Environmental activism is expected to improve society’s well-being and environmental sustainability. Nevertheless, some inappropriate ways of activism, like road blockage, art vandalism, assaults, etc., have been recently conducted and risked causing adverse repercussions, including violence escalation. The current study aims to explore which types of environmental activism are more likely to escalate violence between activists, affected citizens, and police. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed to analyze a dataset of 89 blockage, vandalism, and harassment cases in 13 countries in (...) this exploratory study. We discovered that rallies and demonstrations, marches, event disruption, and art vandalism were less likely to escalate violence between protestors, other citizens, and the police. In contrast, road blockades and assaults are more likely to lead to violence escalation. Apart from those, sabotage was found to have an ambiguous relationship with the violence escalation. Based on these results, we suggest that climate activists should be more selective in adopting activism approaches to raise public awareness and support and avoid using tactics that might be counterproductive and reduce public backing, such as road blockage and assaults. Despite the negative impact of art vandalism on violence escalation, we also discussed why art vandalism should not be used since it can curb the effectiveness of artivism, showing misuse of artworks (e.g., paintings, music, films) for environmental activism. (shrink)

Given the close relatedness of local issues, water scarcity, and sustainability, this research sought to investigate the factors affecting residents’ willingness to reuse direct and indirect potable water in the arid region. Utilizing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), an analysis was undertaken with a sample of 1,831 water consumers in the City of Albuquerque, the most populous city in New Mexico, United States. The primary analysis revealed positive associations between local concerns about drought or water scarcity and population growth with (...) residents' willingness to reuse direct and indirect potable water. Conversely, concerns about water quality and water bills were found to be negatively associated with the willingness to utilize directly and indirectly recycled water for drinking. In light of these findings, the study explores the potential of fostering an eco-surplus culture by cultivating a sense of environmental responsibility and acknowledging the relationship between local issues and environmental conditions. Simultaneously, the study proposes collaboration between the government and residents to promote water reuse programs to conserve water resources effectively. (shrink)

Statements containing epistemic modals (e.g., “by spring 2023 most European countries may have the Covid-19 pandemic under control”) are common expressions of epistemic uncertainty. In this paper, previous published findings (Knobe & Yalcin, 2014; Khoo & Phillips, 2018) on the opposition between Contextualism and Relativism for epistemic modals are re-examined. It is found that these findings contain a substantial degree of individual variation. To investigate whether participants differ in their interpretation of epistemic modals, an experiment with multiple phases and sessions (...) is used to classify participants according to the three semantic theories of Relativism, Contextualism, and Objectivism. Through this study, some of the first empirical evidence for the kind of truth-value shifts postulated by semantic Relativism is presented. It is furthermore found that participants’ disagreement judgments match their truth evaluations and that participants are capable of distinguishing between truth and justification. In a second experimental session, it is investigated whether participants thus classified follow the norm of retraction which Relativism uses to account for argumentation with epistemic modals. Here the results are less favorable for Relativism. In a second experiment, these results are replicated and the normative beliefs of participants concerning the norm of retraction are investigated following work on measuring norms by Bicchieri (2017). Again, it is found that on average participants show no strong preferences concerning the norm of retraction for epistemic modals. Yet, it was found that participants who had committed to Objectivism and had training in logics applied the norm of retraction to might-statements. These results present a substantial challenge to the account of argumentation with epistemic modals presented in MacFarlane (2014), as discussed. Keywords: Epistemic Modals, Relativism, Norm Conflicts, Retraction, Semantics, Truth Conditions, Argumentation. (shrink)

Habilitation thesis in psychology. The book consists of a collection of reasoning studies. The experimental investigations will take us from people’s reasoning about probabilities, entailments, pragmatic factors, argumentation, and causality to morality. An overarching theme of the book is norm pluralism and individual differences in rationality research.

