Time-shared feeding and drinking

Barbary doves were tested in an operant situation in which they characteristically alternate between feeding and drinking. The experimental findings may be summarized as follows: (1) the cumulative distribution of the intervals between feeding bouts is little affected by reward rates; (2) a lock-on index is correlated with reward rate, but is not affected by altering reward rate per se, as long as the overall rate of ingestion remains the same; (3) when a primarily hungry animal is interrupted while feeding, or a primarily thirsty animal while drinking, the behaviour is resumed after the interruption; (4) when a primarily hungry animal is interrupted while drinking, or a primarily thirsty animal while feeding, the behaviour is resumed after a short interruption, but changes to the alternative behaviour following a long interruption; (5) titration of interruption period in the dominant region of the motivational state space is always stable, but becomes unstable if the dominance changes, or if the titrating criteria are reversed. From this evidence it is concluded that feeding and drinking can be time-shared in a manner analogous to that found in computers.     

A high-speed algorithm for computing conditional probabilities of substrings of sequentially observed data

An algorithm is described that computes relative frequencies of occurrence of all arbitrarily long substrings of sequential data, such as are obtained from experiments in learning/memory and verbal interaction. The algorithm offers high speed and provides systematization for the computation of empirical conditional probabilities. Use of this algorithm allows application of probabilistic and information theoretic disciplines to reveal dependencies between events separated arbitrarily in time.     

The Effect of Several Types of Pretrial Publicity on the Guilt Attributions of Simulated Jurors1

The experiment (N= 312) tested the effects of two types of pretrial publicity (PTP) on the guilt verdicts of simulated jurors. Heinous PTP was manipulated by varying the degree to which the lurid details of a rape-murder were presented to prospective jurors. Prejudgement PTP varied in the extent to which it implied that the defendant was the perpetrator or the rape-murder. As predicted, PTP which was high in either heinousness or prejudgment increased the females' tendency to conclude-after the trial evidence-that the defendant was guilty of the crime. The biasing effect of prejudgment PTP, however, was significant only among females categorized as being of low IQ. In contrast, neither dimension of PTF' significantly influenced the guilt verdicts of male jurors. Several possible explanations of the sex's differential vulnerability to PTP were proposed. In addition, evidence was obtained that female jurors may have been derogating the rape-murder victim and defensively minimizing the gravity of her fate, as a result of motivations to believe in a just world.     

An inexpensive circuit for beta,alpha, theta,or delta EEG biofeedback

An inexpensive circuit is described for EEG biofeedback or measurement. The circuit is designed to interface easily with most basic EEG machines. It taps the output from a single recording channel of the basic EEG instrument and provides the following for each EEG band (beta, alpha, theta, and delta): (a) very selective bandpass discrimination, (b) variable center frequency, (c) variable threshold at which feedback will be provided, or the measurement made, and (d) use with any biofeedback stimulus or measurement device that one wishes to switch contingent with S’s EEG rhythms.     

The role of traditionality in the relationships among parental support,career decision-making self-efficacy and career adaptability

Integrating career construction (Savickas, 2013) and cognitive evaluation (Ryan & Deci, 2002) theories, we examined the moderating role of traditionality beliefs in the indirect relationships among parental support, career decision-making self-efficacy and career adaptability among Chinese university students. Data were collected from 731 undergraduate students in China at two measurement periods, 18 months apart. Results showed that Time 1 parental support was associated positively with Time 1 career decision-making self-efficacy and Time 2 career adaptability. In addition, the conditional indirect effects of Time 1 parental support in predicting Time 2 career adaptability via Time 1 career decision making self-efficacy were stronger among students with low as opposed to high traditionality beliefs. The implications of the results in terms of theory and practice are discussed.     

Age and Gender Role Conflict: A Cross-Sectional Study of Australian Men

A total of 221 educated middle-class Australian males across three age groups (18–24, 36–45, and 60-plus years), responded to O'Neil et al.'s Gender Role Conflict Scales and a set of measures for psychological well-being. A MANCOVA design, with psychological well-being as the covariate, found significant age differences on two gender-role conflict scales. Results suggest that certain conflicts in a man's life to do with ambition, career, and family may be seen as developmentally functional rather than dysfunctional. No age differences were found on the Gender Role Conflict variables for emotional expressiveness and intimacy between males. These two variables are discussed as a function of mood rather than indices of dysfunction.     

The Calgary semantic decision project: concrete/abstract decision data for 10,000 English words

Psycholinguistic research has been advanced by the development of word recognition megastudies. For instance, the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al., 2007) provides researchers with access to naming and lexical-decision latencies for over 40,000 words. In the present work, we extended the megastudy approach to a task that emphasizes semantic processing. Using a concrete/abstract semantic decision (i.e., does the word refer to something concrete or abstract?), we collected decision latencies and accuracy rates for 10,000 English words. The stimuli were concrete and abstract words selected from Brysbaert, Warriner, and Kuperman’s (2013) comprehensive list of concreteness ratings. In total, 321 participants provided responses to 1,000 words each. Whereas semantic effects tend to be quite modest in naming and lexical decision studies, analyses of the concrete/abstract semantic decision responses show that a substantial proportion of variance can be explained by semantic variables. The item-level and trial-level data will be useful for other researchers interested in the semantic processing of concrete and abstract words.     

Recent advances in operant conditioning technology: a versatile and affordable computerized touchscreen system.

We report the construction of a new operant chamber that incorporates modern computer, touchscreen, and display technologies. An LCD display was housed in the front wall of a lightweight Plexiglas chamber. An Apple eMac computer was used to present visual stimuli on the monitor and to control other chamber events. Responses to the stimuli were recorded using a transparent resistive-type touchscreen that overlaid the monitor. The resulting system is simple and inexpensive to construct but powerful and flexible enough to explore a broad range of issues in animal learning and behavior.