Effects of perceived similarity on vicarious emotional conditioning

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that perceived similarity between observers and models enhances vicarious emotional conditioning. Subjects were led to believe that they were either similar to the model in beliefs and attitudes, different from him or were given no information about him. They then underwent a vicarious classical conditioning procedure by witnessing the model express pain reactions in conjunction with a neutral stimulus. Observers developed emotional reactions to the neutral stimulus alone after seeing it paired with modeled pain expressions. Preceived similarity, however, had no significant effect on either the level of vicarious conditioning or the rate of extinction. Subjects who had no information concerning the model displayed stronger autonomic responses to the model's pain expressions, and more frequent and intense autonomic responses to the conditioned stimulus during tests for acquisition and extinction. In correlational analyses, subjects in the latter condition also yielded a significant positive relationship between self-reported arousal and vicarious emotional conditioning. The obtained findings were interpreted in terms of the emotion arousing properties of unfamiliarity.     

The role of contextual cues in mediating transfer

An experiment was conducted with sceond-grade children to test the hypothesis that contextual (task format) changes limit the transfer of learning. The Ss learned two problems employing different formats concurrently and were then given a single transfer problem similar in format to one of the training problems. The transfer data were predictable from a consideration of the similar format training problem and independent of the different format training problem. This indicated that contextual cues were stored during training and played a role in determining transfer.     

The optimal number of alternatives at a choice point with travel time considered

The problem of optimal design is considered for tasks that can be represented as n choice points with a_i alternatives per choice point. Examples are mazes or multiple choice tests. Some fixed time t′ elapses between choice points, say traveling from one to the other or reading a question, and additional time t is spent considering each alternative at the choice point. For fixed total time, the goal is to find the optimum number of choice points and the optimum number of alternatives at each choice point. In general, the longer the time spent between choice points, the greater the optimum number of alternatives at each point.     

Personality traits and their relationship to traffic violations.

There is a relationship between personality traits of enlisted personnel at one mid-west Air Force Base and their frequency of moving violations. The 52 individuals who received one or two moving violations were more emotionally stable than the 33 non-offenders and the 18 chronic offenders. Discriminant analysis showed significant differences between the personality characteristics of the occasional offender and the other two groups, but none between the chronic offender and the non-offender. The personality characteristics of the chronic offender resembled those of Zelhart's alcoholic offender and Dunbar's "accident-prone" individual. Additional research using a more heterogeneous sample might make possible identification of the high-frequency traffic violator by means of personality characteristics measured after his first offense.     

Schedule-induced escape from fixed-interval reinforcement

Pigeons trained to peck one of two keys for food were exposed to an ascending and descending series of fixed-interval values. A response on the second key produced an escape period consisting of a visual stimulus change. During escape periods, the fixed-interval timer continued to operate and even if it timed out, a response on the food key would not operate the feeder unless preceded by an escape-key response that terminated the escape condition. As the fixed-interval schedule was increased logarithmically through six values from 30 to 960 sec, the percentage of session time spent in escape as well as the frequency, duration, and rate of escape increased to a maximum and then decreased. One subject did not develop escape behavior to any significant degree. For all pigeons, escapes usually occurred after, rather than before, reinforcement.