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Delusion is an important feature of schizophrenia, which may stem from cognitive biases. Working memory (WM) is the core foundation of cognition, closely related to delusion. However, the knowledge of neural mechanisms underlying the relationship between WM and delusion in schizophrenia is poorly investigated. Two hundred and thirty patients with schizophrenia (dataset 1: n = 130; dataset 2: n = 100) were enrolled and scanned for an N-back WM task. We constructed the WM-related whole-brain functional connectome and conducted Connectome-based Predictive Modelling (CPM) to detect the delusion-related networks and built the correlation model in dataset 1. The correlation between identified networks and delusion severity was tested in a separate, heterogeneous sample of dataset 2 that mainly includes early-onset schizophrenia. The identified delusion-related network has a strong correlation with delusion severity measured by the NO.20 item of SAPS in dataset 1 (r = 0.433, p = 2.7 × 10−7, permutation- p = 0.035), and can be validated in the same dataset by using another delusion measurement, that is, the P1 item of PANSS (r = 0.362, p = 0.0005). It can be validated in another independent dataset 2 (NO.20 item of SAPS for r = 0.31, p = 0.0024, P1 item of PANSS for r = 0.27, p = 0.0074). The delusion-related network comprises the connections between the default mode network (DMN), cingulo-opercular network (CON), salience network (SN), subcortical, sensory-somatomotor network (SMN), and visual networks. We successfully established correlation models of individualized delusion based on the WM-related functional connectome and showed a strong correlation between delusion severity and connections within the DMN, CON, SMN, and subcortical network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diagnostic errors impact patient health and healthcare costs. Artificial Intelligence (AI) shows promise in mitigating this burden by supporting Medical Doctors in decision-making. However, the mere display of excellent or even superhuman performance by AI in specific tasks does not guarantee a positive impact on medical practice. Effective AI assistance should target the primary causes of human errors and foster effective collaborative decision-making with human experts who remain the ultimate decision-makers. In this narrative review, we apply these principles to the specific scenario of AI assistance during colonoscopy. By unraveling the neurocognitive foundations of the colonoscopy procedure, we identify multiple bottlenecks in perception, attention, and decision-making that contribute to diagnostic errors, shedding light on potential interventions to mitigate them. Furthermore, we explored how existing AI devices fare in clinical practice and whether they achieved an optimal integration with the human decision-maker. We argue that to foster optimal Human-AI collaboration, future research should expand our knowledge of factors influencing AI's impact, establish evidence-based cognitive models, and develop training programs based on them. These efforts will enhance human-AI collaboration, ultimately improving diagnostic accuracy and patient outcomes. The principles illuminated in this review hold more general value, extending their relevance to a wide array of medical procedures and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Forensic anthropologists showed a high level of awareness of cognitive bias. • Survey revealed a reduction in bias blind spot within forensic anthropology. • The role of bias training and its effectiveness remain unclear. • Consensus of employing blinding procedures or context management is lacking. • Clarifying the definition of task-relevance is needed in future research. It is now well established that decision making can be susceptible to cognitive bias in a broad range of fields, with forensic science being no exception. Previously published research has revealed a bias blind spot in forensic science where examiners do not recognise bias within their own domain. A survey of 101 forensic anthropology practitioners (n = 52) and students (n = 38) was undertaken to assess their level of awareness of cognitive bias and investigate their attitudes towards cognitive bias within forensic anthropology. The results revealed that the forensic anthropology community (∼90%) had a high level of awareness of cognitive bias. Overall ∼89% expressed concerns about cognitive bias in the broad discipline of forensic science, their own domain of forensic anthropology, and in the evaluative judgments they made in reconstruction activities, identifying a significant reduction in the bias blind spot. However, more than half of the participants believed that bias can be reduced by sheer force of will, and there was a lack of consensus about implementing blinding procedures or context management. These findings highlight the need to investigate empirically the feasibility of proposed mitigating strategies within the workflow of forensic anthropologists and their capabilities for increasing the transparency in decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Safety behaviors, both positive (maladaptive coping behavior) and negative (avoidance behavior), are used by people with paranoid delusions to avoid perceived threats. Safety behaviors contribute to the persistence of paranoid delusions by preventing disconfirmation of threat beliefs and may influence other psychiatric symptoms. This study investigated how changes in safety behaviors are related to changes in paranoid ideation, social anxiety, depression, cognitive biases and self-esteem over time. This study included 116 patients diagnosed with a psychotic disorder (DSM-IV) and at least moderate levels of paranoid ideations (GTPS >40).The data were collected as part of a multi-center randomized controlled trial where patients were randomized to VR-CBT (n = 58) or treatment as usual (TAU; n = 58). Assessments were completed at baseline (T0), after three months (T3) and after six months (T6). For all variables, change scores between T0 and T3 and T3 and T6 were calculated and Pearson correlations between change scores were computed. A decrease in total safety behavior was related to diminished paranoid ideation, social anxiety, and depression. No significant temporal associations were found between changes in safety behavior and changes in cognitive biases and self-esteem. Similar but less robust results were found for respectively negative safety behavior and positive safety behavior. Dropping safety behavior can be specifically targeted in behavioral interventions. Whereas there appears to be a relation with reduction in anxiety, paranoia, and depressive symptoms, changes in safety behavior do not seem to align with changes in cognitive thinking processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psychiatric evaluation of anxiety and depression is currently based on self-reported symptoms and their classification into discrete disorders. Yet the substantial overlap between these disorders as well as their within-disorder heterogeneity may contribute to the mediocre success rates of treatments. The proposed research examines a new framework for diagnosis that is based on alterations in underlying cognitive mechanisms. In line with the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach, the current study directly compares disorder-specific and transdiagnostic cognitive patterns in predicting the severity of anxiety and depression symptoms. The sample included 237 individuals exhibiting differing levels of anxiety and depression symptoms, as measured by the STAI-T and BDI-II. Random Forest regressors were used to analyze their performance on a battery of six computerized cognitive-behavioral tests targeting selective and spatial attention, expectancy, interpretation, memory, and cognitive control biases. Unique anxiety-specific biases were found, as well as shared anxious-depressed bias patterns. These cognitive biases exhibited relatively high fitting rates when predicting symptom severity (questionnaire scores common range 0–60, MAE = 6.03, RMSE = 7.53). Interpretation and expectancy biases exhibited the highest association with symptoms, above all other individual biases. Although internal validation methods were applied, models may suffer from potential overfitting due to sample size limitations. In the context of the ongoing dispute regarding symptom-centered versus transdiagnostic approaches, the current study provides a unique comparison of these two views, yielding a novel intermediate approach. The results support the use of mechanism-based dimensional diagnosis for adding precision and objectivity to future psychiatric evaluations. • New framework for diagnosis, based on underlying cognitive mechanisms • Test battery measured six different cognitive biases for 237 participants. • Machine-learning algorithm predicted symptoms severity based on performance. • High fitting rates for prediction of transdiagnostic and disorder-specific symptoms • Endorsing intermediate approach bridging symptom-centred and transdiagnostic methods [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Tested the effect of witness opinions and background information in investigation. • Witness opinions biased judgments of event cause and witness confidence. • Background information biased judgments of cause and the value of evidence. • Background information biased participants to misclassify more opinions as facts. • Paper provides bias mitigation suggestions for professionals in the field. Introduction : A unique feature of workplace investigations is the familiarity that investigators and witnesses have with the factors involved in the adverse incident. Familiarity creates expectations that can shape investigators' and witnesses' assumptions and opinions. The current research examined the biasing effect of non-factual witness claims on