David Leiser

Multiple factors that determine performance with tables and graphs

Two experiments assessed the relative efficiency of line graphs, bar graphs, and tables, applying a multiple-factors approach to study the effects of the type of the required information, the complexity of the data, and the users familiarity with the display. information extraction tasks included reading exact values, comparing values, identifying trends, and reading maximum values. Tables led to faster responses for all tasks, and the accuracy for tables was equally high or higher than for graphs. Bar graphs and line graphs differed in their relative efficiency for the different tasks. The complexity of the data also affected the tasks differentially, as did prior familiarity with the display. Performance for most conditions improved with experience. Our findings demonstrate the benefits of a multiple-factors approach to the study of displays. Generalizations about the relative efficiency of displays and computational models of the task performance with displays must consider the various relevant factors if they are to serve as valid design aids.

CHILDREN'S CONCEPTIONS OF ECONOMICS - THE CONSTITUTION OF A COGNITIVE DOMAIN

Abstract The understanding of economics of 89 Israeli children, aged 7–17, was probed by means of interviews and questionnaires. Questions asked covered a broad range, including: commerce, production, strikes, capital investment, and the causes of inflation. The answers are analyzed in a cognitive framework. It is argued that economic understanding is initially based on “conceptions”, small but growing interpretative vignettes which provide a meaningful account of economic actions. Macro-economic phenomena which lie outside the explanatory scope of single conceptions are understood later than the behavior of individual actors.

Social cognition in schizophrenia: Cognitive and affective factors

Introduction. Social cognition refers to how people conceive, perceive, and draw inferences about mental and emotional states of others in the social world. Previous studies suggest that the concept of social cognition involves several abilities, including those related to affect and cognition. The present study analyses the deficits of individuals with schizophrenia in two areas of social cognition: Theory of Mind (ToM) and emotion recognition and processing. Examining the impairment of these abilities in patients with schizophrenia has the potential to elucidate the neurophysiological regions involved in social cognition and may also have the potential to aid rehabilitation. Methods. Two experiments were conducted. Both included the same five tasks: first- and second-level false-belief ToM tasks, emotion inferencing, understanding of irony, and matrix reasoning (a WAIS-R subtest). The matrix reasoning task was administered to evaluate and control for the association of the other tasks with analytic reasoning skills. Experiment 1 involved factor analysis of the task performance of 75 healthy participants. Experiment 2 compared 30 patients with schizophrenia to an equal number of matched controls. Results. (1) The five tasks were clearly divided into two factors corresponding to the two areas of social cognition, ToM and emotion recognition and processing. (2) Schizophrenics’ performance was impaired on all tasks, particularly on those loading heavily on the analytic component (matrix reasoning and second-order ToM). (3) Matrix reasoning, second-level ToM (ToM2), and irony were found to distinguish patients from controls, even when all other tasks that revealed significant impairment in the patients’ performance were taken into account. Conclusions. The two areas of social cognition examined are related to distinct factors. The mechanism for answering ToM questions (especially ToM2) depends on analytic reasoning capabilities, but the difficulties they present to individuals with schizophrenia are due to other components as well. The impairment in social cognition in schizophrenia stems from deficiencies in several mechanisms, including the ability to think analytically and to process emotion information and cues.

Children's economic socialization: Summarizing the cross-cultural comparison of ten countries

Abstract This paper summarizes the cross-cultural study of economic socialization detailed in the previous papers in this issue. The sample was drawn from 10 countries: Algeria, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Israel (town and kibbutz), Norway, Poland, West Germany, and Yugoslavia and administred to children age 8, 11 and 14. The topics covered were: (a) understanding who decides what, and why (prices, salaries, savings and investment, the mint); (b) reasoning: how well do children appreciate the consequences of economic events of national dimension; (c) attitudes: how do they account for the economic fate of individuals. In addition to the tabulation of answer types to individual questions, we subjected the data in each main part of the questionnaire to a Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) analysis. The progression with age is clear and in line with previous investigations in various countries. The differences between countries are harder to interpret and reasons for this are discussed.

