Your weekly LJDM email...
Our Spring 2009 schedule begins next week. LJDM seminars are held
Wednesdays at 5:00 in Room 313 at the UCL Psychology Department, 26
Bedford Way WC1H 0AP. Below are the titles and abstracts for our two
upcoming talks and also our full Spring schedule. Our website
http://www.psychol.ucl.ac.uk/ljdm will soon be updated with this
information.
21 January
Lionel Page
University of Westminster
On the ball and on a roll: The momentum effect - evidence from tennis matches
It is often suggested that there is a psychological advantage to be
leading in a competition. It is, however, hard to identify such an effect
statistically. In the present study I used a large dataset of tennis
matches (N=385,000) to study the effect of a very close result in the
first set on the following games. Specifically, this paper exploits the
randomised variation in first set results that occurs when the first set
is decided by a close tie break (N=40,500). Using a Regression
Discontinuity Design, I find that winning the first set has a significant
and strong effect on the result of the second set such that a player who
wins a close first set tie break will, on average, win one game more in
the second set. This supports the idea of the psychological edge which is
linked to a leading position. This paper discusses the likely behavioural
rationale behind this phenomenon.
28 January
I-Chant Chiang
Aberystwyth University
Congruity in Judgments of Abstract Concepts
How does congruity facilitate question asking and answering? By changing
the wording of questions, question askers are manipulating the concepts
being activated in the answering of those questions. This study examines
semantic congruity and spatial metaphoric congruity effects for abstract,
linguistically-based concepts where responses are subjective, namely the
political concepts of "liberal" and "conservative". Even though these
concepts are multidimensional, political questionnaires often use the
terms "liberal" and "conservative" in probing the public about opinions on
political figures. How do congruity effects play a role in these political
questionnaires? Both types of congruities, semantic congruity and spatial
metaphoric congruity, are found to facilitate response time and decrease
errors when making liberal and conservative judgments of politicians.
***
Full Spring 2009 Schedule
21 January
Lionel Page
Westminster Business School
28 January
I-Chant Chiang
Aberystwyth University
4 February
Dave Lagnado
University College London
4 March
Irma Kurniawan
University College London
11 March
Peter Dayan
Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit
18 March
Daniel Richardson
University College London
25 March
Mandeep Dhami
University of Cambridge
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