Failure of a landmark to restrict spatial learning based on the shape of the environment

Rats were required to find a submerged platform in the corner of a swimming pool with a distinctive shape. A landmark near the platform did not interfere with the control acquired by the pool's shape over searching for the platform. This outcome was observed with an overshadowing and a blocking design. A comparison of the ease with which the landmark and the pool's shape gained control over searching for the platform indicates that the failure of overshadowing and blocking was not a consequence of the landmark being less salient than the shape of the pool. The results are not readily explained by theories of associative learning, but they are consistent with the claim that learning about the shape of the environment takes place in a dedicated module, which excludes information about the significance of individual landmarks.     

How Berkeley's Gardener Knows His Cherry Tree

The defense of common sense in Berkeley's Three Dialogues is, first and foremost, a defense of the gardener's claim to know his cherry tree, a claim threatened by both Cartesian and Lockean philosophy. This defense depends on the esse is percipi thesis (EIP). EIP is not something the gardener believes; rather, it is a philosophical analysis of the rules he unreflectively follows in his use of the word ‘exists’. Uncovering these connections between Berkeley's epistemology and philosophy of language will clarify Berkeley's strategy for bringing his reader back to common sense and practical engagement in the ordinary affairs of life.     

Preferences for Careers and Organisational Cultures as a Function of Logically Related Personality Traits

La coherence attendue entre des traits de personnalité et d'une part des choix de carrière, d'autre part des préférences pour des types de culture organisationnelle a été examinée en termes de parallélisme conceptuel différentiel. On s'est aperçu que, dans un grand échantillon d'adultes britanniques, les rapprochements dépendaient de l'existence d'un recouvrement logique entre un trait de personnalité et une préférence. Quand un choix de carrière ou une dimension culturelle était logiquement reliéà in trait de personnalité, les variations interpersonelles sur ce trait étaient significativement associées aux choix culturels ou de carrière. Dans d'autres cas, le personnalité n'était pas pertinente. Les résultats confirment certains aspects du modèle attraction-sélection-désintérêt et précisent en particulier les origines des effets différentiels de personnalité dans ce modèle et d'autres analogues.
Expected consistency between personality traits and preferences for particular career anchors and for forms of organisational culture was examined in terms of differential conceptual alignment. In a large sample of British adults, associations were found to depend on the presence of logical overlap between a personality trait and a preferred outcome. When a career anchor or a cultural feature was logically related to a personality trait, between-person variations in that trait were significantly associated with career or cultural preferences. In other cases, personality was irrelevant. Findings support aspects of the attraction-selection-attrition model, and more precisely specify the basis of differential personality effects in that and similar models.     

The effect of informative events on response rate

A single group of pigeons received two different training conditions presented on different response keys. Responding during the first component of each condition was reinforced, according to a fixed interval schedule, by gaining access to the second component. In the uninformative condition the second component consisted on every trial of the illumination of the response key for 10 sec, the key was then darkened and food presented with a probability of 0.5. In the informative condition half of the trials at the conclusion of the first component resulted in the key being darkened and no additional events were presented. On the remaining trials the second component was similar to that for the uninformative condition. The results from the first two stages revealed that responding during the first component was faster in the informative than uninformative condition when trials were presented separately. In the final stage, when the trials were presented simultaneously, the rate of responding during the first component was eventually similar in the two conditions, but subjects preferred the second component of the informative condition. These results suggest that events which are informative, or perhaps unpredictable, can support a higher response rate than those which are uninformative, or predictable.     

The Impact of “Scary” TV and Film on Children's Internalizing Emotions: A Meta‐Analysis

Despite a general perception that violent or scary television creates anxiety in children, the research literature is small and disparate. A meta‐analysis quantifies the impact of scary television and film on children's internalizing emotions (fear, anxiety, sadness, and sleep problems). Scary television has a relatively small impact on children's internalizing emotions (r = .18) overall, and this association was not significantly moderated by whether the televised material was factual (e.g., news) or fictional or contained violence. Children under 10 were more susceptible to scary TV. The overall result contrasts with the dramatic effects found for individual children within studies, suggesting that research is needed to unpick the factors that moderate the effect that scary television has on children.     

Book reviews

Klein,S. B., & Mowrer, R. R. (Eds.). (1989). Contemporary learining theories: Pavlovian conditioning and the status of traditional learning theory. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Pp. xiv +332. ISBN 0-89859-915-6. £44.95.

Klein, S. B. & Mowrer, R. R. (Eds.). (1989). Contemporary learning theories : Instrumental conditioning theory and the impact of biological constraints on learining. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Pp. xiii + 293. ISBN 0-8085-0318-1. £38.

Plotkin, H. C. (Ed.). (1988). The role of behavior in evolution. cambridge, Ma : Bradford Books, MIT Press. Pp. viii + 198. ISBN 0-2692-16107-9. £16.95.

Green, L. & Kage, J. H. (Eds.). (1987). Advances in behavioral economics, Volume 1. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation. Pp. 307. ISBN 0-471-91199-2. £40.95 (hardback).     

Contralateral transfer of inhibitory and excitatory eyelid conditioning in the rabbit

In Experiment I, rabbits received training to establish a clicker as a conditioned inhibitor. In a subsequent test phase this stimulus was used as a signal for shock either to the eye reinforced during initial training or to the opposite eye. Learning to the clicker was slower in both conditions than in the appropriate control groups. The second experiment replicated the results of those subjects trained and tested with opposite eyes and ruled out the possibility that the slower learning was due to the effects of latent inhibition. Experiment III demonstrated that excitatory conditioning to a clicker to one eye facilitated future excitatory conditioning to that stimulus to the opposite eye. These results are consistent with the view that inhibitory and excitatory conditioning both involve the acquisition of a general, motivational conditioned response which is capable of mediating the transfer of conditioning across different response systems.     

Transfer of responding during serial conditioning in the rat

In three experiments rats were conditioned with the sequence tone-light-food. In the first experiment the source of the light was a bulb located on the wall of the conditioning chamber. Serial conditioning resulted in subjects approaching the bulb during the tone, even though it was not illuminated. The strength of this activity was greater when the tone was intermittently rather than consistently followed by the light. For Experiments 2 and 3 the source of the light was placed in the food magazine, and this resulted in greater magazine activity during the tone when it was intermittently rather than consistently paired with the light. It is suggested that the level of orientation to the light during the tone is, in part, a reflection of the amount of attention paid to the tone. It is further suggested that the tone receives more attention when it is an inaccurate rather than accurate predictor of its consequences.