Invariants and Information Pickup in The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems: Implications for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior

ABSTRACT

Although Gibson focused his agenda on the study of perception and Skinner on learning as contingencies of reinforcement, they shared a nonrepresentational approach. We propose that the ecological concept of invariants developed in Gibson's book The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (1966) could underlie Skinner's notion of contingencies of reinforcement as environmental opportunities for behaving. The proposal is divided in 3 parts: the concept of stimulus for perception, the role of the notion of invariants in the operant contingency, and the information for perception and behavior. We conclude that approximating contingencies of reinforcement as instances of environmental invariants can be fruitful for studying a number of phenomena within the context of operant conditioning.     

The Moderating Effects of Gratitude on the Association Between Perceived Parenting Styles and Suicidal Ideation

Suicidal ideation is defined as the thoughts about engaging in suicidal-related behaviors. Very few studies have been conducted on children’s suicidal ideation as there is a biased perception that suicidal behavior under the age of 12 is scarce. However, suicide is the leading cause of death among young children. Child suicidal ideation is predictive of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in adulthood. Association between certain parenting styles and suicidal ideation have been found in empirical studies. However, little is known about the role of parenting and suicidal ideation in Chinese young children. We examined whether gratitude can reduce the risk of suicide by moderating the association between parenting styles and child suicidal ideation. We recruited 447 Chinese children (53.3% female; mean age?=?10.06, SD?=?1.76) to participate in a survey. Perceived parenting style (warmth/accepting, dominating, and autonomy granting), gratitude, and suicidal ideation were assessed using self-reported measures. We found that all three perceived parental styles were significantly associated with child suicidal ideation. Further, gratitude was found to have a significant moderating effect on suicidal ideation, across the analysis of the three perceived parenting styles. This suggests that gratitude may be adopted in preventive and clinical interventions so that children at risk can benefit from reducing the negative effects of ineffective parenting styles and suicidal ideation.     

Is there a Science of the Processes Underlying Health and Illness Behaviors? A Comment on Maes and Karoly

Maes and Karoly (2005) provide thorough overview of many of the current theoretical models and much of the empirical data describing application of self-regulation concepts to chronic illness management. They make clear that much of theory and data focuses on remote and proximal goals involved in the self-regulation process. The review makes clear, however, that few models and studies conceptualise and examine how individuals create goals and evaluate progress. Knowledge of these processes is essential for the development of effective interventions. We argue that understanding these processes is essential for understanding the interplay of concrete experience and conceptual processes. Concepts in this area are central for understanding how top-down and bottom-up processes integrate in generating self-regulatory behaviors to affect somatic experience. We discuss theoretical frameworks that can generate research paths that will lead to effective interventions.     

Psychometric update of the Social Anxiety Screening Scale (SASS/EDAS) in a Spanish adolescent population

The aim of this work was to update the validation of the Social Anxiety Screening Scale (SASS/EDAS) in a sample of Spanish adolescents. To achieve this, one study with a sample of 1489 students in secondary education, of ages 14 to 17 years, were carried out. The psychometric properties of EDAS were examined through confirmatory factor analysis, reliability (Cronbach's alpha), temporal stability (test-retest), and concurrent criterion validity. The results supported the three-independent-factor structure (avoidance, distress and interference), that showed best fit indices compared to alternative models. They also showed that the scores of participants on EDAS scales were reliable in terms of internal consistency (alpha > .80) and moderately reliable concerning temporal stability (r = .48-.60) over a five-week period. The correlations between the EDAS factors and other social anxiety measures were positive and significant. Data provide empirical evidence of the estimation of reliability and validity of this scale. Future work should extend the validation of the EDAS in clinical samples.     

