Vaginal scent marking: effects on ultrasonic calling and attraction of male golden hamsters

Male hamsters were tested for their responses to areas that had been scent marked by intact or vaginectomized females to determine the effects of naturally deposited vaginal secretions on male behavior. In the first experiment males produced more ultrasonic courtship calls when investigating areas marked by intact females than areas scented by vaginectomized females, demonstrating that vaginal marks facilitate such calling. In a wind-tunnel preference test situation in which scent-marked alleys and clean alleys served as sources of odor, males approached the scented alley first if it had been freshly marked by intact females but not if it had been scented by vaginectomized females or other males. Thus, the odors of vaginal marks are sufficient to attract males over short distances. After males entered these alleys they showed a preference for odors of both intact and vaginectomized females over no odors, but still spent significantly more time investigating the odors of intact females than those of vaginectomized females. These experiments indicate that vaginal secretions are one of the primary cues that elicit male courtship calling, and the small quantities of vaginal secretions deposited by females in vaginal marks are sufficient to elicit ultrasonic calling and attract males over short distances. Thus it is likely that vaginal scent marking and ultrasonic calling by females interact to facilitate attraction and location of mates during courtship.     

Evaluation of a fortuitously reward other

Under the guise of an experiment on gambling decisions, subjects briefly met a confederate of the experimenter, whom they later evaluated. The major hypothesis was that the confederate would be evaluated more favorably by subjects who were told that she had received a fortuitous reward than by control subjects. The hypothesis was confirmed for female subjects only.     

Word identification in reading proceeds from spelling to sound to meaning

Van Orden (1987) reported that false positive errors in a categorization task are elevated for homophonic foils (e.g., HARE for A PART OF THE HUMAN BODY). Two new experiments replicate this finding and extend it to nonword homophone foils (e.g., SUTE FOR AN ARTICLE OF CLOTHING). False positive errors to nonword homophone foils substantially exceed false positive errors to nonhomophonic nonword spelling controls, showing that the phonological characteristics of the nonword foils are critical. Because nonwords are not represented in the lexicon, this new result implicates computed phonological codes as a source of the categorization errors. Additionally, in each of two experiments, matched word and nonword homophones produced virtually identical error rates. If stimulus nonword homophones are viewed as extremely unfamiliar words, compared with the relatively familiar stimulus word homophones, then our failure to observe an effect of stimulus familiarity strengthens the case that phonological coding plays a role in the identification of all printed words. The fact that the results are obtained in a categorization task that requires reading for meaning (rather than a lexical decision task) makes it difficult to avoid the conclusion that phonological mediation plays a role in normal reading of text for meaning.     

Developing behavior analysis at the state level

Over the past fifteen years, behavior analysts in Florida have worked together to develop the discipline with a multifaceted system of contingencies. Basing their effort in the area of retardation and with the cooperation of the state's Developmental Services Program Office, they have gradually developed a regulatory manual of programming policy and procedures, a hierarchical system of responsibilities for programming approval and monitoring, a state-sponsored certification program, a professional association, and an active university community. These components are described and discussed in terms of suggested principles for developing the field of behavior analysis within a state.     

Levels of adult alcohol consumption induced by interactions with child confederates exhibiting normal versus externalizing behaviors

Investigated levels of distress and alcohol consumption in Ss interacting with problematic vs non-problematic child confederates. Social drinkers were randomly assigned to interact with boys trained to enact behaviors characteristic of either normal or attention-deficit disorder/conduct disorder (ADD/CD) children. Mood data were collected before and after the interaction. Ss engaged in ad lib beer consumption for 20 min, while anticipating another interaction with the same boy. Children in the ADD/CD role produced comparably distressed moods for both male and female Ss. However, only men drank to higher blood-alcohol levels in the ADD/CD vs. normal child condition. Results suggest that higher rates of drinking observed in fathers of ADD/CD children may be partly a function of their particular response to the distress associated with interactions with such children.     

Sex differences in children's group embedded figures test performance

Despite the fact that sex differences in field dependence/independence have been a fairly constant feature in studies employing adults, doubt surrounds the status of similar sex differences in childhood. Several attempts have been made to explain these findings, the most popular being that group Embedded Figures Tests do not tap sex differences. A simpler explanation is that large enough Ns have not been employed in past research to allow the small sex difference present in childhood to emerge as a statistically significant phenomenon. This explanation is supported by the results of the present study which employed 1200 children and was able to demonstrate a significant sex difference at both 8 and 11 yr using the Children's Group Embedded Figures Test.