Effects of horizontal viewing angle on visual and audiovisual speech recognition.

The authors investigated the effects of changes in horizontal viewing angle on visual and audiovisual speech recognition in 4 experiments, using a talker's face viewed full face, three quarters, and in profile. When only experimental items were shown (Experiments 1 and 2), identification of unimodal visual speech and visual speech influences on congruent and incongruent auditory speech were unaffected by viewing angle changes. However, when experimental items were intermingled with distractor items (Experiments 3 and 4), identification of unimodal visual speech decreased with profile views, whereas visual speech influences on congruent and incongruent auditory speech remained unaffected by viewing angle changes. These findings indicate that audiovisual speech recognition withstands substantial changes in horizontal viewing angle, but explicit identification of visual speech is less robust. Implications of this distinction for understanding the processes underlying visual and audiovisual speech recognition are discussed.     

Test–Retest Reliability of Dominic Anxiety and Depression Items Among Young Children

Assessing anxiety and depressive symptoms through direct interviewing of young children has been found to be particularly difficult utilizing standard interview methods. Test–retest reliability of selected anxiety and depression items from the revised Dominic (Valla, Bergeron, Bidaut-Russell, St-Georges, & Gaudet, 1997), a cartoon-based questionnaire based on DSM diagnostic criteria, was investigated among two geographically diverse samples (Los Angeles and St. Louis; N = 37). Overall, kappas were higher for the anxiety items than for the depression items. In both cities the sample included clinic and non-clinic cases of African-American, Hispanic/Latino, and Caucasian children age 6–8; kappas for the anxiety and depression items were higher among the clinic cases than for the community cases. Given the need for psychometrically sound measures for culturally diverse samples of children, this initial report suggests that the use of selected Dominic items holds promise as a cartoon-based assessment of young children.     

Effect of schizotypy on responding maintained by free-operant schedules of reinforcement

Deviations from otherwise reliable patterns of responding in human performance on schedules of reinforcement could be associated with personality characteristics, such as psychometrically-measured schizotypy. The present study examined differences between high and low scorers on four schizotypy subscales (unusual experiences, cognitive disorganisation, introvertive anhedonia and impulsive non-conformity) on a random-ratio (RR) and random-interval (RI) schedule of reinforcement. Results showed a higher rate of responding on the RR than RI schedule, consistent with the differences in performance normally observed between these schedules. However, these differences were dependant on whether or not participants scored high or low on the schizotypy subscales, as well as the specific schedule parameters between the schedules. Specifically, high scorers on the unusual experiences (UE) subscale of the O-LIFE(B) were the only group in Experiment 1 not to show a difference in schedule performance, suggesting high scores on this subscale are linked to altered RR and RI performance. Experiment 2 explored this finding further using different schedule parameters, and confirmed that high scorers in UE did not differ in response rates between the two schedules.     

The challenge of understanding process in clinical behavior analysis: the case of functional analytic psychotherapy

Whether explicitly acknowledged or not, behavior-analytic principles are at the heart of most, if not all, empirically supported therapies. However, the change process in psychotherapy is only now being rigorously studied. Functional analytic psychotherapy (FAP; Kohlenberg & Tsai, 1991; Tsai et al., 2009) explicitly identifies behavioral-change principles used to bring about therapeutic improvements in adult outpatients whose clinical problems stem from ineffective interpersonal repertoires. These principles include contingent responding to behavioral excesses and deficits by a therapist who has established him- or herself as a salient source of social reinforcement. Empirical support for FAP is emerging, but a variety of pragmatic and theoretical questions warrant investigation. Among the issues described in this paper are the training and dissemination of procedures for how to conduct a functional analysis, how to train therapists to identify functional stimulus classes, how to best address decreasing problem behavior without creating an aversive environment, how to enhance generalization, and how to account for the principle of equifinality when trying to specify therapeutic procedures. These and other issues stem largely from trying to disseminate a behavioral principle-based intervention rather than a topographically specified intervention. These issues present challenges and research opportunities for applied clinical behavior analysts if they wish to extend their science to address clinical issues important to the treatment of adult outpatients with normal intellectual functioning.     

The “Loving Parent” analogy

A crucial part of William Rowe’s evidential argument from evil implies that God, like a loving parent, would ensure that every suffering person would be aware of his comforting presence. Rowe’s use of the “loving parent” analogy however fails to survive scrutiny as it implies that God maximally loves all persons. It is the argument of this paper that no one could maximally love every person; and whatever variation there is in the divine love undercuts the claim that every suffering person would be aware of the divine presence.     

Establishing derived categorical responding in children with disabilities using the PEAK‐E curriculum

The purpose of the study was to evaluate a procedure to generate derived categorical responding by three children with disabilities and to promote the emergence of untrained intraverbal categorical responses. In the study, three 4‐member equivalence classes including three stimuli (A, B, and C) and a category name (D) for each class were trained using a match‐to‐sample procedure. Test probes were conducted for categorical responding, including both a trained (D‐A) and two derived (D‐B, D‐C) relational responses, as well as the emergence of untrained intraverbal categorical responding (D‐A/B/C) throughout the study. Relational training was effective at promoting the emergence of categorical responding, and two of the three participants demonstrated the emergence of additional intraverbal responding without prior training. The results provide further evidence supporting the practical utility of stimulus equivalence as well as the PEAK‐E curriculum.     

The effect of embedded bonus rounds on slot machine preference

Twenty‐three university students completed a simulated slot machine task involving the concurrent presentation of two slot machines that were varied both in win density and the inclusion of a bonus round feature to evaluate the effect of embedded bonus rounds on participant response allocation. The results suggest that participants allocated a greater percentage of responses to machines with embedded bonus rounds across both dense (Bonus: M = 68.4, SD = 19.2; No Bonus: M = 51.2; 9.6) and lean (Bonus: M = 48.8, SD = 9.6; No Bonus: M = 31.6, SD = 19.2) reinforcement schedules, in which the overall reinforcement rate across all machines was held constant.     

Transfers of stimulus function during roulette wagering

Twenty‐five recreational gamblers were initially asked to place bets on either red or black positions on a roulette board in a simulated casino setting. Each participant was then exposed to a stimulus pairing observing procedure which attempted to develop equivalence classes between one color (black or red) and traditionally positive words (e.g., love, happy, sex) and another color (black or red) and traditionally negative words (e.g., death, cancer, taxes), in the absence of consequence manipulations. Twenty‐one of the twenty‐five participants demonstrated greater response allocation to the color position on the roulette board that participated in a relational network with the positive words. Variations in sequencing of experimental conditions had no impact on poststimulus‐pairing wagers, but did impact tests for equivalence accuracy.     

McGurk Effect in Gender Identification: Vision Trumps Audition in Voice Judgments

Demonstrations of non-speech McGurk effects are rare, mostly limited to emotion identification, and sometimes not considered true analogues. We presented videos of males and females singing a single syllable on the same pitch and asked participants to indicate the true range of the voice–soprano, alto, tenor, or bass. For one group of participants, the gender shown on the video matched the gender of the voice heard, and for the other group they were mismatched. Soprano or alto responses were interpreted as “female voice” decisions and tenor or bass responses as “male voice” decisions. Identification of the voice gender was 100% correct in the preceding audio-only condition. However, whereas performance was also 100% correct in the matched video/audio condition, it was only 31% correct in the mismatched video/audio condition. Thus, the visual gender information overrode the voice gender identification, showing a robust non-speech McGurk effect.