Emergence of Third-Order Conditional Discriminations from Learning Discriminations with Unrelated Stimuli

The Psychological Record - This study explored learning and generalization of a third-order conditional discrimination. Two 8-year-old children learned two auditory–visual conditional...     

From the Suffering of Old Age to the Fullness of Senectitude,a Philosophical Approach

Philosophia - Talking about ‘suffering’ in relation to ‘old age’ implies reflecting on its semantic fields, its various references and the relationship between the two in a...     

Context-dependent and seasonal fluctuation in bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) vocalizations

Animal Cognition - A fundamental question in animal behaviour is the role of vocal communication in the regulation of social interactions in species that organise themselves into social groups....     

Evidence of successive negative contrast in terrestrial toads (Rhinella arenarum): central or peripheral effect?

Animal Cognition - Prior research with terrestrial toads (Rhinella arenarum) in a water-reinforced instrumental situation indicated a direct relationship between acquisition rate and reward...     

Interactions between CO2 oral pungency and taste

Two experiments are reported in which the perceptual interactions between oral pungency, evoked by CO2, and the taste of each of four tastants--sucrose (sweet), quinine sulfate (bitter), sodium chloride (salty), and tartaric acid (sour)--were explored. In experiment 1 the effect of three concentrations of each tastant on the stimulus-response function for perceived oral pungency, in terms of both rate of change (slope) and relative position along the perceived pungency axis, was determined. In experiment 2 the effect of three concentrations of CO2 on the stimulus-response function for the perceived taste intensity of each tastant was examined. Results show that the characteristics of the mutual effects of tastant and pungent stimulus depend on the particular tastant employed. Sucrose sweetness and CO2 oral pungency have no mutual effect; sodium chloride saltiness or tartaric acid sourness and CO2 oral pungency show mutual enhancement; and quinine sulfate bitterness abates CO2 oral pungency, whereas CO2 has a double and opposite effect on quinine sulfate bitterness--at low concentrations of bitter tastant CO2 enhances bitterness, and at high concentrations of bitter tastant CO2 abates bitterness. It is suggested that the perceptual attributes of saltiness and sourness are closer, from a qualitative point of view, to oral pungency than are the attributes of bitterness and sweetness.     

Dissociation, psychopathology, and abusive experiences in a nonclinical Latino university student group

A variety of clinical and experimental data suggest that many individuals who report abusive and traumatic experiences also report a wide array of dissociative and other psychopathological symptoms. In this study, 198 Puerto Rican undergraduate students participated in a study to examine the possible relationship between different types of traumatic experiences and the self-report of dissociative experiences, depressive symptoms, and general psychopathology. Another aspect of this study was the examination of the psychometric properties of the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) in a Latino sample. Results supported the hypothesis that those individuals who reported frequent and severe traumatic experiences were also the most likely to experience psychological malaise and scored higher on the DES. Of interest was the finding that the psychometric characteristics of the DES are consistent with those reported in the United States and other countries. The authors conclude that individuals with a marked history of trauma and abuse are more likely to use dissociative defenses as a coping response.     

Reconsidering the ‘heresy’ of using treatment manuals

Some argue that the medical model and the experimental design that underlies the use of treatment manuals to prove the efficacy of a psychotherapeutic treatment clashes with the theoretical basis of family therapy. From the point of view of the empirically supported treatments (ESTs) movement, treatment manuals are the operationalization of the independent variable in a clinical trial; the therapist is only part of the procedure and the therapeutic relationship is a confounding variable. Applying that logic to the practice of family therapy might be considered a heresy. This article argues that paradoxically, this heresy has a lot to offer the practice of family therapy. Research is the best way to answer questions like ‘how does family therapy work?’ ‘What makes ‘good therapy’ good?’ ‘Do therapists do what they say they do'? This article recommends an alternative framework for integrating ESTs into practice by proposing empirically informed guides to practice which, being less formulaic, encourage process‐outcome research, are coherent with the systemic model and do not constrain the therapist's creativity. Such guidelines allow therapists to use manuals flexibly so that they deepen the understanding of the process of therapy. We encourage you to listen to the JFT Editor, Mark Rivett, as he interviews the author on Manuals in the Practice and Research of Family Therapy. Available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467‐6427/homepage/jft_podcast_series.htm .     

Elaboración de un modelo empírico sobre la realización de actividades delictivas en la mujer mediante la técnica del Rep-Test

RESUMEN

El objetivo de nuestra investigación era encontrar un modelo explicativo de la conducta delictiva de la mujer de carácter psicosocial (habida cuenta de la falta de la operatividad de las teorías encontradas), y que no fuera específico como tal de la delincuencia femenina. Para ello se emplea la técnica de la rejilla, pero sin las connotaciones de Kelly sobre la misma, puesto que el motivo de este trabajo no era estudiar la complejidad cognitiva. Se hipotetizó que encontrar este modelo era posible, pero no se formularon hipótesis dado el carácter correlational del estudio. A la vista de los resultados obtenidos, se constata que era necesaria la creación de dos modelos diferentes, según que las acciones cometidas por los sujetos sean de satisfacción individual, o de que sean de satisfacción grupal. Dichos modelos ponen de manifiesto que no es posible establecer distinciones entre sujetos delincuentes y no delincuentes.     

The circle as a model for the interpersonal domain of Swedish trait terms

Swedish interpersonal traits were assumed to have the structure demonstrated by Wiggins for the Interpersonal Adjective Scales in English. Positive and negative interpersonal trait terms were rated for accuracy when describing people. The ratings were used to construct 16 eight-item scales which were ordered relative to two principal components and labelled A to P. The evaluative meaning of each scale item was rated by a second group. The ranks of the mean ratings for the scales followed expectations. The 16 scales were combined into eight scales PA, BC, DE, etc., to NO. From a new group of subjects (N = 159) self-ratings were obtained. The correlations between the eight scales were used to obtain maximum-likelihood estimates of population coefficients of a hypothetical circulant matrix. A circumplex model fitted the data well and the two equally large orthogonal components ordered the PA to NO variables within a circular semantic space. The model was interpreted as a structural representation of basic-level categories for interpersonal attributes of personality in the natural language.