A guaranteed immediate payout reduces impatience of financially constrained individuals

A large stream of literature found that individuals who experience financial strain are particularly concerned about their present needs—that is, they are more likely to choose smaller immediate payoffs over larger future payoffs. In contrast, some recent findings suggest that financially constrained individuals may be more concerned about future needs instead (e.g., they are relatively more likely to invest in long-lived durables than in short-lived experiences). We propose that the use of traditional intertemporal choice tasks has made prior studies overly sensitive to the myopia-inducing effects of financial constraint. These tasks typically offer a choice between receiving a smaller payoff in the present versus a larger payoff in the future. Across three studies, we observe that, as long as some immediate payout is guaranteed, financially constrained individuals are as likely as nonconstrained individuals to accept a delay for a larger payoff. These findings qualify prior demonstrations of the myopic effects of financial constraint and suggest that the traditionally used choice paradigm might not accurately capture time preferences, particularly for financially constrained individuals. Furthermore, they provide possible interventions for those interested in reducing the myopia of financially constrained individuals who are facing all now versus all later decisions.

Who should get the scarce ICU bed? The US public’s view on triage in the time of COVID-19

ObjectiveTo determine the relative importance members of the US public place on different patient attributes in triage decisions about who should receive the last available intensive care unit (ICU) bed.MethodsA discrete choice experiment was conducted with a nationally representative sample of 2000 respondents from the YouGov internet panel of US households. Respondents chose which of three hypothetical patients with COVID-19 should receive an ICU bed if only one were available. The three patients differed in age, gender, Alzheimer’s-like disability and probability of survival if the patient received the ICU bed. An experimental design varied the values of the four attributes of the three hypothetical patients with COVID-19 that a respondent saw in four choice tasks.ResultsThe most important patient attribute to respondents was the probability the patient survives COVID-19 if they get the ICU bed (OR CI: 4.41 to 6.91). There was heterogeneity among different age groups of respondents about how much age of the patient mattered. Respondents under 30 years of age were more likely to choose young patients and old patients, and less likely to select patients aged 40–60 years old. For respondents in the age group 30–49 years old, as the age of the patient declined, their preference for saving the patient declined modestly in a linear fashion.ConclusionsRespondents favoured giving the last ICU bed available to the patient with the highest probability of surviving COVID-19. Public opinion suggests a simple guideline for physician choices based on likelihood of survival as opposed to the number of life-years saved. There was heterogeneity among respondents of different age groups for allocating the last ICU bed, as well as to the importance of the patient having an Alzheimer’s-like disability (where religion of the respondent is important) and the gender of the patient (where the gender and racial identity are important).

Can process accountability mitigate myopic biases? An experimental analysis

This paper examines the impact of process accountability on two biases causing myopic or short-sighted decision making. These biases are strong preferences for immediate and certain outcomes known as delay and risk aversion. We hypothesize that accountability alone is insufficient to undo the biases, but if coupled with a cue on subjective discount rates, it will attenuate biases. To analyze our research question, we used a within- and between-subjects experimental design (two accountability conditions compared with a non-accountability condition and with each other) with delay and probability discounting choice tasks involving 118 students of accounting, finance and management in an online experiment. In line with our hypotheses, we find that process accountability successfully reduces excessive delay and risk aversion only if it provides a cue about the subjective discount rate. We discuss the implications of our findings for management control.

EXPRESS: The More You Ask, the Less You Get: When Additional Questions Hurt External Validity

Researchers and practitioners in marketing, economics, and public policy often use preference elicitation tasks to forecast real-world behaviors. These tasks typically ask a series of similarly-structured questions. The authors posit that every time a respondent answers an additional elicitation question, two things happen: (1) they provide information about some parameter(s) of interest, such as their time preference or the partworth for a product attribute, and (2) the respondent increasingly adapts to the task—i.e., using task-specific decision processes specialized for this task that may or may not apply to other tasks. Importantly, adaptation comes at the cost of potential mismatch between the task-specific decision process and real-world processes that generate the target behaviors, such that asking more questions can reduce external validity. The authors used mouse- and eye-tracking to trace decision processes in time preference measurement and conjoint choice tasks: Respondents increasingly relied on task-specific decision processes as more questions were asked, leading to reduced external validity for both related tasks and real-world behaviors. Importantly, the external validity of measured preferences peaked after as few as seven questions in both types of tasks. When measuring preferences, less can be more.

Switching costs in stochastic environments drive the emergence of matching behaviour in animal decision-making through the promotion of reward learning strategies

A principle of choice in animal decision-making named probability matching (PM) has long been detected in animals, and can arise from different decision-making strategies. Little is known about how environmental stochasticity may influence the switching time of these different decision-making strategies. Here we address this problem using a combination of behavioral and theoretical approaches, and show, that although a simple Win-Stay-Loss-Shift (WSLS) strategy can generate PM in binary-choice tasks theoretically, budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulates) actually apply a range of sub-tactics more often when they are expected to make more accurate decisions. Surprisingly, budgerigars did not get more rewards than would be predicted when adopting a WSLS strategy, and their decisions also exhibited PM. Instead, budgerigars followed a learning strategy based on reward history, which potentially benefits individuals indirectly from paying lower switching costs. Furthermore, our data suggest that more stochastic environments may promote reward learning through significantly less switching. We suggest that switching costs driven by the stochasticity of an environmental niche can potentially represent an important selection pressure associated with decision-making that may play a key role in driving the evolution of complex cognition in animals.

