Obstacle avoidance in novel visual environments improved by variable practice training

Motor performance on simple tasks improves after training in variable practice. We asked if locomotor skill during an obstacle-avoidance task in a novel sensorimotor environment improved through training in variable practice on other complex tasks. 40 normal adults practiced gross motor skills while wearing either sham lenses, one of several visual distortion lens (constant practice), or three different visual distortion lenses (variable practice). Posttests on obstacle avoidance with novel lenses showed significantly better scores with variable practice and one of the constant groups vs sham lenses. Constant and variable practice groups did not differ. Thus, performance in a novel environment improves after training on similar type novelty, even when practice and test conditions differ. Constant practice was effective only if the subjects used the lens efficacious in training. Variable practice increases the likelihood of efficacious training when adaptive performance is required in a novel environment.     

Prediction of facial displays from knowledge of norms of emotional expressiveness

A study was conducted to examine the accuracy of prediction of facial expressiveness from knowledge of the norms of expressiveness in same-sex and mixed-sex social interactions. Men and women subjects were videotaped while they viewed emotionally loaded stimulus slides and rated their responses to them. The edited videotapes were shown to judges who attempted to identify the emotion reported by each viewer for each slide. A separate group of subjects was asked to rate how acceptable or appropriate it is for a man or a woman to express each target emotion under the conditions of the slide-viewing study. The accuracy of emotion identification data correlated highly with acceptability ratings across emotions and sex pairings, although examined more closely, the data show this predictability only for same-sex pairings. Alternative explanations for these results in terms of display rules and the social demands of interactions are discussed.The authors wish to thank Alan Fridlund for helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.     

Context specificity of conditioning and latent inhibition: Evidence for a dissociation of latent inhibition and associative interference

Conditioning may generalize from one context to another when latent inhibition (the effect on subsequent conditioning of prior unreinforced exposure to the stimulus) does not. Experiment 1 studied conditioned approach and licking by rats to a stimulus paired with the delivery of water and confirmed that latent inhibition could be abolished by a change of context, while prior aversive conditioning to the stimulus, produced by pairing it with mild shock, interfered with the acquisition of conditioned approach and licking regardless of this change of context. Thus even when conditioning and latent inhibition were measured in the same way, the former generalized across contexts, and the latter did not. Experiment 2 showed that the effects not only of unreinforced exposure to a stimulus but also of presentation of the stimulus uncorrelated with the delivery of water were confined to the context in which they occurred. Thus the generalization of conditioning from one context to another and the failure of latent inhibition to generalize cannot be attributed to the occurrence of rein-forcers during conditioning and their absence in latent inhibition. This conclusion was confirmed in Experiment 3, where animals received both aversive conditioning trials and unreinforced presentations of other stimuli in the treatment phase of the experiment, but were then conditioned to one of these stimuli paired with water. Once again, the effects of aversive conditioning transferred perfectly from one context to another, while those of unreinforced presentations did not. Latent inhibition, these results suggest, is not easily explained by supposing that animals associate an unreinforced stimulus with zero consequences and have to unlearn this association when the stimulus is then paired with a reinforcer.     

Evaluating the Theory-of-Mind Hypothesis of Autism

ABSTRACT— Two decades ago, the theory-of-mind hypothesis of autism was introduced by Baron-Cohen and his colleagues; this theory provided a unified cognitive explanation for the key social and communication symptoms in that disorder. I evaluate the theory-of-mind hypothesis in light of studies that have addressed several key questions: Do children with autism develop theory-of-mind concepts? How can we explain why some children with autism pass theory-of-mind tasks? Do deficits in theory of mind account for the major impairments that characterize autistic disorder? Current research supports the view that autism involves delays and deficits not only in the development of a theory of mind but also in additional aspects of social-affective information processing that extend beyond the traditional boundaries of theory of mind.     

When-questions: A study of how children linguistically encode temporal information

Sixty children between the ages of 4 and 7 years and 10 adults were presented with a series of stories illustrated by five pictures in a comic strip format. Each story was follwed by either a when-, why-, or control question. With respect to the when-questions, some of the stories involved causally related events while others did not. An analysis of the responses supported the hypotheses that causal relationships play an important role in the development of the ability to encode temporal relationships in response to when-questions.This research was supported by PSCBHE Grant No. 6-62123 from the City University of New York to the second author. The authors greatly appreciate the assistance of the directors, teachers, and children of the Chatsworth Avenue Elementary School, the Larchmont Avenue Church Nursery School, the Larchmont Temple Nursery School, and the Little School in Larchmont, New York. We would also like to thank Dr. Louis Hsu for his advice concerning     

Depression vs. paranoia: Why are there sex differences in mental illness?

Sex differences in proneness to depression and paranoia are seen as reflecting caricatures of women s and men's stereotypical role in a male-dominated, exploitative society Following its major hypothesis that mental illness arises out of failures in the sociability that is inherent in our species, the paper discusses some of the evidence for sex differences in sociability, and some evidence from studies of sex differences in field dependence which, taken together, suggest a sex difference in proneness to shame and guilt This sex difference in ‘superego” style is a mediating factor in proneness to depression and paranoia     

Women's Understanding of Their Risk of Developing Breast/Ovarian Cancer Before and After Genetic Counseling

Many studies have reported that individuals frequently over- or underestimate their risk of developing cancer both before and after they attend genetic counseling for breast and/or ovarian cancer. Using a combination of interviews and written questionnaires, we investigated counselees' understanding of their risk of developing cancer before and after genetic counseling. We demonstrate that although 76% of the sample thought that their risk was elevated relative to women in general, only a small proportion (17%) were willing or able to provide a numerical estimate of their risk of developing cancer before they attended the clinic. Following the consultation, 43% indicated that their risk of developing cancer was lower than they had anticipated. Twenty-two percent described their risk in absolute rather than relative terms, i.e., that they would definitely (not) develop cancer in the future. The implications of these findings for further research are discussed.     

The Elusiveness of Evaluative Conditioning

Evaluative conditioning (EC) is an important variant of Pavlovian conditioning in which the outcome is a change in affective response to the conditioned stimulus (CS). It is the best extant account, with evidence, for affective change in humans. Good laboratory models are available. This paper reviews a set of findings which suggest that the actual occurrence of EC, and its magnitude, varies widely in both real world and laboratory situations. Attention to known parameters of Pavlovian conditioning may account for some, but not all, of the failures and successes. Six empirical studies on humans are described; two document frequent failures of EC to occur in real world situations where the Pavlovian conditions for development of animal phobias or taste aversions are present, two are real-world experiments in which no evidence for EC is obtained, and two are laboratory failures to produce EC, by pairing neutral odor CSs with a variety of unconditioned stimuli (USs). We suggest that there are important, not understood factors, that modulate the appearance of EC, and that for both theoretical and applied reasons, these factors should be identified.