EFFECTS OF A SIGNALED DELAY TO REINFORCEMENT IN THE PREVIOUS AND UPCOMING RATIOS ON BETWEEN-RATIO PAUSING IN FIXED-RATIO SCHEDULES

Domestic hens responded under multiple fixed‐ratio fixed‐ratio schedules with equal fixed ratios. One component provided immediate reinforcement and the other provided reinforcement after a delay, signaled by the offset of the key light. The components were presented quasirandomly so that all four possible transitions occurred in each session. The delay was varied over 0, 4, 8, 16, and 32 s with fixed‐ratio 5 schedules, and over 0, 8 and 32 s with fixed‐ratio 1, 15 and 40 schedules. Main effects of fixed‐ratio value and delay duration were detected on between‐ratio pauses. Pauses were longer when the multiple‐schedule stimulus correlated with a delayed‐reinforcer component was presented, with the longest pauses occurring at the transition from a component with an immediate reinforcer to one with a delayed reinforcer. Pause durations were shortest during immediate components. Overall, both the presence or absence of a delay in the upcoming component, and the presence or absence of a delay in the preceding component affected pause length, but the upcoming delay had the larger effect. Thus changes in delay had similar effects to past reports of the effects of changes in response force, response requirement, and reinforcer magnitude in multiple fixed‐ratio fixed‐ratio schedules.     

Dysregulated negative emotional reactivity as a predictor of chronic peer victimization in childhood

This study examined the relations of dysregulated negative emotional reactivity, emotional distress, and chronic peer victimization in childhood. A model was proposed whereby dysregulated reactivity was directly and indirectly related to concurrent peer victimization through victimization‐related emotional distress. The model further proposed that dysregulated reactivity directly incrementally predicted longitudinal peer victimization above and beyond the effect of concurrent victimization. Two hundred thirteen 9‐ to 13‐year‐old children and their parents completed measures of dysregulated reactivity and victimization experiences at baseline and 6‐month follow‐up. Children also related narratives of personal victimization experiences at baseline that were coded to assess victimization‐related emotional distress. Model testing strongly supported the direct association of dysregulated reactivity with concurrent victimization and incremental predictive effects of dysregulated reactivity on peer victimization over time. Model testing also provided support for an indirect effect of dysregulated reactivity on concurrent peer victimization through victimization‐related emotional distress. This study demonstrated the powerful role that dysregulated negative emotional reactivity plays in the development of chronic peer victimization over time. Aggr. Behav. 38:414‐427, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Repetition blindness reveals differences between the representations of manipulable and nonmanipulable objects

We used repetition blindness to investigate the nature of the representations underlying identification of manipulable objects. Observers named objects presented in rapid serial visual presentation streams containing either manipulable or nonmanipulable objects. In half the streams, 1 object was repeated. Overall accuracy was lower when streams contained 2 different manipulable objects than when they contained only nonmanipulable objects or a single manipulable object. In addition, nonmanipulable objects induced repetition blindness, whereas manipulable objects were associated with a repetition advantage. These findings suggest that motor information plays a direct role in object identification. Manipulable objects are vulnerable to interference from other objects associated with conflicting motor programs, but they show better individuation of repeated objects associated with the same action. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Unique Challenges Facing Female Athletes in Urban High Schools

Although the passage of Title IX secured equity of treatment and opportunity for female high school athletes in the United States, little research has examined the social well-being of girls who participate in sports during high school. The current survey study investigated how 9th grade sports participation relates to perceived gender discrimination from peers and adults at school over four time points spanning 10th through 12th grade. The ethnically diverse sample (46.6?% Hispanic/Latina/Mexican-American, 14.1?% Asian-American/Pacific Islander, 12.8?% African-American/Black, 11.5?% European-American/White, 15.1?% Other/Mixed) consisted of 384 girls in the southwestern United States. Results of growth modeling showed that 9th grade athletes (n?=?309) perceived greater gender discrimination relative to girls who were not involved in sports (n?=?75), and accelerated in peer gender discrimination compared to non-athletes. Athletes and non-athletes did not differ in perceived gender discrimination from adults at school. Analyses conducted separately within each ethnic group revealed that ethnic groups did not differ in patterns of gender discrimination. These findings suggest that girls who play sports may experience differential treatment from their peers. Future directions and policy implications are discussed.     

Lessons from beyond vision (sounds and audition)

Recent work on non-visual modalities aims to translate, extend, revise, or unify claims about perception beyond vision. This paper presents central lessons drawn from attention to hearing, sounds, and multimodality. It focuses on auditory awareness and its objects, and it advances more general lessons for perceptual theorizing that emerge from thinking about sounds and audition. The paper argues that sounds and audition no better support the privacy of perception’s objects than does vision; that perceptual objects are more diverse than an exclusively visual perspective suggests; and that multimodality is rampant. In doing so, it presents an account according to which audition affords awareness as of not just sounds, but also environmental happenings beyond sounds.     