investigators' judgments. These claims, which we call 'uncheckable,' included opinions about factors involved in the event and the future. We also examined how participants' a priori knowledge of an employee's history influenced their judgments. Method: This experiment used a 2 (background information: control or unsafe) × 2 (uncheckable content: neutral or unsafe) between-subjects design. Participants were provided with background information about a worker (control or unsafe history) and a witness statement about a workplace event that contained uncheckable claims (neutral or worker as unsafe). We tested how our manipulations biased participants' judgments of: (i) the cause of the event, (ii) the witness's confidence and credibility, and (iii) the diagnosticity of the witness's account. We also tested if biasing background information affected how factual participants found the witness's statement. Results: Biasing uncheckable information (i.e., opinions) affected participants' judgments of event cause (ηp2 = 0.033) and increased their ratings of witness confidence (ηp2 = 0.074). Biasing background information about a worker affected participants' judgments of the cause of the event (ηp2 = 0.088), the diagnostic value of the witness statement (ηp2 = 0.054), and the number of factual claims in the witness statement, resulting in more uncheckable claims being misclassified as potential facts (ηp2 = 0.18). Conclusion: This experiment demonstrated the significant effect that non-factual witness statements and irrelevant background information can have on the interpretation of evidence and judgments about the cause of events. Practical Application: Understanding how contextual information can bias investigative judgment helps workplace investigators manage its influence in their judgment practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past two decades, Turkey has experienced multiple changes in its monetary policy regime. To analyse how these policy changes affect the behaviours of households and firms, some behavioural parameters are incorporated into a small open economy New Keynesian model. Our approach consists of four phases. First, we assess the impacts of the behavioural parameters on the model and find that higher values of the parameters increase the effects of expectations on the model. Second, for the period between 2006 and 2021, the model is estimated for the Turkish economy and the findings show that both households and firms are more forward-looking in their decision making. Moreover, the current variables have a weak effect on the nominal interest rate, and the inertial nominal interest rate has a strong effect on it. Third, we analyse the evolution of the model parameters over the period and find that the behavioural parameters tend to increase, while the monetary policy becomes more inertial. Finally, we conclude that the Central Bank should follow Domestic Inflation-based Taylor rule to minimise welfare loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To ensure the success of an information technology project, specific resources, technical expertise, and techniques are required. If an organization does not have these whole resources and expertise, the organization may seek a vendor who can provide them. Working with a reliable vendor is particularly important for IT projects, where initiating a contract with an underperforming vendor may lead to a half-paved road with no usable outcomes. However, even though project managers and other staff at an organization have completely lost their confidence in a vendor who has had repeated underperforming performance, the managers are subject to a variety of cognitive biases that can lead to overvaluation of the net benefits of working with the vendor, leading to re-engaging with them despite availability of more reliable vendors. Awareness of these cognitive biases is essential for action. In this paper, we identify and explain these cognitive biases at all levels, including: individual, group, organizational, and inter-organizational levels. We then recommend specific and actionable strategies to help project managers minimize these biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of keeping dairy cows with their calves continues to gain interest. Cow-calf contact, or lack thereof, is expected to affect emotional states, but this requires empirical testing. Different types of cow-calf contact may also affect the emotional states of cows. The primary objective of this study was to assess the emotional state of dairy cows with full-time (23 h/d), part-time (10 h/d), or no-contact with their calves (separated 48 h after birth), using a visual judgment bias test (JBT) about one month after calving; JBT is the current gold-standard method to assess emotional state in animals by evaluating optimism or pessimism (illustrated by the proverbial half-full or half-empty water glass). The secondary objective was to compare outcomes of color- versus shape-based visual JBT. Fifty dairy cows were trained to approach a positive image on a screen (rewarded with food) and to avoid a negative image (else punished with waving bag). Once learned (>80% correct over 2 consecutive days), cows were presented with 3 ambiguous images (each presented once per day among 4 positive and 3 negative images, repeated over 4 d), and their approach responses recorded. For the color method (10 full-time, 9 part-time and 11 no-contact cows), positive and negative images were a solid red or white background; ambiguous images were shades of pink. For the shape method (8 full-time, 6 part-time and 6 no-contact cows), positive and negative images were a white circle or cross on a black background; ambiguous images were overlaid circle and cross in varying shades of gray. Cows learned to discriminate colors quicker than shapes (7.3 d, confidence limits [CL]: 6.6–8.2 d; vs. 9.3 d, CL: 8.1–10.6 d). Approaches to ambiguous colors followed a generalization curve (81.0, 33.1, and 5.0 ± 3.7% for near-positive, middle, and near-negative images, respectively), but not approaches to ambiguous shapes (31.9%, 25.7%, and 21.9% ± 4.8%, respectively), indicating colors over shapes should be used in visual JBT for cattle. Part-time cows approached fewer ambiguous color images than full-time cows (23.5%, CL: 13.4%–34.4%; vs. 44.8%, CL; 32.8%–57.1%) whereas no-contact cows were intermediate, but not different from full-time or part-time cows (37.8%, CL; 26.8%–49.5%). The color JBT results show a pessimistic bias (indicating a negative emotional state) in cows with part-time calf contact, possibly due to repeated daily separation from her young calf, relative to cows with full-time calf contact. Thus, cow-calf contact systems appear to influence the emotional state of cows depending on the practice. Cows without calf contact showed no difference in judgment bias between cows with full- or part-time calf contact, suggesting these cows probably do not experience a pervasive negative emotional state (relative to those with calf contact) approximately 30 d after calf separation. However, individual variability in judgment bias was evident for all treatments. The visual judgment bias test is a useful methodology for assessing emotional states of dairy cows; future research should prioritize understanding the emotional states of dairy cows in alternative management systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People diagnosed with schizophrenia share underlying cognitive deficits in self-monitoring (i.e., identifying the source of self-generated behaviours). This study aimed to investigate whether self-monitoring deficits in schizophrenia are due to a cognitive response bias towards external perceptions or a reduced discriminability of imagined and performed actions. We hypothesised that self-monitoring deficits in individuals with schizophrenia are primarily driven by bottom-up processes, leading to a compromised ability to discriminate between internally generated behaviours as opposed to a cognitive response bias towards performed actions. We recruited 333 participants, including 192 with schizophrenia and 141 healthy controls. As part of the Action-Memory Task, participants were instructed to either imagine or physically perform 36 different actions, half of which were presented as pictograms and half as text. In the test phase, participants indicated whether they had performed or imagined each action, whether it appeared in text or pictogram, or whether it was a new action. Using Signal Detection Theory, the study primarily analysed group differences in discriminability and response-bias. Participants with schizophrenia made significantly more self-monitoring errors than healthy controls. This was primarily due to significantly lower sensitivity, but not a response bias. Whereas recognition memory errors were driven by both lower sensitivity and a response bias. The findings suggest that self-monitoring in schizophrenia was specifically impaired by a compromised discriminability of imagined and performed events and an inability to appropriately compensate by adjusting decision-thresholds. Implications on the role of bottom-up and top-down cognitive mechanisms are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design is a dynamic, decision-driven process, often guided by intuition and experience. It can be susceptible to cognitive biases, systematic deviations in information processing and decision making, which have been recognized as influential factors affecting expert judgment in multiple domains. Although some studies in the design field have investigated and proposed methods to address specific biases, such as the confirmation bias, there is currently no comprehensive approach in the literature to make designers aware of the various biases that may manifest during the design process. The main contribution of this article is to provide designers with a broad overview of the biases that may be involved within the three