Equality Judgments Research Articles

Analysis on Ethical Issues Raised by Technology and the Path of Prevention

The ethics of science and technology is a hot direction that needs urgent attention in the study of philosophy of science and technology. This paper first analyzes the ethical problems caused by science and technology in four dimensions (individuals, human interaction, human-nature relationship, and social governance), and argues that the essence of these ethical problems is that human equality, freedom, and value judgment are violated, human subjective feelings are ignored, and the harmonious and natural relationship between human and others is impacted. Secondly, this paper discusses the prevention path for ethical problems caused by science and technology, arguing that: firstly, it should be clear that the preventive path to be taken needs to be comprehensive, flexible and people-oriented; secondly, it should take national guidance and supervision as the core to provide principled and rigid constraints; thirdly, it should take social self-regulation as a supplement to make concrete and soft self-discipline; finally, all countries should utilize global power to standardize ethical principles and jointly resist technological risks.

A three-response task reveals how attention alters decision criteria but not appearance.

Whether attention alters appearance or just changes decision criteria continues to be controversial. When subjects are forced to choose which of two equal targets, one of which has been pre-cued, has a higher contrast, they tend to choose the cued target. This has been interpreted as attention increasing the apparent contrast of the cued target. However, when subjects must decide whether the two targets have equal or unequal contrast, they respond veridically with no apparent effect of attention. The discrepancy between these comparative and equality judgments is explained by attention altering the decision criteria but not appearance. We supposed that when subjects are forced to choose which of two apparently equal targets has the higher contrast, they tend to proportion their uncertainty in favor of the cued target. To test this hypothesis, we used a three-response task, in which subjects chose which target had the higher contrast but also had the option to report that the targets appeared equal. This task disentangled potential attention effects on appearance from those on the decision criteria. We found that subjects with narrower criteria about what constituted equal contrast were more likely to choose the cued target, supporting the uncertainty stealing hypothesis. Across the population, the effects of the attentional cue are explained as changes in the decision criteria and not changes in appearance.

Prior Experience Alters the Appearance of Blurry Object Borders

Object memories activated by borders serve as priors for figure assignment: figures are more likely to be perceived on the side of a border where a well-known object is sketched. Do object memories also affect the appearance of object borders? Memories represent past experience with objects; memories of well-known objects include many with sharp borders because they are often fixated. We investigated whether object memories affect appearance by testing whether blurry borders appear sharper when they are contours of well-known objects versus matched novel objects. Participants viewed blurry versions of one familiar and one novel stimulus simultaneously for 180 ms; then made comparative (Exp. 1) or equality judgments regarding perceived blur (Exps. 2–4). For equivalent levels of blur, the borders of well-known objects appeared sharper than those of novel objects. These results extend evidence for the influence of past experience to object appearance, consistent with dynamic interactive models of perception.

Stimulus visibility and uncertainty mediate the influence of attention on response bias and visual contrast appearance.

Although attention is known to improve the efficacy of sensory processing, the impact of attention on subjective visual appearance is still a matter of debate. Although recent studies suggest that attention can alter the appearance of stimulus contrast, others argue that these changes reflect response bias induced by attention cues. Here, we provide evidence that attention has effects on both appearance and response bias. In a comparative judgment task in which subjects reported whether the attended or unattended visual stimulus had a higher perceived contrast, attention induced substantial baseline-offset response bias as well as small but significant changes in subjective contrast appearance when subjects viewed near-threshold stimuli. However, when subjects viewed suprathreshold stimuli, baseline-offset response bias decreased and attention primarily changed contrast appearance. To address the possibility that these changes in appearance might be influenced by uncertainty due to the attended and unattended stimuli having similar physical contrasts, subjects performed an equality judgment task in which they reported if the contrast of the two stimuli was the same or different. We found that, although there were still attention-induced changes in contrast appearance at lower contrasts, the robust changes in contrast appearance at higher contrasts observed in the comparative judgment task were diminished in the equality judgment task. Together, these results suggest that attention can impact both response bias and appearance, and these two types of attention effects are differentially mediated by stimulus visibility and uncertainty. Collectively, these findings help constrain arguments about the cognitive penetrability of perception.

