Behavior analysis and the study of human aging

As the population of older adults continues to rise, psychologists along with other behavioral and social scientists have shown increasing interest in this age group. Although behavior analysts have contributed to research on aging, the focus has been on applications that remedy age-related deficits, rather than a concern with aging as a developmental process. In particular, there has been little interest in the central theoretical questions that have guided gerontologists. How does behavior change with advancing years, and what are the sources of those changes? We consider the possibility that this neglect reflects the long-standing commitment of behavior analysts to variables that can be experimentally manipulated, a requirement that excludes the key variable—age itself. We review the options available to researchers and present strategies that minimize deviations from the traditional features of behavior-analytic designs. Our comments are predicated on the view that aging issues within contemporary society are far too important for behavior analysts to ignore.     

Speech perception without hearing

In this study of visual phonetic speech perception without accompanying auditory speech stimuli, adults with normal hearing (NH; n = 96) and with severely to profoundly impaired hearing (IH; n = 72) identified consonant-vowel (CV) nonsense syllables and words in isolation and in sentences. The measures of phonetic perception were the proportion of phonemes correct and the proportion of transmitted feature information for CVs, the proportion of phonemes correct for words, and the proportion of phonemes correct and the amount of phoneme substitution entropy for sentences. The results demonstrated greater sensitivity to phonetic information in the IH group. Transmitted feature information was related to isolated word scores for the IH group, but not for the NH group. Phoneme errors in sentences were more systematic in the IH than in the NH group. Individual differences in phonetic perception for CVs were more highly associated with word and sentence performance for the IH than for the NH group. The results suggest that the necessity to perceive speech without hearing can be associated with enhanced visual phonetic perception in some individuals.     

Privacy and the encryption debate

Conclusion Robert Heinlein, author of Stranger in a Strange Land as well as countless other science fiction stories, once claimed that "The sole thing achieved by any privacy law is to make the bugs smaller." Heinlein may be correct, but that travesties will happen does not sanction them—and maybe we will invent bugs to root out and foil other bugs. I have argued for individual privacy rights or rights to control sensitive personal information. The explosion of digital technology has made possible severe violations of individual privacy by corporations, news agencies, and the government. If I am correct about all of this, one commonly used "public interest" argument given for limiting privacy rights has been undermined. It is also far from true to claim that the prevalence of strong encryption technology will lead to disaster. While I do not adhere to the view that "rights hold, though the heavens may fall," in this article I have maintained that the security arguments of law enforcement do not come close to meeting the threshold for violating privacy rights. The heavens are far from falling. He is the author of, "Employee Monitoring and Computer Technology" (forthcoming in Business Ethics Quarterly), "Intangible Property: Privacy, Power, and Information Control," American Philosophical Quarterly 35 (October 1998) and is the editor of Intellectual Property: Moral, Legal, and International Dilemmas (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), in which he contributes "Introduction to Intellectual Property" and "Toward A Lockean Theory of Intellectual Property."     

Taxonicity of anxiety sensitivity: an empirical test among youth

Taxometric coherent cut kinetic analyses were used to test the latent structure of anxiety sensitivity (AS) among 371 youth. Anxiety sensitivity was indexed by the 18-item Childhood Anxiety Sensitivity Index (CASI; Silverman et al., J. Clin. Child Psychol. (1991), 20, 162-168). Two sets of manifest indicators of AS were constructed using the CASI: (1) three item-parcel manifest indicators: disease concerns, unsteady concerns, and mental illness concerns; and (2) nine single-item indicators representing each of these three facets of AS. Results from standard and short-scale MAXCOV procedures, internal consistency tests, analyses of simulated Monte Carlo data, and MAMBAC external consistency tests indicated that the latent structure of anxiety sensitivity among youth was taxonic. Estimated base rate of the observed AS taxon ranged between 13.6 and 16.5%. The present findings are discussed in terms of theoretical implications for the study of AS and vulnerability for anxiety psychopathology.     

DSM-oriented scales and statistically based syndromes for ages 18 to 59: linking taxonomic paradigms to facilitate multitaxonomic approaches

We used behavioral and emotional problem items to construct (a) nosologically based Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) oriented scales from experts' ratings of the items' consistency with DSM-IV (4th ed.; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) diagnostic categories, and (b) statistically based syndromes from factor analyses of adults' self-ratings and ratings of adults by people who knew them (N = 4,628). Quantified, operationally defined, and normed DSM-oriented scales and statistically based syndromes facilitate multitaxonomic approaches to the assessment of adult psychopathology. Psychometric properties and cross-informant correlations were similar for DSM-oriented scales and statistically derived syndromes. Statistical associations between phenotypically similar DSM-oriented scales and statistically based syndromes were moderate to strong. Multitaxonomic approaches can avoid reification of provisional taxa that may result from excessive reliance on a single taxonomic paradigm.     

