Implicit sequence learning: effects of level of structure, adult age, and extended practice

The influence of structure and age on sequence learning was investigated by testing 24 young and 24 older participants for 10 sessions in an alternating serial response time task in which pattern trials alternated with random trials. Individuals encountered lag-2 or lag-3 structure, and learning was measured by the difference (in response time and accuracy) between pattern and random trials. Both ages learned lag-2 structure, but the young learned more than the older participants. Only the young people learned lag-3 structure, and they did so more slowly and to a lesser degree than they learned lag-2 structure. These age deficits in higher order sequence learning after extended practice are consistent with simultaneity theory and with theories positing that age-related deficits in neuromodulation lead to less distinctive representations.     

Chronic stress impairs recall of extinction of conditioned fear

Chronic restraint stress produces retraction of apical dendrites of pyramidal neurons in medial prefrontal cortex. To begin to examine the functional significance of this dendritic reorganization, we assessed the effects of chronic restraint stress on a prefrontally mediated behavior, extinction of conditioned fear. After bar press training to obtain a baseline of activity against which to measure freezing, rats were either unstressed or stressed via placement in a plastic restrainer (3 h/day for 1 week). After an additional day of bar press training, rats underwent fear conditioning and extinction. Rats received five habituation trials to a 30-s tone (4.5 kHz, 80 db) followed by seven pairings of tone and footshock (500 ms, 0.5 mA). One hour later, rats received tone-alone extinction trials to criterion. The next day, rats received 15 additional extinction trials. Percent freezing was assessed during all phases of training. Stress did not significantly affect unconditioned responding to tone, acquisition of conditioned fear, or initial extinction, but significantly increased freezing on extinction day 2. Thus, consistent with the regressive dendritic changes seen in medial prefrontal cortex, one week of restraint stress specifically impaired recall of extinction, a pattern of deficits typical of animals with impaired medial prefrontal function.     

Ethical values and motives driving organic food choice

• The role of ethical motives in consumers' choice of organic food was investigated. A self‐administered questionnaire was conducted on a representative sample of 1283 Norwegian adults. The relations between ethical food choice motives, attitudes and intention to consume organic food was studied by estimating a structural equation model. Environmental and animal rights issues had a strong influence on attitudes towards organic food, suggesting that the more people are concerned about these issues, the more positive attitude they have towards organic food, and the more likely it is that they will consume organic food. Also, political motives had some positive influence on attitudes, while religion was not important as a food choice criterion. Implications of our findings for marketers are discussed.

Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ripple effects in memory: judgments of moral blame can distort memory for events

Can judging an individual as being morally responsible for a negative act affect memory for details of the act? We presented participants with a story describing an individual (Frank) who committed a crime (he walked out on a restaurant bill). Some participants were told that the negative act was not intentional and that Frank was essentially a good person. Others were told that the negative act was intentional and that Frank actually enjoyed it. Control participants were given no extra information. All the participants then judged Frank’s moral responsibility for walking out on the bill. When asked a week later to recall information about the event, the participants who had received negative information about Frank remembered that Frank had walked out on a larger restaurant bill than he actually had. Moreover, the degree of memory distortion was predicted by the degree of moral blame that had been attributed to Frank.     

Rational-emotive therapy in the therapeutic community

Therapeutic Communities (TC's) have become increasingly popular in the treatment of substance abusing psychotherapy clients. Their popularity appears to have stemmed from the failures of traditional and more individual treatment modalities. Approaches focusing on immeasurable constructs and often irrelevant past events are argued to contribute to symptom maintenance and resistance in this client population. It is argued that a more direct, responsibility-oriented approach be implemented in a systematic and consistent fashion in order to facilitate treatment. The systematic application of Rational-Emotive Therapy in a self-contained therapeutic system is discussed.Raymond J. Yeager Ph.D., is Director of Psychological Services at A.P.P.L.E. Inc.: A Program Planned for Life Enrichment, a graduate fellow and staff therapist at the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy and is a privately practicing psychologist in Commack and Huntington, Long Island, N.Y.Raymond DiGiuseppe, Ph.D., is a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology, is the Director of Training and Research at the Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy, is an Assistant Professor of psychology at St. John's University and is in private practice in Hempstead, L.I., N.Y.John T. Olsen is a certified substance abuse counselor at A.P.P.L.E. Inc. He is a graduate of APPLE'S residential program and has worked in the field of substance abuse treatment and prevention for over 11 yearsLogan Lewis ia the President and founder of APPLE Inc.Robert Alberti is the Program Director of APPLE's residential treatment program, and is a certified substance abuse conselor.     

