Effects of student pairing and public review on physical activity during school recess

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of student pairing and feedback during recess on children's step counts. During baseline, participants wore a sealed pedometer during recess. During intervention, we paired participants with higher step counts with participants with lower step counts. We encouraged teams to compete for the highest step count each day and provided feedback on their performance during each recess session. Results showed a large mean increase in step count from baseline to intervention. These results suggest that children's steps during recess can be increased with a simple and cost‐effective intervention.     

Escape from rich‐to‐lean transitions: Stimulus change and timeout

Extended pausing during discriminable transitions from rich‐to‐lean conditions can be viewed as escape (i.e., rich‐to‐lean transitions function aversively). In the current experiments, pigeons’ key pecking was maintained by a multiple fixed‐ratio fixed‐ratio schedule of rich or lean reinforcers. Pigeons then were provided with another, explicit, mechanism of escape by changing the stimulus from the transition‐specific stimulus used in the multiple schedule to a mixed‐schedule stimulus (Experiment 1) or by producing a period of timeout in which the stimulus was turned off and the schedule was suspended (Experiment 2). Overall, escape was under joint control of past and upcoming reinforcer magnitudes, such that responses on the escape key were most likely during rich‐to‐lean transitions, and second‐most likely during lean‐to‐lean transitions. Even though pigeons pecked the escape key, they paused before doing so, and the latency to begin the fixed ratio (i.e., the pause) remained extended during rich‐to‐lean transitions. These findings suggest that although the stimulus associated with rich‐to‐lean transitions functioned aversively, pausing is more than simply escape responding from the stimulus.     

Adolescent Work and Alcohol Use: Moderation by Neighborhood Context and the Role of Peers

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), this study looks at the adolescent work and binge drinking relationship among a sample of 4,826 adolescents. The article assesses variability in the work–binge drinking relationship by social class and neighborhood disadvantage and seeks to explain variability by considering social control and social learning processes. Results reveal that the detrimental relationships between work intensity and binge drinking are stronger for those from more advantaged neighborhoods. Results also show that perceived peer substance use explains neighborhood disadvantage differences in the relationship between intense work and binge drinking.     

Oculomotor inhibition of return: How soon is it “recoded” into spatiotopic coordinates?

When, in relation to the execution of an eye movement, does the recoding of visual information from retinotopic to spatiotopic coordinates happen? Two laboratories seeking to answer this question using oculomotor inhibition of return (IOR) have generated different answers: Math?t and Theeuwes (Psychological Science 21:1793?C1798, 2010) found evidence for the initial coding of IOR to be retinotopic, while Pertzov, Zohary, and Avidan (Journal of Neuroscience 30:8882?C8887, 2010) found evidence for spatiotopic IOR at even shorter postsaccadic intervals than were tested by Math?t and Theeuwes (Psychological Science 21:1793?C1798, 2010). To resolve this discrepancy, we conducted two experiments that combined the methods of the previous two studies while testing as early as possible. We found early spatiotopic IOR in both experiments, suggesting that visual events, including prior fixations, are typically coded into an abstract, allocentric representation of space either before or during eye movements. This type of coding enables IOR to encourage orienting toward novelty and, consequently, to perform the role of a foraging facilitator.     

Reflection on My 32 Years with Albert Ellis

In this article, I reflect on what I believe are Albert Ellis’ important contributions to the field of psychotherapy. Having worked closely with Albert Ellis for 32 years, I offer my opinions on some misconceptions of Albert Ellis.     

