An evaluation of touch on a large request: a field setting

The effect of touch on compliance to a request has traditionally been tested with small solicitation (answer to a small questionnaire, give a dime to a confederate ....). In our experiment a larger request was evaluated. Passersby, 53 men and 67 women, were asked by two confederates to look after a large and very excited dog for 10 minutes because each wanted to go into a pharmacy where animals were prohibited. In half of the cases, subjects were touched during the request. Analysis showed that, when touched, 55% of the subjects agreed with the request whereas 35% only in the no-touch control condition agreed. This finding indicates that touch was positively associated with the subjects' compliance (p<.03).     

Reinforcement magnitude and responding during treatment with differential reinforcement

Basic findings indicate that the amount or magnitude of reinforcement can influence free-operant responding prior to and during extinction. In this study, the relation between reinforcement magnitude and adaptive behavior was evaluated with 3 children as part of treatment with differential reinforcement. In the first experiment, a communicative response was shaped and maintained by the same reinforcer that was found to maintain problem behavior. Two reinforcement magnitudes (20-s or 60-s access to toys or escape from demands) were compared and found to be associated with similar levels of resistance to extinction. The relation between reinforcement magnitude and response maintenance was further evaluated in the second experiment by exposing the communicative response to 20-s or 300-s access to toys or escape. Results for 2 participants suggested that this factor may alter the duration of postreinforcement pauses.     

Impact of right hemispheric damage on a hierarchy of complexity evidenced in young normal subjects

The occurrence of a right-hemisphere lesion can interfere with pragmatic abilities and particularly with the processing of non-literal speech acts in which the listener has to identify the speaker's intention. The aim of this study was to test RHD subjects' ability to process non-literal speech acts. A chronometric approach to RHD and matched control performance showed that RHD subjects are impaired in the processing of non-literal speech, though they are also sensitive to the hierarchy of complexity among types. Only the processing of indirect speech acts was not shown to differ from that of normals, probably because the stimuli were of the conventional type. These results show the relevancy of a chronometric approach. They also emphasize the importance of further studying RHD subjects' ability to attribute intentions to protagonists in a short story.     

Testing sequence effects in visual memory: clues for a structural model

In order to probe the internal organization of visual temporary memory, systematic experiments were performed in which the subjects had to memorize a series of 2-5 images then pass recognition tests, either in all possible testing permutations, (in the case of 2-4 images) or in 20 selected permutations (in the case of 5 images). Over 300,000 tests were performed, generating more than 40,000 errors. The error-rates were found to follow simple rules. Both the 3 and the 4 images results are compatible with the presence of only four typical accuracy levels. On the other hand, the reaction time (RT) results revealed surprisingly rich patterns. The RT for recognizing image i at testing stage t > 1 depends upon which image (j) was tested just before. The ranking of the RTs for (j, i) couples evolves from one testing stage to the next. It is proposed that these RTs reflect, in part, the time needed to localize the trace in memory of a given image, starting from the position at which the previous test occurred. If this assumption is correct, the results of this study are providing a picture of the configurations formed by memorized items in the visual temporary store. A hypothetical minimal model, involving several rows of slots on a triangular mesh is proposed to account for the structures in both the error-rates and the RT results.     

Relation between sport and spatial imagery: comparison of three groups of participants

The literature suggests that sport may be considered a spatial activity and that engaging in spatial activities increases the capacity of an individual to implement mental imagery. Moreover, mental rotation calls upon motor processes that are heavily involved in sporting activities. For these reasons, the authors hypothesized that athletes ought to perform mental rotation tasks better than nonathletes. Also, athletes trained to react quickly to constantly changing environments should be faster at processing the information in a mental rotation task than athletes operating in more settled environments. The results of this study show that athletes performed the mental rotation task significantly faster than nonathletes. These results support the suggestion that there is a link between sport and the ability to perform mental image transformations; however, this ability may not be specific to the conditions in which the athlete performs.     

Judgment of conceptual identity in monkeys

Baboons (Papio anubis) were tested on categorization tasks at two different conceptual levels. The monkeys showed their ability (1) to judge as identical or different the objects belonging to two categories, on a perceptual basis, and (2) to perform a judgment of conceptual identity&#x2014;that is, to use the same/different relation between two previously learned categories. This latter experiment represents the first demonstration of judgment of conceptual identity in a monkey species.     

Differential reinforcement to decrease stereotypy exhibited by an adult with autism spectrum disorder

Motor and vocal stereotypies are behaviors commonly exhibited by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Stereotypy may impede and interfere with learning new skills and decrease work performance in employment settings. Previous research has evaluated effective interventions for stereotypy; however, they have typically focused on treating stereotypy exhibited by children in structured settings. We evaluated the practicality of implementing a simple differential reinforcement of other behavior procedure with an adult with ASD in multiple, naturalistic environments. Results showed rapid decreases in motor and vocal stereotypies upon implementation of the intervention and maintenance of low levels of behavior. These data highlighted the successful treatment of stereotypy exhibited by an adult with a long history of exhibiting these behaviors. Treatment effects were replicated across multiple, naturalistic environments.     

La Direction des affaires juridiques et des droits des patients de l’AP–HP et la première vague de la pandémie Covid-19

To facilitate the analysis and the management of claims related to the last Covid-19 pandemic, the DAJ of the AP–HP constituted a medical group assisted by lawyers intending to review the scientific knowledge and organizational measures during the first wave of this pandemic. This group brought together medical doctors with both scientific expertise in the main specialties requested during this viral infection and knowledge of repairing bodily damage. Based on the data provided by the hospital dashboards and the collection of hospital procedures for Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 patients, the goal of this group was to assess the level of scientific knowledge and organizational measures respectively at the start of the epidemic, its peak and at the end. During the three periods of this pandemic the main changes observed included a greater selectivity on admissions with increasing consideration on the patient's comorbidity; a continual evolution in drug management and more rigorous isolation measures with interruption of visiting rights. The target was to prevent contamination of the non-infected persons with an obsession to protect healthcare workers. The absence of selection for patients requiring intensive care for compensation of their respiratory failure forced AP–HP to double the number of intensive care beds and to refer some patients in other regions. In a context of unstable scientific knowledge and evolving organizational measures, the collection of these data should facilitate the management of claims related to Covid19 during the first wave of this pandemic and open a prospective study for the next pandemic.     

Do you get what you pay for? Sales incentives and implications for motivation and changes in turnover intention and work effort

This study investigated relations between pay-for-performance incentives designed to vary in instrumentality (annual pay-for-performance, quarterly pay-for-performance, and base pay level) and employee outcomes (self-reported work effort and turnover intention) in a longitudinal study spanning more than 2 years. After controlling for perceived instrumentality, merit pay increase, and the initial values of the dependent variables, the amount of base pay was positively related to work effort and negatively related to turnover intention, where both relationships were mediated by autonomous motivation. The amounts of quarterly and annual pay-for-performance were both positively related to controlled motivation, but were differently related to the dependent variables due to different relations with autonomous motivation.