Issue Of Ecological Validity Research Articles

Using neural data to forecast aggregate consumer behavior in neuromarketing: Theory, metrics, progress, and outlook

AbstractThe field of using neural data to forecast aggregate consumer choice has garnered attention in the past decade, holding substantial promise for both researchers and practitioners. However, a comprehensive understanding of this emerging field is lacking. This paper aims to bridge that gap by summarizing existing research, encompassing relevant theories, metrics, progress, and future directions. We begin by introducing the concept of neuroforecasting within the field of neuromarketing. We then delve into theories that leverage neural data for forecasting aggregate choice, including affect‐integration‐motivation framework, frontal asymmetry, and inter‐subject correlation. Subsequently, we review various metrics, including self‐reported, behavioral, and neural metrics employed to forecast market‐level behavior, presenting key findings from relevant studies. Furthermore, we examine the strengths and weaknesses of this field. Advantages of this approach include its ability to offer effective predictions of consumer behavior and provide enhanced insights into consumer preferences and choices, while its weaknesses encompass relatively high cost, sample size constraints, issues of ecological validity, and challenges related to reverse inference. In conclusion, future research should prioritize integrating diverse data types with machine learning techniques to forecast the outcomes of marketing campaigns in advance. Additionally, a deeper exploration of the psychological and cognitive processes underlying successful predictions can augment predictive accuracy and effectiveness. This review provides a systematic overview for researchers and practitioners in this field, offering valuable insights and guidance for future research endeavors and industry applications.

Glossing and vocabulary learning

AbstractThis article offers a critical review of research on the use of glossing and its contribution to second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition. Discussion topics include the complexity of estimating the effectiveness of glossing relative to reading non-glossed texts, the quest for optimal implementations of glossing, issues of ecological validity, and ambiguity around the nature of vocabulary learning from glosses. The general conclusion is that, despite the substantial number of research studies on this subject, many questions remain to which only tentative and provisional answers are currently available. This is partly owing to the wide diversity in research designs across studies and the lack of transparency of many research reports. Suggestions are made for further research on glossing with a view to enabling future systematic reviews to produce more nuanced answers and more informed recommendations for the design of L2 reading materials.

Cognitive Performance in Adults’ Daily Lives: Is There a Lab-Life Gap?

This article addresses the “lab-life gap” in cognitive aging research as an important issue of ecological validity in developmental research. Older adults often function competently in complex everyday situations despite age-related deficits on laboratory-based cognitive tasks. Therefore, to what extent do lab-based cognitive tasks predict real-life outcomes in older adults? Our review shows that although they are similar, measures of everyday cognitive competence predict relevant outcomes beyond basic measures. We provide our perspective on critical questions concerning the relevance of everyday cognitive tests in our ever-changing world, new methods of everyday cognitive assessment, and whether everyday cognition can be improved.

Response to Bayesian Advice for Gaydar-Based Picking Up: Commentary on Lyons, Lynch, Brewer, and Bruno (2013) by Plöderl

