Effects of reinforcement history on response rate and response pattern in periodic reinforcement

Several researchers have suggested that conditioning history may have long-term effects on fixed-interval performances of rats. To test this idea and to identify possible factors involved in temporal control development, groups of rats initially were exposed to different reinforcement schedules: continuous, fixed-time, and random-interval. Afterwards, half of the rats in each group were studied on a fixed-interval 30-s schedule of reinforcement and the other half on a fixed-interval 90-s schedule of reinforcement. No evidence of long-term effects attributable to conditioning history on either response output or response patterning was found; history effects were transitory. Different tendencies in trajectory across sessions were observed for measures of early and late responding within the interreinforcer interval, suggesting that temporal control is the result of two separate processes: one involved in response output and the other in time allocation of responding and not responding.     

The frequency effect for pseudowords in the lexical decision task

Four experiments were designed to investigate whether the frequency of words used to create pseudowords plays an important role in lexical decision. Computational models of the lexical decision task (e.g., the dual route cascaded model and the multiple read-out model) predict that latencies to low-frequency pseudowords should be faster than latencies to high-frequency pseudowords. Consistent with this prediction, results showed that when the pseudowords were created by replacing one internal letter of the base word (Experiments 1 and 3), high-frequency pseudowords yielded slower latencies than low-frequency pseudowords. However, this effect occurred only in the leading edge of the response time (RT) distributions. When the pseudowords were created by transposing two adjacent internal letters (Experiment 2), high-frequency pseudowords produced slower latencies in the leading edge and in the bulk of the RT distributions. These results suggest that transposed-letter pseudowords may be more similar to their base words than replacement-letter pseudowords. Finally, when participants performed a go/no-go lexical decision task with one-letter different pseudowords (Experiment 4), high-frequency pseudowords yielded substantially faster latencies than low-frequency pseudowords, which suggests that the lexical entries of high-frequency words can be verified earlier than the lexical entries of low-frequency words. The implications of these results for models of word recognition and lexical decision are discussed.     

Statistical computations over a speech stream in a rodent

Statistical learning is one of the key mechanisms available to human infants and adults when they face the problems of segmenting a speech stream (Saffran, Aslin, & Newport, 1996) and extracting long-distance regularities (G6mez, 2002; Pe?a, Bonatti, Nespor, & Mehler, 2002). In the present study, we explore statistical learning abilities in rats in the context of speech segmentation experiments. In a series of five experiments, we address whether rats can compute the necessary statistics to be able to segment synthesized speech streams and detect regularities associated with grammatical structures. Our results demonstrate that rats can segment the streams using the frequency of co-occurrence (not transitional probabilities, as human infants do) among items, showing that some basic statistical learning mechanism generalizes over nonprimate species. Nevertheless, rats did not differentiate among test items when the stream was organized over more complex regularities that involved nonadjacent elements and abstract grammar-like rules.     

Body mass index in female Spanish Olympic athletes

The purpose of this study was to examine the Body Mass Index of 180 female Spanish Olympic athletes (M age = 27.1 yr., SD = 5.9 yr.) who participate in presentation sports and nonpresentation sports, in comparison with 114 female nonathletes (M age = 20.7, SD = 1.5 yr.). Presentation sports athletes have a profile similar to that of a university student but by age with a lower Body Mass Index. In particular, rhythmic gymnasts have a lower weight and Body Mass Index than other athletes and nonathletes.     

Early psychological consequences of the March 11, 2004, terrorist attacks in Madrid, Spain

On March 11, 2004, Al-Qaeda set off 10 bombs on several train routes in Madrid. 192 people were killed and 2,000 wounded. In this study, 1,179 questionnaires were administered Week 2 after the attacks to residents 18 years and over from the affected geographical areas. The questionnaire included items about sociodemographic variables and exposure to the attacks. Psychological effects were assessed as presence of acute stress and depressive symptomatology and functional impairment. 46.7% of the sample presented symptomatology of acute stress and 49.6% depressive symptoms. Among the symptoms of acute stress, the most frequent were re-experiencing (72.5%) and dissociative symptoms (71.8%). The chief predicting variables in symptomatology were being female, over 65 yr. old, and a habitual train user. The large number of affected people was refined with an item analysis and the consideration of severity of interference in psychosocial functioning.     