Eye movements during search and detection in comparative visual search

Motivated by the fact that previous visual memory paradigms have imposed encoding and retrieval constraints, the present article presents two experiments that address how observers allocate eye movements in memory and comparison processes in the absence of constraints. A comparative visual search design (Pomplun, Sichelschmidt, et al., 2001) was utilized in which observers searched for a difference between two images presented side by side. Robust time course effects were obtained, whereby search was characterized by brief fixations and a high proportion of comparative saccades. Then, upon target detection, fixations were extended, more comparative saccades were elicited, and the search focus was narrowed. The saliency and presence of differences did not guide attention, and detection was contingent upon direct fixation of the targets. The results indicate that, when full control is given, observers adopt a strategy that cuts down on memory usage in favor of restricted encoding and active scanning.     

Perceptions of self and of ideal mates: Similarities and differences across the sexes

For 19 mating-relevant traits, single males (N= 53) and single females (N= 86) rated (a) themselves relative to their same-sex peers, (b) their perceptions of the qualities desired by members of the opposite sex in an ideal partner, and (c) the qualities desired in their own ideal romantic partner. Several themes emerged from the data. First, males’ and females’ judgments of what members of the opposite-sex seek were generally accurate. Second, males and females both feel that they fall short of perceived opposite-sex expectations in a few areas. Third, both males and females desire an ideal partner better than themselves, but this is especially true for females. These findings are discussed in terms of evolutionary social psychological principles.     

Differential role of inhibition in habituation of two independent afferent pathways to a common motor output

Many studies of the neural mechanisms of learning have focused on habituation, a simple form of learning in which a response decrements with repeated stimulation. In the siphon-elicited siphon withdrawal reflex (S-SWR) of the marine mollusk Aplysia, the prevailing view is that homosynaptic depression of primary sensory afferents underlies short-term habituation. Here we examined whether this mechanism is also utilized in habituation of the tail-elicited siphon withdrawal reflex (T-SWR), which is triggered by an independent, polysynaptic afferent pathway that converges onto the same siphon motor neurons (MNs). By using semi-intact preparations in which tail and/or siphon input to siphon MNs could be measured, we found that repeated tail stimuli administered in the presence of a reversible conduction block of the nerves downstream of the tail sensory neurons (SNs) completely abolished the induction of habituation. Subsequent retraining revealed no evidence of savings, indicating that the tail SNs and their immediate interneuronal targets are not the locus of plasticity underlying T-SWR habituation. The networks closely associated with the siphon MNs are modulated by cholinergic inhibition. We next examined the effects of network disinhibition on S-SWR and T-SWR habituation using an Ach receptor antagonist d-tubocurarine. We found that the resulting network disinhibition disrupted T-SWR, but not S-SWR, habituation. Indeed, repeated tail stimulation in the presence of d-tubocurarine resulted in an initial enhancement in responding. Lastly, we tested whether habituation of T-SWR generalized to S-SWR and found that it did not. Collectively, these data indicate that (1) unlike S-SWR, habituation of T-SWR does not involve homosynaptic depression of SNs; and (2) the sensitivity of T-SWR habituation to network disinhibition is consistent with an interneuronal plasticity mechanism that is unique to the T-SWR circuit, since it does not alter S-SWR.     

Perspective and prejudice: antecedents and mediating mechanisms

The present work investigated mechanisms by which Whites' prejudice toward Blacks can be reduced (Study 1) and explored how creating a common ingroup identity can reduce prejudice by promoting these processes (Study 2). In Study 1, White participants who viewed a videotape depicting examples of racial discrimination and who imagined the victim's feelings showed greater decreases in prejudice toward Blacks than did those in the objective and no instruction conditions. Among the potential mediating affective and cognitive variables examined, reductions in prejudice were mediated primarily by feelings associated with perceived injustice. In Study 2, an intervention designed to increase perceptions of a common group identity before viewing the videotape, reading that a terrorist threat was directed at all Americans versus directed just at White Americans, also reduced prejudice toward Blacks through increases in feelings of injustice.     

Adolescents’ reactions to the world trade center destruction: A study of political trauma in metropolitan New York

This study examined the emotional response of 110 adolescents living in the New York metropolitan area one month and five months after the destruction of the World Trade Center (WTC) by terrorists. The purpose of the study was to assess emerging hypotheses in political psychology that suggest that there are differential emotional responses to a national trauma that recede in predictable directions. The results followed predictions and indicate that adolescents experienced a higher level of emotions related to the Crisis and Bereavement dimension than affect associated with Vulnerability and that the emotional response decreased during the four-month follow-up period. There was no effect on emotional response from the biological sex or political orientation of the respondents, which is inconsistent with other studies in the literature. The absence of a political orientation effect is explained in terms of the lack of a domestic ideological difference in response to the terrorist attack.