Cordelia Fine

Hopping, skipping or jumping to conclusions? Clarifying the role of the JTC bias in delusions

Introduction. There is substantial evidence that patients with delusions exhibit a reasoning bias—known as the “jumping to conclusions” (JTC) bias—which leads them to accept hypotheses as correct on the basis of less evidence than controls. We address three questions concerning the JTC bias that require clarification. Firstly, what is the best measure of the JTC bias? Second, is the JTC bias correlated specifically with delusions, or only with the symptomatology of schizophrenia? And third, is the bias enhanced by emotionally salient material? Methods. To address these questions, we conducted a series of meta-analyses of studies that used the Beads task to compare the probabilistic reasoning styles of individuals with and without delusions. Results. We found that only one of four measures of the JTC bias—“draws to decision”—reached significance. The JTC bias exhibited by delusional subjects—as measured by draws to decision—did not appear to be solely an epiphenomenal effect of schizophrenic symptomatology, and was not amplified by emotionally salient material. Conclusions. A tendency to gather less evidence in the Beads task is reliably associated with the presence of delusional symptomatology. In contrast, certainty on the task, and responses to contradictory evidence, do not discriminate well between those with and without delusions. The implications for the underlying basis of the JTC bias, and its role in the formation and maintenance of delusions, are discussed.

Who’s messing with my mind?: The implications of dual-process models for the ethics of advertising to children

The debate surrounding the ethics of advertising to children generally centres on the age at which children have developed sufficient cognitive resources both to understand the persuasive intent of marketing messages and to critically evaluate them. In this paper we argue that this debate requires urgent updating to take into account recent and significant findings from psychology and neuroscience. Substantial evidence now shows that judgements and behaviours, including those relating to consumption, can be strongly influenced by implicitly acquired affective associations, rather than via consciously mediated persuasive information. Contemporary advertising formats typically targeted at children are particularly likely to ‘implicitly persuade’ in this way. The implications for the ethical and empirical agenda are profound, pointing the way for a re-evaluation of what constitutes responsible children’s advertising, a new research agenda and a new approach to media literacy strategies.

Recommendations for sex/gender neuroimaging research: key principles and implications for research design, analysis, and interpretation

Neuroimaging (NI) technologies are having increasing impact in the study of complex cognitive and social processes. In this emerging field of social cognitive neuroscience, a central goal should be to increase the understanding of the interaction between the neurobiology of the individual and the environment in which humans develop and function. The study of sex/gender is often a focus for NI research, and may be motivated by a desire to better understand general developmental principles, mental health problems that show female-male disparities, and gendered differences in society. In order to ensure the maximum possible contribution of NI research to these goals, we draw attention to four key principles—overlap, mosaicism, contingency and entanglement—that have emerged from sex/gender research and that should inform NI research design, analysis and interpretation. We discuss the implications of these principles in the form of constructive guidelines and suggestions for researchers, editors, reviewers and science communicators.

Is the emotional dog wagging its rational tail, or chasing it?

According to Haidts (2001) social intuitionist model (SIM), an individuals moral judgment normally arises from automatic ‘moral intuitions’. Private moral reasoning—when it occurs—is biased and post hoc, serving to justify the moral judgment determined by the individuals intuitions. It is argued here, however, that moral reasoning is not inevitably subserviant to moral intuitions in the formation of moral judgments. Social cognitive research shows that moral reasoning may sometimes disrupt the automatic process of judgment formation described by the SIM. Furthermore, it seems that automatic judgments may reflect the ‘automatization’ of judgment goals based on prior moral reasoning. In line with this role for private moral reasoning in judgment formation, it is argued that moral reasoning can, under the right circumstances, be sufficiently unbiased to effectively challenge an individuals moral beliefs. Thus the social cognitive literature indicates a greater and more direct role for private moral reasoning than the SIM allows.

The cognitive and emotional effects of amygdala damage

Single case studies of patients with selective lesions suggest three main categories of impairment following amygdala damage. First, amygdala lesions interfere with memory processes for emotional events. Second, deficits are seen in the processing of facial and auditory expressions of emotion, although this impairment appears to be more severe for some emotions than for others. Third, clinical and informal descriptions suggest that amygdala damage can result in aberrant social behaviour. Following a closer examination of these findings, we will discuss what processing impairments might underlie these data, and highlight some questions that remain unanswered.

