Experts' and novices' abilities to detect children's high-stakes lies of omission.

We investigated adults' abilities to detect lies told by 3- to 6-year-old children. Expert forensic interviewers and novices watched videotapes of children who either lied or told the truth about their parent's transgression, rendered a dichotomous judgment of whether the child lied, rated their confidence in that judgment, and rated the children on various characteristics. Adults detected lies with greater than chance—but not impressive—accuracy, regardless of expertise level. Older children's lies were more detectable by experts than were younger children's. Adults were more confident in their judgments about older than younger children. Confidence in lie/truth judgments was not significantly correlated with actual lie detection accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Political, Economic, and Legal Risks Faced in International Projects: Case Study of Vietnam

The aim of this research is to investigate the political, economic, and legal (PEL) risks faced by foreign firms when undertaking construction projects in Vietnam. The specific objectives are to investigate the types of PEL risks faced and the risk response techniques adopted. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire with open ended questions. The data collection method was in-depth face to face interviews with 18 experts from France, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States who have managed construction projects in Vietnam. The major risks faced include corruption, termination of public projects, bureaucratic administrative system to obtain permits and approvals, changing and inconsistent regulations, inadequate legal framework, fluctuation of exchange, and interest and inflation rates. Ways to respond to these risks are recommended by the experts. Foreign firms undertaking construction projects in Vietnam may make use of these findings to identify their PEL risks and determine the appropriate risk response measures to give their projects a higher chance of success.     

Effects of sex of subject and sex of interpreter on responses to test feedback.

100 undergraduates received falsified psychological test results that were discrepant with their own reports on self-referring attitudes. They were then given a chance to change their self-reports and/or derogate the source of the interpretation. A significant interaction between sex of S and sex of interpreter was found on the change in self-report measure. Both female and male Ss changed their self-reports more when the interpreter was of their own sex. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task-relevant information, social reinforcement, and race as factors affecting performance.

Hypothesized that lower-class blacks, who have been found to have an external control orientation to their environment, would be more responsive to social reinforcements in a skill task than in a chance task situation. Conversely, it was expected that middle-class whites, who have been shown typically to maintain interval control orientations, would be more responsive to social reinforcements in a chance task than in a skill task situation. 48 male 5th and 6th graders (24 lower-class blacks and 24 middle-class whites) were assigned to social reinforcement and control conditions. The independent variables, social reinforcement, type of task, and ethnic group of Ss were used in a 3 * 2 * 2 analysis of variance. Results confirm the original hypotheses. (French summary) (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Bothered by abstraction: The effect of expertise on knowledge transfer and subsequent novice performance.

Although experts should be well positioned to convey their superior knowledge and skill to novices, the organization of that knowledge, and particularly its level of abstraction, may make it difficult for them to do so. Using an electronic circuit-wiring task, the authors found that experts as compared with beginners used more abstract and advanced statements and fewer concrete statements when providing task instructions to novices. In a 2nd study, the authors found that beginner-instructed novices performed better than expert-instructed novices and reported fewer problems with the instructions when performing the same task. In Study 2, the authors found that although novices performed better on the target task when instructed by beginners, they did better on a different task within the same domain when instructed by experts. The evidence suggests that the abstract, advanced concepts conveyed by experts facilitated the transfer of learning between the different tasks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Seeking help in the shadow of doubt: The sensemaking processes underlying how nurses decide whom to ask for advice.

Although scholars often assume that individuals seek out experts when they need help, recent research suggests that seeking help from experts can be costly. The authors propose that perceiving potential help providers as accessible or trustworthy can reduce the costs of seeking help and thus encourage individuals to seek help from experts. They further predict that perceptions of potential help providers’ expertise, accessibility, and trustworthiness are shaped by their experience, formal roles, and organizational commitment. They investigated their theoretical model in a study of 146 nurses on the front lines of healthcare. They found that the decision to seek out help depends on help-seekers’ perceptions of experts’ accessibility and trustworthiness, and that these perceptions are predicted by experience, formal roles, and affective organizational commitment. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Role of health locus of control beliefs and expectations of treatment efficacy in adjustment to cancer.