ABSTRACT In the present study, I explore the relationship between purpose, which was measured by the Claremont Purpose Scale, and moral psychological indicators, moral reasoning, moral identity, and empathy. Purpose was quantified in terms of three subcomponents: meaning, goal, and beyond-the-self motivation. Moral reasoning was assessed in terms of utilization of postconventional moral reasoning. Moral identity was examined with two subscales: moral internalization, and symbolization. Among diverse subscales of empathy, I focused on empathic concern and perspective taking, which have been (...) reported to be strongly related to morality. To explore the best prediction models using the data, I employed Bayesian Model Selection and Bayesian regression analysis. In general, purpose was significantly predicted by most surveyed moral psychological indicators but not by moral symbolization. The best prediction model for beyond-the-self motivation included the most moral psychological indicator predictors including moral reasoning, which did not significantly predict other dependent variables. (shrink)

Body awareness refers to the individual ability to process signals originating from within the body, which provide a mapping of the body’s internal landscape and its relation with space and movement. The present study aims to evaluate psychometric properties and validate in French two self-report measures of body awareness: the Postural Awareness Scale, and the last version of the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness questionnaire. We collected data in a non-clinical, adult sample using online survey, and a subset of the (...) original sample also completed the retest control. Factor analyses and reliability analyses were conducted. Construct validity of the PAS and the MAIA-2 were examined by testing their association with each other, and with self-report measures of personality, alexithymia and dispositional trait mindfulness. Factor analyses of the PAS supported the same two-factor structure as previously published versions. For the MAIA-2, factor analyses suggested that a six-factor structure, excluding Not-Worrying and Not-Distracting factors, could successfully account for a common general factor of self-reported interoception. We found satisfactory internal consistency, construct validity, and reliability over time for both the PAS and the MAIA-2. Altogether, our findings suggest that the French version of the PAS and the MAIA-2 are reliable self-report tools to assess both components of body awareness. (shrink)

Errors and their consequences are typically studied by investigating changes in decision speed and accuracy in trials that follow an error, commonly referred to as “post-error adjustments”. Many studies have reported that subjects slow down following an error, a phenomenon called “post-error slowing” (PES). However, the functional significance of PES is still a matter of debate as it is not always adaptive. That is, it is not always associated with a gain in performance and can even occur with a decline (...) in accuracy. Here, we hypothesized that the nature of PES is influenced by one’s speed-accuracy tradeoff policy, which determines the overall level of choice accuracy in the task at hand. To test this hypothesis, we had subjects performing a task in two distinct contexts (separate days), which either promoted speed (hasty context) or cautiousness (cautious context), allowing us to consider post-error adjustments according to whether subjects performed choices with a low or high accuracy level, respectively. Accordingly, our data indicate that post-error adjustments varied according to the context in which subjects performed the task, with PES being solely significant in the hasty context (low accuracy). In addition, we only observed a gain in performance after errors in a specific trial type, suggesting that post-error adjustments depend on a complex combination of processes that affect the speed of ensuing actions as well as the degree to which such PES comes with a gain in performance. (shrink)

The current contents of visual working memory can be disrupted by previously formed memories. This phenomenon is known as proactive interference, and it can be used to index the availability of old memories. However, there is uncertainty about the robustness and lifetime of proactive interference, which raises important questions about the role of temporal factors in forgetting. The present study assessed different factors that were expected to influence the persistence of proactive interference over an inter-trial interval in the visual recent (...) probes task. In three experiments, participants encoded arrays of targets and then determined whether a single probe matched one of those targets. On some trials, the probe matched an item from the previous trial, whereas on other trials the probe matched a more distant item. Prior studies have found that recent negative probes can increase errors and slow response times in comparison to non-recent negative probes, and this offered a behavioral measure of proactive interference. In Experiment 1, factors of array size and inter-trial interval were manipulated in the recent probes task. There was a reduction in proactive interference when a longer delay separated trials on one measure, but only when participants encoded two targets. When working memory capacity was strained by increasing the array size to four targets, proactive interference became stronger after the long delay. In Experiment 2, the inter-trial interval length was again manipulated, along with stimulus novelty. Proactive interference was modestly stronger when a smaller number of stimuli were used throughout the experiment, but proactive interference was minimally affected by the inter-trial interval. These findings are problematic for temporal models of forgetting, but Experiment 3 showed that proactive interference also resisted disruption produced by a secondary task presented within the inter-trial interval. Proactive interference was constantly present and generally resilient to the different manipulations. The combined data suggest a relatively durable, passive representation that can disrupt current working memory under a variety of different circumstances. (shrink)