principal areas of design cognition: problem formulation, concept generation and concept evaluation. It also proposes a novel and workable methodology to facilitate designers' recognition and mitigation of biases through metacognition, while favoring the implementation of more specific correction strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite an increase in the availability of digital solutions, planners' remain at the center of the production planning and control (PPC) decision-making process and have to make numerous decisions involving different information. Due to the inherent complexities, planners' are supported by PPC systems to fulfil their tasks. Research has shown that humans are influenced by cognitive bias when making decisions, especially in uncertain and complex environments and when disruptions such as machine failures occur. Researchers have therefore proposed debiasing methods to reduce human errors in decision-making. However, there is currently no environment within this research to test these proposed methods. In this study, we aimed to take the first step toward closing this research gap. We combined existing PPC research with a systematic literature review on disruptions in production as well as perspectives from practice through interviews with 12 experts. We investigated the interactions between planners' and PPC systems with consideration of different cognitive biases and disturbances to derive relevant simulation uses cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As Industry 4.0 and 5.0 evolve to be highly automated but human-centric, there is a need for process modeling based on digital replicas of physical objects including humans. Knowledge distillation and cognitive cloning offer a way to train operational copies of decision-making black boxes, or donors, without requiring additional data. In this paper, we propose an architecture and analytics for a generative adversarial network, called Cloning-GAN, which enables donor-clone knowledge transfer, including the donor's individual biases. The architecture involves generating challenging samples to be labeled by the donor and used as training data for the clone. We consider several multicriteria requirements for the generated data, including closeness to the decision boundary, uniform distribution in the decision space, maximal confusion for the donor, and challenge for the clone. We present various strategies to balance these conflicting criteria forcing the clone learning quickly the hidden cognitive skills and biases of the donor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Les distorsions cognitives sont des processus mentaux qui agissent sur l'individu et qui régissent en partie son rapport au monde. Elles s'installent de manière très précoce et dépendent directement des premières expériences de vie desquelles un apprentissage implicite sur le monde et sur soi va avoir lieu. Ces apprentissages sont personnels et biaisés. De ces derniers vont dépendre les filtres cognitifs que l'individu va renforcer à la manière d'un cercle vicieux. Les informations sélectionnées dépendent de ces filtres, et les processus de traitement de ces informations vont dépendre des distorsions du sujet. Ces processus mentaux se retrouvent chez tout un chacun ; néanmoins, certaines populations présentent des spécificités de par leur expérience de vie. C'est le cas des patients ayant une symptomatologie anxio-dépressive, des victimes ou des personnes souffrant de Trouble Stress Post-Traumatique. À la lumière des différentes approches thérapeutiques et des différents traitements qui sont accordés à la dimension cognitive, nous proposons une modélisation sous forme de syllogisme du mode de penser le monde et de s'y confronter des patients ayant un statut de victime. Deux vignettes cliniques permettent d'illustrer cette modélisation. Cette dernière s'enracine dans la philosophie, la psychopathologie cognitive, mais se veut transthéorique et peut être utilisée, peu importe l'obédience du thérapeute. Cognitive distortions are mental processes that affect individuals and partially govern their relationship with the world. They manifest themselves at a very early age and are directly influenced by an individual's early life experiences, from which implicit learning about the world and oneself occurs. This acquisition is personal and biased, leading to the formation of cognitive filters that individuals reinforce in a self-perpetuating cycle. The information selected depends on these filters, and the processing of this information depends on the subject's distortions. These mental processes are present in everyone; however, certain populations, such as individuals with anxiety or depressive symptoms, victims, or those with post-traumatic stress disorder, exhibit specificities based on their life experiences. In light of the various therapeutic approaches and treatments related to the cognitive dimension, we propose a syllogistic model for understanding how victims from different social backgrounds and with a victim status perceive and confront the world. Two clinical vignettes are provided to illustrate this model. This approach is rooted in philosophy and cognitive psychopathology but is intended to be trans-theoretical and applicable regardless of the therapist's orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the gradual diversification of personalized usage scenarios, user requirements play a direct role in product design decisions. Due to the problem of fuzzy demand caused by user cognitive bias, traditional design methods usually focus on realizing product functions and cannot effectively match user requirements. Therefore, this paper proposes a complex product module division method for user requirements. The method constitutes of three tasks, requirement analysis of module division, design mapping of module division and scheme implementation of module division. Firstly, based on the progressive architecture from initial requirements to precise requirements, the effective user requirements are obtained through similarity recommendation. Secondly, according to the four types of knowledge of function, geometry, physics and design, the design structure matrix is constructed to complete the Requirement-Function-Structure mapping. The improved Fuzzy C-means Algorithm is used to solve the mapping model, and finally a module division scheme that meets the user requirements is obtained. Taking the chip removal machine as an example, the rationality and effectiveness of the method are verified. The results show that the product modules divided by this method can effectively meet the multiple user requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral economics studies how external influences subconsciously affect decision making. Everyone is subject to a range of cognitive biases, which can affect the radiology training environment and can impact resident selection, resident education, feedback, workflow, and report composition. Understanding the cognitive sources of error and patterns of deviation can help faculty and trainees better engage in an optimal learning environment. This review focuses on the role of cognitive biases as they impact multiple facets of radiology education and training environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been shown that narcissistic grandiosity and psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) may share the common psychological mechanisms, including impairments of metacognition, social cognition, cognitive biases, emotion regulation through fantasizing and dissociation. However, it remains unknown as to whether these mechanisms are associated with the occurrence of PLEs in people with narcissistic grandiosity. Therefore, in the present study, we approached a network analysis in order to investigate pathways from narcissistic grandiosity to PLEs taking into consideration the mediating effect of common psychological mechanisms. The study was based on a non-clinical sample of 1647 individuals, aged 18–35 years. Data were collected through self-reports administered in the online survey. There were no direct connections between narcissistic grandiosity and PLEs. However, four pathways connecting narcissistic grandiosity and PLEs through the effect of one mediating psychological mechanism were identified. These mechanisms covered external attribution biases, the need to control thoughts, social cognition, and emotion regulation through fantasizing. Among them, the shortest pathway led through the effects of external attribution biases. Age, gender, education and lifetime history of psychiatric treatment were included as covariates in a network analysis. Findings from this study indicate that higher levels of external attributions, the need to control thoughts, impairments of social cognition, and emotion regulation strategies based on fantasizing might be associated with the development of PLEs in people showing narcissistic grandiosity. These observations indicate potential targets for therapeutic approaches that aim to reduce the risk of developing comorbid psychopathology in people with grandiose narcissism traits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary models of psychosis imply that cognitive biases such as the jumping to conclusions (JTC), the bias against disconfirmatory evidence (BADE), and the liberal acceptance (LA) bias play a role in the pathogenesis of delusions. Most of the studies investigating the role of cognitive biases, however, have been conducted with socially neutral or abstract stimuli and have assessed patients with established psychoses. For the present study, we aimed to concurrently investigate multiple biases (i.e., the JTC, BADE, and LA biases) in a community sample with a new paradigm using more socially engaging stimuli. A large sample of participants (N = 874) recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk was subdivided into two groups based on the