Trait Meta-Mood and Subjective Happiness: A 7-week Prospective Study

The primary aim of the current study was to replicate and extend previous findings by examining the relationship between trait meta-mood and levels of subjective happiness in a 7-week follow-up study. Participants were 192 undergraduate students (155 females) who completed self-report measures of trait meta-mood and subjective happiness. After 7 weeks, 155 students completed the subjective happiness scale again. Focusing first on cross-sectional analysis, meta-mood dimensions were found to be moderately related to levels of subjective happiness. Next, along with initial levels of subjective happiness, we found that meta-mood dimensions independently predicted prospective levels of subjective happiness over a 7-week follow-up. These findings provide some preliminary evidence on the prospective value of meta-mood dimensions as relevant individual differences involved in the maintenance of emotional well-being indicators.     

Embodied Attitude Change: A Self‐Validation Perspective

Our behavior can change what we like and dislike. Although it seems clear that we might like something more when we smile (versus frown), or when we nod our heads (versus shake), it is important to understand the processes responsible for these changes in evaluation. It might be that agreement behaviors such as smiling and nodding work as cue, make us think about everything in a positive light, or it might be that they encourage us not to think much about the information we receive. This review describes the basic processes underlying embodied change, highlighting the role of a recently discovered meta‐cognitive process (called self‐validation) by which bodily responses can validate or invalidate (instead of changing) our thoughts. This new mechanism can account for some already established outcomes in embodied persuasion (e.g., more persuasion with smiling than frowning), but by a different process than postulated previously (smiling increases confidence in thoughts), as well as for some new findings (e.g., more persuasion for low than high powerful postures; more self‐confidence when performing doubtful postures).     

The effects of interletter spacing in visual-word recognition

Despite the importance of determining the effects of interletter spacing on visual-word recognition, this issue has often been neglected in the literature. The goal of the present study is to shed some light on this topic. The rationale is that a thin increase in interletter spacing, as in c a s i n o, may reduce lateral interference among internal letters without destroying a word's integrity and/or allow a more precise encoding of a word's letter positions. Here we examined whether identification times for word stimuli in a lexical decision task were faster when the target word had a slightly wider than default interletter spacing value relative to the default settings (e.g., c a s i n o vs. casino). In Experiment 1, we examined whether interletter spacing interacted with word-frequency, whereas in Experiment 2, we examined whether interletter spacing interacted with word length. Results showed that responses to words using a thin increase in interletter spacing were faster than the responses to words using the default settings—regardless of word-frequency and word length. Thus, interletter spacing plays an important role at modulating the identification of visually presented words.     

The big carrot: High‐stakes incentives revisited

Using an international dataset of about 35 000 subjects, this paper provides an empirical example of high‐stakes incentives in relation to religious practice. First, we show that incentives (based on absolute belief) play a salient role in religious performance. Second, we find that when both positive (heaven) and negative (hell) incentives are available the former are more effective than the latter. Specifically, it is shown that beliefs in heaven are much more relevant than beliefs in hell when estimating the production of religious commodities (church‐attendance and praying equations). Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Clock drawing performance and brain morphology in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease

The Clock Drawing Test (CDT) is a widely used instrument in the neuropsychological assessment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). As CDT performance necessitates several cognitive functions (e.g., visuospatial and constructional abilities, executive functioning), an interaction of multiple brain regions is likely. Fifty-one subjects with mild cognitive impairment, 23 with AD and 15 healthy controls underwent high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging. Optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was performed to investigate the putative association between CDT performance and gray matter (GM) density throughout the entire brain. In the first step of analysis (p<.001, uncorrected), VBM revealed a reduced GM density in numerous cortical (temporal lobe, frontal lobe, parietal lobe, cerebellum) and subcortical (thalamus, basal ganglia) brain regions to be associated with poorer CDT performance. When corrected for multiple comparisons (p<.01), the associations remained significant predominantly in the left temporal and--less pronounced--the right temporal lobe. VBM demonstrated CDT performance to depend on the integrity of widely distributed cortical and subcortical areas in both brain hemispheres with accentuation in the left-sided temporal lobe region.