Training parents to implement pediatric feeding protocols

Four different multicomponent training packages were evaluated to increase the treatment integrity of parents implementing pediatric feeding protocols. In Study 1 we exposed 3 parents to a training package that consisted of written protocols (baseline), verbal instructions, therapist modeling, and rehearsal training. Results suggested that the package was successful in increasing treatment integrity of the feeding protocols to high levels. Study 2 investigated three different parent-training packages comprised of components used in Study 1. Two parents were exposed to written protocols, verbal instructions, and modeling; 2 parents were exposed to written protocols, verbal instructions, and rehearsal; and 2 parents were exposed to written protocols and verbal instructions. Results of Study 2 showed that each parent-training package produced very high treatment integrity. Follow-up data in the clinic and home for 5 participants suggested that the results were durable for up to 3 months. These results demonstrate a first step in the transfer and application of research findings into routine clinical practice because we evaluated several methods for training parents to implement behavioral feeding protocols, and we demonstrated that these methods resulted in high levels of treatment integrity in a controlled clinical setting.     

An examination of the value of the generation effect for learning new material

The generation effect involves an improvement in memory when learners must complete or modify materials. Several researchers have suggested that this effect involves enhanced access to learners' existing memory representations; therefore, the effect should be less effective with meaningless, low meaningful, or unfamiliar material. In the present study, the authors conducted 4 experiments in which legal nonwords were used, and they found no generation effect. In another 2 experiments in which familiar clichés were contrasted with new sentences and with unfamiliar sentences from textbooks, the results showed a greatly reduced generation effect for the new, unfamiliar material. Those findings suggest that memory strategies that depend on the generation effect will have limited effectiveness when they are applied to new or unfamiliar material.     

Treating boys with low school achievement and behavior problems: comparison of two kinds of intervention

Children with low school achievement frequently have behavior problems and interpersonal difficulties that pose a risk for psychosocial maladjustment. 39 boys were assessed and randomly assigned to one of two group treatment conditions: (a) interpersonal cognitive problem-solving for whom training was provided through oral and written language activities that met children's social and academic needs and (b) a language workshop, during which only academic difficulties were treated. Parents of children in both groups received group attention. Posttreatment assessments indicated that boys in both conditions showed significant improvements on school achievement and behavior problems, as they were measured by behavior scales reported by mothers and by an academic achievement test. Children in the problem-solving group improved significantly more than the other group on most measures. These results suggest that work with interpersonal cognitive problem-solving skills combined with reading and writing activities is a useful means to produce improvements in child behavior and school achievement.     

Lucky Libertarianism

Perhaps the greatest impediment to a viable libertarianism is the provision of a satisfactory explanation of how actions that are undetermined by an agent's character can still be under the control of, or up to, the agent. The luck problem has been most assiduously examined by Robert Kane who supplies a detailed account of how this problem can be resolved. Although Kane's theory is innovative, insightful, and more resourceful than most of his critics believe, it ultimately cannot account for the type of control that moral responsibility and (ultimate) agency legitimately require.     

Experimental tests of an attitudinal theory of the gender gap in voting

This research examined the hypothesis that gender gaps in voting stem from differences in the extent to which men and women agree with candidates' issue stances. Two initial experiments portraying candidates by their sex and attitudes and a third experiment that also included information about political party produced the predicted attitudinal gender-congeniality effect: Participants of each sex reported greater likelihood, compared with participants of the other sex, of voting for the candidate who endorsed positions typically favored more by their own sex than the other sex. In addition, this gender-congeniality effect was present among Republican and independent participants but absent among Democratic participants because Democratic men as well as women favored candidates who advocated the positions typically favored by women. Interpretation invoked the importance of group interest based on gender as an influence on women's voting.     

Perirhinal cortex lesions impair context aversion learning

Rats with perirhinal cortex lesions were compared with sham controls on a conditional discrimination in which saccharin was paired with LiCl in context 1, but paired with saline in context 2. Perirhinal-lesioned rats were slightly slower to acquire the discrimination but reached control levels by the end of acquisition. Both groups showed transfer to familiar tap water, consuming less in context 1 than in context 2. Unlike sham rats, perirhinal rats failed to show an aversion to context 1 on a place choice test. These data provide neuroanatomical support for the postulated difference between Pavlovian conditioning and conditional learning.     

