Operant conditioning of goats

A procedure is described for establishing an operant response in goats. The operanda are two lucite panels which can be transilluminated. The goats press the panels with their muzzles and are reinforced with whole oats. All six subjects showed reliable and accurate performance in brightness discrimination, including cessation of responding during time-out periods.     

Elucidating satisfaction with physical activity: An examination of the day-to-day associations between experiences with physical activity and satisfaction during physical activity initiation

Satisfaction with physical activity is known to be an important factor in physical activity maintenance, but the factors that influence satisfaction are not well understood. The purpose of this study was to elucidate how ongoing experiences with recently initiated physical activity are associated with satisfaction. Participants (n?=?116) included insufficiently active volunteers who initiated a self-directed physical activity regimen and completed daily diaries about their experiences for 28?days. We used multilevel models to examine the associations between experiences with physical activity and satisfaction. Significant between-person effects demonstrated that people reporting higher average levels of positive experiences and lower levels of thinking about the negative aspects of exercise were more likely to report higher levels of satisfaction (ps?<?.05). Positive experiences and perceived progress toward goals had significant within-person effects (ps?<?.01), suggesting that day-to-day fluctuations in these experiences were associated with changes in satisfaction. These findings elucidate a process through which people may determine their satisfaction with physical activity.     

Information‐Seeking Behavior in Intercultural and Intergroup Communication

This review essay analyzes the current status of information‐seeking research and theory in the field of intercultural communication writ broadly. After drawing distinctions between different types of intercultural communication research (cross‐cultural, intercultural, intergroup), the authors discuss how information seeking might be relevant across types and different between types of intercultural communication. Finally, the authors recommend directions for future research.     

Feasibility and Preliminary Efficacy of an Internet Support Group for Parents of a Child with Neurofibromatosis Type 1: a Pilot Study

This pilot study investigated the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of an Internet Support Group (ISG) for parents of children with NF1. Eligible parents were recruited by email and completed baseline questionnaires assessing social support, self-efficacy, depression, and anxiety. The ISG involved eight weekly 90-min chat sessions and a discussion forum open 24 h/day for 8 weeks. Follow-up measures were completed immediately post-intervention and 3 months later. Parents from 33 families (29 mothers, 4 fathers) completed baseline measures. Over half of parents (52 %) rated their child’s disease severity as mild, 33 % moderate, and 15 % severe. Among 21 parents who completed post-intervention measures, ratings of perceived emotional (p = .0008) and informational (p = .0003) support increased. There were no significant changes in self-efficacy, depression, or anxiety (ps > .05). The mean satisfaction rating was moderately high (7.6/10; range 4–10). Some parents commented that the chat sessions were at inconvenient times, which may have limited participation. Preliminary evidence in this small sample of parents suggests that ISGs may be a feasible and potentially efficacious method of providing support to parents of children with NF1. Having multiple weekly chat sessions held at various days and times may improve accessibility and participation. Clinicians are encouraged to help parents access online support resources.     

Evaluating models for partially clustered designs

Partially clustered designs, where clustering occurs in some conditions and not others, are common in psychology, particularly in prevention and intervention trials. This article reports results from a simulation comparing 5 approaches to analyzing partially clustered data, including Type I errors, parameter bias, efficiency, and power. Results indicate that multilevel models adapted for partially clustered data are relatively unbiased and efficient and consistently maintain the nominal Type I error rate when using appropriate degrees of freedom. To attain sufficient power in partially clustered designs, researchers should attend primarily to the number of clusters in the study. An illustration using data from a partially clustered eating disorder prevention trial is provided.     

Right hemisphere has the last laugh: neural dynamics of joke appreciation

Understanding a joke relies on semantic, mnemonic, inferential, and emotional contributions from multiple brain areas. Anatomically constrained magnetoencephalography (aMEG) combining high-density whole-head MEG with anatomical magnetic resonance imaging allowed us to estimate where the humor-specific brain activations occur and to understand their temporal sequence. Punch lines provided either funny, not funny (semantically congruent), or nonsensical (incongruent) replies to joke questions. Healthy subjects rated them as being funny or not funny. As expected, incongruous endings evoke the largest N400m in left-dominant temporo-prefrontal areas, due to integration difficulty. In contrast, funny punch lines evoke the smallest N400m during this initial lexical–semantic stage, consistent with their primed “surface congruity” with the setup question. In line with its sensitivity to ambiguity, the anteromedial prefrontal cortex may contribute to the subsequent “second take” processing, which, for jokes, presumably reflects detection of a clever “twist” contained in the funny punch lines. Joke-selective activity simultaneously emerges in the right prefrontal cortex, which may lead an extended bilateral temporo-frontal network in establishing the distant unexpected creative coherence between the punch line and the setup. This progression from an initially promising but misleading integration from left frontotemporal associations, to medial prefrontal ambiguity evaluation and right prefrontal reprocessing, may reflect the essential tension and resolution underlying humor.     

Nostalgia for America's past can buffer collective guilt

This research examined when, and for whom, American collective nostalgia can relieve feelings of collective guilt. In the Pilot Study, path analyses revealed that national glorification is associated with collective nostalgia, and collective nostalgia is associated with lower collective guilt. Our experimental studies test the role of these variables in determining responses to the elevated salience of past ingroup harm doing. Collective nostalgia was associated with lower collective guilt especially after reminders of America's harm doing in Study 1 . In Study 2 we predicted and showed that reminders of American harm doing would evoke spontaneous collective nostalgia for participants high in national glorification. The remaining studies tested the hypothesis that collective nostalgia serves to buffer collective guilt. Collective guilt was lower after reminders of past harm doing for participants who engaged in collective nostalgia ( Study 3 ), and this was especially pronounced for participants high in national glorification ( Study 4 ).