The Effects of Flavor-Aversion Learning on Instrumental Performance

Two experiments investigated the role of lithium-mediated environmental conditioning on instrumental performance. Experiment 1 demonstrated that a novel taste consumed in one arm of a T maze prior to lithium-induced toxicosis reduced performance in this environment whereas similar aversions conditioned in the home cage failed to alter maze performance. Experiment 2 showed that maze performance in a straight alleyway was decremented during extinction only in a group that actually traversed the alley prior to drinking saccharin and receiving lithium injections. This demonstrated that the instrumental decrement observed in Experiment 1 was due not only to the presence of an unpalatable flavor in the goalbox during the test.

     

Galef’s Transfer-of-Information Effect Occurs in a Free-Foraging Situation

Galef and his colleagues have repeatedly shown that one rat may transfer information regarding the type of food it has consumed to other conspecifics. Such experiments typically have been conducted in wire-mesh cages or a wooden maze. The present experiments sought to extend this paradigm to the open-field foraging situation having six food patches to choose from. Following interaction with a demonstrator that had consumed either a cocoa or a cinnamon diet, single observers (Experiment 1) were tested in the foraging situation. Food-consumption scores indicated that observers consumed significantly more of their specific demonstrator’s diet than a second diet that was available also. Experiment 2 involved the simultaneous testing of two observers in the foraging laboratory. In Experiment 3 two observers were once again tested, but each had been provided a different food-type message prior to foraging. Positive results, mirroring those of Experiment 1, were obtained in both Experiments 2 and 3. The results of these three experiments underscore the robustness of this phenomenon and its generalizability to other testing conditions.

     

Book Notes

The Psychological Record -     

Cognitive maps as orienting schemata

A "point-to-unseen-targets" task was used to test two theories about the nature of cognitive mapping. The hypothesis that a cognitive map is like a "picture in the head" predicts that (a) the cognitive map should have a preferred orientation and (b) all coded locations should be equally available. These predictions were confirmed in Experiments 1 and 3 when targets were cities in the northeastern United States and learning was from a map. The theory that a cognitive map is an orienting schema predicts that the cognitive map should have no preferred orientation and that targets in front of the body should be localized faster than targets behind the body. These predictions were confirmed in Experiments 1 and 2 when targets were local landmarks that had been learned via direct experience. In Experiment 3, when cities in the Northeast were targets and geographical knowledge had been acquired, in part, by traveling in the Northeast, the observed latency profiles were not as predicted by either theory of cognitive mapping. The results suggest that orienting schemata direct orientation with respect to local environments, but that orientation with respect to large geographical regions is supported by a different type of cognitive structure.     

Stimulus categorization by brain-damaged patients

Patients with localized insult to the right hemisphere, or to either the anterior or the posterior portion of the left hemisphere, as well as neurologically intact controls, evaluated stimuli on a seven-point rating scale for their degree of category membership. The stimuli were taken from one of two continua, one composed of fruit and vegetable items, and the other of items differing in hue and shape. Different subsets of stimuli provided different contexts for the judgments of category membership. The two left-hemisphere groups showed anomalies in categorizing the fruit and vegetable items but not the perceptual items, while the reverse was true for the right-hemisphere patients. Moreover, both left-hemisphere groups demonstrated context effects in their judgments of the representativeness of the fruit and vegetable items, but differed in the way in which they responded to changing contexts. Left posterior patients demonstrated weak category boundaries and even reclassified items. In contrast, patients with left anterior damage showed highly categorical responses and less differentiation of items within a category. All groups showed striking context effects in judgments of perceptual items in terms of changes in representativeness ratings and the location of a category boundary. Alternative interpretations of the results are offered.     

Gay women,men, and families in rural settings: Toward the development of helping communities

The urban biases of empirical research on gay men, women, and families have resulted in minimal knowledge about gay people in rural settings. The diversity of lives of rural gay women and men and the variety of patterns of meeting the challenges of rural living are described. Processes of help-seeking and help-giving are discussed and the need for a helping community of family, friends, and caring others is affirmed. Collaboration between rural gay people and rural community psychologists is suggested to promote the development of helping communities for gay people and thereby initiate a process of change in rural settings.     

Social learning and collective choice

To be pertinent to democratic practice, collective choice functions need not apply to all possible constellations of individual preference, but only to those that are humanly possible in an appropriate sense. The present paper develops a theory of humanly possible preference within the context of the mathematical theory of learning. The theory of preference is then exploited in an attempt to resolve Arrow's voting paradox through restriction of the domain of majoritarian choice functions.