Human Behavior Research Research Articles

Toward statistical modeling of saccadic eye-movement and visual saliency.

In this paper, we present a unified statistical framework for modeling both saccadic eye movements and visual saliency. By analyzing the statistical properties of human eye fixations on natural images, we found that human attention is sparsely distributed and usually deployed to locations with abundant structural information. This observations inspired us to model saccadic behavior and visual saliency based on super-Gaussian component (SGC) analysis. Our model sequentially obtains SGC using projection pursuit, and generates eye movements by selecting the location with maximum SGC response. Besides human saccadic behavior simulation, we also demonstrated our superior effectiveness and robustness over state-of-the-arts by carrying out dense experiments on synthetic patterns and human eye fixation benchmarks. Multiple key issues in saliency modeling research, such as individual differences, the effects of scale and blur, are explored in this paper. Based on extensive qualitative and quantitative experimental results, we show promising potentials of statistical approaches for human behavior research.

Modeling job effectiveness in the context of coming out as a sexual minority: a socio-cognitive model

Previous literature describes “coming out of the closet” as an important job career issue that is conducive to personal stress and job effectiveness in business firms. Previous research of human resources and organizational behavior has rarely assessed homosexual employees’ coming out and their job effectiveness. This study aims to complement previous research by proposing and testing a research model of job effectiveness of homosexual workers based on social cognitive theory. In the model, job effectiveness is indirectly affected by disclosure self-efficacy, disclosure outcome expectation, and social support via the mediation of disclosure, stress, and job advancement satisfaction. Empirical tests from a preliminary survey of 319 gay and lesbian adults in Taiwan are conducted herein, their results are presented, and managerial implications and limitations of this study are provided.

Fraud Detection From Taxis' Driving Behaviors

Taxi is a major transportation in the urban area, offering great benefits and convenience to our daily life. However, one of the major business fraud in taxis is the charging fraud, specifically overcharging for the actual distance. In practice, it is hard for us to always monitor taxis and detect such fraud. Due to the Global Positioning System (GPS) embedded in taxis, we can collect the GPS reports from the taxis' locations, and thus, it is possible for us to retrieve their traces. Intuitively, we can utilize such information to construct taxis' trajectories, compute the actual service distance on the city map, and detect fraudulent behaviors. However, in practice, due to the extremely limited reports, notable location errors, complex city map, and road networks, our task to detect taxi fraud faces significant challenges, and the previous methods cannot work well. In this paper, we have a critical and interesting observation that fraudulent taxis always play a secret trick, i.e., modifying the taximeter to a smaller scale. As a result, it not only makes the service distance larger but also makes the reported taxi speed larger. Fortunately, the speed information collected from the GPS reports is accurate. Hence, we utilize the speed information to design a system, which is called the Speed-based Fraud Detection System (SFDS), to model taxi behaviors and detect taxi fraud. Our method is robust to the location errors and independent of the map information and road networks. At the same time, the experiments on real-life data sets confirm that our method has better accuracy, scalability, and more efficient computation, compared with the previous related methods. Finally, interesting findings of our work and discussions on potential issues are provided in this paper for future city transportation and human behavior research.

Exploring the Interaction of Self Narratives with Other Perception - Relevance for Managerial Anthropology and Business Ethics

Narrative self understanding is becoming more prominent as a field of research in human behaviour, and is particularly interesting for business ethicists who wish to look into behavioural ethics. The way a person possesses his own story can affect his perception of others and his understanding of what is due to them from him. It can therefore affect his capacity to treat them with justice and fairness. This paper looks at the self narratives of twenty subjects vis-à-vis their perceptions of a common event (as a proxy of their judgements of others which therefore would influence their relations with others). It thus uses a qualitative method of textual analysis to examine the relationship between the way a person perceives and describes himself or herself and the way he or she perceives others. The study throws light on an important aspect that needs to be included in curricula of managerial anthropology and of business ethics. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n10p179