Confirmatory factor analysis of parents' and teachers' ratings of DSM-IV symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in a Spanish sample

Confirmatory factor analysis examined the factor structure of DSM IV Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder symptoms and analyzed the differences in informants' ratings of ADHD symptoms by children's age and sex. A sample of 1,018 Spanish school children, 574 girls and 444 boys, ages 4 to 12 years, was rated by teachers and parents. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a similar fit for the three-factor model of Inattention, Hyperactivity, and Impulsivity (teachers: CFI = .976, RMR = .041, % of total variance = 83.2; parents: CFI = .969, RMR = .037, % of total variance = 82.7) and for the two-factor model of Inattention and Hyperactivity Impulsivity (teachers: CFI = .958, RMR = .044, % of total variance = 79.3; parents: CFI = .961, RMR = .038, % of total variance, 79.9). The two-factor model was selected as a parsi monious representation of the teachers' and parents' ratings of ADHD symptoms. Analyses of variance indicated significant differences in teachers' and parents' mean ratings across sex and school grades of children.     

Death anxiety and death depression in Spanish nurses

This study examined the dimensional structure of Tomás-Sábado and Gómez-Benito's Death Anxiety Inventory and Templer, et al.'s Death Depression Scale-Revised. The responses of 244 Spanish nurses to the Spanish forms of both scales were evaluated by means of a principal axis factor analysis with direct Oblimin rotation. Five significant factors were identified: Internally Generated Death Anxiety, Death Depression, Externally Generated Death Anxiety, Death Threat, and Death Sadness, accounting for 51.6% of the variance. The distribution of the factor loadings for the items of both scales on the five factors supported the discriminant validity of the constructs specific to each of the scales and justified their use in evaluating death anxiety and death depression independently.     

Admissibility of Cut in <Emphasis Type="Italic">LC</Emphasis> with Fixed Point Combinator

The fixed point combinator (Y) is an important non-proper combinator, which is defhable from a combinatorially complete base. This combinator guarantees that recursive equations have a solution. Structurally free logics (LC) turn combinators into formulas and replace structural rules by combinatory ones. This paper introduces the fixed point and the dual fixed point combinator into structurally free logics. The admissibility of (multiple) cut in the resulting calculus is not provable by a simple adaptation of the similar proof for LC with proper combinators. The novelty of our proof—beyond proving the cut for a newly extended calculus–is that we add a fourth induction to the by-and-large Gentzen-style proof. Presented by Robert Goldblatt     

Tinnitus als soziale Infektion?

Background

11 out of 35 male employees of a central alert team with rescue coordination function developed a tinnitus disorder. This clinical case-study highlights the psychodynamic background of this accumulation.

Methods

Employees were investigated by psychometric questionnaires and semistructured psychodynamic biografical interviews. Additionally aspects of group dynamics and organisational structure were assessed.

Results

All staff members reported adverse work conditions. Medical and psychometric examination of the tinnitus patients did not reveal severe pathological findings. The interviews identified psychodynamic conflicts dealing with autonomy and regulation of self-esteem. All tinnitus patients reported a very adverse or punitive father relation and difficulties in performing a stabile male role and self-image. Group dynamics was dominated by paranoid and regressive tendencies complicated by maladaptive coping, crude perception of external facts and a pronounced experience of aggressive impulses.

Conclusion

The remobilisation of infantile powerlessness, ineffectiveness and helplessness triggered by adverse work conditions and the introduction of a new culture of personal responsibility within the work organisation together with an impaired coping of separation conflicts enforced by traumatic aspects of the relation with the father may have promoted the tinnitus symptomatology. Additionally, due to the missing awareness of the importance of such group dynamical processes the employers contributed to an increasing psychosocial distress, which promoted the accumulated manifestation of tinnitus as a conflict expressive symptom.     

An extended comparator hypothesis account of superconditioning

Three conditioned taste aversion experiments with rats investigated superconditioning. In each experiment, alternate exposures of 2 flavor compounds with a common element (i.e., AB/AS) were administered to establish an inhibitory relationship between the 2 unique elements, B and S, and prior to testing, S was paired with lithium chloride (LiCl). In Experiment 1, pairings of a neutral cue (X) with S in compound with B after the AB/AS exposures resulted in superconditioning between X and S. Extinction of the common element (A) just before the S-LiCl pairing attenuated both the inhibitory relationship between B and S (Experiment 2) and superconditioning between X and S (Experiment 3). These observations suggest that superconditioning consists of enhanced performance rather than enhanced associative acquisition.