Many studies have shown that about three biological motions can be maintained in working memory. However, no study has yet analyzed the difficulties of experiment materials used, which partially affect the ecological validity of the experiment results. We use the perspective of system anatomy to decompose BM, and thoroughly explore the influencing factors of difficulties of BMs, including presentation duration, joints to execute motions, limbs to execute motions, type of articulation interference tasks, and number of joints and planes involved in (...) the BM. We apply the change detection paradigm supplemented by the articulation interference task to measure the BM working memory capacity of participants. Findings show the following: the shorter the presentation duration, the less participants remembered; the more their wrist moved, the less accurate their memory was; repeating verbs provided better results than did repeating numerals to suppress verbal encoding; the more complex the BM, the less participants remembered; and whether the action was executed by the handed limbs did not affect the WMC. These results indicate that there are many factors that can be used to adjust BM memory load. These factors can help sports psychology professionals to better evaluate the difficulty of BMs, and can also partially explain the differences in estimations of BM WMC in previous studies. (shrink)

Previous work suggests that threat-related stimuli are stored to a greater degree in working memory compared to neutral stimuli. However, most of this research has focused on stimuli with physically salient threat attributes, failing to account for how a “neutral” stimulus that has acquired threat-related associations through differential aversive conditioning influences working memory. The current study examined how differentially conditioned safe and threat stimuli are stored in working memory relative to a novel, non-associated stimuli. Participants completed a differential fear conditioning (...) task followed by a change detection task consisting of three conditions across two loads. Results revealed individuals successfully learned to distinguishing CS+ from CS– conditions during the differential aversive conditioning task. Our working memory outcomes indicated successful load manipulation effects, but no statistically significant differences in accuracy, response time, or Pashler’s K measures of working memory capacity between CS+, CS–, or N conditions. However, we observed significantly reduced RT difference scores for the CS+ compared to CS– condition, indicating greater RT differences between the CS+ and N condition vs. the CS– and N condition. These findings suggest that differentially conditioned stimuli have little impact on behavioral outcomes of working memory compared to novel stimuli that had not been associated with previous safe of aversive outcomes, at least in healthy populations. (shrink)

It is widely held that there are important differences between indicative conditionals (e.g. “If the authors are linguists, they have written a linguistics paper”) and subjunctive conditionals (e.g. “If the authors had been linguists, they would have written a linguistics paper”). A central difference is that indicatives and subjunctives convey different stances towards the truth of their antecedents. Indicatives (often) convey neutrality: for example, about whether the authors in question are linguists. Subjunctives (often) convey the falsity of the antecedent: for (...) example, that the authors in question are not linguists. This paper tests prominent accounts of how these different stances are conveyed: whether by presupposition or conversational implicature. Experiment 1 tests the presupposition account by investigating whether the stances project – remain constant – when embedded under operators like negations, possibility modals, and interrogatives, a key characteristic of presuppositions. Experiment 2 tests the conversational-implicature account by investigating whether the stances can be cancelled without producing a contradiction, a key characteristic of implicatures. The results provide evidence that both stances – neutrality about the antecedent in indicatives and the falsity of the antecedent in subjunctives – are conveyed by conversational implicatures. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a global threat to physical and mental health worldwide. Research has highlighted adverse impacts of COVID-19 on wellbeing but has yet to offer insights as to how wellbeing may be protected. Inspired by developments in wellbeing science and guided by our own theoretical framework, we examined the role of various potentially protective factors in a sample of 138 participants from the United Kingdom. Protective factors included physical activity, tragic optimism, gratitude, social support, and nature connectedness. (...) Initial analysis involved the application of one-sample t-tests, which confirmed that wellbeing in the current sample was significantly lower compared to previous samples. Protective factors were observed to account for up to 50% of variance in wellbeing in a hierarchical linear regression that controlled for a range of sociostructural factors including age, gender, and subjective social status, which impact on wellbeing but lie beyond individual control. Gratitude and tragic optimism emerged as significant contributors to the model. Our results identify key psychological attributes that may be harnessed through various positive psychology strategies to mitigate the adverse impacts of hardship and suffering, consistent with an existential positive psychology of suffering. (shrink)

