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.     

Building Capacity Among Laity: A Faith-Based Health Ministry Initiative

A systematic review of topic-specific faith-based health programs determined that health outcomes can be improved though faith-based health interventions. A university research team, in partnership with the Kansas United Methodist Church and a United Methodist philanthropy, facilitated planning and development of a statewide initiative to increase the capacity of laity-led health ministry teams. The purpose of this paper is to describe the processes utilized to design and implement an initiative to increase capacity for laity-led comprehensive health ministry among Kansas United Methodist Church congregations and to share the key elements of the initiative.     

When texture takes precedence over motion in depth perception

Both texture and motion can be strong cues to depth, and estimating slant from texture cues can be considered analogous to calculating slant from motion parallax (Malik and Rosenholtz 1994, report UCB/CSD 93/775, University of California, Berkeley, CA). A series of experiments was conducted to determine the relative weight of texture and motion cues in the perception of planar-surface slant when both texture and motion convey similar information. Stimuli were monocularly viewed images of planar surfaces slanted in depth, defined by texture and motion information that could be varied independently. Slant discrimination biases and thresholds were measured by a method of single-stimuli binary-choice procedure. When the motion and texture cues depicted surfaces of identical slants, it was found that the depth-from-motion information neither reduced slant discrimination thresholds, nor altered slant discrimination bias, compared to texture cues presented alone. When there was a difference in the slant depicted by motion and by texture, perceived slant was determined almost entirely by the texture cue. The regularity of the texture pattern did not affect this weighting. Results are discussed in terms of models of cue combination and previous results with different types of texture and motion information.     

How does practice reduce dual-task interference: Integration, automatization, or just stage-shortening?

The present study assessed three hypotheses of how practice reduces dual-task interference: Practice teaches participants to efficiently integrate performance of a task pair; practice promotes automatization of individual tasks, allowing the central bottleneck to be bypassed; practice leaves the bottleneck intact but shorter in duration. These hypotheses were tested in two transfer-of-training experiments. Participants received one of three training types (Task 1 only, or Task 2 only, or dual-task), followed by dual-task test sessions. Practice effects in Experiment 1 (Task 1: auditory-vocal; Task 2: visual-manual) were fully explained by the intact bottleneck hypothesis, without task integration or automatization. This hypothesis also accounted well for the majority of participants when the task order was reversed (Experiment 2). In this case, however, there were multiple indicators that several participants had succeeded in eliminating the bottleneck by automatizing one or both tasks. Neither experiment provided any evidence that practice promotes efficient task integration.     

Positive behavior support and applied behavior analysis

This article reviews the origins and characteristics of the positive behavior support (PBS) movement and examines those features in the context of the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA). We raise a number of concerns about PBS as an approach to delivery of behavioral services and its impact on how ABA is viewed by those in human services. We also consider the features of PBS that have facilitated its broad dissemination and how ABA might benefit from emulating certain practices of the PBS movement.     

Differences in high and low anxiety sensitive women's responses to a laboratory-based cold pressor task

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) has been linked to a variety of disabling chronic health conditions, including pain-related conditions. A recent study has found that healthy women with high AS reported significantly higher levels of sensory and affective pain on an experimental cold pressor task compared to women with low AS. However, this study found no differences between AS groups for pain tolerance or pain threshold. In the present study, which was designed to replicate and extend these findings, 90 undergraduate university women were selected for inclusion in 1 of 2 AS groups (high or low) based on their screening scores on a 16-item measure of AS. Participants were tested individually on a lab-based cold pressor task using a variety of self-report and observer-measured variables. Data analyses revealed that, as expected, the high AS participants reported significantly more fear in response to the cold pressor on a relevant item of the McGill Pain Questionnaire-Short Form (SF-MPQ) than did the low AS participants. Also as expected, the high AS participants reported more pain in response to the cold pressor on the Present Pain Index (PPI) of the SF-MPQ than did the low AS participants. High AS participants did not differ from low AS participants on other aspects of the cold pressor response (e.g. pain threshold, pain tolerance, pain recovery). These results support the role of pain-related fear as a mediating variable between AS and increased perceived pain intensity.