Human foibles or systemic failure--Lay perceptions of the 2008-2009 financial crisis

We examined lay perceptions of the recent financial and economic crisis through 1707 questionnaires, administered via internet, to a varied group of volunteers in a range of countries: France, the US, Russia, Germany, Israel, and sub-Saharan Africa. Respondents graded the contribution of a large number of possible factors to the crisis, and answered several complementary questions. We were able to identify two major conceptions, one seeing the economy as comprised of individuals, with failings of moral or cognitive character, and the other seeing the economy as a complex system, endowed with some resilience, functioning in cycles. Support for the former view was stronger than for the latter. Several demographic variables were found to affect these perspectives significantly, including SES, economic training, religious beliefs, and the extent to which the respondent was personally affected by the crisis.

The changing relations of representation and cognitive structure during the development of a cognitive map

Abstract In recent years, workers in cognitive science have come to recognize that cognitive structures should not be equated with computational ones. This realization has often been experienced as confusing. It is argued that cognitive science is moving closer to positions defended by genetic epistemologists. The course of development of a cognitive structure consists of two phases. During the first (Piagets “phenotypic” adaptation), knowledge about successful ways of interacting with the environment is encoded in a relatively unspecialized format. Selected structural aspects of the resulting data base may later form the basis for a specifically appropriate format. It is during the first phase that knowledge about the environment is manifested in a behavioural structure which does not correspond to any computational entity. In the second phase, the internalized structure becomes computationally defined, which improves the systems efficiency. These ideas are illustrated with the Traveller, a detailed computational model of cognitive map development.

Psychosocial variables involved in the construction of lay thinking about the economy: Results of a cross-national survey

This study explores the relations between psychosocial variables and lay economic thought. A number of studies have described cultural variations of individual differences variables, such as locus of control (LOC) and belief in a just world. The aim of this project is to test the strength of the relationships between these variables and economic beliefs and attitudes across a wide cross-national sample. Data were collected from eight countries (Austria, France, Greece, Israel, New Zealand, Slovenia, Singapore and Turkey) and nearly 2000 respondents. Lay economic thinking appears to be organised around economic phenomena (such as inflation and unemployment) rather than economic integrative theories (such as whether consumption or business activities drive the economy). Overall, the results verify the relationship between internal LOC, belief in a just world, a free-enterprise view of the economy and higher satisfaction with private and public economy.

DETERMINANTS OF SUBJECTIVE TIME ESTIMATES IN SIMULATED URBAN DRIVING

Abstract An urban driving simulator is used to generate a data base for calibrating and testing a causal path model for subjective time estimates. The model specifies the determinants of subjective time through a web of direct and indirect interactions confirming a positive relationship between the density of urban environmental stimuli (e.g., traffic lights, turns) and time estimates. The results suggest that subjective time is predictable on the basis of time distance, physical distance, and obstacle-like variables. Some implications of the results of urban travel modeling are put forward.

Scattered naive theories:: why the human mind is isomorphic to the internet web

This paper constitutes an attempt to derive the epistemological consequences of what is known in cognitive, developmental, and social psychology on the nature of naive theories. The process of cognitive development and knowledge acquisition is such that uncoordinated knowledge must result. There is no process active in long-term memory to harmonize inconsistent parts. Coordination takes place in working memory (WM), and cognitive psychology has long established its extreme exiguity. Units of explanation and domains of coherence are therefore small. This is, indeed, a limitation of our cognition, but it is tenable pragmatically. Naive theories, on any one issue, do not form, psychologically, cognitively, a natural kind. These theses about how our knowledge is acquired, organized, accessed, and used help to bring out how one should think about naive theories. r 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Naive theory impairment in schizophrenia: is it domain-specific?

The ability to represent mental states of self and others to account for behavior is called theory of mind (ToM). This study examined whether ToM deficit in schizophrenia patients is a specific deficit in the cognitive component of interpersonal skills or a more global deficit, involving impaired information processing skills. Schizophrenia inpatients (N = 41) were compared with a control group of healthy subjects (N = 22) and to nonschizophrenia psychiatric patients (24 with affective disorders, seven with other psychosis) over a range of ToM tasks and another naive theory (theory of biology; ToB). Psychiatric inpatients as a whole showed significant deficit compared with the control group of healthy subjects in ToM tasks. The schizophrenia patients showed significantly larger deficits compared with patients suffering from affective disorder, while the performance of patients with nonschizophrenia psychosis was intermediate. In contrast, no difference was observed in the performance of the different groups on the ToB tasks. The fact that a deficit was found in ToM but not in ToB suggests a specific deficit in a cognitive component of interpersonal skills in schizophrenia rather than a general deficit in information processing skills. Naive theories deficits in schizophrenia seem to be domain-dependent.