Opportunistic Avoidance of Litigation Loss Accruals and the Mitigating Effects of Auditors

We find that firms with preliminary earnings that are expected to just meet analyst forecasts are more likely to only disclose (i.e., not accrue) litigation loss contingencies, claiming that the litigation event falls below the qualitative thresholds necessitating accrual. We also find that this opportunistic treatment of a subjective estimate is reduced when firms’ auditors have expertise in the defendant’s industry or have experience auditing litigation contingencies. Furthermore, we find that opportunistic disclosure usage increases when firms are more economically important to auditors’ client portfolios. Our results are robust to a series of additional tests. We provide evidence to support the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board’s (PCAOB) call for increased auditor professional skepticism toward management bias and opportunism when evaluating subjective estimates.

Age differentiation of the perception of toponyms (based on the toponyms Uglich, Tutaev, Pereslavl-Zalessky)

The article examines the peculiarities of the language consciousness of the residents of the Yaroslavl region in the age aspect. The research is carried out on the material of the toponyms Uglich, Tutaev and Pereslavl-Zalessky . A psycholinguistic experiment was conducted, including these stimuli, according to its results, associative fields were compiled for each toponym for each age group separately. As a result of semantic interpretation of the obtained associative fields, all associative reactions are divided into semantic groups. The number of reactions for each semantic group is specified. As a result of a comparative analysis of the semantic groups formed during the interpretation of reactions to the toponym Uglich , common semantic groups were identified for all age categories: «Generic geographical name», «Connection with brands of products of various kinds». For the stimulus Tutaev such semantic groups become «Generic geographical name», «Emotions, experiences, subjective estimate, Indicating to the city of various kinds of objects», for the stimulus Pereslavl-Zalessky - «Generic geographical name», «Connection name of the city with natural objects», «Emotions, experiences, subjective estimate», «Indication of various types of urban objects», «The relationship with well-known personalities». In addition, for each toponym, unique semantic groups were identified that are characteristic of a certain age category.

The positive evidence bias in perceptual confidence is not post-decisional

Confidence in a perceptual decision is a subjective estimate of the accuracy of one’s choice. As such, confidence is thought to be an important computation for a variety of cognitive and perceptual processes, and it features heavily in theorizing about conscious access to perceptual states. Recent experiments have revealed a “positive evidence bias” (PEB) in the computations underlying confidence reports. A PEB occurs when confidence, unlike objective choice, over-weights the evidence for the chosen option, relative to evidence against the chosen option. Accordingly, in a perceptual task, appropriate stimulus conditions can be arranged that produce selective changes in confidence reports but no changes in accuracy. Although the PEB is generally assumed to reflect the observer’s perceptual and/or decision processes, post-decisional accounts have not been ruled out. We therefore asked whether the PEB persisted under novel conditions that eliminated two possible post-decisional accounts: 1) post-decision evidence accumulation that contributes to a confidence report solicited after the perceptual choice, and 2) a memory bias that emerges in the delay between the stimulus offset and the confidence report. We found that even when the stimulus remained on the screen until observers responded, and when observers reported their choice and confidence simultaneously, the PEB still emerged. Signal detection-based modeling also showed that the PEB was not associated with changes to metacognitive efficiency, but rather to confidence criteria. We conclude that once-plausible post-decisional accounts of the PEB do not explain the bias, bolstering the idea that it is perceptual or decisional in nature.

Mapping visual features onto numbers

Modern society frequently requires that we express our subjective senses in objective, shared formal systems; this entails mapping multiple internal variables onto a common scale. Here we ask whether we accomplish this feat in the case of estimating number by learning a single mapping between explicit numbers and one integrated subjective estimate of numerosity, or if we separately map different perceptual features onto numbers. We present people with arrays of dots and ask them to report how many dots there are; we rely on the systematic under/overestimation of number at higher quantities to estimate error in the mapping function. By comparing how this error changes over time, as the mapping fluctuates for different visual cues to numerosity, we can evaluate whether these cues share a single mapping, or are mapped onto number individually. We find that area, size, and density all share a common mapping, indicating that people obtain a unified subjective estimate of numerosity before mapping it onto the formal number line.

