Doyle’s (2013) theoretical survey of discount functions criticizes two parametric families abbreviated as CRDI and CADI families. We show that Doyle’s criticisms are based on a mathematical mistake and are incorrect.

Surprisingly little research has investigated the particular motives that underlie choice behavior in social dilemma situations. The main aim of the present research was to ask whether behavior in take-some games (such as the multiple-person Commons Dilemma Game and the two-person Bandit Game) and give-some games (such as the multiple-person Public Goods Dilemma Game and the two-person Dictator Game) is differently affected by proself and prosocial motives. Two experimental studies were conducted. Our first experiment used a trait-based assessment of the motives, whereas in our second experiment the motives were measured as state variables. The results of both experiments revealed that proself and prosocial motives did not explain much difference between taking and giving when comparing the Commons Dilemma Game and the Public Goods Dilemma Game. Yet, our second experiment revealed that these motives did differentiate choices in the Bandit Game and the Dictator Game. More specifically, prosocial motives are more strongly related to giving behavior in the Dictator Game than to taking behavior in the Bandit Game. As such, it can be concluded that in dyadic games (but not in multiple-person games) prosocial motives (but not proself motives) predict choice behavior in a game-specific way.

Svenson (2011) showed that choices of one of two alternative productivity increases to save production resources (e.g., man-months) were biased. Judgments of resource savings following a speed increase from a low production speed line were underestimated and following an increase of a high production speed line overestimated. The objective formula for computing savings includes differences between inverse speeds and this is intuitively very problematic for most people. The purpose of the present studies was to explore ways of ameliorating or eliminating the bias. Study 1 was a control study asking participants to increase the production speed of one production line to save the same amount of production resources (man-months) as was saved by a speed increase in a reference line. The increases judged to match the reference alternatives showed the same bias as in the earlier research on choices. In Study 2 the same task and problems were used as in Study 1, but the participants were asked first to judge the resource saving of the reference alternative in a pair of alternatives before they proceeded to the matching task. This weakened the average bias only slightly. In Study 3, the participants were asked to judge the resources saved from each of two successive increases of the same single production line (other than those of the matching task) before they continued to the matching problems. In this way a participant could realize that a second production speed increase from a higher speed (e.g., from 40 to 60 items /man-month) gives less resource savings than the same speed increase from a first lower speed (e.g., from 20 to 40 items/man-month. Following this, the judgments of the same problems as in the other studies improved and the bias decreased significantly but it did not disappear. To be able to make optimal decisions about productivity increases, people need information about the bias and/or reformulations of the problems.

Although theories from economics and evolutionary biology predict that one's age, health, and survival probability should be associated with one's subjective discount rate (SDR), few studies have empirically tested for these links. Our study analyzes in detail how the SDR is related to age, health, and survival probability, by surveying a sample of individuals in townships around Durban, South Africa. In contrast to previous studies, we find that age is not significantly related to the SDR, but both physical health and survival expectations have a U-shaped relationship with the SDR. Individuals in very poor health have high discount rates, and those in very good health also have high discount rates. Similarly, those with expected survival probability on the extremes have high discount rates. Therefore, health and survival probability, and not age, seem to be predictors of one's SDR in an area of the world with high morbidity and mortality.

A wise decider D uses the contents of his mind fully, accurately and efficiently. D’s ideal decisions, i.e., those that best serve his interests, would be embedded in a comprehensive set of totally coherent judgments lodged in his mind. They would conform to the norms of statistical decision theory, which extracts quantitative judgments of fact and value from D’s mind contents and checks them for coherence. However, the most practical way for D to approximate his ideal may not be with models that embody those norms, i.e., with applied decision theory (ADT). In practice, ADT can represent only some of D’s judgments and those imperfectly. Quite different decision aid, including intuition, pattern recognition and cognitive vigilance (especially combined), typically outperform feasible ADT models—with some notable exceptions. However, decision theory training benefits D’s informal decisions. ADT, both formal and informal, should become increasingly useful and widespread, as technical, cultural and institutional impediments are overcome.

Previous research has demonstrated systematic discrepancies between description-and experience-based risky choices. This description-experiencegap has been attributed to several factors such as reliance onsmall samples and differential probability weighting patterns. Becausecontext-dependent outcome expectation regarding safe options might influenceexperience-based risky choices, it constitutes another potential contributor tothe gap. Using a free-sampling paradigm and risky options with rare outcomesthat were either attractive or unattractive relative to the frequent ones, twoexperiments examined the existence and impact of such outcome expectation inexperience-based risky choices. Both experiments had two information conditions:hint information meant to eliminate outcome expectation was provided in onecondition but not the other. Experiment 1, which indicated the numbers ofpossible outcomes regarding both safe and risky options under the hintcondition, revealed different choice behaviors regarding risky-safe trialsbetween the two information conditions, no matter whether the rare outcome ofthe risky option in such a trial (i.e., the local context) wasattractive or unattractive. However, this result provided only indirect evidencefor the role of outcome expectation because it was unclear whether the hintinformation affected only the outcome expectation and thus evaluation of safeoptions or the evaluations of both safe and risky ones. With refined hintinformation arguably removing potential impacts on the evaluation of riskyoptions, Experiment 2 showed that expectation of a non-existent rare outcome ofsafe options did contribute to experience-based risky choices. In addition, itappeared that the rare outcomes of the risky options in other decision problemspresented in the same experiment (i.e., the global context)also affected outcome expectation. Future research could investigate how theinteraction between local and global contexts determines outcome expectation todeepen our understanding of its contribution to experience-based risky choiceand the description-experience gap.

