Behavior systems and reinforcement: an integrative approach.

Most traditional conceptions of reinforcement are based on a simple causal model in which responding is strengthened by the presentation of a reinforcer. I argue that reinforcement is better viewed as the outcome of constraint of a functioning causal system comprised of multiple interrelated causal sequences, complex linkages between causes and effects, and a set of initial conditions. Using a simplified system conception of the reinforcement situation, I review the similarities and drawbacks of traditional reinforcement models and analyze the recent contributions of cognitive, regulatory, and ecological approaches. Finally, I show how the concept of behavior systems can begin to incorporate both traditional and recent conceptions of reinforcement in an integrative approach.     

Reenactment: an embodied cognition approach to meaning and linguistic content

A central finding in experimental research identified with embodied cognition (EC) is that understanding actions involves their embodied simulation, i.e., executing some processes involved in performing these actions. Extending these findings, I argue that reenactment??the overt embodied simulation of actions and practices, including especially communicative actions and practices, within utterances??makes it possible to forge an integrated EC-based account of linguistic meaning. In particular, I argue: (a) that remote entities can be referred to by reenacting actions performed with them; (b) that the use of grammatical constructions can be conceived of as the reenactment of linguistic action routines; (c) that complex enunciational structures (reported speech, irony, etc.) involve a separate level of reenactment, on which characters are presented as interacting with one another within the utterance; (d) that the segmentation of long utterances into shorter units involves the reenactment of brief audience interventions between units; and (e) that the overall meaning of an utterance can be stated in reenactment terms. The notion of reenactment provides a conceptual framework for accounting for aspects of language that are usually thought to be outside the reach of EC in an EC framework, thus supporting a view of meaning and linguistic content as thoroughly grounded in action and interaction.     

Focused group therapy: An integrative approach

Focused Group Therapy (FGT) was developed within a research project on treatment for burned out patients on long-term sick leave. The core of FGT is to find and formulate an individual focus expressed in behavioural terms. This focus is then worked with in the here-and-now of the group therapy. It is argued that the use of common factors in group therapy, rather than a special technique, improves the clinical work. Thesupport factor in group therapy is understood in terms of cohesion, therapeutic alliance and goal-corrected empathic attunement. Thelearning factors that are stressed are the experience of being a part of a developing group, building on similarities instead of differences, affective communication and the implicit knowledge developed in new ways of dealing with interpersonal relations. Theaction factor is considered to consist of challenging interpersonal situations corresponding to the individual focus, which are mastered in the here-and-now of the group.     

Delineating the structure of normal and abnormal personality: an integrative hierarchical approach

Increasing evidence indicates that normal and abnormal personality can be treated within a single structural framework. However, identification of a single integrated structure of normal and abnormal personality has remained elusive. Here, a constructive replication approach was used to delineate an integrative hierarchical account of the structure of normal and abnormal personality. This hierarchical structure, which integrates many Big Trait models proposed in the literature, replicated across a meta-analysis as well as an empirical study, and across samples of participants as well as measures. The proposed structure resembles previously suggested accounts of personality hierarchy and provides insight into the nature of personality hierarchy more generally. Potential directions for future research on personality and psychopathology are discussed.     

Toward an integrative model of suicide attempt: a cognitive psychological approach.

Applying a cognitive approach, the purpose of the present study was to expand previous research on stress-vulnerability models of depression and problem-solving deficits, as it relates to suicide attempt. Structural equation modelling, involving latent variables, was used to evaluate (a) whether low self-esteem, a low sense of self-efficacy, loneliness, and divorce constituted vulnerability factors for the development of depression; (b) whether hopelessness and suicidal ideation mediated the relationship between depression and suicide attempt; and (c) whether problem-solving deficits mediated the relationship between the vulnerability factors and suicide attempt, separate from depression/hopelessness. A total of 123 individuals, aged 18-75 years, participated in the study (72 suicide attempters and 51 psychiatric outpatients with no history of suicidal behavior). The results indicated a two path model of suicide attempt. The first path began with low self-esteem, loneliness, and separation or divorce, which advanced to depression, and was further mediated by hopelessness and suicidal ideation which led to suicide attempt. The second path developed from low self-esteem and a low sense of self-efficacy and advanced to suicide attempt, mediated by a negative appraisal of one's own problem-solving capacity, and poor interpersonal problem-solving skills. The importance of addressing both depression/hopelessness, and problem-solving deficits when working with suicide attempters is noted.     

Animal cognition and the rat olfactory system

Is smell a 'primitive' sense used primarily to guide biologically basic behaviors or might it be the sensory modality that allows some species to express complex learning and other forms of cognitive behavior? Historically, the olfactory system has been considered primitive and it is not surprising that, until recently, cognitive neuroscientists have ignored odor-guided behavior. However, we now know that the olfactory system has projections to the prefrontal cortex, entorhinal cortex and hippocampus, and that these connections support the acquisition of simple and higher-order instrumental tasks, as well as a robust memory for odors. It appears that animals with a well-developed sense of smell have the neural machinery to think with their noses.     

Why we still use our heads instead of formulas: toward an integrative approach

This review begins with a discussion of Meehl's (1957) query regarding when to use one's head (i.e., intuition) instead of the formula (i.e., statistical or mechanical procedure) for clinical prediction. It then describes the controversy that ensued and analyzes the complexity and contemporary relevance of the question itself. Going beyond clinical inference, it identifies select cognitive biases and constraints that cause decision errors, and proposes remedial correctives. Given that the evidence shows cognition to be flawed, the article discusses the linear regression, Bayesian, signal detection, and computer approaches as possible decision aids. Their cost-benefit trade-offs, when used either alone or as complements to one another, are examined and evaluated. The critique concludes with a note of cautious optimism regarding the formula's future role as a decision aid and offers several interim solutions.     