Language influences mass opinion toward gender and LGBT equality

To improve gender equality and tolerance toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities, several nations have promoted the use of gender-neutral pronouns and words. Do these linguistic devices actually reduce biases that favor men over women, gays, lesbians, and transgender individuals? The current article explores this question with 3 large-scale experiments in Sweden, which formally incorporated a gender-neutral pronoun into its language alongside established gendered pronouns equivalent to he and she The evidence shows that compared with masculine pronouns, use of gender-neutral pronouns decreases the mental salience of males. This shift is associated with individuals expressing less bias in favor of traditional gender roles and categories, as reflected in more favorable attitudes toward women and LGBT individuals in public life. Additional analyses reveal similar patterns for feminine pronouns. The influence of both pronouns is more automatic than controlled.

People Make the Same Bayesian Judgment They Criticize in Others

When two individuals from different social groups exhibit identical behavior, egalitarian codes of conduct call for equal judgments of both individuals. However, this moral imperative is at odds with the statistical imperative to consider priors based on group membership. Insofar as these priors differ, Bayesian rationality calls for unequal judgments of both individuals. We show that participants criticized the morality and intellect of someone else who made a Bayesian judgment, shared less money with this person, and incurred financial costs to punish this person. However, participants made unequal judgments as a Bayesian statistician would, thereby rendering the same judgment that they found repugnant when offered by someone else. This inconsistency, which can be reconciled by differences in which base rate is attended to, suggests that participants use group membership in a way that reflects the savvy of a Bayesian and the disrepute of someone they consider to be a bigot.

On Judgments of Approximately Equal

AbstractAlthough precision is often important in quantitative judgment, sometimes, it is valuable to recognize that two quantities are roughly the same. Fuzzy‐trace theory suggests that approximately equal judgments rely on gist representations (i.e., meaningful fuzzy categories of quantity). We conducted three experiments to investigate approximately equal judgments with number pairs presented in different formats, both with and without semantic content (breast cancer statistics). In each study, the ratio of the smaller divided by larger number predicted approximately equal judgments. Experiment 1 also examined how knowledge of breast cancer, presentation format (frequencies vs. percentages), and differences in gist comprehension of breast cancer information influence fuzzy equality judgments. As predicted by the fuzzy‐trace theory concept of denominator neglect, approximately equal judgments were more sensitive, as measured by signal detection theory (SDT) analyses, when presented as percentages. In both experiments with breast cancer statistics, people were more likely to judge number pairs approximately equal when they were embedded in sentences about breast cancer, and breast cancer knowledge predicted increased perception of equality, when appropriately consistent with reliable sources, and increased judgment sensitivity. In Experiment 2, a simple intervention focusing on gist meaning increased source‐consistent approximately equal judgments, increased SDT judgment sensitivity, and decreased SDT response bias. In Experiment 3, using number pairs devoid of semantic context spanning four orders of magnitude, we further examined ratio similarity. Overall, more knowledgeable judges and those who better understood the gist of meaningful numbers were more likely to judge literally different numbers as “approximately equal” rather than make precise discriminations that were meaningless. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Spatiotemporal brain dynamics of auditory temporal assimilation

Time is a fundamental dimension, but millisecond-level judgments sometimes lead to perceptual illusions. We previously introduced a “time-shrinking illusion” using a psychological paradigm that induces auditory temporal assimilation (ATA). In ATA, the duration of two successive intervals (T1 and T2), marked by three auditory stimuli, can be perceived as equal when they are not. Here, we investigate the spatiotemporal profile of human temporal judgments using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Behavioural results showed typical ATA: participants judged T1 and T2 as equal when T2 − T1 ≤ +80 ms. MEG source-localisation analysis demonstrated that regional activity differences between judgment and no-judgment conditions emerged in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) during T2. This observation in the TPJ may indicate its involvement in the encoding process when T1 ≠ T2. Activation in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was enhanced irrespective of the stimulus patterns when participants engaged in temporal judgment. Furthermore, just after the final marker, activity in the IFG was enhanced specifically for the time-shrinking pattern. This indicates that activity in the IFG is also related to the illusory perception of time-interval equality. Based on these observations, we propose neural signatures for judgments of temporal equality in the human brain.