Examined the effects of health locus of control beliefs (self-, doctor, and chance control) and expectations of treatment efficacy on short-term psychological adjustment in 137 18–86 yr old newly diagnosed cancer patients. The role of these beliefs and expectations in moderating the relation between perceived and actual disease severity and depression was also examined. Ss completed an intake questionnaire assessing the perceived severity of illness, the amount of pain or discomfort they were experiencing, how sad or depressed they were, and expectations about complying with medication instructions; Ss also completed items from Rotter's Internal–External Locus of Control Scale, the Multi-Dimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, and the Self-Rating Depression Scale. The relation between perceptions of disease severity and depression was weaker for Ss who believed that they could personally control their health and for those who held positive expectations about the effects of complying with medical treatment. Similar patterns were found when disease severity was defined in terms of prognosis for survival. Strong negative correlations between self-control/treatment expectations and depression were found for Ss who perceived that their illness was severe. The results for chance and doctor control were less consistent. The stability of health control beliefs and treatment expectations over the course of a serious long-term illness is discussed. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structural knowledge assessment: Comparison of referent structures.

Network representations of student knowledge are usually evaluated by comparing them to an expert "referent" structure. This study compared referent structures produced by the instructor, other experts, averaged experts, and an average based on the best students in the class. The referents were compared in their ability to predict exam performance in 2 college level computer programming courses and to differentiate among levels of expertise. Results showed that in terms of these criteria, (1) instructor-based referents were no better than other experts; (2) there was substantial variability among experts; and (3) structures derived from both averaged experts and averaged best students provided valid referents, but the expert-based referent was superior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication of individual emotions by spontaneous facial expressions.

Examined whether spontaneous facial expressions provide observers with sufficient information to distinguish accurately which of 7 affective states (6 emotional and 1 neutral) is being experienced by another person. Six undergraduate senders' facial expressions were covertly videotaped as they watched emotionally loaded slides. After each slide, senders nominated the emotions term that best described their affective reaction and also rated the pleasantness and strength of that reaction. Similar nominations of emotion terms and ratings were later made by 53 undergraduate receivers who viewed the senders' videotaped facial expression. The central measure of communication accuracy was the match between senders' and receivers' emotion nominations. Overall accuracy was significantly greater than chance, although it was not impressive in absolute terms. Only happy, angry, and disgusted expressions were recognized at above-chance rates, whereas surprised expressions were recognized at rates that were significantly worse than chance. Female Ss were significantly better senders than were male Ss. Although neither sex was found to be better at receiving facial expressions, female Ss were better receivers of female senders' expressions than of male senders' expressions. Female senders' neutral and surprised expressions were more accurately recognized than were those of male senders. The only sex difference found for decoding emotions was a tendency for male Ss to be more accurate at recognizing anger. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group decision making by experts: Field study of panels evaluating medical technologies.

Investigated decision-making processes and their outcomes in 6 consensus development conferences in which panels of experts evaluated new medical technologies. Self-administered questionnaires were obtained from 177 medical experts, and data were analyzed along with data derived from content analyses of the 6 consensus statements produced by the conferences. Results of these analyses provide support for the hypothesis that the quality of the outcome is determined by the existence of an interaction process, a decision procedure, and a chairperson, which facilitate the exchange of relevant information. Strong disagreements among the Ss inhibited such exchange and harmed the quality of the consensus statement. Personal satisfaction was more strongly related to the quality of the process and of the information disseminated than to the quality of the outcome. A clear relation was found between the Ss' status and expertise, their participation in the process, and their contribution to the consensus statement. The pattern of these findings is similar to that obtained in laboratory studies. The role of preconference organizational factors—such as the selection of conference questions, panel, and speakers—and the characteristics of the technology are discussed. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional style, task selection, and achievement.

