John Taplin - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by John Taplin

Tesl Canada Journal, Oct 26, 1997

The ideas outlined in this article are an attempt to answer the question What should we expect of... more The ideas outlined in this article are an attempt to answer the question What should we expect ofa TESL program that is professionally recognized? The discussion proceeds from some comments on entry criteria to the role of final certification. We have kept our comments about the actual content of the program brief, offering only a framework that we believe can be useful in developing the content and instruction.

Pain, 1999

Age and sex differences were investigated in children's self-report of venipuncture pain. Equal n... more Age and sex differences were investigated in children's self-report of venipuncture pain. Equal numbers of boys and girls aged 3-15 years (n = 110) made separate ratings of the intensity and unpleasantness of their needle pain, using a paired Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) technique. The parents of these children used the same method to give ratings of predicted pain and unpleasantness before the needle, as well as ratings based on observing their child during the needle. Results showed that, across age, children's intensity and unpleasantness scores were highly correlated (r = 0.78), and that both of these ratings decreased with increasing age. Analyses of covariance showed that, with the variance in the unpleasantness ratings accounted for, a significant age main effect persisted for the intensity ratings (scores decreasing with increasing age), with no effect of sex. In the corollary analysis, with intensity scores entered as a covariate, unpleasantness ratings showed no main effect of age, but a significant main effect of sex emerged: girls' ratings of pain unpleasantness, when averaged across age, were significantly higher than boys'. The interaction between age and sex was explored in analysis of the relative difference between intensity and unpleasantness ratings. The results indicated that, from approximately 8-years of age, children (especially girls) gave significantly higher ratings of unpleasantness than sensory intensity of needle pain. Prior to the age of 8 years, children tended to give equivalent ratings of intensity and unpleasantness, with no evidence of a sex difference. The agreement between parental and children's ratings was higher for parents' observed, as opposed to predicted, scores, especially for pain intensity, with no systematic influence of the child's age and sex. In conclusion, it is suggested that age effects in children's self-report of needle pain are predominantly manifest in ratings of sensory intensity, whilst sex effects are predominantly manifest in ratings of an affective (unpleasantness) dimension. It is argued that both age and sex differences are largely the function of pain reporting variables, rather than reflecting fundamental age or sex based variance in nociceptive processing.

Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 1996

The prevalence of intellectual disability, defined as IQ < 70, was determined in a populat... more The prevalence of intellectual disability, defined as IQ < 70, was determined in a population of adults aged 20-50 years who lived in the northern suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Case finding was carried out in the community, and all those ascertained were interviewed and psychometrically assessed. The overall prevalence was 3.31 per thousand with severe intellectual disability (IQ < 55) 2.19 per thousand and mild (IQ 56-70) 1.12 per thousand. Down's syndrome had a frequency of 0.96 per thousand. Thirty-eight per cent of the total group were living in institutional care.

Developmental Psychology, 2000

Vitalism is the belief that internal bodily organs have agency and that they transmit or exchange... more Vitalism is the belief that internal bodily organs have agency and that they transmit or exchange a vital force or energy. Three experiments investigated the use of vitalistic explanations for biological phenomena by 5- and 10-year-old English-speaking children and adults, focusing on 2 components: the notion that bodily organs have intentions and the notion that some life force or energy is transmitted. The original Japanese finding of vitalistic thinking was replicated in Experiment 1 with English-speaking 5-year-olds. Experiment 2 indicated that the more active component of vitalism for these children is a belief in the transfer of energy during biological processes, and Experiment 3 suggested an additional, albeit lesser, role for organ intentionality. A belief in vital energy may serve a causal placeholder function within a naive theory of biology until a more precisely formulated mechanism is known.

Transp Policy, 1995

... nr road investments: JHE Taplin, M Qiu and Z Zhang Table I Goals or criteria and maximum feas... more ... nr road investments: JHE Taplin, M Qiu and Z Zhang Table I Goals or criteria and maximum feasible values for the road program ... and resource development benefits 48.5 Environment II Decreased air pollution and dust 54.3 12 Surface water impacts 60.2 13 Flora and fauna ...

