Priming effects with food and water reinforcers in hamsters

Hamsters were tested in a square maze with either food or water in each corner compartment. A substantial priming effect (runway times increase as intertrial interval increases) was demonstrated using both food and water reinforcers. A lengthy period of free access to food and water (satiation) immediately abolished the priming effect, although runway times in general remained relatively rapid for some time. Extinction of rapid runway times proceeded more slowly under food than under water deprivation. It is concluded that priming is a widespread phenomenon associated with the presentation of a reinforcing stimulus to an appropriately deprived animal.     

Same/different concept learning in the pigeon: the effect of negative instances and prior adaptation to transfer stimuli

Pigeons were trained on a matching-to-sample or oddity-from-sample task with shapes (circle and plus). Half of each group was exposed to “negative instance” trials i.e., for matching birds, neither comparison key matched the sample, and for oddity birds both comparison keys matched the sample. When all birds were transferred to a new task involving colors (red and green), nonshifted birds (transferred from matching to matching, or oddity to oddity) performed significantly better than shifted birds (transferred from matching to oddity, or oddity to matching), but only if they had experienced negative instances of the training concept. When all birds were exposed to negative instances of the transfer task and then transferred to a new color task (yellow and blue), dramatic transfer effects were observed. The effect of pre-exposure to the yellow and blue colors, in order to reduce transfer-stimulus novelty, had a minor effect on transfer.     

What’s the 411? Assessing the Feasibility of Providing African American Adolescents with HIV/AIDS Prevention Education in a Faith-Based Setting

This study examines African American faith based leaders’ attitudes and beliefs about providing HIV prevention education and services to adolescents. Using a convenience sample, we identified priority adolescent health issues, attitudes about abstinence messages, and willingness to provide and participate in HIV prevention. Leaders identified drugs, gangs, alcohol, sex, and pregnancy as priority health issues affecting youth in their institutions. Leaders’ strongly preferred to emphasize abstinence messages. Although leaders were willing to provide youth with health education, they were not willing to discuss specific behaviors associated with HIV transmission. African American churches provide a venue to reach African American youth; however, there are limitations to relying on faith-based HIV prevention services. HIV prevention education should continue to be supplemented via parents, schools, and public health agencies.

JOHN POLKINGHORNE AND BERNARD LONERGAN ON THE SCIENTIFIC STATUS OF THEOLOGY

On the basis of his acquaintance with theoretical elementary particle physics, and following the lead of Thomas Torrance, John Polkinghorne maintains that the data upon which a science is based, and the method by which it treats those data, must respect the idiosyncratic nature of the object with which the science is concerned. Polkinghorne calls this the “accommodation” (or “conformity”) of a discipline to its object. The question then arises: What should we expect religious experience and theological method to be like if they are accommodated to the idiosyncratic nature of God? Polkinghorne's methodological program is typical of postcritical positions in the theology‐science dialogue in holding that the fiduciary element in theological method is simply a species of the fiduciary element that is a de facto part of all knowing—in other words, theological method does not differ in fundamental kind from the methods of the natural sciences. But this program may contain the seeds of an alienation of theological method from the transcendence of God similar to the double self‐alienation of theology described by Michael Buckley in At the Origins of Modern Atheism. I contend that something like Bernard Lonergan's position on how the method of faith seeking understanding is related to the methods of the natural sciences is exactly the sort of thing that one should expect on the supposition of Polkinghorne's principle of accommodation, at least if the God who is the object of theological science is transcendent. The way in which the divine differs from all other objects ought to be disclosed or reflected in religious experience and theological method. Polkinghorne charts the course for an accommodated theology, but it seems to be Lonergan who is more intent on following it.     

Correspondence Between Preference Assessment Outcomes and Stimulus Reinforcer Value for Social Interactions

Preferred forms of social interaction were identified using a paired-stimulus format in which two 3–5 s videos of the experimenter providing the social interaction to the participant were presented. Reinforcer efficacy of the high-, medium-, and low-preferred interactions was evaluated using a progressive-ratio schedule to determine the amount of work maintained by the stimuli. Results showed that higher preference stimuli produced larger break points than did lower preference stimuli.     

Diffusion of novel foraging behaviour in Amazon parrots through social learning

While social learning has been demonstrated in species across many taxa, the role it plays in everyday foraging decisions is not well understood. Investigating social learning during foraging could shed light on the emergence of cultural variation in different groups. We used an open diffusion experiment to examine the spread of a novel foraging technique in captive Amazon parrots. Three groups were tested using a two-action foraging box, including experimental groups exposed to demonstrators using different techniques and control birds. We also examined the influence of agonistic and pilfering behaviour on task acquisition. We found evidence of social learning: more experimental birds than control birds interacted with and opened the box. The birds were, however, no more likely to use the demonstrated technique than the non-demonstrated one, making local or stimulus enhancement the most likely mechanism. Exhibiting aggression was positively correlated with box opening, whilst receiving aggression did not reduce motivation to engage with the box, indicating that willingness to defend access to the box was important in task acquisition. Pilfering food and success in opening the box were also positively correlated; however, having food pilfered did not affect victims’ motivation to interact with the box. In a group context, pilfering may promote learning of new foraging opportunities. Although previous studies have demonstrated that psittacines are capable of imitation, in this naturalistic set-up there was no evidence that parrots copied the demonstrated opening technique. Foraging behaviour in wild populations of Amazons could therefore be facilitated by low-fidelity social learning mechanisms.     

Who wants to be a psychologist?

Every significant piece of public policy, every important generalization in history, economics, political science, and sociology depends on (largely unevaluated) assumptions about human nature. Personality psychology concerns the nature of human nature; it is, therefore, concerned with one of the most powerful and dangerous forces on earth. Developing adequate methods for conceptualizing human nature and forecasting significant components of social behavior-for example, integrity, creativity, leadership-would seem to be a matter of real urgency. Nonetheless, personality psychology has a minor and marginal status in academic psychology. I have spent my career trying to understand the origins of human behavior, trying to develop measurement models for capturing key elements of social performance, and trying to defend the study of personality against the complaints of a seemingly endless supply of academic critics.     

Congruency effects in dot comparison tasks: convex hull is more important than dot area

The dot comparison task, in which participants select the more numerous of two dot arrays, has become the predominant method of assessing Approximate Number System (ANS) acuity. Creation of the dot arrays requires the manipulation of visual characteristics, such as dot size and convex hull. For the task to provide a valid measure of ANS acuity, participants must ignore these characteristics and respond on the basis of number. Here, we report two experiments that explore the influence of dot area and convex hull on participants’ accuracy on dot comparison tasks. We found that individuals’ ability to ignore dot area information increases with age and display time. However, the influence of convex hull information remains stable across development and with additional time. This suggests that convex hull information is more difficult to inhibit when making judgements about numerosity and therefore it is crucial to control this when creating dot comparison tasks.