The Impact of Cognitive Style Diversity on Implicit Learning in Teams

Organizations are increasingly looking for ways to reap the benefits of cognitive diversity for problem solving. A major unanswered question concerns the implications of cognitive diversity for longer-term outcomes such as team learning, with its broader effects on organizational learning and productivity. We study how cognitive style diversity in teams-or diversity in the way that team members encode, organize and process information-indirectly influences team learning through collective intelligence, or the general ability of a team to work together across a wide array of tasks. Synthesizing several perspectives, we predict and find that cognitive style diversity has a curvilinear-inverted U-shaped-relationship with collective intelligence. Collective intelligence is further positively related to the rate at which teams learn, and is a mechanism guiding the indirect relationship between cognitive style diversity and team learning. We test the predictions in 98 teams using ten rounds of the minimum-effort tacit coordination game. Overall, this research advances our understanding of the implications of cognitive diversity for organizations and why some teams demonstrate high levels of team learning in dynamic situations while others do not. Keywords: teams; team learning; implicit coordination; collective intelligence; cognitive diversityNational Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant IIS-0963451

Receptive Field Characteristics That Allow Parietal Lobe Neurons to Encode Spatial Properties of Visual Input: A Computational Analysis

A subset of visually sensitive neurons in the parietal lobe apparently can encode the locations of stimuli, whereas visually sensitive neurons in the inferotemporal cortex (area IT) cannot. This finding is puzzling because both sorts of neurons have large receptive fields, and yet location can be encoded in one case, but not in the other. The experiments reported here investigated the hypothesis that a crucial difference between the IT and parietal neurons is the spatial distribution of their response profiles. In particular, IT neurons typically respond maximally when stimuli are presented at the fovea, whereas parietal neurons do not. We found that a parallel-distributed-processing network could map a point in an array to a coordinate representation more easily when a greater proportion of its input units had response peaks off the center of the input array. Furthermore, this result did not depend on potentially implausible assumptions about the regularity of the overlap in receptive fields or the homogeneity of the response profiles of different units. Finally, the internal representations formed within the network had receptive fields resembling those found in area 7a of the parietal lobe.Psycholog

Reading the Mind in the Eyes or Reading between the Lines? Theory of Mind Predicts Collective Intelligence Equally Well Online and Face-To-Face

Recent research with face-to-face groups found that a measure of general group effectiveness (called “collective intelligence”) predicted a group’s performance on a wide range of different tasks. The same research also found that collective intelligence was correlated with the individual group members’ ability to reason about the mental states of others (an ability called “Theory of Mind” or “ToM”). Since ToM was measured in this work by a test that requires participants to “read” the mental states of others from looking at their eyes (the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test), it is uncertain whether the same results would emerge in online groups where these visual cues are not available. Here we find that: (1) a collective intelligence factor characterizes group performance approximately as well for online groups as for face-to-face groups; and (2) surprisingly, the ToM measure is equally predictive of collective intelligence in both face-to-face and online groups, even though the online groups communicate only via text and never see each other at all. This provides strong evidence that ToM abilities are just as important to group performance in online environments with limited nonverbal cues as they are face-to-face. It also suggests that the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test measures a deeper, domain-independent aspect of social reasoning, not merely the ability to recognize facial expressions of mental states.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant IIS-0963285)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant ACI-1322254)National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant IIS-0963451)United States. Army Research Office (Grant 56692-MA)United States. Army Research Office (Grant 64079-NS)Cisco Systems, Inc. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Center for Collective Intelligenc

The Allocation of Time in Decision-Making

We study the allocation of time across decision problems. If a decision-maker (1) has noisy estimates of value, (2) improves those estimates the longer he or she analyzes a choice problem, and (3) allocates time optimally, then the decision-maker should spend less time choosing when the difference in value between two options is relatively large. To test this prediction we ask subjects to make 27 binary incentive-compatible intertemporal choices, and measure response time for each decision. Our time allocation model explains 54% of the variance in average decision time. These results support the view that decisionmaking is a cognitively costly activity that uses time as an input allocated according to cost-benefit principles.Economic

Measuring intertemporal preferences using response times

We use two different approaches to measure intertemporal preferences. First we employ the classical method of inferring preferences from a series of choices (subjects choose between $X now or$Y in D days). Second we adopt the novel approach of inferring preferences using only response time data from the same choices (how long it takes subjects to choose between $X now or$Y in D days). In principle, the inference from response times should work, since choices between items of nearly equivalent value should take longer than choices between items with substantially different values. We find that choice-based analysis and response-time-based analysis yield nearly identical discount rate estimates. We conclude that response time data sheds light on both our revealed (choice-based) preferences and on the cognitive processes that implement those preferences.

Individual Laboratory-Measured Discount Rates Predict Field Behavior

We estimate discount rates of 555 subjects using a laboratory task and find that these individual discount rates predict inter-individual variation in field behaviors (e.g., exercise, BMI, smoking). The correlation between the discount rate and each field behavior is small: none exceeds 0.28 and many are near 0. However, the discount rate has at least as much predictive power as any variable in our dataset (e.g., sex, age, education). The correlation between the discount rate and field behavior rises when field behaviors are aggregated: these correlations range from 0.09-0.38. We present a model that explains why specific intertemporal choice behaviors are only weakly correlated with discount rates, even though discount rates robustly predict aggregates of intertemporal decisions.