Procedia Manufacturing, 2015

American journal of mental retardation: AJMR

Nine and 14-year-old children with mild mental retardation and children without mental retardatio... more Nine and 14-year-old children with mild mental retardation and children without mental retardation matched for mental and chronological age were first shown a novel category made up of five visual figures. They were then given a recognition test with a set containing the previously presented figures, novel category members, and the category prototype. The relative contribution of prototypical and exemplar-specific information to subjects' performance on the recognition test was evaluated. Results showed that the children without mental retardation employed both forms of information in arriving at a recognition decision whereas both of the retarded groups tended to rely only on prototype information. Use of exemplar-specific information was also found to be positively correlated with IQ and, in particular, with measures of short-term memory span.

Journal of Transport Economics and Policy

Journal of Transport Economics and Policy

Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 2010

This study compared the neurological development of 4 month old infants exposed to buprenorphine ... more This study compared the neurological development of 4 month old infants exposed to buprenorphine or methadone during pregnancy to that of a control group of non-exposed infants. Participants were 30 buprenorphine-maintained women, 22 methadone-maintained women and 33 non opioid-dependent controls, and their infants. Women were enrolled during pregnancy as part of an open-label non-randomised flexible-dosing longitudinal study. Groups were matched for maternal age, parity, gravida, and tobacco and alcohol use. Infant neurological development was assessed by measuring latency of pattern reversal visual evoked potentials (VEP). One-way between groups analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to test the statistical significance of differences between the mean latencies of the peak response to two different sized checkerboard patterns (48′ and 69′ of retinal arc). Infants prenatally exposed to methadone had significantly prolonged latencies, compared with infants in the control group and infants prenatally exposed to buprenorphine, in response to checks of 48′ and 69′. VEP latencies of infants prenatally exposed to buprenorphine did not differ significantly from controls for either check size. After adjustment for covariates, prenatal exposure to methadone remained a significant predictor of VEP response to checks of 48′, but not 69′. Maternal self-reported used of marijuana during pregnancy made a significant unique contribution to the variance in P1 latencies for both check sizes. Data from this controlled, non-randomised study suggest that buprenorphine may confer an advantage over methadone as a maintenance drug during pregnancy in terms of infant neural development at 4 months of age.

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 1999

Travel price and time elasticities are increasingly being derived from discrete choice models of ... more Travel price and time elasticities are increasingly being derived from discrete choice models of the multinomial or nested logit form. These elasticities are then applied to obtain predictions of changes in travel demand consequent on a policy change in prices and travel times. The majority of the choice elasticities are estimated within the behavioural setting of modal choice, holding total travel ®xed. A few mode choice models have recently relaxed the multinomial logit model assumption of equal variance in all the random components of the indirect utility function to permit unconstrained variances across all alternatives (subject to identi®cation for one alternative). This enables the derivation of behaviourally meaningful and unique cross choice elasticities for each pair of alternatives. Under constant variance, only the direct choice elasticities have behavioural meaning. While this is an important advance in discrete choice modelling, the derivation of share elasticities is conditional on a ®xed total demand, and the procedure cannot be relied on to carry through two important properties of the model into the demand elasticity matrixÐnamely symmetry and zero share weighted column sums. This paper takes a set of empirically derived choice elasticities and presents a second stage procedure to adjust these elasticities to arrive at an internally consistent matrix of demand elasticities. We draw on a recent data set collected in Sydney which utilises revealed preference and stated choice data to estimate a joint model of ticket choice conditional on mode and choice of mode for commuter travel. #

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2011

The relationship of form, use, and density in urban development and their influence on human beha... more The relationship of form, use, and density in urban development and their influence on human behavior and travel is a key element of many land use and transport policies. Prior research indicates high-density urban development leads to decreased travel and thus sustainable mobility; however, personal attitudes seem to have greater effect on mobility than does the urban form. This research evaluates how households consider transit-oriented development (TOD) characteristics in their location decisions with regard to new Mandurah railway line stations opened in December 2007 in Perth, Western Australia. The results indicate that the choice of residence reflects neighborhood and housing attributes, with significant heterogeneity in the populations of the three precincts in terms of their valuation of various housing characteristics, proximity to urban facilities, and transport. There is also significant variation in households' attitudes to natural and artificial environments. A better understanding of the complex relationships among environment, travel, sociodemographic characteristics, and household attitudes can help transport planners leverage the benefits of TOD and improve the quality of urban design and community life.

