SOCIAL VALIDITY ASSESSMENTS: IS CURRENT PRACTICE STATE OF THE ART?

The use of evaluative feedback from consumers to guide program planning and evaluation is often referred to as the assessment of social validity. Differing views of its role and value in applied behavior analysis have emerged, and increasingly stereotyped assessments of social validity are becoming commonplace. This paper argues that current applications of social validity assessments are straying from the point originally proposed for them. Thus, several suggestions for improving current social validity assessment are proposed, including (a) expanding the definition of consumers to acknowledge the variety of community members able and likely to affect a program's survival, (b) increasing the psychometric rigor of social validity assessments, (c) extending assessment to heretofore underrepresented populations, (d) implementing widespread application of well-designed social validity assessments, (e) increasing meaningful consumer involvement in the planning and evaluation of behavioral programs, and (f) educating consumers to make better informed programming decisions.     

Conditioning Method Dramatically Alters the Role of Amygdala in Taste Aversion Learning

Although an important role for the amygdala in taste aversion learning has been suggested by work in a number of laboratories, results have been inconsistent and interpretations varied. The present series of studies reevaluated the role of the amygdala in taste aversion learning by examining the extent to which conditioning methods, testing methods and lesioning methods, influence whether amygdala lesions dramatically affect conditioned taste aversion (CTA) learning. Results indicated that when animals are conditioned with an intraoral (I/O) taste presentation, lesions of amygdala eliminate evidence of conditioning whether animals are tested intraorally or with a two-bottle solution presentation. Dramatic effects of amygdala lesions on CTA learning were seen whether lesions were made electrolytically or using an excitotoxin. In contrast, when animals were conditioned using bottle presentation of the taste, electrolytic lesions attenuated CTAs but did not eliminate them, and excitotoxic lesions had no effect. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that neural structures critical for CTA learning may differ depending on the extent to which the method of conditioned stimulus delivery incorporates a response component.     

Immediate early gene activation in hippocampus and dorsal striatum: effects of explicit place and response training

Evidence from lesion, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging studies support the hypothesis that the hippocampus and dorsal striatum process afferent inputs in such a way that each structure regulates expression of different behaviors in learning and memory. The present study sought to determine whether rats explicitly trained to perform one of two different learning strategies, spatial or response, would display disparate immediate early gene activation in hippocampus and striatum. c-Fos and Zif268 immunoreactivity (IR) was measured in both hippocampus and striatum 30 or 90 min following criterial performance on a standard plus-maze task (place learners) or a modified T-maze task (response learners). Place and response learning differentially affected c-Fos-IR in striatum but not hippocampus. Specifically, explicit response learning induced greater c-Fos-IR activation in two subregions of the dorsal striatum. This increased c-Fos-IR was dependent upon the number of trials performed prior to reaching behavioral criterion and accuracy of performance during post-testing probe trials. Quantification of Zif268-IR in both hippocampus and striatum failed to distinguish between place and response learners. The changes in c-Fos-IR occurred 30 min, but not 90 min, post-testing. The synthesis of c-Fos early in testing could reflect the recruitment of key structures in learning. Consequently, animals that were able to learn the response task efficiently displayed greater amounts of c-Fos-IR in dorsal striatum.     

Neuronal representation of conditioned taste in the basolateral amygdala of rats

Animals develop robust learning and long lasting taste aversion memory once they experience a new taste that is followed by visceral discomfort. A large body of literature has supported the hypothesis that basolateral amygdala (BLA) plays a critical role in the acquisition and extinction of such conditioned taste aversions (CTA). Despite the evidence that BLA is crucially engaged during CTA training, it is unclear how BLA neural activity represents the conditioned tastes. Here, we incorporated a modified behavioral paradigm suitable for single unit study, one which utilizes a sequence of pulsed saccharin and water infusion via intraoral cannulae. After conditioning, we investigated BLA unit activity while animals experience the conditioned taste (saccharin). Behavioral tests of taste reactivity confirmed that the utilized training procedure produced reliable acquisition and expression of the aversion throughout test sessions. When neural activity was compared between saccharin and water trials, half of the recorded BLA units (77/149) showed differential activity according to the types of solution. 76% of those cells (29/38) in the conditioned group showed suppressed activity, while only 44% of taste reactive cells (17/39) in controls showed suppressed activity during saccharin trials (relative to water trials). In addition, the overall excitability of BLA units was increased as shown by altered characteristics of burst activity after conditioning. The changes in BLA activity as a consequence of CTA were maintained throughout test sessions, consistent with the behavioral study. The current study suggests that the neuronal activity evoked by a sweet taste is altered as a consequence of CTA learning, and that the overall change might be related to the learning induced negative affect.     

The activation of maternal representations

While a mother watches her infant or toddler during everyday life, there is a moment-by-moment triggering of thoughts, feelings, memories, and trajectories into the future. To access this inner experience as it emerges, a micro-analytic interview technique was devised. Through a series of probes this interview repeatedly guides the mother between the concrete details of her child's behavior and the subjective responses evoked by these observations. This window to the mother's subjective world allows a rich scrutiny of its architecture and dynamic process, permits cross-fertilization with recent developments in cognitive science, and serves as an entry point for therapeutic efforts.     

TEACHING FUNCTIONAL COMMUNITY SKILLS TO AUTISTIC CHILDREN USING NONHANDICAPPED PEER TUTORS

In this study, two autistic children were paired with normal peers who, after pretraining sessions, taught community skills to the autistic children. Data were collected during three conditions: baseline, modeling, and peer tutoring. Results demonstrated that no identified skills were acquired during the baseline and modeling conditions. However, direct instruction of each child by a peer tutor resulted in the learning and maintenance of functional community skills.     

Causal attributions as a function of locus of control, initial confidence, and performance outcomes.

Causal attributions and body movements indicative of tension were recorded while subjects completed an anagrams task that was more extensive than most similar tasks used in attribution studies. Nine trials each containing 10 anagrams were presented such that most subjects succeeded on three sets of relatively simple anagrams, failed on three sets of difficult anagrams, and either succeeded or failed on three sets of intermediately difficult anagrams. Attributions and body movements were predicted by a combination of locus of control, initial confidence, and type of outcome. High-confident internals attributed responsibility for outcomes to themselves more than did low-confident externals, and this difference was most prominent when subjects failed. Tension-indicating body movements were also less common among the former than the latter subjects and were in greater evidence with failure than with success. The data indicate that there is consistency between locus of control and causal attributions obtained during performances. The data also correspond to the findings on helplessness in which aversive agents prove to be more deleterious when individuals perceive themselves as unable to alter their negative circumstances.     

The assessment of social intimacy

Research exploring the psychological importance of closeness with others has been hampered by the absence of a reliable and valid measure of this variable. The development of the Miller Social Intimacy Scale (MSIS), a 17-item measure of the maximum level of intimacy currently experienced, is presented. Evidence for internal consistency and test-retest reliability as well as for convergent, discriminant and construct validity is discussed in the context of the need for further scientific exploration of this important phenomenon.