Why-questions and focus in Italian

In this study we argue that the appropriateness of an answer to a why-question, potentially bearing on multiple contrast classes, is mainly influenced by the focalized argument, which identifies the relevant reference set. The focalization structure, however, interacts in a non-trivial way with the thematic structure and its accessibility, suggesting a general (independent) prominence of the direct object (DO) over the indirect one (IO). In correlation to that, we also observed that DO appears more resistant to extraction compared to IO, while it seems felicitous in a post-IO focalized low position (light NP-shifting). These contrasts are obtained by running five distinct experiments in Italian targeting various dislocation configurations: Four forced choice tasks manipulating leftward dislocation (i) clefting versus (ii) fronting versus (iii) clitic left dislocation and (iv) postverbal reordering (canonical DO IO order vs. IO DO) in ditransitive predicates. Then (v) an acceptability judgment study was administered to assess the difficulty in figuring out a licensing context coherent with the argument ordering, provided in the why-question. To minimize the interacting factors, all sentences included null subjects and a context was provided for each experimental item in the forced choice tasks, introducing the relevant contrast classes.

Measuring (online) word segmentation in adults and children

Since Saffran, Aslin and Newport (1996) showed that infants were sensitive to transitional probabilities between syllables after being exposed to a few minutes of fluent speech, there has been ample research on statistical learning. Word segmentation studies usually test learning by making use of “offline methods” such as forced-choice tasks. However, cognitive factors besides statistical learning possibly influence performance on those tasks. The goal of the present study was to improve a method for measuring word segmentation online. Click sounds were added to the speech stream, both between words and within words. Stronger expectations for the next syllable within words as opposed to between words were expected to result in slower detection of clicks within words, revealing sensitivity to word boundaries. Unexpectedly, we did not find evidence for learning in multiple groups of adults and child participants. We discuss possible methodological factors that could have influenced our results.

Resolução anafórica em português europeu L2: efeitos de animacidade e a posição do antecedente

This study investigates the interpretation of subject pronouns in L2 EP by Italian native speakers, to examine the following questions: In overt subject resolution, do L1 Italian - L2 European Portuguese learners behave like L1 EP speakers regarding antecedent animacy (a property at the syntax-semantics interface) at L2 developmental stages and at the near-native level?; When the antecedent in object position is animate, do L1 Italian - L2 EP learners exhibit permanent optionality in the interpretation of overt subject pronouns but not of null subjects, as claimed by Sorace (2016), a.o.? Participants were 15 adult EP native speakers, 10 intermediate, 10 advanced and 10 near-native Italian adult learners of L2 EP. They were administered two multiple-choice tasks (speeded and untimed) with a 2x2 design crossing the following variables: animacy of the matrix object (animate vs. inanimate) and type of embedded pronominal subject (overt vs. null). Results indicate that L2 learners show problems only in the areas where the L1 and the L2 differ (Madeira, Fiéis & Teixeira, this volume), namely: the resolution of overt subjects in the presence of [-animate] object antecedent and the resolution of null subjects. Learners’ performance in these areas remains unstable even at the near-native level. These findings challenge the ideas that internal interfaces (syntax/semantics) are not persistently problematic and that null subjects are unproblematic in L2 anaphora resolution (cf. Sorace, 2011, 2016). They moreover point to the importance of L1 influence in L2 anaphora resolution, a factor generally played down in previous studies (e.g., Sorace, 2016).

Microvariação na resolução de sujeitos pronominais: português europeu vs. italiano

The present study investigates the resolution of null and overt subject pronouns in intrasentential contexts, considering the role of animacy in antecedent assignment. Participants were 15 native speakers of EP and 14 of Italian. Each language group was administered two multiple choice tasks (speeded and untimed), which had a 2x2 design, crossing the following variables: animacy of the matrix object (animate vs. inanimate) and type of pronominal embedded subject (overt vs. null). Results indicate that there is microvariation in the resolution of overt pronominal subjects in EP and in Italian: the position of the antecedent is the most relevant factor in EP, whereas, in Italian, the animacy of the antecedent is the preponderant factor. Results also show that there is microvariation in the resolution of null subjects (contra previous claims in the literature): the bias for subject antecedents is weaker in Italian than in EP. Possible reasons for the observed microvariation are discussed in detail.

Reactive Task Performance Under Varying Loads in Division I Collegiate Soccer Athletes

This study was conducted to identify whether team-wide or positional differences exist in simple or choice reactivity of collegiate soccer athletes when completed under various loads. Much research exists surrounding the assessment of reaction time in the general population, but given variations in training, little insight exists surrounding how unique and elite populations may differ based upon performance demands and task translatability to training. Reactive performance was assessed using the Dynavision D2 in 24 female soccer players (19.73 ± 1.05 years old) from a team within a power five conference of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Evaluated loads included two conditions of simple reactivity (no additional load and with a concurrent lower body motor task) and three conditions of choice reactivity (no additional load, with a concurrent lower body motor task, and prolonged durations). Paired t-tests and ANOVAs were used to identify differences in task performance based upon load and positional group. No significant load-based or positional differences existed in measured simple reaction times. Performances in choice reaction tasks across the team were found to be slower when completed across extended durations (p < 0.0001) and faster when completed concurrent with an added balance task (p = 0.0108), as compared to performance under normal conditions. By assessment of positional differences, goalkeepers tended to be slower than other positions in reactivity during choice tasks, despite no differences existing in simple task performance. Given the unique population utilized herein, measured reactivity in different tasks suggests a strong relation to the training demands of soccer, as well as those of goalkeepers as compared to field positions. Findings suggest that sport and positional demands may be substantial contributors to population- and individual-based reactivity performance.