Relative Judgments Research Articles

Availability, Affect, and Decisions to Seek Information about Cancer Risks.

How do people decide which risks they want to get informed about? The present study examines the role of the availability and affect heuristics on these decisions. Participants (N = 100, aged 19-72 years) selected for which of 23 cancers they would like to receive an information brochure, reported the number of occurrences of each type of cancer in their social circle (availability), and rated their dread reaction to each type of cancer (affect); they also made relative judgments about which of 2 cancers was more common in Germany (judged risk). Participants tended to choose information brochures for those cancers for which they indicated a higher availability within their social networks as well as for cancers they dreaded. Mediation analyses suggested that the influence of availability and affect on information choice was only partly mediated by judged risk. The results demonstrate the operation of 2 key judgment heuristics (availability and affect), previously studied in risk perception, also in decisions about information choice. We discuss how our findings can be used to identify which risks are likely to fall from people's radar.

Role for Positive Schizotypy and Hallucination Proneness in Semantic Processing.

Semantic processing underpins the organization of verbal information for both storage and retrieval. Deficits in semantic processing are associated with both the risk for and symptoms presented in schizophrenia. However, studies are mixed and could reflect the confounding effects of medication and symptom heterogeneity. Therefore, we considered whether two risk phenotypes, positive schizotypy and hallucinatory predisposition, present in the general population were associated with differential responding profiles for a semantic processing task. One hundred and eighty-three participants completed the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire, Launay-Slade Hallucination Scale, National Adult Reading Test, a handedness measure, and a computerized semantic relatedness judgment task. Pairs of words were related through their dominant or subordinate meanings, or unrelated. Participants were divided into four groups using a mean split on cognitive-perceptual (positive) schizotypy and hallucination proneness. Significant differences between groups were found for reaction time on the semantic relatedness task, with the high cognitive-perceptual schizotypy groups responding significantly slower to all word pairs compared to their low scoring counterparts. There was some evidence that high hallucination proneness was associated with significantly faster reaction times which may reflect disinhibitive processes, however additional support is required. The results suggest that these two components of psychosis risk are associated with different patterns of responding to semantic processing. More diffuse activation of semantic information appeared to be associated with positive schizotypy, while those predisposed to hallucinations appeared to respond quicker. These results have significant implications in the re-conceptualization of hallucination proneness as distinct from positive schizotypy. Additional research is required to investigate the association between psychotic-like experiences separate from personality variables such as positive schizotypy and semantic processing.

Automating creativity assessment with SemDis: An open platform for computing semantic distance

Creativity research requires assessing the quality of ideas and products. In practice, conducting creativity research often involves asking several human raters to judge participants’ responses to creativity tasks, such as judging the novelty of ideas from the alternate uses task (AUT). Although such subjective scoring methods have proved useful, they have two inherent limitations—labor cost (raters typically code thousands of responses) and subjectivity (raters vary on their perceptions and preferences)—raising classic psychometric threats to reliability and validity. We sought to address the limitations of subjective scoring by capitalizing on recent developments in automated scoring of verbal creativity via semantic distance, a computational method that uses natural language processing to quantify the semantic relatedness of texts. In five studies, we compare the top performing semantic models (e.g., GloVe, continuous bag of words) previously shown to have the highest correspondence to human relatedness judgements. We assessed these semantic models in relation to human creativity ratings from a canonical verbal creativity task (AUT; Studies 1–3) and novelty/creativity ratings from two word association tasks (Studies 4–5). We find that a latent semantic distance factor—comprised of the common variance from five semantic models—reliably and strongly predicts human creativity and novelty ratings across a range of creativity tasks. We also replicate an established experimental effect in the creativity literature (i.e., the serial order effect) and show that semantic distance correlates with other creativity measures, demonstrating convergent validity. We provide an open platform to efficiently compute semantic distance, including tutorials and documentation (https://osf.io/gz4fc/).

