Neophobia is negatively related to reversal learning ability in females of a generalist bird of prey,the Chimango Caracara, <Emphasis Type="Italic">Milvago chimango</Emphasis>

In an ever-changing environment, the ability to adapt choices to new conditions is essential for daily living and ultimately, for survival. Behavioural flexibility allows animals to maximise survival and reproduction in novel settings by adjusting their behaviour based on specific information and feedback acquired in their current environments. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that an individual’s personality type can limit the extent to which the individual might behave flexibly, by influencing the way an individual pays attention to novelty and how much information it collects and stores, which in turn affects the individual’s decision-making and learning process. In this study, the behavioural flexibility of a generalist predator, the Chimango Caracara, Milvago chimango, was analysed using the reversal learning paradigm, focusing on the comparison between age classes, and the relation of learning flexibility with a personality trait, the level of neophobia. Due to the low number of male individuals captured, this study was carried out only with female birds. The results showed that age had no significant effect either on the acquisition of a stimulus-reward association, or on the capacity of reversing this previously learned association. Reversal of the response was a harder task for these birds in comparison with the initial acquisition process. The individual’s performances in the learning tasks seemed to be uncorrelated with each other, suggesting that they involve different neural mechanisms. Contrary to the general pattern observed in the majority of previous work on personality and cognition in non-human animals, the level of neophobia did not correlate with the initial associative learning performance in both adults and juveniles, yet it showed a significant negative relationship with reversal learning ability, mainly in the regressive phase of this task, for the two age classes. Our results suggest that the predatory and generalist lifestyle of female individuals of M. chimango along with the selective pressures of the environment of the individuals studied might play a critical role in the degree and direction of the linkage between novelty response and learning flexibility observed in this study.     

Does depression interfere with effort mobilization? Effects of dysphoria and task difficulty on cardiovascular response

On the basis of predictions of the mood-behavior model (G. H. E. Gendolla, 2000) and motivational intensity theory (J. W. Brehm & E. A. Self, 1989), the authors conducted 2 studies that critically tested the common assumption that dysphoria is associated with a motivational deficit. Dysphoric and nondysphoric undergraduates performed a cognitive task that was either easy or difficult. Effort intensity (i.e., resource mobilization) was assessed as performance-related cardiovascular reactivity. In support of the authors' predictions and in contrast to the popular view of a general motivational deficit, both studies found a crossover interaction between dysphoria and task difficulty: In the difficult condition, nondysphoric participants indeed showed stronger systolic blood pressure reactivity than dysphoric participants. But in the easy condition, dysphoric participants showed stronger systolic reactivity than nondysphoric participants. The findings are discussed with respect to motivational deficits in depression and possible underlying mechanisms.     

Spatial multiple-choice matching in a harbour seal (Phoca vitulina): differential encoding of landscape versus local feature information?

The nature of spatial information used for memorizing and recalling places is largely unclear. Earlier studies tested integration of geometric and feature information mostly during reorientation in artificial environments without including time as a memory-critical component. Here, we tested a harbour seal in a delayed matching-to-sample task (DMTS) in a familiar environment under two spatial multiple-choice conditions. The feature condition consisted of a DMTS task with four comparison stimuli presented on fixed positions in a classic matching apparatus and was designed to make stimulus features the most prominent information. The landscape condition consisted of a DMTS task in a familiar environment with four places marked by comparison stimuli and allowed the use of all available spatial information including geometrical and feature information. The seal's performance was impaired by delays of 3, 6, 9 or 12 s only in the feature condition; a delay of 12 s resulted in chance level performance. Replacing the comparison stimuli at the apparatus with identical spheres resulted in impaired performance. Performance in the landscape condition was impaired neither by delays nor by replacing comparison stimuli with spheres. Landscape information obviously was encoded redundantly and could be recalled more reliably and longer than feature information, which reveals feature information to be a less valuable type of spatial information for memorizing and recalling places.     

The effectiveness and ethical justification of psychiatric outpatient commitment

Studies link involuntary outpatient commitment with improved patient outcomes, fueling debate on its ethical justification. This study compares inpatient utilization for committed outpatients in the 1990s with those who were not under outpatient civil commitment orders. Findings reveal committed outpatients had higher utilization of inpatient services and restraint episodes prior to their commitment compared with a control group. Committed outpatients also were more likely to have been on discharge status at the time of admission, have been admitted involuntarily under emergency legal procedures, and have had a greater number of admissions and hospital days prior to their commitment. Following commitment, patients had fewer hospitalizations, shorter lengths of stay, fewer seclusion episodes and hours, and fewer restraint episodes and hours. Findings are discussed within the context of parens patriae and therapeutic jurisprudence, and support medical and public policy justifications for ethical uses of outpatient civil commitment laws for seriously mentally ill patients.     

Relative preferences for edible and leisure stimuli in children with autism: A replication in Italy

Several studies have found that edible items tend to displace leisure items in multiple-stimulus preference assessments for individuals with developmental disabilities. One recent study (Conine & Vollmer, 2019) included screen-based technology devices in assessments and found that food items were less likely to displace leisure items and in some cases leisure items totally displaced edible items. The purpose of our study was to conduct a replication of Conine and Vollmer in Italy to evaluate cultural differences in food and leisure preferences. Results of our study were similar: For 44% of participants, at least one leisure item ranked above all edible items and leisure items displaced all edible items for 28% of participants. Participants in the present study showed a higher preference for leisure items or toys that were not screen-based technology devices, suggesting there may be cultural variation in the types of leisure items that are preferred.