Discrete-trials spaced responding in the pigeon: the dependence of efficient performance on the availability of a stimulus for collateral pecking

Four pigeons were exposed to a discrete-trial schedule in which only responses spaced by at least 6 sec were reinforced. After 45, fifty-trial sessions, they failed to meet the spacing requirement in over 90% of the trials. When an alternative, non-contingent key (pecks on which had no consequence) was illuminated concurrently with the first key, the spacing performance of the three pigeons that pecked the non-contingent key improved so that they were obtaining 75% of the possible reinforcers. These data demonstrated the importance of collateral behavior in mediating spaced performance. It was suggested that pigeons may successfully refrain from responding on the spacing procedure only when another stimulus correlated with reinforcement is available for pecking, and that the form that collateral behavior takes may, in general, be non-arbitrary, and species dependent.     

Response stereotypy without automaticity in pigeons

Previous research has shown that when pigeons are required to peck each of two keys four times in any order for reinforcement, stereotyped response sequences develop though they are not demanded by the task. The present experiment explored whether the functional value of sequence stereotypy was that sequences became automatized, freeing cognitive resources for other activities. Pigeons were exposed to variants of the task requiring four pecks on each key that differed in the degree of task stringency. Concurrent with the sequence task, pigeons were required to process the color of the keys in order to complete successfully either a matching or a conditional discrimination task. The delay between sequence execution and matching or discrimination choice was varied between 0 and 10 sec. Matching and discrimination accuracy were decreasing functions of delay, but the stringency of the concurrent sequence task had no effect on choice accuracy, suggesting that stereotyped sequences were automatized. However, the matching and discrimination tasks produced substantial disruptions of sequence performance, suggesting that stereotyped sequences were not automatized. The data were taken to suggest that response stereotypy need not imply automaticity.     

Influence of children's emotional states on the recognition of emotion in peers and social motives to change another's emotional state

This experiment addressed the question of whether children's own emotional states influence their accuracy in recognizing emotional states in peers and any motives they may have to intervene in order to change their peers' emotional states. Happiness, sadness, anger, or a neutral state were induced in preschool children, who then viewed slides of other 4-year-old children who were actually experiencing each of those states. Children's own emotional states influenced only their perception of sadness in peers. Sad emotional states promoted systematic inaccuracies in the perception of sadness, causing children to mislabel sadness in peers as anger. Children had high base rates for using the label “happy,” and this significantly enhanced their accuracy in recognizing that state. Low base rates for labeling others as in a neutral state reduced accuracy in recognizing neutrality. Children were generally motivated to change sad, angry, and neutral states in peers, and they were most motivated to change a peer's state if they were to be the agent of such change. The results are discussed in terms of the limited role of children's own emotional states in their recognition of emotion in others or motives to intervene and in terms of factors influencing the perception of emotion, such as base rate preferences for labeling others as experiencing, or not experiencing, particular emotional states.     

Live supervision/consultation: conceptual and pragmatic guidelines for family therapy trainers

This paper addresses a conceptual and pragmatic gap in the area of family therapy training and supervision. It details an evolving stage-specific set of skills for the conduct of live supervision/consultation, using the previously developed conception of the isomorphic nature of training and therapy as a theoretical backdrop.     

The use of restricted environmental stimulation therapy (REST) in the treatment of essential hypertension: Two case studies

The previous paper (Suedfeld et al., 1982, pp. 553–559) reported the use of Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) in treating hypertension. This paper reports the response of two patients to 24 hr of a similar treatment offered as an adjunct to a weight-control program. In both patients blood pressure dropped immediately following the REST session and remained lower for up to 9 months. The initial drop in blood pressure was independent of weight loss. These results are interpreted in terms of a psychobiological model of self-regulation.     

Statistical inference in personality research

Statistical significance, by itself, is not a sufficient condition for claiming that a hypothesis has been supported. Constructive replications are considerably more important. Unfortunately, classical (Fisherian) statistics are not easily adapted to sequential research strategies; their focus is the single experiment. For this reason, statistically significant results may be meaningless while a particular sequence of nonsignificant results may be quite important. Advice on how to overcome some limitations of classical statistical procedures is given, along with a compendium of “do's and don't's.”     

Normative explanations of helping behavior: A critique,proposal, and empirical test

Criticisms of normative explanations of helping behavior are examined, and an explanation responsive to these criticisms is proposed. This explanation specifies conditions which affect the activation of personal norms and hence their influence on behavior. One hypothesis based on the explanation was tested: the impact of norms on behavior is a function of the tendency to deny or to ascribe responsibility to the self (AR). AR and personal norms toward donating bone marrow to a stranger were measured in a mailed questionnaire. Three months later, 132 women received mailed appeals to join a pool of potential donors from an unrelated source. As predicted, volunteering was a function of the AR × personal norm interaction (p < .0001). Personal norms had no impact on volunteering among those low on AR (deniers), but a substantial impact among those high on AR. Neither intentions to donate, attitudes toward transplants, nor various sociodemographic variables added to the variance in volunteering accounted for by the AR × personal norm interaction.     

The maintenance of key pecking by stimulus-contingent and response-independent food presentation

Three naive pigeons were exposed to a series of two-component multiple schedules of response-independent food presentation. The component schedules were sometimes identical (non-differential procedures) and sometimes different (differential procedures). High rates of key pecking were maintained in all the differential procedures, and pecking decreased substantially in non-differential procedures, even when the frequency of food presentation in non-differential procedures was higher than in differential procedures. It is suggested that the high rates of key pecking were maintained not by adventitious response-reinforcer contingencies, but by differential contingencies between the stimulus (keylight) and food. The role of such contingencies in the phenomenon of behavioral contrast is discussed.