frequency of their psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) according to the positive subscale score of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences (CAPE) and matched based on major demographics variables, resulting in two equally sized groups called High-PLE (at least 2 SD above the mean) and Low-PLE (maximum 0.5 above the mean; n = 46 for each group). Using a modified version of the written-scenarios BADE task, which emphasized social interactions between agents embedded in the scenario, participants rated the plausibility of response options in the face of new information. In line with previous findings, the High-PLE group demonstrated the JTC, BADE, and LA biases. That is, the members of this group made more decisions after the initial piece of information, were less likely to revise their beliefs in light of new information, and provided higher plausibility ratings for implausible response options compared to the Low-PLE group. Results corroborate prior findings suggesting that the JTC, BADE, and LA biases may be contributing factors in delusional ideation and that metacognitive biases extend to social situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Case report demonstrating Bayesian reasoning in Bloodstain Pattern Analysis (BPA). • Probability assignments in an actual case are discussed. • Parameter sensitivity analysis and robustness of the likelihood ratio are discussed. • Dedicated research is needed to strengthen evaluative reporting on BPA findings. The findings from a bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA) may assist in formulating or falsifying scenarios that are considered in the investigative stages of a criminal investigation. When a case proceeds to trial the bloodstain pattern expert may be asked about the relevance of their findings given scenarios that are proposed by the prosecution and defense counsel. Such opinions provided by an expert are highly relevant to police investigation or legal proceedings, but the reasoning behind the opinion or implicit assumptions made by the expert may not be transparent. A proper framework for the evaluation of forensic findings has been developed since the late twentieth century, based on the hierarchy of propositions, Bayesian reasoning and a model for case assessment and interpretation. This framework, when implemented in casework, mitigates some of the risks of cognitive biases, and makes the reasoning and scientific basis for the opinion transparent. This framework is broadly used across forensic science disciplines. In this paper we describe its application to the field of BPA using a case example from the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While considerable emphasis has been put on investigating the mechanisms that drive reduced social connection in patients with schizophrenia (SCZ), recent studies have increasingly focused on the issue of loneliness in SCZ. As both social cognitive bias and self-reported empathy predict loneliness in non-clinical populations, the current study aims to examine the relationship between loneliness, reduced social connection and social cognitive biases, and self-reported empathy in SCZ. Ninety-three adult SCZ and sixty-six matched healthy individuals completed a battery of questionnaires measuring loneliness and social connection (Revised-UCLA Loneliness Scale, Lubben-Social Network Scale, Social Disconnectedness Scale), cognitive biases (Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire, Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale, Cognitive Biases Questionnaire for psychosis) and self-reported empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index). Significant predictors of loneliness in SCZ were entered into two latent variables ("Social Threat Bias", "Social Connection"), and structural equation modeling was used to explore the direct and indirect relationships between Social Threat Bias, symptoms. and loneliness in SCZ. Patients reported higher levels of loneliness, cognitive biases and personal distress compared to controls. Furthermore, SCZ reported less social connection and perspective taking compared to controls. Structural equation modeling revealed that Social Threat Bias was linked to increased loneliness in SCZ both directly and indirectly via decreased social connection. Negative symptoms were directly linked with loneliness, while the association between affective symptoms and loneliness was mediated via Social Threat Bias. The results of the current study suggest that social threat bias should be considered while planning the interventions aimed to reduce loneliness in schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Structured reflection locates contradictory evidence to challenge initial assessments. • Students noted cognitive bias stemmed from their nursing experience. • Structured reflection used by NP students resulted in diagnostic justification. • Control NP students unknowingly used disconfirming elements of structured reflection. • Structured reflection can be added to current diagnostic reasoning education. Medical learners who use structured reflection demonstrated improved diagnostic accuracy. This has not been explored in nurse practitioner students. The qualitative purpose of the mixed methods intervention study was to understand how nurse practitioner students experience cognitive bias and their perception of structured reflection's utility to explain any diagnostic reasoning competency and accuracy changes within simulation. Qualitative description was used to explore themes. Structured reflection users noted its utility was diagnostic justification. Control participants did not identify using structured reflection but did note using its disconfirming elements for why they changed their initial diagnosis. Structured reflection education and application may build competency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive bias is a phenomenon that has been extensively studied in stock trading and many other fields. This paper presents a framework for a Mobile Stock Trading Simulator (MSTS) that facilitates automatic investment in stocks with minimal human influence, by investigating the behavioral patterns and cognitive errors of stock market investors. The paper aims to determine whether investors' investment strategies can be improved by detecting investment threats and reducing investment errors based on investors' transaction histories. To accomplish this, we built a stock exchange simulator and implemented a decision tree to classify cognitive biases into one of six categories. By incorporating the behavioral patterns and cognitive biases of stock market investors into the MSTS's architecture, and by implementing a decision tree and stock exchange simulator, we can minimize the impact of human influence on automatic investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with unloading of containers at ports, which are key to international trade. Work on the gantry cranes takes place 50 m above ground level in an operation room with a glass footwell, which causes to arise a psychological bias. We conducted a line-of-sight measurement of gantry crane operators working in such an environment. Based on this data, cognitive bias was defined by our own, and certain characteristics could be found by visualizing the relationship with years of experience. We discuss how this can be used for skill transfer [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of other disciplines, evolutionary approaches more often provide explanation and coherence than they help to solve discrete problems. We believe that more examples of the latter sort will help both with disciplinary synthesis and with the advance of knowledge. Here we describe a 20-year arc of research to demonstrate the problem-solving utility of an evolutionary perspective by focusing, as a case study, on a particular cognitive bias – the endowment effect – that has implications for law. Legal systems often assume that humans make decisions that are substantively rational, consistent, and aimed at maximizing their own wellbeing. But prevalent cognitive biases disrupt this, showing that humans consistently make decisions that seem to violate rationality and/or their own best interests. And despite decades of research, there has been little progress in understanding why these biases exist. We are among the scholars who have converged on the idea that many cognitive biases may have evolved as adaptations to pre-modern conditions, the evolutionarily sudden changes from which often leave them mis-matched to current conditions, prompting us to situationally irrational outcomes. Here, we discuss our data testing hypotheses derived from this perspective in both humans and non-human primates and consider how it has advanced our understanding of both the endowment effect narrowly and cognitive biases generally – including those relevant to law and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple different cognitive biases, among them the liberal acceptance (LA) bias, have been suggested to contribute to reality distortion in psychotic disorders. Earlier studies have been cross-sectional and considered a limited set of cognitive correlates of psychosis, thus the relationship between LA bias and psychosis remains poorly known. We studied a similar bias (acceptance of the implausible (AOI)) in 62 first-episode psychosis (FEP) patients and 62 control subjects, who watched movie scenes with varying degrees of realism and were asked to evaluate the probability of these events occurring in real life. We assessed theory of mind (ToM) performance using the Hinting task and delusion severity using Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale item 11. We correlated the magnitude of AOI with the severity of delusions and performance in the ToM task. Furthermore, we used 1-year follow-up data from 40 FEP patients and 40 control subjects to disentangle state vs