Can personality close the intention-behavior gap for healthy eating? An examination with the HEXACO personality traits

The aim of this study was to investigate the predictive and moderating effects of HEXACO personality factors, in addition to theory of planned behavior (TPB) variables, on fruit and vegetable consumption. American college students (N = 1036) from 24 institutions were administered the TPB, HEXACO and a self-reported fruit and vegetable consumption measure. The TPB predicted 11–17% of variance in fruit and vegetable consumption, with greater variance accounted for in healthy weight compared to overweight individuals. Personality did not significantly improve the prediction of behavior above TPB constructs; however, conscientiousness was a significant incremental predictor of intention in both healthy weight and overweight/obese groups. While support was found for the TPB as an important predictor of fruit and vegetable consumption in students, little support was found for personality factors. Such findings have implications for interventions designed to target students at risk of chronic disease.     

Water Crisis Adaptation: Defending a Strong Right Against Displacement from the Home

This essay defends a strong right against displacement as part of a basic individual right to secure access to one’s home. The analysis is purposefully situated within the difficult context of climate change adaptation policies. Under increasing environmental pressures, especially regarding water security, there are weighty reasons motivating the forced displacement of persons—to safeguard water resources or prevent water-related disasters. Even in these pressing circumstances, I argue, individuals have weighty rights to secure access to their homes. I explain how the home provides a functional context for conditions of autonomous agency. Being coerced from the home disrupts and subverts the conditions necessary for autonomous processes. I conclude by suggesting that the right to the home could be a foundational element of territorial rights.     

Black Jack: Do company benefits and feelings have an impact on my happiness?

The aim of this study was to determine whether casino employees’ benefits and their feelings about the company influence their experienced happiness. A total of 1 502 casino employees were surveyed (females = 57%; males = 43%). They completed a company benefits, feelings and happiness questionnaire within the work context. Data were analysed to predict what company benefits and whether feelings about the company impact on the casino employees’ happiness; and also to test the mediation effects of company benefits on their happiness experienced through feelings about the company. In addition, structural relations between happiness and feelings about the company, and happiness and company benefits were tested. Findings from the regression analyses and structural equation modelling suggest that feelings about the company and company benefits such as staff meals and pension funds do predict personal happiness and positive feelings about the company where they are employed. Moreover, feelings about the company mediated the effect of stay-in facilities, staff meals and a bonus on happiness. Positive feelings about their company seem to explain employee happiness, particularly with the availability of company benefits such as stay-in facilities, staff meals and a bonus scheme.     

An automated system for primate instruction for behavioral neurophysiology

This paper describes a flexible hardware/software system developed for use with a PDP-8I computer for conducting research in behavioral neurophysiology. A real time monitor was designed to facilitate development, debugging, and modification of programs to run experiments. It relieves the programmer of the burden of dealing with hardware dependent functions such as interrupt handling and input/output. In addition, it provides the user with a large library of callable routines to perform functions commonly needed for conducting experiments. The monitor is modular in design and could be expanded or modified for use with many configurations of the PDP-8 family of computers.     

Conditioned suppression as a sensitive baseline for social facilitation

The key pecking of pigeons maintained on a variable-interval schedule of food reinforcement was suppressed during occasional presentations of a warning stimulus paired with electric shock. On alternate sessions, a co-actor pigeon was visible in an adjoining chamber where it emitted the same food-reinforced key peck during the warning stimulus that signalled shock for the subject. With no shock and at low shock intensities, where the subject's responding was not suppressed or suppressed only slightly, the co-actor had little effect. At the higher shock intensities, where the subject's responding was reduced by at least 40%, the response rate during the warning stimulus was consistently higher when the co-actor was present. One explanation of these results assumes a special relationship between social stimuli and aversive stimuli in which the presence of another animal reduces emotional reactions and thereby allows operant responses to increase. This was not the case here because the mere presence of the co-actor did not maintain social facilitation. Rather, the present results, taken in conjunction with previous findings, suggest that changes in social and non-social variables which affect the rate of food-reinforced responding may produce proportionately larger changes in responding when that responding is suppressed by aversive stimulation than when it is not.