Aversive properties of the negative stimulus during learning with and without errors

In a successive discrimination four groups of pigeons were trained to discriminate between red and green. The groups differed with respect to the procedure used to introduce S?: Early-Progressive, Early-Constant, Late-Progressive, and Late-Constant. The aversive properties of S? were measured by an escape response in which a single peck at a second key terminated S? for 10 sec and darkened the chamber. The correlation between the aversive and error-producing properties of extinction was zero. More errors occurred when S? was introduced abruptly at a constant intensity while more timeouts from S? occurred when S? was introduced late. The procedure for introducing S? rather than the number of responses to S? appears crucial in determining how aversive S? becomes.     

Children's understanding of sentences with contingent relations: Why are temporal and conditional connectives so difficult?

Children aged 5-, 7-, and 9 were tested on two different tasks to assess their understanding of sentences containing the connectives “when,” “as soon as,” “before,” “after,” “if,” “if-not,” “unless,” and “unless-not.” The results revealed significant improvement between the ages of 5 and 7. This improvement was attributed, in part, to an increased ability to retain information expressed in subordinate clauses. At all age levels, however, the connectives “unless” and “unless-not” were consistently misinterpreted; “unless” was treated as its polar opposite “if,” and “unless-not” was treated as its polar opposite “if-not.”     

Preventing weight gain in adults: a pound of prevention

This study evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of a program for weight gain prevention in normal-weight adults. Two hundred nineteen participants were randomized to either weight gain prevention treatment or no treatment for a period of 12 months. Those in the treatment group received monthly newsletters relating to weight management, participated in a financial incentive system, and were offered an optional four-session education course in the sixth month of the program. Results demonstrated high interest in weight gain prevention among individuals who were not objectively overweight. Participation, as measured by return of postcards sent with each newsletter, was approximately 75%. Results after 1 year showed a net weight loss in the group receiving the program of 1.8 lb compared to those in the control group. Eighty-two percent of program participants maintained or lost weight, compared to 56% of the control group. It is concluded that programs for weight gain prevention are feasible in adults and may be more effective than weight loss treatment programs in addressing the problem of community-wide obesity.     

Modifying food purchases in supermarkets with modeling, feedback, and goal-setting procedures

We compared several procedures designed to modify consumer food purchases with the objectives of reducing fat and increasing carbohydrate content, and reducing dollar expenditures on food. Participants were 126 volunteer community households which, after a 7-week baseline period, were randomly assigned to video-modeling, video-modeling-feedback, video-lecture, video-lecture-feedback, participant-modeling, video-modeling-discussion, and control conditions. The main dependent measure was a weekly record of food purchases, convertible to percentages of nutrients and dollar expenditures. Results indicated that modeling-feedback and participant-modeling procedures were most effective (e.g., 6% reduction of total fat consumption, 19% dollar savings). Strategies to refine and automate modeling and feedback in supermarkets that may benefit consumers, corporations, and government are discussed.     

Neurobehavioral and psychosocial functioning of women exposed to high altitude in mountaineering

The effects of chronic hypoxemia upon cognition and behavior were studied in women exposed to high altitude in mountaineering. Neuropsychological tests and psychosocial and physiological questionnaires were given to eight women before, during, and immediately after a Himalayan climb to 20,500 feet. Cognitive functioning remained relatively intact with only two significant decrements, complex abstract reasoning and word-finding ability. Significant changes were found on all psychosocial and physiological questionnaires. Feelings of acceptance of others and anxiety declined significantly. Physical symptoms were greatest during the first five days of ascent. Subjects' self-ratings of mental functioning were significantly better after the expedition than either before or during the climb. Self-assessments were correlated with emotions and physical symptoms, not with actual performances on the test battery. It is suggested that complex cognitive tasks and psychosocial functioning be studied in more detail as these were more influenced by exposure to high altitude in mountaineering.     

