Initial Judgment Research Articles

The effects on anchoring of increasing quantities of disconfirming evidence

Anchoring has been shown to influence judgments in a wide variety of contexts, often in a dysfunctional manner (particularly when anchors are deemed unreliable). Identifying methods for mitigating the effects of anchors is important. Our experimental study utilizes three abstract settings and arbitrary anchor values. We find strong anchoring effects in initial judgments. Providing disconfirming evidence of moderate helpfulness does, however, reduce the anchoring effects. Specifically, providing one or two items of disconfirming information is shown to have significant incremental benefits in reducing or even eliminating anchoring effects. However, surprisingly, providing three items of disconfirming information, in our setting, did not further reduce anchoring, suggesting some diminishing effect of additional evidence. This is consistent with prior research suggesting that individuals adjust until they are “close enough”, and then stop considering additional information. Our results have implications for a wide variety of judgment contexts, and the results are encouraging in suggesting that a relatively small quantity of disconfirming evidence could be sufficient for overcoming anchoring.

A Phenomenal Defense of Reflective Equilibrium

The method of reflective equilibrium starts with a set of initial judgments about some subject matter and refines that set to arrive at an improved philosophical worldview. However, the method faces two, trenchant objections. The Garbage-In, Garbage-Out Objection argues that reflective equilibrium fails because it has no principled reason to rely on some inputs to the method rather than others and putting garbage-in assures you of getting garbage-out. The Circularity Objection argues that reflective equilibrium fails because it has no principled, non-circular way of sorting whatever is put into the method. The moves required to avoid both objections are instructive. Reflective equilibrium requires a meta-justification, and we offer one that appeals to the epistemic goods that underwrite a view known as phenomenal conservatism. Reflective equilibrium calls on us to start with what seems most likely to be true and to alter that collection of judgments in the ways that seem most likely to get us to the truth. Proceeding in this way is epistemically defensible and unavoidable. Hence, reflective equilibrium is not just good, it’s phenomenal.

Judgements of a speaker's personality are correlated across differing content and stimulus type.

It has previously been shown that first impressions of a speaker’s personality, whether accurate or not, can be judged from short utterances of vowels and greetings, as well as from prolonged sentences and readings of complex paragraphs. From these studies, it is established that listeners’ judgements are highly consistent with one another, suggesting that different people judge personality traits in a similar fashion, with three key personality traits being related to measures of valence (associated with trustworthiness), dominance, and attractiveness. Yet, particularly in voice perception, limited research has established the reliability of such personality judgements across stimulus types of varying lengths. Here we investigate whether first impressions of trustworthiness, dominance, and attractiveness of novel speakers are related when a judgement is made on hearing both one word and one sentence from the same speaker. Secondly, we test whether what is said, thus adjusting content, influences the stability of personality ratings. 60 Scottish voices (30 females) were recorded reading two texts: one of ambiguous content and one with socially-relevant content. One word (~500 ms) and one sentence (~3000 ms) were extracted from each recording for each speaker. 181 participants (138 females) rated either male or female voices across both content conditions (ambiguous, socially-relevant) and both stimulus types (word, sentence) for one of the three personality traits (trustworthiness, dominance, attractiveness). Pearson correlations showed personality ratings between words and sentences were strongly correlated, with no significant influence of content. In short, when establishing an impression of a novel speaker, judgments of three key personality traits are highly related whether you hear one word or one sentence, irrespective of what they are saying. This finding is consistent with initial personality judgments serving as elucidators of approach or avoidance behaviour, without modulation by time or content. All data and sounds are available on OSF (osf.io/s3cxy).

Rapid timing of musical aesthetic judgments.

In recent years, psychological models of perception have undergone reevaluation due to a broadening of focus toward understanding not only how observers perceive stimuli but also how they subjectively evaluate stimuli. Here, we investigated the time course of such aesthetic evaluations using a gating paradigm. In a series of experiments, participants heard excerpts of classical, jazz, and electronica music. Excerpts were of different durations (250 ms, 500 ms, 750 ms, 1,000 ms, 2,000 ms, 10,000 ms) or note values (eighth note, quarter note, half note, dotted-half note, whole note, and entire 10,000 ms excerpt). After each excerpt, participants rated how much they liked the excerpt on a 9-point Likert scale. In Experiment 1, listeners made accurate aesthetic judgments within 750 ms for classical and jazz pieces, while electronic pieces were judged within 500 ms. When translated into note values (Experiment 2), electronica and jazz clips were judged more quickly than classical. In Experiment 3, we manipulated the familiarity of the musical excerpts. Unfamiliar clips were judged more quickly (500 ms) than familiar clips (750 ms), but there was overall higher accuracy for familiar pieces. Finally, we investigated listeners' aesthetic judgments continuously over the time course of more naturalistic (60 s) excerpts: Within 3 s, listeners' judgments differed between most- and least-liked pieces. We suggest that such rapid aesthetic judgments represent initial gut-level decisions that are made quickly, but that even these initial judgments are influenced by characteristics such as genre and familiarity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Skin lesion segmentation and recognition using multichannel saliency estimation and M-SVM on selected serially fused features