Dopamine Modulates Risk-Taking as a Function of Baseline Sensation-Seeking Trait

Trait sensation-seeking, defined as a need for varied, complex, and intense sensations, represents a relatively underexplored hedonic drive in human behavioral neuroscience research. It is related to increased risk for a range of behaviors including substance use, gambling, and risky sexual practice. Individual differences in self-reported sensation-seeking have been linked to brain dopamine function, particularly at D2-like receptors, but so far no causal evidence exists for a role of dopamine in sensation-seeking behavior in humans. Here, we investigated the effects of the selective D2/D3 agonist cabergoline on performance of a probabilistic risky choice task in healthy humans using a sensitive within-subject, placebo-controlled design. Cabergoline significantly influenced the way participants combined different explicit signals regarding probability and loss when choosing between response options associated with uncertain outcomes. Importantly, these effects were strongly dependent on baseline sensation-seeking score. Overall, cabergoline increased sensitivity of choice to information about probability of winning; while decreasing discrimination according to magnitude of potential losses associated with different options. The largest effects of the drug were observed in participants with lower sensation-seeking scores. These findings provide evidence that risk-taking behavior in humans can be directly manipulated by a dopaminergic drug, but that the effectiveness of such a manipulation depends on baseline differences in sensation-seeking trait. This emphasizes the importance of considering individual differences when investigating manipulation of risky decision-making, and may have relevance for the development of pharmacotherapies for disorders involving excessive risk-taking in humans, such as pathological gambling.

Studying human behavior: how scientists investigate aggression and sexuality

In Studying Human Behavior, Helen E. Longino enters into the complexities of human behavioral research, a domain still dominated by the age-old debate of nature versus nurture. Rather than supporting one side or another or attempting to replace that dichotomy with a different framework for understanding behavior, Longino focuses on how scientists study it, specifically sexual behavior and aggression, and asks what can be known about human behavior through empirical investigation. She dissects five approaches to the study of behavior - quantitative behavioral genetics, molecular behavior genetics, developmental psychology, neurophysiology and anatomy, and social/environmental methods - highlighting the underlying assumptions of these disciplines, as well as the different questions and mechanisms each addresses. She also analyzes efforts to integrate different approaches. Longino concludes that there is no single correct approach but that each contributes to our overall understanding of human behavior. In addition, Longino reflects on the reception and transmission of this behavioral research in scientific, social, clinical, and political spheres. A highly significant and innovative study that bears on crucial scientific questions, Studying Human Behavior will be essential reading not only for scientists and philosophers but also for science journalists and anyone interested in the engrossing challenges of understanding human behavior.

Fire evacuation in high-rise buildings: a review of human behaviour and modelling research

A review of literature related to fire evacuation in high-rise buildings was carried out with the following objectives, (1) to identify the key behavioural factors affecting the performance of people during a fire in a high-rise building, the singularities associated to this type of buildings and areas of future research; (2) to review the procedures and strategies currently adopted in high-rise buildings; (3) to review and analyse the capabilities of evacuation models by reviewing their current characteristics and applications in the context of high-rise building evacuations. The review included both findings on human behaviour in high-rise buildings and modelling techniques and tools. Different categories of building use were taken into account, namely office buildings, residential buildings and health care facilities. The individual or combined use of different egress components was analysed. Egress components include the use of stairs, elevators as well as alternative means of escape (e.g., sky-bridges, helicopters, etc.). The effectiveness of the egress components is strongly affected by the building use and the population involved. The review shows that evacuation models can be effectively employed to study relocation strategies and safety issues associated with high-rise buildings. The suitability of egress models for high-rise building evacuations is associated with their flexibility in representing different egress components and complex behavioural processes. The review highlights that there is not a definitive model to be used but that the predictive capabilities of evacuation modelling techniques would be enhanced if more than one model is employed to study different egress aspects. Future research and model developments should focus on the study of the impact of staff actions, group dynamics and people with disabilities. Given the increasing height of buildings and the gradual reduction in the physical abilities of the population, the effects of fatigue on evacuation need further studies.