The keyword effect: A conceptual replication, effects on bias, and an optimization

Prompting learners to generate keywords after a delay is a promising means to enhance relative judgment accuracy in learning from texts. However, to date, conceptual replications of the keyword effect without the involvement of the researcher who originally proposed it are still scarce. Furthermore, it is unclear whether generating delayed keywords could reduce bias and whether the benefits of generating delayed keywords could be optimized by having learners compare their keywords with expert ones. Against this background, we conducted an experiment with N = 109 university students who read four expository texts and then were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: (a) Generation of keywords after reading, (b) generation of keywords after reading and a comparison with external standards in the form of expert keywords, (c) no keyword generation (control condition). We found that generating delayed keywords significantly increased relative accuracy but did not reduce bias. Furthermore, we found that the comparison with expert keywords enhanced relative accuracy beyond the established keyword effect. However, we also found that the comparison with expert keywords increased bias (here: underconfidence). Overall, these findings suggest that generating and comparing keywords is an effective means to enhance relative accuracy.

A defense of objectivity in the social sciences, rightly understood

In this article, I mount a defense of objectivity as a fitting and necessary norm for the conduct of social scientific research. A number of social scientists and philosophers have criticized this norm because it seems to call for disinterested investigations that are free from any kind of evaluative judgments and seems overwhelmingly to favor quantitative research. I argue that these criteria are inappropriately used as guidelines for objectivity. Researchers can comply with the norm of objectivity, rightly understood, and still be interested observers, make value judgments in relation to their research, and conduct qualitative studies. I argue instead that the norm of objectivity refers to a set of guidelines for interpreting and reporting on research that views this reporting as an intelligible, reasonable, and inherently reciprocating, public activity. By implication these norms also establish correlative guidelines for gathering and analyzing research information. Briefly, as investigators social scientists are called upon honestly to represent our research, to use measures and terms of references that allow for comparisons and verifications by our audiences, and to exercise responsible judgments. I conclude that my account of objectivity is consistent with Weber’s defense of this norm more than a century ago.

Nurse and Patient Dispute Litigation in Independent Nursing Practice

Although medical dispute and other contentious cases involving patients and nurses have risen significantly in recent years, few studies have examined the litigation issues involved in nurse-patient disputes. This study was designed to explore the background, categories, and degrees of harm to patients and the judgments made by the courts. Qualitative research was used. Cases of criminal, written judgments related to nurse practice negligence and recorded in district courts in Taiwan from 2008 to 2017 were selected. Data were analyzed using content analysis. A total of 41 hospitals and 55 nurses were identified. The largest number of cases involved regional hospitals (36.6%), internal medicine departments (31.7%), general wards (46.3%), night shifts (40.0%), and staff nurses (85.5%). Four categories of independent nurse practice negligence were identified, including observation-evaluation, environmental security, physician notification, and nursing records. Negligent homicide (58.2%) was the most common court judgment and ten nurses (18.2%) were found guilty of the charges brought against them. The results of this study highlight for nurses the content of nurse practice negligence and the related judgments by the courts, which hopefully may guide nurses to avoid practice negligence in the future.

Study on the Fuzzy Interval Evaluation for EPS Schemes

In order to evaluate vehicle steering feels of the electric power steering (EPS) system effectively, portability, returnability, the ISO lane change capability, and the on-center steering capability were adopted as test factors. On the basis of group multi-criteria decision-making and fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) method, the EPS hierarchic fuzzy evaluation model was established, and a simplified scale method was adopted to generate the consistent relation judgment matrices. The drivers’ opinions were aggregated to form Triangular Fuzzy Number method with fuzzy Delphi method. Finally, EPS schemes were ranked with total utility values of fuzzy numbers and the optimal alternative could be selected. An example was given, under this approach, it shows that the decision-making process was a systematic and practical method for EPS schemes selection.

Interhemispheric transfer of semantic information facilitates bilateral word recognition.

