Weak and Variable Effects of Exogenous Testosterone on Cognitive Reflection Test Performance in Three Experiments: Commentary on Nave, Nadler, Zava, and Camerer (2017).
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Knight EL
PROVIDER: S-EPMC7492725 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Participants from public participant panels, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, are shared across many labs and participate in many studies during their panel tenure. Here, I demonstrate direct and indirect downstream consequences of frequent exposure in three studies (N 1-3 = 3, 660), focusing on the cognitive reflection test (CRT), one of the most frequently used cognitive measures in online research. Study 1 explored several variants of the signature bat-and-ball item in samples recruited from Mechanical Turk. Panel tenure was shown to impact responses to both the original and merely similar items. Solution rates were not found to be higher than in a commercial online panel with less exposure to the CRT (Qualtrics panels, n = 1, 238). In Study 2, an alternative test with transformed numeric values showed higher correlations with validation measures than the original test. Finally, Study 3 investigated sources of item familiarity and measured performance on novel lure items.
| S-EPMC6909056 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This paper studies performance predictions in the 7-item Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) and whether they differ by gender. After participants completed the CRT, they predicted their own (i), the other participants' (ii), men's (iii), and women's (iv) number of correct answers. In keeping with existing literature, men scored higher on the CRT than women and both men and women were too optimistic about their own performance. When we compare gender-specific predictions, we observe that men think they perform significantly better than other men and do so significantly more than women. The equality between women's predictions about their own performance and their female peers cannot be rejected. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on the underpinnings of behavior in economics and in psychology by uncovering gender differences in confidence about one's ability relative to same and opposite sex peers.
| S-EPMC5089055 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is a measure of analytical reasoning that cues an intuitive but incorrect response that must be rejected for successful performance to be attained. The CRT yields two types of errors: Intuitive errors, which are attributed to Type 1 processes; and non-intuitive errors, which result from poor numeracy skills or deficient reasoning. Past research shows that participants who commit the highest numbers of errors on the CRT overestimate their performance the most, whereas those with the lowest error-rates tend to slightly underestimate. This is an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE). The present study examined how intuitive vs. non-intuitive errors contribute to overestimation in the CRT at different levels of performance. Female undergraduate students completed a seven-item CRT test and subsequently estimated their raw score. They also filled out the Faith in Intuition (FI) questionnaire, which is a dispositional measure of intuitive thinking. Data was separated into quartiles based on level of performance on the CRT. The results demonstrated the DKE. Additionally, intuitive and non-intuitive errors predicted miscalibration among low, but not high performers. However, intuitive errors were a stronger predictor of miscalibration. Finally, FI was positively correlated with CRT self-estimates and miscalibration, indicating that participants who perceived themselves to be more intuitive were worse at estimating their score. These results taken together suggest that participants who perform poorly in the CRT and also those who score higher in intuitive thinking disposition are more susceptible to the influences of heuristic-based cues, such as answer fluency, when judging their performance.
| S-EPMC8060648 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A single beam one-step holographic interferometry method was developed to fabricate porous polymer structures with controllable pore size and location to produce compact graded photonic bandgap structures for linear variable optical filters. This technology is based on holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystal materials. By introducing a forced internal reflection, the optical reflection throughout the visible spectral region, from blue to red, is high and uniform. In addition, the control of the bandwidth of the reflection resonance, related to the light intensity and spatial porosity distributions, was investigated to optimize the optical performance. The development of portable and inexpensive personal health-care and environmental multispectral sensing/imaging devices will be possible using these filters.
| S-EPMC3985781 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Interactions with natural environments and nature-related stimuli have been found to be beneficial to cognitive performance, in particular on executive cognitive tasks with high demands on directed attention processes. However, results vary across different studies. The aim of the present paper was to evaluate the effects of nature vs. urban environments on cognitive performance across all of our published and new/unpublished studies testing the effects of different interactions with nature vs. urban/built control environments, on an executive-functioning test with high demands on directed attention-the backwards digit span (BDS) task. Specific aims in this study were to: (1) evaluate the effect of nature vs. urban environment interactions on BDS across different exposure types (e.g., real-world vs. artificial environments/stimuli); (2) disentangle the effects of testing order (i.e., effects caused by the order in which experimental conditions are administered) from the effects of the environment interactions, and (3) test the (mediating) role of affective changes on BDS performance. To this end, data from 13 experiments are presented, and pooled data-analyses are performed. Results from the pooled data-analyses (N = 528 participants) showed significant time-by-environment interactions with beneficial effects of nature compared to urban environments on BDS performance. There were also clear interactions with the order in which environment conditions were tested. Specifically, there were practice effects across environment conditions in first sessions. Importantly, after parceling out initial practice effects, the positive effects of nature compared to urban interactions on BDS performance were magnified. Changes in positive or negative affect did not mediate the beneficial effects of nature on BDS performance. These results are discussed in relation to the findings of other studies identified in the literature. Uncontrolled and confounding order effects (i.e., effects due to the order of experimental conditions, rather than the treatment conditions) may explain some of the inconsistent findings across studies in the literature on nature effects on cognitive performance. In all, these results highlight the robustness of the effects of natural environments on cognition, particularly when confounding order effects have been considered, and provide a more nuanced account of when a nature intervention will be most effective.
