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer. Additionally, these proteins were also analysed to determine whether any would be able to predict future relapse using Kaplan Meier analysis. Data generated demonstrated that the protein expression levels of STEAP2 correlated significantly with Gleason score; furthermore, STEAP4 was a significant predictor of relapse. This data indicates that STEAP2 could be potential prognostic candidate for use in combination with the current prostate cancer detection methods and the presence of STEAP4 could be an indicator of possible relapse

Imaging Trans-Cellular Neurexin-Neuroligin Interactions by Enzymatic Probe Ligation

Neurexin and neuroligin are transmembrane adhesion proteins that play an important role in organizing the neuronal synaptic cleft. Our lab previously reported a method for imaging the trans-synaptic binding of neurexin and neuroligin called BLINC (Biotin Labeling of INtercellular Contacts). In BLINC, biotin ligase (BirA) is fused to one protein while its 15-amino acid acceptor peptide substrate (AP) is fused to the binding partner. When the two fusion proteins interact across cellular junctions, BirA catalyzes the site-specific biotinylation of AP, which can be read out by staining with streptavidin-fluorophore conjugates. Here, we report that BLINC in neurons cannot be reproduced using the reporter constructs and labeling protocol previously described. We uncover the technical reasons for the lack of reproducibilty and then re-design the BLINC reporters and labeling protocol to achieve neurexin-neuroligin BLINC imaging in neuron cultures. In addition, we introduce a new method, based on lipoic acid ligase instead of biotin ligase, to image trans-cellular neurexin-neuroligin interactions in human embryonic kidney cells and in neuron cultures. This method, called ID-PRIME for Interaction-Dependent PRobe Incorporation Mediated by Enzymes, is more robust than BLINC due to higher surface expression of lipoic acid ligase fusion constructs, gives stronger and more localized labeling, and is more versatile than BLINC in terms of signal readout. ID-PRIME expands the toolkit of methods available to study trans-cellular protein-protein interactions in living systems.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (DP1 OD003961

Challenges, solutions and future directions in the evaluation of service innovations in health care and public health

HeadlineEvaluating service innovations in health care and public health requires flexibility, collaboration and pragmatism; this collection identifies robust, innovative and mixed methods to inform such evaluations.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from the National Institute for Helath Research via http://dx.doi.org/10.3310/hsdr0416