Anchoring and relational judgments by young children and retardates

In five experiments using as dimensions brightness, texture, facial happiness, height, and weight, young children (ages 3.4 to 5.3 years) rendered bipolar judgments of stimuli intermediate in value between alternately given extreme anchors. Consistent relational shifts away from the anchors were found for all dimensions judged, and these effects proved virtually independent of children’s ages, the sequential orders of stimulus and anchor presentation, or the provision of overt visual memory props. Evidence of relational judgment within the narrower range of the test stimuli alone was also found. Essentially similar relational judgments were replicated with a sample of severe adult mental retardates.     

Chronic self-destructiveness: Conceptualization,measurement, and initial validation of the construct

Individual differences in various behaviors suggest that those who are primarily motivated by current emotional factors are more likely than those motivated by more distant cognitive considerations to engage in acts that are ultimately self-destructive. To assess and explore these behavioral differences, 12 samples of undergraduate subjects, totaling 864 (527 females, 337 males), a group of 15 businesswomen, and 111 male VA patients were used to develop a measure of this construct in a series of reliability and construct validity studies. By means of internal-consistency item analyses, two cross-validated 52-item measures of chronic self-destructiveness were constructed for males and females. Reliability was established with respect to internal consistency (alpha coefficients range from .73 to .97) and temporal consistency over a 1-month period (test-retest correlations range from .90 to .98). There is a slight drop in chronic self-destructiveness scores across age groups. Test scores were found to be positively related to external locus of control, negatively related to Type A coronary-prone behavior, and unrelated to either social desirability response set or need for achievement. Individuals high in chronic self-destructiveness, compared to those with low scores, are more likely to be in treatment for drug or alcohol abuse, to report having cheated in courses, to have had traffic violations, to report having gone through a rebellious stage in adolescence, and to postpone obtaining a medical test for cancer. Chronic self-destructiveness appears to be a personality dimension that affects behavior across a wide range of ages and situations.We wish to thank John Wapner for his assistance in obtaining data in the clinical sample.     

Greater reinforcement rate during training increases spontaneous recovery

Spontaneous recovery occurs when a previously reinforced and recently extinguished response reemerges over the course of time, often at the beginning of a new session of extinction. Spontaneous recovery could underlie instances of treatment relapse that threaten otherwise effective behavioral interventions for problem behavior. In two experiments, we arranged multiple schedules with pigeons and a human child to assess the effects of different training reinforcer rates on spontaneous recovery. In both experiments, responding was both more resistant to extinction and more likely to relapse following training with greater reinforcement rates upon returning to extinction after time off from extinction testing. A quantitative model based on behavioral momentum theory accounted well for the data, which suggests reexposure to the extinction context following time off during extinction resulted in (1) the failure of extinction learning to generalize, and (2) greater generalization of original learning during training. The present model attempts to quantify theories attributing spontaneous recovery to changes in temporal context.     

Sound attenuation and preferred music in the treatment of problem behavior maintained by escape from noise

We examined the extent to which different sounds functioned as motivating operations (MO) that evoked problem behavior during a functional analysis for two participants. Results suggested that escape from loud noises reinforced the problem behavior for one participant and escape from arguing reinforced problem behavior for the other participant. Noncontingent delivery of preferred music through sound‐attenuating headphones decreased problem behavior without the use of extinction for both participants. We discuss the results in terms of the abolishing effects of the intervention.     

Judgments of Highly Creative Advertising: Presence of Functional Matching and the FCB Planning Model in Clio-Winning Advertisements

Highly creative advertisements are the end-products of creativity in advertising, and their creation is generally thought to be driven by strategic planning. Thus, 534 Clio-awarded advertisements from the years 2011–2014 were content-analyzed to determine whether implications of two popular planning frameworks, functional matching and the Foote, Cone, and Belding Planning Model, were present in the industry’s best creative work. Since 1960, the Clio Award Program has annually recognized the world’s most creative advertisements. Clio-awarded advertisements are selected by panels of advertising experts specifically constituted to offset gender and country of origin bias. The study found that implications of the two planning frameworks were not present in the industry’s most creative work: types of value-expressive appeals were more frequent than types of utilitarian appeals in Clio-awarded advertisements, regardless of the nature of the advertised products or the category of media used to deliver product messaging. These findings support previous research, which found that highly creative advertising rarely is based on strategic considerations. However, they were inconsistent with other research regarding the presence of the two planning frameworks in general TV advertising.     