Language comprehension is left-lateralized but with variable contributions from the right hemisphere. When both hemispheres are stimulated simultaneously using divided visual field presentation, performance may be enhanced or hindered depending on the complexity of the task, and these effects may relate to independent processing in both hemispheres or to information transfer between hemispheres. Simultaneous stimulation of both hemispheres is thought to suppress interhemispheric interactions, but information transfer may nonetheless occur. Studies with simultaneous bilateral displays have demonstrated that semantic information from the contralateral visual field (and hemisphere) can facilitate relatedness judgments and lexical decisions. The current study extends this line of research by assessing semantic information transfer in a bilateral word identification task. Task manipulations involving directed spatial attention and asymmetric primes (e.g., ATOM → BOMB) were used to isolate automatic priming as opposed to top-down processing. The results revealed 2 main findings: (a) interhemispheric priming in the form of improved word recognition occurred specifically in conditions designed to isolate automatic transfer of semantic information, that is, in the attended visual field for the target word in asymmetric prime pairs, and (b) there is evidence for an asymmetrical transfer of semantic information, in that the subordinate left visual field-right hemisphere benefited more from such transfer. Together, these results demonstrate evidence for automatic interhemispheric transfer of semantic information, even under conditions of simultaneous bilateral display. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Exploring student perceptions of self-harming behaviour: a qualitative study

ABSTRACT This study aimed to explore student perceptions of self-harm to gain an in-depth understanding of their views, inform anti-stigma campaigns and promote help-seeking behaviour. Ten individual, semi-structured interviews were conducted, transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Students’ perceptions were characterised by a number of themes, including global and local culture, judgment in relation to people and behaviours, and defining self-harm. Findings suggest that current definitions of self-harm should incorporate emotional pain in their explanations to more fully encompass students’ understanding. Further, anti-stigma campaigns should be mindful of culture and focus on addressing both perceptions of those who self-harm, and the behaviour itself. Educational environments might be well placed to implement stigma reduction campaigns and promote help-seeking.

Lower noise protection introduced in the german federal construction law - mixing uses to enhace construction efficiency and soil preservation

Abstract Addressing the city planner’s trade-off between separating versus mixing city functions, this paper analyses the new land use type introduced within the reform of the 2017 German Federal Building Code: the “Urban Area”, which admits higher levels of building density and noise and aims at achieving more flexibility for house construction and soil preservation. The conflict regarding noise levels is addressed by comparing the different measuring methods and upper allowed emission levels, as per the Federal Protection against Noise Ordinance. The Federal Land Use Ordinance defines several profound deviations from the typically foreseen categories, and extends the discretionary powers of the authorities, which can thereby decide in each individual case if transgression of the upper limits is justified. Nevertheless, there are stakeholders in favour of more flexibility, and others in favour of more rigid noise protection levels. In conclusion, all deviations from the regular types of permitted uses are based on the obligation of duly weighting all interests involved. An example of the implementation of that basic planning strategy is an urban rehabilitation project realised before the introduction of the new “Urban Area” legal instrument. Several related judgements have established everyone’s right to having their interests properly addressed. Keywords: Protection against Noise; Urban Rehabilitation; Discretionary Powers in Urban Planning; Reform of the 2017 German Federal Building Code; City Planning Law Resumo Partindo das alternativas entre separacao ou mistura de funcoes no espaco citadino, este artigo analisa o novo tipo especifico de uso do solo, introduzido na reforma do Codigo Federal do Urbanismo de 2017: a “Area Urbana”, que admite niveis mais altos de densidade de construcoes e de ruido, intencionando assim uma maior flexibilidade para a construcao de casas e promovendo a poupanca do solo natural. O conflito relativo ao ruido e debatido observando os diferentes metodos de medicao e os niveis de emissao permitidos. O Regulamento de Construcao define varios desvios significativos das categorias regulares previstas e, alem disso, amplia os poderes discricionarios das autoridades, que podem, assim, decidir em cada caso individual se a transgressao dos limites superiores e justificada. No entanto, existem interessados a favor de uma maior flexibilizacao e outros defendem niveis mais rigidos de protecao contra o ruido. Em conclusao, todas as variacoes dos tipos regulares de usos permitidos sao uma concretizacao da obrigacao de ponderar devidamente todos os interesses envolvidos na determinacao do uso do solo. A implementacao dessa ideia mais basica do planeamento e avaliada com base em varios Acordaos e num projeto de reabilitacao urbana realizado antes da introducao do novo instrumento legal da “Area Urbana”. Palavras-chave: Protecao contra o ruido; Reabilitacao Urbana; Poderes discricionarios no planeamento urbano; Reforma do Codigo Federal de Urbanismo da Alemanha de 2017; Direito do Ordenamento do Territorio