The number of deaths caused by melanoma has increased remarkably in the last few years which are the carcinogenic type of skin cancer. Lately, computer based methods are introduced which are intelligent enough to support dermatologist in initial judgment of skin lesion. However, there still exists a gap for an optimal solution; therefore, machine learning community is still considering it a great challenge. The primary objective of this article is to efficiently detect and classify skin lesion with the utilization of an improved segmentation and feature selection criteria. Presented contribution is threefold; First, ternary color spaces are exploited to separate foreground from the background—utilizing multilevel approach of contrast stretching. Second, a weighting criterion is designed which is able to select the best solution based on extended texture feature analysis, related labels, boundary connections and central distance. Third, an improved feature extraction and dimensionality reduction criteria is proposed which combines conventional as well as recent feature extraction techniques. The proposed method is tested on PH2, ISBI 2016 and ISIC benchmark data sets and evaluated on the basis of multiple parameters including FPR, sensitivity, specificity, FNR and accuracy. From the statistics, it is quite clear that the proposed method outperforms numerous existing techniques with considerable margin.

Developing Resident-Sensitive Quality Measures: A Model From Pediatric Emergency Medicine.

To begin closing the gap with respect to quality measures available for use among residents, the authors sought to identify and develop resident-sensitive quality measures (RSQMs) for use in the pediatric emergency department (PED) setting. In May 2016, the authors reviewed National Quality Measures Clearinghouse (NQMC) measures to identify resident-sensitive measures. To create additional measures focused on common, acute illnesses (acute asthma exacerbation, bronchiolitis, closed head injury [CHI]) in the PED, the authors used a nominal group technique (NGT) and Delphi process from September to December 2016. To achieve a local focus for developing these measures, all NGT and Delphi participants were from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. Delphi participants rated measures developed through the NGT in two areas: importance of measure to quality care and likelihood that measure represents the work of a resident. The review of NQMC measures identified 28 of 183 as being potentially resident sensitive. The NGT produced 67 measures for asthma, 46 for bronchiolitis, and 48 for CHI. These were used in the first round of the Delphi process. After two rounds, 18 measures for asthma, 21 for bronchiolitis, and 21 for CHI met automatic inclusion criteria. In round three, participants categorized the potential final measures by their top 10 and next 5. This study describes a template for identifying and developing RSQMs that may promote high-quality care delivery during and following training. Next steps should include implementing and seeking validity evidence for the locally developed measures.

Business rescue decision-making: Post-mortem evaluation of an ‘orgy’

Background: Sensemaking of the extreme vagaries and external considerations that influence decision-making and judgement during business rescue events (BREs) are currently sparse but details about evaluation criteria are desperately needed.Aim: Learning from and applying post-mortem analysis (PMA) is investigated to propose an evaluation framework. Setting: Following the problems by and expectations of the Regulator to ‘govern’ the business rescue (BR) industry, a recent decision to decentralise the accreditation of business rescue practitioners (BRPs) changed the landscape significantly. Methods: From literature and interviews, the study identified seven interactive evaluation criteria from PMA thinking to be included in a conceptual framework. Results: Following the determination of the contextual difficulty evaluation, the measurement criteria included: taking management control, initial feasibility judgement, viability analysis, decision-making, BRP competencies, the rescue plan and compliance within the supreme task. One mediating factor, namely the BRP dominated. Secondly, the evaluation process can be costly to ensure validity of the data, collection and evaluators. Finally, BRE evaluators (executors/decision makers) require a high level understanding of contextual issues that may disproportionately influence an evaluation. Expert and master level competencies are required to inform the proper judgement of the evaluation criteria and variables. Conclusion: The study addresses educators’ need for a framework for PMA to guide the teaching of BRP competencies, direct the regulatory authorities (and professional bodies) accreditation framework for licensing BRPs, inform banks as creditors to enhance their information systems, advise upcoming BRPs on outcomes while courts may consider the framework as useful for judging issues.

