Connecting in the Twitterverse: Using Twitter to satisfy unmet belonging needs

The current study explored how social media can satisfy unmet needs for belonging. We predicted that, of those who experience chronic ostracism (feeling excluded and ignored frequently), people high in need to belong would utilize Twitter to satisfy their unmet belonging needs more than those low in need to belong. Specifically, individuals high in need to belong and chronic ostracism should use Twitter to form and maintain parasocial relationships (one-sided relationships with media figures). Participants (n = 315) completed a survey assessing their chronic ostracism experiences, dispositional need to belong, and Twitter behavior, particularly regarding potential parasocial relationship targets (n = 229). As expected, when participants reported experiencing high rates of chronic ostracism, participants high in need to belong used Twitter more than those low in need to belong, particularly following more parasocial relationship targets. Thus, maintaining parasocial relationships on Twitter may be an effective way to satisfy unmet belonging needs.     

Recall of word lists is enhanced with increased spreading activation

ABSTRACT

Some evidence exists supporting a relationship between spreading activation in semantic/lexical memory networks and episodic memory. However, the results have been mixed and there have been no investigations examining whether a relationship exists between variability in spreading activation and episodic memory. Hence, we sought to investigate these potential relationships. Thirteen individuals were administered the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test–Revised (HVLT-R) and the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT). The average word frequency of all the “F” words generated on the COWAT was used as a measure of spreading activation. Variability in spreading activation was assessed by calculating the variability of the word frequencies from the COWAT across time. The results confirmed our hypotheses, with significant negative correlations found between free recall on the HVLT-R and both the average word frequency and measures of variability in spreading activation.     

Mechanisms of aphasia recovery after stroke and the role of noninvasive brain stimulation

One of the most frequent symptoms of unilateral stroke is aphasia, the impairment or loss of language functions. Over the past few years, behavioral and neuroimaging studies have shown that rehabilitation interventions can promote neuroplastic changes in aphasic patients that may be associated with the improvement of language functions. Following left hemisphere strokes, the functional reorganization of language in aphasic patients has been proposed to involve both intrahemispheric interactions between damaged left hemisphere and perilesional sites and transcallosal interhemispheric interactions between the lesioned left hemisphere language areas and homotopic regions in the right hemisphere. A growing body of evidence for such reorganization comes from studies using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), two safe and noninvasive procedures that can be applied clinically to modulate cortical excitability during post-stroke language recovery. We discuss a hierarchical model for the plastic changes in language representation that occur in the setting of dominant hemisphere stroke and aphasia. We further argue that TMS and tDCS are potentially promising tools for enhancing functional recovery of language and for further elucidating mechanisms of plasticity in patients with aphasia.     

The role of sensory-motor information in object recognition: evidence from category-specific visual agnosia

The role of sensory-motor representations in object recognition was investigated in experiments involving AD, a patient with mild visual agnosia who was impaired in the recognition of visually presented living as compared to non-living entities. AD named visually presented items for which sensory-motor information was available significantly more reliably than items for which such information was not available; this was true when all items were non-living. Naming of objects from their associated sound was normal. These data suggest that both information about object form computed in the ventral visual system as well as sensory-motor information specifying the manner of manipulation contribute to object recognition.     

How research in behavioral pharmacology informs behavioral science

Behavioral pharmacology is a maturing science that has made significant contributions to the study of drug effects on behavior, especially in the domain of drug-behavior interactions. Less appreciated is that research in behavioral pharmacology can have, and has had, implications for the experimental analysis of behavior, especially its conceptualizations and theory. In this article, I outline three general strategies in behavioral pharmacology research that have been employed to increase understanding of behavioral processes. Examples are provided of the general characteristics of the strategies and of implications of previous research for behavior theory. Behavior analysis will advance as its theories are challenged.     

African-American clergy's perceptions of the leading health problems in their communities and their role in supporting parishioners' health

This article is a report on a survey of Southern California pastors to learn of their perceptions of the leading health problems in their congregations. Participants (N=41) identified stress, overweight, and obesity as the top three health indicators that effect the health of their congregations. Tobacco use and substance abuse were listed among the top five. From a list of health problems, pastors felt that from the pulpit they could impact parishioners responsible sexual behavior most. Pastors expressed their opinions about the reasons for certain maladies and addictions. The findings indicate room for improvement in building clergy's understanding of the nature of illness and addiction and in empowering them in their role of supporting healthy behaviors in the African-American community.     

Cocaine tolerance: acute versus chronic effects as dependent upon fixed-ratio size.

The effects of cocaine on operant behavior were studied by examining fixed-ratio value as a factor in the development of tolerance. Pigeons pecked a response key under a three-component multiple schedule, with each bird being exposed to fixed-ratio values that were categorized as small, medium, or large. Administered acutely, cocaine (1.0 to 10.0 mg/kg) produced dose-related decreases in overall rate of responding. Responding maintained by the largest ratio was decreased by lower doses than those required to reduce rates of responding maintained by the other two ratio schedules. Following repeated daily administration of 5.6 mg/kg of cocaine, dose-effect functions (obtained from sessions during the chronic regimen by making substitutions for the daily dose) indicated tolerance under the smaller ratios, but no tolerance or less tolerance under the largest ratio. Thus, whether tolerance developed, and the degree to which it developed, depended on the ratio value. The results are partially consistent with the notion that tolerance to drug effects on schedule-controlled behavior will develop if drug administration initially reduces reinforcement frequency, but they indicate that reinforcement loss alone is not a sufficient condition for the generation of tolerance under such conditions. The findings suggest that amount of responding required for reinforcement, or "effort," may contribute to the development of tolerance to effects of cocaine.     

Transcortical sensory aphasia: Evidence for subtypes

Impaired auditory comprehension and fluent but semantically empty speech in conjunction with preserved repetition characterize the syndrome of transcortical sensory aphasia (TSA). Repetition, however, may be mediated by at least two distinct processes--a lexical process that may involve the recognition and subsequent activation of discrete stored word representations and a nonlexical process that involves phonologic decoding and immediate phonologic encoding from immediate memory. We investigated the spontaneous speech, reading, and tendency to recognize and spontaneously correct syntactic errors in four patients with TSA: this analysis suggests there are two subtypes of TSA. We contend that in one subtype both the lexical and direct repetition (or speech production) mechanisms are preserved, but in the second subtype the lexical mechanism is disrupted and repetition is mediated by the nonlexical mechanism.