Cosmopolis: A Massively Multiplayer Online Game for Social and Behavioral Research

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), in their aspect as online communities, represent an exciting opportunity for studying social and behavioral models. For that purpose we have developed Cosmopolis, an MMOG designed to appeal to a wide variety of player types, and containing several key research-oriented features. The course of development has revealed several challenges in integrating behavioral models with an MMOG test bed. However, the Human Social, Cultural, and Behavioral (HSCB) research value of Cosmopolis has been demonstrated with a number of prototype studies, and based on these studies and challenges we propose an ongoing experimental plan largely driven by collaboration with HSCB researchers.

Grounding Aesthetic Preference in the Bodily Conditions of Meaning Constitution

Mark Johnson’s work The Meaning of the Body presents John Dewey’s pragmatism and pragmatist aesthetics as the forerunners of the anti-Cartesian embodied enactive approach to human experience and meaning. He rejects the Kantian noncognitive character of aesthetics and emphasizes that aesthetics is the study of the human capacity to experience the bodily conditions of meaning constitution that grows from our bodily conditions of life. Using Mark Johnson’s view as a starting-point, this paper offers the beginning of an enactive approach to aesthetic preference contributing to bringing human aesthetic behavior research closer to the enactive approach to human experience. Following enactive studies on bodily sense-making and embodied emotions, I identify the bodily conditions of meaning constitution in which aesthetic preference is grounded with the subject’s self-regulatory visceral embodied constitution of viable degrees of value of the environmental factors according to her bodily structure. Unlike mainstream aesthetic preference research in empirical aesthetics, I claim that the subject’s aesthetic preference constitution requires the lived experience of the bodily conditions of meaning constitution through the conscious experience of the subjectively aroused lived body. The implausibility of the mind/body dichotomy of current aesthetic preference research is highlighted.

Validating a behavioral economic approach to assess food demand: Effects of body mass index, dietary restraint, and impulsivity

Behavioral economic theory is a useful framework for analyzing factors influencing choice, but the majority of human behavioral economic research has focused on drug choice. The behavioral economic choice paradigm may also be valuable for understanding food-maintained behavior. Our primary objective was two-fold: (1) Validate a human laboratory model of food-appetitive behavior, and (2) Assess the contribution of individual level factors that may differentially impact food choice behavior. Two studies were conducted. In Study 1, female subjects (N=17) participated in two consecutive food choice experimental sessions, whereas in Study 2, female subjects (N=21) participated in one concurrent food choice experimental session. During consecutive choice sessions (Study 1), demand for the more palatable food (i.e., high-sugar/high-fat) was more inelastic than the less palatable (i.e., low-sugar/low-fat) option. During concurrent choice sessions, demand for the more palatable food (i.e., high-sugar/high-fat) was more inelastic for restrained vs. unrestrained eaters, and for those who were overweight vs. normal weight. Demand for both palatable and less palatable choices was more elastic for high-impulsive vs. low-impulsive subjects. These findings suggest that the behavioral economic framework can be used successfully to develop a human laboratory model of food-appetitive behavior.

Perspectives – Minimizing Observer Bias in Behavioral Studies: A Review and Recommendations

AbstractSince the 1970s, texts on research methods in animal behavior advocate that researchers minimize potential observer bias in their studies. One way to minimize possible bias is to record or score behavioral data blind to treatment, group, or individual. Another way to reduce bias is for researchers to analyze subsets or entire sets of data independently of one another and to obtain high inter‐observer reliability of behavioral coding. We reviewed several hundred published articles from 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010 in five leading animal behavior journals and found that these two methods for minimizing or eliminating bias were rarely reported (<10% of articles reviewed). In contrast, a journal focusing on human infant behavior research was far more rigorous in incorporating methods to avoid bias (>80% of articles reviewed). The lack of reporting attempts to minimize bias in animal behavior studies suggests that, at best, many researchers view blind analyses of data or inter‐rater reliability as unimportant components of research or, if carried out, unnecessary to report in a manuscript. At worst, the lack of reporting attempts to minimize bias suggests that some published behavioral research may be unreliable. We are aware of constraints imposed by fieldwork and data collecting issues that make blind data comparisons or inter‐rater reliability assessments sometimes difficult or unfeasible. However, given that research ethicists often emphasize the fundamental importance of trust and transparency in science, we urge authors, reviewers, and editors of manuscripts to ensure that at least one of these two methods of reducing and reporting observer bias occurs.

