Perceptual Effect on Motor Learning in the Serial Reaction-Time Task

Although the Serial Reaction-Time Task has been an effective tool in studying procedural learning, there is still a debate as to whether learning in the task is effector-based, stimulus-based, or response-based. In this article, the authors contribute to this debate by contrasting response- and stimulus-based learning by manipulating them selectively and simultaneously. Results show that (a) participants learned response sequences in the absence of stimulus-specific perceptual sequence information but (b) not stimulus sequences without corresponding response information. In a third condition, response sequence and stimulus frequency information were in conflict, and each effect decreased learning in the other domain. Overall, our findings show that learning in these tasks is primarily motor-based, but it is also constrained by relatively salient perceptual information. Together with earlier findings in the literature, the findings also suggest a task and stimulus-arrangement-specific interaction between motor and perceptual learning, where relevance and salience of the specific information plays a crucial role.     

Psychometric Properties and Clinical Cut-Off Scores of the Spanish Version of the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents

Psychotic (P) and Non-Psychotic (N-P) retardates were compared on 13 Rorschach “indicators” of psychosis using a matched pairs technique. Two of the 13 signs were found to significantly differentiate between groups with the P group demonstrating a lower F% and higher C' responding than the N-P group.     

Intervenciones familiares en el tratamiento de los pacientes con esquizofrenia: aproximaciones recientes

Resumen

Después de mencionar los postulados básicos que subyacen a los modelos tradicionales de terapia familiar a los que se han planteado serias críticas, se revisan nuevos modelos que superan estas limitaciones. Estos nuevos modelos de intervención familiar comparten dos características principales: considerar a los familiares aliados naturales del proceso de rehabilitación del paciente y basarse en el empleo de estrategias terapéuticas claramente operacionalizadas. Se describen brevemente cuatro de estas estrategias y se revisa la evidencia que apoya su eficacia: la terapia familiar orientada a la crisis de Goldstein, el paquete de intervenciones psicosociales desarrollado por Leff y cols., la terapia familiar conductual de Falloom y el programa de psicoeducación familiar de Anderson y cols. Su eficacia es analizada en términos de la disminución observada en las tasas de recaídas y en la consecución de otros beneficios para el paciente y la familia. Se señalan un conjunto de principios generales que deben presidir las intervenciones con estas familias. Por último, se hace una reflexión acerca de algunas deficiencias que estudios futuros han de subsanar para poder alcanzar unas conclusiones más sólidas sobre la eficacia de estos nuevos procedimientos terapéuticos.     

Sobre comportamiento lingüístico. Una evaluación crítica del modelo de Osgood

Resumen

Una revisión de los estudios teóricos y experimentales del modelo comportamental Psicolinguistico de Charles E. Osgood se lleva a cabo. Del análisis del modelo y de su instrumento de validación—el diferencial semántico—se deducen un conjunto de inadecuaciones que sugieren que el lenguaje no puede ser explicado a partir dei uso osgoodiano de la teoría del aprendizaje. A sus inadecuaciones teóricas en relación con la referencia, se suma que el diferencial semántico no constituye un test de condicionamiento, sino una tarea de categorización de memoria inmediata. (Short-term memory.) Los resultados del D.S. se derivan del tipo de diseño experimental.     

Knowing whether A or B

The paper examines the logic and semantics of knowledge attributions of the form “s knows whether A or B”. We analyze these constructions in an epistemic logic with alternative questions, and propose an account of the context-sensitivity of the corresponding sentences and of their presuppositions.     

Acute exercise suppresses judgments of facial emotion intensity

The ability to recognize others’ facial expressions is critical to the social communication of affective states. The present work examined how transient states of high physiological arousal during aerobic exercise influence recognizing and rating morphed facial expressions. Participants exercised at either a low or high work rate. While exercising and then during cool-down and rest periods, participants performed a version of the morphed faces task that involved animated faces changing into or away from five target affective states (happy, surprise, sadness, anger, and disgust); they were asked to stop the animation when the face first corresponded to a target state, and rate its emotional intensity. Results demonstrated no differences in animation stop data, but overall lower ratings of perceived emotion intensity during high versus low work rate exercise; these effects dissipated through cool-down and rest periods. Results highlight important interactions between physiological states and processing emotional information.     

Improving self-report measures of non-adherence to HIV medications

The aim of this article is to clarify what factors should be measured to assess non-adherence to an antiretroviral medication regimen among individuals with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). In order to consider a patient as non-adherent, a clear operational definition of medication non-adherence should be formulated. This definition should specify the medication to be taken, the medical advice to be followed as well as the behaviors a patient should adopt in a given period of time. Techniques aimed at reducing the influence of several potential biases in self-report questionnaires, such as forgetfulness and social desirability, are also reviewed.     

Decision-making theories: linking the disparate research areas of individual and collective cognition

In order to maximize their fitness, animals have to deal with different environmental and social factors that affect their everyday life. Although the way an animal behaves might enhance its fitness or survival in regard to one factor, it could compromise them regarding another. In the domain of decision sciences, research concerning decision making focuses on performances at the individual level but also at the collective one. However, between individual and collective decision making, different terms are used resulting in little or no connection between both research areas. In this paper, we reviewed how different branches of decision sciences study the same concept, mainly called speed-accuracy trade-off, and how the different results are on the same track in terms of showing the optimality of decisions. Whatever the level, individual or collective, each decision might be defined with three parameters: time or delay to decide, risk and accuracy. We strongly believe that more progress would be possible in this domain of research if these different branches were better linked, with an exchange of their results and theories. A growing amount of literature describes economics in humans and eco-ethology in birds making compromises between starvation, predation and reproduction. Numerous studies have been carried out on social cognition in primates but also birds and carnivores, and other publications describe market or reciprocal exchanges of commodities. We therefore hope that this paper will lead these different areas to a common decision science.