Dissociating the effects of attention and contingency awareness on evaluative conditioning effects in the visual paradigm

Two experiments are described that investigate the effects of attention in moderating evaluative conditioning (EC) effects in a picture-picture paradigm in which previously discovered experimental artifacts (e.g., Field & Davey, 1999 ) were overcome by counterbalancing conditioned stimuli (CSs) and unconditioned stimuli (USs) across participants. Conditioned responses for individuals who had attention enhanced were compared against a control group and groups for whom attention was impeded using a distracter task. In a second experiment the effects of attention were dissociated from those of contingency awareness by using backward-masked US presentations. The results of these experiments indicate that although associative EC effects may not be disrupted by a lack of contingency awareness, attention is an important factor in establishing conditioning. These results shed some light onto the possible boundary conditions that could explain past inconsistencies in obtaining EC effects in the visual paradigm.     

Right-hemispheric language evidence from cortical stimulation

While the left-hemispheric dominance for language in most right-handers is unquestionable, clinical observations suggest that the right, nondominant hemisphere has a considerable capacity for language. Under certain neuroanatomical conditions, the right-hemispheric capacity becomes functional and, thus, measurable. This study focuses on evoked language responses during electrical stimulation of the right hemisphere in three left-dominant patients undergoing temporal lobe resections for medically intractable seizures.     

The hippocampus and stress induced 17-OHCS elevations

The physiologic contribution of the limbic brain to emotionally induced stress is still poorly understood. The present study is designed to more specifically evaluate the role of the hippocampus in stress induced plasma 17-OHCS elevations. The conditional reflex to a sequential presentation of tone and shock was used as the stress agent in adult mongrel dogs. Plasma 17-OHCS levels were determined by the Porter-Silber method. Control and stress levels of 17-OHCS were determined before and after unilateral (left) hippocampectomy, and subsequent contralateral (right) hippocampectomy. A unilateral posterior hippocampal lesion partially attenuated (20%) the normal 17-OHCS stress response. In contrast to unilateral lesions, equivalent bilateral posterior hippocampal lesions abolished the normal 17-OHCS stress response. These observations support the thesis that the elevated 17-OHCS levels in response to the conditioning paradigm is dependent on the hippocampus. Furthermore, it is dependent upon the continuity of the hippocampal circuit and not upon the volumetric steroid binding capacity of the hippocampus. These studies also suggest that a unilaterally functioning hippocampus may be adequate to meet the physiologic needs of stress, as reflected by the 17-OHCS response. Presented at the 1978 meeting of the Pavlovian Society, St. Petersburg, Florida.     

The use of structured experiences in family therapy

Structured experiences such as sculpting, psychodrama, rôle-play and growth games are frequently used in family therapy. This article puts forward a framework for the use of structured experiences which can be used in the context of a family session to ensure that the family will gain the maximum learning and change. Use of the framework is illustrated with examples from practice.     

A Cross-Modal Comparison of Telephone and Face-to-Face Selection Interviews in Graduate Recruitment

Although there has been an increase in the use of telephone interviews for graduate recruitment by companies in the UK, there is little evidence attesting to their equivalence with traditional face-to-face selection interviews. A total of 70 candidates applying to a multinational oil corporation received both face-to-face and telephone interviews as the first stage of the 1996 graduate recruitment milkround. Group A (N = 41) received an initial face-to-face interview followed by a telephone interview and group B (N = 29) a telephone interview followed by a face-to-face interview. Findings indicate that candidates received significantly lower ratings when interviewed by telephone than when interviewed face-to-face (p ≤ 0.001). A significant interaction was also found (p ≤ 0.05) with candidates who received face-to-face interviews following telephone interviews demonstrating improved performance in their face-to-face interviews. The practical implications of these findings for companies wishing to use telephone interviews are discussed.     

When All Is Still Concealed: Are We Closer to Understanding the Mechanisms Underlying Evaluative Conditioning?

Fulcher and Hammerl's (2001) important exploration of the role of contingency awareness in evaluative conditioning (EC) raises a lot of issues for discussion: (1) what boundaries, if any, exist between EC and affective learning paradigms?; (2) if EC does occur without awareness does this mean it is nonpropositional learning?; (3) is EC driven by stimulus-response (S-R), rather than stimulus-stimulus (S-S), associations and if so should it then surprise us that contingency awareness is not important?; and (4) if S-R associations are at the heart of EC, should we automatically assume EC is part of a different learning mechanism to autonomic Pavlovian conditioning (Field, 2000a, 2000b)? This article, after a critical review of Fulcher and Hammerl's work, discusses these issues with reference to what can be realistically inferred about the mechanisms underlying EC.     

Epistemic modals, relativism and assertion

I think that there are good reasons to adopt a relativist semantics for epistemic modal claims such as ``the treasure might be under the palm tree', according to which such utterances determine a truth value relative to something finer-grained than just a world (or a <world, time> pair). Anyone who is inclined to relativise truth to more than just worlds and times faces a problem about assertion. It's easy to be puzzled about just what purpose would be served by assertions of this kind, and how to understand what we'd be up to in our use of sentences like ``the treasure might be under the palm tree', if they have such peculiar truth conditions. After providing a very quick argument to motivate a relativist view of epistemic modals, I bring out and attempt to resolve this problem in making sense of the role of assertions with relativist truth conditions. Solving this problem should be helpful in two ways: first, it eliminates an apparently forceful objection to relativism, and second, spelling out the relativist account of assertion and communication will help to make clear just what the relativist position is, exactly, and why it's interesting. Thanks to Brian Weatherson, John Hawthorne, Daniel Stoljar, Frank Jackson, Ben Blumson, Seth Yalcin, Karen Bennett, Kent Bach, Matthew Weiner, Jonathan Kvanvig, Eric Swanson, David Chalmers, Agustin Rayo, Dustin Locke, Aaron Bronfman, Michael Allers, Ivan Mayerhofer, and to the participants at the BSPC 2005 for helpful discussion.