The importance of multiple exemplar instruction in the establishment of novel verbal behavior

According to traditional linguistic accounts language, and its generative nature, cannot be taught. From a behavior analytic perspective, language is like any other behavior; it is learned and amenable to change. Based upon Skinner's radical behavioral analysis of verbal behavior, specific procedures have been designed to promote novel verbal relations. However, despite the strength and utility of this approach, using behavioral principles to understand the generativity of language has been challenging. Dependent upon the specific theory (e.g., stimulus equivalence, relational frame theory, bidirectional naming) within the radical behavioral orientation, researchers arrange unique procedures to evaluate the variables responsible for this phenomenon. This paper presents the commonalities and differences of two procedures (i.e., multiple exemplar training, multiple exemplar instruction) with examples of research highlighting the use of both in producing generativity. Further, it describes how multiple exemplar instruction is independent from other procedures leading to this outcome, and concludes by providing recommendations for both research and practice.     

Accounting for sequential trial effects in the flanker task: Conflict adaptation or associative priming?

The conflict-control loop theory proposes that the detection of conflict in information processing triggers an increase in cognitive control, resulting in improved performance on the subsequent trial. This theory seems consistent with the robust finding that conflict susceptibility is reduced following correct trials associated with high conflict: the conflict adaptation effect. However, despite providing favorable conditions for eliciting and detecting conflict-triggered performance adjustments, none of the five experiments reported here provide unequivocal evidence of such adjustments. Instead, the results corroborate and extend earlier findings by demonstrating that the conflict adaptation effect, at least in the flanker task, is only present for a specific subset of trial sequences that is characterized by a response repetition. This pattern of results provides strong evidence that the conflict adaptation effect reflects associative stimulus-response priming instead of conflict-driven adaptations in cognitive control.     

Source monitoring in a generative task

Following exposure to experimenter-provided examples of space creatures, people tend to conform to the features contained in the examples when creating their own novel space creatures. In three experiments, we manipulated factors known to affect source-monitoring accuracy to determine how these manipulations would influence conformity to experimenter-provided examples. In Experiment 1 we altered people's cognitive agenda by means of the instructions given before the drawing task. In Experiment 2 we examined how time pressure would affect the level of conformity, and in Experiment 3 we manipulated the availability of the creatures during the drawing task by making them available to half the participants. Conformity decreased when extended source-monitoring processes were engaged and increased when these processes were disrupted. The results from the three experiments were consistent with the principles of the source-monitoring framework.     

Transformational Leadership and Sports Performance: The Mediating Role of Intrinsic Motivation1

We developed and tested a model in which transformational leadership affects sports performance indirectly, through the mediating effects of intrinsic motivation. During the season, 168 university athletes provided data on their perceptions of their coach's transformational leadership and their own intrinsic motivation. At the end of the season, their coaches assessed the performance of the athletes. Using LISREL VIII, three models were estimated following the sequence of mediator tests outlined by Kelloway (1996, 1998). The proposed model received considerable support. The results isolate intrinsic motivation as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and sports performance, suggesting that transformational leadership may enhance intrinsic interest in the task.     

Identification of Genes Influencing a Spectrum of Externalizing Psychopathology

ABSTRACT— Alcohol dependence, drug dependence, childhood conduct disorder, and adult antisocial behavior commonly occur in combination. Data from multiple literatures, including twin/family studies and electrophysiological studies, suggest that the overlap of these disorders is largely due to a shared genetic liability that contributes to a spectrum of externalizing psychopathology. These findings suggest that some genes will not be specific to any one externalizing disorder but will predispose individuals broadly to a spectrum of externalizing psychopathology. Here we review evidence for specific, identified genes, GABRA2 and CHRM2 , that follow this pattern and confer risk for a spectrum of externalizing disorders. These findings confirm the etiological structure of psychopathology suggested by psychological research and suggest exciting new roles that psychologists can play in understanding the pathways underlying associations between genes and behavior.     

Using temporal cohesion to predict temporal coherence in narrative and expository texts

We investigated the linguistic features of temporal cohesion that distinguish variations in temporal coherence. In an analysis of 150 texts, experts rated temporal coherence on three continuous scale measures designed to capture unique representations of time. Coh-Metrix, a computational tool that assesses textual cohesion, correctly predicted the human ratings with five features of temporal cohesion. The correlations between predicted and actual scores were all statistically significant. In a complementary study, we explored the importance of temporal cohesion in characterizing genre. A discriminant function analysis, using Coh-Metrix temporal indices, successfully distinguished the genres of science, history, and narrative texts. The results suggested that history texts are more similar to narrative texts than to science texts in terms of temporal cohesion.     

Infant–mother attachment security and children's anxiety and aggression at first grade

With a large and diverse sample of children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, the role of infant–mother attachment security as a protective factor against the development of children's anxious and aggressive behaviors at first grade was examined. When child's sex, family income, maternal sensitivity, and prior levels of anxiety and aggression were controlled for, attachment security at 15 months of age was found to moderate the effects of negative life events families experienced, thereby protecting children from experiencing symptoms of anxiety, but not aggression, at 4.5 years of age. Children classified as insecurely attached at 15 months of age who experienced many stressful life events exhibited more anxiety symptoms in first grade than children classified as securely attached who similarly experienced many negative life events. These findings are interpreted within attachment theory, which predicts that early attachment security has a unique role in children's anxiety experiences later in childhood.     

Wild hummingbirds rely on landmarks not geometry when learning an array of flowers

Rats, birds or fish trained to find a reward in one corner of a small enclosure tend to learn the location of the reward using both nearby visual features and the geometric relationships of corners and walls. Because these studies are conducted under laboratory and thereby unnatural conditions, we sought to determine whether wild, free-living rufous hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus) learning a single reward location within a rectangular array of flowers would similarly employ both nearby visual landmarks and the geometric relationships of the array. Once subjects had learned the location of the reward, we used test probes in which one or two experimental landmarks were moved or removed in order to reveal how the birds remembered the reward location. The hummingbirds showed no evidence that they used the geometry of the rectangular array of flowers to remember the reward. Rather, they used our experimental landmarks, and possibly nearby, natural landmarks, to orient and navigate to the reward. We believe this to be the first test of the use of rectangular geometry by wild animals, and we recommend further studies be conducted in ecologically relevant conditions in order to help determine how and when animals form complex geometric representations of their local environments.