General Intelligence in Another Primate: Individual Differences across Cognitive Task Performance in a New World Monkey (Saguinus oedipus)

Background: Individual differences in human cognitive abilities show consistently positive correlations across diverse domains, providing the basis for the trait of ‘‘general intelligence’ ’ (g). At present, little is known about the evolution of g, in part because most comparative studies focus on rodents or on differences across higher-level taxa. What is needed, therefore, are experiments targeting nonhuman primates, focusing on individual differences within a single species, using a broad battery of tasks. To this end, we administered a large battery of tasks, representing a broad range of cognitive domains, to a population of captive cotton-top tamarin monkeys (Saguinus oedipus). Methodology and Results: Using a Bayesian latent variable model, we show that the pattern of correlations among tasks is consistent with the existence of a general factor accounting for a small but significant proportion of the variance in each task (the lower bounds of 95 % Bayesian credibility intervals for correlations between g and task performance all exceed 0.12). Conclusion: Individual differences in cognitive abilities within at least one other primate species can be characterized by a general intelligence factor, supporting the hypothesis that important aspects of human cognitive function most likel

Why It Is Hard to Find Genes Associated With Social Science Traits: Theoretical and Empirical Considerations

OBJECTIVES: We explain why traits of interest to behavioral scientists may have a genetic architecture featuring hundreds or thousands of loci with tiny individual effects rather than a few with large effects and why such an architecture makes it difficult to find robust associations between traits and genes. METHODS: We conducted a genome-wide association study at 2 sites, Harvard University and Union College, measuring more than 100 physical and behavioral traits with a sample size typical of candidate gene studies. We evaluated predictions that alleles with large effect sizes would be rare and most traits of interest to social science are likely characterized by a lack of strong directional selection. We also carried out a theoretical analysis of the genetic architecture of traits based on R.A. Fisher's geometric model of natural selection and empirical analyses of the effects of selection bias and phenotype measurement stability on the results of genetic association studies. RESULTS: Although we replicated several known genetic associations with physical traits, we found only 2 associations with behavioral traits that met the nominal genome-wide significance threshold, indicating that physical and behavioral traits are mainly affected by numerous genes with small effects. CONCLUSIONS: The challenge for social science genomics is the likelihood that genes are connected to behavioral variation by lengthy, nonlinear, interactive causal chains, and unraveling these chains requires allying with personal genomics to take advantage of the potential for large sample sizes as well as continuing with traditional epidemiological studies.EconomicsPsycholog

Visual Mental Imagery Activates Topographically Organized Visual Cortex: PET Investigations

Cerebral blood flow was measured using positron emission tomography (PET) in three experiments while subjects performed mental imagery or analogous perceptual tasks. In Experiment 1, the subjects either visualized letters in grids and decided whether an X mark would have fallen on each letter if it were actually in the grid, or they saw letters in grids and decided whether an X mark fell on each letter. A region identified as part of area 17 by the Talairach and Tournoux (1988) atlas, in addition to other areas involved in vision, was activated more in the mental imagery task than in the perception task. In Experiment 2, the identical stimuli were presented in imagery and baseline conditions, but subjects were asked to form images only in the imagery condition; the portion of area 17 that was more active in the imagery condition of Experiment 1 was also more activated in imagery than in the baseline condition, as was part of area 18. Subjects also were tested with degraded perceptual stimuli, which caused visual cortex to be activated to the same degree in imagery and perception. In both Experiments 1 and 2, however, imagery selectively activated the extreme anterior part of what was identified as area 17, which is inconsistent with the relatively small size of the imaged stimuli. These results, then, suggest that imagery may have activated another region just anterior to area 17. In Experiment 3, subjects were instructed to close their eyes and evaluate visual mental images of upper case letters that were formed at a small size or large size. The small mental images engendered more activation in the posterior portion of visual cortex, and the large mental images engendered more activation in anterior portions of visual cortex. This finding is strong evidence that imagery activates topographically mapped cortex. The activated regions were also consistent with their being localized in area 17. Finally, additional results were consistent with the existence of two types of imagery, one that rests on allocating attention to form a pattern and one that rests on activating stored visual memories.Psycholog

What People Believe about How Memory Works: A Representative Survey of the U.S. Population

Incorrect beliefs about the properties of memory have broad implications: The media conflate normal forgetting and inadvertent memory distortion with intentional deceit, juries issue verdicts based on flawed intuitions about the accuracy and confidence of testimony, and students misunderstand the role of memory in learning. We conducted a large representative telephone survey of the U.S. population to assess common beliefs about the properties of memory. Substantial numbers of respondents agreed with propositions that conflict with expert consensus: Amnesia results in the inability to remember one's own identity (83% of respondents agreed), unexpected objects generally grab attention (78%), memory works like a video camera (63%), memory can be enhanced through hypnosis (55%), memory is permanent (48%), and the testimony of a single confident eyewitness should be enough to convict a criminal defendant (37%). This discrepancy between popular belief and scientific consensus has implications from the classroom to the courtroom