In a study of causal attributions for achievement and their effects on task selection, it was found that 743 5th–12th graders who attributed their own success on achievement tasks to ability, effort, or luck preferred tasks that were compatible with such beliefs. Thus, students who generally attributed their achievement to ability were likely to prefer tasks in which competence was a requisite to outcome. Conversely, students who believed that success was largely a function of luck were likely to avoid ability tasks and prefer games of chance. This tendency was relatively unaffected by an immediate experience of success or failure at a task and generalized across age, sex, and urban–rural groups. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sexing day-old chicks: A case study and expert systems analysis of a difficult perceptual-learning task.

The sexing of day-old chicks has been regarded as an extraordinarily difficult perceptual task requiring years of extensive practice for its mastery. Experts can sex chicks at over 98% accuracy at a rate of 1,000 chicks per hour spending less than a half second viewing the cloacal region. Naive subjects were shown 18 pictures of cloacal regions of male and female chicks (in random appearing arrangement) and asked to judge the sex of each chick. The pictures included a number of rare and difficult configurations. The subjects were then instructed as to the location of a critical cloacal structure for which a simple contrast in shape (convex vs. concave or flat) could serve as an indicant of sex. When the subjects judged the pictures again (in a different order), accuracy increased from slightly above chance to a level comparable to that achieved by a sample of experts. The correlation (over items) between the naive subjects and the experts before instruction was .21; after instruction, .82. The instructions were based on an interview and observation of an expert who had spent 50 years sexing 55 million chicks. Much of the reported difficulty in developing perceptual expertise in this task may stem from the need to classify extremely rare configurations in which the convexity of the structure is not apparent. The rate of learning of these instances could be greatly increased through the use of simple instructions that specified the location of diagnostic contour contrasts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Information About a Layperson's Knowledge Supports Experts in Giving Effective and Efficient Online Advice to Laypersons.

To give effective and efficient advice to laypersons, experts should adapt their explanations to the layperson's knowledge. However, experts often fail to consider the limited domain knowledge of laypersons. To support adaptation in asynchronous helpdesk communication, researchers provided computer experts with information about a layperson's knowledge. A dialogue experiment (N = 80 dyads of experts and laypersons) was conducted that varied the displayed information. Rather than sensitizing the experts to generally improve the intelligibility of their explanations, the individuating information about the layperson enabled them to make specific partner adjustments that increased the effectiveness and efficiency of the communication. The results are suggestive of ways in which the provision of instructional explanations could be enhanced in Internet-based communication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A day at the races: A study of IQ, expertise, and cognitive complexity.

30 middle-aged and older men who were avid racetrack patrons were studied and tested over a 3-yr period. 14 were classified as experts and the remaining as nonexperts based on their ability to predict posttime odds on the basis of factual information about horses. The important background characteristics of experts and nonexperts were equivalent. IQ was measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). Cognitive complexity was measured by the extent to which Ss used a sophisticated multiplicative model to handicap races, as opposed to a simpler additive model. Ss were asked to handicap 10 actual races and 50 experimenter-contrived races. Analyses revealed that expert handicapping was a cognitively sophisticated enterprise, with experts using a mental model that contained multiple interaction effects and nonlinearity. The findings suggest that (a) IQ is unrelated to skilled performance at the racetrack and (b) IQ is unrelated to real-world forms of cognitive complexity that would appear to conform to some of those that scientists regard as the hallmarks of intelligent behavior. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Operationalizing multicultural training in doctoral programs and internships.

