The Effect of Situational Experiment Conditions on Hasty Decision Making in the ‘Beads Task’

Jumping to Conclusions’, or hasty decision making, is widely studied within clinical and computational psychology. It is typically investigated using the ‘beads task’, a sequential information sampling paradigm, and defining one or two draws as jumping to conclusion. Situational experimental conditions, e.g., group vs. individual testing, abstract vs. cover story, show-up fee or course credit, frequently vary between studies. Little effort has been dedicated to investigating the potential effects of demand characteristics on hasty decision making. We explored this in four samples of participants (n = 336), in different situational experiment conditions, with two distinct variations of the beads task. An abstract ‘Draws to Decision’ (DtD) variant, and a cover story combined DtD and probabilistic inferences variant. Situational conditions did not have a significant effect on overall DtD for either variant. However, when using ‘extreme scores’ (DtD of 1 or 1 to 2) as a measure of hasty decision making, situational conditions had an effect for the abstract variant, with individual testing having the fewest hasty decision makers (DtD1: Mann–Whitney U = 2137.5, p = 0.02; DtD1-2: Mann–Whitney U = 2017.5, p < 0.01), but not for the cover story variant. Our results suggest that the abstract variant is more susceptible to test conditions, especially if a categorisation is used to classify hasty decisions. This does not imply that the cover story variant is better suited to capturing jumping to conclusions behaviour, but highlights the importance of mirroring the situational conditions between different samples. We recommend that testing conditions should be fully disclosed

Playing a video game is more than mere procrastination

Source at https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-019-0309-9. © The Author(s). 2019Background: Procrastination is seen as a severe problem among young people, and many factors have been claimed to be associated with it, playing video games being one of them. One of the reasons why video games might be related to procrastination is their ability to offer instant gratification and feedback, while at the same time offer distractions from less tempting and rewarding tasks. It is not yet agreed on whether or not video game players are more prone towards procrastination and discounting of future rewards. Method: Over 500 participants across two studies completed two surveys on video gaming habits, as well as a measurement of procrastination tendencies. In study 1 participants performed an experiential discounting task, while participants in study 2 performed the 5-trial adjusting delay discounting task, both tasks assessing preference for delayed larger rewards. Results: In study 1, hours of videogaming was not significantly related to procrastination or the discount rate. In study 2, hours of videogaming was not strongly associated with procrastination and delay discounting either. However, when asked why they play, those answering to escape reality and to reduce stress had more problems of procrastination than those who play for entertainment, reward or social reasons. Overall, the association between procrastination and hours spent playing video games was weak but positive, r(513) = .122. Discussion: Time spent enjoying and engaging in video gaming is done for various reasons, only for a few this is related to procrastination. By using only hypothetical payouts in the discounting tasks, the absence of a relationship between hours spent video gaming, procrastination and delayed gratification requires further investigation. However, playing video games is more than mere procrastination

Artificial Intelligence in Education as a Rawlsian Massively Multiplayer Game : A Thought Experiment on AI Ethics

In this chapter, we reflect on the deployment of AI as a pedagogical and educational instrument. When AI enters into classrooms, it becomes as a project with diverse members who have differing stakes, and it produces various socio-cognitive-technological questions that must be discussed. Furthermore, AI is developing fast and renders obsolete old paradigms for, e.g. data access, privacy, and transparency. AI may bring many positive consequences in schools — not only for individuals, or teachers, but for the educational system as a whole. On the other hand, there are also serious risks. Thus, the analysis of the educational uses of AI in future schools pushes us to compare the possible benefits (for example, using AI-based tools for supporting different learners) with the possible risks (for example, the danger of algorithmic manipulation, or a danger of hidden algorithmic discrimination). Practical solutions are many, for example the Solid protocol by Tim Berners-Lee, but are often conceived as solutions to single problems, with limited application. We describe a thought experiment: "education as a massively multiplayer social online game". Here, all actors (humans, institutions, AI agents and algorithms) are required to conform to the definition of a player: which is a role designed to maximise protection and benefit for human players. AI models that understand the game space provide an API for typical algorithms, e.g. deep learning neural nets or reinforcement learning agents, to interact with the game space. Our thought experiment clarifies the steep challenges, and also the opportunity, of AI in education.Peer reviewe

Sweet spot in music—Is predictability preferred among persons with psychotic-like experiences or autistic traits?

