Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs), psychiatry and the clinical assessment of skills and competencies (CASC) : same evidence, different judgement

Background: The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), originally developed in the 1970’s, has been hailed as the "gold standard" of clinical assessments for medical students and is used within medical schools throughout the world. The Clinical assessment of Skills and Competencies (CASC) is an OSCE used as a clinical examination gateway, granting access to becoming a senior Psychiatrist in the UK. Discussion: Van der Vleuten’s utility model is used to examine the CASC from the viewpoint of a senior psychiatrist. Reliability may be equivalent to more traditional examinations. Whilst the CASC is likely to have content validity, other forms of validity are untested and authenticity is poor. Educational impact has the potential to change facets of psychiatric professionalism and influence future patient care. There are doubts about acceptability from candidates and more senior psychiatrists. Summary: Whilst OSCEs may be the best choice for medical student examinations, their use in post graduate psychiatric examination in the UK is subject to challenge on the grounds of validity, authenticity and educational impact

How Decision-Making Monetary Desirability Influences Risk Preferences.

The Decision by Sampling (DbS) relative rank model predicts that absolute values and their magnitudes do not influence judgement or choice (Stewart et al., 2006). Specifically, DbS assumes that the subjective worth of an attribute value (e.g., a monetary amount) is its relative rank position within the distribution of sampled attribute values. In contrast, we propose that the decision-makers’ preferences are also influenced by the desirability of monetary amounts. We tested this proposal using a DbS method, where participants had to choose between a risk-averse and a risk-seeking gamble, after sampling monetary amounts. We found that human decision-makers use relative ranking only when the risk choice options are non-desirable (negligible monetary amounts). However, when the decision-making task includes a risk choice option that is desirable (a large monetary amount), participants chose the desirable risk option regardless of how sampled values were distributed. Accordingly, the results revealed that desirability of absolute values (and not the sampling experience and relative ranking) influenced participants’ risk preferences

The First Attribute Heuristic in Risky Decision-Making.

Behavioural science theorists suggest that people’s judge- ments and decisions are often determined by the use of heuristics (e.g., Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2011; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) rather than computational processing (e.g., computing probability and money) as assumed by expected utility theory (von Neumann & Morgenstern, 1947) and prospect theory (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992). Accordingly, we propose that people’s preferences are deter- mined by binary comparison on the first contextually available attri- bute. Thus, we argue for first attribute heuristic (FAH) where human decision-makers prefer the option with the higher value on the first contextually available attribute. We explored FAH in an experiment where participants had to choose between a hypothetical safe (high probability of winning a smaller monetary prize) and risky (low probability of winning a larger monetary prize) gambles. Congru- ent with FAH predictions, we found that participants chose the risky gamble relatively more when the first contextually available attribute was money than when the first contextually available attribute was probability. In contrast, participants chose the safe gamble when the first contextually available attribute was probability

Save the Best for First: First Attribute Heuristic in Consumer Choice

We propose a novel decision-making mechanism (the First Attribute Heuristic [FAH]), where people’s preferences are determined by binary comparison on the first con- textually available attribute. Accordingly, we argue that human deci- sion-makers prefer the option with the dominant value on the first contextually available attribute. In two experiments, we explore the influence of FAH and the attribute chosen by the participants as more important (e.g., brightness or warranty) on their willingness to pay (WTP) for TVs A and B. We found that only when the attribute cho- sen as more important is also the first contextually available attri- bute, participants paid more money for the TV with dominant value on that attribute (experiment one). Moreover, in experiment two, we introduced a new task, where the first contextually available attribute is nonnumerical (ethics of the TV manufacturer: ethical or unethical manufacturer), task irrelevant (the decision attributes are brightness and warranty), and with decision consequences (endorsing an ethi- cal or unethical manufacturer). Accordingly, the results revealed that only FAH influenced participants’ WTP judgements for TVs

Radiotelemetry Of Heart Rates From Free-Ranging Gulls

A lightweight radiotelemetry system with a range of 80 km was used to monitor heart rate from free-ranging Herring Gulls on flights of up to 20 km. Heart rate varied from 130 beats/min in a resting bird to 625 beats/min for sustained flight. Soaring birds showed rates similar to those of birds sitting quietly on the ground. Simultaneous records of telemetered heart rate and intraspecific conflict on the nesting island revealed that cardiac acceleration preceded overt visual communication. Intensely aggressive behavior was accompanied by heart rates approaching those of sustained flight. Heart rate as a measure of metabolic cost indicates that the gull\u27s behavioral adaptations for long-distance flight, food location and intraspecific communication result in major energy savings

Tracking radar studies of bird migration

The application of tracking radar for determining the flight paths of migratory birds is discussed. The effects produced by various meteorological parameters are described. Samples of radar scope presentations obtained during tracking studies are presented. The characteristics of the radars and their limitations are examined