Spatial memory assessment reveals age-related differences in egocentric and allocentric memory performance

Humans move through the environment to reach a place mainly using two strategies: egocentric, taking the viewer’s position as a point of reference, and allocentric, employing external landmarks in order to create a mental map of the environment. Aging seems to be associated with a deterioration in these functions, and although participants are evaluated with both virtual and real-environment tasks, performance on these two strategies is not frequently compared. Our objective was to evaluate egocentric and allocentric spatial memory in young and older adult populations using three tasks performed in real environments that allow the perception of 3-D information present in our daily orientation and make it possible to analyse each strategy separately. Twenty-eight young adults and 27 older adults performed Egocentric and Allocentric Spatial Memory Tasks, the Spatial Span task from CANTAB to assess visuospatial span and visuospatial working memory, and Benton’s Judge of Line Orientation Test to measure the ability to establish judgments of spatial relations. Young adults outperformed older adults on spatial memory tasks. The older group improved across allocentric blocks. Young men outperformed older men on both the egocentric and allocentric tasks, whereas young women only achieved better scores than older women on the allocentric task. Our findings support the existence of age-related differences in spatial memory performance.

'n Leë dop is soms beter as 'n halwe eier / An empty shell is sometimes better than half an egg – Gounden v Master of the High Court [2015] JOL 32896 (KZD) and Govender v Gounden 2019 2 SA 262 (KZN)

The KwaZulu-Natal High Court, Durban, recently had the opportunity to interpret section 15(3)(b)(iii) of the Matrimonial Property Act 88 of 1984 within the context of the South African law of succession. This section states that: "A spouse shall not without the consent of the other spouse … receive any money due or accruing to that other spouse or the joint estate by way of … inheritance, legacy, donation, bursary or prize left, bequeathed, made or awarded to the other spouse." The question before the court was whether a person who is married in community of property requires the consent of his or her spouse in order to repudiate an intestate inheritance. The following aspects were considered by both the court a quo (Gounden v Master of the High Court [2015] JOL 32896 (KZD)) as well as the full bench on appeal (Govender v Gounden 2019 2 SA 262 (KZN)): the distinction between dies cedit and dies venit; the importance of this distinction in electing to either adiate or to repudiate an inheritance; and the implications for the joint estate of spouses married in community of property. The purpose of this contribution is to analyse and critically discuss the reasoning in the judgments in relation to these three aspects.

Principle of reasonable and legitimate expectations in international law as a premise for investments in the energy sector

A stable and predictable legal environment is one of the basic factors considered in the investment process. It is of particular importance in the energy sector with its characteristically long-term investments which require substantial financial outlays. It has to be underlined that the nature of energy industry is rapidly changing both from the overall shape of the investment and regulatory models. One can observe that the model of the energy market that used to be based on state monopoly evolved into private or half private structure. However, of the particular importance is the fact that together with liberalisation and privatisation of the market the state becomes an active regulator of the market. It is especially noticeable in renewable energy sector in which governments by anticipating and incentivizing are creating conditions for new investments. Simultaneously, one cannot ignore that the state active regulatory policy may also bring a risk that support for certain investments will last as long as it is necessary to achieve its goals such as environmental protection, the need to strengthen awareness or equalise support costs. Therefore, abrupt change in the legal framework may affect the previously accepted financial set-up of the investment. In extreme cases, the change may make the investment unprofitable and thereby cause damage to the investor. This raises the question as to what legal remedies are available to foreign investors in the event of an unexpected and unjustified revision of the legal environment by the host state, provided that said revision causes damage to the investor. The authors assume the following thesis: the investor’s interests are protected under the principle of reasonable and legitimate expectations established in the framework of international law. The practical aspect of the hypothesis is also related to the question of the legal force of the arguments contained in the cases that were analysed and given as an example in the paper. As the paper analyses the principle of reasonable and legitimate expectations in the framework of international law through the prism of the investments in the energy sector, it is reasonable to verify the hypothesis regarding the effectiveness of the said principle as a legal basis for bringing claims by the investor. By analysing the doctrine itself and the related legislation and judgements, the authors shall attempt to determine when, and under what conditions, it is possible to apply the principle of reasonable and legitimate expectations in order to minimise the regulatory risk of an investment.

