CONTINUOUS RECORDING AND INTEROBSERVER AGREEMENT ALGORITHMS REPORTED IN THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS (1995–2005)

We reviewed all research articles in 10 recent volumes of the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA): Vol. 28(3), 1995, through Vol. 38(2), 2005. Continuous recording was used in the majority (55%) of the 168 articles reporting data on free‐operant human behaviors. Three methods for reporting interobserver agreement (exact agreement, block‐by‐block agreement, and time‐window analysis) were employed in more than 10 of the articles that reported continuous recording. Having identified these currently popular agreement computation algorithms, we explain them to assist researchers, software writers, and other consumers of JABA articles.     

The rhythm of rapport: Interpersonal synchrony and social perception

The temporal coordination of behavior during dyadic interactions is a foundation for effective social exchange with synchronized actions enhancing perceptions of rapport and interpersonal connectedness. What has yet to be established, however, are the precise characteristics of behavioral coordination that give rise to such effects. Informed by a dynamical systems approach, the current investigation considered whether judgments of rapport are influenced by the mode of interpersonal synchrony. In two experiments, participants rated the degree of rapport manifest by a simulated pair of walkers exhibiting various configurations of synchronized strides. The results revealed that the highest levels of rapport were associated with the most stable forms of interpersonal coordination (i.e., in-phase and anti-phase synchrony), regardless of whether coordination between the walkers was conveyed via the presentation of visual (Expt. 1a) or auditory (Expt. 1b) cues. These findings underscore the importance of interpersonal coordination to core aspects of social perception.     

The ungrounded argument is unfounded: a response to Mumford

Arguing against the claim that every dispositional property is grounded in some property other than itself, Stephen Mumford presents what he calls the ‘Ungrounded Argument’. If successful, the Ungrounded Argument would represent a major victory for anti-Humean metaphysics over its Humean rivals, as it would allow for the existence of primitive modality. Unfortunately, Humeans need not yet be worried, as the Ungrounded Argument is itself lacking in grounding. I indicate where Mumford’s argument falls down, claiming that even the dispositions of the simplest particles can have categorical bases.     

Cutthroat cooperation: The effects of team role decisions on adaptation to alternative reward structures

Structural Adaptation Theory proposes that it is more difficult for teams to change from competitive to cooperative reward conditions than it is for them to change in the opposite direction, and this has been labeled the cutthroat cooperation effect [Johnson, M. D., Hollenbeck, J. R., Ilgen, D. R., Humphrey, S. E., Meyer, C. J., & Jundt, D. K. (2006). Cutthroat cooperation: Asymmetrical adaptation of team reward structures. Academy of Management Journal, 49, 103–120]. The current study investigated whether team role discussion can neutralize this effect and promote successful adaptation from competitive to cooperative reward structures. Consistent with our predictions, in a study that involved 75 four-person teams performing a complex task under cooperative reward conditions, we found that teams with a history of competitive rewards performed worse than teams with a history of cooperative rewards in a control condition. However, this effect was neutralized when teams allocated their roles in a team role discussion. This neutralization effect was driven by behavioral coordination and unmet expectations regarding conflict.     

Effects of retrieval practice on conceptual explicit and implicit consumer memory

Two experiments are reported that investigate the effects of retrieval practice on explicit and implicit memory for brand names. In Experiment 1, participants were exposed to a set of brand names pertaining to a range of product categories. Following this, participants practiced retrieving a subset of the brands before taking an explicit or implicit test for the brands. The explicit test, required recall of the brands in response to product category cues. The implicit test required the generation of the first brand names that came to mind. In both tests, prior retrieval produced retrieval‐induced forgetting of the non‐practiced brands. Experiment 2 replicated this effect under conditions designed to reduce explicit contamination. In addition, Experiment 2 found that increasing the amount of retrieval practice also increased the magnitude of retrieval‐induced forgetting on the explicit but not the implicit test. Implications for advertising and marketing are considered. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Aging and Information Technology Use: Potential and Barriers

ABSTRACT— Why are older adults reluctant to adopt new technology, such as the Internet, given its potential to improve the quality of their lives? We review evidence indicating that attitudes and abilities are among the most powerful predictors of technology use. We conclude that normative age-related changes in ability must be taken into account when designing products and training programs for aging adults, and we discuss new tools to support designers. The most promising emerging technologies likely lie in training cognitive abilities and augmenting or substituting for impaired abilities. We discuss reasons to expect that the lag in technology adoption between younger and older adults may lessen but will not disappear in future generations.     

Over and over again: Rumination, reflection, and promotion goal failure and their interactive effects on depressive symptoms

Research indicates that examining failure experiences using an immersed processing style versus a non-immersed, self-distanced open style influences cognitions about the self, motivation, and subsequent depressive symptoms. However, the effect of processing goal failure experiences using these different processing styles have not been adequately incorporated into existing self-regulation theories of depression. In a cross-sectional study, we examined the interactive effects of rumination (versus reflection) and failure to attain promotion goals on depressive symptoms. As predicted, greater levels of promotion goal failure were associated with having more depressive symptoms for individuals who engage in moderate to high levels of rumination. In contrast, among individuals who engage in high levels of self-reflection, promotion goal failure was not associated with an appreciable increase in depressive symptoms. We discuss the implications of these results for self-regulatory theories of depression and treatments for depression.     

Domain knowledge moderates the influence of visual saliency in scene recognition

Is the sequence of eye‐movements made when viewing a picture related to encoding the image into memory? The suggestion of a relationship is supported by studies that have found that scanpaths are more similar over multiple viewings of a stimulus than would be expected by chance. It has also been found that low‐level visual saliency contributes to the initial formation of these scanpaths, and has lead to formation of theories such as the saliency map hypothesis. However, bottom‐up processes such as these can be overridden by top‐down cognitive knowledge in the form of domain proficiency. Domain specialists were asked to look at a set of photographs of real‐world scenes in preparation for a memory test. Then they were given a second set of stimuli and were asked to identify the picture as old (from the previous set) or new (never seen before). Eye tracking analyses (including scanpath comparison using a string editing algorithm) revealed that saliency did influence where participants looked and in what sequence. However, this was reliably reduced when participants viewed pictures from their specialist domain. This effect is shown to be robust in a repeated viewing of the stimuli.     

Mindfulness and Acceptance-Based Group Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder: An Open Trial

Mindfulness and Acceptance-Based Group Therapy (MAGT) for Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) is based largely on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes et al., 1999), with enhanced mindfulness mostly from Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT; Segal et al., 2002). The purpose of this study was to assess the feasibility and initial effectiveness of MAGT for the treatment of SAD. Forty-two SAD patients were invited to take part in an open trial of MAGT. Participants completed measures of social anxiety, mindfulness and acceptance, depression, and rumination at pretreatment, midtreatment (6 weeks), posttreatment (12 weeks), and at a 3-month follow-up session. Twenty-nine participants completed the treatment and these participants reported that the treatment was helpful. Effect sizes for treatment completers ranged from 1.00 to 1.17 for the social anxiety symptom measures at follow-up. Intent-to-treat analyses revealed significant reductions in social anxiety, depression, and rumination and significant increases in mindfulness and acceptance, with effect sizes ranging from .65 to .76 on the social anxiety measures. This study demonstrates that MAGT is feasible and acceptable to SAD patients and provides further support for the use of mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions for the treatment of SAD.