Deprivation and satiation: The interrelations between food and wheel running

Two experiments were designed to assess whether depriving rats of food would increase the reinforcement effectiveness of wheel running (Experiment 1) and whether satiation for wheel running would decrease the reinforcement effectiveness of food (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, a progressive-ratio schedule was used to measure the reinforcement effectiveness of wheel running when rats were deprived or not deprived of food. Completion of a fixed number of lever presses released a brake on a running wheel for 60 s, and the response requirement was systematically increased until the rat stopped pressing or until 8 hr had elapsed. The ratio value reached (and the total number of lever presses) was an inverted-U function of food deprivation (percentage body weight). In Experiment 2, when wheel running preceded test sessions, fewer food-reinforced lever presses were maintained by the progressive-ratio schedule, and responding occurred at a lower rate on a variable-interval schedule. An interpretation of these results is that deprivation or satiation with respect to one event (such as food) alters the reinforcement effectiveness of a different event (such as access to wheel running).     

How to do basic medical research

The following editorial is a reprint of an article inLegacies in the Study of Behavior: The Wisdom and Experience of Many (edited by Joseph Warren Cullen and published by Charles C Thomas (1975) Springfield, Illinois) by Irvine H. Page, born 1901, a graduate of Cornell Medical College, and editor of “Modern Medicine.” The life of Dr. Page has been an enviable one and extremely colorful, reminiscent of the more comprehensive, less technically oriented careers of a bygone era. Beginning as Director of the Chemical Division of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Munich from 1928 to 1931, later Director of the Research Division of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (1945–1966), he pioneered in the mechanism of arteriosclerosis and hypertension, the isolation of serotonin, and in the research on angiotensin. Having been a successful experimental investigator as well as an eminent clinician, he speaks with a direction and brevity from a long experience. Because of the great value of his counsel, his article is reprinted here with his permission and that of the editor, J. W. Cullen, and the publisher Payne Thomas.

     

Smoking research: basic research, intervention, prevention, and new trends

Smoking is a behavior that is influenced by a variety of factors that cut across methodologies, disciplines, and content areas within health psychology. The present article is designed to show the diversity and richness of smoking research by examining smoking from four perspective: basic laboratory research, intervention, prevention and deterrence, and new directions in smoking research. Methodologies that were derived from such varied sources as psychopharmacology, behavioral pharmacology, behavior therapy, clinical psychology, public health and health promotion, and social and developmental psychology have been used to study the smoking problem. The subject populations in these investigations ranged from animal models, to the individual smoker attempting to quit, to communities involved in health promotion and public health approaches. Future research should seek to provide new and improved examples of interdisciplinary research within the field of health psychology to multidisciplinary approaches from the basic and applied sciences.     

Observational assessment systems use for basic and applied research

Three observational assessment systems, the Time-Sample Behavioral Checklist, the Staff-Resident Interaction Chronograph, and the Clinical Frequencies Recording System, are shown to have remarkable utility for a wide range of basic and applied research questions. The assessment systems have already been employed to measure independent and dependent variables in a number of treatment outcome and staff training studies and as measures in more basic studies of environmental history effects for chronic mental patients. Current and planned investigations employing the observational measures are outlined. These include psychometric studies of the instruments themselves, investigations of various parameters of ongoing treatment programs, and empirical validations of proposed nosological diagnostic schemas. Finally, several metamethodological issues germaine to observational assessment, in general, are noted, including the observation vs. interpretation debate and the role of precise observational measurement in applied research contexts.The research reported in this article was supported, in part, by Public Health Service Grants MH-15553 and MH-25464 from the National Institute of Mental Health, and by grants from The Joyce Foundation, Illinois Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, and the Purdue Research Foundation.Based on a paper presented at the 87th Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, New York City, September 1979, as part of a symposium New Assessment systems for residential treatment, management, research, and evaluation.     

The Cartesian cogito,epistemic logic and neuroscience: Some surprising interrelations

This paper was first read at the 1988 Annual Meeting of the International Institute of Philosophy in Stockholm, Sweden. The theme of the meeting was Descartes and the Contemporary Philosophy of Mind, which helped to explain the angle of my approach and the first few sentences of the paper. Morally, this paper thus should appear with the rest of the proceedings of the Stockholm meeting in a later number of this journal. However, the interrelations of my paper and Lucia Vaina's are so close that it makes best sense to publish them together.     

On the interrelations of syntax and semantics

Summary Proceeding from the assumption that the recall of sentence tense is affected by verb meaning, the following variations in verb meaning were introduced: Action vs. State and Terminal vs. Interminal. The influence of these aspects on the recall of the Present and Perfect tenses (in German) was tested in a three-factorial design. A distinct interaction was obtained between the factors Terminal/Interminal and sentence tense. The Action/State condition did not affect the recall of sentence tense. All tested aspects of verb meaning did however influence the recall of sentence content.The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Mr. B. Jankowski in the translation of this paper from an original German version.     

Short form and factor-analytic studies of the WISC-R with behavior problem children

Two analyses of the WISC-R protocols of 100 children referred for behavioral problems in school were conducted to study (a) the utility of a variety of WISC short forms and (b) the factor structure of the WISC-R. Although the correlations between short form and WISC-R IQs were highly significant, mean differences and a high percentage of IQ classification changes indicated that the short forms were not acceptable WISC-R substitutes. Different factor analyses consistently evidenced two factors, Verbal Comprehension and Perceptual Organization, which corresponded perfectly to the Verbal and Performance.