Cortical stimulation and speech timing: A preliminary observation

Audio recordings of the speech of seven patients receiving cortical stimulation during epilepsy surgery were acoustically analyzed, and duration measurements of the sound /s/ under stimulation and nonstimulation conditions were compared. It was found that in the dominant hemisphere, stimulation tended to significantly increase the duration of /s/; but not all stimulation sites were comparably affected. Stimulation of frontal lobe locations was also observed to more frequently result in durational increases than when temporal or parietal sites were stimulated. However, for sites affected, the actual magnitude of durational increase was comparable among the three lobes.     

Listener: A tool for client-side investigation of hypermedia navigation behavior

Behavioral researchers have employed hypermedia-based software applications in their experiments for some time. More recently, interest in the World-Wide Web has developed among researchers in the social sciences, and popular use of this new medium continues to grow at an incredible rate. This paper describes Listener, a tool developed to log users’ hypermedia and World-Wide Web navigation behavior using Apple Macintosh computers in a laboratory setting. Listener is able to capture navigation actions through cached documents, overcoming some of the problems associated with analyzing standard web server logs.     

Predicting attendance at peer-assisted study sessions for statistics: role identity and the theory of planned behavior

Using a prospective study of 77 1st-year psychology students' voluntary attendance at peer-assisted study sessions for statistics, the authors tested the addition of role identity to the theory of planned behavior. The authors used a revised set of role-identity items to capture the personal and social aspects of role identity within a specific behavioral context. At the commencement of the semester, the authors assessed the students' attitudes, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, role identity, and intention. The authors examined the students' class attendance records 3 months later. Attitudes and perceived behavioral control predicted intention, with intention as the sole predictor of attendance. Role identity also predicted intention, reflecting the importance of the student role identity in influencing decision making related to supplementary academic activities.     

A system for recording family sessions

A diagrammatic technique for recording family sessions is presented. The Interaction Chronogram is a visual display system originally devised for use in group psychotherapy by Cox, but can be modified for work with families. The system permits a family session to be summarized diagrammatically and aids review of a family's treatment. A 'diagnostic' and treatment session with one family is presented to illustrate the system's use.     

Motor timing deficits in community and clinical boys with hyperactive behavior: the effect of methylphenidate on motor timing

In a previous paper we showed that community children with hyperactive behavior were more inconsistent than controls in the temporal organization of their motor output. In this study we investigated: (1) various aspects of motor timing processes in 13 clinically diagnosed boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) who were compared to 11 community boys with hyperactive behavior and to a control group and (2) the effect of methylphenidate on the motor timing processes in the clinical group with ADHD in a double blind, cross-over, medication-placebo design, including 4 weeks of medication. The clinical group with ADHD, like the community group with hyperactivity, showed greater variability in sensorimotor synchronization and in sensorimotor anticipation relative to controls. The clinical group was also impaired in time perception, which was spared in the community group with hyperactivity. The persistent, but not the acute dose, of methylphenidate reduced the variability of sensorimotor synchronization and anticipation, but had no effect on time perception. This study shows that motor timing functions are impaired in both clinical and community children with hyperactivity. It is the first study to show the effectiveness of persistent administration of methylphenidate on deficits in motor timing in ADHD children and extends the use of methylphenidate from the domain of attentional and inhibitory functions to the domain of executive motor timing.     

Remote effects of aversive contingencies: Disruption of appetitive behavior by adjacent avoidance sessions

Disruption of ongoing appetitive behavior before and after daily avoidance sessions was examined. After baselines of appetitive responding were established under a fixed-interval 180-s schedule of food presentation, 4 rats were exposed to 40-min sessions of the appetitive schedule just prior to 100-min sessions of electric shock postponement, while another 4 rats received the 40-min appetitive sessions just following daily sessions of shock postponement. In all 8 subjects, fixed-interval response rates decreased relative to baseline levels, the effect being somewhat more pronounced when the avoidance sessions immediately followed. The disruption of fixed-interval responding was only partially reversed when avoidance sessions were discontinued. During the initial exposure to the avoidance sessions, patterns of responding under the fixed-interval schedule were differentially sensitive to disruption, with high baseline response rates generally more disturbed than low rates. These disruptions were not systematically related to changes in reinforcement frequency, which remained fairly high and invariant across all conditions of the experiment; they were also not systematically related to the response rates or to the shock rates of the adjacent avoidance sessions. The results, while qualitatively resembling patterns of conditioned suppression as typically studied, occurred on a greatly expanded time scale. As disruption of behavior extending over time, the present data suggest that some forms of conditioned suppression are perhaps best viewed within a larger temporal context.     

A tool for investigating the differential functions of aggressive behavior in the face-to-face and cyber context: Extending the Cyber-Aggression Typology Questionnaire

Aggressive behavior in the face-to-face and cyber contexts is driven by underlying aggression (i.e., functions of aggressive behavior). Common theories of aggression distinguish between reactive (e.g., rage) and proactive (e.g., seeking to achieve power and affiliation) aggression. However, according to the quadripartite violence typology, this distinction conflates aspects of motivational valence with self-regulatory processes. The Cyber-Aggression Typology Questionnaire (CATQ; Runions et al., 2017, Aggress Behav, 43(1), pp. 74–84) overcomes this weakness by identifying four types of cyber-aggression (impulsive-aversive/rage, controlled-aversive/revenge, controlled-appetitive/reward, and impulsive-appetitive/recreation cyber-aggression). However, the CATQ only considers aggression in cyberspace. We extended the CATQ to the face-to-face context by developing a corresponding Face-to-Face Aggression Typology Questionnaire (FATQ). The aim of this study was to investigate factorial and convergent validity and metric measurement invariance between four-factorial cyber and face-to-face aggression. In total, 587 students from six Austrian universities filled out the CATQ, the FATQ, and additional scales during regular university lectures to examine convergent validity. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the four-factor structure of both questionnaires, after excluding inconclusive items from the impulsive-aversive/rage subscale of the FATQ. These items were also removed from the CATQ to obtain two symmetric questionnaires. Metric measurement invariance between the CATQ and the FATQ was confirmed. Convergent validity was largely observed. Our results support an extended four-factor model of aggression. Having two parallel questionnaires, the FATQ and CATQ, enables future studies to investigate commonalities and differences in underlying drivers of aggressive behavior in the cyber and face-to-face contexts.     