| S-EPMC6616085 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We provide a comprehensive picture of magnetotransport in graphene monolayers in the limit of nonquantizing magnetic fields. We discuss the effects of two-carrier transport, weak localization, weak antilocalization, and strong localization for graphene devices of various mobilities, through theory, experiments, and numerical simulations. In particular, we observe a minimum in the weak localization and strong localization length reminiscent of the minimum in the conductivity, which allows us to make the connection between weak and strong localization. This provides a unified framework for both localizations, which explains the observed experimental features. We compare these results to numerical simulation and find a remarkable agreement between theory, experiment, and numerics. Various graphene devices were used in this study, including graphene on different substrates, such as glass and silicon, as well as low and high mobility devices.
| S-EPMC4070409 | biostudies-other
Project description:Variable screening has emerged as a crucial first step in the analysis of high-throughput data, but existing procedures can be computationally cumbersome, difficult to justify theoretically, or inapplicable to certain types of analyses. Motivated by a high-dimensional censored quantile regression problem in multiple myeloma genomics, this article makes three contributions. First, we establish a score test-based screening framework, which is widely applicable, extremely computationally efficient, and relatively simple to justify. Secondly, we propose a resampling-based procedure for selecting the number of variables to retain after screening according to the principle of reproducibility. Finally, we propose a new iterative score test screening method which is closely related to sparse regression. In simulations we apply our methods to four different regression models and show that they can outperform existing procedures. We also apply score test screening to an analysis of gene expression data from multiple myeloma patients using a censored quantile regression model to identify high-risk genes.
| S-EPMC4427573 | biostudies-other
Project description:Testosterone affects human social behavior in various ways. While testosterone effects are generally associated with muscular strength and aggressiveness, human studies also point towards enhanced status-seeking motives after testosterone administration. The current study tested the causal influence of exogenous testosterone on male behavior during a competitive provocation paradigm. In this double blind, randomized, placebo (PL)-controlled study, 103 males were assigned to a PL or testosterone group receiving a colorless PL or testosterone gel. To induce provocation, males played a rigged reaction time game against an ostensible opponent. When participants lost, the opponent subtracted money from the participant who in return could subtract money from the ostensible opponent. Participants subjectively indicated anger and self-estimated treatment affiliation (testosterone or PL administration). A trial-by-trial analysis demonstrated that provocation and success during the repeated games had a stronger influence on participants' choice to reduce money from the opponent if they had received testosterone. Participants who believed to be in the testosterone group were angrier after the experiment and increased monetary reductions during the task course. In line with theories about mechanisms of testosterone in humans, provocation is shown to be necessary for the agency of exogenous testosterone. Thus, testosterone reinforces the conditional adjustment of aggressive behavior but not aggressive behavior per se. In contrast undirected frustration is not increased by testosterone but probably interferes with cognitive appraisals about biological mechanisms of testosterone.
| S-EPMC5840258 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We investigate the relationship between individual differences in cognitive reflection and behavior on the social media platform Twitter, using a convenience sample of N = 1,901 individuals from Prolific. We find that people who score higher on the Cognitive Reflection Test-a widely used measure of reflective thinking-were more discerning in their social media use, as evidenced by the types and number of accounts followed, and by the reliability of the news sources they shared. Furthermore, a network analysis indicates that the phenomenon of echo chambers, in which discourse is more likely with like-minded others, is not limited to politics: people who scored lower in cognitive reflection tended to follow a set of accounts which are avoided by people who scored higher in cognitive reflection. Our results help to illuminate the drivers of behavior on social media platforms and challenge intuitionist notions that reflective thinking is unimportant for everyday judgment and decision-making.
| S-EPMC7875970 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Evidence indicates that hormones modulate the intensity of maternal care. Oxytocin is known for its positive influence on maternal behavior and its important role for childbirth. In contrast, testosterone promotes egocentric choices and reduces empathy. Further, testosterone decreases during parenthood which could be an adaptation to increased parental investment. The present study investigated the interaction between testosterone and oxytocin in attentional control and their influence on attention to baby schema in women. Higher endogenous testosterone was expected to decrease selective attention to child portraits in a face-in-the-crowd-paradigm, while oxytocin was expected to counteract this effect. As predicted, women with higher salivary testosterone were slower in orienting attention to infant targets in the context of adult distractors. Interestingly, reaction times to infant and adult stimuli decreased after oxytocin administration, but only in women with high endogenous testosterone. These results suggest that oxytocin may counteract the adverse effects of testosterone on a central aspect of social behavior and maternal caretaking.
| S-EPMC5115757 | biostudies-literature