People prefer music with an intermediate level of predictability; not so predictable as to be boring, yet not so unpredictable that it ceases to be music. This sweet spot for predictability varies due to differences in the perception of predictability. The symptoms of both psychosis and Autism Spectrum Disorder have been attributed to overestimation of uncertainty, which predicts a preference for predictable stimuli and environments. In a pre-registered study, we tested this prediction by investigating whether psychotic and autistic traits were associated with a higher preference for predictability in music. Participants from the general population were presented with twenty-nine pre-composed music excerpts, scored on their complexity by musical experts. A participant’s preferred level of predictability corresponded to the peak of the inverted U-shaped curve between music complexity and liking (i.e., a Wundt curve). We found that the sweet spot for predictability did indeed vary between individuals. Contrary to predictions, we did not find support for these variations being associated with autistic and psychotic traits. The findings are discussed in the context of the Wundt curve and the use of naturalistic stimuli. We also provide recommendations for further exploration

Aberrant uncertainty processing is linked to psychotic-like experiences, autistic traits, and is reflected in pupil dilation during probabilistic learning

Aberrant belief updating due to misestimation of uncertainty and an increased perception of the world as volatile (i.e., unstable) has been found in autism and psychotic disorders. Pupil dilation tracks events that warrant belief updating, likely refecting the adjustment of neural gain. However, whether subclinical autistic or psychotic symptoms afect this adjustment and how they relate to learning in volatile environments remains to be unraveled. We investigated the relationship between behavioral and pupillometric markers of subjective volatility (i.e., experience of the world as unstable), autistic traits, and psychotic-like experiences in 52 neurotypical adults with a probabilistic reversal learning task. Computational modeling revealed that participants with higher psychotic-like experience scores overestimated volatility in low-volatile task periods. This was not the case for participants scoring high on autistic-like traits, who instead showed a diminished adaptation of choice-switching behavior in response to risk. Pupillometric data indicated that individuals with higher autistic- or psychoticlike trait and experience scores differentiated less between events that warrant belief updating and those that do not when volatility was high. These findings are in line with misestimation of uncertainty accounts of psychosis and autism spectrum disorders and indicate that aberrancies are already present at the subclinical level

Prolonged rather than hasty decision-making in schizophrenia using the box task. Must we rethink the jumping to conclusions account of paranoia?

Accepted manuscript version, licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Jumping to conclusions (JTC) is the best established cognitive bias in schizophrenia and is increasingly targeted in interventions aimed to improve positive symptoms. To address shortcomings of the standard measure to capture JTC, the beads task, we developed a new variant—the box task—which was subsequently validated in people with elevated psychotic-like experiences. For the first time, the box task was administered in a sample of individuals with manifest schizophrenia. We hypothesized that patients with schizophrenia would display an elevated JTC bias relative to controls. Method - We recruited a large sample of 101 patients with schizophrenia and matched them to an online sample recruited from the general population. In the box task, participants must decide which of two kinds of colored balls are presented more often. Participants are told that the task may end prematurely, and that task performance will be counted as an error if no decision had been made before that point. The primary measure was the number of draws to decision (DTD), where fewer DTD corresponds to greater JTC. Results - In contrast to expectations, participants with schizophrenia showed significantly higher DTD (i.e., reduced JTC). Consistent with our previous findings, patients also displayed a lowered decision threshold compared to controls. Response confidence for the final decision was lower in patients and correlated with self-esteem and positive symptoms. While there was evidence that previous knowledge of the box task lowered DTD, exclusion of participants with experience on the box task did not substantially change results. Discussion - The study fits a growing body of experiments casting doubt on the generalizability of the JTC effect in schizophrenia across different tasks. While the study tentatively supports a liberal acceptance account of psychosis, caution is warranted and we recommend that research should explore and control for potentially important mediators (e.g., task difficulty, stress, test-taking attitudes)

mHealth: Where Is the Potential for Aiding Informal Caregivers?

