Presence/absence-sample matching by pigeons: divergent retention functions may result from the similarity of behavior during the absence sample and the retention interval

Divergent choose-absence retention functions typically found in pigeons following presence/absence-sample matching have been attributed to the development of a single-code/default coding strategy. However, such effects may result from adventitious differential responding to the samples. In Experiment 1, retention functions were divergent only when differential sample responding could serve as the basis for comparison choice. In Experiment 2, when pecking did not occur during the retention interval, a choose-absence bias was found, but when pecking occurred during the retention interval, a choose-presence bias resulted. In Experiment 3, positive transfer was found when a stimulus associated with the absence of pecking replaced the absence sample but not when a stimulus associated with pecking replaced the presence sample. Thus, presence/absence-sample matching may not encourage the development of a single-code/default coding strategy in pigeons.     

Uncovering the structure of a memorist's superior "basic" memory capacity

After extensive laboratory testing of the famous memorist Rajan, Thompson, Cowan, and Frieman (1993) proposed that he was innately endowed with a superior memory capacity for digits and letters and thus violated the hypothesis that exceptional memory fully reflects acquired "skilled memory." We successfully replicated the empirical phenomena that led them to their conclusions. From additional analyses and new experiments, we found support for an alternative hypothesis, namely that Rajan's superior memory for digits was mediated by learned encoding techniques that he acquired during nearly a thousand hours of practice memorizing the mathematical constant pi. Our paper describes a general experimental approach for studying the structure of exceptional memory and how Rajan's unique structure is consistent with the general theoretical framework of long-term working memory (Ericsson and Kintsch, 1995).     

A Review of Spiritual and Religious Measures in Nursing Research Journals: 1995--1999

Background: A series of systematic reviews has revealed relatively high levels of interest in religion and spirituality in different nursing specialties, but not in general nursing research journals. Purpose: To identify the extent to which spirituality and religiousness were measured in all quantitative and qualitative research articles published in Research in Nursing and Health, Nursing Research, Advances in Nursing Science (ANS), and Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship from 1995 to 1999. Methods: A full-text search was conducted of ANS and Image using the Ovid search system. Nursing Research and Research in Nursing and Health were hand searched for spiritual/religious measures. Characteristics of selected studies, the measures taken, and their uses were coded for data analysis. Results: A total of 564 research studies were identified, of which 67 (11.9%) included at least one measure of spirituality or religiousness. A significant difference was found between the percentage of qualitative and quantitative studies that contained measures of these concepts. Of the 119 qualitative studies, 23 (19.3%) contained a measure of religion or spirituality, compared to 44 of the 445 (9.9%) quantitative studies. Nominal indicators of religious affiliation were the most commonly used measures in the quantitative studies and measures of religion and spirituality were rarely used in the analyses. Although only a few quantitative or qualitative studies intended to focus on religion or spirituality, these themes often emerged spontaneously in the qualitative research. Conclusions: Research in Nursing and Health, Advances in Nursing Science, Nursing Research, and Image: The Journal of Nursing Scholarship all published research measuring spirituality and religiousness during the time-period studied. The rate at which spirituality and religion appeared in these nursing research articles is substantially higher than that found in most fields outside of nursing. Even more frequent inclusion of spiritual and religious variables and richer measures of spirituality and religiousness would help to increase the available scientific information on the role of spirituality and religion in nursing care.     

Symmetry training in pigeons can produce functional equivalences

Functional stimulus equivalence has been demonstrated using a transfer of training design with matching-to-sample training in which two sample stimuli are associated with the same comparison stimulus (A-B, C-B; many-to-one matching). Equivalence is shown by training a new association (A-D) and demonstrating the presence of an emergent relation (C-D). In the present experiment, we show that symmetry training, in which a bidirectional association is trained between two stimuli (A-B, B-A, using successive stimulus presentations followed by reinforcement), can also produce functional equivalence using a transfer of training design (i.e., train B-C, test A-C). The results suggest that training pigeons in the substitutability of two stimuli may be sufficient to produce functional stimulus equivalence between them. The results also have implications for the development of an emergent transitive relation, because training on A-B and B-C relations results in the emergence of an untrained A-C relation, if B-A training also is provided.     