Willingness to revise own testimony: 3- and 4-year-olds’ selective trust in unexpected testimony from accurate and inaccurate informants

Prior work has shown that young children trust single accurate and inaccurate individuals to a similar extent in their endorsement of novel information. However, it remains unknown to what extent children trust a credible or noncredible individual when given information that is pitted against their own beliefs. The current study examined whether children, when given unexpected testimony that contradicted their initial beliefs but was not completely unbelievable, would selectively revise their beliefs depending on the informant’s past history of accuracy. The participants (3- and 4-year-olds; N = 100) were familiarized with an informant who labeled a series of common objects either accurately or inaccurately. Following that, all children saw a picture of an ambiguous hybrid artifact that consisted of features of two typical common artifacts and were asked to identify the hybrid object with their own label. Subsequently, children watched the previously accurate or inaccurate informant give the same hybrid object a different but plausible label. Children expressed a greater tendency to override their initial judgments and endorse the unexpected testimony from a previously accurate informant than from someone who had consistently made naming errors. The findings provide novel understandings of the circumstances under which 3- and 4-year-old preschoolers may or may not rely on the informant’s prior reliability in their selective learning.

Model of Dual Anthropomorphism: The Relationship Between the Media Equation Effect and Implicit Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism, the attribution of humanlike characteristics to nonhuman entities, may be resulting from a dual process: first, a fast and intuitive (Type 1) process permits to quickly classify an object as humanlike and results in implicit anthropomorphism. Second, a reflective (Type 2) process may moderate the initial judgment based on conscious effort and result in explicit anthropomorphism. In this study, we manipulated both participants’ motivation for Type 2 processing and a robot’s emotionality to investigate the role of Type 1 versus Type 2 processing in forming judgments about the robot Robovie R2. We did so by having participants play the “Jeopardy!” game with the robot. Subsequently, we directly and indirectly measured anthropomorphism by administering self-report measures and a priming task, respectively. Furthermore, we measured treatment of the robot as a social actor to establish its relation with implicit and explicit anthropomorphism. The results suggested that the model of dual anthropomorphism can explain when responses are likely to reflect judgments based on Type 1 and Type 2 processes. Moreover, we showed that the social treatment of a robot, as described by the Media Equation theory, is related with implicit, but not explicit anthropomorphism.

A clinical assessment tool to improve the use of pain relieving treatments in knee osteoarthritis

A clinical assessment tool to improve the use of pain relieving treatments in knee osteoarthritis

Actualidad de la doctrina tomista del conocimiento

To demonstrate that the Encyclical Aeterni Patris is relevant today, Msgr. Derisi examines the loss of the reality of knowledge in contemporary philosophy, and studies some particular consequences of this loss. He shows the importance - the urgency - of recovering the reality of this knowledge, and thus the importance of St. Thomas' teaching on this point. Philosophy, from the beginning of the modern age, has disconnected the intelligence from its object, which is transcendental being or truth. It has thus stripped it of its ruling function - of which his Holiness Leo XIII spoke - in moral and practical activity, including political, economical and social aspects. Disastrous moral and social consequences inevitably follow this dismantling of the intelligence. The validity of St. Thomas' doctrine stems from its being knowledge which, rather than being organised a priori, is based on the very demands made by the truth of being. It is the transparent expression of transubjective reality, grasped as reality is in itself, in its ontological exigencies. St. Thomas details the way in which the human mind, which has no intuition or direct apprehension of real being as it is in itself, grasps transcendental being as such, in the interior of its immanent act: by means of the objective concept abstracted from its notes, and then integrated into real being by means of the judgment. On the solid foundation of transcendental being, present in the initial judgment of existence, the intelligence - always founded on the immediate apprehension of being - elaborates judgments, which develop the content of the essences (as happens, for example, in mathematical theorems) and formulates reasonings, which permit it to apprehend with ever greater amplitude and to establish itself with ever greater profundity in the immediate formal objects of the intelligence. From these it comes to apprehend other beings, not subject to its immediate apprehension, but required ontologically and essentially by them, as their principles and causes, to found and explain their essence and existence. The intellect thus arrives, illuminated always by the light or truth of transcendental being, apprehended in its essence and existence, to the Being of itself transcendent, unparticipated and infinite, first Cause of all other being in its essence and existence.

