Designing courseware: Prompts from behavioral instruction

Behavior analysis has been at the forefront of instructional design for many years. However, this leadership position is rapidly eroding as teachers, trainers and other educators insist that behavioral instruction is good only for meeting simplistic educational goals. I argue that in order for behavior analysis to continue to influence the field of instructional design, behavior analysts need to help people develop instructional programs that use advanced interactive computer systems and that are based on all the components of behavioral instruction. Therefore, this paper suggests the following strategy. First, it teaches people to select authoring systems that will enable them to design interactive computer programs. Second, in order to improve current authoring systems it provides a set of prompts that integrate the features of behavioral instruction. I claim that the integration of these prompts with an advanced authoring system will facilitate the development of complex, conceptual learning programs and minimize current criticisms of behavioral instruction.     

Comparing Values and Methods in Psychodynamic and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Commonalities and Differences

To determine the underlying values and methods in cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic therapy and to address the implications of those values and methods for integrating the two therapies, the Process Value and Methods Survey was sent to members of The Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy (cognitive-behavioral sample) and Division 39 of American Psychological Association (psychodynamic sample). Members were asked to endorse items based on their ideal understanding of their respective orientations. A Principal Components Analysis (PCA) of the combined samples yielded six components for values, of which four were significant according to orientation. A second PCA, for therapeutic methods, yielded six components, five of which were significant according to orientation. In both PCAs, components significant for an orientation were consistent with the corresponding constructs of that orientation. The relationship between method and value components as well as how value components may be related to clinical practice and psychotherapy integration is discussed.     

FORPROXIMITY: An update and expansion of the PROXTIME computer program

A new program, called PROXIMITY, was created as a tool for proximity calculation and to update and expand upon Kirste and Monge’s (1983) PROXTIME program. The purpose of PROXIMITY is to calculate the fluctuating proximity between individuals within organizations. PROXIMITY provides output for three types of relationships: (1) an overall organizational proximity, (2) pairwise proximity between individuals, and (3) individual proximity to multiple others. PROXIMITY also updates some of PROXTIME’s features such as the computer platform, the type of data the program can handle, and the form of output available.     

A dehypernasality trainer

A dehypernasality trainer that can be used for conditioning speech is described.     

Strategies in Forecasting Outcomes in Ethical Decision-Making: Identifying and Analyzing the Causes of the Problem

This study examined the role of key causal analysis strategies in forecasting and ethical decision-making. Undergraduate participants took on the role of the key actor in several ethical problems and were asked to identify and analyze the causes, forecast potential outcomes, and make a decision about each problem. Time pressure and analytic mindset were manipulated while participants worked through these problems. The results indicated that forecast quality was associated with decision ethicality, and the identification of the critical causes of the problem was associated with both higher quality forecasts and higher ethicality of decisions. Neither time pressure nor analytic mindset impacted forecasts or ethicality of decisions. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Truth is not (Very) Intrinsically Valuable

We might suppose it is not only instrumentally valuable for beliefs to be true, but that it is intrinsically valuable – truth makes a non‐derivative, positive contribution to a belief's overall value. Some intrinsic goods are better than others, though, and this article considers the question of how good truth is, compared to other intrinsic goods. I argue that truth is the worst of all intrinsic goods; every other intrinsic good is better than it. I also suggest the best explanation for truth's inferiority is that it is not really an intrinsic good at all. It is intrinsically neutral.     

Parallel goal-directed and habitual control of human drug-seeking: implications for dependence vulnerability

Dual-process theories of learning and addiction propose that whereas freely elected drug/reward-seeking is goal-directed in being mediated by the expected value of the outcome, cue-elicited drug/reward-seeking is habitual in being elicited directly by antecedent stimuli, without retrieving a representation of outcome value. To substantiate this claim, the current study conducted a human devaluation-transfer procedure in which young adult smokers were first trained on a concurrent choice task to earn tobacco and chocolate points before one outcome was devalued by specific satiety or health warnings against consumption of that outcome. When choice was again tested in extinction, the selective reduction in performance of the action associated with the devalued outcome indicated that choice was controlled by an expectation of outcome value, that is, was goal-directed. Moreover, the presentation of tobacco and chocolate cues enhanced selection of the response associated with that outcome, indicating that transfer was also mediated by the retrieval of the outcome representation. Paradoxically, however, the magnitude of this transfer effect was unaffected by devaluation, indicating that the stimulus retrieved a representation of outcome identity but not current incentive value. Individual differences in tobacco dependence in the young adult sample were associated with tobacco preference in the concurrent choice task but not with the devaluation or transfer effects. These data accord with dual-process theories in suggesting that drug/reward-seeking are mediated by goal-directed and habitual controllers under freely elected and cued conditions, respectively, and that initial uptake of drug use is associated with hyper-valuation of the drug as an outcome of goal-directed drug-seeking rather than with accelerated habit formation.     

A developmental, interactive activation model of the word superiority effect

Parallel distributed processing (PDP) models of reading developed out of an appreciation of the role that context plays in letter and word perception. Adult readers can more accurately identify letters in a word than alone or in other random display contexts, a phenomenon known as the Word Superiority Effect (WSE). We examined the effects of orthographic context on the letter recognition skills of dyslexic children, comparing their performance to adults, and chronological- and reading-age matched groups. Consistent with previous studies, results showed adults better able to identify letters in the context of words and pseudowords than in random letter strings. Young normal readers demonstrated the WSE, but their pseudoword advantage was less than adults. The dyslexic children showed no WSE at all. PDP computer simulations for the experimental data using the Interactive Activation model (IA) suggested that the orthographic components of the lexical system of normal children are interactive and distributed as they are in adults but provide less bottom-up activation. In addition, top-down processing increases with age and reading skill, but may be absent for dyslexic readers.