Should I stay or should I go? Three-year-olds' reactions to appropriate motives to interrupt a joint activity.

Understanding when it is acceptable to interrupt a joint activity is an important part of understanding what cooperation entails. Philosophical analyses have suggested that we should release our partner from a joint activity anytime the activity conflicts with fulfilling a moral obligation. To probe young children's understanding of this aspect, we investigated whether 3-year-old children (N = 60) are sensitive to the legitimacy of motives (selfish condition vs. moral condition) leading agents to intentionally interrupt their joint activity. We measured whether children protested or released their partner by scoring their reactions. Our results indicate that children did not manifest different reactions when the motive behind their partner leaving was moral than when the motive was selfish. However, our data showed a stable pattern: regardless of the partner's motives, some 3-year-olds take initiatives to release their partners from joint activity, suggesting that measuring release is a valuable tool for investigating joint action.

Attributes of Expert Anticipation Should Inform the Design of Virtual Reality Simulators to Accelerate Learning and Transfer of Skill.

Expert sport performers cope with a multitude of visual information to achieve precise skill goals under time stress and pressure. For example, a major league baseball or cricket batter must read opponent variations in actions and ball flight paths to strike the ball in less than a second. Crowded playing schedules and training load restrictions to minimise injury have limited opportunity for field-based practice in sports. As a result, many sports organisations are exploring the use of virtual reality (VR) simulators. Whilst VR synthetic experiences can allow greater control of visual stimuli, immersion to create presence in an environment, and interaction with stimuli, compared to traditional video simulation, the underpinning mechanisms of how experts use visual information for anticipation have not been properly incorporated into its content design. In themes, this opinion article briefly explains the mechanisms underpinning expert visual anticipation, as well as its learning and transfer, with a view that this knowledge can better inform VR simulator content design. In each theme, examples are discussed for improved content design of VR simulators taking into consideration its advantages and limitations relative to video simulation techniques. Whilst sport is used as the exemplar, the points discussed have implications for skill learning in other domains, such as military and law enforcement. It is hoped that our paper will stimulate improved content design of VR simulators for future research and skill enhancement across several domains.

Cognitive control, intentions, and problem solving in skill learning.

We investigate flexibility and problem solving in skilled action. We conducted a field study of mountain bike riding that required a learner rider to cope with major changes in technique and equipment. Our results indicate that relatively inexperienced individuals can be capable of fairly complex 'on-the-fly' problem solving which allows them to cope with new conditions. This problem solving is hard to explain for classical theories of skill because the adjustments are too large to be achieved by automatic mechanisms and too complex and rapid to be achieved by cognitive processes as they are usually understood. A recent theory, Mesh, can explain these results because it posits that skill-specific cognitive abilities develop during skill learning and that control typically involves an interplay between cognitive and automatic mechanisms. Here we develop Mesh further, providing a detailed explanation for these problem solving abilities. We argue that causal representation, metacognitive awareness and other forms of performance awareness combine in the formulation and control of action strategies. We also argue that the structure of control present in this case is inconsistent with Bratman's model of intentions, and that, in the face of high uncertainty and risk, intentions can be much more labile than Bratman recognises. In addition, we found limitations and flaws in problem solving which illuminate the representations involved. Finally, we highlight the crucial role of social and cultural learning in the development of complex skills.

Probing commitment in individuals with borderline personality disorder.

Interpersonal problems are a core symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD). In particular, patients with BPD exhibit a heightened sensitivity to cues of acceptance or rejection in their relationships. The current study investigated the psychological processes underpinning this heightened responsiveness. In a between-subjects design, we implemented a reactivity induction designed to trigger either acceptance or rejection of a partner in two separate groups, and measured the effects which this manipulation had upon 49 patients with BPD, as well as 52 control participants. The experimental paradigm required participants to repeatedly choose whether to coordinate with their partner on a decision-making task. When both players coordinate on the same option, both are rewarded. The experiment probed participants' commitment to their partners: participants were sometimes presented with tempting opportunities to unilaterally defect from the coordination. The results show that participants in the BPD group were less committed than participants in the control group when exposed to the rejection manipulation.

Using episodic memory to gauge implicit and/or indeterminate social commitments.