Confidence boosts serial dependence in orientation estimation

In the absence of external feedback, a decision maker must rely on a subjective estimate of their decision accuracy in order to appropriately guide behavior. Normative models of perceptual decision making relate subjective estimates of internal signal quality (e.g. confidence) directly to the internal signal quality itself, thereby making it unknowable whether the subjective estimate or the underlying signal is what drives behavior. We constructed stimuli that dissociated human observer’s performance on a visual estimation task from their subjective estimates of confidence in their performance, thus violating normative principles. To understand whether confidence influences future decision making, we examined serial dependence in observer’s responses, a phenomenon whereby the estimate of a stimulus on the current trial can be biased towards the stimulus from the previous trial. We found that when decisions were made with high confidence, they conferred stronger biases upon the following trial, suggesting that confidence may enhance serial dependence. Critically, this finding was true also when confidence was experimentally dissociated from task performance, indicating that subjective confidence, independent of signal quality, can amplify serial dependence. These findings demonstrate an effect of confidence on future behavior, independent of task performance, and suggest that perceptual decisions incorporate recent history in an uncertainty-weighted manner, but where the uncertainty carried forward is a subjectively estimated and possibly suboptimal readout of objective sensory uncertainty.

Neki aspekti načina suočavanja sa stresom u ratu

The aim of the research was to establish what were the strategies of coping with stress used by Croatian soldiers during the latest war and to what degree were anxiety, the subjective estimate of threat and some forms of exposure to war reliable predictors of the use these strategies. The research was carries out on 112 Croatian soldiers, between 19 and 41 yeais of age, who had actively participated for over six month on the battlefields of southern Dalmatia. Endler’s multidimensional scales of anxiety (EMAS-T and EMAS-S) were used to examine anxiety both as a trait and a state. Additionally, The Scale of Ways of Coping with Stress in Times of War, specifically constructed for the purpose of this project, were also applied. A factor analysis of the scale of coping with stress in times of war yielded six factors which were interpreted as: imaginings, isolation, evasion, seeking social support, repression and turning to the problem. On the basis of the results obtained through a graded regressive analysis it can be concluded that anxiety on the whole has a lesser predictive validity then the subjective estimate of threat and some forms of exposure to war.

Coherent representations of subjective spatial position in primary visual cortex and hippocampus

A major role of vision is to guide navigation, and navigation is strongly driven by vision1-4. Indeed, the brain’s visual and navigational systems are known to interact5, 6, and signals related to position in the environment have been suggested to appear as early as in visual cortex6, 7. To establish the nature of these signals we recorded in primary visual cortex (V1) and in the CA1 region of the hippocampus while mice traversed a corridor in virtual reality. The corridor contained identical visual landmarks in two positions, so that a purely visual neuron would respond similarly in those positions. Most V1 neurons, however, responded solely or more strongly to the landmarks in one position. This modulation of visual responses by spatial location was not explained by factors such as running speed. To assess whether the modulation is related to navigational signals and to the animal’s subjective estimate of position, we trained the mice to lick for a water reward upon reaching a reward zone in the corridor. Neuronal populations in both CA1 and V1 encoded the animal’s position along the corridor, and the errors in their representations were correlated. Moreover, both representations reflected the animal’s subjective estimate of position, inferred from the animal’s licks, better than its actual position. Indeed, when animals licked in a given location – whether correct or incorrect – neural populations in both V1 and CA1 placed the animal in the reward zone. We conclude that visual responses in V1 are tightly controlled by navigational signals, which are coherent with those encoded in hippocampus, and reflect the animal’s subjective position in the environment. The presence of such navigational signals as early as in a primary sensory area suggests that these signals permeate sensory processing in the cortex.