trait-like characteristics of AOI. At baseline FEP patients expressed more AOI than control subjects, and the magnitude of AOI correlated positively with the severity of delusions and negatively with ToM performance. At the one-year follow-up, when most patients were in remission, patients still displayed increased AOI, which no longer correlated with delusions. These findings support the notion that the AOI bias could represent a trait rather than a state feature and support further studies to test the hypothesis that it could be one of the causal factors of psychotic disorders, possibly associated with ToM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with impairments in both emotional and non-emotional cognition. Recently, cognitive impairments have attracted increasing research interest as markers of prognosis and possible treatment targets in patients with BD. However, there is a paucity of studies investigating cognitive predictors of prognosis in BD. We assessed 148 recently diagnosed, symptomatically stable patients with BD with a battery of emotional and non-emotional cognitive tests and followed them up over 16 months as part of an ongoing cohort study. Multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the associations between cognitive performance at baseline and the recurrence and duration of (hypo)manic and depressive episodes, respectively, with adjustment for age, sex, subsyndromal symptoms and time between assessments. Poorer recognition of negative facial expressions and more negative emotions in neutral daily life scenarios were associated with greater frequency (ps ≤.04) and longer duration (ps ≤.03) of subsequent (hypo)manic episodes over the 16-month follow-up period. In addition, poorer global cognition, attention and psychomotor speed, and verbal fluency were associated with more (hypo)manic episodes (ps ≤.04). Finally, more difficulty down-regulating emotion in negative social scenarios was associated with depressive relapse (p =.007). It was a limitation that patients had a delayed diagnosis of seven years from their first mood episode despite being recently diagnosed. Trait-related cognitive impairments influence the early course in recently diagnosed patients with BD, particularly (hypo)manic relapse. Early prophylactic strategies targeting cognitive impairments may increase resilience and the course of illness in recently diagnosed patients with BD. • Cognitive impairments were associated with (hypo)manic relapse in bipolar disorder. • Only impaired emotion regulation was associated with depressive relapse. • Positive cognitive bias may be a trait-related risk marker of future (hypo)manic recurrence. • Cognitive functioning may help predict the recurrence and polarity of future mood episodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the influence of individual social-cognitive propensity in the processing of nontransparent sentential meaning, exemplified by the morpho-syntactically unsupported iterative meaning in " The frog hopped for five minutes." Results of our speeded questionnaire in Mandarin Chinese showed that social cognitive propensity of typically-developed individuals, indexed by autistic-like traits, significantly correlated with online response times (RTs) of naturalness rating, while the effect was absent in offline rating scores. Individuals with higher autistic-like traits (i.e., lower social skills) took longer to process sentences with nontransparent meaning for making judgments. We argue that the computation of these sentences involves meaning contextualization—construing a coherent conceptual representation by integrating multiple lexical representations and evaluating sentential-discourse context. Such context-dependent meaning processing requires sufficient context sensitivity, which varies across individuals in association with social cognitive propensity. The pattern is captured by the Dual-Process Approach to information processing and social cognition: individuals with higher autistic-like traits are prone to deliberative reasoning with lower contextual sensitivity. This cognitive bias leads to greater cost when the full comprehension demands meaning contextualization, and therefore longer RTs in evaluating appropriate interpretations. The findings show that individual variability in social cognitive propensity modulates the online computation of nontransparent sentential meaning. • Comprehending nontransparent meaning requires an integration of lexical concepts with sentential-discourse context. • The cost of processing nontransparent meaning negatively correlated with individuals' social cognitive propensity. • People with higher autistic-like traits are less context-sensitive, taking longer to compute nontransparent meaning. • The effect of social cognitive propensity manifested in online response time but not offline judgments. • Individual variability in language processing can be captured by differential reliance on deliberation vs. intuition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Quantified the magnitude of the human error bias in professional investigators. • Meta-analyses showed professionals had a stronger human error bias than students. • Professionals wrongly, but confidently, believed that they were objective. • Recommendations for mitigating bias in workplace investigation are presented. Introduction: This study explored the magnitude of professional industrial investigators' bias to attribute cause to a person more readily than to situational factors (i.e., human error bias). Such biased opinions may relieve companies from responsibilities and liability, as well as compromise efficacy of suggested preventative measures. Method: Professional investigators and undergraduate participants were given a summary of a workplace event and asked to allocate cause to the factors they found causal for the event. The summary was crafted to be objectively balanced in its implication of cause equally between two factors: a worker and a tire. Participants then rated their confidence and the objectivity of their judgment. We then conducted an effect size analysis, which supplemented the findings from our experiment with two previously published research studies that used the same event summary. Results: Professionals exhibited a human error bias, but nevertheless believed that they were objective and confident in their conclusions. The lay control group also showed this human error bias. These data, along with previous research data, revealed that, given the equivalent investigative circumstances, this bias was significantly larger with the professional investigators, with an effect size of d unb = 0.97, than the control group with an effect size of only d unb = 0.32. Conclusions: The direction and strength of the human error bias can be quantified, and is shown to be larger in professional investigators compared to lay people. Practical Applications: Understanding the strength and direction of bias is a crucial step in mitigating the effects of the bias. The results of the current research demonstrate that mitigation strategies such as proper investigator training, a strong investigation culture, and standardized techniques, are potentially promising interventions to mitigate human error bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engaging with the future to make better decisions in the present is key for sustainable development and climate change responses. In this conceptual paper, we suggest a scenario building approach that connects psychological principles of future thinking with future scenario development in order to advance the impact of scenarios. Future scenario work currently does not sufficiently consider processes of human communication, emotion, cognition and has only begun to focus on people's local contexts in recent years. We argue that more understanding of psychological processes, such as cognitive biases and heuristics, as well as psychological distance, which typically occur in future thinking, can improve the impact of scenarios. Specifically, we provide a psychological basis for systematically integrating emotion-evoking aspects into future scenario development, using tailored narratives and visuals to make content tangible and meaningful for a broad spectrum of audiences, and adapting content temporally, spatially, and linguistically to audiences, in combination with inclusive and creative co-creation of scenarios and sustainable solutions. We explain why this approach has the potential to overcome some recognised cognitive biases hampering scenario impact and intended sustainable change processes, and can therefore support the co-development of sustainable and inclusive policies and solutions that empower and connect individuals, communities, and decision makers. • Future scenarios are developed and communicated with little attention to cognitive biases and constraints. • Bringing a psychological dimension into scenario development and communication can optimize their uptake. • We recommend integrating emotions, narratives and visuals and to apply co-creation of scenarios, including tailoring to local circumstances. • Considering human perceptions, emotions and behaviour might advance the impact of future scenarios for sustainable change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report two the cases of patients with imported Plasmodium falciparum malaria during the COVID-19 pandemic. One was coinfected with COVID-19 and the other was misdiagnosed with COVID-19; either way, the diagnosis of malaria was delayed. These cases suggest that physicians should beware of cognitive biases during pandemics and carefully evaluate febrile patients. Malaria should be considered in any febrile patient returning from a malaria-endemic area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a Biased Inferential Naivety social learning model. In this model, a group of agents tries to determine the true state of the world and make the