FAILURE MECHANISM ANALYSIS CONSIDERS THE HYDROLOGICAL AND SEISMIC CONDITIONS AT CHASHAN SITE IN CENTRAL TAIWAN

Abstract. The investigation results of large-scale landslides in the central part of Taiwan from Central Geologic Survey identified a new, largescale landslide in the Chashan Village of Alishan Township, Chiayi County (ID: D160) which has the potential to influence the safety of Chashan Village residents. In coordination with the surface geological survey, Chashan site can be divided into three potential sliding areas (zones A, B and C). The paper uses GeoStudio for evaluating the stability of different hydrological and seismic scenarios. The results of scenario simulation show that: (1) In the normal and high water level scenarios, the safety factor obtained in zone A is greater than 1.0, and the initial judgment belongs to the stable state; (2) In the earthquake scenarios, the A4 potential sliding mass in zone A will be collapsed; (3) Through the scenario simulation, when the water level in zone A rises more than 25 meters or the PGA exceeds 160 gal, it is possible to cause the collapse of A4 potential sliding mass. The result of the study will contribute that the complex phenomenon between the stability of landslides and hydrogeological conditions can be revealed and clarified through the detailed study on the hydrogeological investigation, observation and the numerical simulation.

The hidden work of a journal editor

The hidden work of a journal editor

Elaborating or Aggregating? The Joint Effects of Group Decision-Making Structure and Systematic Errors on the Value of Group Interactions

We explore when group interactions will have a positive effect on the accuracy of quantitative judgments. The results from two laboratory experiments revealed that the value of group interactions, compared to a statistical aggregation of individual judgments, depends strongly on how a group is structured, and that this effect is moderated by the level of systematic error among group members. In particular, when there was a low level of systematic error, group interactions generally provided little value and group structure did not have a significant effect on the value of group interactions. However, when the level of systematic error was high, the value of interactions in groups with a designated group leader was strongly positive and significantly higher than in consensus groups where interactions still provided only little value. Moreover, our analysis showed that this effect was mediated by information elaboration—which was generally higher in leader groups but only had a significant effect on the value of group interactions when there was a high level of systematic error among group members, and not otherwise. Consistent with these findings, we also found that when the level of systematic error was high, leader groups made more judgments that were outside of the range of initial individual judgments than consensus groups. Furthermore, members of leader groups in general spent more time discussing their task, and reported a higher motivation to process information systematically.

Design and Standardization of a Speech and Language Screening Tool for Use among School-Aged Bilingual Children in a Minority Language Setting

AbstractThis study investigated the psychometric properties of a speech and language screening tool “Profil de la langue, du langage et de la parole” (Speech and Language Profile) (PLLP-SLP) used with franco-dominant and anglo-dominant children aged forty-six to fifty-eight months who had entered the school system in kindergarten. All kindergarten students (1092 boys and 1080 girls) enrolled in a French-language school board in Northern Ontario in 2004, 2005, 2009, and 2010. They were assessed using the PLLP-SLP and formed the standardization sample for this norm-referenced language assessment tool. Reliable data is now available for this new speech and language screening tool to be used with French-English bilingual students entering kindergarten in a minority language setting. Scores for receptive and expressive language, as well as initial speech sounds and clinical judgment are available. An independent samples t-test revealed significant differences between groups on 4/10 subtests. In these instances, girls outperformed boys, though the difference was always slight (between .13 and .28), and anglophones outperformed francophones on one subtest, with the difference being less than .25. Speech-language pathologists working in minority language settings face particular challenges with respect to the absence of norms available for this population. Norms specific to language and gender should be observed when using this tool, as significant differences between girls’ and boys’ results, as well as between anglo-dominant and franco-dominant students living in a minority-language setting was observed.

Additional intraoral radiographs may change the judgment regarding the final position of orthodontic mini-implants.

ABSTRACTObjective: This study aimed to assess if additional vertical bitewing (VBW) and/or occlusal (OC) radiographs may change initial judgment based only on periapical radiograph (PAR) about the final position of orthodontic mini-implants (OMI). Methods: Subjective and objective analyses were performed. Radiographic images of 26 OMI were divided into four groups: PAR, PAR+VBW, PAR+OC and ALL (PAR+VBW+OC). For subjective analysis, five observers were asked to assess if the position of OMI was favorable to its success, using questionnaires with a four-point scale for responses: 1= definitely not favorable, 2= probably not favorable, 3= probably favorable, or 4= definitely favorable. Each group containing sets of images was presented to them in four different viewing sessions. Objective evaluation compared horizontal distances between OMI tip and the root nearest to the device in PAR and VBW. Results: Most of observers (3 out of 5) changed their initial judgment based on PAR about OMI position when additional radiographs were analyzed. Differences between groups (i.e. PAR vs. PAR+VBW; PAR vs. PAR+OC; and, PARvs.ALL) were statistically significant for these observers. For those that changed their judgment about OMI position, confidence level could significantly increase, decrease or even be maintained, not indicating a pattern. There was no agreement for distances between OMI tip and the root nearest to the device in PAR and VBW. Conclusion: Considering the limitations of the study, it is concluded that additional radiographic images may change the judgement about OMI final position without necessarily increasing the degree of certainty of such judgment.

