Reinforced stimulus preexposure effects as a function of US intensity: Implications for understanding the Hall-Pearce effect

Three conditioned suppression experiments examined the Hall-Pearce (1979) negative transfer effect in rats. Experiment 1 replicated the effect: CS-US_weak pairings retarded subsequent fear conditioning to the CS as a result of CS-US_strong pairings. The size of this retardation was less than that produced by non-reinforced CS presentations (latent inhibition). When the magnitude of the US_weak was reduced in Experiment 2, the Hall-Pearce effect was greater than latent inhibition. Experiment 3 confirmed the findings of the two previous experiments, and demonstrated that magnitude of the Hall-Pearce negative transfer effect is inversely related to the magnitude of the US_weak. From these findings it is suggested that the Hall-Pearce effect consists of a balance between a positive transfer of associative strength, and negative transfer based on CS- and US-preexposure effects.     

Toward a scalable holographic word-form representation

Phenomena in a variety of verbal tasks—for example, masked priming, lexical decision, and word naming—are typically explained in terms of similarity between word-forms. Despite the apparent commonalities between these sets of phenomena, the representations and similarity measures used to account for them are not often related. To show how this gap might be bridged, we build on the work of Hannagan, Dupoux, and Christophe, Cognitive Science 35:79-118, (2011) to explore several methods of representing visual word-forms using holographic reduced representations and to evaluate them on their ability to account for a wide range of effects in masked form priming, as well as data from lexical decision and word naming. A representation that assumes that word-internal letter groups are encoded relative to word-terminal letter groups is found to predict qualitative patterns in masked priming, as well as lexical decision and naming latencies. We then show how this representation can be integrated with the BEAGLE model of lexical semantics (Jones & Mewhort, Psychological Review 114:1–37, 2007) to enable the model to encompass a wider range of verbal tasks.     

Reconsidering the role of movement in perceiving action-scaled affordances

Many locomotor tasks require actors to choose among different categories of action, such as when deciding whether to cross the street in front of an approaching vehicle or wait until it passes. In such cases, the actor’s locomotor capabilities partly determine which actions are possible, and therefore must be taken into account. The present study was designed to re-evaluate the claim that people do not know their locomotor capabilities until they begin moving because they rely entirely on information that is picked up “on the fly” (Oudejans, Michaels, Bakker, & Dolné, 1996). Three experiments were conducted in which participants judged while stationary or moving whether it was within their capabilities to catch a fly ball or pass through a shrinking gap. The main finding was that judgments were equally accurate regardless of whether participants were stationary or allowed to move for a brief period. We conclude that stationary and moving actors know their locomotor capabilities equally well, and that actors do not rely entirely on information that is picked up on the fly.     

Coping strategies and quality of life among liver transplantation candidates

The maintenance of self-reported quality of life (QL) among people on the liver transplantation waiting list is one of the priority objectives of transplantation teams. Although there are different determinant factors of QL, results are not conclusive. In our study, the goal was to evaluate both the influence of cirrhosis etiology (ethylic and non-ethylic) and the coping strategies used concerning QL. A sample of 93 patients was selected, divided into two groups: ethylic cirrhosis (EC) and non-ethylic cirrhosis (NEC). QL was evaluated through the SF-36 Health Survey, and coping strategies through the Medical Coping Modes Questionnaire (MCMQ). Our results indicated that subjects with EC obtained similar QL levels to subjects with NEC, on all the SF-36 and MCMQ subscales. Furthermore, negative correlations were found between avoidance and acceptance-resignation coping strategies with the SF-36 components. Consequently, the acceptance-resignation strategy was associated with a worse perception of physical functioning, general and mental health, and vitality and role-emotional. Overall, these results suggest that cirrhosis etiology is not a determinant factor of QL, whereas the acceptance-resignation coping strategy might lead to lower self-perception of QL.     