The differential impact of criminal stigmatization on male and female felons

By way of survey-experimental methods, stigmatization responses of a college student sample and a community sample were examined to assess how sex of convicted felon and sex of subject affect levels of stigmatization. Major results were that (a) relatively high levels of stigmatization were expressed by subjects in both samples toward both male and female felons; (b) female felons, however, were the recipients of less stigmatization than male felons, with the difference being larger in the community than the student sample; and (c) sex of subject had little effect on the expression of stigmatization. It is suggested that the factors leading to less stigmatization of the female felon are nativeté concerning the female offender and greater fear of the male offender. Finally, attitudinal and background correlates of stigmatization are examined.     

Young infants' generalization of emotional expressions: effects of familiarity

From birth, infants are exposed to a wealth of emotional information in their interactions. Much research has been done to investigate the development of emotion perception, and factors influencing that development. The current study investigates the role of familiarity on 3.5-month-old infants' generalization of emotional expressions. Infants were assigned to one of two habituation sequences: in one sequence, infants were visually habituated to parental expressions of happy or sad. At test, infants viewed either a continuation of the habituation sequence, their mother depicting a novel expression, an unfamiliar female depicting the habituated expression, or an unfamiliar female depicting a novel expression. In the second sequence, a new sample of infants was matched to the infants in the first sequence. These infants viewed the same habituation and test sequences, but the actors were unfamiliar to them. Only those infants who viewed their own mothers and fathers during the habituation sequence increased looking. They dishabituated looking to maternal novel expressions, the unfamiliar female's novel expression, and the unfamiliar female depicting the habituated expression, especially when sad parental expressions were followed by an expression change to happy or to a change in person. Infants are guided in their recognition of emotional expressions by the familiarity of their parents, before generalizing to others.     

Concordance Between Parent Reports of Children's Mental Health Services and Service Records: The Services Assessment for Children and Adolescents (SACA)

The concordance between parent reports of children's mental health services and medical and administrative service records were assessed in a field test of the Services Assessment for Children and Adolescents (SACA) interview instrument. Service use reports from primary caregivers, usually mothers, for their child's emotional or behavioral problems were compared against inpatient, outpatient, and school records in St. Louis, one of the pilot sites for the Multi-Site Study of Service Use, Need, Outcomes and Costs in Child and Adolescent Populations (UNOCCAP). A global any use service variable, comprised of inpatient, outpatient, and school reports, yielded an overall service use concordance kappa of .76 between parent reports and records. Parent reports of inpatient hospitalization services using the SACA yielded the highest agreement with medical records, with kappa statistics of 1.00 for use of any inpatient hospital care and for medication use. Parent reports of specific inpatient services concurred with medical records more moderately, yielding kappas from .50 to .66. Reports of any outpatient mental health services yielded variable rates of agreement, with kappas ranging from .67 for any use of outpatient care, to .66 for medication use, to negligible kappas for specific treatments. Parent reports of school services were weakly related to records for most services, except for moderate agreement (.48) on placement in special classrooms for emotional or behavioral problems. Family burden or impact discriminated more powerfully than other variables between respondents who concurred with records and those who did not.     

Fruitful visual search: Inhibition of return in a virtual foraging task

Inhibition of return (IOR) has long been viewed as a foraging facilitator in visual search. We investigated the contribution of IOR in a task that approximates natural foraging more closely than typical visual search tasks. Participants in a fully immersive virtual reality environment manually searched an array of leaves for a hidden piece of fruit, using a wand to select and examine each leaf location. Search was slower than in typical IOR paradigms, taking seconds instead of a few hundred milliseconds. Participants also made a speeded response when they detected a flashing leaf that either was or was not in a previously searched location. Responses were slower when the flashing leaf was in a previously searched location than when it was in an unvisited location. These results generalize IOR to an approximation of a naturalistic visual search setting and support the hypothesis that IOR can facilitate foraging. The experiment also constitutes the first use of a fully immersive virtual reality display in the study of IOR.