Individuals' insight into intrapersonal externalities

An intrapersonal externality exists when an individual's decisions affect the outcomes of her future decisions. It can result in decreasing or increasing average returns to the rate of consumption, as occurs in addiction or exercise. Experimentation using the Harvard Game, which models intrapersonal externalities, has found differences in decision making between drug users and control subjects, leading to the argument that these externalities influence the course of illicit drug use. Nevertheless, it is unclear how participants who behave optimally conceptualise the problem. We report two experiments using a simplified Harvard Game, which tested the differences in contingency knowledge between participants who chose optimally and participants who did not. Those who demonstrated optimal performance exhibited both a pattern of correct responses and systematic errors to questions about the payoff schedules. The pattern suggested that they learned explicit knowledge of the change in reinforcement on a trail-by-trial basis. They did not have, or need, a full knowledge of the historical interaction leading to each payoff. We also found no evidence of choice differences between participants who were given a guaranteed payment and participants who were paid contingent on their performance, but those given a guaranteed payment were able to report more contingency knowledge as the experiment progressed, suggesting that they explored more rather than settling into a routine. Experiment 2 showed that using a fixed inter-trial interval did not change the results

Learning on the IGT follows emergence of knowledge but not differential somatic activity

The importance of unconscious autonomic activity vs. knowledge in influencing behavior on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been the subject of debate. The task's developers, Bechara and colleagues, have claimed that behavior on the IGT is influenced by somatic activity and that this activity precedes the emergence of knowledge about the task contingencies sufficient to guide behavior. Since then others have claimed that this knowledge emerges much earlier on the task. However, it has yet to be established whether somatic activity which differentiates between advantageous and disadvantageous choices on the IGT is found before this point. This study describes an experiment to determine whether knowledge sufficient to guide behavior precedes differential autonomic activity or vice versa. This experiment used a computerized version of the IGT, knowledge probes after every 10 trials and skin conductance recording to measure somatic activity. Whereas in previous reports the majority of participants end the task with full conceptual knowledge of the IGT contingencies we found little evidence in support of this conclusion. However, full conceptual knowledge was not critical for advantageous deck selection to occur and most participants had knowledge sufficient to guide behavior after approximately 40 trials. We did not find anticipatory physiological activity sufficient to differentiate between deck types in the period prior to acquiring this knowledge. However, post-punishment physiological activity was found to be larger for the disadvantageous decks in the pre-knowledge period, but only for participants who displayed knowledge. Post-reward physiological activity distinguished between the advantageous and disadvantageous decks across the whole experiment but, again, only in participants who displayed knowledge and then only in later trials following their display of knowledge

Learning on the IGT follows emergence of knowledge but not differential somatic activity

The importance of unconscious autonomic activity vs. knowledge in influencing behavior on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) has been the subject of debate. The task's developers, Bechara and colleagues, have claimed that behavior on the IGT is influenced by somatic activity and that this activity precedes the emergence of knowledge about the task contingencies sufficient to guide behavior. Since then others have claimed that this knowledge emerges much earlier on the task. However, it has yet to be established whether somatic activity which differentiates between advantageous and disadvantageous choices on the IGT is found before this point. This study describes an experiment to determine whether knowledge sufficient to guide behavior precedes differential autonomic activity or vice versa. This experiment used a computerized version of the IGT, knowledge probes after every 10 trials and skin conductance recording to measure somatic activity. Whereas in previous reports the majority of participants end the task with full conceptual knowledge of the IGT contingencies we found little evidence in support of this conclusion. However, full conceptual knowledge was not critical for advantageous deck selection to occur and most participants had knowledge sufficient to guide behavior after approximately 40 trials. We did not find anticipatory physiological activity sufficient to differentiate between deck types in the period prior to acquiring this knowledge. However, post-punishment physiological activity was found to be larger for the disadvantageous decks in the pre-knowledge period, but only for participants who displayed knowledge. Post-reward physiological activity distinguished between the advantageous and disadvantageous decks across the whole experiment but, again, only in participants who displayed knowledge and then only in later trials following their display of knowledge