Rise of Weibo: Review on Microblogging Research in China

Weibo is the Chinese equivalent for microblogging. To get a comprehensive overview on the current development of microblogging related research in China, we apply bibliometrics analysis on bibliographic data of relevant journal articles, degree dissertations, funded projects, patents and SCI/EI indexed papers. Topics such as the distribution of journals and keywords, differences between domestic and the world, popular research areas, and potential promising directions are discussed. China’s microblogging researches have been developing quickly with substantial achievements, but most of them are qualitative application level studies in domains such as journalism and communication, and lack diversity and professionalism. This situation is unsatisfactory yet advantageous to pioneering in this new field. Potential promising directions include text mining, trend analysis and forecasting, human behavior research, and interdisciplinary applications.

Knowledge and Design: People-Environment Research for Responsive Pedagogy and Practice

This paper argues for introducing a theory for knowledge integration in architectural design education. With a focus on human behavior and people-environment research, a contextual analysis of the reasons for developing a theory is introduced and reasons categorized. The milieu of the theory is constituted in several contextual elements. The theory encompasses a number of underlying theories and concepts derived from other fields that differ dramatically from architecture, with three major components: disciplinary component; cognitive-philosophical component; and inquiry-epistemic component. Possible mechanisms for knowledge acquisition are an indispensable component of the theory, whose aim is to foster the development of responsive knowledge critical to the successful creation of built environments.

Carers' experiences of seeking help for relatives with first-episode psychosis: a systematic review of qualitative evidence.

Carers' experiences of seeking help for relatives with first-episode psychosis: a systematic review of qualitative evidence.

An Essay on Sexual Frustration as the Cause of Breast Cancer in Women: How Correlations and Cultural Blind Spots Conceal Causal Effects

The main premise of this hypothesis is that breast cancer is caused by sexual frustration. Sexual frustration is triggered by multiple forms of dissonance between the absence or lack of sexual reward and the (un)conscious motivation to obtain these sexual rewards. I assume that neural and hormonal processes are capable of adjusting or distorting biologically active forms of specific sex hormones depending on experienced sexual stimuli. I hypothesize that prolonged sexual frustration will ultimately lead via aberrantly metabolized sex hormones to the development of breast cancer. Human female sexual behavior research links sexual frustration with breast cancer risk. The distinction between human female sexual behavior and reproduction is crucial to understand breast cancer risk. Current explanations are focused on reproduction. However, human female sexual behavior is causal in breast cancer development and androgens rather than estrogens are crucial for sexual behaviors in women. Social learning is the main determinant of human sexual behaviors that is why cultural and social processes are very important to understand breast cancer risk. Epidemiologists should evaluate breast cancer risk based on cultural female attitudes towards sexually related issues. Female mate choices should be examined for (un)conscious cultural, ethnic, religious, and socio-economic pressure to make a thorough assessment of breast cancer risk. Closer examination of (un)conscious female copulation strategies reveal that they are potential sources of sexual frustration in specific groups of women. Postmenopausal women seem vulnerable for self-fulfilling prophecies about post reproductive sexuality, body image, and negative perceptions of menopause which may cause sexual frustrations.

