Acquisition and extinction of signaled avoidance as a function of intermittent reinforcement

Signaled, shuttle-box avoidance responding in female rats of the Fischer₃₄₄ strain was examined as a function of four separate contingencies of intermittent reinforcement. In Experiment 1, when avoidance responses during acquisition were reinforced 25% of the time with prompt CS termination, animals responded equally often during acquisition and significantly more often during extinction than animals who received such reinforcement on a 100% schedule. Similar results were found under a trace procedure in Experiment 2 when avoidance responses were reinforced 25% of the time with informational feedback stimuli. In contrast, during Experiment 3, when animals were shocked on only 25% of the trials on which they failed to respond, the level of avoidance responding during both acquisition and extinction was significantly less than it was when animals were shocked on a 100% schedule. Comparable results were found in Experiment 4 when avoidance responses during acquisition averted shock on only 25% of the trials. Thus, intermittent reinforcement contingencies involving response-contingent feedback stimuli and shock have differential effects on avoidance responding during both acquisition and extinction trials under the signaled avoidance procedure.     

CHILD BEHAVIOR AND DEVELOPMENT

l'A. présente une analyse behavioriste du développement de l'enfant, qui est l'application à un domaine spécialisé d'une approche behavioriste de la psychologie générale. Il montre tout d'abord ce qu'est l'analyse behavioriste, en examinant successivement quelle philosophie de la science elle implique, et quels en sont les concepts, les principes, les bases méthodologiques essentielles et les applications pratiques. Il évoque, ensuite, comment se posent dans une telle perspective, les problèmes que I'on retrouve constamment dans l'étude du développement de l'enfant : liaison entre hérédité et milieu, nature psychologique de l'enfant, stades du développement, recherches des moyennes par âge ou recherches longitudinales. Il termine par un bref bilan des contributions de l'analyse behavioriste à l'étude du développement de l'enfant, en s'attachant particulièrement au fait qu'elle a fait progresser les méthodes de recherche, permis de préciser et de compléter les concepts et les principes, et démontré la valeur pratique des principes.     

Interaction Effect of Extrinsic Rewards and Socioeconomic Strata

In an attempt to account for the poor test performance of lower-SES children, two conflicting theories were examined: (a) the early damage theory holds that lower-SES children have undergone such early and intensive deprivation that they cannot perform in testing situations; (b) the alienation theory contends that the public schools are middle-class institutions with middle-class intrinsic rewards which do not motivate lower-SES children. When faced with the testing situation the children choose not to perform. In order to test these theories, upper- and lower-SES students (N = 250) were randomly assigned to extrinsic and conventional reward conditions. The multivariate analysis of co-variance techniques indicated a significant (.01 level) improvement in the test performance of lower-SES children when extrinsic (money, food) rewards, as well as conventional rewards, are offered. Extrinsic rewards did not significantly improve the test performance of upper-SES children.     

A Hierarchical Multiple-Level Approach to the Assessment of Interpersonal Relatedness and Self-Definition: Implications for Research,Clinical Practice,and DSM Planning

Extant research suggests there is considerable overlap between so-called 2-polarities models of personality development; that is, models that propose that personality development evolves through a dialectic synergistic interaction between 2 key developmental tasks across the life span—the development of self-definition on the one hand and of relatedness on the other. These models have attracted considerable research attention and play a central role in DSM planning. This article provides a researcher- and clinician-friendly guide to the assessment of these personality theories. We argue that current theoretical models focus on issues of relatedness and self-definition at different hierarchically organized levels of analysis; that is (a) at the level of broad personality features, (b) at the motivational level (i.e., the motivational processes underlying the development of these dimensions), and (c) at the level of underlying internal working models or cognitive affective schemas, and the specific interpersonal features and problems in which they are expressed. Implications for further research and DSM planning are outlined.     

Mind wandering during film comprehension: The role of prior knowledge and situational interest

This study assessed the occurrence and factors that influence mind wandering (MW) in the domain of film comprehension. The cascading model of inattention assumes that a stronger mental representation (i.e., a situation model) during comprehension results in less MW. Accordingly, a suppression hypothesis suggests that MW would decrease as a function of having the knowledge of the plot of a film prior to viewing, because the prior-knowledge would help to strengthen the situation model during comprehension. Furthermore, an interest-moderation hypothesis would predict that the suppression effect of prior-knowledge would only emerge when there was interest in viewing the film. In the current experiment, 108 participants either read a short story that depicted the plot (i.e., prior-knowledge condition) or read an unrelated story of equal length (control condition) prior to viewing the short film (32.5 minutes) entitled The Red Balloon. Participants self-reported their interest in viewing the film immediately before the film was presented. MW was tracked using a self-report method targeting instances of MW with metacognitive awareness. Participants in the prior-knowledge condition reported less MW compared with the control condition, thereby supporting the suppression hypothesis. MW also decreased over the duration of the film, but only for those with prior-knowledge of the film. Finally, prior-knowledge effects on MW were only observed when interest was average or high, but not when interest was low.     

Eve and the Serpent: A Rational Choice to Err

In dealing with inexplicable disaster, like the untimely death of a child in a hospital, we increasingly turn to the justice system for accountability and retribution. While seemingly sensible, criminalizing human error has a range of negative consequences. But it does offer “good” narratives of failure as the result of human fault—even at the cost of guilt. Such narratives allow us to pinpoint a cause: people made a rational choice to err and should be punished. This allows us to imagine ourselves in control over random, meaningless events. This paper traces Judeo–Christian roots of such regulative ideals in Western moral thinking, by examining the Genesis account of Eve and the Serpent, and St. Augustine’s interpretation of it. Sidney Dekker (Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 1996) is currently Professor of human factors and system safety at Lund University in Sweden, and specializes in human error and reactions to failure.