Perceptual learning in pigeons: Decreased ability to Discriminate samples mapped onto the same comparison in many-to-one matching

Humans often treat two stimuli that are associated with a common response as similar in other contexts. They do so presumably because those stimuli become conceptually or perceptually more similar to each other (perceptual learning). An analogous phenomenon may occur in pigeons when they are trained with a matching-to-sample procedure in which more than one sample is mapped onto the same comparison. In the present research, pigeons were trained to select one comparison following either of two samples (S₁ or S₂) and to select the other comparison following either of two different samples (S₃ or S₄). When the samples were then presented as positive and negative stimuli in a simple successive discrimination, samples that had been associated with the same comparison during original training (e.g., S₁ vs. S₂) were more difficult to discriminate than were samples that had been associated with different comparisons (e.g., S₁ vs. S₃). Thus, it appears that perceptual learning occurs in pigeons as well.     

An examination of the relationship between visual capture and prism adaptation

The phenomena of prismatically induced “visual capture” and adaptation of the hand were compared. In Experiment 1, it was demonstrated that when the subject’s hand was transported for him by the experimenter (passive movement) immediately preceding the measure of visual capture, the magnitude of the immediate shift in felt limb position (visual capture) was enhanced relative to when the subject moved the hand himself (active movement). In Experiment 2, where the dependent measure was adaptation of the prism-exposed hand, the opposite effect was produced by the active/passive manipulation. It appears, then, that different processes operate to produce visual capture and adaptation. It was speculated that visual capture represents an immediate weighting of visual over proprioceptive input as a result of the greater precision of vision and/or the subject’s tendency to direct his attention more heavily to this modality. In contrast, prism adaptation is probably a recalibration of felt limb position in the direction of vision, induced by the presence of a registered discordance between visual and proprioceptive inputs.     

Spirituality and Health Outcomes in the Elderly

The purpose of this mail survey was to examine the relationship of attitudinal and behavioral measures of spirituality to physical and mental health outcomes in a sample of elderly community residents. Frequency of prayer, importance of faith, and reliance on religion for their coping were compared for their association with eight categories of physical and mental health. All three measures, prayer, faith and religious coping, correlated strongly with positive mental health, but not with the other seven physical health categories. Multiple regression analyses indicated importance of one's faith had the strongest association with positive mental health, even after controlling for the effect of other significant variables, age and education. The behavioral measure of prayer was a component of importance of faith to mental health, with no independent impact. This study highlights attitudes rather than practices, as the stronger spiritual variables related to mental health in the elderly.     

Organizational Justice,Change Anxiety,and Acceptance of Downsizing: Preliminary Tests of an AET-Based Model

This study tested an AET-based model that integrates cognitions (justice perceptions) and emotions (change anxiety) to explain the effects of change program characteristics on employees' acceptance of downsizing and other work attitudes. Seventy-one employees from an organization that was undergoing downsizing participated in the study. Path analyses and a Q index of .992 offered preliminary support for the proposed model by showing that procedural justice and change anxiety explained the effects of change management procedures on acceptance of downsizing, while interactional justice and change anxiety explained the effects of the quality of change communications on trust in the change managers. Although distributive justice did not have the predicted direct effect on employee morale, it helped explain the effects of procedures on acceptance of change and morale by helping reduce anxiety about the change. Together, these findings support the utility of an AET-based framework in helping understand employee responses to downsizing.     

Understanding Vietnamese Refugee Women's Identity Development From a Sociopolitical and Historical Perspective

The authors address the lack of information about the identity development of Vietnamese refugee women. Although their age and time of arrival to the United States have a major impact on Vietnamese refugee women's identity development, a review of the historical and sociopolitical influences on the identity development of this group also plays an important role in understanding their resiliency, traditional and nontraditional frames of references, and coping mechanisms.     

The Effect of Nonverbal Behaviors Associated With Sexual Harassment Proclivity on Women's Performance

We explored whether exposure to nonverbal behaviors that mirror those used by men with sexual harassment proclivity (i.e., high dominance and/or high sociosexual nonverbal behaviors) leads women to perceive those men as potential sexual harassers and lowers women's actual performance on the job. In our first experiment, women's performance was negatively affected when they interacted with a task administrator enacting dominant nonverbal behaviors. The women also perceived the dominant task administrator as more sexual. In our second experiment, viewers rated the task administrator enacting dominant nonverbal behaviors as more likely than the less dominant task administrator to show gender-based attention, social attention, and sexually harassing behaviors. Taken together, our findings suggest an association between perceptions of dominance and sexuality.     

Observed communication and associations with satisfaction during traditional and integrative behavioral couple therapy

To investigate changes in couple communication and potential mechanisms of change during treatment, 134 distressed couples, who were randomly assigned to either traditional or integrative behavioral couple therapy (TBCT; IBCT), were observed in relationship and personal problem discussions prior to and near the end of treatment. Analyses were conducted using the Hierarchical Linear Modeling program. Over the time in therapy, during relationship problem discussions, positivity and problem solving increased while negativity decreased. Compared to IBCT, TBCT couples had the largest gains in positivity and reductions in negativity. During personal problem discussions, negativity decreased, while withdrawal increased and positivity decreased. TBCT couples had larger declines in negativity. In both discussion types, increases in marital satisfaction were associated with increases in positivity and problem solving. Declines in marital satisfaction were associated with increased negativity during relationship problem interactions and increased withdrawal during personal problem interactions. However, no treatment differences in these associations were found. Differences in rule-governed and contingency-shaped behavior change strategies between the two therapies and implications of findings are discussed.     

Intuition: A fundamental bridging construct in the behavioural sciences

The concept of intuition has, until recently, received scant scholarly attention within and beyond the psychological sciences, despite its potential to unify a number of lines of inquiry. Presently, the literature on intuition is conceptually underdeveloped and dispersed across a range of domains of application, from education, to management, to health. In this article, we clarify and distinguish intuition from related constructs, such as insight, and review a number of theoretical models that attempt to unify cognition and affect. Intuition's place within a broader conceptual framework that distinguishes between two fundamental types of human information processing is explored. We examine recent evidence from the field of social cognitive neuroscience that identifies the potential neural correlates of these separate systems and conclude by identifying a number of theoretical and methodological challenges associated with the valid and reliable assessment of intuition as a basis for future research in this burgeoning field of inquiry.     

Contextual interference effect: elaborative processing or forgetting-reconstruction? A post hoc analysis of transcranial magnetic stimulation-induced effects on motor learning

The elaborative-processing and forgetting-reconstruction hypotheses are the 2 principal explanations for the contextual interference (CI) effect. The present authors' purpose was to identify which of these 2 hypotheses better accounts for the CI effect. They synchronized single transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses to each intertrial interval to modulate information processing during Blocked and Random Practice conditions. Participants practiced 3 arm tasks with either a Blocked or Random Practice order. The 3 stimulation conditions (No TMS, TMS, Sham TMS) by 2-practice order (Blocked, Random) between-participant design resulted in 6 experimental groups. Without TMS, motor learning increased under Random Practice. With TMS, this learning benefit diminished. These results support the elaborative-processing hypothesis by showing that perturbing information processing, evoked by Random Practice, deteriorates the learning benefit. Unlike the prediction of the forgetting-reconstruction hypothesis, adding perturbation during Blocked Practice did not significantly enhance motor learning.