Topology-defined units in numerosity perception

What is a number? The number sense hypothesis suggests that numerosity is "a primary visual property" like color, contrast, or orientation. However, exactly what attribute of a stimulus is the primary visual property and determines numbers in the number sense? To verify the invariant nature of numerosity perception, we manipulated the numbers of items connected/enclosed in arbitrary and irregular forms while controlling for low-level features (e.g., orientation, color, and size). Subjects performed discrimination, estimation, and equality judgment tasks in a wide range of presentation durations and across small and large numbers. Results consistently show that connecting/enclosing items led to robust numerosity underestimation, with the extent of underestimation increasing monotonically with the number of connected/enclosed items. In contrast, grouping based on color similarity had no effect on numerosity judgment. We propose that numbers or the primitive units counted in numerosity perception are influenced by topological invariants, such as connectivity and the inside/outside relationship. Beyond the behavioral measures, neural tuning curves to numerosity in the intraparietal sulcus were obtained using functional MRI adaptation, and the tuning curves showed that numbers represented in the intraparietal sulcus were strongly influenced by topology.

A Comparative Study of Rights of Culprit in Islamic Jurisprudence, Codes of Legal Procedure of Iran and International Documents

Attention to rights of culprit has instances in divine religions as well as Islam but in the past few decades, especially after establishing and approval of charter of the United Nations and global documents such as Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, this subject has drawn more attention to itself. Rights of defense by culprit as one of the items of fair judgment is a set of advantages and rights assigned to the culprit to secure his rights and benefits. The obvious fact is that establishing judgment justice is one of the long-term wishes of humankind the realization of which becomes possible through creating fair trial based on provision of right of defense and justice. Among these rights, one can items such as equal tribunal, fair and public judgment in a competent, independent and impartial court, right to counsel, right of immediate to silence, right of immediate trial and the prohibition of torture and coercion to confess. In the present study, the author seeks to comparatively study this subject from the viewpoints of Imami Jurisprudence, new code of legal procedure passed in 2014 and international documents.

Effects of Stimulus Order on Discrimination Processes in Comparative and Equality Judgements: Data and Models

In typical discrimination experiments, participants are presented with a constant standard and a variable comparison stimulus and their task is to judge which of these two stimuli is larger (comparative judgement). In these experiments, discrimination sensitivity depends on the temporal order of these stimuli (Type B effect) and is usually higher when the standard precedes rather than follows the comparison. Here, we outline how two models of stimulus discrimination can account for the Type B effect, namely the weighted difference model (or basic Sensation Weighting model) and the Internal Reference Model. For both models, the predicted psychometric functions for comparative judgements as well as for equality judgements, in which participants indicate whether they perceived the two stimuli to be equal or not equal, are derived and it is shown that the models also predict a Type B effect for equality judgements. In the empirical part, the models' predictions are evaluated. To this end, participants performed a duration discrimination task with comparative judgements and with equality judgements. In line with the models' predictions, a Type B effect was observed for both judgement types. In addition, a time-order error, as indicated by shifts of the psychometric functions, and differences in response times were observed only for the equality judgement. Since both models entail distinct additional predictions, it seems worthwhile for future research to unite the two models into one conceptual framework.

Duration perception of visual and auditory oddball stimuli: Does judgment task modulate the temporal oddball effect?

The duration of rare stimuli (oddballs) presented within a stream of homogenous standards tends to be overestimated. This temporal oddball effect (OE) has been attributed to perceptual processes. The OE is usually assessed with a comparative judgment task. It has been argued, however, that this task is prone to decision biases. The present experiments employed comparative and equality judgments, since it has been suggested that equality judgments are less vulnerable to such biases. Experiments 1a and 1b used visual stimuli, and Experiment 2 auditory stimuli. The results provide no strong evidence for decision biases influencing the OE. In addition, computational modeling clearly suggests that the equality judgment is not particularly suited to distinguish between perceptual and decisional effects. Taken together, the pattern of the present results is most consistent with a perceptual origin of the OE.