The present research examines the prevalence of predictions in daily life. Specifically we examine whether spending predictions for specific purchases occur spontaneously in life outside of a laboratory setting. Across community samples and student samples, overall self-report and diary reports, three studies suggest that people make spending predictions for about two-thirds of purchases in everyday life. In addition, we examine factors that increase the likelihood of spending predictions: the size of purchase, payment form, time pressure, personality variables, and purchase decisions. Spending predictions were more likely for larger, more exceptional purchases and for item and project predictions rather than time periods.

Decision makers have been found to bias their interpretation of incoming information to support an emerging judgment (predecisional information distortion). This is a robust finding in human judgment, and was recently also established and measured in physicians’ diagnostic judgments (Kostopoulou et al. 2012). The two studies reported here extend this work by addressing the constituent modes of distortion in physicians. Specifically, we studied whether and to what extent physicians distort information to strengthen their leading diagnosis and/or to weaken a competing diagnosis. We used the “stepwise evolution of preference” method with three clinical scenarios, and measured distortion on separate rating scales, one for each of the two competing diagnoses per scenario.

In Study 1, distortion in an experimental group was measured against the responses of a separate control group. In Study 2, distortion in a new experimental group was measured against participants’ own, personal responses provided under control conditions, with the two response conditions separated by a month. The two studies produced consistent results. On average, we found considerable distortion of information to weaken the trailing diagnosis but little distortion to strengthen the leading diagnosis. We also found individual differences in the tendency to engage in either mode of distortion. Given that two recent studies found both modes of distortion in lay preference (Blanchard, Carlson & Meloy, 2014; DeKay, Miller, Schley & Erford, 2014), we suggest that predecisional information distortion is affected by participant and task characteristics. Our findings contribute to the growing research on the different modes of predecisional distortion and their stability to methodological variation.

We propose that people weight fluent, or easy to process, information more heavily than disfluent information when making judgments. Cue fluency was manipulated independent of objective cue validity in three studies, the findings from which support our hypothesis. In Experiment 1, participants weighted a consumer review more heavily when it was written in a clear font than in a less clear font. In Experiment 2, participants placed more weight on information when it was in focus than when it was blurry. In Experiment 3, participants placed more weight on financial information from brokerage firms with easy to pronounce names than those with hard to pronounce names. These studies demonstrate that fluency affects cue weighting independent of objective cue validity.

We describe three areas of inquiry that we foresee as being important in future studies of collective memory, mind, and media. The first is the power of narratives, usually provided by collectives, which can be explicit and conscious or implicit and unconscious. A second important theme during this period of populism and nationalism is the study of the self-centredness (or egocentricity) of groups, especially nations believing their past is special. Such egocentricity can feed conflict among nations as well as groups within nations. The third important direction for research is future thinking, or studies of how people anticipate events they expect to unroll in their future and whether these events are mostly positive or negative. A puzzle of future thinking relative to collective memory is why people readily argue about and even fight over events from the past, but find it much more difficult to mobilise groups about life-threatening future events such as global warming or nuclear war. We look forward to studies in these crucial topics and others as they appear in Memory, Mind & Media.

Sensory-based subtypes among autistic children have been well documented, but little is known about longitudinal sensory subtypes beyond autistic populations. This prospective study aimed to identify subtypes based on trajectories of parent-reported sensory features measured at 6–19 months, 3–4, and 6–7 years of age among a community-based birth cohort (N = 1,517), and to examine their associations with school-age clinical and adaptive/maladaptive outcomes on a subset sample (N = 389). Latent class growth analysis revealed five trajectory subtypes varying in intensity and change rates across three sensory domains. In contrast to an Adaptive-All Improving subtype (35%) with very low sensory features and overall better school-age outcomes, an Elevated-All Worsening subtype (3%), comprised of more boys and children of parents with less education, was associated with most elevated autistic traits and poorest adaptive/maladaptive outcomes. Three other subtypes (62% in total) were generally characterized by stable or improving patterns of sensory features at mild to moderate levels, and challenges in certain outcome domains. Our findings indicate that characterizing children based on early sensory trajectories may contribute to earlier detection of subgroups of children with sensory challenges who are more likely to experience developmental challenges by school age, followed by early targeted interventions for improved long-term outcomes.

