The role of specific consequences in the maintenance of three types of questions

This research replicated and extended a study by Williams, Donley, and Keller (2000). In that study, children with autism received a box with an object inside and learned to ask “What's that?,” “Can I see it?,” and “Can I have it?” to have the name of the object, to see the object, and to get the object, respectively. The purpose of the present research was to determine if the three questions (a) were three independent repertoires of behavior, (b) constituted three instances of a single functional response class, or (c) belonged to a chain of behavior. The 3 boys with autism who participated responded independently to each question when the consequences for each question were altered. This indicates that the three target responses were three independent repertoires of behavior, each one reinforced and maintained with its specific consequences. Thus, this procedure serves to teach children with autism to ask questions with flexibility according to a variable context.     

Limitations of the mnemonic-keyword method

The effectiveness of the mnemonic-keyword method was investigated in 4 experiments in which participants were required to learn the 1st-language (L1, Spanish) equivalents of a list of 30 2nd-language words (L2, Latin). Experiments 1 (adolescents) and 2 (adults) were designed to assess whether the keyword method was more effective than the rote method; the researcher supplied the keyword, and the participants were allowed to pace themselves through the list. Experiments 3 (adolescents) and 4 (adults) were similar to Experiments 1 and 2 except that the participants were also supplied with a drawing that illustrated the relationship between the keyword and the L1 target word. All the experiments were performed with groups of participants in their classrooms (i.e., not in a laboratory context). In all experiments, the rote method was significantly more effective than was the keyword method.     

"... As you would have them do unto you": Does imagining yourself in the other's place stimulate moral action?

Philosophers, psychologists, and religious teachers have suggested that imagining yourself in another's place will stimulate moral action. The authors tested this idea in two different situations. In Experiment 1, participants had the opportunity to assign themselves and another research participant to tasks, with one task clearly more desirable than the other. Imagining oneself in the other's place did little to increase the morality (fairness) of the decision. A different form of perspective taking, imagining the other's feelings, increased direct assignment of the other to the desirable task, apparently due to increased empathy. In Experiment 2, participants confronted a different decision: either accept an initial task assignment that would give them highly positive consequences and the other participant nothing or change the assignment so they and the other would each receive moderately positive consequences. In this situation, imagining oneself in the other's place did significantly increase moral action.     

Pavlov in America: a heterodox approach to the study of his influence

This work presents a critical analysis of Pavlov's influence that goes beyond the conventional view: that which reduces his influence in American psychology to the behaviorism of Watson and Hull. In order to understand the nature of the Russian physiologist's influence in American psychology, we propose a distinction between three approaches to it: 1) the symbolic approach, on representing a model of the possibility of constructing an objective psychology; 2) the methodological approach, given the importance of the technique of conditional reflexes; and 3) the theoretical approach, which is derived from his theory of higher nervous activity. This perspective permits us to suggest that most of Pavlov's influence on behaviorism was of a symbolic and methodological nature--though the methodological influence also reached other authors that did not belong to the behaviorist traditions, as was the case of Mateer. As far as the theoretical influence is concerned, our work proposes that it is more visible in authors such as Gantt and Liddell, or even in authors such as Boldirev, Director of the Pavlovian Laboratory at the Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan. The case of Gantt is especially interesting because, in addition to his important contributions, he played an essential role in the foundation of the Pavlovian Society, and the journal Conditional Reflex. What our work proposes is that to understand the nature of Pavlov's influence in American psychology it is necessary to take into account the very characteristics of that psychology: its pragmatic interests, its methodological rigor, the dominant systems of neo-behavioral theory and the changes that occurred after the Second World War.     

Visual perspective taking for avatars in a Simon task

In modern digital applications, users often interact with virtual representations of themselves or others, called avatars. We examined how these avatars and their perspectives influence stimulus–response compatibility in a Simon task. Participants responded to light/dark blue stimuli with left/right key presses in the presence of a task-irrelevant avatar. Changes in stimulus–response compatibility were used to quantify changes in the mental representation of the task and perspective taking toward this avatar. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that perspective taking for an avatar occurred in orthogonal stimulus–response mappings, causing a compatibility effect from the avatar’s point of view. In the following two experiments we introduced a larger variety of angular disparities between the participant and avatar. In Experiment 3, the Simon effect with lateralized stimulus positions remained largely unaffected by the avatar, pointing toward an absence of perspective taking. In Experiment 4, after avatar hand movements were added in order to strengthen the participants’ sense of agency over the avatar, a spatial compatibility effect from the avatar’s perspective was observed again, and hints of the selective use of perspective taking on a trial-by-trial basis were found. Overall, the results indicate that users can incorporate the perspective of an avatar into their mental representation of a situation, even when this perspective is unnecessary to complete a task, but that certain contextual requirements have to be met.     

