Understanding the Psychological Perspective of Political Trust in Indonesia Context

Political trust, conceptually understood as a trust in politics, refers to the positive expectation from the citizen that the government, as an institution leader, will deliver citizen’s best interest through policies and regulations. Political trust is considered as one of the indicators that mark legitimation of existing government in addition to the result from election. Trust in politics is a fundamental element that can connect government and citizens for which benefit policies acceptance and avoid political conflict. The dynamic interaction between government and citizens is the most valuable aspect in democracy, of which the government, as the highest administrator, carries aspiration from the public. For Indonesia, a democratic country with its uniqueness in culture, it is crucial to investigate factors that might contribute as the dimensions of political trust. Such comprehensive understanding can inform the betterment of the democratic practices in Indonesia towards a more robust democracy. In this review study, the author analyzed political trust from a psychological perspective and proposes four basic dimensions to understand political trust from Indonesian perspective. These are cultural dimension, gender dimension, subjective preference dimension, and performance dimension.

Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the subjective value of information

Humans have a striking desire to actively seek new information, even when it is devoid of any instrumental utility. However, the mechanisms that drive individuals’ subjective preference for information remain unclear. Here, we used fMRI to examine the processing of subjective information value, by having participants decide how much effort they were willing to trade-off for non-instrumental information. We showed that choices were best described by a model that accounted for: (1) the variability in individuals’ estimates of uncertainty, (2) their desire to reduce that uncertainty, and (3) their subjective preference for positively valenced information. Model-based analyses revealed the anterior cingulate as a key node that encodes the subjective value of information across multiple stages of decision-making – including when information was prospectively valued, and when the outcome was definitively delivered. These findings emphasise the multidimensionality of information value, and reveal the neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the variability in individuals’ desire to physically pursue informative outcomes.

Gaze correlates of view preference: Comparing natural and urban scenes

When looking out of a window, natural views are usually associated with restorative qualities and are given a higher preference than urban scenes. Previous research has shown that gaze behaviour might differ based on the natural or urban content of views. A lower number of fixations has been associated with the aesthetic evaluation of natural scenes while, when looking at an urban environment, a high preference has been correlated with more exploratory gaze behaviours. To characterise gaze correlates of view preference across natural and urban scenes, we collected and analysed experimental data featuring subjective preference ratings, eye-tracking measures, verbal reasoning associated with preference and nature relatedness scores. Consistent with the literature, our results confirm that natural scenes are more preferred than urban views and that gaze behaviours depend on view type and preference. Observing natural scenes was characterised by lower numbers of fixations and saccades, and longer fixation durations, compared to urban views. However, for both view types, most preferred scenes led to more fixations and saccades. Our findings also showed that nature relatedness may be correlated with visual exploration of scenes. Individual preferences and personality attributes, therefore, should be accounted for in studies on view preference and gaze behaviour.

Visual exploration in adults: Habituation, mere exposure, or optimal level of arousal?

Exploration is one of the most powerful behaviours that drive learning from infancy to adulthood. The aim of the current study was to examine the role of novelty and subjective preference in visual exploration. To do this, we combined a visual exploration task with a subjective evaluation task, presenting novel and familiar pictures. The first goal was to ascertain whether, as demonstrated in babies, short habituation favors visual exploration of familiarity, whereas longer habituation leads to an exploration of novelty. The second goal was to evaluate the influence of familiarization on participants’ subjective evaluation of the stimuli. When presented with novel and very familiar stimuli, participants explored the novel stimuli more. In line with the optimal-level of arousal model, participants showed more positive evaluations of the semi-familiar stimuli compared with very familiar or very novel ones.

CommentsADR and Public Values Again

This comment revisits a long-standing debate about alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and public values. In Against Settlement, Fiss argued that ADR would undermine popular commitments to “public values” (1984). For Fiss, public values are moral truths about rights, justice, and social cohesion that all who comprise “the public” should want to uphold, and which the state is obligated to enforce. Fiss distinguished public values from subjective preference, or what any one individual actually desires. He submitted that by resolving disputes according to individual preference, ADR would replace public values with individual interests and replace state power with private social ordering. Hence, Fiss declared himself against settlement....

Game Theory in Pragmatics

Game theoretic approaches to pragmatics characterize pragmatic inference as a product of interlocutors’ reasoning about their own and others’ possible linguistic choices. These choices are a function of their preferences over communicative outcomes. They are a product of what is communicated and how it is communicated, sometimes also factoring in beliefs about others’ preferences and beliefs. For instance, a speaker may prefer to bring a message across in a polite manner rather than in a more straightforward one, or succinctness may be preferred over long-windedness. At a more fundamental level, a speaker’s goal may be to convey his or her beliefs truthfully, or, the goal may be to deceive one’s audience. Hearers can have other, possibly opposed, preferences. Such subjective preference measures—captured by so-called utility functions—can thereby characterize a wide array of communicative scenarios, ranging from fully cooperative ones to ones with conflicts of interest. They also do away with the need to explicitly formulate conversational principles. Instead, pragmatic inference is directly rooted in interlocutors’ preferences and beliefs. Another cornerstone of game-theoretic approaches to pragmatics is that they often make the degree of mutual reasoning that interlocutors engage in explicit. While the simplest reasoners take only themselves as their reference point, more sophisticated ones iteratively reason about their partner’s choices and reasoning. A final key component common to these approaches is that they take a stance on interlocutors’ rationality: the degree to which they care about matters such as communicative success or manner. While some approaches assume full rationality, with interlocutors always acting according to what best fulfills their preferences, others weaken this assumption to allow for deviations. This makes them particularly suitable to predict and inform empirical data.

Use of Emotional and Neutral Speech in Evaluating Compression Speeds

Background Emotional speech differs from neutral speech in its envelope characteristics. Use of emotional speech materials may be more sensitive for evaluating signal processing algorithms that affect the temporal envelope. Purpose Subjective listener preference was compared between variable speed compression (VSC) and fast acting compression (FAC) amplitude compression algorithms using neutral and emotional speech. Research Design The study used a single-blinded, repeated measures design. Study Sample Twenty hearing-impaired (HI) listeners with a bilaterally symmetrical, mild- to-moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss and 21 listeners with normal hearing (NH) participated. Intervention Speech was processed using FAC and VSC algorithms. Data Collection and Analysis A paired-comparison paradigm assessed subjective preference for FAC versus VSC using emotional and neutral speech materials. The significance of subjective preference for compression algorithm (FAC or VSC) was evaluated using a linear mixed effects model at each combination of stimulus type (emotional or neutral speech) and hearing group (NH or HI). Results HI listeners showed a preference for VSC over FAC when listening to emotional speech. The same listeners showed a nonsignificant, preference for VSC over FAC when listening to neutral speech. NH listeners showed preference for VSC over FAC for both neutral and emotional speech materials. Conclusion These results suggest that the subjective sound quality of emotional speech is more susceptible than neutral speech to changes in the signal introduced by FAC. Clinicians should consider including emotional speech materials when evaluating listener preference for different compression speeds in the clinic.