Autistic children have difficulties in adapting their language for particular listeners and contexts. We asked whether these difficulties are more prominent when children are required to be cognitively flexible, when changing how they have previously referred to a particular object. We compared autistic with neuro-typical five- to seven-year-olds. Each child participated in two conditions. In the Switch condition the same animal had to be re-described across trials to be appropriately informative. In the No-Switch condition no picture needed to be re-described. (...) Nonetheless, the conditions were matched regarding the requirement to use both complex versus simple expressions. Autistic children were more over-informative than peers even prior to the requirement to re-describe an animal. Overall, we found a main effect of the Switch Condition and no interaction with Group. Switching a description hinders the ability of children to be appropriately informative. As autistic children are generally less appropriately informative, the requirement to switch leads to particularly poor performance in autism. Lay abstract The way autistic individuals use language often gives the impression that they are not considering how much information listeners need in a given context. The same child can give too much information in one context and too little information in another context. We asked whether many autistic children particularly struggle to tailor their language appropriately in situations where this means changing how they have previously described something. That is, if a speaker has recently described an object as ‘the cup’, the need to switch to describing it as ‘the big cup’ could hinder the speaker’s ability to use language in a context-appropriate way.We found that switching descriptions indeed makes it more difficult for children to use language in a context-appropriate way, but that this effect did not play out differently for autistic versus neuro-typical children. Autistic children were, however, less likely to provide a context-appropriate amount of information overall than were neuro-typical peers. The combination of these effects meant that when object re-description was required, autistic children only produced an appropriate description half the time. In contrast, without a requirement to redescribe, autistic children could indeed take listener informational needs into account. Applied professionals should consider whether a requirement to change the way the child has previously said something may hinder a child’s ability to communicate effectively. (shrink)

In the current chapter, I examined the relationship between the cerebellum, emotion, and morality with evidence from large-scale neuroimaging data analysis. Although the aforementioned relationship has not been well studied in neuroscience, recent studies have shown that the cerebellum is closely associated with emotional and social processes at the neural level. Also, debates in the field of moral philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience have supported the importance of emotion in moral functioning. Thus, I explored the potentially important but less-studies topic with (...) NeuroSynth, a tool for large-scale brain image analysis, while addressing issues associated with reverse inference. The result from analysis demonstrated that brain regions in the cerebellum, the right Crus I and Crus II in particular, were specifically associated with morality in general. I discussed the potential implications of the finding based on clinical and functional neuroimaging studies of the cerebellum, emotional functioning, and neural networks for diverse psychological processes. (shrink)

AimWe aimed to investigate whether the 12-item Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) constitutes a valid and reliable measure of social support for the general adult Australian population.MethodsData were from Australia’s National Survey of Adult Oral Health 2004–2006 and included 3899 participants aged 18 years old and over. The psychometric properties were evaluated with Bayesian confirmatory factor analysis. One-, two-, and three-factor (Significant Other, Family and Friends) structures were tested. Model fit was assessed with the posterior predictivep-value (PPPχ2), Bayesian (...) root mean square error of approximation (BRMSEA), and Bayesian comparative fit index (BCFI). Dimensionality was tested by comparing competing factorial structures with the Bayes factor (BF). Reliability was evaluated with the Bayesian ΩH. Convergent validity was investigated with the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and discriminant validity with the Perceived Dental Control scale (PDC-3).ResultsThe theoretical three-factor model (Significant Other, Family, and Friends) provided a good fit to the data [PPPχ2< 0.001, BRMSEA = 0.089-95% credible interval (CrI) (0.088, 0.089); BCFI = 0.963-95% CrI (0.963, 0.964)]. The BF provided decisive support for the three-factor structure in relation to the other structures. The SO [BΩH= 0.95 - 95% CrI (0.90, 0.99)], FA (BΩH= 0.92 - 95% CrI (0.87, 0.97), and FR (BΩH= 0.92 - 95% CrI (0.88, 0.97)] subscales displayed excellent reliability. The MSPSS displayed initial evidence of convergent and discriminant validity.ConclusionThe MSPSS demonstrated good psychometric properties and excellent reliability in a large Australian sample. This instrument can be applied in national surveys and provide evidence of the role of social support in the Australian population. (shrink)