Quality of Life Research, 2005

PSYCHOLOGIA -An International Journal of Psychology in the Orient, 2001

Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 2006

The Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP) measures individual functional needs in areas of daily... more The Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP) measures individual functional needs in areas of daily living. It produces a support profile, detailing the time allocations for staff support to assist in each area of need. The Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) is a support needs assessment scale designed to provide an objective measure of a person's need for support in medical, behavioural, and life activities. SIS can be used for individualised support planning, clinical judgements regarding support needs, resource allocation and financial planning. The Inventory for Client and Agency Planning (ICAP) assesses adaptive and maladaptive behaviours and gathers additional information to determine type and amount of special assistance that people with disabilities need. This study evaluated the construct and criterion validities of SNAP in relation to the SIS and ICAP, using assessment data from 114 individuals with a range of disabilities and levels of severity. Construct and criterion validities were supported for the SNAP by high correlations with SIS, ICAP, and staff estimates of support needs and by its capacity to discriminate between sub-groups in expected ways. The results provide support for the use of SNAP as a support needs instrument.

Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 2005

ABSTRACT Background Measures for estimating costs associated with the provision of disability ser... more ABSTRACT Background Measures for estimating costs associated with the provision of disability services in Australia have not previously been available. Because such instruments are scarce worldwide, decisions about funding services have relied more on historical precedent and less on individual need. Recognising the necessity for an objective measure, Gould (1998) developed the Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP), a scale for estimating the support needs and associated costs for people with disabilities. Method This study examined the technical properties of SNAP using assessment data from 318 adults (190 males and 128 females), mean age 43 years, with a range of disability types and levels of severity, residing in supported accommodation around metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia. Results Results suggest that SNAP's reliability varies across different sub‐groups and across domains. Conclusion Using SNAP assessments as a method for allocating funds/resources across the disability sector should be approached cautiously, bearing in mind the reported limitations.

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1992

ABSTRACT

European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2002

... of New South Wales, NSW, 2052, Australia. Email: B.Hayes@unsw.edu.au This research was suppor... more ... of New South Wales, NSW, 2052, Australia. Email: B.Hayes@unsw.edu.au This research was supported by Australian Research Council Grant A00000851 to BrettHayes and John Taplin. We would like to thank Christine Selmes ...

European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 1995

Page 1. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, 1995, 7 (4), 383-410 Similarity-based and Knowl... more Page 1. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, 1995, 7 (4), 383-410 Similarity-based and Knowledge-based Processes in Category Learning Brett K. Hayes Department of Psychology, University of Newcastle, NSW , Australia ...

Information Sciences, 2007

In this paper we advocate the application of the equate-to-differentiate rule to the prisoner's d... more In this paper we advocate the application of the equate-to-differentiate rule to the prisoner's dilemma. As an alternative to the family of expected utility theory, the equate-to-differentiate approach [S. Li, A behavioral choice model when computational ability matters, Applied Intelligence 20 (2004) 147-163; S. Li, Equate-to-differentiate approach: an application in binary choice under uncertainty, Central European Journal of Operations Research 12 -294] posits that the mechanism governing human risky decision making has never been one of maximising some kind of expectation, but rather some generalisation of dominance detection. In the light of the proposed representation system to describe uncertain alternatives, a decision maker's cognitive representation of the choice alternatives in the prisoner's dilemma situations is described by reference to two dimensions. The choice behaviour is thus modelled as a process in which the individual equates offered differences between alternatives on one dimension, but differentiates another one-dimensional difference as the determinant of the final choice. The predictions derived from these theoretical developments are empirically tested in six experiments with new data introduced to determine if people follow the theoretical prescriptions. In all these experiments, choices could be explained as a consequence of radically simplifying decision information.

