The Motivation for Learning Music (MLM) questionnaire: Assessing children’s and adolescents’ autonomous motivation for learning a musical instrument

Motivation and Emotion - The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties and construct validity of The Motivation for Learning Music (MLM) questionnaire, designed to measure...     

Age‐related changes in the control of episodic retrieval: an ERP study of recognition memory in children and adults

We examined developmental aspects of the ability to monitor the temporal context of an item’s previous occurrence while event‐related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. In a continuous recognition task, children between 10 and 12 years and young adults watched a stream of pictures repeated with a lag of 10–15 intervening items and indicated recurrences. In a second run, these already familiar pictures were repeated as non‐targets along with new pictures, while subjects were instructed to indicate only recurrences within the run. Young adults were able to maintain high performance levels in both tasks, whereas children had longer response times and committed a large number of false alarms to non‐targets. ERPs in both age groups showed similar parietal old/new effects for target repetitions within runs. In addition, adults’ ERPs showed similar old/new effects at frontal electrodes for repetitions and non‐targets, presumably reflecting assessments of familiarity, whereas for children repeated relative to first presentations were associated with more negative‐going waveforms at anterior frontal recording sites. Together, these results suggest a continuing maturation of the brain networks assessing novelty or familiarity. Recollection as indexed by parietal old/new effects appeared similar between young adults and children, but the development of controlled episodic retrieval, resulting in recollection of non‐target information, appears to continue well into adolescence.     

Expanding the utility of behavioral momentum for youth with developmental disabilities

Non‐compliance with requests in educational or therapeutic settings interferes with teaching and learning. Recent studies indicate that the probability of compliance can be increased when short sequences of requests with a high probability of compliance are followed by a request less likely to be followed by compliance. The high probability command sequence (HPCS) consists of requests that produce compliance rates of 80% or more. For some individuals with severe disabilities it is difficult to find sufficient number of requests that result in 80% compliance. This study assessed the effects of two levels of high probability request sequences on compliance with subsequent low probability requests. The three participants (ages 7, 11, and 20) met the diagnostic criteria for autism and/or severe to profound mental retardation. Results showed that both high (>80% compliance) and medium (50–70% compliance) request sequences produced increases in compliance to subsequent requests that had produced low compliance rates (<40%) during baseline. No systematic differences were observed between high and medium probability sequences. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of manipulating CS hedonic value on the magnitude of a conditioned taste aversion

This study was designed to assess how the hedonic value of a conditioned stimulus (CS) might mediate the strength of a conditioned taste aversion (CTA). Results indicated that as the hedonic value of the CS increased, the severity of the aversion associated with the CS attenuated.     

Within-session changes in responding during several simple schedules

Pigeons' key pecking was reinforced by food delivered by several fixed-interval, variable-ratio, and differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedules. Rate of responding, number of responses per reinforcer, length of postreinforcement pause, running response rate, and the time required to collect an available reinforcer changed systematically within sessions when the schedules provided high rates of reinforcement, but usually not when they provided low rates. These results suggest that the factors that produce within-session changes in responding are generally similar for different schedules of reinforcement. However, a separate factor may also contribute during variable-ratio schedules. The results question explanations for within-session changes that are related solely to the passage of time, to responding, and to one interpretation of attention. They support the idea that one or more factors related to reinforcement play a role.     

Within-session changes in operant responding when gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) serve as subjects

Recent research has demonstrated that rate of responding frequently changes in a robust and systematic manner during experimental sessions in which organisms engage in operant responding. One potential cause for these changes in response rate is that levels of exploration change during experimental sessions and that high levels of exploration interfere with operant responding. Several studies have shown that gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) explore at a constant rate during experimental sessions. The present study examined the response pattern produced by gerbils responding for food delivered by several simple schedules of reinforcement. Results indicated that robust changes (between 200 and 400%) in response rate occurred during the experimental sessions. These data argue against a role for exploration in the production of within-session changes in operant response rate.     