The purpose of this study was to describe an operational definition of multicultural training through dialogue with experts in the field via a modified Delphi method. A list of 91 experts was identified from their publication records during 1980–1991. Fifty-one of the identified experts (56%) elected to participate in this study. In Phase 1 of the study, the participants were sent an open-ended questionnaire that asked them to specify 10 attributes important for both doctoral programs and internships to be considered "multicultural." In Phase 2, the participants were asked to rank order the compiled list of the attributes according to perceived importance. The results of this investigation may provide guidance to doctoral programs and internships as they attempt to train multiculturally competent psychologists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of degree of expertise and objective task complexity on perceived task complexity and performance.

Research on expertise has shown that nonexperts may sometimes outperform experts. Some researchers have suggested that superior performance by experts depends on the match between the experts' cognition and the demands of the task. The authors explored this issue using a quasi-experiment set in an organization. They examined how 3 sets of similar tasks that differ in their type of complexity can lead to differences in task perceptions and performance among experts, intermediates, and novices. The results suggest that experts and novices pay attention to different aspects of a task and that this affects both their perceptions of task complexity (i.e., task analyzability and variability) and their performance on the task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Faking "chance" on the SVIB.

Are scores that fall within the so-called "chance" areas of certain occupational scales of the Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Men (SVIB) "easily obtainable by chance"? To answer this question, Ss were selected whose scores, under standard testing conditions, were either higher than chance, lower than chance, or in the chance area itself. These Ss were then instructed to "fake" directionally (in the direction of the chance area) and to "fake chance." The results indicated that Ss who can fake directionally cannot fake chance, even when the chance range is in the same direction as the one they have faked. It was concluded that rather than ignore scores within the chance area, it may be better to ignore the chance areas themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disulfide analysis reveals a role for macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) as thiol-protein oxidoreductase

The mere exposure effect is the increase in positive affect that results from the repeated exposure to previously novel stimuli. We sought to determine if judgments other than affective preference could reliably produce a mere exposure effect for two-dimensional random shapes. In two experiments, we found that brighter and darker judgments did not differentiate target from distracter shapes, liking judgments led to target selection greater than chance, and disliking judgments led to distracter selection greater than chance. These results for brighter, darker, and liking judgments were obtained regardless of whether shape recognition was greater (Experiment 1) or not greater (Experiment 2) than chance. Effects of prior exposure to novel shapes were reliably observed only for affective judgment tasks. These results are inconsistent with general predictions made by the nonspecific activation hypothesis, but not the affective primacy or perceptual fluency hypotheses which were discussed in terms of cognitive neuroscience research.     

Perceived contingency of skill and chance events: A developmental analysis.

60 kindergartners, 4th graders, and 8th graders and 32 college students took part in a game of chance and a game of skill. After each game, Ss predicted the winnings of other players who differed in certain attributes (e.g., IQ) and behavior (e.g., effort) that would influence only skill outcomes. On both chance and skill tasks, older Ss expected the variations in attributes and behavior to have less impact on task outcomes than did younger Ss. Older Ss were more adept at making predictions that reflected the contingency of skill and the noncontingency of chance. Kindergartners showed no ability to make the skill–chance distinction. Fourth graders were aware of the distinction at a gross qualitative level, but they were unaware of some of the most important logical implications of that distinction. Eighth graders and college students were aware of the skill–chance distinction and most of its logical implications, yet their predictions revealed a lingering belief that chance outcomes could be influenced slightly by variations in people's attributes and behavior. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Communication of emotional intent by facial expression.

An experiment to: (a) ascertain the extent to which college students (expressors) can convey to other students (judges) via facial expressions alone, their emotional intent and (b) determine some correlates of this enactment ability. 50 expressors portrayed 10 emotions to 4 judges. Results: (a) The expressors were all able to enact recognizably at levels better than chance, but there were considerable individual differences in this ability. (b) Happiness, love, fear, and determination were more often accurately recognized than disgust, contempt, and suffering. (c) For these enactments, the Woodworth-Schlosberg scale was found to contain 5 rather than 6 categories and was not circular. (d) Contrary to expectation, no personality correlates of enactment ability were found. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)