Tesl Canada Journal, Oct 26, 1997

The ideas outlined in this article are an attempt to answer the question What should we expect of... more The ideas outlined in this article are an attempt to answer the question What should we expect ofa TESL program that is professionally recognized? The discussion proceeds from some comments on entry criteria to the role of final certification. We have kept our comments about the actual content of the program brief, offering only a framework that we believe can be useful in developing the content and instruction.

Pain, 1999

Age and sex differences were investigated in children's self-report of venipuncture pain. Equal n... more Age and sex differences were investigated in children's self-report of venipuncture pain. Equal numbers of boys and girls aged 3-15 years (n = 110) made separate ratings of the intensity and unpleasantness of their needle pain, using a paired Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) technique. The parents of these children used the same method to give ratings of predicted pain and unpleasantness before the needle, as well as ratings based on observing their child during the needle. Results showed that, across age, children's intensity and unpleasantness scores were highly correlated (r = 0.78), and that both of these ratings decreased with increasing age. Analyses of covariance showed that, with the variance in the unpleasantness ratings accounted for, a significant age main effect persisted for the intensity ratings (scores decreasing with increasing age), with no effect of sex. In the corollary analysis, with intensity scores entered as a covariate, unpleasantness ratings showed no main effect of age, but a significant main effect of sex emerged: girls' ratings of pain unpleasantness, when averaged across age, were significantly higher than boys'. The interaction between age and sex was explored in analysis of the relative difference between intensity and unpleasantness ratings. The results indicated that, from approximately 8-years of age, children (especially girls) gave significantly higher ratings of unpleasantness than sensory intensity of needle pain. Prior to the age of 8 years, children tended to give equivalent ratings of intensity and unpleasantness, with no evidence of a sex difference. The agreement between parental and children's ratings was higher for parents' observed, as opposed to predicted, scores, especially for pain intensity, with no systematic influence of the child's age and sex. In conclusion, it is suggested that age effects in children's self-report of needle pain are predominantly manifest in ratings of sensory intensity, whilst sex effects are predominantly manifest in ratings of an affective (unpleasantness) dimension. It is argued that both age and sex differences are largely the function of pain reporting variables, rather than reflecting fundamental age or sex based variance in nociceptive processing.

Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 1996

The prevalence of intellectual disability, defined as IQ < 70, was determined in a populat... more The prevalence of intellectual disability, defined as IQ < 70, was determined in a population of adults aged 20-50 years who lived in the northern suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Case finding was carried out in the community, and all those ascertained were interviewed and psychometrically assessed. The overall prevalence was 3.31 per thousand with severe intellectual disability (IQ < 55) 2.19 per thousand and mild (IQ 56-70) 1.12 per thousand. Down's syndrome had a frequency of 0.96 per thousand. Thirty-eight per cent of the total group were living in institutional care.

Developmental Psychology, 2000

Vitalism is the belief that internal bodily organs have agency and that they transmit or exchange... more Vitalism is the belief that internal bodily organs have agency and that they transmit or exchange a vital force or energy. Three experiments investigated the use of vitalistic explanations for biological phenomena by 5- and 10-year-old English-speaking children and adults, focusing on 2 components: the notion that bodily organs have intentions and the notion that some life force or energy is transmitted. The original Japanese finding of vitalistic thinking was replicated in Experiment 1 with English-speaking 5-year-olds. Experiment 2 indicated that the more active component of vitalism for these children is a belief in the transfer of energy during biological processes, and Experiment 3 suggested an additional, albeit lesser, role for organ intentionality. A belief in vital energy may serve a causal placeholder function within a naive theory of biology until a more precisely formulated mechanism is known.

Transp Policy, 1995

... nr road investments: JHE Taplin, M Qiu and Z Zhang Table I Goals or criteria and maximum feas... more ... nr road investments: JHE Taplin, M Qiu and Z Zhang Table I Goals or criteria and maximum feasible values for the road program ... and resource development benefits 48.5 Environment II Decreased air pollution and dust 54.3 12 Surface water impacts 60.2 13 Flora and fauna ...

