The Role of Attachment Styles and Interpersonal Problems in Suicide‐Related Behaviors

The relationships among adult attachment styles, interpersonal problems, and categories of suicide‐related behaviors (i.e., self‐harm, suicide attempts, and their co‐occurrence) were examined in a predominantly psychiatric sample (N = 406). Both anxious and avoidant attachment styles were associated with interpersonal problems. In turn, specific interpersonal problems differentially mediated the relations between attachment style and type of suicide‐related behaviors. These findings suggest the importance of distinguishing between these groups of behaviors in terms of etiological pathways, maintenance processes, and treatment interventions.     

An analysis of response and time matching to reinforcement in concurrent ratio-interval schedules

Key pecks by six pigeons were reinforced on concurrent fixed-interval fixed-ratio schedules. The value of the fixed-interval was held constant at 4 min while the fixed-ratio varied from 25 to 450 responses. All of the pigeons responded on, with pecks reinforced under, both of the schedules over most of the concurrent pairings, and four of the six distributed responses between the schedules such that matching was obtained between the proportions of responses and reinforcements. Previous studies using concurrent variable-interval schedules have shown that when response-reinforcement matching occurs, a comparable match of time to reinforcement proportions is obtained. In the present study, time devoted to each response alternative was measured from the first response on that alternative to a subsequent response on the other alternative. Using that measure, large differences existed in the local rates of responding on the two schedules, and a time-reinforcement match was not produced. These results indicate that in a situation where response-reinforcement and time-reinforcement matching are incompatible, the measurement of response proportions is the better means of evaluating the effects of reinforcement.     

A quantitative analysis of the responding maintained by interval schedules of reinforcement

Interval schedules of reinforcement maintained pigeons' key-pecking in six experiments. Each schedule was specified in terms of mean interval, which determined the maximum rate of reinforcement possible, and distribution of intervals, which ranged from many-valued (variable-interval) to single-valued (fixed-interval). In Exp. 1, the relative durations of a sequence of intervals from an arithmetic progression were held constant while the mean interval was varied. Rate of responding was a monotonically increasing, negatively accelerated function of rate of reinforcement over a range from 8.4 to 300 reinforcements per hour. The rate of responding also increased as time passed within the individual intervals of a given schedule. In Exp. 2 and 3, several variable-interval schedules made up of different sequences of intervals were examined. In each schedule, the rate of responding at a particular time within an interval was shown to depend at least in part on the local rate of reinforcement at that time, derived from a measure of the probability of reinforcement at that time and the proximity of potential reinforcements at other times. The functional relationship between rate of responding and rate of reinforcement at different times within the intervals of a single schedule was similar to that obtained across different schedules in Exp. 1. Experiments 4, 5, and 6 examined fixed-interval and two-valued (mixed fixed-interval fixed-interval) schedules, and demonstrated that reinforcement at one time in an interval had substantial effects on responding maintained at other times. It was concluded that the rate of responding maintained by a given interval schedule depends not on the overall rate of reinforcement provided but rather on the summation of different local effects of reinforcement at different times within intervals.     

Auditory overselectivity in autistic children

Autistic and normal children were trained to respond to a complex stimulus containing two auditory components. After the discrimination was acquired, the individual components were presented separately, allowing assessment of the extent to which the child's responding was controlled by one or both of the cues. The autistic children, unlike the normal children, provided evidence for stimulus overselectivity in that 6 of 8 autistic subjects responded to only one of the components. These results are consistent with those of previous studies which showed that when autistic children are presented with a complex visual or multiple-modality stimulus, they selectively respond to only one component of the complex. The present results extend the stimulus overselectivity hypothesis to the situation where all of the stimuli occur within the auditory modality. It is suggested that auditory overselectivity may partially account for autistic deficits in speech comprehension.     

A prepunched master deck for the computation of square roots on IBM electrical accounting equipment

This paper presents a prepunched deck of cards to enable the extraction of square roots on standard punch card tabulating equipment. Such a deck is valuable in constructing mathematical tables which involve square roots or in obtaining standard deviations in connection with computing correlation coefficients. By using a deck of reciprocals in conjunction with the deck for square roots, correlations may be solved completely on IBM equipment.The author wishes to acknowledge the help given on machine procedures by Wallace M. Taylor, 1st Lt. A.C., Wright Field, Ohio.