City University London

About: City University London is a education organization based out in London, United Kingdom. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 5735 authors who have published 17285 publications receiving 453290 citations.

Language in autism and specific language impairment: where are the links?

Abstract: It has been suggested that language impairment in autism is behaviorally, neurobiologically, and etiologically related to specific language impairment (SLI). In this article, the authors review evidence at each level and argue that the vast majority of data does not support the view that language impairment in autism can be explained in terms of comorbid SLI. The authors make recommendations for how this debate might be resolved and suggest a shift in research focus. They recommend that researchers concentrate on those aspects of language impairment that predominate in each disorder rather than on those comparatively small areas of potential overlap.

Psychological Models of Professional Decision Making

Abstract: People are often expected to make decisions based on all of the relevant information, weighted and combined appropriately. Under many conditions, however, people use heuristic strategies that depart from this ideal. I tested the ability of two models to predict bail decisions made by judges in two courts. In both courts, a simple heuristic proved to be a better predictor of judicial decisions than a more complex model that instantiated the principles of due process. Specifically, judges were "passing the buck" because they relied on decisions made by the police, prosecution, and previous bench. Problematically, these earlier decisions were not significantly related to case characteristics. These findings have implications for the types of models researchers use to capture professional decision-making policies.

Tell me more?: the effects of mental model soundness on personalizing an intelligent agent

Abstract: What does a user need to know to productively work with an intelligent agent? Intelligent agents and recommender systems are gaining widespread use, potentially creating a need for end users to understand how these systems operate in order to fix their agent's personalized behavior. This paper explores the effects of mental model soundness on such personalization by providing structural knowledge of a music recommender system in an empirical study. Our findings show that participants were able to quickly build sound mental models of the recommender system's reasoning, and that participants who most improved their mental models during the study were significantly more likely to make the recommender operate to their satisfaction. These results suggest that by helping end users understand a system's reasoning, intelligent agents may elicit more and better feedback, thus more closely aligning their output with each user's intentions.

Episodic memory and episodic future thinking in adults with autism

Abstract: The ability to remember past experiences (episodic memory) is thought to be related to the ability to imagine possible future experiences (episodic future thinking). Although previous research has established that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have diminished episodic memory, episodic future thinking has not previously been investigated within this population. In the present study, high-functioning adults with ASD were compared to closely matched typical adults on a task requiring participants to report a series of events that happened to them in the past and a series of events that might happen to them in the future. For each event described, participants completed two modified Memory Characteristics Questionnaire items to assess self-reported phenomenal qualities associated with remembering and imagining, including self-perspective and degree of autonoetic awareness. Participants also completed letter, category, and ideational fluency tasks. Results indicated that participants with ASD recalled/imagined significantly fewer specific events than did comparison participants and that participants with ASD demonstrated impaired episodic memory and episodic future thinking. In line with this finding, participants with ASD were less likely than comparison participants to report taking a field (first-person) perspective and were more likely to report taking an observer (third-person) perspective during retrieval of past events (but not during simulation of future events), highlighting that they were less likely to mentally reexperience past events from their own point of view. There were no group differences in self-reported levels of autonoetic awareness or fluency task performance.

Longevity Bonds: Financial Engineering, Valuation, and Hedging

Abstract: This article examines the main characteristics of longevity bonds (LBs) and shows that they can take a large variety of forms which can vary enormously in their sensitivities to longevity shocks. We examine different ways of financially engineering LBs and consider problems arising from the dearth of ultra-long government bonds and the choice of the reference population index. The article also looks at valuation issues in an incomplete markets context and finishes with an examination of how LBs can be used as a risk management tool for hedging longevity risks.