Short- and long-term memory as a function of individual differences in arousal.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Arousal↗
SEARCH · Search PubMed
Results for “Probability Learning”
Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Effects of stimulus-response correspondence and verbal expectancy on choice reaction time.
The effects of S-R correspondence, verbal prediction, and stimulus discriminability were examined in a discrete, two-choice reaction-time task. Correctness of prediction and S-R correspondence were significant main effects. In addition, responses were significantly faster for correct predictions on noncorresponding trials than for incorrect predictions on corresponding trials. This latter finding indicates that an expectancy mechanism can partially offset the negative effect of spatial S-R noncorrespondence on absolute magnitude of choice reaction time.
Adolescent↗
Effects of cognition on the psychophysical function.
Previous investigation of the deterministic-sensory and the probability-sensory-learning models of psychophysical relationships have featured the manipulation of a single cognitive cue. The present study sought to expand these findings through the manipulation of multiple cognitive cues. Subjects made magnitude estimations of skin-area contact for each of two sets which varied identically in surface area but differed in that one set also varied in accelerative force. Within sets, three treatments featured systematic variation in the presentation of cognitive cues. Power functions were obtained for all treatments and the results supported the deterministic-sensory model. It was suggested, however, that resolution of the perception versus cognition issue must await the identification of innate and conditioned correlates of the subjective response to specific sensory stimuli.
Adolescent↗
Study of Longeot's test of formal operational thinking in a group of Italian adolescents.
This paper describes a study of development of formal logical thought in 230 Italian adolescents by applying Longeot's Echelle de la Pensée Logique (Scale of Logical Thought). For age groups 11 to 13 and 14 to 18 years, change from preformal to formal thought and acquisition of such thought could be influenced by experience, sex, social-cultural level. The Echelle de la Pensée Logique should produce some special aspects to be compared with other classical intelligence tests.
Adolescent↗
Random-number generation and the menstrual cycle: preliminary evidence for a premenstrual alteration of frontal lobe functioning.
20 women (M age = 30.4 yr.) were given the "Mental Dice Task" (randomization of the numbers from 1 to 6) once during the preovulatory and once during the premenstrual phases of their menstrual cycles. In addition, for both test sessions a premenstrual-symptom score was assessed reflecting self-rated severity of cognitive, affective, and somatic complaints during the preovular and the premenstrual phases. In comparison to series of real dice throws, the Mental Dice sequences of all the subjects showed a relative lack of repetitions and an excess of counting at both times of testing. Counting bias was significantly enhanced in the sequences generated during the premenstrual testing and the size of this bias was positively correlated with the self-rated severity of premenstrual symptoms. Pronounced counting despite the instruction to randomize was interpreted as reflecting decreased ability to suppress task-irrelevant cues and indicating a relative impairment of frontal lobe functioning. Resistance of the Mental Dice Task towards expectation biases renders a sociopsychological interpretation of these results improbable. We conjecture that, like other cognitive processes, frontal lobe functions also fluctuate with hormonal changes.
Adult↗
Anticipation of coincidence, gender, and sports classification.
This study investigated the effects of sport classification and gender on anticipation of coincidence. 102 undergraduate male and female students from open skills, closed skills, and nonathletic groups were tested on the Bassin Anticipation Timer. The dependent measures of absolute error, constant error, and variable error were analyzed in a 2 (gender) x 3 (sport classification) x 4 (speeds) design. Men had lower absolute and constant error scores than women. Open skills athletes were less variable in their responses while male open skills athletes were more accurate and less variable at the faster speeds. Performance on the Bassin Anticipation Timer may not be representative of athletic skills.
Adult↗
Effect of framing on adolescents' decision making.
92 young adolescents were tested using Tversky and Kahneman's (1981) decision problems for framing effects. A notable number of young adolescents tested were not influenced by the context of the decision problems, thus they selected the same response option for positively and negatively framed problems. Parallel information was not available in Tversky and Kahneman's study for adults because they used a between-subjects design. However, for present adolescents who selected different response options for different framing problems, the response pattern exhibited by them resembled the general pattern exhibited by the adults tested in Tversky and Kahneman's study-negative frames led them to accept risk to avoid certain loss; positive frames prevented them from risking what they were certain to gain. Boys and girls were similar in their susceptibility to framing effects as were honors students in mathematics as compared to nonhonors students. Although the positive vs negative framing only influenced some of the young adolescents tested in this study, because the influence was consistent, researchers and educators interested in adolescents' decisions involving risky choices might use framing principles to design and assess cognitive interventions for high-risk behaviors among young adolescents.
Adolescent↗
Pictorial versus textual information and the ratio-bias effect.
The ratio-bias effect refers to the perception that a low probability event is more likely when presented in the form of a larger, e.g., 10-in-100, than smaller, e.g., 1-in-10, numerical ratio. This phenomenon has been used to help distinguish between rational-analytic versus heuristic-automatic ways of problem solving. In the current study, responding in accordance with the ratio bias was more prevalent when choices were presented pictorially as opposed to textually. Results are discussed with respect to how various factors, including mode of information presentation, may affect whether problems are solved via heuristic, automatic processes as opposed to effortful, analytic strategies.
Adolescent↗
Perceptual and linguistic encoding in recognition memory and paired-associate learning.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Humans↗
Developmental change in subjective probability during adolescence.
The developmental change in subjective probability during adolescence, an important period for establishing the probability concept, was investigated. 75 Japanese adolescents, from 12 to 23 yr. of age, were asked to make probability judgments for a lottery under 15 conditions. Analysis showed that with increase in age their subjective probability came closer to the objective probability. Discussion of these results took into consideration recent studies on the development of the concept of probability.