Procedia Manufacturing, 2015

American journal of mental retardation: AJMR

Nine and 14-year-old children with mild mental retardation and children without mental retardatio... more Nine and 14-year-old children with mild mental retardation and children without mental retardation matched for mental and chronological age were first shown a novel category made up of five visual figures. They were then given a recognition test with a set containing the previously presented figures, novel category members, and the category prototype. The relative contribution of prototypical and exemplar-specific information to subjects' performance on the recognition test was evaluated. Results showed that the children without mental retardation employed both forms of information in arriving at a recognition decision whereas both of the retarded groups tended to rely only on prototype information. Use of exemplar-specific information was also found to be positively correlated with IQ and, in particular, with measures of short-term memory span.

Journal of Transport Economics and Policy

Journal of Transport Economics and Policy

Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 2010

This study compared the neurological development of 4 month old infants exposed to buprenorphine ... more This study compared the neurological development of 4 month old infants exposed to buprenorphine or methadone during pregnancy to that of a control group of non-exposed infants. Participants were 30 buprenorphine-maintained women, 22 methadone-maintained women and 33 non opioid-dependent controls, and their infants. Women were enrolled during pregnancy as part of an open-label non-randomised flexible-dosing longitudinal study. Groups were matched for maternal age, parity, gravida, and tobacco and alcohol use. Infant neurological development was assessed by measuring latency of pattern reversal visual evoked potentials (VEP). One-way between groups analyses of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to test the statistical significance of differences between the mean latencies of the peak response to two different sized checkerboard patterns (48′ and 69′ of retinal arc). Infants prenatally exposed to methadone had significantly prolonged latencies, compared with infants in the control group and infants prenatally exposed to buprenorphine, in response to checks of 48′ and 69′. VEP latencies of infants prenatally exposed to buprenorphine did not differ significantly from controls for either check size. After adjustment for covariates, prenatal exposure to methadone remained a significant predictor of VEP response to checks of 48′, but not 69′. Maternal self-reported used of marijuana during pregnancy made a significant unique contribution to the variance in P1 latencies for both check sizes. Data from this controlled, non-randomised study suggest that buprenorphine may confer an advantage over methadone as a maintenance drug during pregnancy in terms of infant neural development at 4 months of age.

Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 1999

Travel price and time elasticities are increasingly being derived from discrete choice models of ... more Travel price and time elasticities are increasingly being derived from discrete choice models of the multinomial or nested logit form. These elasticities are then applied to obtain predictions of changes in travel demand consequent on a policy change in prices and travel times. The majority of the choice elasticities are estimated within the behavioural setting of modal choice, holding total travel ®xed. A few mode choice models have recently relaxed the multinomial logit model assumption of equal variance in all the random components of the indirect utility function to permit unconstrained variances across all alternatives (subject to identi®cation for one alternative). This enables the derivation of behaviourally meaningful and unique cross choice elasticities for each pair of alternatives. Under constant variance, only the direct choice elasticities have behavioural meaning. While this is an important advance in discrete choice modelling, the derivation of share elasticities is conditional on a ®xed total demand, and the procedure cannot be relied on to carry through two important properties of the model into the demand elasticity matrixÐnamely symmetry and zero share weighted column sums. This paper takes a set of empirically derived choice elasticities and presents a second stage procedure to adjust these elasticities to arrive at an internally consistent matrix of demand elasticities. We draw on a recent data set collected in Sydney which utilises revealed preference and stated choice data to estimate a joint model of ticket choice conditional on mode and choice of mode for commuter travel. #

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2011

The relationship of form, use, and density in urban development and their influence on human beha... more The relationship of form, use, and density in urban development and their influence on human behavior and travel is a key element of many land use and transport policies. Prior research indicates high-density urban development leads to decreased travel and thus sustainable mobility; however, personal attitudes seem to have greater effect on mobility than does the urban form. This research evaluates how households consider transit-oriented development (TOD) characteristics in their location decisions with regard to new Mandurah railway line stations opened in December 2007 in Perth, Western Australia. The results indicate that the choice of residence reflects neighborhood and housing attributes, with significant heterogeneity in the populations of the three precincts in terms of their valuation of various housing characteristics, proximity to urban facilities, and transport. There is also significant variation in households' attitudes to natural and artificial environments. A better understanding of the complex relationships among environment, travel, sociodemographic characteristics, and household attitudes can help transport planners leverage the benefits of TOD and improve the quality of urban design and community life.