Working Memory Modulates the Association between Time and Number Representation

Time and numbers are interconnected in mental representation. Here we investigated whether this interaction between time and number could be modulated by working memory (WM). In experiment 1 participants first memorized a digit and then judged which of the two digits presented in succession were presented for longer (or shorter), with either one or neither of them being the same as the WM digit. The results showed that, when one of two digits was the same as the WM content, the numerical magnitude effect on temporal performance was abolished, whereas the interference effect occurred only when both the two digits were not the same as the WM content. In order to further investigate whether this effect was due to stimuli repetition, we instructed participants in experiment 2 to merely attend to the original digit but not memorize it during a time judgment task. The results did not reveal the modulation of WM content on time-number link. The WM-based interference effect, however, might reflect decision bias rather than perception illusion. In experiment 3 we eliminated response biases by using equality judgments, and found that WM content had no impact on time-number link. Finally, we conducted experiment 4 (comparative duration judgment) and experiment 5 (equality duration judgment) by manipulating WM load, and demonstrated that the WM-based interference effect was relevant to the duration of the WM content solely in comparative judgment. We concluded that the mental association between time and number representation could be modulated by WM at decision level.

A generalized magnitude system for space, time, and quantity? A cautionary note

We investigated the claim that larger stimuli are perceived to last longer (Xuan, Zhang, He, & Chen, 2007). This claim, along with other similar claims of interactions between magnitude representations, is frequently used to support the generalized magnitude system hypothesis-the suggestion that the brain represents information about different magnitudes (e.g., time, space, and quantity) via a common mechanism. It is not clear, however, whether the size of a stimulus genuinely affects the perceived duration of the stimulus or simply biases decisions about duration. This was addressed using duration "equality judgments," which have been proposed to measure perceived duration unconfounded by decisional bias-in contrast to "comparative judgments," which are generally considered bias-prone. Using equality judgments, we failed to find support for the claim that larger stimuli are perceived to last longer, despite replicating the original effect reported by Xuan et al. (2007) using comparative judgments. Instead, unexpectedly, larger stimuli were judged-though not necessarily perceived-as shorter in duration. This result casts doubt on the conclusions of a significant body of behavioral interference studies using comparative judgments, which support a generalized magnitude system. We also identify a hitherto unrecognized potential source of decisional bias associated with equality judgments.

On Irrelevance and Algorithmic Equality in Predicative Type Theory

Dependently typed programs contain an excessive amount of static terms which are necessary to please the type checker but irrelevant for computation. To separate static and dynamic code, several static analyses and type systems have been put forward. We consider Pfenning's type theory with irrelevant quantification which is compatible with a type-based notion of equality that respects eta-laws. We extend Pfenning's theory to universes and large eliminations and develop its meta-theory. Subject reduction, normalization and consistency are obtained by a Kripke model over the typed equality judgement. Finally, a type-directed equality algorithm is described whose completeness is proven by a second Kripke model.

Equality judgments cannot distinguish between attention effects on appearance and criterion: A reply to Schneider (2011)

Whether attention modulates the appearance of stimulus features is debated. Whereas many previous studies using a comparative judgment have found evidence for such an effect, two recent studies using an equality judgment have not. Critically, these studies have relied on the assumption that the equality paradigm yields bias-free PSE estimates and is as sensitive as the comparative judgment, without testing these assumptions. Anton-Erxleben, Abrams, and Carrasco (2010) compared comparative judgments and equality judgments with and without the manipulation of attention. They demonstrated that the equality paradigm is less sensitive than the comparative judgment and also bias-prone. Furthermore, they reported an effect of attention on the PSE using both paradigms. Schneider (2011) questions the validity of the latter finding, stating that the data in the equality experiment are corrupted because of skew in the response distributions. Notably, this argument supports the original conclusion by Anton-Erxleben et al.: that the equality paradigm is bias-prone. Additionally, the necessary analyses to show that the attention effect observed in Anton-Erxleben et al. was due to skew in the data were not conducted. Here, we provide these analyses and show that although the equality judgment is bias-prone, the effects we observe are consistent with an increase of apparent contrast by attention.

