Flavour liking and preference conditioned by caffeine in humans

When caffeine consumers repeatedly experience a novel flavoured drink containing caffeine, the rated pleasantness of the drink flavour increases progressively. These results could be interpreted in terms of the flavour acting as a Pavlovian conditioned stimulus (CS) predicting the consequences of caffeine ingestion. However, all studies of this phenomenon to date have used between-subjects designs, and one criticism of this is that changes in pleasantness might have arisen from nonspecific effects. A more rigorous test is to examine changes in pleasantness for two drinks, a CS+ flavour paired with caffeine and CS- paired with placebo. Accordingly, 20 moderate caffeine consumers consumed both CS+ and CS- drinks in counterbalanced order over eight conditioning trials at breakfast, with hedonic and sensory characteristics evaluated on each trial. As predicted, the rated pleasantness of the CS+ drink increased whereas pleasantness of the CS- drink did not change. Despite this, participants did not have an overall preference for the CS+ flavour posttraining. However, both those who chose the CS+ and those who chose the CS- at the end showed the same direction and rate of change in pleasantness for the two drinks during training, but spurious differences in baseline preference obscured this effect in terms of an overall change in preference. Overall these data suggest that changes in pleasantness of drinks paired with caffeine delivery are best explained in terms of Pavlovian associations between drink flavour and the postingestive effects of caffeine.     

Intention matters to make you (im)moral: Positive-negative asymmetry in moral character evaluations

ABSTRACT

Is intention, even if unfulfilled, enough to make a person appear to be good or bad? In this study, we investigated the influence of unfulfilled intentions of an agent on subsequent moral character evaluations. We found a positive-negative asymmetry in the effect of intentions. Factual information concerning failure to fulfill a positive intention mitigated the morality judgment of the actor, yet this mitigation was not as evident for the negative vignettes. Participants rated an actor who failed to fulfill their negative intention as highly immoral, as long as there was an external explanation to its unfulfillment. Furthermore, both emotional and cognitive (i.e., informativeness) processes mediated the effect of negative intention on moral character. For the positive intention, there was a significant mediation by emotions, yet not by informativeness. Results evidence the relevance of mental states in moral character evaluations and offer affective and cognitive explanations to the asymmetry.     

Therapeutic Groundhog Day – exploring the impact of the theory/approach on the self of the therapist

The ‘use of self’ of the therapist is a concept that can be considered from numerous directions. An underrepresented aspect of ‘the self of the therapist’ is the influence of the theoretical orientation and associated skills. As part of a recursive process, the theory and techniques shape the therapist's emergent self in the therapeutic relationship. This teaching event was designed to provide an opportunity for trainee therapists to experience contrasting ‘selves’. This is developed through role play where ‘family’ and ‘therapists’ attempt to reproduce the same episode but each is responded to with a different model and skill.     

Group cohesiveness in children free-play activity: A social network analysis

Despite the ethnic diversity and presence of Amerindian communities in all Brazilian states, the indigenous population suffers from a long process of invisibility and stereotyping. Aiming to increase interethnic associations, together with Mbya-Guarani leaders we promoted interventions in which indigenous and non-indigenous children shared free playtime. We hypothesised that free play activity would stimulate group cohesiveness, mitigating ethnic group avoidance in children's playgroups. Twenty-one Mbya-Guarani and 61 non-indigenous children participated in two “Encounters for Play.” We recorded children's social interactions during the free playtimes. We selected the first and last 10 minutes of each encounter and performed scans every 30s registering spatial proximity (children who were up to 1 m of each other) and play. Then, we applied Social Network Analysis to explore the children's association pattern at the beginning and end of playtime in each encounter. Our results show free play activity was effective in stimulating group cohesiveness. Children' proximity association pattern and playgroup configuration changed between clips, and there was a significant correlation between both categories' associations. We conclude that the encounters have potential applicability as an intervention to mitigate ethnic group avoidance in children.     

The role of context in intertrial interval effects in autoshaping

Two experiments evaluated the role of differential conditioning of the context in mediating the effect of intertrial interval (ITI) in autoshaping. In Experiment 1 pigeons were given acquisition with two keylights, each presented in a particular context. A given keylight/context combination had associated with it either a short (10-sec) or a long (2-min) ITI. Acquisition was more rapid with the long ITI. Tests with those keylights in a common third context indicated that the longer ITI had resulted in greater conditioning. On the other hand, pigeons trained on keylights with mixed ITIs in a third context evoked more responding when they were tested in the short ITI context compared with the long ITI context. That suggests that a context with a history of a short ITI enhances performance. In Experiment 2, two keylights were initially conditioned with mixed ITIs and then extinguished in different contexts under different ITI lengths. Extinction was more rapid for the keylight presented with a short ITI. That difference persisted when the keylights were tested with mixed ITIs in a common third context, suggesting a difference in associative strength of the keylights. The results are interpreted in terms of differential context conditioning resulting in differences in learning about the keylight.