Implicit memory for phonological processes in visual stem completion

Four experiments were conducted investigating the role of phonology in repetition priming. Experiment 1 used a cross-modal priming paradigm in which participants made semantic judgments about spoken words and then performed a visual stem completion task. In Experiments 2–4, both the primes and the test stems were presented visually. The results of the first three experiments revealed that priming transfers across interpretations of a homophone. That is, seeing or hearingweek primes bothweek andweak. The results of Experiment 4 showed that homophone priming cannot be attributed to the orthographic similarity of homophonic words. Together, these results indicate that repetition priming on a visual word completion task includes a phonological component.     

Scene-based and object-centered inhibition of return: evidence for dual orienting mechanisms

We investigated whether inhibition of return (IOR) could be observed in location-based, scene-based, and object-centered frames of reference. IOR was found to move both with a separate cued object (scene-based) and with a location within a single rotating object (object-centered). Importantly, however, IOR was also associated with the environmental location cued when cuing was of a separate object (scene-based), whereas facilitation of the cued location was found when cuing was of a component within an object. These results suggest that location is of central importance to scene-based representations of separate objects, which appear to be encoded in viewer-centered coordinates, whereas environmental locus is of little relevance when attention orients within a single object. The results also provide further evidence for the coexistence of both excitation and inhibition associated with uninformative exogenous cues.     

Motivation, attitudes and experience of donation: a follow-up of women donating eggs in assisted conception treatment

This paper reports a follow-up of 39 women who had donated eggs to an assisted conception unit. Their experience of donation and their motivation and attitudes were assessed. Comparisons were made with a group of semen donors who were attending a second unit. Female and male donors donated for altruistic reasons and neither group wished to have contact with recipients or donor offspring or have their identity revealed. Female donors were more involved in the donation process and more interested in the outcome of donation. They also appeared to be more motivated by 'helping' than male donors. The sample of female donors contained a small group of women who were donating to sisters and friends. In comparison with anonymous donors, these women reported more effects upon the family and issues of secrecy and openness were more apparent. The results are discussed in the light of previous studies and the legal framework for donation in the UK. Attention is drawn to the lack of social psychological analyses in this controversial medical area.     

The effects of practice on object-based, location-based, and static-display inhibition of return

We report two experiments that examine the effects of practice on object-based, location-based, and static-display inhibition of return (IOR). The results are clean All three effects get smaller with practice. These findings are at odds with the results of Müller and von Mühlenen (1996), who failed to observe object-based IOR and detected no effect of practice on static-display IOR. However, their subjects were more practiced than ours prior to data collection. We suggest, therefore, that the reducing effect of practice on IOR might have occurred in their unrecorded practice sessions. We also discuss a two-process model in which IOR is seen as the net effect of underlying inhibitory and excitatory processes. In such models (e.g., Solomon & Corbit,1974), practice often results in a reduction of the net effect of the two processes.     

When Festinger Fails: Prophecy and the Watch Tower

Within its history, the Watch Tower has often set dates for the coming of Christ's millennial reign. The ability of Jehovah's Witnesses to endure the failure of these interpretations of Biblical prophecy reveals the power of the Watch Tower to withstand what would seem to be fatal challenges to its system of belief. In what has become a classic study, the social psychologist Leon Festinger has argued that such disconfirmations of prophecy lead only to deepened conviction and increased proselytism to persuade others that the original belief was correct. Applying Festinger's hypothesis to the prophetic speculation of the Watch Tower, 1 argue that his model fails to recognize how complex organizations and systems of belief shape responses to disconfirmed prophecy. Indeed, the history of Jehovah's Witnesses demonstrates that organizational structure and ideology constitute crucial variables for any analysis of reaction to prophetic failure. It is the very power of the Watch Tower as a millenarian movement that allows not only the rationalization of disconfirmation but the retrospective denial of the prophecy itself.