Chicken soup really is good for the soul: "comfort food" fulfills the need to belong

Theories of social surrogacy and embodied cognition assume that cognitive associations with nonhuman stimuli can be affectively charged. In the current research, we examined whether the "comfort" of comfort foods comes from affective associations with relationships. Two experiments support the hypotheses that comfort foods are associated with relationships and alleviate loneliness. Experiment 1 found that the consumption of comfort foods automatically activates relationship-related concepts. Experiment 2 found that comfort foods buffer against belongingness threats in people who already have positive associations with relationships (i.e., are secure in attachment style). Implications for social surrogacy, need to belong, embodied cognition, and eating behavior are discussed.     

Grand Theft Auto IV comes to Singapore: effects of repeated exposure to violent video games on aggression

Given the increasingly dominant role of video games in the mainstream entertainment industry, it is no surprise that the scholarly debate about their impact has been lively and well attended. Although >100 studies have been conducted to examine the impact of violent video games on aggression, no clear consensus has been reached, particularly in terms of their long-term impact on violent behavior and aggressive cognitions. This study employs a first-ever longitudinal laboratory-based experiment to examine longer-term effects of playing a violent video game. One hundred thirty-five participants were assigned either to the treatment condition where they played a violent video game in a controlled laboratory setting for a total of 12 hours or to the control group where they did not play a game. Participants in the treatment group played Grand Theft Auto IV over a period of 3 weeks and were compared with a control group on the posttest measures of trait aggression, attitudes toward violence, and empathy. The findings do not support the assertion that playing a violent video game for a period of 3 weeks increases aggression or reduces empathy, but they suggest a small increase in proviolence attitudes. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

The perception and representation of orientations: A study in the haptic modality

This research examines the haptic perception of orientations in the frontal plane in order to identify the nature of their representation. Blindfolded participants inserted the tip of the index finger into a thimble mounted on the extremity of a haptic interface and manually explored the orientation of a "virtual rod". After a short delay, participants had to reproduce the scanned orientation with the same hand without the guidance of the virtual rod. The analysis of the systematic errors showed that the recalled orientations were markedly biased toward the nearest diagonal in each quadrant with the exception of the orientations nearest to the vertical, which were biased toward the vertical. The variable error was greater for the oblique orientations than for the horizontal or vertical orientation. These results are interpreted with the Category-Adjustment model, which posits that orientations are categorically represented. We show that it is necessary to assume the existence of vertical and horizontal categories in addition to the previously postulated oblique categories to predict the error patterns observed in the present and former studies. The similarity of the error patterns in the visual and haptic modalities suggests that a common mechanism is at play in perceiving and reproducing orientations in both sensory modalities.     

Beyond cumulative risk: distinguishing harshness and unpredictability as determinants of parenting and early life history strategy

Drawing on life history theory, Ellis and associates' (2009) recent across- and within-species analysis of ecological effects on reproductive development highlighted two fundamental dimensions of environmental variation and influence: harshness and unpredictability. To evaluate the unique contributions of these factors, the authors of present article examined data from a national sample 1364 mothers and their children participating in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Harshness was operationalized as income-to-needs ratio in the first 5 years of life; unpredictability was indexed by residential changes, paternal transitions, and parental job changes during this same period. Here the proposition was tested that these factors not only uniquely predict accelerated life-history strategy, operationalized in terms of sexual behavior at age 15, but that such effects are mediated by change over the early-childhood years in maternal depression and, thereby, observed maternal sensitivity in the early-elementary-school years. Structural equation modeling provided empirical support for Ellis et al.'s (2009) theorizing, calling attention once again to the contribution of evolutionary analysis to understanding contemporary human parenting and development. Implications of the findings for intervention are discussed.     

A tutorial on hierarchically structured constructs

Many psychological constructs are conceived to be hierarchically structured and thus to operate at various levels of generality. Alternative confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) models can be used to study various aspects of this proposition: (a) The one-factor model focuses on the top of the hierarchy and contains only a general construct, (b) the first-order factor model focuses on the intermediate level of the hierarchy and contains only specific constructs, and both (c) the higher order factor model and (d) the nested-factor model consider the hierarchy in its entirety and contain both general and specific constructs (e.g., bifactor model). This tutorial considers these CFA models in depth, addressing their psychometric properties, interpretation of general and specific constructs, and implications for model-based score reliabilities. The authors illustrate their arguments with normative data obtained for the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and conclude with recommendations on which CFA model is most appropriate for which research and diagnostic purposes.