Optimal go/no-go ratios to maximize false alarms

Despite the ubiquity of go/no-go tasks in the study of behavioral inhibition, there is a lack of evidence regarding the impact of key design characteristics, including the go/no-go ratio, intertrial interval, and number of types of go stimuli, on the production of different response classes of central interest. In the present study we sought to empirically determine the optimal conditions to maximize the production of a rare outcome of considerable interest to researchers: false alarms. As predicted, the shortest intertrial intervals (450 ms), intermediate go/no-go ratios (2:1 to 4:1), and the use of multiple types of go stimuli produced the greatest numbers of false alarms. These results are placed within the context of behavioral changes during learning.     

Delayed gratification in New Caledonian crows and young children: influence of reward type and visibility

Animal Cognition - Self-control underlies cognitive abilities such as decision making and future planning. Delay of gratification is a measure of self-control and involves obtaining a more valuable...     

Church Attendance in Northern Ireland: Catholics and Protestants Compared

While it is widely acknowledged that Northern Ireland is a religious society, Protestants still do not attend church as often as do Catholics. The aim of the present study, therefore, was to employ the Ajzen and Fishbein framework to investigate what factors help to explain why Catholics attend church more regularly than do Protestants. To this end, 333 undergraduate students in the faculty of Social and Health Science at the University of Ulster at Coleraine and Jordanstown were surveyed. For both Catholics and Protestants, attitudes were a stronger determinant of intentions to attend church than were their perceptions of normative and control influences. Of more importance, however, was the finding that the predictive power of the model was enhanced for the Protestant group. This would seem to suggest that for Catholics, church-attending behaviour may not be so much one of reasoned action but perhaps rather more one of habit.     

The importance of callous-unemotional traits for extending the concept of psychopathy to children

This study focused on the use of callous-unemotional (CU) traits to identify a subgroup of children with both attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and a conduct problem diagnosis (oppositional defiant disorder [ODD] or conduct disorder [CD] who show characteristics similar to adults with psychopathy. In a clinic-referred sample of children aged 6 to 13 years (N = 154), those with diagnoses of both ADHD and ODD/CD were divided on the basis of teacher ratings of CU traits. Children high on these traits showed features typically associated with psychopathy, such as a lack of fearfulness and a reward-dominant response style. Furthermore, children with CU traits seemed less distressed by their behavior problems. These findings are consistent with research on adults showing that impulsivity and antisocial behavior alone are insufficient to document persons who fit the construct of psychopathy.     

Self-esteem of adolescent females as related to race, economic status, and area of residence

The Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale was used to measure the self-esteem of 109 14- and 16-yr.-old (+/- 6 mo.) girls. The self-esteem scores were categorized by economic status, race, and area of residence. For urban girls mean self-esteem of upper economic status subjects was significantly higher than that of those at the lower economic status. The self-esteem of upper economic status urban girls was significantly higher than the self-esteem of their rural peers. Finally, the self-esteem of the urban black girls was significantly higher than the self-esteem of the urban white girls.     

The relation of distressful childhood experiences and empathy in college undergraduates

We assessed the relation between the empathic responsiveness of young adults and the relative frequency and intensity of distressful events they experienced as children. Undergraduate subjects (N = 111; 56 men and 55 women) were led to believe that they were participating in two separate studies. In the first study, students completed the Distress Experiences in Childhood questionnaire, a filler task, and a slightly abbreviated version of the Mehrabian and Epstein (1972) empathy measure. In the second study, students watched an emotion-laden videotape of a patient (actually an actress) in a therapy session and subsequently completed an emotional-response questionnaire adapted from Batson, O'Quin, Fultz, Vanderplas, and Isen (1983). Students who rated their distressful childhood experiences as highly distressing scored higher on both measures of empathy than did students who rated their experiences as relatively less distressing. In contrast, the number of distressful childhood experiences reported was generally unrelated to empathy scores.     

Reexamining models of healthy families

This paper presents the perceptions of members of an alternative family form concerning the strengths of their family type, the functions of family, family models, and traits of a healthy families in general. The concepts presented are the product of a qualitative research study of shared home families.     

DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF EATING REGULATION IN OBESE AND NONOBESE CHILDREN

Bite rate, sip rate, and concurrent activities of six 7-yr-old children, three obese and three nonobese, were observed at lunchtime over a six-month period. A procedure for decreasing bite rate, putting eating utensils down between bites, was implemented in a multiple-baseline across-subjects design. Sip rates and concurrent activities were observed to assess behavioral covariations. In addition, bite rate and amount of food completed were computed over six food categories to analyze food preferences. Results indicated the control of bite rate across all subjects, with a significant reduction in amount of food consumed. Correlations between the response classes indicated they were at least partially independent. Differences in eating behavior of obese and nonobese subjects were observed for breadstuffs and milk drinking.