Visual pursuit biases tactile velocity perception

During a smooth pursuit eye movement of a target stimulus, a briefly flashed stationary background appears to move in the opposite direction as the eye's motion ― an effect known as the Filehne illusion. Similar illusions occur in audition, in the vestibular system, and in touch. Recently, we found that the movement of a surface perceived from tactile slip was biased if this surface was sensed with the hand. This suggests a common process of motion perception between the eye and the hand. In the present study, we further assessed the interplay between these effectors by investigating a novel paradigm that associated an eye pursuit with a tactile motion over the skin of the fingertip. We showed that smooth pursuit eye movements can bias the perceived direction of motion in touch. Similarly to the classical report from the Filehne illusion in vision, a static tactile surface was perceived as moving rightward with a leftward pursuit eye movement, and vice versa. However, this time the direction of surface motion was perceived from touch. The biasing effects of eye pursuit on tactile motion were modulated by the reliability of the tactile and visual estimates, as predicted by a Bayesian model of motion perception. Overall, these results support a modality- and effector-independent process with common representations for motion perception.

Trial by Tabloid: Can Implicit Bias Education Reduce Pretrial Publicity Bias?

The Western District of Washington recently developed an educational video to reduce jurors’ implicit biases. Little is known regarding the effectiveness of this proposed remedy to address a range of implicit biases. This study tested whether this educational video reduces pretrial publicity (PTP) bias. A total of 330 undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to read PTP or unrelated articles. An average of 9 days later, they were randomly assigned to watch the educational video prior to viewing a murder trial. Those exposed to PTP were more likely to convict and found the defendant more culpable and less credible. The educational video did not reduce PTP bias. A more tailored debiasing strategy may be needed to overcome the biasing effects of PTP. Differences in legal decisions also emerged depending on whether participants completed the second phase in-person or online, which has implications for future data collection modes.

Trial by Tabloid: Can Implicit Bias Education Reduce Pretrial Publicity Bias?

The Western District of Washington recently developed an educational video to reduce jurors’ implicit biases. Little is known regarding the effectiveness of this proposed remedy to address a range of implicit biases. The current study tested whether this educational video reduces pretrial publicity (PTP) bias. A total of 330 undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to read PTP or unrelated articles. An average of nine days later, they were randomly assigned to watch the educational video prior to viewing a murder trial. Those exposed to PTP were more likely to convict (OR = 3.20, 95% CI [1.95, 5.25]) and found the defendant more culpable (d = .64, 95% CI [.42, .86]) and less credible (d = -.33, 95% CI [-.55, .11]). The educational video did not reduce PTP bias. A more tailored debiasing strategy may be needed to overcome the biasing effects of PTP. Differences in legal decisions also emerged depending on whether participants completed the second phase in person or online, which has implications for future data collection modes.

Slowing the Body slows down Time (Perception)

Interval timing is a fundamental component of action, and is susceptible to motor-related temporal distortions. Previous studies have shown that concurrent movement biases temporal estimates, but have primarily considered self-modulated movement only. However, real-world encounters often include situations in which movement is restricted or perturbed by environmental factors. In the following experiments, we introduced viscous movement environments to externally modulate movement and investigated the resulting effects on temporal perception. In two separate tasks, participants timed auditory intervals while moving a robotic arm that randomly applied four levels of viscosity. Results demonstrated that higher viscosity led to shorter perceived durations. Using a drift-diffusion model and a Bayesian observer model, we confirmed these biasing effects arose from perceptual mechanisms, instead of biases in decision making. These findings suggest that environmental perturbations are an important factor in movement-related temporal distortions, and enhance the current understanding of the interactions of motor activity and cognitive processes.

The impact of measurement error in models using police recorded crime rates

Objectives: Assess the extent to which measurement error in police recorded crime rates impact the estimates of regression models exploring the causes and consequences of crime.Methods: We focus on linear models where crime rates are included either as the response or as an explanatory variable, in their original scale, or log-transformed. Two measurement error mechanisms are considered, systematic errors in the form of under-recorded crime, and random errors in the form of recording inconsistencies across areas. The extent to which such measurement error mechanisms impact model parameters is demonstrated algebraically, using formal notation, and graphically, using simulations.Results: Most coefficients and measures of uncertainty from models where crime rates are included in their original scale are severely biased. However, in many cases, this problem could be minimised, or altogether eliminated by log-transforming crime rates. This transforms the multiplicative measurement error observed in police recorded crime rates into a less harmful additive mechanism.Conclusions: The validity of findings from regression models where police recorded crime rates are used in their original scale is put into question. In interpreting the large evidence base exploring the effects and consequences of crime using police statistics we urge researchers to consider the biasing effects shown here. Equally, we urge researchers to log-transform crime rates before they are introduced in statistical models.

