Motivated Reasoning in a Causal Explore-Exploit Task

The current research investigates how prior preferences affect causal learning. Participants were tasked with repeatedly choosing policies (e.g., increase vs. decrease border security funding) in order to maximize the economic output of an imaginary country, and inferred the influence of the policies on the economy. The task was challenging and ambiguous, allowing participants to interpret the relations between the policies and the economy in multiple ways. In three studies, we found evidence of motivated reasoning despite financial incentives for accuracy. For example, participants who believed that border security funding should be increased were more likely to conclude that increasing border security funding actually caused a better economy in the task. In Study 2, we hypothesized that having neutral preferences (e.g., preferring neither increased nor decreased spending on border security) would lead to more accurate assessments overall compared to having a strong initial preference, however, we did not find evidence for such an effect. In Study 3, we tested whether providing participants with possible functional forms of the policies (e.g., the policy takes some time to work, or initially has a negative influence but eventually a positive influence) would lead to a smaller influence of motivated reasoning, but found little evidence for this effect. This research advances the field of causal learning by studying the role of prior preferences, and in doing so, integrates the fields of causal learning and motivated reasoning using a novel explore-exploit task

Sleep Environment Recommendations for Future Spaceflight Vehicles

Current evidence demonstrates that astronauts experience sleep loss and circadian desynchronization during spaceflight. Ground-based evidence demonstrates that these conditions lead to reduced performance, increased risk of injuries and accidents, and short and long-term health consequences. Many of the factors contributing to these conditions relate to the habitability of the sleep environment. Noise, inadequate temperature and airflow, and inappropriate lighting and light pollution have each been associated with sleep loss and circadian misalignment during spaceflight operations and on Earth. As NASA prepares to send astronauts on long-duration, deep space missions, it is critical that the habitability of the sleep environment provide adequate mitigations for potential sleep disruptors. We conducted a comprehensive literature review summarizing optimal sleep hygiene parameters for lighting, temperature, airflow, humidity, comfort, intermittent and erratic sounds, and privacy and security in the sleep environment. We reviewed the design and use of sleep environments in a wide range of cohorts including among aquanauts, expeditioners, pilots, military personnel and ship operators. We also reviewed the specifications and sleep quality data arising from every NASA spaceflight mission, beginning with Gemini. Finally, we conducted structured interviews with individuals experienced sleeping in non-traditional spaces including oil rig workers, Navy personnel, astronauts, and expeditioners. We also interviewed the engineers responsible for the design of the sleeping quarters presently deployed on the International Space Station. We found that the optimal sleep environment is cool, dark, quiet, and is perceived as safe and private. There are wide individual differences in the preferred sleep environment; therefore modifiable sleeping compartments are necessary to ensure all crewmembers are able to select personalized configurations for optimal sleep. A sub-optimal sleep environment is tolerable for only a limited time, therefore individual sleeping quarters should be designed for long-duration missions. In a confined space, the sleep environment serves a dual purpose as a place to sleep, but also as a place for storing personal items and as a place for privacy during non-sleep times. This need for privacy during sleep and wake appears to be critically important to the psychological well-being of crewmembers on long-duration missions

Sleep Environment Recommendations for Future Spaceflight Vehicles

Evidence from spaceflight and ground-based missions demonstrate that sleep loss and circadian desynchronization occur among astronauts, leading to reduced performance and, increased risk of injuries and accidents. We conducted a comprehensive literature review to determine the optimal sleep environment for lighting, temperature, airflow, humidity, comfort, intermittent and erratic sounds, privacy and security in the sleep environment. We reviewed the design and use of sleep environments in a wide range of cohorts including among aquanauts, expeditioners, pilots, military personnel, and ship operators. We also reviewed the specifications and sleep quality data arising from every NASA spaceflight mission, beginning with Gemini. We found that the optimal sleep environment is cool, dark, quiet, and is perceived as safe and private. There are wide individual differences in the preferred sleep environment; therefore modifiable sleeping compartments are necessary to ensure all crewmembers are able to select personalized configurations for optimal sleep

Learning, Choice Consistency, and Individual Differences in How People Think Elections Should be Decided

There are ongoing debates about whether the U.S. should switch from plurality voting to alternative systems (e.g., cardinal or ranked-choice voting) and debates about the relative fairness and ease of learning different systems. To address these issues, we developed the ‘Who Won the Election Task’ (WWET) in which participants were shown the results of a hypothetical election in which a group of people were voting on which candidate to hire. The WWET had participants determine elections from raw data and allowed us to calculate the degree to which participants’ choices agreed with the three voting systems. In four studies, we evaluated how participants’ preferences about voting systems, the consistency in these preferences when measured in different ways, and whether their understanding of the voting systems and individual differences predicted their voting system preferences. Additionally, we tested educational interventions, which improved participants’ understanding of the voting systems. Across all the studies, participants’ choices in the WWET were most consistent with plurality voting. However, participants tended to view ranked-choice voting as fairer than plurality. In Studies 3 and 4 participants even sometimes viewed cardinal voting as fairer than plurality. In general, we found low consistency in voting system preferences when measured in different ways. One reason this may occur is because participants struggled to comprehend the alternative voting systems and were not adequately self-assessing their own knowledge. This research has implications for persuading the public to change voting systems for elections as well as how groups should make collective decisions (e.g., hiring decisions)

Cognitive perspectives on maintaining physicians’ medical expertise: IV. Best practices and open questions in using testing to enhance learning and retention

Abstract Although tests and assessments—such as those used to maintain a physician’s Board certification—are often viewed merely as tools for decision-making about one’s performance level, strong evidence now indicates that the experience of being tested is a powerful learning experience in its own right: The act of retrieving targeted information from memory strengthens the ability to use it again in the future, known as the testing effect. We review meta-analytic evidence for the learning benefits of testing, including in the domain of medicine, and discuss theoretical accounts of its mechanism(s). We also review key moderators—including the timing, frequency, order, and format of testing and the content of feedback—and what they indicate about how to most effectively use testing for learning. We also identify open questions for the optimal use of testing, such as the timing of feedback and the sequencing of complex knowledge domains. Lastly, we consider how to facilitate adoption of this powerful study strategy by physicians and other learners