Punishment and the potential for negative reinforcement with histamine injection

The present study examined punishment of responding with histamine injection, and its potential to generate avoidance of punishment. Sprague–Dawley rats were trained under concurrent schedules in which responses on one lever (the punishment lever) produced food under a variable‐interval schedule, and under some conditions intermittent injections of histamine, which suppressed behavior. Responses on a second (avoidance) lever prevented histamine injections scheduled on the punishment lever. After stabilization of punished responding, a variable‐interval 15‐s schedule of cancellation of histamine (avoidance) was added for responding on the second/avoidance lever, without subsequent acquisition of responding on that lever. Progressive decreases in the length of the punishment variable‐interval schedule increased suppression on the punishment lever without increases in response rates on the avoidance lever. Exchanging contingencies on the levers ensured that response rates on the avoidance lever were sufficiently high to decrease the histamine injection frequency; nonetheless response rates on the avoidance lever decreased over subsequent sessions. Under no condition was responding maintained on the avoidance lever despite continued punishing effectiveness of histamine throughout. The present results suggest that avoidance conditioning is not a necessary condition for effective punishment, and confirm the importance of empirical rather than presumed categorization of behavioral effects of stimulus events.     

Memory improvement by post-trial injection of lidocaine into the tuberomammillary nucleus, the source of neuronal histamine.

Brain histamine is exclusively contained within and released from neurons whose cell bodies are clustered in the tuberomammillary nucleus (TM) of the posterior hypothalamus. This experiment examined the effects of a transient inactivation of the TM on inhibitory avoidance learning. Rats with chronically implanted cannulae were tested on a 1-trial step-through avoidance task. Immediately following training, the rats received unilateral intra-TM infusions (0.5 microl) of lidocaine (5 or 20 microg). Control groups included vehicle-injected rats and a group given an injection of 20 microg lidocaine 5 h after training. When tested 24 h later, rats treated with 20 microg lidocaine exhibited longer step-through latencies than vehicle-treated controls, indicative of superior learning of the task. The failure of the delayed post-trial injection of lidocaine to significantly influence step-through latencies indicates that the compound influenced learning by modulating memory storage processes rather than by acting on performance variables during retrieval of the task. Thus, inactivation of the TM by lidocaine can exert facilitatory effects on mnemonic processing, which might be related to a temporary reduction of histaminergic activity during the early phase of memory consolidation.     

实用与桥梁--访理查德·舒斯特曼

20 0 2年 10月 3 1日 ,彭锋、高建平、王柯平、章启群 (以下分别简称舒、高、王、章、彭 )等人与美国费城坦普尔大学哲学系主任 ,当代实用主义美学的重要代表舒斯特曼(RichardShusterman)教授进行了座谈。座谈内容摘要如下 :彭 :我们今天很高兴请来了舒斯特曼教授 ,与他座谈关于实用主义美学问题。高 :舒斯特曼教授的《实用主义美学》是我与周宪先生组织的“新世纪美学译丛”的第一本 ,彭锋是这本书的译者。此套丛书收入了一些国外 2 0世纪 90年代出版的美学著作。舒 :我所做的 ,是一种桥梁性的工作 ,将不同的东西联系起来。我将艺术与生活…     

Matching and maximizing with variable-time schedules.

Pigeons were offered choices between a variable-time schedule that arranged reinforcers throughout the session and a variable-time schedule that arranged reinforcers only when the pigeon was spending time on it. The subjects could maximize the overall rate of reinforcement in this situation by biasing their time allocation towards the latter schedule. This arrangement provides an alternative to concurrent variable-interval variable-ratio schedules for testing whether animals maximize overall rates or match relative rates, and has the advantage of being free of the asymmetrical response requirements present with those schedules. The results were contrary to those predicted by maximizing: The bias it predicts did not appear.     

维特根斯坦与分析哲学--访彼得·哈克教授

问:在<维特根斯坦在20世纪分析哲学中的地位>[2]这本书中,您认为,维特根斯坦对20世纪分析哲学的发展影响巨大,这既包括其前期哲学对维也纳学派的影响,也包括其后期哲学对牛津"日常语言学派"的影响.您认为维特根斯坦在20世纪分析哲学的发展中究竟扮演了一个什么样的角色呢?     

Breaking the structuralist barrier. Literacy and numeracy with fluency.