We wish to thank Ploderl (2013) for the commentary written in response to our article (Lyons, Lynch, Brewer, & Bruno, 2013) and especially for raising the issue of ecological validity. Moreover,wetoowish towarnreadersagainstmisinterpretingormisunderstanding the results of our study. Unfortunately, we fear that Ploderl’s Letter may actually contribute to the confusion, rather thandiminishit.Specifically,whileweagreethat thereaders shouldbecarefulnot to‘‘apply thefindingsdirectly to the real world,’’at leastuncritically,wefeelPloderlmakesasimilarerror by directly transposing our laboratory-based results into a real, albeit hypothetical, world. In addition, Ploderl appears to misinterpret how gaydar effectiveness was measured in our study. The main issue is clear. In our study, we adopted a 50:50 target-to-lureratio,whichis typicalofdiscriminationtasks,whereas, in the real world, the homosexual-to-heterosexual ratio is closer to 5:95. The commentary contests that the difference in ratio is critical and that we should be careful in drawing conclusions from the data for this reason. Although we agree that changing the base rate to reflect the real world is an interesting empirical question,wedisagreewithPloderl’sconclusionsthat,oncetransposed into the realworld,our resultswouldsuggestgaydareffectiveness to be on average very low and nearing 16 %. Our study investigated whether people were able to correctly categorize individuals (as homosexual or heterosexual) at an above-chancelevel,whenviewingblackandwhitephotographs— thus partly simulating the conditions experienced on dating websites. In other words, we asked whether it was possible to claim that a gaydar exists at all, at least under our experimentally designed condition, or whether correct categorization is mainly the product of lucky (or unlucky, in some cases) guessing. Our results indicated that people could, in fact, categorize sexual orientationcorrectlyatalevel thatwasabovemereguessing.Therefore,ourstudysuggestedthatgaydarcaneffectivelyexist,at least under certain circumstances. In addition, we were interested in determining whether gaydar was more or less effective in raters who were themselves homosexual as compared to heterosexual raters, but we did not find evidence that either group performed better than the other. As stated, our experiment was based on a 50:50 target-to-lure ratio and participants were not made aware of the ratio prior to engaging in the task. This type of procedure is quite common in discrimination research (e.g., Bruno, Higham, & Perfect, 2009), sinceitallowsafairamountofbothpositiveandnegativetrials to judge performance. The likely result of an experimental design with a ratio set to 5:95 is, to us, an empirical rather than a theoretical question (the number of overall items used would need significant increasetoallowforsufficient targettrialsandpower). It is also a question that does not necessarily address real-world relevance. Before addressing the issue of real-world relevance, we raise an important caveat. In our study, we calculated both hit (HR) and false alarm rates (FAR), which Ploderl discusses, and the signal detection statistics d0 and c, which measure discrimination accuracy and bias, respectively. Importantly, d0 and c are independent from each other, meaning that the discrimination abilityofan individualcanbemeasuredindependently fromthat person’s inclination to over/under-use the ‘‘homosexual’’ label (oranyother label, for thatmatter).Therefore,d0 is amuchbetter indexofgaydarability thansimplylookingatHRandFAR—the D. Bruno (&) M. Lyons Department of Psychology, Liverpool Hope University, Hope Park, Liverpool L16 9JD, UK e-mail: brunod@hope.ac.uk

Orbitofrontal cortex-related executive functions in children and adolescents: their assessment and its ecological validity

This paper discusses the ecological validity of recently proposed tasks for the assessment of executive functions related to the Orbitofrontal Cortex, in children and adolescents. This topic is discussed considering two conceptually distinct approaches to ecological validity, verisimilitude and veridicality. The issue of ecological validity has been increasingly recognized in child neuropsychology, but an attention to this topic seems to lack in studies that assessed the development of Orbitofrontal cortex-related executive functions in children and adolescents with gambling tasks or delay of gratification tasks. An exception is represented by ADHD population, where specially delay aversion tasks seem to have a good veridicality-oriented ecological validity. The weakness of literature about the ecological validity of these executive measures must encourage to keep in mind ecological validity during the development of new tasks.

An Initial Evaluation of the Functions of Human Olfaction

Although referred to in passing in several places, there have been few attempts to specify the functions of the human olfactory system. This article presents an initial effort at identifying and categorizing these functions, using 3 sources of information as a guide: 1) losses experienced by anosmic participants; 2) olfactory function in other mammals; and 3) capacity, namely, whether the human olfactory system can support the suggested function and whether there is evidence that it does. Three major classes of function were identified, relating to Ingestion (Detection/identification prior to ingestion; Detection of expectancy violations; Appetite regulation; Breast orientation and feeding), Avoiding environmental hazards (Fear related; Disgust related), and Social communication (Reproductive [inbreeding avoidance, fitness detection in prospective mates]; Emotional contagion [fear contagion, stress buffering]). These suggested functions were then examined with respect to 1) issues of ecological validity in human olfactory research; 2) their impact on olfactory loss; and 3) their general and specific implications for the study of human olfaction.

The Religious Brain: A General Introduction to the Experimental Neuroscience of Religion

AbstractThis article is an introduction to the experimental neuroscience of religion, intended for scholars who have an interest in the neurobiological and cognitive aspects of religion, but who do not have the necessary technical and methodological knowledge to evaluate this field's limitations and potential. The article reviews six lines of research, with particular focus on issues of ecological validity, the use of contrast conditions, and theoretical grounding.