best possible decisions. The agents have limited computational abilities. They receive noisy private signals about the true state and observe the history of their neighbors' decisions. The proposed model is rooted in the Bayesian method but avoids the complexity of fully Bayesian inference. In our model, the role of knowledge obtained from social observations is separated from the knowledge obtained from private observations. Therefore, the Bayesian inferences on social observations are approximated using inferential naivety assumption, while purely Bayesian inferences are made on private observations. The reduction of herd behavior is another innovation of the proposed model. This advantage is achieved by reducing the effect of social observations on agents' beliefs over time. Therefore, all the agents learn the truth, and the correct consensus is achieved effectively. In this model, using two cognitive biases, there is heterogeneity in agents' behaviors. Therefore, the growth of beliefs and the learning speed can be improved in different situations. Several Monte Carlo simulations confirm the features of the proposed model. The conditions under which the proposed model leads to asymptotic learning are proved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Eye tracker combined with simulated patient help researchers to gain a better understanding of how information is processed in decision-making by nurses. • Cognitive bias can influence nurses' decision-making and patient safety. • Time pressure, complexity and uncertainty may contribute to the presence of cognitive biases. Using individuals... own eye gaze path and mouse click tracks has proven to be a valuable technique for identifying a broad range of underlying cognitive processes and lapses of decision-making. The study aims to investigate nurses... decision-making errors in clinical deterioration. Tobii eye tracker(R) was used to collect eye movements and mouse clicks of eighteen participants followed by gaze path retrospective interview. Thematic analysis revealed several forms of cognitive bias including anchoring, availability and confirmation bias, commission error and Yin-yang out. A distraction effect was apparent in nurses' ability to perceive, process data and to intervene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive biases have been demonstrated to be important in developing and maintaining psychosis. However, self-report measures for everyday clinical practice have been developed only recently. We aimed to study one of these instruments for assessing cognitive biases: the Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale (DACOBS). In a Spanish sample of 84 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders and 152 healthy controls, we examined a) the factor structure using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) to test the original one-, three- and seven-factor solutions, b) the reliability (Cronbach's alpha), c) the discriminative power (Multivariate Analysis of Covariance - MANCOVA) and d) the relationships of cognitive biases with positive psychotic-like experiences (PPLEs) in healthy individuals and with psychotic symptoms in schizophrenia-spectrum patients. The CFA revealed that the seven-factor solution achieved the best fit. The DACOBS overall scale (Cronbach's alpha =.92) and subscales obtained good internal consistencies. MANCOVA, controlling for age and education, demonstrated that all subscales differentiated between healthy controls and psychotic patients (Wilks' Lambda = 0.87; F 7, 226 = 4.70; p <.000; partial eta squared = 0.13). In addition, the DACOBS showed high correlations with PPLEs (controls) and moderate correlations with positive and general symptoms (patients), demonstrating its predictive validity. Concluding, the DACOBS proved to be a psychometrically suitable instrument for assessing cognitive biases in psychosis and adequately differentiated between patients and healthy individuals within the Spanish population. Norm scores are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Il est admis que les processus psychologiques et neuropsychologiques jouent un rôle dans l'apparition et le maintien des symptômes psychotique positifs. Le sentiment de persécution et les délires sont le résultat de processus dont le contexte de vie de la personne joue un rôle important dans la génération du sentiment de menace. Le maintien de cet état est ensuite favorisé par des facteurs que l'on peut regrouper en deux types selon leur objet. Dans un premier temps, l'obtention de preuves de confirmation est privilégiée par le délire lui-même. De plus, les preuves contradictoires sont mises de côté. Sur le plan neuropsychologique, la saillance aberrante pour les stimuli neutres est due à une libération excessive de dopamine qui sous-tend les symptômes positifs, l'enclenchement et le maintien de l'ensemble de ces symptômes. On repère également chez ces patients des déficits attentionnels, des défauts d'inhibition, de fonction exécutive et de cognition sociale. Cette brève revue de la littérature met en avant l'importance de procéder, le plus rapidement possible, à une évaluation complète des processus psychologiques et neuropsychologiques, car des déficits tendent à rendre plus vulnérable au maintien de symptômes psychotiques (positif et négatifs), entraînant un impact fonctionnel délétère. It is recognized that psychological and neuropsychological processes play a role in the development and maintenance of positive psychotic symptoms. The sense of persecution and delusions are the result of processes in which the context of the person's life plays an important role in producing a feeling of being threatened. The maintenance of this state is favored by factors that can be grouped into two types according to their purpose. Firstly, obtaining confirmatory evidence is favored by the delusion itself. Secondly, contradictory evidence is set aside. Neuropsychologically, the aberrant salience for neutral stimuli is due to an excessive production of dopamine that underlies the positive symptoms. Attentional deficits, inhibition, executive function and social cognition are also present in these patients. This brief review of the literature highlights the importance of conducting a comprehensive assessment of psychological and neuropsychological processes as soon as possible, as deficits tend to make one more vulnerable to the perpetuation of more significant psychotic symptoms (both positive and negative) with a deleterious functional impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep AI and big data have reshaped the IT field. Since AI refers to the simulation of human intelligence processes by computer systems for problem solving, the current landscape of IT provides an excellent opportunity for us to re-examine how human cognition has responded to new developments in IT. In this paper, we discuss several issues related to human cognition in IT at AI-enriched big data era. First, we note that deep AI reflects human beings' needs for causality and explanations, and review a couple of related aspects. We then examine human cognition in IT from two perspectives: On the theoretical side, recent developments in quantum computing has the potential to reveal complex nature of human cognition in the form of quantum cognition, and on the practical side, cognitive bias may play a negative role, as demonstrated in the way of dealing with fake news. The complexity of human cognition in IT leads to a proposed multi-layer concept description which is based on our view that a complete concept definition is impossible without incorporating human cognitive feedback in the loop. We conclude this paper by emphasizing the need for integrated study of human cognition in IT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We sought to investigate electroencephalographers' real-world behaviors and opinions concerning reading routine EEG (rEEG) with or without clinical information. An eight-question, anonymous, online survey targeted at electroencephalographers was disseminated on social media from the authors' personal accounts and emailed to authors' select colleagues. A total of 389 responses were included. Most respondents reported examining clinical information before describing rEEG findings. Nonetheless, only a minority of respondents believe that EEG analysis/description should be influenced by clinical information. We recommend reviewing clinical data only after an unbiased EEG read to prevent history bias and ensure generation of reliable electrodiagnostic information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to several social-cognitive models, social knowledge structures described as hostile scripts or schemas may explain why aggressive individuals are prone to attribute hostile intention to others' ambiguous behaviors, a cognitive bias called hostile attribution bias (HAB). The aggression-related concepts in aggressive individuals' semantic memory would be highly accessible, notably through the activation of hostile concepts in nonhostile social contexts, and such an activation would result in HAB. The aim of the study was to test this hypothesis using the N400 component with EEG measurements to assess objectively, in real time, the violation of hostile expectations following a nonhostile situation. To this end, scenarios with a clear nonhostile context (mismatch condition) vs. without nonhostile context (match condition) followed by a character's ambiguous provocative behavior were presented to readers, and ERPs to critical words that specified the hostile intent behind the behavior were analysed. Twelve aggressive and twelve nonaggressive individuals participated in the study. The presentation of a critical word (hostile intent) that violated nonhostile expectation caused an N400 response among nonaggressive whereas such an N400 effect was absent in aggressive individuals. The results suggest that, in nonaggressive individuals, a