Instrumental learning and relearning in individuals with psychopathy and in patients with lesions involving the amygdala or orbitofrontal cortex

Previous work has shown that individuals with psychopathy are impaired on some forms of associative learning, particularly stimulus-reinforcement learning (Blair et al., 2004; Newman & Kosson, 1986). Animal work suggests that the acquisition of stimulus-reinforcement associations requires the amygdala (Baxter & Murray, 2002). Individuals with psychopathy also show impoverished reversal learning (Mitchell, Colledge, Leonard, & Blair, 2002). Reversal learning is supported by the ventrolateral and orbitofrontal cortex (Rolls, 2004). In this paper we present experiments investigating stimulus-reinforcement learning and relearning in patients with lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex or amygdala, and individuals with developmental psychopathy without known trauma. The results are interpreted with reference to current neurocognitive models of stimulus-reinforcement learning, relearning, and developmental psychopathy.

From Scanner to Sound Bite Issues in Interpreting and Reporting Sex Differences in the Brain

Neuroimaging research is yielding reports of sex differences in the brain. Yet the likelihood of spurious findings of sex differences, the teething problems of new technology, the obscurity of the relation between brain structure and psychological function, and difficulties inferring mental states from neuroimaging data all require us to be considerably cautious in interpreting such results. Unfortunately, these issues are often overlooked in popular accounts. Together with a tendency for people to regard neuroscientific information as more scientific than behavioral data, and as indicative of male and female “nature,” these issues point to the worrisome possibility of public misunderstanding of what contemporary neuroscience tells us about gender.

Plasticity, plasticity, plasticity…and the rigid problem of sex

Why is popular understanding of female–male differences still based on rigid models of development, even though contemporary developmental sciences emphasize plasticity? Is it because the science of sex differences still works from the same rigid models?

The Role of Fetal Testosterone in the Development of the “Essential Difference” Between the Sexes: Some Essential Issues

The Empathizing/Systemizing (E/S) hypothesis developed by BaronCohen and colleagues has two main goals: first, to explain the presence of brain, cognitive, and behavioral differences between the sexes; and second, to explain the pattern of symptoms associated with autistic syndromes. These two goals are connected, since Baron-Cohen argues that autism is the expression of an “extreme male brain” (e.g. Baron-Cohen 2002). Briefly, the E/S hypothesis proposes that levels of fetal testosterone (fT) influence brain development in such a way that lower levels of fT (more common in females) result in a ‘female brain’ that is “predominantly hard-wired for empathy” (Baron-Cohen 2003: 1). Empathizing is defined as “the drive to identify another’s mental states and to respond to these with an appropriate emotion, in order to predict and to respond to the behavior of another person” (BaronCohen, Knickmeyer, and Belmonte 2005: 820). By contrast, higher levels of fT (more common in males) result in a ‘male brain’ that is “predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems” (Baron-Cohen 2003: 1). Systemizing is defined as “the drive to analyze a system in terms of the rules that govern the system, in order to predict the behavior of the system” (Baron-Cohen, Knickmeyer, and Belmonte 2005: 820).

His brain, her brain?

Research exploring sex differences in the human brain must overcome “neurosexist” interpretations There is a long history of scientific inquiry about what role biological sex plays in differences between brain function in human males and females. Greater knowledge of the influence of biological sex on the human brain promises much-needed insights into brain function and especially dysfunctions that differentially affect the sexes (1). Certainly, advancing technologies and an increasing wealth of data (with more sophisticated analyses) should prompt robust future research—carefully conducted and well replicated—that can elucidate sex effects in the brain. However, this field of research has spurred an equally long history of debate as to whether inherent differences in brains of males and females predispose the sexes to stereotypical behaviors, or whether such claims reinforce and legitimate traditional gender stereotypes and roles in ways that are not scientifically justified—so-called neurosexism. Although this topic remains controversial, a commonly held belief is that the psyches of females and males are highly distinct. These differences are perceived as natural, fixed, and invariant across time and place (2), presumably due to unique female versus male brain circuitry that is largely fixed by a sexually differentiated genetic blueprint. A major challenge in the field is to crtically view previous experimental findings, as well as design future studies, outside the framework of this dichotomous model. Here, gender scholarship can hasten scientific progress by revealing the implicit assumptions that can give rise to inadvertent neurosexism.