Motivational control of instrumental performance following a shift from thirst to hunger

Thirsty rats were trained to press a lever for either a sucrose solution or saline before performance was tested in extinction while the animals were either hungry alone or experiencing both hunger and a sodium appetite. Reinforcer-specific motivational control was observed in that the animals trained with the sucrose solution pressed more than those trained with the saline when they were tested hungry, but not when they were tested under combined hunger and sodium appetite. In order to assess the role of a Pavlovian incentive process in this effect, thirsty animals received non-contingent pairings of one stimulus with the sucrose solution and another with saline in the second experiment. In an extinction test the sucrose stimulus augmented lever pressing relative to the saline stimulus when the animals were hungry, but not when they were thirsty. In the subsequent experiments the contribution of the Pavlovian process was equated by giving concurrent training with both incentives. Lever pressing and chain pulling were reinforced concurrently, one with the sucrose solution and the other with saline, while the animals were thirsty. Once again, the animals pressed more in extinction if this action had been trained with the sucrose solution rather than the saline, but only if they were hungry rather than thirsty. Thus, instrumental performance across a thirst-to-hunger shift can also be controlled by an instrumental incentive process. The direct engagement of the instrumental process by this motivational shift contrasts to the absence of such control following a hunger-to-thirst transition (Dickinson & Dawson, 1987a), a fact attributed to the asymmetrical motivational interactions produced by water and food deprivation.     

Which Emotion Regulation Strategies are Most Associated with Trait Emotion Dysregulation? A Transdiagnostic Examination

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment - Although definitions of emotion dysregulation infer difficulties in selecting and implementing emotion regulation (ER) strategies,...     

Conceptual Relativism

What is conceptual relativism? Several formulations of the idea that truth, or existence, is somehow relative to conceptual schemes are considered. All are found lacking.     

Aging, spaced retrieval, and inflexible memory performance

Spaced retrieval is a memory-training technique whereby information is tested at progressively longer delays. Two experiments were conducted in order to examine the effects of spaced retrieval on controlled recollection and automatic influences of memory. In Experiment 1, word pairs were read once, three times, or once and retrieved twice by young and older adults. Retrieval practice improved performance on a later test for both age groups. Experiment 2 was arranged so that recollection opposed automatic influences of retrieval practice. Retrieval practice increased intrusions on a later test only for older adults. Results suggest that because of a deficit in recollection, older adults were less able to oppose the automatic influence of spaced retrieval and thus exhibited less flexible memory performance.     

It’s in your nature: a pluralistic folk psychology

I suggest a pluralistic account of folk psychology according to which not all predictions or explanations rely on the attribution of mental states, and not all intentional actions are explained by mental states. This view of folk psychology is supported by research in developmental and social psychology. It is well known that people use personality traits to predict behavior. I argue that trait attribution is not shorthand for mental state attributions, since traits are not identical to beliefs or desires, and an understanding of belief or desire is not necessary for using trait attributions. In addition, we sometimes predict and explain behavior through appeal to personality traits that the target wouldn’t endorse, and so could not serve as the target’s reasons. I conclude by suggesting that our folk psychology includes the notion that some behavior is explained by personality traits—who the person is—rather than by beliefs and desires—what the person thinks. Consequences of this view for the debate between simulation theory and theory theory, as well as the debate on chimpanzee theory of mind are discussed.     

On the immunity of perceptual implicit memory to manipulations of attention

In four experiments, we examined the effect of manipulating study phase attention in a Stroop task on the extent of repetition priming in the lexical decision task (LDT). Experiment 1 replicated the immunity of the LDT to division of attention reported by Szymanski and MacLeod (1996), using a standard Stroop configuration. Response times to previously encountered words were identical regardless of whether the participants were required to read the words or name the color in which they were presented. Experiment 2 demonstrated that implementing the Stroop manipulation across separate visual objects reduced but did not eliminate priming of unattended words, provided the words remained in the attended region of the stimulus display. When this constraint was removed in Experiment 3, priming of unattended words disappeared. Experiment 4 demonstrated statistically equivalent priming for attended and unattended words when the Stroop manipulation remained in the same visual object but attention was directed to a single letter of the word. In all four experiments, the Stroop manipulation had a clear effect on recognition. These results qualify claims that the LDT might be immune to manipulations of study phase attention and suggest that the LDT has a lower threshold level of attention at encoding than do other standard implicit tests of memory.