Group psychotherapy with adolescents: An integrative approach

Conclusion This paper has attempted to convey a complex strategy and rationale for conducting group psychotherapy with a specific population. A variety of techniques have been integrated into an approach designed for adolescent groups. Modifications of this basic approach would be readily applicable in a variety of settings (e.g., school counseling programs, in-patient, facilities, private therapy).     

Animal timing: a synthetic approach

Inspired by Spence’s seminal work on transposition, we propose a synthetic approach to understanding the temporal control of operant behavior. The approach takes as primitives the temporal generalization gradients obtained in prototypical concurrent and retrospective timing tasks and then combines them to synthetize more complex temporal performances. The approach is instantiated by the learning-to-time (LeT) model. The article is divided into three parts. In the first part, we review the basic findings concerning the generalization gradients observed in fixed-interval schedules, the peak procedure, and the temporal generalization procedure and then describe how LeT explains them. In the second part, we use LeT to derive by gradient combination the typical performances observed in mixed fixed-interval schedules, the free-operant psychophysical procedure, the temporal bisection task, and the double temporal bisection task. We also show how the model plays the role of a useful null hypothesis to examine whether temporal control in the bisection task is relative or absolute. In the third part, we identify a set of issues that must be solved to advance our understanding of temporal control, including the shape of the generalization gradients outside the range of trained stimulus durations, the nature of temporal memories, the influence of context on temporal learning, whether temporal control can be inhibitory, and whether temporal control is also relational. These issues attest to the heuristic value of a Spencean approach to temporal control.     

生成认知：理论基础与实践走向

生成认知是具身认知思潮中的一个新取向。它主张认知是通过身体活动“生成的” (enacted)。认知的起点不是一个怎样精确表征世界的信息加工问题, 而是行动者在情境中怎样利用知觉来指导自己的行动。认知不是通过精确的心理表征“恢复”世界, 而是通过知觉引导的行动“生成”或“造就”一个自己的世界。认知是具身的行动, 认知结构形成于经常和反复出现的感觉运动模式, 与身体构造和身体活动具有深刻连续性。梅洛·庞蒂的身体现象学对生成认知具有深刻影响。同时, 詹姆斯、杜威等人的实用主义哲学对于实践行动的强调也深刻影响了生成认知。这种认知观强调了“行动”对心智的意义, 引发许多争议, 也促进了心理学研究范式的转变。     

The role of representative design in an ecological approach to cognition

Egon Brunswik argued that psychological processes are adapted to environmental properties. He proposed the method of representative design to capture these processes and advocated that psychology be a science of organism-environment relations. Representative design involves randomly sampling stimuli from the environment or creating stimuli in which environmental properties are preserved. This departs from systematic design. The authors review the development of representative design, examine its use in judgment and decision-making research, and demonstrate the effect of design on research findings. They suggest that some of the practical difficulties associated with representative design may be overcome with modern technologies. The importance of representative design in psychology and the implications of this method for ecological approaches to cognition are discussed.     

Extraversion and performance approach goal orientation: An integrative approach to personality

Research shows that extraversion is unrelated to performance approach goal orientation, both at the trait- and the state-level. However, since previous studies have either focused on the trait- or the state-level, such a conclusion may be premature. Building upon the idea that acting against one’s trait consumes self-control resources, we reason that within-person deviations from one’s level of trait extraversion might negatively relate to performance approach goal orientation. Using experience sampling data from 47 employees across 10 days (N = 307), we found that deviations from one’s trait extraversion levels are associated with lower levels of performance approach goal orientation. These findings suggest that an integrative approach to personality allows to better understanding of the relationship between extraversion and performance approach goal orientation.     

Animal foraging and the evolution of goal-directed cognition

Foraging- and feeding-related behaviors across eumetazoans share similar molecular mechanisms, suggesting the early evolution of an optimal foraging behavior called area-restricted search (ARS), involving mechanisms of dopamine and glutamate in the modulation of behavioral focus. Similar mechanisms in the vertebrate basal ganglia control motor behavior and cognition and reveal an evolutionary progression toward increasing internal connections between prefrontal cortex and striatum in moving from amphibian to primate. The basal ganglia in higher vertebrates show the ability to transfer dopaminergic activity from unconditioned stimuli to conditioned stimuli. The evolutionary role of dopamine in the modulation of goal-directed behavior and cognition is further supported by pathologies of human goal-directed cognition, which have motor and cognitive dysfunction and organize themselves, with respect to dopaminergic activity, along the gradient described by ARS, from perseverative to unfocused. The evidence strongly supports the evolution of goal-directed cognition out of mechanisms initially in control of spatial foraging but, through increasing cortical connections, eventually used to forage for information.     

The functions of autobiographical memory: An integrative approach

Recent research in cognitive psychology has emphasised the uses, or functions, of autobiographical memory. Theoretical and empirical approaches have focused on a three-function model: autobiographical memory serves self, directive, and social functions. In the reminiscence literature other taxonomies and additional functions have been postulated. We examined the relationships between functions proposed by these literatures, in order to broaden conceptualisations and make links between research traditions. In Study 1 we combined two measures of individual differences in the uses of autobiographical memory. Our results suggested four classes of memory functions, which we labelled Reflective, Generative, Ruminative, and Social. In Study 2 we tested relationships between our four functions and broader individual differences, and found conceptually consistent relationships. In Study 3 we found that memories cued by Generative and Social functions were more emotionally positive than were memories cued by Reflective and Ruminative functions. In Study 4 we found that reported use of Generative functions increased across the lifespan, while reported use of the other three functions decreased. Overall our findings suggest a broader view of autobiographical memory functions that links them to ways in which people make meaning of their selves, their environment, and their social world more generally.