When things are not the same: A review of research into relations of difference

Responding to stimuli as same and different can be considered a critical component of a variety of language and academic repertoires. Whereas responding to “sameness” and generalized identity matching (i.e., coordination) have been studied extensively, there appears to be a significant gap in behavior analytic research and educational programs with regard to nonmatching relations or relations of difference. We review research on difference relations from a variety of domains, including comparative psychology, as well as experimental, and translational behavior analysis. We examine a range of studies, including research on the perception of difference and oddity responding, as well as investigations on establishing relational frames of distinction. We present suggestions for future research and describe potential methods for teaching skills related to relations of difference.     

Renewed behavior produced by context change and its implications for treatment maintenance: A review

Behavioral treatment gains established in one setting do not always maintain in other settings. The present review examines the relevance of basic and translational research to understanding failures to maintain treatment gains across settings. Specifically, studies of the renewal effect examine how transitioning away from a treatment setting could evoke a return of undesirable behavior, rather than newly trained appropriate behavior. Studies of renewal typically arrange three phases, with a response trained and reinforced under a particular set of contextual stimuli in the first phase. Next, that response is extinguished, often under a different set of contextual stimuli. Finally, that response returns despite extinction remaining in effect upon returning to the original training context or transitioning to a novel context. Thus, removing the extinction context is sufficient to produce a recurrence of the response. The findings suggest treatment effects can become specific to the context in which the treatment was delivered. This literature offers promising methods for systematically assessing the factors contributing to treatment maintenance and improving generalization of treatment gains across contexts. Therefore, the present review suggests basic and translational research on renewal provides an empirical literature to bring greater conceptual systematization to understanding generalization and maintenance of behavioral treatment.     

Objectivism about Color and Comparative Color Statements. Reply to Hansen*

Nat Hansen builds a new argument for subjectivism about the semantics of color language, based on a potential kind of intersubjective disagreements about comparative color statements. In reply, I note that the disagreements of this kind are merely hypothetical, probably few if actual, and not evidently relevant as test cases for a semantic theory. Furthermore, even if they turned out to be actual and semantically relevant, they would be intuitively unusable by the subjectivist.     

Age slowing down in detection and visual discrimination under varying presentation times

The reaction time has been described as a measure of perception, decision making, and other cognitive processes. The aim of this work is to examine age‐related changes in executive functions in terms of demand load under varying presentation times. Two tasks were employed where a signal detection and a discrimination task were performed by young and older university students. Furthermore, a characterization of the response time distribution by an ex‐Gaussian fit was carried out. The results indicated that the older participants were slower than the younger ones in signal detection and discrimination. Moreover, the differences between both processes for the older participants were higher, and they also showed a higher distribution average except for the lower and higher presentation time. The results suggest a general slowdown in both tasks for age under different presentation times, except for the cases where presentation times were lower and higher. Moreover, if these parameters are understood to be a reflection of executive functions, these findings are consistent with the common view that age‐related cognitive deficits show a decline in this function.     

Seeing the big picture: Broadening attention relieves sadness and depressed mood

We examined whether the broadened attentional scope would affect people's sad or depressed mood with two experiments, enlightened by the meaning of “seeing the big picture” and the broaden‐and‐build model. Experiment 1 (n = 164) is a laboratory‐based experiment, in which we manipulated the attentional scope by showing participants zoomed‐out or zoomed‐in scenes. In Experiment 2 (n = 44), we studied how depressed mood and positive and negative emotions were affected when participants watched distant versus proximal scenes for eight weeks in real life. Healthy participants in Experiment 1, who were induced to feel sad, could return to the baseline mood after having the broadened attention task but not after having the narrowed attention task, which indicated that immediate attention broadening manipulation could function as antidotes for the lingering effects of induced negative emotions. Participants with depressed mood in Experiment 2 showed reduced depressed mood, increased positive affect, and decreased negative affect after receiving attention broadening training compared to those receiving attention narrowing training. Our findings suggest a robust role of broadened attentional scope in relieving negative emotions and even mildly depressed mood in the long run.     

“To‐be‐forgotten” statements become less true: Memory processes involved in selection and forgetting lead to truthfulness changes of ambiguous sentences

What happens when people try to forget something? What are the consequences of instructing people to intentionally forget a sentence? Recent studies employing the item‐method directed forgetting paradigm have shown that to‐be‐forgotten (TBF) items are, in a subsequent task, emotionally devaluated relative to to‐be‐remembered (TBR) items, an aftereffect of memory selection (Vivas, Marful, Panagiotidou & Bajo, 2016). As such, distractor devaluation by attentional selection generalizes to memory selection. In this study, we use the item‐method directed forgetting paradigm to test the effects of memory selection and inhibition on truth judgments of ambiguous sentences. We expected the relative standing of an item in the task (i.e., whether it was instructed to be remembered or forgotten) to affect the truthfulness value of that item, making TBF items less valid/truthful than TBR items. As predicted, ambiguous sentences associated with a “Forget” cue were subsequently judged as less true than sentences associated with a “Remember” cue, suggesting that instructions to intentionally forget a statement can produce changes in the validity/truthfulness of that statement. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show an influence of memory processes involved in selection and forgetting on the perceived truthfulness of sentences.     

When criticism is ineffective: The case of historical trauma and unsupportive allies

Three studies examined the effect of historical trauma reminders and criticism from international allies on attitudes toward current conflicts. In Study 1, Israeli participants (N = 116) were primed with the Holocaust, and read either that the U.S. President Obama supports Israel's right to defend itself and attack Iran, or that he opposes such action. Then, support for preemptive violence was assessed. Study 2 (N = 133) replicated this design, comparing inclusive and exclusive framings of the Holocaust. Study 3 (N = 478), examined the effect of Holocaust reminders and criticism from the European Union on attitudes toward militant policies against Palestinians. All three studies found that Holocaust primes juxtaposed with international criticism increased support for aggression, especially under exclusive framings of the Holocaust. Study 3, however, found this effect only among left‐wing participants. These findings indicate that when historical trauma is salient, international criticism may be ineffective and may even backfire.     

Interfaith Groups as Mediating Structures for Political Action: A Multilevel Analysis

This study investigates interfaith groups from across the United States to understand how these religious settings may serve as mediating structures to facilitate individual political action. Based on a multilevel modeling analysis with 169 individuals from 25 interfaith groups, we found that core activities of the group, such as group members sharing community information (e.g., announcing upcoming events, political meetings, community issues) or sharing religious information (e.g., educating members about their religion) positively and negatively predicted individual political action as a result of group participation, respectively. Moreover, a sense that the interfaith group served as a community to work for local change, but not trust within the group, predicted political action as a result of group participation. However, this effect for a sense the group served as a community to work for local change was stronger and more positive as the degree of community information sharing in the group increased. These results show that a core activity of sharing community information may enhance the ability of a group to mediate political action. Overall, these findings demonstrate the potential role of interfaith groups to mediate political action, and show the importance of considering both individual and group characteristics when understanding these religious settings. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.