Effect of amount of training on rate and duration of responding during extinction

Four experiments are reported in which the amount of CRF training prior to extinction is examined as it effects transient changes in response frequency and duration immediately following extinction onset. The first two experiments, using albino rats as subjects and water reinforcement, revealed a reliable relationship between length of time on CRF and the tendency to increase response frequency, duration, and the variability of response frequency and duration. Two comparative experiments were conducted using 53-to-69-month old children as subjects, and recorded music as reinforcement. The results of the first child study failed to conform with those obtained in the rat experiments. However, manipulation of the reinforcer in a subsequent study reproduced the rat extinction effect. Despite the differences in the rat and child experiments, the qualitative similarity of the results of the four studies suggests a basic underlying comparability of the relationship between the amount of training and transient changes in response frequency.     

Talking about subject choice at secondary school and career aspirations: conversations with students of Chinese background

Interviews with 15 boys and 12 girls from Chinese backgrounds are reported. The interviews, which centred on option/subject choices and career aspirations, were based on the results of a survey of 794 secondary-school students. This survey had indicated that the Chinese students included were more similar in their responses to ethnic-majority than to other ethnic-minority students. Conversation analysis of the interviews revealed three themes: students attributed their choices to (i) their liking for the subject/teacher; (ii) the link between school subjects and careers; and (iii) institutional frameworks. There was a marked omission of reference to issues related to ethnicity or gender. These findings are discussed in the context of other studies of Chinese ethnicity.     

Judging the sex of an unseen person from nonverbal cues

In the first study, silent videotapes were made of male and female undergraduates who had been asked to nonverbally treat another person in a sex-stereotyped manner without using proximity or touch cues. Raters who viewed the tapes with one member of the dyad blocked from view were able to guess the sex of the unseen member when watching a male, but not a female. Female raters were more accurate than male raters. In the second study, tapes were made without requesting sex-stereotyped behavior. Raters were barely able to guess the sex of the other person. Thus, although males have a repertoire of nonverbal behaviors which they can use differentially with either sex, they do not necessarily do so in all situations.The authors would like to thank Frances Cherry for helpful comments and criticisms on previous drafts of this article.     

Achieving Transparency: An Argument For Enactivism

The transparency of perceptual experience has been invoked in support of many views about perception. I argue that it supports a form of enactivism—the view that capacities for perceptual experience and for intentional agency are essentially interdependent. I clarify the perceptual phenomenon at issue, and argue that enactivists should expect to find a parallel instance of transparency in our agentive experience, and that the two forms of transparency are constitutively interdependent (Section 1). I then argue that i) we do indeed find such parallels: the way in which an action is directed towards its goal through our bodily movements parallels the way in which an experience is directed towards its object through our perceptual sensation (Section 2), and ii) reflecting on sensorimotor skills shows why the two instances of transparency are constitutively interdependent (Section 3). Section 4 gives reasons for generalizing beyond the cases considered so far by applying the enactive view to Kohler's landmark studies of perceptual adaptation. The final section clarifies the form of enactivism to which the previous sections point. The view that emerges is one whereby our perceptual and practical skills are interrelated aspects of a single capacity to have one's mind intentionally directed upon the world. The transparency of experience, on this view, is achieved in virtue of our capacities as agents as much as it is given in virtue of our capacities as perceivers.     

Contribution of content, context, and process to understanding openness to organizational change: two experimental simulation studies

The authors examined the contribution of the content, context, and process of organizational transformation to employees' openness to change. The authors predicted that 5 factors would have a positive effect on openness to change: (a) threatening character of organizational change (content related), (b) trust in executive management (context related), (c) trust in the supervisor (context related), (d) history of change (context related), and (e) participation in the change effort (process related). The authors tested their hypotheses in 2 separate studies (N = 828 and N = 835) using an experimental simulation strategy. The first study crossed 4 variables in a completely randomized 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design. Results showed significant main effects for content, context, and process but no significant interaction effects. A second study, with a completely randomized 2 x 2 factorial design, crossed two context variables. Results showed a significant main and an interaction effect: Openness to change decreased dramatically only when history of change and trust in executive management were low.     

Nonautomatic emotion perception in a dual-task situation

Are emotions perceived automatically? Two psychological refractory period experiments were conducted to ascertain whether emotion perception requires central attentional resources. Task 1 required an auditory discrimination (tone vs. noise), whereas Task 2 required a discrimination between happy and angry faces. The difficulty of Task 2 was manipulated by varying the degree of emotional expression. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between Task 1 and Task 2 was also varied. Experiment 1 revealed additive effects of SOA and Task 2 emotion-perception difficulty. Experiment 2 replicated the additive relationship with a stronger manipulation of emotion-perception difficulty. According to locus-of-slack logic, our participants did not process emotional expressions while central resources were devoted to Task 1. We conclude that emotion perception is not fully automatic.     

Will Improving My Marriage Improve My Sleep?

An essential component to overall health and well-being is sleep. Likewise, being happily married is associated with better physical, mental, and emotional health. In the present study, we examined links between marital satisfaction (MS) and aspects of sleep quality (SQ) among married individuals (N = 88) aged 39 to 64 years. Data were collected at baseline and 6-month follow-up. Regression analyses showed that MS at baseline was positively associated with overall SQ and sleep disturbance frequency at baseline and was negatively associated with minutes to fall asleep at follow-up. Results suggested that participants with greater MS at baseline reported better overall SQ at baseline and falling asleep faster at follow-up. However, results varied when controlling for other relevant covariates (e.g., age, depression, pain). Additionally, a negative change in MS between baseline and follow-up was a positive predictor of sleep disturbance frequency at follow-up, suggesting that participants whose MS decreased over time were more likely to report more frequent sleep disturbances 6 months later. Findings indicate that MS is linked with various aspects of SQ in married, middle-aged adults. Clinical implications, limitations of the current study, and areas for future research are discussed.