Effects of sucrose concentration and goal units on runway behavior in the rat

Experiment 1 investigated the between-S and within-S effects of sucrose concentration (32 and 6%) and number of goal units (equal volumes of sucrose presented in single or multiple goal cups). The goal-unit variable had no effect on behavior under any of several test conditions employed. Within-S effects of sucrose concentration were approximately equal to between-S effects; no contrast effects were found. When 64 and 6% sucrose solutions were used as reinforcers in Experiment 2, a simultaneous, but not a successive, negative contrast effect was found. Results were discussed in terms of possible functional differences between the successive and simultaneous contrast paradigms and between sucrose solutions and solid food as reinforcers.     

Freezing as an avoidance response: Another look at the operant-respondent distinction

Groups of rats were trained with shock either contingent on freezing (punishment procedure) or contingent on not freezing (avoidance procedure). Although the different contingencies produced different levels of freezing behavior, these levels were attained immediately rather than over a number of trials. This result, together with the results of control rats, suggest that while freezing can be controlled by both punishment and avoidance procedures, in both cases the effects on freezing are due to elicitation rather than learning.     

The effects upon food-reinforced pecking and treadle-pressing of auditory and visual signals for response-independent food

Seven pigeons whose key-pecking was maintained by food reinforcement on a differential-reinforcement-of-low-rates 12-sec limited-hold 4-sec schedule and 12 other pigeons whose treadle-pressing was maintained by the same schedule received appetitive Pavlovian conditioning trials superimposed upon the instrumental baseline. Half the birds in each group received a tone as the CS, and the other half received a stimulus change on the key. Each CS was 20 sec long, and was immediately followed by 10-sec access to grain. The visual CS markedly facilitated the rate of pecking on the key for the birds whose baseline response was pecking. The visual CS produced auto-shaping of the key-peck and tended to produce suppression of treadle-pressing for the birds whose baseline response was treadle-pressing. The auditory CS produced inconsistent effects across birds regardless of the baseline response. In all cases the conditioned effects extinguished when response-independent food was omitted.     

Gender at Work and at Home in Britain: Continuities and Changes

This paper discusses the views that British men and women hold about gender roles. Drawing on a survey with over 4,000 university students and interviews with professional men and women, it is suggested that, while the majority of both genders are moving toward an egalitarian model of gender roles, men's views are more likely than women's to be constrained by an essentialist mode] of gender. The data presented indicate that men were more likely than were women to endorse traditional gender roles, to regard women as better equipped for child care than men, to believe that women's advances necessarily disadvantage men, and to believe that men's work opportunities have worsened in comparison to women's. Drawing on both the interviews and the survey, it is also argued that beliefs about gender roles tend to be mediated by individualist discourses, which exempt exceptional individuals from normative gender roles.     

Social Information Processing Skills in Children with Histories of Heavy Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

Based on caregiver report, children with prenatal alcohol exposure have difficulty with social functioning, but little is known about their social cognition. The current study assessed the social information processing patterns of school-age children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure using a paradigm based on Crick and Dodge’s reformulated six-stage model. Fifty-two children (aged 7–11) with and without heavy prenatal alcohol exposure were tested using a structured interview measure of social information processing involving 18 videotaped vignettes of children in group entry and provocation situations. Alcohol-exposed children displayed maladaptive processing patterns on the goal, response generation, and response evaluation steps in group entry situations, and encoding, attribution, response evaluation, and enactment steps during provocation situations. Children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure also had difficulty on the Test of Problem Solving, and performance correlated with social information processing measures. Such difficulties may lead to problems in social functioning and warrant early intervention.     

Rotational inertia and multimodal heaviness perception

Perceived heaviness of wielded objects has been shown to be a function of the objects’ rotational inertia—the objects’ resistance to rotational acceleration. Studies have also demonstrated that if virtual objects rotate faster than the actual wielded object (i.e., a rotational gain is applied to virtual object motion), the wielded object is perceived as systematically lighter. The present research determined whether combining those inertial and visual manipulations would influence heaviness perception in a manner consistent with an inertial model of multimodal heaviness perception. Rotational inertia and optical rotational gain of wielded objects were manipulated to specify inertia multimodally. Both visual and haptic manipulations significantly influenced perceived heaviness. The results suggest that rotational inertia is detected multimodally and that multimodal heaviness perception conforms to an inertial model.     

Postural stabilization of perceptual but not cognitive performance

In 2 experiments, the authors independently varied the degree of cognitive and perceptual difficulty of suprapostural tasks. Participants were 23 students in Experiment 1 and 15 in Experiment 2. Increases in perceptual difficulty tended to be correlated with decreases in the variability of postural sway, consistent with the hypothesized functional integration of postural control with suprapostural tasks. Sway variability was not influenced by changes in the cognitive difficulty of tasks when perceptual difficulty was held constant, contrary to predictions derived from the perspective that postural and suprapostural activities compete for a limited pool of central processing resources. The results underscore the need for researchers to differentiate between suprapostural tasks that require perceptual contact with the environment and those that do not.     

Spirituality and Cardiovascular Risk

This study extended current research linking spirituality to health by investigating the relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic spirituality and cardiovascular risk factors. Participants included 111 healthy males and females, ages 28 to 63. Measurements consisted of the Lifestyle Assessment Questionnaire (LAQ), a version of Kelly's Repertory Grid, hematological analysis, and blood pressure. A greater sense of spirituality was associated with lower cholesterol risk ratios (total cholesterol/HDL) and triglyceride levels. In addition, the structural or organizational characteristics of intrinsic spirituality were associated with several other hematological measures. Further research will help clarify the association between mechanisms underlying spirituality and health, including susceptibility to cardiovascular disorders.     

Depictions of Murder in Maine: The Dominant Ideology Thesis

Recent research suggests that popular depictions of crime reflect and reinforce a dominant ideology in which criminals are viewed as rational actors who bear individual responsibility for crime. The research reported here employed a content analysis approach to examine depictions of 108 assailants found in media reports of murders that occurred in Maine from 2008 through 2012. While most of the depictions examined here describe crime as a matter of individual responsibility, this analysis found that many media depictions of Maine’s murderers include content that is sympathetic to the offender and some accounts raise questions about the effectiveness of police services, mental health care and related social services.