Within-session changes in operant responding when gerbils ( Meriones unguiculatus ) serve as subjects

Recent research has demonstrated that rate of responding frequently changes in a robust and systematic manner during experimental sessions in which organisms engage in operant responding. One potential cause for these changes in response rate is that levels of exploration change during experimental sessions and that high levels of exploration interfere with operant responding. Several studies have shown that gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) explore at a constant rate during experimental sessions. The present study examined the response pattern produced by gerbils responding for food delivered by several simple schedules of reinforcement. Results indicated that robust changes (between 200 and 400%) in response rate occurred during the experimental sessions. These data argue against a role for exploration in the production of within-session changes in operant response rate. This material is based on work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant number IBN-9207346 awarded to FKM. The authors would like to thank Kelly S. Johnson, Samantha Swindell, and Dawn Miller for their help and useful suggestions concerning this project.     

Heart-Rate responses (HRR) to lateralized visual stimuli

Direction of changes in heart-rate responses (HRR) were investigated in three separate experiments as a measure of differential cognitive and emotional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres. Visual stimuli were presented via the visual half-field technique in all three experiments. Slides with different contents were flashed for 200 msec on each trial either to the left or right of a center LED fixation point. The LED went on 5 seconds prior to slide onset. HR changes were scored as second-by-second deviations during 10 seconds after LED onset from pre-LED base line. In the first experiment it was hypothesized that emotionally relevant stimuli initially projected to only the right hemisphere would result in more anticipatory acceleration than when the same stimulus was initially projected to the left hemisphere. A picture of a snake and of a geometric figure were repeatedly briefly flashed to the right of the LED for half of the subjects, and to the left for the other half. There were 25 trials with an intertriai interval of 25–40 seconds. Results showed significant effects of deceleration as a function of the slide stimulus in all groups on seconds 5, 6, or 7 after onset of the center LED. Furthermore, an anticipatory acceleration was observed during the first trial-block on seconds 3 and 4 in the right hemisphere groups only with no differences between the neutral and emotional stimuli. In Experiments 2 and 3, a letter-string of six letters and a complex symmetric pattern were used as stimuli. These stimuli were chosen because previous research has clearly implicated the hemispheres to be differentially specialized in their ability to process verbal and visuo-spatial stimuli. The set-up was identical to Experiment 1, with the exception that differences in response to the two types of stimuli were evaluated on a within-subjects basis. The results from Experiments 2 and 3 showed stimulus-related deceleration, peaking on seconds 5–7 in all groups and an anticipatory acceleration peaking on seconds 3 and 4 in the right hemisphere groups, with decelerations during the corresponding seconds in the left hemisphere groups. The results are discussed in relation to recent findings by Walker and Sandman (1982) about the possibility of hemispheric specialization in psychologic influences on heart rate changes in response to environmental demands.     

Rorschach evaluation of adolescent bulimics

It has become apparent that the excessive dieting engaged in by many girls when they reach puberty frequently serves as an impetus for the later development of eating disorders. While the existence of bulimia nervosa has been well documented in late-adolescent girls, only minimal research has been devoted to delineating the personality characteristics that distinguish bulimics from normal adolescents. The present study utilized the Rorschach to contrast 12 DSM-III-R diagnosed adolescent bulimics with 12 female adolescent controls. Exner's (1986) Comprehensive System was used for scoring the protocols. Statistically significant group differences were detected on both the overall Depression and the Schizophrenia Indices, as well as on several subcomponents of each. Additionally, bulimics averaged a greater number of aggression responses. The data suggested that the adolescent bulimics were more depressed, self-punitive, and negativistic than their peers, and that they had more disordered thoughts, inaccurate perceptions, and impaired judgment. The cognitive disturbances were not limited to the areas of food and weight. The results are alarming for this young population, particularly since the severity of symptoms certainly will increase over time if left untreated. Recommendations are made for early symptom identification and intervention.