Meditation buffers medical student compassion from the deleterious effects of depression

Increasing data suggest that for medical school students the stress of academic and psychological demands can impair social emotions that are a core aspect of compassion and ultimately physician competence. Few interventions have proven successful for enhancing physician compassion in ways that persist in the face of suffering and that enable sustained caretaker well-being. To address this issue, the current study was designed to (1) investigate the feasibility of cognitively-based compassion training (CBCT) for second-year medical students, and (2) test whether CBCT decreases depression, enhances compassion, and improves daily functioning in medical students. Compared to the wait-list group, students randomized to CBCT reported increased compassion, and decreased loneliness and depression. Changes in compassion were most robust in individuals reporting high levels of depression at baseline, suggesting that CBCT may benefit those most in need by breaking the link between personal suffering and a concomitant drop in compassion.     

Behavioral phenotype of RSH/Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome

Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (SLOS, RSH/SLO syndrome, MIM 270400) is an autosomal recessive multiple malformation/mental retardation syndrome initially described by Smith et al. [1964] that is due to a defect in cholesterol biosynthesis. The behavioral phenotype of Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome demonstrates cognitive abilities from borderline intellectual functioning to profound mental retardation, sensory hyperreactivity, irritability, language impairment, sleep cycle disturbance, self-injurious behavior, and autism spectrum behaviors. In a recent study of 28 subjects, 14 subjects (50%) with SLOS also exhibited the behavior of throwing themselves backward in a characteristic upper body movement ("opisthokinesis") and 2 adolescents had a stretching motion of the upper body accompanied by hand flicking [Tierney et al., 1999]. In that same study, 6 of 13 subjects (46%) met the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) algorithm criteria (Lord et al. [1993] Infant Mental Health 14:234-252; Lord et al. [1994] J Autism Dev Disord 24:659-685) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (APA [1994] DSM-IV) diagnostic criteria for autistic disorder. Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome is a metabolic disorder that is associated with autism. MRDD Research Reviews 2000;6:131-134.     

Dynamic shifts in corticostriatal expression patterns of the immediate early genes Homer 1a and Zif268 during early and late phases of instrumental training

Adaptive motor actions require prior knowledge of instrumental contingencies. With practice, these actions can become highly automatic in nature. However, the molecular and anatomical substrates mediating these related forms of learning are not understood. In the present study, we used in situ hybridization to measure the mRNA levels of two immediate early genes (IEGs) in an instrumental paradigm where rats learned to lever-press for food. We report that after three training sessions, Homer 1a and Zif268 (an effector and regulatory IEG, respectively) were significantly induced within an extensive corticostriatal network relative to untrained controls. With extended training (23 sessions), however, a shift in the expression patterns of the two genes was evident. Expression of Homer 1a (official symbol Homer1) decreased significantly in frontal and cingulate cortices, whereas striatal expression was generally maintained. Interestingly, Homer 1a expression markedly increased with extensive training in the ventrolateral region of the striatum (VLS) relative to early learners, suggesting that plasticity in the VLS is required for the efficient production of the learned behavior or in habit formation. Zif268 (official symbol Egr1) expression generally decreased with extensive training; however, these changes were not significant. These results demonstrate for the first time, on a molecular level, a dynamic shift in the contribution of corticostriatal systems mediating the early acquisition and consolidation of goal-directed responses to those engaged after extensive training.     

AMPA/kainate, NMDA, and dopamine D1 receptor function in the nucleus accumbens core: a context-limited role in the encoding and consolidation of instrumental memory

Neural integration of glutamate- and dopamine-coded signals within the nucleus accumbens (NAc) is a fundamental process governing cellular plasticity underlying reward-related learning. Intra-NAc core blockade of NMDA or D1 receptors in rats impairs instrumental learning (lever-pressing for sugar pellets), but it is not known during which phase of learning (acquisition or consolidation) these receptors are recruited, nor is it known what role AMPA/kainate receptors have in these processes. Here we show that pre-trial intra-NAc core administration of the NMDA, AMPA/KA, and D1 receptor antagonists AP-5 (1 microg/0.5 microL), LY293558 (0.01 or 0.1 microg/0.5 microL), and SCH23390 (1 microg/0.5 microL), respectively, impaired acquisition of a lever-pressing response, whereas post-trial administration left memory consolidation unaffected. An analysis of the microstructure of behavior while rats were under the influence of these drugs revealed that glutamatergic and dopaminergic signals contribute differentially to critical aspects of the initial, randomly emitted behaviors that enable reinforcement learning. Thus, glutamate and dopamine receptors are activated in a time-limited fashion-only being required while the animals are actively engaged in the learning context.