nonhostile social context activates nonhostile concepts, whereas in the same context, aggressive individuals activate nonhostile as well as hostile concepts. Numerous research applications of the Hostile Expectancy Violation paradigm in the field of HAB are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reducing social anxiety development among incoming college students may improve college adjustment and mental health outcomes. This study tested whether cognitive bias modification for interpretations (CBM-I) reduces social anxiety and increases adjustment during the transition to college, and whether changes in outcomes would be mediated by changes in interpretation biases. Participants (N = 73) were randomly assigned to a 3-session weekly CBM-I condition or symptom tracking (ST) control condition. Multilevel models were used to estimate within-person trajectories from baseline to one week post-intervention and to test whether trajectories differed by condition. Those in the CBM-I condition (vs. ST) reported higher increases in social adjustment across time. There were not significant differences between conditions for changes in social anxiety, academic adjustment, and personal adjustment. CBM-I was indirectly linked to improvements in outcome variables via more adaptive interpretation biases. CBM-I was administered in a laboratory setting, requiring more resources than some computerized interventions. Data tentatively support CBM-I for first-year students to increase social adjustment. Further, mediation findings provide support for targeting interpretation biases to improve social anxiety and adjustment outcomes. Yet, CBM-I did not outperform ST in improving social anxiety symptoms or other areas of college adjustment, and effect sizes were small, suggesting that more work is needed to amplify the potential of CBM-I as a therapeutic tool. • Cognitive bias modification may help college first-years improve social adjustment. • Cognitive bias modification did not improve social anxiety or personal adjustment. • Cognitive bias modification may affect outcomes by affecting interpretation biases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children of parents with an anxiety disorder are at elevated risk for developing an anxiety disorder themselves. According to cognitive theories, a possible risk factor is the development of schema-related associations. This study is the first to investigate whether children of anxious parents display fear-related associations and whether these associations relate to parental anxiety. 44 children of parents with panic disorder, 27 children of parents with social anxiety disorder, and 84 children of parents without an anxiety disorder filled out the SCARED-71, and the children performed an Affective Priming Task. We found partial evidence for disorder-specificity: When the primes were related to their parent's disorder and the targets were negative, the children of parents with panic disorder and children of parents with social anxiety disorder showed the lowest error rates related to their parents' disorder, but they did not have faster responses. We did not find any evidence for the expected specificity in the relationship between the parents' or the children's self-reported anxiety and the children's fear-related associations, as measured with the APT. Reliability of the Affective Priming Task was moderate, and power was low for finding small interaction effects. Whereas clearly more research is needed, our results suggest that negative associations may qualify as a possible vulnerability factor for children of parents with an anxiety disorder. • Children of parents with an anxiety disorder display a cognitive bias. • Current level of parent panic symptoms predicted child's panic-related associations. • But not anxiety levels of the child or lifetime diagnoses of the parent. • Biased cognitions may play a role in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• It is crucial to understand the bases of insight deficit in psychosis. • Gender differences in the manifestations and correlates of psychosis have been repeatedly observed. • Strong gender differences emerged in the clinical and metacognitive predictors of insight. • Gender specific cognitive remediation strategies should be developed. We aimed to explore gender-related differences in the associations of insight impairment with clinical symptoms, metacognition, and social cognition in psychosis. Regression analysis of several clinical insight dimensions was conducted on the data from 116 men and 56 women with first-episode psychosis. Various clinical symptoms and measures of metacognition and social cognition were entered as predictors. In both men and women, delusions emerged as a strong predictor of all insight dimensions, and verbal hallucinations as a strong predictor of symptom relabelling. In men, certain negative symptoms as well as self-certainty, lack of self-reflectiveness, impaired theory of mind, attributional biases, and a jumping-to-conclusions bias were additional predictors of poor insight, while good insight was associated with depression, anxiety, avolition, blunted affect, and impaired emotional recognition. In women, poor insight was associated with a self-serving/externalising bias, impaired emotional recognition, and attention disorders. Poor insight in first-episode psychosis is strongly linked to deficits in metacognition and social cognition, with marked differences between men and women with respect to the specific skills involved in the impairment. Meanwhile, good insight is linked to a variety of affective manifestations in men. These findings suggest new avenues for more targeted cognitive interventions to improve clinical insight in psychosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with schizophrenia show aberrant processing of social cues. In the current study, we (1) compared trustworthiness ratings of faces between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls, (2) compared pupillary reactivity between patients and controls (3) examined whether trustworthiness judgments in schizophrenia are related to pupil reactivity, (4) and examined associations between trustworthiness judgements and symptom severity, specifically paranoia. Patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (N = 48) and healthy controls (N = 33) completed a Trustworthiness Task, during which their pupil size was measured via an eye-tracking device. The mean baseline-corrected pupil size was calculated from 24 pictures of real neutral faces, each presented for 2500 ms. Self-reported psychotic experiences were measured by Community Assessment of Psychic Functioning (CAPE–42), and symptom severity was rated by Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). No group differences were found in trustworthiness ratings or pupil reactivity parameters during trustworthiness judgments. Separately, among patients, absolute difference in pupil-size change and dilation after reaching minimum size were related to more severe positive symptoms and self-reported paranoia. Our results did not show social cognitive biases in the stable outpatients with schizophrenia, or the role of pupil reactivity in trustworthiness judgments. Future studies should use longer stimuli for pupillary reactivity and control the type and dosage of utilized antipsychotic medication. Further studies are required to explore relationships in larger and more symptomatic groups of patients. • Individuals with schizophrenia have deficits in processing social information from faces. • We measured trustworthiness judgements in patients with schizophrenia and controls. • Pupil size parameters and relationships to trustworthiness judgements were explored. • Groups did not differ in trustworthiness judgements and pupil size parameters. • In patients, pupil size parameters were related to positive symptoms, more specifically paranoia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence supports a causal role of insomnia in the development and maintenance of depression, yet mechanisms underlying this association in young people are not well established. Attention biases have been implicated separately in the sleep and depression fields and represents an important candidate mechanism. Poor sleep may lead to a negative attention bias (characteristic of depression) by impacting attentional control. This study assessed the hypothesis that attentional control and negative attention bias would sequentially mediate the relationship between insomnia and depressive symptoms in an unselected sample of young people (17–24 years). Concerns have been raised regarding the psychometric properties of tasks used to measure attention bias, and a Dual-Probe Task is emerging as a more reliable measure. Participants (N = 275, Male = 59, M age = 19.40) completed the Dual-Probe Task, a behavioural measure of attentional control, and self-report measures of insomnia and depression. Participants completed a one-week sleep diary. Results were consistent with negative attention bias, but not attentional control, as a mechanism which partially accounts for the relationship between sleep (i.e., insomnia severity, sleep duration, sleep efficiency, sleep latency) and depression. This study highlights sleep and negative attention bias as potentially modifiable risk factors to reduce depressive symptoms in young people. • Insomnia and depression relate to negative attention bias, but not attentional control. • Negative attention bias explains the association between insomnia and depression. • Negative attention bias is a transdiagnostic mechanism. • Interventions for depression may target negative attention bias and sleep. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined cognitive mechanisms underpinning the increased tendency of individuals with high trait anxiety to experience inflation of negative affect when approaching potential stressors. Specifically, the roles of (1) disproportionately negative relative to positive expectancies (i.e., negative expectancy bias) and (2) disproportionately interrogating negative relative to positive information (i.e., negative interrogation bias), each concerning the potential stressor, were examined. High and low trait anxiety participants (N = 286) completed the experimental session, in which they were informed they may view a potentially stressful film. As participants approached the putative film viewing, participants' negative and positive affect, as well as their negative and positive expectancies were assessed. Additionally, negative interrogation bias was assessed by providing participants the opportunity to selectively interrogate information from a larger pool of negative and positive information concerning the putative film viewing. Our findings provide evidence indirect associations between trait anxiety and inflation of negative affect is serially mediated via negative interrogation bias and, in turn, negative expectancy bias. Findings are discussed with regards to limitations and potential implications for public health campaigns, and cognitive interventions for anxiety, highlighting the utility of further examining negative interrogation bias as an avenue for improving the efficacy of each. • People differ in the types of information they access concerning potential stressors. • We examined whether this might explain anxiety-linked expectancies and affect. • We developed a novel paradigm to assess the types of information people access. • Results suggest high trait anxious individuals access more negative than positive information. • This tendency predicts the negativity of high trait anxious individuals' expectancies and affect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive bias modification (CBM) has evolved from an experimental method testing cognitive mechanisms of psychopathology to a promising tool for accessible digital mental health care. While we are still discovering the conditions under which clinically relevant effects occur, the dire need for accessible, effective, and low-cost mental health tools underscores the need for implementation where such tools are available. Providing our expert opinion as Association for Cognitive Bias Modification members, we first discuss the readiness of different CBM approaches for clinical implementation, then discuss key considerations with regard to implementation. Evidence is robust for approach bias modification as an adjunctive intervention for alcohol use disorders and interpretation bias modification as a stand-alone intervention for anxiety disorders. Theoretical predictions regarding the mechanisms by which bias and symptom change occur await further testing. We propose that CBM interventions with demonstrated efficacy should be provided to the targeted populations. To facilitate this, we set a research agenda based on implementation frameworks, which includes feasibility and acceptability testing, co-creation with end-users, and collaboration with industry partners. • CBM holds promise for widespread implementation in digital mental health care. • We review evidence for attentional-, interpretation-, & approach bias modification. • There is sufficient support for implementation of some forms of CBM. • The conditions under which bias change occurs are not clearly established. • We leverage established implementation frameworks to set an agenda for future efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present research was designed to provide evidence into why and when Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs) occur and pose a threat to aviation safety. Specifically, the goal was to understand how causal illusions interact with perceptual biases with and without irrational reasoning. A total of 408 airline pilots participated in an experiment using Airbus® aircraft TCAS/ROSE simulators. Analyses were conducted using structural equation modeling (SEM), controlling for the effects of fatigue and flight hours. Results indicated that causal illusions were 82.4% predictive of UAP sightings only when magical inference was present. Our experimental evidence shows that UAPs may be explained as cognitive biases and would pose a threat to aviation safety if pilots—or even aircraft AIs—were to detect them in an irrational way (e.g., as alien objects). A novel theorization that integrates major perception, clinical, and cognition models is offered. Additionally, the authors discuss the implications for aviation safety and determine when a UAP sighting may pose a real danger on a commercial flight. • For the first time, UAPs have been introduced into Airbus® simulators to analyze pilots' reactions. • Our model forecasts over 80% of the variance in UAP sightings. • We propose criteria based on causal illusions to assess how pilots' UAP decisions risk aviation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Left-digit bias is a cognitive bias wherein individuals assess the magnitude of numbers by emphasizing the leftmost digit. For instance, people often perceive the difference between $9.99 and $10.00 larger than that between $10.00 and $10.01, given the distinct left digits in the former two numbers. This study associates self-reported height with this cognitive bias. Taller stature is frequently associated with desirable attributes such as higher earnings and leadership positions; individuals may aspire to be taller and, consequently, report a height greater than their actual measurement. We posit that this inclination is more pronounced when combined with left-digit bias. In other words, individuals whose actual height ends in nine, such as 169 cm, are more likely to report their height as 170 cm than individuals with an actual height of 170 cm who report it as 171 cm. To conduct this analysis, we used data from an annual health survey of adolescents in grades 7–12. Our findings indicate that male adolescents exhibit a left-digit bias in reporting their height, whereas female adolescents do not. We contribute to the literature by providing new evidence of left-digit bias. • Individuals may tend to report a height greater than their actual measurement. • This inclination could be more pronounced when combined with left-digit bias. • Males exhibit a left-digit bias in reporting their height. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individual differences in free-range chicken systems are important factors influencing how birds use the range (or not), even if individuals are reared in the same environmental conditions. Here, we investigated how various aspects of the birds' behavioral and cognitive tendencies, including their optimism/pessimism, cognitive flexibility, sociability, and exploration levels, are associated with range use and how they may change over time (before and after range access). To achieve this, 100 White Leghorn laying hen chicks underwent three distinct behavioral/cognitive tests—the cognitive bias test, the detour test, and the multivariate test—prior to gaining access to the range, between 9 and 39 days of age. After range access was allowed (from day 71), birds' range use was evaluated over 7 nonconsecutive days (from 74–91 days of age). Subsequently, a subset of birds, classified as high rangers (n = 15) and low rangers (n = 15) based on their range use, underwent retesting on the same three previous tests between 94 and 108 days of age. Our results unveiled a negative correlation trend between birds' evaluation of the ambiguous cue and their subsequent range use (rho = -0.19, p = 0.07). Furthermore, low rangers were faster to learn the detour task (χ2 = 7.34, df = 1, p = 0.006), coupled with increased sociability during the multivariate test (rho = -0.23, p = 0.02), contrasting with their high-ranging counterparts, who displayed more exploratory behaviors (F[1,27] = 3.64, p = 0.06). These behavioral patterns fluctuated over time (before and after range access); however, conclusively attributing these changes to birds' aging and development or the access to the range remains challenging. Overall, our results corroborate that behavioral and cognitive individual differences may be linked to range use and offer novel perspectives on the early behavioral and cognitive traits that may be linked to range use. These findings may serve as a foundation for adapting environments to meet individual needs and improve animal welfare in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxiety and depression are common, co-occurring, and costly mental health disorders. Cognitive bias modification aims to modify biases to reduce associated symptoms. Few studies have targeted multiple biases associated with both anxiety and depression, and those that have lacked a control condition. This study piloted a single-session online cognitive bias modification (known as CBM-IA) designed to target two biases associated with anxiety and depression-interpretation bias and attribution style-in adults with varying levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Participants (18-26 years) with at least mild levels of anxiety/stress and depressive symptoms on the DASS-21 were randomly allocated to an intervention (n = 23) or a control (n = 22) condition. The training consisted of a single-session online CBM-IA to encourage positive interpretations and a positive attribution style. Interpretation bias, attribution style, anxious and depressive mood states, and anxiety, stress and depressive symptoms improved at posttraining and at follow-up, irrespective of condition. Changes in interpretation bias from pre- to posttraining were significantly associated with changes in anxious mood state. CBM-IA, as implemented in this single-session pilot study, did not significantly reduce targeted biases and symptoms compared to a control condition. This adds to the mixed evidence on the efficacy of single-session CBM-I for altering biases and symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]