From independent ratings to communal ratings: A study of CWA raters’ decision-making behaviors

Abstract The present exploratory study maps the decision-making behaviors of raters in a well-established communal writing assessment (CWA) context, tracing their behaviors all the way from independent rating sessions, where initial images and judgments are formed, to communal rating sessions, where final scores are assigned on the basis of collaboration between two raters. Results from think-aloud protocols, recorded discussions, and retrospective reports from 20 experienced raters rating 15 EFL essays showed that when moving from independent ratings to communal ratings, raters gradually refined their assessments and balanced their attention more evenly among the official assessment criteria to reach what they believed to be more accurate scores. These interpretations support a hermeneutic rather than a psychometric approach to establishing the validity of the CWA practices.

Cochrane Qualitative and Implementation Methods Group guidance series—paper 4: methods for assessing evidence on intervention implementation

ObjectivesThis article provides reviewers with guidance on methods for identifying and processing evidence to understand intervention implementation. Study Design and SettingStrategies, tools, and methods are applied to the systematic review process to illustrate how process and implementation can be addressed using quantitative, qualitative, and other sources of evidence (i.e., descriptive textual and nonempirical). ResultsReviewers can take steps to navigate the heterogeneity and level of uncertainty present in the concepts, measures, and methods used to assess implementation. Activities can be undertaken in advance of a Cochrane quantitative review to develop program theory and logic models that situate implementation in the causal chain. Four search strategies are offered to retrieve process and implementation evidence. Recommendations are made for addressing rigor or risk of bias in process evaluation or implementation evidence. Strategies are recommended for locating and extracting data from primary studies. The basic logic is presented to assist reviewers to make initial review-level judgments about implementation failure and theory failure. ConclusionAlthough strategies, tools, and methods can assist reviewers to address process and implementation using quantitative, qualitative, and other forms of evidence, few exemplar reviews exist. There is a need for further methodological development and trialing of proposed approaches.

Correlation analysis between quality and habitat phenotype of Hovenia acerba

The contents of dihydromyricetin and total flavonoids of Hovenia acerba seeds were detected by HPLC-DAD and UV spectrophotometer. And then the correlation between the habitat, phenotype and quality of H. acerba seeds were deeply studied. There were big differences in both appearance and quality among the H. acerba seeds from different places. It showed that the content of dihydromyricetin in H. acerba seeds was 0.41-9.81 mg•g⁻¹, and the content of total flavonoids was 5.52-21.98 mg•g⁻¹. The cluster analysis showed that the quality of H. acerba seeds was related to the habitat. The samples from Jianghan Plain Area showed relatively stable and excellent quality. According to the correlation analysis, there was a significant positive correlation between 1 000-seeds weight, red-black seeds ratio and the content of dihydromyricetin, while the content of total flavonoids was not related to the 1 000-seeds weight and red-black seeds ratio. So the 1 000-seeds weight and red-black seeds ratio could be used as an initial judgment of the quality of H. acerba seeds. As dihydromyricetin and total flavonoids content was not related, both dihydromyricetin and total flavonoids should be taken into account when the quality of H. acerba seeds was studied.

A Desire for Social Media Is Associated With a Desire for Solitary but Not Social Activities.

While social media is an aspect of life for many, it brings to light the lack of interpersonal connection when browsing activity occurs. The displacement theory suggests that the quality of one's offline interactions is affected by how much time an individual allots to those exchanges. Depending on the amount of time spent online, interpersonal connections may suffer and lead to negative psychological consequences. Our study aimed to explore the relationship between the desirability of social media and socialization preferences through a cue-based perceptual judgment task where participants ( N = 136) rated 40 gray-scale images in terms of their desirability. The image categories included social media icons, singular scenes depicting an isolated activity, social scenes representing an interactive activity, and traffic signs as the control. We also included questionnaires to assess depressiveness and aspects of social media usage. Our findings suggest that the immediate desire for social media is potentially linked to one's desire for social isolation as represented by the singular scene category, the intensity of participant's reported daily usage, and the extent to which social media is perceived to impact real social life. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the initial desirability judgment of social media and its association with other factors. Further research is needed to distinguish the variability in users' aim of using social media and if that is related to one's perceived feelings of social connectedness and solitude.