Predicting youth access to tobacco: the role of youth versus store-clerk behavior and issues of ecological validity.

Twenty-one 15- to 17-year-olds attempted to purchase cigarettes in 232 stores in the manner that confederates typically do in access studies, as well as in the manipulative ways (e.g., lying about their ages) that youth smokers do, thereby modeling youth access to tobacco within versus outside of studies, respectively. Youth typical-research versus manipulative behavior was contrasted with clerk behavior (requests for youth ID cards) to examine the relative contributions of both to youth access to tobacco for the 1st time. Results revealed that clerk behavior was the strongest predictor of cigarette sales to youth and hence underscore the need for interventions with merchants. Sales nonetheless were higher under youth-manipulative conditions and thereby highlight the low ecological validity of access research.

Regularities in motion: Apparent, real and internalized

By and large the commentators express reservations similar to my own concerning Shepard's position. Some focus on the issue of ecological validity, others are skeptical of Shepard's evolutionary thesis. The assumptions and reasons for their criticisms, however, are not always ones I fully accept. In addition, several commentators, although rejecting Shepard's particular claims, support his overall approach. They offer models for motion perception and for phenomena in other domains that they feel are amenable to treatment along Shepard's lines. I examine the pros and cons of the commentators' analyses of Shepard. I also briefly evaluate aspects of their alternative proposals.

Knowing and remembering in young children

Preface List of contributors 1. Introduction: what young children remember and why Judith A. Hudson and Robyn Fivush 2. Remembering what happened next: very young children's recall of event sequences Patricia J. Bauer and Jean M. Mandler 3. Developmental differences in the relation between scripts and episodic memory: do they exist? Michael Jeffrey Farrar and Gail S. Goodman 4. Children's organisation of events and event memories Hilary Horn Ratner, Brenda S. Smith and Robert J. Padgett 5. Young children's understanding of models Judy S. DeLoache 6. Children's play interests, representation and activity K. Ann Renninger 7. The emergence of autobiographical memory in mother-child conversation Judith A. Hudson 8. The social and functional context of children's remembering Barbara Rogoff and Jayanthi Mistry 9. Autobiographical memory across the preschool years: toward reconceptualising childhood amnesia Robyn Fivush and Nina R. Hamond 10. Children's concerns and memory: issues of ecological validity in the study of children's eyewitness testimony Gail S. Goodman, Leslie Rudy, Bette L. Bottoms and Christine Aman 11. The suggestibility of preschoolers' recollections: historical perspectives on current problems Stephen J. Ceci, Michael P. Toglia and David F. Ross 12. Remembering, forgetting and childhood amnesia Katherine Nelson 13. Recall and its verbal expression Jean M. Mandler 14. Learning from the children Ulric Neisser Indexes.

Rejoinder to Ekman, O'Sullivan, and Matsumoto

Each of the issues raised by Ekman, O'Sullivan, and Matsumoto is discussed. The relativity thesis, and the evidence on which it is based, emphasizes the issue of ecological validity. In the study of judgments of emotion from facial expression, the question of what occurs spontaneously in natural settings, rather than the question of the accuracy of those judgments, will lead to studies capable of resolving current debates.

Juror Selection: A Comparison of Two Methods In Several Criminal Cases1

Ethical and constitutional issues have been raised by critics concerning the intervention of social science methods in the voir dire, pretrial, screening of prospective jurors. An experiment was conducted to compare the effectiveness of conventional jury selection methods utilized by attorneys (past experience, intuition, folklore) vs. systematic social science methods (systematic identification of predictive relationships among personality, demographic, and attitudinal variables). The comparison was made over four separate criminal cases. The data indicated that in cases in which the predictive relationships used by the systematic social science methods were relatively strong, this method is superior to the conventional method in predicting favorable jurors' responses. The more intuitive conventional niethod was superior when the critical predictive relationships were weak or absent. Overall, the systematic social science method was not superior to the conventional method. Issues of ecological validity and pretrial discovery rules were discussed.