In discussing Mahr & Csibra's (M&C's) observations about the role of episodic memory in grounding social commitments, we propose that episodic memory is especially useful for gauging cases of implicit commitment and cases in which the content of a commitment is indeterminate. We conclude with some thoughts about how commitment may relate to the evolution of episodic memory.

Flexible goal attribution in early mindreading.

The 2-systems theory developed by Apperly and Butterfill (2009; Butterfill & Apperly, 2013) is an influential approach to explaining the success of infants and young children on implicit false-belief tasks. There is extensive empirical and theoretical work examining many aspects of this theory, but little attention has been paid to the way in which it characterizes goal attribution. We argue here that this aspect of the theory is inadequate. Butterfill and Apperly's characterization of goal attribution is designed to show how goals could be ascribed by infants without representing them as related to other psychological states, and the minimal mindreading system is supposed to operate without employing flexible semantic-executive cognitive processes. But research on infant goal attribution reveals that infants exhibit a high degree of situational awareness that is strongly suggestive of flexible semantic-executive cognitive processing, and infants appear moreover to be sensitive to interrelations between goals, preferences, and beliefs. Further, close attention to the structure of implicit mindreading tasks--for which the theory was specifically designed--indicates that flexible goal attribution is required to succeed. We conclude by suggesting 2 approaches to resolving these problems.

Natural sources of normativity.

Normativity is widely regarded as being naturalistically problematic. Teleosemantic theories aimed to provide a naturalistic grounding for the normativity of mental representation in biological proper function, but have been subject to a variety of criticisms and would in any case provide only a thin naturalist platform for grounding normativity more generally. Here I present an account that identifies a basic form of valuational normativity in autonomous systems, and show how the account can be extended to encompass key aspects of the normativity of functions and practical reasons.

Reducing risk on machinery: a field evaluation pilot study of risk assessment.

A pilot evaluation of the ANSI B11-TR3 Machinery Risk Assessment/Risk Reduction (RA/RR) Guideline was conducted. The TR3 guideline was introduced into five companies on one machinery system in each company with a second machine system serving as a control. A pre-post investigation was performed with safety conditions measured pre and post in both treatment and control and with risk reduction score measured only in the treatment machine system. NIOSH provided a commercially available risk assessment software to facilitate the process. Evaluation measures included avoided injuries, reduced exposure to machinery hazards, pretest and posttest knowledge demonstration, assessment of group processes following training, correct implementation of the guidelines, and degree to which risk reduction recommendations were implemented. The qualitative results of this pilot effort appear to be the best indicators for the way ahead in industrial machine risk assessment. All companies indicated that they derived value in participating in this study and in conducting risk assessments. Quantitative study results suggest that: (1) as measured by the knowledge of the participants before and after the TR3 training, the guidelines can be effective at enhancing employee knowledge of safe machine operations and (2) although the injury reduction trends appear successful, the small sample size in the study size should be considered in interpreting these early results.

A retrospective study of columnar alteration with prominent apical snouts and secretions and the association with cancer.

BACKGROUND: Columnar alteration with prominent snouts and secretions (CAPSS) is routinely described on breast core needle biopsies (CNBs); however, its significance and appropriate treatment is unknown. This study evaluated the incidence of cancer (in situ/invasive) in core biopsies and in subsequent surgical biopsy specimens after an initial core biopsy identifying CAPSS. METHODS: Using our medical center's pathology database, we retrospectively identified lesions described as CAPSS on breast core needle biopsies performed between January 1998 and August 2003. The specimens were subdivided into CAPSS lesions with and without atypical features. We also identified lesions described as atypical ductal hyperplasia. RESULTS: Overall, 10 cancers were associated with 135 (7.4%) CAPSS lesions without atypia, and 11 (18.3%) were associated with 60 CAPSS lesions with atypia (P = 0.023). CAPSS lesions with atypical features had a slightly higher rate of coexisting cancer on initial biopsy than CAPSS without atypical features (7% vs 12%, P = 0.320). Specimens showing atypical ductal hyperplasia on initial biopsy had a greater rate of coexisting cancer than CAPSS with or without atypical features (P <0.0001). CONCLUSION: We support the existing recommendation that a patient with a CNB showing CAPSS with atypical features undergo surgical biopsy.