The health and well-being of informal caregivers often take a backseat to those that they care for. While systems, technologies, and services that provide care and support for those with chronic illnesses are established and continuously improved, those that support informal caregivers are less explored. An international survey about motivations to use mHealth technologies was posted to online platforms related to chronic illnesses. We focused on responses regarding the facilitators and challenges of achieving health goals, including the use of mHealth technologies, for the subgroup who identified as “Caregivers”. Findings indicate that mHealth technology is not yet the most important motivational factor for achieving health goals in this group, but greater future potential is suggested

Do parental cognitions during pregnancy predict bonding after birth in a low-risk sample?

Parental bonding to their infant is important for healthy parent-infant interaction and infant development. Characteristics in the parents affect how they bond to their newborn. Parental cognitions such as repetitive negative thinking, a thinking style associated with mental health issues, and cognitive dispositions, e.g., mood-congruent attentional bias or negative implicit attitudes to infants, might affect bonding. To assess the influence of cognitive factors on bonding, 350 participants (220 pregnant women and their partners) were recruited over two years by midwives at the hospital and in the communal health care services. Participants were followed throughout the pregnancy and until the infant was seven months old as a part of the Northern Babies Longitudinal Study. Both mothers and fathers took part. First, we measured demographics, repetitive negative thinking, attentional bias, and implicit attitudes to infants during pregnancy, as predictors of bonding two months postnatally. Second, we also measured infant regulatory problems, and depressive symptoms at two months postnatally as predictors of parents’ perception of infant temperament at five months. Robust regression analyses were performed to test hypotheses. Results showed that mothers and fathers differed on several variables. Parity was beneficial for bonding in mothers but not for fathers. Higher levels of mothers’ repetitive negative thinking during pregnancy predicted weaker bonding, which was a non-significant trend in fathers. For fathers, higher education predicted weaker bonding, but not for mothers. Mothers’ perception of their infant temperament at five months was significantly affected by bonding at two months, but for fathers, their depressive symptoms were the only significant predictor of perceived infant temperament. In conclusion, for mothers, their relationship with their infant is essential for how they experience their infant, while for fathers their own wellbeing might be the most important factor. Health care providers should screen parents’ thoughts and emotions already during pregnancy to help facilitate optimal bonding

The Tromso Infant Faces Database (TIF): development, validation and application to assess parenting experience on clarity and intensity ratings

Source at http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00409 Newborns and infants are highly depending on successfully communicating their needs; e.g., through crying and facial expressions. Although there is a growing interest in the mechanisms of and possible influences on the recognition of facial expressions in infants, heretofore there exists no validated database of emotional infant faces. In the present article we introduce a standardized and freely available face database containing Caucasian infant face images from 18 infants 4 to 12 months old. The development and validation of the Tromsø Infant Faces (TIF) database is presented in Study 1. Over 700 adults categorized the photographs by seven emotion categories (happy, sad, disgusted, angry, afraid, surprised, neutral) and rated intensity, clarity and their valance. In order to examine the relevance of TIF, we then present its first application in Study 2, investigating differences in emotion recognition across different stages of parenthood. We found a small gender effect in terms of women giving higher intensity and clarity ratings than men. Moreover, parents of young children rated the images as clearer than all the other groups, and parents rated “neutral” expressions as more clearly and more intense. Our results suggest that caretaking experience provides an implicit advantage in the processing of emotional expressions in infant faces, especially for the more difficult, ambiguous expressions

What motivates patients with NCDs to follow up their treatment?

Workshop at the 31st Medical Informatics Europe virtual conference, 29.05.21 - 31.05.21: https://efmi.org/2020/12/10/31st-medical-informatics-europe-conference-mie2021-athens-greece/.The increasing use of mobile health (mHealth) tools for self-management is considered to be important to improve health effects for patients with chronic NCDs (noncommunicable diseases). This development is supported by an increasing number of available mHealth apps. The apps range from disease management apps (e.g., diabetes diary) to health and fitness apps (e.g., dietary apps and workout apps). However, there seems to be a lack of motivation from most users to keep using these health apps over a long period of time [1]. This may be because of the way these apps were designed and developed, i.e. lack of co-participatory design techniques and lack of a tested developer guideline for creating mHealth solutions. The motivation behind this workshop is to identify motivational factors which will increase adoption and usage of mHealth apps. Since 2001, several of the presenters have been working on self-management tools for people with diabetes [2, 3]. The main tool is a diabetes diary – the “Few Touch Application” (Norwegian, “Diabetesdagboka”), available for free from Google Play, and used by several thousands of users [4-8]