Electrophysiological Differentiation of the Effects of Stress and Accent on Lexical Integration in Highly Fluent Bilinguals

Individuals who acquire a second language (L2) after infancy often retain features of their native language (L1) accent. Cross-language priming studies have shown negative effects of L1 accent on L2 comprehension, but the role of specific speech features, such as lexical stress, is mostly unknown. Here, we investigate whether lexical stress and accent differently modulate semantic processing and cross-language lexical activation in Welsh–English bilinguals, given that English and Welsh differ substantially in terms of stress realisation. In an L2 cross-modal priming paradigm, we manipulated the stress pattern and accent of spoken primes, whilst participants made semantic relatedness judgments on visual word targets. Event-related brain potentials revealed a main effect of stress on target integration, such that stimuli with stress patterns compatible with either the L1 or L2 required less processing effort than stimuli with stress incompatible with both Welsh and English. An independent cross-language phonological overlap manipulation revealed an interaction between accent and L1 access. Interestingly, although it increased processing effort, incorrect stress did not significantly modulate semantic priming effects or covert access to L1 phonological representations. Our results are consistent with the concept of language-specific stress templates, and suggest that accent and lexical stress affect speech comprehension mechanisms differentially.

Validation of the Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy for Greek children: Understanding assessment in response to culture and pedagogy

Physical literacy (PL) is recognized as a channel for promoting holistic learning experiences within physical education (PE). Compared to conceptual advancements made in regard to its development, PL assessment lacks empirical evidence. The purpose of this study was to culturally adapt the Canadian Assessment of Physical Literacy – 2 (CAPL-2) and assess its construct validity in Greek children aged 8–12 years. Participants were 576 children (boys = 268, girls = 308; mean age = 10.22 years, standard deviation = 1.27), from Greek geographical locations. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) compared the present sample data to a suggested theoretical model. Analysis of variance models and frequency tabulations were used to examine age and gender associations with CAPL-2 scores. CFA results established a good fit for the data and supported a model with four interrelated domains (χ2(67) = 122.751, p < 0.01; root mean square error of approximation = 0.038; comparative fit index = 0.906; and Tucker–Lewis index = 0.873). Boys’ and older children’s physical competence was higher. Girls and older children scored lower in daily physical activity (PA) behaviour. Knowledge scores depicted misunderstandings in participants’ answers, which can be attributed to enacted Greek PE practices. Motivation was high across age groups and both genders, demonstrating that PA participation is prioritized for Greek children. CAPL-2 interpretive category scores were associated with age and gender, indicating the need for further research concerning their cultural adjustment. The CAPL-2 can be used as a valid and comprehensive instrument for charting Greek children’s PL progress and making judgements in relation to situationally grounded PE perspectives.

Is healthy eating too expensive?: How low-income parents evaluate the cost of food.