Response rates track the history of reinforcement times

When conditioning involves a consistent temporal relationship between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US), the expression of conditioned responses within a trial peaks at the usual time of the US relative to the CS. Here we examine the temporal profile of responses during conditioning with variable CS-US intervals. We conditioned stimuli with either uniformly distributed or exponentially distributed random CS-US intervals. In the former case, the frequency of each CS-US interval within a specified range is uniform but the momentary probability of the US (the hazard function) increases as time elapses during the trial; with the latter distribution, short CS-US intervals are more frequent than longer intervals, but the momentary probability of the US is constant across time within the trial. We report that, in a magazine approach paradigm, rats' response rates remained stable as time elapses during the CS when the CS-US intervals were uniformly distributed, whereas their response rates declined when the CS-US intervals were exponentially distributed. In other words, the profile of responding during the CS matched the frequency distribution of the US times, not the momentary probability of the US during the CS. These results are inconsistent with real-time associative models, which predict that associative strength tracks the momentary probability of the US, but may provide support for timing models of conditioning in which conditioned responding is tied to remembered times of reinforcement.     

Rhetorics of Health Citizenship: Exploring Vernacular Critiques of Government’s Role in Supporting Healthy Living

This article explores how older adults negotiate and partially counter normative expectations of “health citizenship” that stress individual responsibility for maintaining health and preventing health problems. Based on interviews with 55 participants in Canada and the U.K. about what healthy living means to them in their everyday lives, we examine how the dominant discourse of personal responsibility in participants’ responses is counterpointed by a more muted, yet significant, alternative critical perspective on the relative roles and responsibilities of government and citizens in making healthy living possible. Drawing on Hauser’s (1999) concept of vernacular rhetoric along with recent theories of environmental citizenship, we analyze how participants exercise their civic-political judgment by using a logic of dissociation to argue that what government says about the importance of healthy living is incompatible with what government does to support citizens’ abilities to eat healthily and live actively. By deploying this technique of argumentation to address structural-political-economic dimensions of healthy living, participants enact, in modest ways, an alternative, critical-collective mode of health citizenship that complicates and, at least partially, disrupts neoliberal constructions of the individually responsible, “good” health citizen.     

Stakeholders’ Opinions on the Implementation of Pediatric Whole Exome Sequencing: Implications for Informed Consent

Advances in whole genome and whole exome sequencing (WGS/WES) technologies have led to increased availability in clinical settings. Currently, there are few guidelines relating to the process and content of informed consent for WGS/WES, nor to which results should be returned to families. To address this gap, we conducted focus groups to assess the views of professionals, parents, and adolescents for the future implementation of WES. The discussions assessed understanding of the risks and benefits of WES, preferences for the informed consent discussion, process for return of results, and the decision-making role of the pediatric patient. Professional focus group participants included bioethicists, physicians, laboratory directors, and genetic counselors. Parent focus groups included individuals with children who could be offered sequencing due to a potential genetic cause of the child’s condition. On-line discussion groups were conducted with adolescents aged 13–17 who had a possible genetic disorder. We identified discrepancies between professionals and patient groups regarding the process and content of informed consent, preference for return of results, and the role of the child in decision-making. Professional groups were concerned with the uncertainty regarding professional obligations, changing interpretation in genomic medicine, and practical concerns of returning results over time. Parent and adolescent groups focused on patient choice and personal utility of sequencing results. Each group expressed different views on the role of the child in decision-making and return of results. These discrepancies represent potential barriers to informed consent and a challenge for genetic counselors regarding the involvement of pediatric patients in decision-making and return of results discussions.     

Global coherence in younger and older adults: Influence of cognitive processes and discourse type

The purpose of the present research was to examine the influence of cognitive processes on discourse global coherence ability measured across different discourse tasks and collected from younger (n = 40; 20–39 years) and older (n = 40; 70–87 years) cognitively healthy adults. Study participants produced oral language samples in response to five commonly used discourse elicitation tasks and they were analyzed for maintenance of global coherence. Participants also completed memory and attention measures. Group differences on the global coherence scale were found for only one type of discourse—recounts. Across discourse elicitation tasks the lowest global coherence scores were found for recounts compared to the other discourse elicitation tasks. The influence of cognitive processes on maintenance of global coherence differed for the two age groups. For the younger group, there were no observed significant relationships. For the older group, cognitive measures were related to global coherence of stories and procedures.