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis on the association between nonword repetition (NWR) and language exposure in bilingual children and explored whether the association is influenced by other variables. We performed a blind literature review on ERIC and Google Scholar, a random-effects model meta-analysis and subgroup analyses to test potential moderators. Out of 822 screened articles, we identified 24 works including 1399 children. Significant associations were found using either cumulative or current exposure, language-like nonwords, phoneme NWR scoring, in children with typical language development. Nonsignificant associations were found in studies either using age of first exposure, on children older than six, with less than 50 participants, using NWR lists containing 16-24 nonwords or with participants having different native languages. Weak associations were found when considering whole-word scoring or gray literature. We highlight the contributions of different variables to NWR, and evidence to optimally design NWR for bilingual language assessment.

Literature examining emotional regulation in infants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has focused on parent report. We examined behavioral and physiological responses during an emotion-evoking task designed to elicit emotional states in infants. Infants at an increased likelihood for ASD (IL; have an older sibling with ASD; 96 not classified; 29 classified with ASD at age two) and low likelihood (LL; no family history of ASD; n = 61) completed the task at 6, 12, and 18 months. The main findings were (1) the IL-ASD group displayed higher levels of negative affect during toy removal and negative tasks compared to the IL non-ASD and LL groups, respectively, (2) the IL-ASD group spent more time looking at the baseline task compared to the other two groups, and (3) the IL-ASD group showed a greater increase in heart rate from baseline during the toy removal and negative tasks compared to the LL group. These results suggest that IL children who are classified as ASD at 24 months show differences in affect, gaze, and heart rate during an emotion-evoking task, with potential implications for understanding mechanisms related to emerging ASD.

Trauma-focused CBT (TF-CBT) is recommended by NICE for adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Whilst caregiver involvement is recommended, no specific guidance on the nature of involvement is provided although it is important that involvement takes account of the nature of the trauma. This case report details how Dummett’s systemic CBT formulation was used to plan an intervention such that systemic sessions were included in TF-CBT treatment of an adolescent female with PTSD which arose following interpersonal trauma. Trauma symptoms, trauma cognitions and depressive symptoms were measured throughout, with trauma symptoms showing clinically significant change over the course of therapy. Clinical implications are considered regarding the applicability of systemic CBT formulation and the inclusion of systemic sessions within TF-CBT for adolescents whose traumas arose interpersonally.

Despite extensive discussions on interpreter advantages in nonverbal abilities/skills, the advantage in coordination remains underexplored, with little evidence from interpreting students across different training stages. To fill the gap, the present study conducted two experiments with the Psychological Refractory Period dual-task consisting of two discrimination tasks presented either alone or together. Smaller dual-task costs in Task 1 and/or Task 2 are considered indices for better coordination (with smaller costs restricted to Task 2 further suggesting better bottleneck coordination). Experiment 1, focusing on the intermediate training stage, revealed a bottleneck coordination advantage for interpreting students over controls, which differs from the task instantiation and/or bottleneck access advantage found for professional interpreters in Strobach et al. (2015). Experiment 2, focusing on the beginning stage, revealed no group differences between controls and interpreting students with less/more training (Experiment 2a/2b respectively), suggesting no evidence for an interpreter advantage in coordination. Developmental changes are discussed.

This study opens a project that empirically investigates the Plurilingual Creativity paradigm. This paradigm expands the Multilingual Creative Cognition by making shifts in the conceptualization of the phenomena of multilingualism and creativity, respectively. We examined how multilingual and multicultural factors can contribute to divergent thinking. Online data collection included assessments of language repertoire, multicultural experience, intercultural competence, and divergent thinking. A series of regression analyses obtained evidence for the direct contribution of language repertoire, intercultural competence components and multicultural experience to divergent thinking. In addition, language repertoire was found to moderate the link between management of intercultural interaction and fluency, multicultural experience and both flexibility and originality in divergent thinking. These findings emphasize the importance of considering the contribution of plurilingual/pluricultural factors of language repertoire, multicultural experience, and intercultural competence to creativity. Thereby, these findings provide empirical support for the conceptual shift toward plurilingual creativity.

The aim of this study was to use longitudinal population-based data to examine the associations between childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and risk for adverse outcomes in multiple life domains across adulthood. In 937 individuals followed from birth to age 45y, we assessed associations between CSA (retrospectively reported at age 26y) and the experience of 22 adverse outcomes in seven domains (physical, mental, sexual, interpersonal, economic, antisocial, multi-domain) from young adulthood to midlife (26 to 45y). Analyses controlled for sex, socioeconomic status, prospectively reported child harm and household dysfunction adverse childhood experiences, and adult sexual assault, and considered different definitions of CSA. After adjusting for confounders, CSA survivors were more likely than their peers to experience internalizing, externalizing, and thought disorders, suicide attempts, health risk behaviors, systemic inflammation, poor oral health, sexually transmitted diseases, high-conflict relationships, benefit use, financial difficulties, antisocial behavior, and cumulative problems across multiple domains in adulthood. In sum, CSA was associated with multiple persistent problems across adulthood, even after adjusting for confounding life stressors, and the risk for particular problems incremented with CSA severity. The higher risk for most specific problems was small to moderate, but the cumulative long-term effects across multiple domains reflect considerable individual and societal burden.