Funerals are a reflective practice to bid farewell to the departed soul. Different religions, cultural traditions, rituals, and social beliefs guide how funeral practices take place. Family and friends gather together to support each other in times of grief. However, during the coronavirus pandemic, the way funerals are taking place is affected by the country's rules and region to avoid the spread of infection. The present study explores the media portrayal of public sentiments over funerals. In particular, the present study (...) tried to identify linguistic dimensions associated with lexical components of social processes, affective processes, fear, and disgust. An exhaustive search of newspaper coverage of funeral and related articles was made for a specific corona period. After an initial screening for the details and language used, a total of 46 newspaper articles on funerals were finalized for the analysis. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) software was used to determine the association between linguistic dimensions of function words and words related to social and affective processes, as presented in the newspaper articles. Sentiment Analysis and Cognition Engine (SEANCE) was applied for the analysis of sentiment, social cognition, and social order. Bayesian correlation analysis and regression revealed positive and significant associations between function words and affective processes, between pronouns and social processes, and between negative adjectives and psychological processes of fear and disgust. Also, significant negative associations were found between polarity nouns and psychological processes of fear and disgust and between polarity verbs and psychological processes of fear and disgust. Bayes factor 10 provides strong evidence in favor of the study hypotheses. The media is influenced by the prevailing sentiments in society and reflects their perception of the current social order and beliefs. The findings provide a glimpse into the prevailing sentiment of society through the lens of media coverage. These understandings are expected to enhance our observations of how people express their feelings over the loss of their loved ones and help mental health professionals develop their therapeutic protocols to treat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-affected population. (shrink)

Lower extremity non-contact soft tissue injuries are prevalent in elite futsal. The purpose of this study was to develop robust screening models based on pre-season measures obtained from questionnaires and field-based tests to prospectively predict LE-ST injuries after having applied a range of supervised Machine Learning techniques. One hundred and thirty-nine elite futsal players underwent a pre-season screening evaluation that included individual characteristics; measures related to sleep quality, athlete burnout, psychological characteristics related to sport performance and self-reported perception of chronic (...) ankle instability. A number of neuromuscular performance measures obtained through three field-based tests [isometric hip strength, dynamic postural control and lower extremity joints range of motion ] were also recorded. Injury incidence was monitored over one competitive season. There were 25 LE-ST injuries. Only those groups of measures from two of the field-based tests, as independent data sets, were able to build robust models [area under the receiver operating characteristic curve score ≥0.7] to identify elite futsal players at risk of sustaining a LE-ST injury. Unlike the measures obtained from the five questionnaires selected, the neuromuscular performance measures did build robust prediction models. The inclusion in the same data set of the measures recorded from all the questionnaires and field-based tests did not result in models with significantly higher performance scores. The model generated by the UnderBagging technique with a cost-sensitive SMO as the base classifier and using only four ROM measures reported the best prediction performance scores. The models developed might help coaches, physical trainers and medical practitioners in the decision-making process for injury prevention in futsal. (shrink)

When labeling an infectious disease, officially sanctioned scientific names, e.g., “H1N1 virus,” are recommended over place-specific names, e.g., “Spanish flu.” This is due to concerns from policymakers and the WHO that the latter might lead to unintended stigmatization. However, with little empirical support for such negative consequences, authorities might be focusing on limited resources on an overstated issue. This paper empirically investigates the impact of naming against the current backdrop of the 2019–2020 pandemic. The first hypothesis posited that using place-specific (...) names associated with China leads to greater levels of sinophobia, the negative stigmatization of Chinese individuals. The second hypothesis posited that using a scientific name leads to increased anxiety, risk aversion, beliefs about contagiousness of the virus, and beliefs about mortality rate. Results from two preregistered studies [N = 504; N = 412], conducted across three countries with the first study during the early outbreak and the second study at a later stage of the pandemic, found no evidence of any adverse effects of naming on sinophobia and strong support for the null hypothesis using Bayesian analyses. Moreover, analyses found no impact of naming on anxiety, risk aversion, beliefs about contagiousness of the virus, or beliefs about mortality rate, with mild to strong support for the null hypothesis across outcomes. Exploratory analyses also found no evidence for the effect of naming being moderated by political affiliation. In conclusion, results provide no evidence that virus naming impacted individual’s attitudes toward Chinese individuals or perceptions of the virus, with the majority of analyses finding strong support for the null hypothesis. Therefore, based on the current evidence, it appears that the importance given to naming infectious diseases might be inflated. (shrink)