Debates about whether a healthy diet is affordable often overlook how low-income consumers themselves evaluate food cost. This question is relevant to explaining food choices and measuring food prices. Drawing on interviews with 49 low-income primary caregivers and grocery-shopping observations with 34 of these interviewees, I find that respondents judge food cost in two ways: 1) absolute judgments, or assessments of whether a food covers a family's needs with scarce resources and 2) relative judgments, or interpretations of price relative to another food that frames an item as affordable or pricey by contrast. Absolute judgments reflect actual expenditures, including not just the sticker price, but also four underappreciated monetary costs. These underappreciated costs stem from food waste; packages containing more than is needed; food that is consumed too quickly; and unsatiating foods. When monetary costs go unmeasured and when consumers interpret prices in relative terms, researchers' views of food cost diverge from the experiences of low-income people. Divergent views have two results: food-cost estimates overstate the affordability of a healthy diet and observers may misconstrue purchases as financially imprudent. These findings can inform policy, programming, and public discourse.

Investigating a self-reference effect in musical aesthetics

AbstractPrevious work on aesthetic experience suggests that aesthetic judgments are self-referential. The self-reference effect (SRE) is the tendency for individuals to show improved memory for items that are judged in relation to themselves. The current study sought to understand if the SRE exists for aesthetic judgments of music. Participants heard musical excerpts (classical, jazz, and electronic) and rated either a) how much they liked the music (Self condition), b) how much a close relative or friend would like the music (Other condition), or c) the genre of the music (Genre condition). After a retention interval, participants completed a recognition memory task for the musical excerpts. Participants did not show improved memory for musical excerpts encoded in the Self condition. These results extend the concept of the SRE into the domain of aesthetic judgments, but do not provide support for a memory advantage when making aesthetic judgments in relation to the self.

Why People With High Alexithymia Make More Utilitarian Judgments.

Although recent studies have investigated the effect of alexithymia on moral judgments, such an effect remains elusive. Furthermore, moral judgments have been conflated with the moral inclinations underlying those judgments in previous studies. Using a process dissociation approach to independently quantify the strength of utilitarian and deontological inclinations, the present study investigated the effect of alexithymia on moral judgments. We found that deontological inclinations were significantly lower in the high alexithymia group than in the low alexithymia group, whereas the difference in the utilitarian inclinations between the two groups was nonsignificant. Furthermore, empathic concern and deontological inclinations mediated the association between alexithymia and conventional relative judgments (i.e., more utilitarian judgments over deontological judgments), showing that people with high alexithymia have low empathic concern, which, in turn, decreases deontological inclinations and contributes to conventional relative judgments. These findings underscore the importance of empathy and deontological inclinations in moral judgments and indicate that individuals with high alexithymia make more utilitarian judgments over deontological judgments possibly due to a deficit in affective processing.

The Future of Intra-EU Investment Arbitration: Intra-EU Investment Arbitration under the ECT post Achmea

The Achmea judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) found that arbitration clauses in bilateral investment treaties (BITS) between Member States of the European Union are incompatible with European Union law. Following this, Member States attempted to invoke this judgment in relation to similar intra-EU arbitrations under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). Tribunals established under the ECT have however generally rejected the applicability of the Achmea judgement. While the EU Commission and the majority of Member States concluded that this judgment also precludes intra-EU ect arbitrations, a few Member States held the opposite view. The future of intra-EU ECT arbitrations therefore seems fragile in the least. A closer analysis of the decisions of ECT Tribunals, and the relationship between obligations under European Union law and international law however argues that the future of such intra-EU ECT arbitrations is not as fragile as it may seem.

Reclaiming the ‘competent’ practitioner: furthering the case for the practically wise coach

ABSTRACT The principal purpose of this paper is to further the case for phronesis as a progressive coaching concept. It is thus argued that coaching be considered (1) as a “geneology”, (2) as contextualist in nature, (3) as being imbedded in the minutiae of action, and (4) as ethical practice. To these we add the notions of emergence and situational literacy. Although to a degree theory-led, we co-constructed the argument through recourse to an 18-month ethnographic study of the Norwegian national female handball team, and in particular the actions of head coach Marit Breivik during the period of investigation. What was embarked upon here was akin to a contested dialogue between phronetic theory and the available empirical data. In advocating the general case of coaching to be informed by phronetic principles, we reclaim the coach as a “competent” practitioner, a term involving emergent self-awareness and discernible judgement in relation to contextual goings-on.