SKINNER AS SELF-MANAGER

B. F. Skinner was a remarkably productive, creative, and happy individual, in large part because of his expertise in self-management, a set of self-change skills that derive to some extent from his own scientific and theoretical work. Skinner's ardent defense of determinism appears to conflict with his views on self-control; although determinism can be reconciled with these views, we would be best served by dispensing with the “ism” and focusing instead on relevant data and data-driven theories. Contemporary research on self-control has diverged from Skinner's formulation in a number of ways, especially in focusing on cognition and choice. The extraordinary success Skinner had in applying self-management principles to his life should inspire us to take a closer look at the potential value such principles may have for society.     

Functional equivalence of masking and cue reduction in perception of shape at a slant

The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of syllabic stress and segment structure on selective adaptation in speech. To this end, a CV place of articulation test continuum was selectively adapted by seven different adapting stimuli; the monosyllables [ba] and [ga], two disyllabic stimuli containing equal stress on both syllables, [baga] and [gabal, and three disyllabic stimuli ([baga]) in which stress placement varied and was cued by the acoustic parameters of fundamental frequency and duration. Results for the two adapting stimuli demonstrated significant [b] adaptation for the stimulus [ba] and significant [g] adaptation for [gal. Of the five other adapting stimuli, only [g] adaptation for the stimulus [bagá] was found to be significant. These findings indicate that the operation of detector mechanisms susceptible to fatigue by an adapting stimulus are even more constrained than has heretofore been suggested. It appears that the adapting and test stimuli must not only have the same phonetic and syllable structure, but also the same syllabic organization.     

Hypothetico-Deductivism: Incomplete But Not Hopeless

Alleged counter-examples deployed in Park (2004) [Erkenntnis 60: 229–240] against the account of selective hypothetico-deductive confirmation offered in Gemes (1998) [Erkenntnis 49: 1–20] are shown to be ineffective. Furthermore, the reservations expressed in Gemes (1998) [ibid] and (1993) [Philosophy of Science 62: 477–487] about hypothetico-deductivism (H-D) are retracted and replaced with the conclusion that H-D is a viable account of confirmation that captures much of the practice of working scientists. However, because it cannot capture cases of inference to the best explanation and cases of the observational confirmation of statistical hypotheses, it is concluded that H-D cannot supply a complete theory of confirmation.     

The information content of panoramic images I: The rotational errors and the similarity of views in rectangular experimental arenas

Animals relocating a target corner in a rectangular space often make rotational errors searching not only at the target corner but also at the diagonally opposite corner. The authors tested whether view-based navigation can explain rotational errors by recording panoramic snapshots at regularly spaced locations in a rectangular box. The authors calculated the global image difference between the image at each location and the image recorded at a target location in 1 of the corners, thus creating a 2-dimensional map of image differences. The authors found the most pronounced minima of image differences at the target corner and the diagonally opposite corner--conditions favoring rotational errors. The authors confirmed these results in virtual reality simulations and showed that the relative salience of different visual cues determines whether image differences are dominated by geometry or by features. The geometry of space is thus implicitly contained in panoramic images and does not require explicit computation by a dedicated module. A testable prediction is that animals making rotational errors in rectangular spaces are guided by remembered views.     

Salience and temporal sequencing of time-related actions in boys with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Twenty-four 8- to 12-year-old boys with ADHD and 24 non-ADHD boys matched on age and IQ viewed an edited, nondialogue portion of a humorous television program to examine performance on a task requiring attention to and recall of temporal information. Participants were required to retell the story as closely as possible, to complete a picture-prompted sequencing task taken from the story, and to identify time-saving actions taken by the central character. Measures were also obtained of the number of prospective, retrospective, or present time-related references made and whether participants correctly identified the overarching time theme of the story. Significant group differences in favor of the comparison boys were evident in the total number of actions recalled and the number of events recalled in sequence. When controlling for poorer memory performance in boys with ADHD, however, there was no significant main effect of diagnostic group. A logistic regression analysis controlled for poorer memory performance indicated no significant differences between the number of boys with and without ADHD who correctly identified the overarching time theme of the story.     

Super-recognizers: People with extraordinary face recognition ability

We tested 4 people who claimed to have significantly better than ordinary face recognition ability. Exceptional ability was confirmed in each case. On two very different tests of face recognition, all 4 experimental subjects performed beyond the range of control subject performance. They also scored significantly better than average on a perceptual discrimination test with faces. This effect was larger with upright than with inverted faces, and the 4 subjects showed a larger “inversion effect” than did control subjects, who in turn showed a larger inversion effect than did developmental prosopagnosics. This result indicates an association between face recognition ability and the magnitude of the inversion effect. Overall, these “super-recognizers” are about as good at face recognition and perception as developmental prosopagnosics are bad. Our findings demonstrate the existence of people with exceptionally good face recognition ability and show that the range of face recognition and face perception ability is wider than has been previously acknowledged.     

A threshold theory of the humor response

The humor response has long been considered mysterious, and it is given relatively little attention in modern experimental psychology, in spite of the fact that numerous studies suggest that it has substantial benefits for mood and health. Existing theories of humor fail to account for some of the most basic humor phenomena. On most occasions when a humor response occurs, certain verbal or visual stimuli (the "setup" stimuli, which function as an establishing operation) must precede a critical stimulus (such as a "punch line" or the final panel or critical feature of a cartoon), which then occasions a sudden "revelation" or "understanding"; this revelation is often accompanied by the humor response. We suggest that the setup stimuli increase the strength of the revelatory response to a point just below the threshold of awareness and that the critical stimulus, properly designed and timed, edges the revelatory response to a point just above threshold. We also suggest that it is this threshold phenomenon that produces most instances of the humor response. We discuss these issues in the context of some notable humor of Carl Rogers and B. F. Skinner.