Adolescent↗
Evaluation strategies for some nonstandard conditionals during adolescence.
380 adolescents and young adults between the ages of 11 and 29 years participated in three experiments in which they were asked to evaluate both universally quantified nonstandard and standard conditionals using items of information bearing upon them. Subjects found it much easier to avoid a biconditional interpretation with the nonstandard than with the standard conditionals, which throws doubt on the explanation of desire for symmetry of biconditional conversion. It was argued, from data of other studies, that a modified version of the Piagetian view that biconditional conversion occurs as a result of a desire to avoid the complications of dealing with three factors explains most cases of such conversion in adolescence. Results also confirmed that it is more profitable to analyse performance on tasks of this kind using a two-stage model of interpretation and information use previously developed to explain performance with standard universally quantified conditionals than to view such tasks as providing truth-table values. Such an analysis was extended to the nonstandard conditionals studied in the present paper. The origins of the dramatic differences in information-use strategies adopted by adolescents for standard and nonstandard conditionals remain unclear.
Adolescent↗
Illusion of control relative to chance outcomes.
Participants were engaged in a computer game in which outcomes occurred independently of responses. Depending upon group assignment, positive outcomes occurred randomly on either 33% or 66% of trials. Outcome relative to chance was manipulated by varying the number of response alternatives from which participants could choose (two, three, or six). After 50 and 100 trials, participants rated the control they had over accruing points and were asked to suggest specific rules as to how points were obtained. Illusion of control was related to percentage of trials producing favorable outcomes but was insensitive to performance relative to chance. Thus, participants ignored basic statistical probabilities in assessing their control, relying solely on the likelihood of positive outcomes. Furthermore, illusion of control was not related to participants' scores on Burger and Cooper's 1979 Desirability of Control scale.
Adolescent↗
Association of need for cognition with judgments of height, weight, and body fat covariation.
559 college students, assessed for Need for Cognition, judged whether height, weight, and body fat were correlated using judgment probes that controlled for framing and conditional format. A principal components analysis of Need for Cognition scores identified two factors underlying the scale, which may be important in judgment outcome. In addition, judgments about correlations among height, weight, and body fat were similar to those of previous studies. Furthermore, the hypothesis that Need for Cognition would be related to the tendency to judge a negative correlation between height and body fat, i.e., a possible illusory correlation, was confirmed. Results are discussed relative to the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion.
Body Composition↗
Obligation conditionals in a nonstandard conditional selection task: general versus specific reasoning strategies as a false dichotomy.
The paper reports a study comparing performance on obligation and causal conditionals in the explicit standard order conditional selection task. Analysis indicated that both general and specific reasoning strategies are used when a request is given to disprove obligation conditionals, contradicting the prevalent view that only one of the two kinds of strategy is used and confirming the 1993 suggestions of Evans and later ones by Evans and Over. The incidence of general reasoning strategies in this situation is reduced, compared to that for other kinds of conditional in a disproof task probably because a specific reasoning strategy is available that is easier to use.
Adolescent↗
Temporal characteristics of slot machine play in recreational gamblers.
The present study examined the temporal characteristics of play exhibited by recreational slot machine players. 12 women (M = 24 yr., range 22-28) played a computerized version of a slot machine with probability of payoff, i.e., a winning spin, ranging from .2 to .6. Intertrial intervals or the time between the termination of one trial to the initiation of the next trial varied within subjects as a function of wins and losses. Winning trials were associated with larger intertrial intervals and losing trials with smaller intertrial intervals for 10 of the 12 women. No differences were found across probability levels between subjects. Results are discussed in terms of the post-reinforcement pause that occurs on specific schedules of reinforcement.
Adult↗
Hemispheric differences in mathematical problem solving: combinatory operations.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Adult↗
Is inferential reasoning just probabilistic reasoning in disguise?
Oaksford, Chater, and Larkin (2000) have suggested that people actually use everyday probabilistic reasoning when making deductive inferences. In two studies, we explicitly compared probabilistic and deductive reasoning with identical if-then conditional premises with concrete content. In the first, adults were given causal premises with one strongly associated antecedent and were asked to make standard deductive inferences or to judge the probabilities of conclusions. In the second, reasoners were given scenarios presenting a causal relation with zero to three potential alternative antecedents. The participants responded to each set of problems under both deductive and probabilistic instructions. The results show that deductive and probabilistic inferences are not isomorphic. Probabilistic inferences can model deductive responses only using a limited, very high threshold model, which is equivalent to a simple retrieval model. These results provide a clearer understanding of the relations between probabilistic and deductive inferences and the limitations of trying to consider these two forms of inference as having a single underlying process.
Humans↗
The effect of emotion on interpretation and logic in a conditional reasoning task.
The effect of emotional content on logical reasoning is explored in three experiments. Theparticipants completed a conditional reasoning task (If p, then q) with emotional and neutral contents. In Experiment 1, existing emotional and neutral words were used. The emotional value of initially neutral words was experimentally manipulated in Experiments 1B and 2, using classical conditioning. In all experiments, participants were less likely to provide normatively correct answers when reasoning about emotional stimuli, compared with neutral stimuli. This was true for both negative (Experiments 1B and 2) and positive contents (Experiment 2). The participants' interpretations of the conditional statements were also measured (perceived sufficiency, necessity, causality, and plausibility). The results showed the expected relationship between interpretation and reasoning. However, emotion did not affect interpretation. Emotional and neutral conditional statements were interpreted similarly. The results are discussed in light of current models of emotion and reasoning.
Adolescent↗