Differential effects of emotional arousal in short- and long-term memory in healthy adults

Recent studies demonstrated important differences between short- and long-term memory mechanisms. Besides, the emotional component has a crucial role in memory formation. This study was carried out to answer whether there is a differential influence of emotional arousal in short- and long-term memory in healthy adults. Thirty-one healthy volunteers were divided into two major groups. In the first group long-term memory (LTM) was evaluated, with the testing session one week after training. The second group was tested 1h after training, where short-term memory (STM) was evaluated. Each group was divided in to two subgroups. One half of the volunteers was exposed to an emotionally neutral story, and the other half of each group was exposed to a closely matched but more emotionally arousing story. The testing session consisted of a questionary containing 80 questions of multiple choices. The results were evaluated through percentage of correct answers. Results showed that correct answers were increased, in LTM measures, in the subjects that were given the emotional version of the test. In STM measures, no differences were found between the emotional and neutral version. However, the presentation of emotional story caused an emotional reaction in both groups. The lack of effect of emotional arousal in STM suggests that amygdala is not related to STM mechanisms. Further studies using different approaches are needed to elucidate if STM processes are influenced by emotional arousal.     

Lesion of the ventral periaqueductal gray reduces conditioned fear but does not change freezing induced by stimulation of the dorsal periaqueductal gray

Previously-reported evidence showed that freezing to a context previously associated with footshock is impaired by lesion of the ventral periaqueductal gray (vPAG). It has also been shown that stepwise increase in the intensity of the electrical stimulation of the dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG) produces alertness, then freezing, and finally escape. These aversive responses are mimicked by microinjections of GABA receptor antagonists, such as bicuculline, or blockers of the glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD), such as semicarbazide, into the dPAG. In this work, we examined whether the expression of these defensive responses could be the result of activation of ventral portion of the periaqueductal gray. Sham- or vPAG electrolytic–lesioned rats were implanted with an electrode in the dPAG for the determination of the thresholds of freezing and escape responses. The vPAG electrolytic lesions were behaviorally verified through a context-conditioned fear paradigm. Results indicated that lesion of the vPAG disrupted conditioned freezing response to contextual cues associated with footshocks but did not change the dPAG electrical stimulation for freezing and escape responses. In a second experiment, lesion of the vPAG also did not change the amount of freezing and escape behavior produced by microinjections of semicarbazide into the dPAG. These findings indicate that freezing and escape defensive responses induced by dPAG stimulation do not depend on the integrity of the vPAG. A discussion on different neural circuitries that might underlie different inhibitory and active defensive behavioral patterns that animals display during threatening situations is presented.     

What do category-specific semantic deficits tell us about the representation of lexical concepts?

A reassessment of category-specific semantic deficits in light of their contribution to a theory of the representation of lexical concepts is proposed. Two theories are examined: one, held by the majority of researchers in the field, claims that concepts are represented by sets of features; another, in contrast, claims that concepts are atomic representations. An analysis of category-specific semantic deficits in terms of inferential relations (of the meaning-postulates type) between atomic concepts is elaborated. It is argued that this theory can better account for the pattern of performance exhibited by patients with semantic deficits.     

Adults’ perception of native and nonnative vowels: Implications for the perceptual magnet effect

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the perceptual magnet effect. In Experiment 1, Amer-ican English speakers representing diverse dialects were presented with a fine-grained set of stimuli (varying in just noticeable differences forF1 andF2) and indicated whether they heard “/i/” or “not /i/,” thus delimiting the /i/ portion of the vowel space for individual subjects. Then these same subjects selected their own /i/ prototype with a method-of-adjustment procedure. The data from this experiment were used to synthesize customized prototype and nonprototype stimulus sets for Experiment 2. In Experiment 2,24 of our original 37 subjects completed a discrimination task for each of three conditions, in which vector stimuli varied from the subject’s prototype, the nonprototype, or a foreign vowel (/y/) in 15-mel steps. Subjects displayed higher discrimination, as indexed byd′, for the nonprototype condition than they did for both the prototype and the foreign conditions. In addition, discrimination was better for variants further away from the referent in each condition. However, discrimination was not especially poor for stimuli close to subjects’ individual prototypes—a result that would have yielded the strongest support for the operation of a magnet effect. This negative finding, together with other aspects of our results, raises problems for any theory of vowel perception that relies solely on “one-size-fits-all” prototype representations.