Behavior analysis is an example of a selection science, and behavioral programs that follow the tenets of selectionism, long advocated by B. F. Skinner, can have a large impact on social problems. This article describes the characteristics of selection sciences and their application in the Morningside Model of Generative Instruction, which addresses both adult literacy and children's learning and attention problems. School curricula are analyzed for their key component elements and underlying tool skills. Teaching procedures then establish and build these key components to fluency. New and complex repertoires then emerge with little or no instruction, producing curriculum leaps that allow students to make rapid academic advancement. Children typically gain more than two grade levels per school year, and adults advance two grades per month.     

Studies in space orientation. II. Perception of the upright with displaced visual fields and with body tilted.

To overcome certain disadvantages of the tilted-mirror situation as a technique for separating visual and postural determinants of the perceived upright, a new procedure was developed. The S was presented with a small tilted room, on the back wall of which was a rod which he had to adjust to the true upright. In a first test, judgments of the rod were obtained with body upright, and under three different conditions of the field: (a) The S, standing at a distance from the tilted scene, viewed it through a tube which restricted his view to the interior of the scene. (b) The S stood directly in front of the scene without a tube. (c) The S stood at a distance from the scene, without a tube, so that he saw not only the tilted scene but the outer upright room as well. Under all three conditions the perceived vertical and horizontal were displaced significantly in the direction of the axes of the tilted scene. When an outer upright field was present, as in the third condition, the effect of the tilted scene upon the perceived upright diminished. In another experiment, judgments of the rod were obtained with body tilted, both to the same side as the field and to the opposite side. It was found that tilting the body resulted in an increased tendency to accept the tilted field as a basis for judging the upright. Not only were the perceived vertical and horizontal displaced further in the direction of the tilted scene, but a number of Ss perceived the tilted scene as fully upright. In another experiment there was found a tendency for the tilted scene to right itself with prolonged observation. In some cases the righting was complete, so that at the end of the observation period, the tilted scene was perceived to be fully upright. Under all conditions, striking individual differences were found in the extent to which the perceived upright was affected by the surrounding tilted field. There is evidence of considerably consistency in a person's performance under the different conditions employed.     

Response restriction and substitution with autistic children.

Few studies to date have examined time reallocation in naturalistic, multiresponse human repertoires when one or more responses are restricted. For this experiment, free-operant baseline levels of six responses were measured for four autistic children. The high-probability responses were made unavailable, one at a time, such that subjects had access to five, four, three, and two responses in successive restriction conditions. A return to the six-response free-operant baseline condition completed the experiment. Results were compared to predictions made by four time-reallocation models. These results were described accurately only by the selective substitution model. Further analyses examined alternative explanations for the individual reallocation patterns obtained. An expanded selective substitution definition is proposed that may characterize orderly patterns observed in multiresponse repertoires under restriction conditions more accurately than the other existing models.     

Constructive thinking and coping with laboratory-induced stress.

In a laboratory stress test, poor constructive thinkers produced more negative affective and cognitive responses in all experimental periods and a greater increase in such responses in the stress period than did good constructive thinkers. The groups differed in physiological arousal in the recovery period but not in the stress period. Stressor-instigated negative thoughts and spontaneous negative thoughts produced different patterns of relations with variables measured in the laboratory and with symptoms reported in everyday life. Discriminating patterns of relations were found between measures of cognition and affect in the laboratory and self-reported emotional, physical, and behavioral symptoms in everyday life. The results help explain the relation between maladaptive automatic thinking, on the one hand, and elevated physiological arousal and emotional, physical, and behavioral symptoms, on the other.     

Knowing and working with Richard F. Thompson

A few brief anecdotes are provided, relating to life in Richard Thompson’s laboratory during the 1980s and 1990s.     

Matching and maximizing with concurrent ratio-interval schedules.

Animals exposed to standard concurrent variable-ratio variable-interval schedules could maximize overall reinforcement rate if, in responding, they showed a strong response bias toward the variable-ratio schedule. Tests with the standard schedules have failed to find such a bias and have been widely cited as evidence against maximization as an explanation of animal choice behavior. However, those experiments were confounded in that the value of leisure (behavior other than the instrumental response) partially offsets the value of reinforcement. The present experiment provides another such test using a concurrent procedure in which the confounding effects of leisure were mostly eliminated while the critical aspects of the concurrent variable-ratio variable-interval contingency were maintained: Responding in one component advanced only its ratio schedule while responding in the other component advanced both ratio schedules. The bias toward the latter component predicted by maximization theory was found.     

Self-defeating personality and strategies for coping with stress.

People who scored higher on a measure of self-defeating personality also scored low on ego-strength, showed an external locus of control, and used less adaptive coping strategies than those who scored lower. These strategies (denial, mental disengagement, alcohol and drug use) were viewed as helping to perpetuate their positions as victims.