Behavior-based robotics as a tool for synthesis of artificial behavior and analysis of natural behavior

Work in behavior-based systems focuses on functional modeling, that is, the synthesis of life-like and/or biologically inspired behavior that is robust, repeatable and adaptive. Inspiration from cognitive science, neuroscience and biology drives the development of new methods and models in behavior-based robotics, and the results tie together several related fields including artificial life, evolutionary computation, and multi-agent systems. Ideas from artificial intelligence and engineering continue to be explored actively and applied to behavior-based robots as their role in animal modeling and practical applications is being developed.     

Precision teaching: A tool for the school psychologist and teacher

The authors of this paper have tried to provide an introduction to the language and problem solving approach called Precision Teaching. Reasons for using a specific language and reporting techniques are listed. Definitions of the terminology and examples taken from the classroom are provided. The main point of this paper is that systematic interventions, precisely described and systematically recorded, lead to the most successful interventions.     

Aggression and power restoration: The effects of identifiability and timing on aggressive behavior

The study was designed to demonstrate that one function of aggression is the restoration of power. It was predicted that, after an individual had his power reduced, greater aggression would be emitted when the individual could be identified as the attacker by his victim than when he could not. It was felt that only when the aggressor was identifiable could he completely restore his power vis-à-vis the victim. A second aim of the study was to investigate the effects of timing of aggression on the intensity of aggression. It was predicted that in a learning situation, if aggression were utilized solely as a teaching device, greater aggression would be emitted by the “teacher” when the “learner” made mistakes early as opposed to late in the task. However, if the individual were motivated to restore his power by aggressing, greater aggression would occur when the mistakes were made late since having to wait should frustrate the teacher's desire to restore power through aggression. The design of the study was a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial in which subjects were either insulted or not, given the opportunity to aggress either anonymously or when clearly identified, and able to aggress either early or late in a learning task. The results supported the power-restoration hypothesis: Subjects who were insulted aggressed more when identifiable than when anonymous. Also, there was greater aggression in the early as opposed to late conditions under all circumstances except in the insultidentifiable condition.     

Dialectical behavior therapy for the treatment of anger and aggressive behavior: A review

ObjectiveThe management of anger and aggression is a public safety issue. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a promising treatment for reducing anger and violent behavior. This mode of therapy addresses maladaptive behavior by teaching emotion regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, core mindfulness, and self-management skills.MethodsThis paper reviewed DBT treatment for anger and aggressive or violent behavior. The literature search included articles from 1998 to September 2013. A total of 21 peer-reviewed articles studying the effects of DBT on anger and aggressive behavior were reviewed.ResultsAdaptations or modifications were made to standard DBT to accommodate the specific needs of the variety of populations across studies. Nine studies attempted to understand the efficacy of DBT for anger and aggressive behavior while twelve studies measured the efficacy of DBT within the context of a BPD diagnosis. There are nine randomized controlled trials (RCT) assessing DBT to reduce anger and aggressive behavior.ConclusionResearch has shown that there are potentially clinically significant results when using DBT to treat anger and aggression in various samples. Findings from this review suggest that treatments, even when modified show a positive impact on the reduction of anger and aggressive behaviors.     

Types of abduction in tool behavior

Tool-use behavior is currently one of the most intriguing and widely debated topics in cognitive neuroscience. Different accounts of our ability to use tools have been proposed. In the first part of the paper we review the most prominent interpretations and suggest that none of these accounts, considered in itself, is sufficient to explain tool use. In the second part of the paper we disentangle three different types of reasoning on tools, characterized by a different distribution of motor and cognitive ingredients. At the conceptual level, these types of reasoning reflect the distinction between three types of abductive inference as they are described in semiotic studies. At the functional level, we suggest that these types of reasoning on tools may correspond to different mental processes, possibly implemented in different regions of the left inferior parietal lobe. This proposal can account for the different interpretations commonly associated with the role of the left parietal cortex in tool use.     

Bayesian data analysis as a tool for behavior analysts

Bayesian approaches to data analysis are considered within the context of behavior analysis. The paper distinguishes between Bayesian inference, the use of Bayes Factors, and Bayesian data analysis using specialized tools. Given the importance of prior beliefs to these approaches, the review addresses those situations in which priors have a big effect on the outcome (Bayes Factors) versus a smaller effect (parameter estimation). Although there are many advantages to Bayesian data analysis from a philosophical perspective, in many cases a behavior analyst can be reasonably well‐served by the adoption of traditional statistical tools as long as the focus is on parameter estimation and model comparison, not null hypothesis significance testing. A strong case for Bayesian analysis exists under specific conditions: When prior beliefs can help narrow parameter estimates (an especially important issue given the small sample sizes common in behavior analysis) and when an analysis cannot easily be conducted using traditional approaches (e.g., repeated measures censored regression).