Repetition priming affects guessing not familiarity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The claim that recollection and familiarity based memory processes have distinct retrieval mechanisms is based partly on the observation that masked repetition and semantic priming influence estimates of familiarity derived from <it>know </it>responses but have no effect on estimates of recollection derived from <it>remember </it>responses. Close inspection of the experiments on which this claim is based reveal the effect size to be small, potentially the result of a type-2 error, and/or inflated due to participants not having the opportunity to report <it>guesses</it>. This paper re-evaluates these claims by attempting a partial replication of two such Experiments.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In Experiment 1 participants made <it>remember</it>, <it>know</it>, and <it>guess </it>responses following primed and unprimed target words. In Experiment 2 participants made <it>sure</it>, <it>unsure</it>, and <it>guess </it>following primed and unprimed target words.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In Experiment 1 the repetition priming effect occurred only for <it>guess </it>responses and only for unstudied items. In Experiment 2 the priming effect occurred for both <it>unsure </it>and <it>guess </it>responses, but again only for unstudied items.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The data are consistent with the view that <it>remembering </it>and <it>knowing </it>do not correspond to confidence ratings; and suggest that contrary to earlier findings, <it>recollection </it>and <it>familiarity </it>do not differ in retrieval mechanisms. As such the effects of repetition priming on subjective reports of remembering should not be cited as evidence for the distinction between recollection and familiarity based memory processes.</p

The relationship between gaming disorder and addiction requires a behavioral analysis

In their position paper, Aarseth et al. (2016) bring to light several timely issues concerning the categorization of gaming disorder as a form of addiction and as a discrete mental disorder. In our commentary, we welcome their caution toward this move and their discussion of the equivocal scientific data in its support and the potential negative consequences for gamers. We suggest that a more heterogeneous approach is required for understanding any behavioral addiction, as concepts from gambling appear to be more relevant for aspects of mobile gaming than for video games more generally. In addition to a greater need for clinical research, we argue that studying gaming at a different level of analysis than the epidemiological study is required to gain a meaningful understanding of the harm video games may or may not entail

Surrogate utility estimation by long-term partners and unfamiliar dyads

To what extent are people able to make predictions about other people's preferences and values?We report two experiments that present a novel method assessing some of the basic processes in surrogate decision-making, namely surrogate-utility estimation. In each experiment participants formed dyads who were asked to assign utilities to health related items and commodity items, and to predict their partner's utility judgments for the same items. In experiment one we showed that older adults in long-term relationships were able to accurately predict their partner's wishes. In experiment two we showed that younger adults who were relatively unfamiliar with one another were also able to predict other people's wishes. Crucially we demonstrated that these judgments were accurate even after partialling out each participant's own preferences indicating that in order to make surrogate utility estimations people engage in perspective-taking rather than simple anchoring and adjustment, suggesting that utility estimation is not the cause of inaccuracy in surrogate decision-making. The data and implications are discussed with respect to theories of surrogate decision-making

The need for a behavioural analysis of behavioural addictions

This review discusses research on behavioural addictions (i.e. associative learning, conditioning), with reference to contemporary models of substance addiction and ongoing controversies in the behavioural addictions literature. The role of behaviour has been well explored in substance addictions and gambling but this focus is often absent in other candidate behavioural addictions. In contrast, the standard approach to behavioural addictions has been to look at individual differences, psychopathologies and biases, often translating from pathological gambling indicators. An associative model presently captures the core elements of behavioural addiction included in the DSM (gambling) and identified for further consideration (internet gaming). Importantly, gambling has a schedule of reinforcement that shows similarities and differences from other addictions. While this is more likely than not applicable to internet gaming, it is less clear whether it is so for a number of candidate behavioural addictions. Adopting an associative perspective, this paper translates from gambling to video gaming, in light of the existing debates on this matter and the nature of the distinction between these behaviours. Finally, a framework for applying an associative model to behavioural addictions is outlined, and it's application toward treatment