An analysis of rat prefrontal cortex in mediating executive function

While it is acknowledged that species specific differences are an implicit condition of comparative studies, rodent models of prefrontal function serve a significant role in the acquisition of converging evidence on prefrontal function across levels of analysis and research techniques. The purpose of the present review is to examine whether the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in rats supports a variety of processes associated with executive function including working memory, temporal processing, planning (prospective coding), flexibility, rule learning, and decision making. Therefore, in this review we examined changes associated with working memory processes for spatial locations, visual objects, odors, tastes, and response domains or attributes, temporal processes including temporal order, sequence learning, prospective coding, behavioral flexibility associated with reversal learning and set shifting, paired associate learning, and decision making based on effort, time discounting, and uncertainty following damage to the PFC in rats. In addition, potential parallel processes of executive function in monkeys and humans based on several theories of subregional differentiation within the PFC will be presented. Specifically, theories based on domain or attribute specificity (Goldman-Rakic, 1996), level of processing (Petrides, 1996), rule learning based on complexity (Wise, Murray, & Gerfen, 1996), executive functions based on connectivity with other brain regions associated with top-down control (Miller & Cohen, 2001), are presented and applied to PFC function in rats with the aim of understanding subregional specificity in the rat PFC. The data suggest that there is subregional specificity within the PFC of rats, monkey and humans and there are parallel cognitive functions of the different subregions of the PFC in rats, monkeys and humans.     

The Uses and Abuses of Moral Theory in Bioethics

Moral theory is an important guide to bioethical decision-making, but it can confuse and mislead those who offer ethical advice to clinicians and researchers, delaying decisions that must be made in a timely fashion. In this paper I examine the ways moral theory can lead bioethicists astray. Absent a sensitivity to the empirical realities of ethical problems, moral theory 1) contributes to the disappearance of the persons caught in an ethical quandary, 2) focuses on the puzzle-solving rather than examining the conditions that generate moral problems, and 3) universalizes ethical dilemmas, overlooking local processes for resolving moral questions. Taken together, empirically informed moral theory and theoretically informed empirical research can help bioethicists transcend the is/ought problem in ethical work.     

Visualizing the temporal dynamics of spatial information processing responsible for the Simon effect and its amplification by inhibition of return

Research has shown that the Simon effect is larger for targets suffering from inhibition of return (IOR). We used speed–accuracy trade-off (SAT) methodology to explore the temporal dynamics underlying this interaction. In Experiment 1, a new method for sorting the data was used to reveal a monotonic decay in the impact of task-irrelevant location information that is responsible for the Simon effect. In Experiment 2, we show that IOR delays both task-relevant identity and task-irrelevant location codes; a relatively longer delay for location than identity codes accounts for the effect of IOR on the Simon effect. When location information was made task-relevant in Experiment 3, IOR delayed the accumulation of this information by about the same amount as when location was irrelevant. The results suggest that IOR, therefore, has a greater effect on location than identity information.     

Linguistic correlates of asymmetric motor symptom severity in Parkinson’s Disease

Asymmetric motor severity is common in Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and provides a method for examining the neurobiologic mechanisms underlying cognitive and linguistic deficits associated with the disorder. In the present research, PD participants (N = 31) were assessed in terms of the asymmetry of their motor symptoms. Interviews with the participants were analyzed with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program. Three measures of linguistic complexity – the proportion of verbs, proportion of function words, and sentence length – were found to be affected by symptom asymmetry. Greater left-side motor severity (and hence greater right-hemisphere dysfunction) was associated with the production of significantly fewer verbs, function words, and shorter sentences. Hence, the production of linguistic complexity in a natural language context was associated with relatively greater right hemisphere involvement. The potential neurobiological mechanisms underlying this effect are discussed.     

Effects of loss aversion on post-decision wagering: Implications for measures of awareness

Wagering contingent on a previous decision, or post-decision wagering, has recently been proposed to measure conscious awareness. Whilst intuitively appealing, it remains unclear whether economic context interacts with subjective confidence and how such interactions might impact on the measurement of awareness. Here we propose a signal detection model which predicts that advantageous wagers placed on the identity of preceding stimuli are affected by loss aversion, despite stimulus visibility remaining constant. This pattern of predicted results was evident in a psychophysical task where we independently manipulated perceptual and economic factors. Changes in wagering behaviour induced by changes in wager size were largely driven by changes in criterion, consistent with the model. However, for near-threshold stimuli, a reduction in wagering efficiency was also evident, consistent with an apparent but potentially illusory decrease in awareness of the stimulus. These findings challenge an assertion that post-decision wagering provides a direct index of subjective awareness.