Rational skepticism: A scientific review of Witts' (2018) criticisms of the PEAK relational training system

Witts' (2018) review of the peer-reviewed research on the PEAK-Direct Training Module (Dixon, 2014) yielded a divergent conclusion from that of previous reviews (Reed & Luiselli, 2016; Dixon, Belisle, McKeel et al., 2017). Witts advocates for skepticism of this research due to methodological shortcomings, hyperclaiming of results, and inappropriate statistical testing procedures. We identified 30 criticisms in Witts' review, respond to each, and argue that all but 2 (7%) contain untrue assumptions (7, 23%), are not novel (5, 17%), are logically invalid (7, 23%), or are more appropriately framed as criticisms of applied behavior analytic research more generally (9, 30%). The two criticisms that support Witts' purpose in writing his review are minor and not fatal. We discuss all of Witts' criticisms both specifically and broadly to illustrate that most of his suggestions about applied behavior analytic research may actually serve to hinder progress in a discipline moving toward larger-scale research.     

David O'Connor,God and Inscrutable Evil: In Defense of Theism and Atheism. Lanham,MD 1997

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Techniques for the production of point-light and fully illuminated video displays from identical recordings

Illumination of only a few key points on a moving human body or face is enough to convey a compelling perception of human motion. A full understanding of the perception ofbiological motion from point-light displays requires accurate comparison with the perception of motion in normal, fully illuminated versions of the same images. Traditionally, these two types of stimuli (point-light and fully illuminated) have been filmed separately, allowing the introduction of uncontrolled variation across recordings. This is undesirable for accurate comparison of perceptual performance across the two types of display. This article describes simple techniques, using proprietary software, that allow production of point-light and fully illuminated video displays from identical recordings. These techniques are potentially useful for many studies of motion perception, by permitting precise comparison of perceptual performances across point-light displays and their fully illuminated counterparts with accuracy and comparative ease.     

Contextual control of long-term habituation in rats

This study examined contextual control of long-term habituation and whether such effects are dependent on the habituating response system. Habituation of the acoustic startle response transferred from the home cage to the testing context, whereas habituation of lick suppression was context specific (Experiments 1 and 2). Contextual control of habituation was demonstrated between 2 experimental contexts for lick suppression to a tone (Experiment 3) and bar-press suppression to a light (Experiment 4). Experiment 5 extinguished habituation of lick suppression and the orienting response to a tone with 27 exposures to the habituation context. Context specificity of both responses also was found. Previous failures to demonstrate contextual control of habituation may be due to the choice of response system and to less sensitive procedures to detect response recovery. The habituation mechanism for startle is independent from the process or processes that underlie habituation in other response systems, but the nature of these mechanisms is not yet known.     

Testing the BOSS hypothesis: Evidence for position-insensitive orthographic priming in the lexical decision task

One recent conceptualization of the process of lexical access, the basic orthographic syllabic structure (BOSS) hypothesis, has been developed from a number of separate empirical and theoretical sources, and implicates distinct characteristics of the word recognition process. Using a lexical decision]priming paradigm, the present study tested all such characteristics simultaneously, together with a control condition in which simple sequences of letters were repeated within pairs of words, occupying different serial positions in each member of a pair. No evidence was obtained to suggest that BOSSs enjoy a special psychological status. Yet evidence from the same experiment suggests that words are processed via multiletter units in the lexical decision task, and that these units are not position specific, because they produce facilitation even when presented in different serial positions across primes and targets. Two interpretations of this position-insensitive orthographic priming are presented.     

Suppression of optokinesis by a stabilized target: Effects of instruction and stimulus frequency

Subjects viewed a foveally stabilized target presented against a background field of dots moving sinusoidally. Several different modes of viewing the target were used (subjects were instructed to gaze, look, or hold), and the frequency of sinusoidal field motion was varied from 1/32 to 2 Hz. In line with previous findings, the presence of a stabilized target resulted in substantial suppression of optokinesis. The characteristics of this suppression (gain and phase of slow residual eye movements) were dependent on both the mode of viewing the target and the frequency of field motion. When subjects used an imaginary target, little suppression occurred. These findings provide an overall profile of dynamic characteristics of mechanisms involved in the suppression of optokinesis. They support the view that this suppression is significantly determined by the presence of a target against a moving background (even without retinal slip), and by the mode of attending to the target.