Knowledge level learning and the power law: A soar model of skill acquisition in scheduling

Zusammenfassung. Das hier vorgestellte Modell lernt graduell, Planungsaufgaben aus der Klasse der Maschinenbelegungsprobleme (job-shop-scheduling problems) zu lösen. Mit Hilfe des Chunking-Mechanismus von Soar wird episodisches Wissen über die Belegungsreihenfolge von Aufträgen auf Maschinen memoriert. Bei der Entwicklung des Modells wurden zahlreiche qualitative (z. B. Transfereffekte) und quantitative Befunde (z. B. Bearbeitungszeiten) aus einer früheren empirischen Untersuchung berücksichtigt. In einer Validierungsstudie wurden dieselben Aufgaben von 14 Probanden und dem Modell bearbeitet. Die Passung von Simulationsdaten und empirischen Ergebnissen fiel insgesamt gut aus. Allerdings löst das Modell die Aufgaben schneller und zeigt auch einen etwas besseren Lernverlauf als die Probanden. Das Modell liefert eine Erklärung für das Rauschen, das typischerweise bei Bearbeitungszeiten zu beobachten ist: es handelt sich um erworbenes Wissen, das mehr oder weniger gut und auch unterschiedlich häufig auf neue Situationen übertragen wird. Der Lernverlauf der Probanden entspricht nur für aggregierte Daten einer Potenzfunktion (power law). Der vorgestellte Mechanismus zeigt, wie ein symbolisches Modell der Informationsverarbeitung graduelle Verhaltensänderungen generiert und wie der offensichtliche Erwerb allgemeiner Prozeduren ohne explizites Lernen von deklarativen Regeln erfolgen kann. Es wird nahegelegt, daß es sich hier um die Modellierung einer Form impliziten Lernens handelt. Summary. The model presented here gradually learns how to perform a job-shop scheduling task. It uses Soar's chunking mechanism to acquire episodic memories about the order to schedule jobs. The model was based on many qualitative (e.g., transfer effects) and quantitative (e.g., solution time) regularities found in previously collected data. The model was tested with new data where scheduling tasks were given to the model and to 14 subjects. The model generally fit these data with the restrictions that the model performs the task (in simulated time) faster than the subjects, and its performance improves somewhat more quickly than the subjects' performance. The model provides an explanation of the noise typically found in problem solving times - it is the result of learning actual pieces of knowledge that transfer more or less to new situations but rarely by an average amount. Only when the data are averaged (i.e., over subjects) does the smooth power law appear. This mechanism demonstrates how symbolic models can exhibit a gradual change in behavior and how the apparent acquisition of general procedures can be performed without resorting to explicit declarative rule generation. We suggest that this may represent a type of implicit learning.     

The puzzle of language evolution

Linguistics must again concentrate on the evolutionary nature of language, so that language models are more realistic with respect to human natural languages and have a greater explanatory force. Multi-agent systems are proposed as a possible route to develop such evolutionary models and an example is given of a concrete experiment in the origins and evolution of word-meaning based on a multi-agent approach.     

Authority,Psychotherapy and the Authority of the Therapist in the Religious Haredi Community

This article considers the meaning and significance of authority, and its relevance to the transference process, within the framework of psychotherapy in the orthodox Jewish (Haredi) community in Israel. In this community, deeply-rooted habits of obedience to the commandments of the Torah and the authority of the Rabbi are integral to maintaining an orthodox way of life. Clinical vignettes with Haredi patients are presented to illustrate the complexities that arise when both patient and therapist belong to the orthodox community, and highlight the authority-related issues that are central to the therapy. This combination of factors requires a sensitive and finely-tuned approach which will enable the therapist to maintain the treatment framework while still accommodating the orthodox way of life.