TOWARD BETTER META‐ANALYTIC MATRICES: HOW INPUT VALUES CAN AFFECT RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT SIMULATIONS

Simulations and analyses based on meta‐analytic matrices are fairly common in human resource management and organizational behavior research, particularly in staffing research. Unfortunately, the meta‐analytic values estimates for validity and group differences (i.e., ρ and δ, respectively) used in such matrices often vary in the extent to which they are affected by artifacts and how accurately the values capture the underlying constructs and the appropriate population. We investigate how such concerns might influence conclusions concerning key issues such as prediction of job performance and adverse impact of selection procedures, as well as noting wider applications of these issues. We also start the process of building a better matrix upon which to base many such simulations and analyses in staffing research. Finally, we offer guidelines to help researchers/practitioners better model human resources processes, and we suggest ways that researchers in a variety of areas can better assemble meta‐analytic matrices.

Lifts for evacuation—human behaviour considerations

SUMMARYTo predict the time that a building will take to be evacuated in an emergency and to design lift systems capable of dealing with the demand, building designers need an understanding of the likely exiting behaviour of occupants.Because of the inherent difficulties of carrying out research in human behaviour, a number of approaches have been used in this investigation, including analysis of data from past fire events and a number of surveys. The results from this work suggest that the split of occupants using the stairs or lifts to evacuate is governed predominantly by floor level of the occupant and that it is unreasonable to expect that occupants will wait indefinitely for a lift to arrive in an emergency situation. The drop‐off in the percentage of occupants that will continue to wait for a lift with increasing waiting time is dependent on floor height.These results will allow building designers to make more realistic assumptions when designing evacuation strategies incorporating lifts. It is also hoped that a better understanding of the reservations that building users may have about using lifts for evacuation in emergency situations will allow better occupant training programmes to be developed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Comparative evaluation of 3D vs. 2D modality for automatic detection of facial action units

Automatic detection of facial expressions attracts great attention due to its potential applications in human-computer interaction as well as in human facial behavior research. Most of the research has so far been performed in 2D. However, as the limitations of 2D data are understood, expression analysis research is being pursued in 3D face modality. 3D can capture true facial surface data and is less disturbed by illumination and head pose. At this junction we have conducted a comparative evaluation of 3D and 2D face modalities. We have investigated extensively 25 action units (AU) defined in the Facial Action Coding System. For fairness we map facial surface geometry into 2D and apply totally data-driven techniques in order to avoid biases due to design. We have demonstrated that overall 3D data performs better, especially for lower face AUs and that there is room for improvement by fusion of 2D and 3D modalities. Our study involves the determination of the best feature set from 2D and 3D modalities and of the most effective classifier, both from several alternatives. Our detailed analysis puts into evidence the merits and some shortcomings of 3D modality over 2D in classifying facial expressions from single images.

Human Simulations in Behavior Analysis (1987–2010): Facilitating Research in Complex Human Behavior

The authors reviewed human empirical studies from 1987–2010 in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB), Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA), Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM), and Psychological Record (PR). Out of 2286 empirical studies, the authors classified 45 as simulation research, which fell into 4 main categories including organizational, gambling, financial, and other. JOBM contained over half of the simulations, while JEAB contained two. A subsequent citation analysis found that the original simulations informed 15 service-delivery articles, across five journals. In addition, the original articles also informed 35 other behavioral simulations across 19 journals. Simulation research could be ideally placed between theory and application to facilitate empirical research and applications in complex human behavior and the development of an empirically validated, comprehensive, system of behavior analysis.

Reciprocation Effect of Perceived Organizational Support on Organizational Commitment: A Study of School Teachers

The main objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived organizational support (POS) and organizational commitment of school teachers in the city of Chandigarh and Panchkula. The paper is driven theoretically by the social exchange theory, the concept of perceived organizational support (POS) which is the commitment of the organization to the employee, the norm of reciprocity, the organizational support theory as well as the other relevant literature in the human resource management and organizational behaviour research. The results of the study are in favor of the reciprocity norm. This paper contributes to the limited body of knowledge about the psychological processes underlying the formation of organizational commitment through the perspectives of the social exchange theory and the organizational support theory.