Quality of Life Research, 2005

PSYCHOLOGIA -An International Journal of Psychology in the Orient, 2001

Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 2006

The Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP) measures individual functional needs in areas of daily... more The Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP) measures individual functional needs in areas of daily living. It produces a support profile, detailing the time allocations for staff support to assist in each area of need. The Supports Intensity Scale (SIS) is a support needs assessment scale designed to provide an objective measure of a person's need for support in medical, behavioural, and life activities. SIS can be used for individualised support planning, clinical judgements regarding support needs, resource allocation and financial planning. The Inventory for Client and Agency Planning (ICAP) assesses adaptive and maladaptive behaviours and gathers additional information to determine type and amount of special assistance that people with disabilities need. This study evaluated the construct and criterion validities of SNAP in relation to the SIS and ICAP, using assessment data from 114 individuals with a range of disabilities and levels of severity. Construct and criterion validities were supported for the SNAP by high correlations with SIS, ICAP, and staff estimates of support needs and by its capacity to discriminate between sub-groups in expected ways. The results provide support for the use of SNAP as a support needs instrument.

Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 2005

ABSTRACT Background Measures for estimating costs associated with the provision of disability ser... more ABSTRACT Background Measures for estimating costs associated with the provision of disability services in Australia have not previously been available. Because such instruments are scarce worldwide, decisions about funding services have relied more on historical precedent and less on individual need. Recognising the necessity for an objective measure, Gould (1998) developed the Service Need Assessment Profile (SNAP), a scale for estimating the support needs and associated costs for people with disabilities. Method This study examined the technical properties of SNAP using assessment data from 318 adults (190 males and 128 females), mean age 43 years, with a range of disability types and levels of severity, residing in supported accommodation around metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia. Results Results suggest that SNAP's reliability varies across different sub‐groups and across domains. Conclusion Using SNAP assessments as a method for allocating funds/resources across the disability sector should be approached cautiously, bearing in mind the reported limitations.

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1992

ABSTRACT

European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2002

... of New South Wales, NSW, 2052, Australia. Email: B.Hayes@unsw.edu.au This research was suppor... more ... of New South Wales, NSW, 2052, Australia. Email: B.Hayes@unsw.edu.au This research was supported by Australian Research Council Grant A00000851 to BrettHayes and John Taplin. We would like to thank Christine Selmes ...

European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 1995

Page 1. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, 1995, 7 (4), 383-410 Similarity-based and Knowl... more Page 1. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, 1995, 7 (4), 383-410 Similarity-based and Knowledge-based Processes in Category Learning Brett K. Hayes Department of Psychology, University of Newcastle, NSW , Australia ...

Information Sciences, 2007

In this paper we advocate the application of the equate-to-differentiate rule to the prisoner's d... more In this paper we advocate the application of the equate-to-differentiate rule to the prisoner's dilemma. As an alternative to the family of expected utility theory, the equate-to-differentiate approach [S. Li, A behavioral choice model when computational ability matters, Applied Intelligence 20 (2004) 147-163; S. Li, Equate-to-differentiate approach: an application in binary choice under uncertainty, Central European Journal of Operations Research 12 -294] posits that the mechanism governing human risky decision making has never been one of maximising some kind of expectation, but rather some generalisation of dominance detection. In the light of the proposed representation system to describe uncertain alternatives, a decision maker's cognitive representation of the choice alternatives in the prisoner's dilemma situations is described by reference to two dimensions. The choice behaviour is thus modelled as a process in which the individual equates offered differences between alternatives on one dimension, but differentiates another one-dimensional difference as the determinant of the final choice. The predictions derived from these theoretical developments are empirically tested in six experiments with new data introduced to determine if people follow the theoretical prescriptions. In all these experiments, choices could be explained as a consequence of radically simplifying decision information.