Attention alters decision criteria but not appearance: A reanalysis of Anton-Erxleben, Abrams, and Carrasco (2010)

Paying attention to a stimulus affords it many behavioral advantages, but whether attention also changes its subjective appearance is controversial. K. A. Schneider and M. Komlos (2008) demonstrated that the results of previous studies suggesting that attention increased perceived contrast could also be explained by a biased decision mechanism. This bias could be neutralized by altering the methodology to ask subjects whether two stimuli were equal in contrast or not rather than which had the higher contrast. K. Anton-Erxleben, J. Abrams, and M. Carrasco (2010) claimed that, even using this equality judgment, attention could still be shown to increase perceived contrast. In this reply, we analyze their data and conclude that the effects that they reported resulted from fitting symmetric functions that poorly characterized the individual subject data, which exhibited significant asymmetries between the high- and low-contrast tails. The strength of the effect attributed to attentional enhancement in each subject was strongly correlated with this skew. By refitting the data with a response model that included a non-zero asymptotic response in the low-contrast regime, we show that the reported attentional effects are better explained as changes in subjective criteria. Thus, the conclusion of Schneider and Komlos that attention biases the decision mechanism but does not alter appearance is still valid and is in fact supported by the data from Anton-Erxleben et al.

Large effects of peripheral cues on appearance correlate with low precision

In a previous study (M. Carrasco, S. Ling, & S. Read, 2004), observers selected one of two Gabors that appeared to have higher contrast (comparative judgment). A peripheral cue preceded one of the Gabors by 120 ms. Results showed that the cue increased the perceived contrast of the adjacent Gabor. We replicated the experiment and found correlations between the precision of judgments and perceptual cueing effects. Larger cueing effects occurred in conditions with less precise judgments and in observers who saw less difference between the stimuli. Further, we asked observers to judge whether the two Gabors were equal or different (equality judgment). This method avoids decision biases but turned out to be less efficient. Cueing effects were absent for equality judgments and trained observers but present for untrained observers with poor ability to discriminate the stimuli. In another experiment, we showed that when observers' responses became more rapid over the course of the experiment, a cueing effect in brightness perception emerged that is unlikely to reflect perceptual changes. Overall, the results show that large effects of peripheral cues on appearance correlate with poor ability to discriminate the stimuli. We suggest that the cue biased observers' decision but did not affect their perception.

Attention does alter apparent contrast: Evaluating comparative and equality judgments

Attention does alter apparent contrast: Evaluating comparative and equality judgments

Attention biases decisions but does not alter appearance

Introduction: Whether attention intensifies the subjective perception of sensory attributes has been a topic of debate in experimental psychology for over one hundred years. Recently, some studies have shown that transient peripheral attentional cues can increase the perceived contrast and other attributes of stimuli. These studies have been interpreted as demonstrating a link between neural theories and the phenomenology of attention. In a previous study, we were unable to reproduce the effect of attention on perceived contrast except for very low contrasts, near the threshold of detection, and the characteristics of those effects suggested they were the result of sensory interactions between the cues and targets rather than attention. To further investigate the discrepancy, we decided to replicate published studies, using their exact superthreshold stimuli and procedures, and also to introduce different types of behavioral judgments. Methods: Two Gabor patch targets with separate contrasts were simultaneously and briefly presented. One was pre-cued by a transient small black dot. Fourteen subjects compared the contrasts of the two targets using three different types of perceptual judgments in separate sessions: 1. whether the two targets had the same or different contrast (equality judgment); 2. which target had the higher contrast (comparative judgment); 3. the comparative judgment plus determining the orientation of the target deemed to have the higher contrast. Results: The two comparative judgments showed significant increases in contrast of the cued target across the range of contrasts tested. However, the equality judgment showed no effect at any contrast. Conclusion: The equality judgment is not susceptible to the same type of biases as the comparative judgment. Since the attentional effects depend on the decision process, we must conclude that while attention may incite post-perceptual biases in the decision process, it does not prohibit the veridical perception of sensory attributes—attention does not deceive us.