Although some previous studies have investigated the relationship between moral foundations and moral judgment development, the methods used have not been able to fully explore the relationship. In the present study, we used Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) in order to address the limitations in traditional regression methods that have been used previously. Results showed consistency with previous findings that binding foundations are negatively correlated with post-conventional moral reasoning and positively correlated with maintaining norms and personal interest schemas. In addition to (...) previous studies, our results showed a positive correlation for individualizing foundations and post-conventional moral reasoning. Implications are discussed as well as a detailed explanation of the novel BMA method in order to allow others in the field of moral education to be able to use it in their own studies. (shrink)

In previous research on the evaluation of food images, we found that appetitive food images were rated higher following a positive prediction than following a negative prediction, and vice versa for aversive food images. The findings suggested an active confirmation bias. Here, we examine whether this influence from prediction depends on the evaluative polarization of the food images. Specifically, we divided the set of food images into "strong" and "mild" images by how polarized (i.e., extreme) their average ratings were across (...) all conditions. With respect to the influence from prediction, we raise two alternative hypotheses. According to a predictive dissonance hypothesis, the larger the discrepancy between prediction and outcome, the stronger the active inference toward accommodating the outcome with the prediction; thus, the confirmation bias should obtain particularly with strong images. Conversely, according to a nudging-in-volatility hypothesis, the active confirmation bias operates only on images within a dynamic range, where the values of images are volatile, and not on the evaluation of images that are too obviously appetitive or aversive; accordingly, the effects from prediction should occur predominately with mild images. Across the data from two experiments, we found that the evaluation of mild images tended to exhibit the confirmation bias, with ratings that followed the direction given by the prediction. For strong images, there was no confirmation bias. Our findings corroborate the nudging-in-volatility hypothesis, suggesting that predictive cues may be able to tip the balance of evaluation particularly for food images that do not have a strongly polarized value. (shrink)

The replication crisis has caused researchers to distinguish between exact replications, which duplicate all aspects of a study that could potentially affect the results, and direct replications, which duplicate only those aspects of the study that are thought to be theoretically essential to reproduce the original effect. The replication crisis has also prompted researchers to think more carefully about the possibility of making Type I errors when rejecting null hypotheses. In this context, the present article considers the utility of two (...) types of Type I error probability: the Neyman–Pearson long run Type I error rate and the Fisherian sample-specific Type I error probability. It is argued that the Neyman–Pearson Type I error rate is inapplicable in social science because it refers to a long run of exact replications, and social science deals with irreversible units that make exact replications impossible. Instead, the Fisherian sample-specific Type I error probability is recommended as a more meaningful way to conceptualize false positive results in social science because it can be applied to each sample-specific decision about rejecting the same substantive null hypothesis in a series of direct replications. It is concluded that the replication crisis may be partly due to researchers’ unrealistic expectations about replicability based on their consideration of the Neyman–Pearson Type I error rate across a long run of exact replications. (shrink)

Little is known about the impact of success and failure events on age-related changes in affect states and, particularly, in self-esteem levels. To fill this gap in the literature, in the present study changes in affect and self-esteem in 100 young (19 - 30 years) and 102 older adults (65-81 years) were assessed after participants experienced success and failure in a demanding cognitive task. Overall, the success-failure manipulation induced changes on affect states and on state self-esteem, not on trait self-esteem. (...) Regarding age differences, older and young adults were affected to the same extent by experiences of successes and failures. Theoretical considerations of the empirical findings are provided in the general discussion. (shrink)

Bayesian confirmation theory is a leading theory to decide the confirmation/refutation of a hypothesis based on probability calculus. While it may be much discussed in philosophy of science, is it actually practiced in terms of hypothesis testing by scientists? Since the assignment of some of the probabilities in the theory is open to debate and the risk of making the wrong decision is unknown, many scientists do not use the theory in hypothesis testing. Instead, they use alternative statistical tests that (...) can measure the risk or the reliability in decision making, circumventing some of the theoretical problems in practice. Therefore, the theory is not very popular in hypothesis testing among scientists at present. However, there are some proponents of Bayesian hypothesis testing, and software packages are made available to accelerate utilization by scientists. Time will tell whether Bayesian confirmation theory can become both a leading theory and a widely practiced method. In addition, this theory can be used to model the belief of scientists when testing hypotheses. (shrink)