Does gratitude enhance prosociality: a meta-analytic review

Theoretical models suggest that gratitude is linked to increased prosociality. To date, however, there is a lack of a comprehensive quantitative synthesis of results to support this claim. In this review we aimed to 1) examine the overall strength of the association between gratitude and prosociality, and 2) to identify the theoretical and methodological variables that moderate this link. We identified 252 effect sizes from 91 studies across 65 papers— (Total N = 18,342 participants). The present meta-analysis revealed a statistically significant, and moderate positive correlation between gratitude and prosociality (r = 0.374). This association was significantly larger among studies that assessed reciprocal outcomes relative to non-reciprocal outcomes, and in particular among studies that examined direct—compared to indirect—reciprocity. Studies that examined gratitude as an affective state reported significantly larger effect size studies assessing gratitude as a trait. Studies that examined benefit-triggered gratitude (in response to other’s kindness) had a stronger effect that generalized gratitude that focuses on the appreciation of what is valued and cherished in life. Finally, studies that manipulated gratitude in-vivo (e.g., economic games) had larger effect sizes compared to those based on recalled incidents when the person felt grateful. We describe the theoretical and practical significance of the results

Probing dark matter freeze-in with long-lived particle signatures: MATHUSLA, HL-LHC and FCC-hh

Collider searches for long-lived particles yield a promising avenue to probe the freeze-in production of Dark Matter via the decay of a parent particle. We analyze the prospects of probing the parameter space of Dark Matter freeze-in from the decay of neutral parent particles at the LHC and beyond, taking as a case study a freeze-in Dark Matter scenario via the Standard Model Higgs. We obtain the projected sensitivity of the proposed MATHUSLA surface detector (for MATHUSLA100 and MATHUSLA200 configurations) for long-lived particle searches to the freeze-in Dark Matter parameter space, and study its complementarity to searches by ATLAS and CMS at HL-LHC, as well as the interplay with constraints from Cosmology: Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis and Lyman-α forest observations. We then analyze the improvement in sensitivity that would come from a forward detector within a future 100 TeV pp-collider. In addition, we discuss several technical aspects of the present Dark Matter freeze-in scenario: the role of the electroweak phase transition; the inclusion of thermal masses, which have been previously disregarded in freeze-in from decay studies; the impact of 2 → 2 scattering processes on the Dark Matter relic abundance; and the interplay between freeze-in and super-WIMP Dark Matter production mechanismsJ.M.N. is supported by the Programa Atracción de Talento de la Comunidad de Madrid via grant 2017-T1/TIC-5202. B.Z. acknowledges support from the Programa Atracción de Talento de la Comunidad de Madrid under grant n. 2017-T2/TIC-5455. P.T. acknowledges support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) through the Emmy Noether Grant No. KA 4662/1-1 and the Collaborative Research Center TRR 257 “Particle Physics Phenomenology after the Higgs Discovery”. J.M.N. and B.Z. acknowledge support from the Spanish MINECO’s “Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa” Programme via grant SEV-2016-0597. J.M.N. and P.T. were supported by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program, ERC Grant Agreement 648680 (DARKHORIZONS

Exploring How Accountability Affects the Medical Decisions We Make for Other People

In the event that a patient has lost their decision-making capacity due to illness or injury, a surrogate is often appointed to do so on their behalf. Research has shown that people take less risk when making treatment decisions for other people than they do for themselves. This has been discussed as surrogates employing greater caution for others given the accountability they are faced with. We tested the prediction that making accountability salient reduces risk-taking for others relative to the self by manipulating the information shown to participants while they made treatment choices. One group was asked to focus on the consequences for the recipient’s family, another on the legal implications of their decisions, and another was not given additional information. Participants reduced their risk-taking for others compared to themselves, irrespective of the condition they were in. Although participants in each condition reported thinking about these factors to different extents, there were no clear differences in risk-taking between groups. However, we did find that, across all participants, thinking about legal consequences reduces risk-taking. We suggest that future research investigates how the effect of thinking about accountability on surrogate choices is mediated by feelings of accountability, in order to further examine the explanations suggested in the literature