Tomboys and sissies: Androgynous children?

Psychological studies of masculinity-femininity in children have paralleled those done with adults, which often consider deviations from masculinity for males and femininity for females as abnormal and perhaps pathological. Children who demonstrate cross-sex behaviors, however, may become androgynous adults whose cross-sex behaviors mean flexibility, not pathology. This study had two purposes: (1) to identify potentially androgynous children as those labeled by their peers as tomboys and sissies; (2) to compare personality characteristics of androgynous children with those of peers. Subjects were 312 elementary school children in a midwestern city. Results indicate that the labels tomboy and sissy are not necessarily indicators of androgynous children, but important social behaviors are related to the labels. For males, the possibility of frustrated creativity was raised.     

An impulse-timing theory for reciprocal control of muscular activity in rapid, discrete movements

Much remains to be learned about how agonist and antagonist muscles are controlled during the production of rapid, voluntary movements. In an effort to summarize a wide body of existing knowledge and stimulate future research on this subject, an impulse-timing theory is presented which attempts to predict the activity of reciprocal muscles based on certain characteristics of a movement. The basic tenet of the theory is that variables of movement time, movement distance and inertial load have fairly predictable effects on the underlying muscular activity of the agonist and antagonist muscles during the production of rapid and discrete, voluntary movements. The theory is derived from the kinematic work of Schmidt, Zelaznik, Hawkins, Frank and Quinn (1979) and supporting evidence from studies which have used electromyographic (EMG) recordings of agonist and antagonist muscles during rapid movements. Issues related to synergistic muscle control, central and peripheral control of reciprocal muscle activity, muscle control, and neurological disorder and the relationship between impulse-timing and mass-spring control are discussed in the final section.     

The following schedule of reinforcement as a fundamental determinant of steady state contrast in multiple schedules

Two experiments investigated whether steady-state interactions in multiple schedules depend exclusively on the following schedule of reinforcement. Experiment 1 used a four-component multiple schedule in which two components were associated with the same constant schedule of reinforcement, and where rate of reinforcement was varied in the component that followed one of these. Contrast effects were reliable only in the component that preceded the point of reinforcement variation, although some contrast did occur otherwise. In those instances where contrast other than the following-schedule effect did occur, it was accounted for by the effect of the preceding schedule, an effect for which there were consistent individual differences among subjects, and which varied with component duration. Experiment 2 used a three-component schedule, in which reinforcement rate was varied in the middle component. The results were consistent with Experiment 1, as the following-schedule effect was the only consistent effect that occurred, although an effect of the preceding schedule did occur for some subjects under some conditions, and was especially evident early in training. The conclusion from both experiments is that there is no general effect of relative rate of reinforcement apart from the sum of the effects of the preceding and following schedules, and that the following-schedule effect is the fundamental cause of steady-state interactions.     

How to maximize reward rate on two variable-interval paradigms

Without assuming any constraints on behavior, we derive the policy that maximizes overall reward rate on two variable-interval paradigms. The first paradigm is concurrent variable time-variable time with changeover delay. It is shown that for nearly all parameter values, a switch to the schedule with the longer interval should be followed immediately by a switch back to the schedule with the shorter interval. The matching law does not hold at the optimum and does not uniquely specify the obtained reward rate. The second paradigm is discrete trial concurrent variable interval-variable interval. For given schedule parameters, the optimal policy involves a cycle of a fixed number of choices of the schedule with the shorter interval followed by one choice of the schedule with the longer interval. Molecular maximization sometimes results in optimal behavior.     

Delay or rate of food delivery as determiners of response rate

Pigeons were confronted with two keys: a green food key and a white changeover key. Food became available for a peck to the green key after variable intervals of time (mean = 113 seconds). A single peck on the changeover key changed the color of the food key to red for a fixed period of time during which the timing of the variable-interval schedule in green was suspended and the switching option eliminated and after which the conditions associated with green were reinstated. In Experiment 1 a single food presentation was obtainable during each red-key period after a minimum delay timed from the switch. This delay and the duration of the red-key period were held constant during a condition but varied between conditions (delay = 2.5, 7.5, 15, or 30 seconds; red-period duration = 30, 60, 120, 240, or 480 seconds). In Experiment 2 additional food presentations were scheduled during a 240-second red-key period with the delay to the first food delivery held constant at 30 seconds, and the delays to later food deliveries varied over conditions. Considering the data from both experiments, the rate of switching to red was a decreasing function of the delay to the first food, the delay to the second food, and perhaps the delay to the third food after a switch. There was no clear evidence that the rate of food in the red-key period made an independent contribution. The ordering of response rates among conditions was consistent with the view that each food presentation after a response adds an incremental effect to the rate of the response and that each food presentation's contribution is a decreasing function of its delay timed from the response.     

Comparative psychology returns: A review of Hulse, Fowler, and Honig's Cognitive Processes in Animal Behavior

Especially remarkable seems the rarity of efforts to trace the evolution of the human intellect from that of the lower animals. Since Darwin's discovery, the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea have been examined with infinite pains by hundreds of workers in the effort to trace our physical genealogy, and with consummate success; yet few and far between have been the efforts to find the origins of intellect and trace its progress up to human faculty. And none of them has achieved any sure success. (Thorndike, 1911, p. 282)