Incorporating Polygenic Risk Scores in the ACE Twin Model to Estimate A–C Covariance

The assumption in the twin model that genotypic and environmental variables are uncorrelated is primarily made to ensure parameter identification, not because researchers necessarily think that these variables are uncorrelated. Although the biasing effects of such correlations are well understood, a method to estimate these parameters in the twin model would be useful. Here we explore the possibility of relaxing this assumption by adding polygenic scores to the (univariate) twin model. We demonstrate that this extension renders the additive genetic (A)—common environmental (C) covariance (σAC) identified. We study the statistical power to reject σAC = 0 in the ACE model and present the results of simulations.

Is the Word "Consumer" Biasing Trademark Law?

Our trademark law uses the term “consumer” constantly, reflexively, and unconsciously to label the subject of its purpose—the purchasing public. According to the U.S. Supreme Court, trademark law has “a specialized mission: to help consumers identify goods and services they wish to purchase, as well as those they want to avoid.” As one leading commentator puts it, “trademarks are a property of consumers’ minds,” and “the consumer, we are led to believe, is the measure of all things in trademark law.” Much criticism has been rightly levied against trademark law’s treatment of the consumer as passive, ignorant, and gullible. For instance, consumers are seen as requiring protection from any and all marketplace confusion and have no standing to sue under the Lanham Act. However, that a contributing factor to such treatment could be the linguistic bias stemming from the law’s label of the buying public as mere consumers—rather than, for instance, “citizens,” “persons,” “individuals,” or “humans”—has not, until now, been directly addressed. This Article urges those involved in trademark and advertising law—e.g., judges, lawyers, lawmakers, and scholars—to rethink our ubiquitous use of the derogatory consumer label. To this end, the Article first explores “consumer” as a dehumanizing, anti-ecological, and nonsensical metaphor for “one that utilizes economic goods.” It then examines social psychology experiments finding that use of “consumer” has potentially deleterious effects for society given the negative stereotypes that it engenders as a social categorization. The Article claims, by extension, that the implicit linguistic bias inherent in consumer rhetoric might contribute to trademark law defining the public in a manner that is patronizing, biased, insulting, and indulgent of likelihood-of- confusion claims. The Article suggests that we either work to phase out the “consumer” label and replace it with more appropriate terminology (e.g., “citizen”), or at least pause to acknowledge the word’s potentially biasing effects.

The Interactive Effect of Time Pressure and Client Preference on Tax Professionals' Information Search Emphasis, Judgments, and Recommendations

ABSTRACT Tax professionals commonly search large databases of information to identify tax authority necessary to provide compliance and planning advice to clients. Prior research indicates tax professionals' information search processes are subject to confirmation bias in the direction of client preferences and that this bias can lead professionals to make overly aggressive recommendations. However, very little is known about how time pressure may affect tax professionals' judgment and decision-making processes. This study contributes to practice and to the time pressure and decision bias literatures by providing theory and evidence that increasing time pressure leads to confirmation bias during tax information search and that time pressure enhanced confirmation bias affects recommendations through professionals' assessments of the evidential support for the client-preferred position. With an understanding of how time pressure can influence confirmation bias in information search, professionals and their firms can take steps to manage time pressure and its potential biasing effects.

Snacking Around the World

Social media platforms enable access to large image sets for research, but there are few if any non-theoretical approaches to image analysis, categorization, and coding. Based on two image sets labeled by the #snack hashtag (on Instagram), a systematic and open inductive approach to identifying conceptual image categories was developed, and unique research questions designed. By systematically categorizing imagery in a bottom-up way, researchers may (1) describe and assess the image set contents and categorize them in multiple ways independent of a theoretical framework (and its potential biasing effects); (2) conceptualize what may be knowable from the image set by the defining of research questions that may be addressed in the empirical data; (3) categorize the available imagery broadly and in multiple ways as a precursor step to further exploration (e.g., research design, image coding, and development of a research codebook). This work informs the exploration and analysis of mobile-created contents for open learning.