Facilitating sexual arousal via anger,aggression, or dominance

The hypothesis that either an angry emotional state or the expression of aggressive behavior facilitates sexual arousal has been the subject of considerable speculation but relatively little research. In a series of studies, Barclay found that anger increased sexual arousal as measured by the amount of sexual imagery produced in response to TAT-like stimuli that depicted males and females in dominant and submissive roles. In the present research, a series of experiments was conducted to determine whether such facilitation can be generalized beyond the specific procedures used by Barclay. Subjects (151 males and 136 females) in three experiments were angered by being negatively evaluated by a confederate identified as a fellow subject. Some subjects were subsequently given an opportunity to aggress; additionally, some subjects were exposed to male- and female-dominant pictorial stimuli. Results indicated that neither anger instigation nor the opportunity to engage in aggressive acts influenced self-reported sexual arousal. There was consistent evidence, however, that portrayals of dominance influenced perceptions of the stimulus person's sexuality. Though anger and aggression do not seem to facilitate sexual arousal, dominance cues (which can be confounded with anger manipulation) clearly elicit perceptions of sexuality.     

Pavlovian contingencies and resistance to change in a multiple schedule

According to theoretical accounts of behavioral momentum, the Pavlovian stimulus—reinforcer contingency determines resistance to change. To assess this prediction, 8 pigeons were exposed to an unsignaled delay-of-reinforcement schedule (a tandem variable-interval fixed-time schedule), a signaled delay-of-reinforcement schedule (a chain variable-interval fixed-time schedule), and an immediate, zero-delay schedule of reinforcement in a three-component multiple schedule. The unsignaled delay and signaled delay schedules employed equal fixed-time delays, with the only difference being a stimulus change in the signaled delay schedule. Overall rates of reinforcement were equated for the three schedules. The Pavlovian contingency was identical for the unsignaled and immediate schedules, and response—reinforcer contiguity was degraded for the unsignaled schedule. Results from two disruption procedures (prefeeding subjects prior to experimental sessions and adding a variable-time schedule to timeout periods separating baseline components) demonstrated that response—reinforcer contiguity does play a role in determining resistance to change. The results from the extinction manipulation were not as clear. Responding in the unsignaled delay component was consistently less resistant to change than was responding in both the immediate and presignaled segments of the signaled delay components, contrary to the view that Pavlovian contingencies determine resistance to change. Probe tests further supported the resistance-to-change results, indicating consistency between resistance to change and preference, both of which are putative measures of response strength.     

Effects of Environmental Odor and Coping Style on Negative Affect,Anger, Arousal,and Escape1

Trait coping, state anger, perceived arousal, blood pressure, negative affect, and escape behavior were measured in a sample of 240 undergraduate males and females exposed to 1 of 4 foul-odor conditions or to a no-odor condition. Consistent with Baron and Bell's (1976) negative-affect-escape model, it was hypothesized that people exposed to noxious odors would experience increased negative affect and heightened motivation to escape the situation. Results showed that negative affect and motivation to escape, but not anger or arousal, increased significantly as odor became more noxious. In addition, anger and motivation to escape significantly predicted negative affect. Variances in anger and perceived arousal, but not discomfort and escape, were accounted for mainly by trait coping styles and gender differences. Variances in discomfort and escape were accounted for mainly by odor alone.     

Reward, Punishment, Privatization, and Moral Suasion in a Commons Dilemma

Strategies such as privatization, counterreinforcers, and moral suasion have been suggested and tested as means of preserving shared, slowly regenerating resources such as whales, clean air, and forests. We hypothesized that reinforcers would preserve a shared simulated resource best when it was shared in a commons dilemma format, and would be relatively ineffective when the resource was divided into private territories. Subjects in groups of three played a game in which they had to harvest resources from a slowly regenerating pool without depleting the resource. Three levels of reinforcement (reward, punishment, or no reinforcement) were crossed with three game structures (territoriality. Golden Rule moral suasion, and basic structure). Results showed that neither reward nor punishment helped the management of the commons when the resource was broken down into private segments, but both reward and punishment helped in the Golden Rule and basic structure conditions. Subjects perceived the territorial condition to be more competitive and more under their control compared to the moral suasion or basic structure conditions. In the moral suasion condition. subjects enjoyed either reinforcement condition (reward or punishment) more than no reinforcement.     

On the relation between time and space in the visual discrimination of velocity.

Is the perception of velocity determined by the prior discrimination of spatial and temporal distances? Two experiments sought to answer this question by comparing the discriminabilities of moving stimuli varied in spatial extent, temporal duration, or in redundant combinations of both variables. The subject's task was to identify which of two alternative stimuli was presented on each trial. A set of four stimuli was constructed from two values of spatial extent and two values of temporal duration. Separate conditions required discrimination of each of the six possible pairs of these stimuli. Experiment 1 examined continuous motion and Experiment 2 examined apparent motion for stimuli with short (50 versus 65 msec) and with long (500 versus 650 msec) interstimulus intervals. With continuous motion and with good apparent motion (short intervals), the discrimination between the different-velocity bivariate pairs was too accurate to be attributed only to discriminations of the spatial and temporal extents of the motion. This did not occur with poor apparent motion. Evidently, time and space are perceptually related.     

On catching on to idiomatic expressions

These experiments concern the comprehension of idiomatic expressions. The hypothesis was that there are distinct idiomatic and literal modes of processing sentences. In two experiments, 414 undergraduates read a series of sentences containing either literal or idiomatic ambiguities and then a test which had both a literal and an idiomatic meaning. Ss recorded, which meaning they perceived first. Taken together, the experiments indicate that inducing a set to perceive idioms can increase the proportion of people seeing the idiomatic meaning of test sentence first and a set to perceive literal meanings can reduce this proportion compared to a no-set baseline. Since the procedures to induce set did not involve grammatical or semantic information relevant to comprehension of the test sentence, these results suggest the existence of distinct literal and idiomatic processing strategies.     

A computer-controlled language training system for investigating the language skills of young apes

A computer-controlled language training system was designed and constructed to enhance the objectivity and efficiency of inquiry into the language-relevant behaviors of apes. The system allows the S to gain control over the events of the 24-h day in direct correspondence with its competence in using a keyboard on which each key represents a word. Various incentives can be obtained through the selection and depression of appropriate keys in accordance with rules of sentence structure monitored by a computer. The system is flexible and allows for eventual conversation between man and ape, with the computer as the intermediary. A Teletype records all that transpires. Achievements of the chimpanzee S over the course of the first 8 months of the system’s operation attest to the worth of the system and training methods.     

THE INFLUENCE OF CHILD-PREFERRED ACTIVITIES ON AUTISTIC CHILDREN'S SOCIAL BEHAVIOR

One of the characteristics of autistic children is severe social avoidance behavior. We assessed whether the type of activity (child-preferred vs. activities that were arbitrarily determined by an adult) engaged in during an interaction was correlated with the amount of social avoidance behaviors these children exhibit. Results revealed a negative correlation between appropriate child-preferred activities and social avoidance behavior. Additional analyses revealed that (a) social avoidance behaviors could be manipulated within a reversal design, and would predictably decrease when the children were prompted to initiate appropriate child-preferred activities; and (b) these procedures could be used to teach children to initiate child-preferred activities in community settings, resulting in reductions in social avoidance responses even after the therapist's prompts were completely removed. These data suggest that the manipulation of task variables may influence the severe social unresponsiveness that is characteristic of autistic children.