Yes,they can! Efficient physical effort mobilization according to task difficulty in schizophrenia

The current literature has largely highlighted a deficit of effort-based decision-making for reward in schizophrenia. However, not all studies have dissociated effort from reward, while other studies emphasize that difficulty is the main determinant of effort rather than reward. In this study, 33 individuals with schizophrenia and 32 healthy controls were recruited to perform a decision-making isometric force task. According to motivational intensity theory, task difficulty (i.e., required force) but not reward was manipulated from easy to impossible. Accuracy between force exerted and force required, and choice to perform a task or not were our effort measures. Clinical variables including depression, defeatist beliefs, and apathy were assessed. Our results demonstrated that the schizophrenia group chose to perform easy, moderate, and difficult tasks and exerted the necessary effort to succeed similarly to the non-clinical group. No association between effort and clinical variables was found. Our findings provide new understandings related to effort mechanisms in schizophrenia.

     

The Drawback of Sexual Empowerment: Perceiving Women as Emancipated but Still as Sexual Objects

Sex Roles - The belief that sexualization might be used as a source of power for women in Western societies is spreading (Anderson 2014; Erchull and Liss 2013). The present research aims at...     

Local and global factors of similarity in visual search

Effects of the similarity between target and distractors in a visual search task were investigated in several experiments. Both familiar (numerals and letters) and unfamiliar (connected figures in a 5 × 5 matrix) stimuli were used. The observer had to report on the presence or absence of a target among a variable number of homogeneous distractors as fast and as accurately as possible. It was found that physical difference had the same clear effect on processing time far familiar and for unfamiliar stimuli: processing time decreased monotonically with increasing physical difference. Distractors unrelated to the target and those related to the target by a simple transformation (180° rotation, horizontal or vertical reflection) were also compared, while the physical difference was kept constant. For familiar stimuli, transformational relatedness increased processing time in comparison with that fort unrelated stimulus pairs. It was further shown in a scaling experiment that this effect could be accounted for by the amount of perceived similarity of the target-distractor pairs. For unfamiliar stimuli, transformational relatedness did have a smaller and less pronounced effect. Various comparable unrelated distractors resulted in a full range of processing times. Results from a similarity scaling experiment correlated well with the outcome of the experiments with unfamiliar stimuli. These results are interpreted in terms of an underlying continuum of perceived similarity as the basis of the speed of visual search, rather than a dichotomy of parallel versus serial processing.     

What is the impact of the explicit knowledge of sequence regularities on both deterministic and probabilistic serial reaction time task performance?

The aim of this study was to explore the role of prior explicit sequence knowledge by comparing its influence on serial reaction time (SRT) performance with either a deterministic or a probabilistic sequence. The results confirm that, with a deterministic sequence, preliminary explicit learning improves SRT performance. On the other hand, with a probabilistic sequence, the results show no advantage for SRT performance in explicit-learning conditions. In addition, by using the process dissociation procedure (Jacoby, 1991), we show that performance on a subsequent generation task was more sustained by controlled processes for participants in the explicit-learning conditions than for those in the incidental condition. On the whole, these results, showing that the influence of explicit knowledge can be suppressed in certain specific conditions, are consistent with the intervention of both implicit and explicit mechanisms in SRT tasks, and the results also show that their relative influence can be modulated by the particular demands of the task.     

Necessity, possibility and belief: A study of syllogistic reasoning

The present study extended the investigation of the belief bias effect in syllogistic reasoning in two ways: (1) The effect was studied under instructions to decide whether conclusions were possible, as well as necessary, given the premises; and (2) the effect was studied for types of syllogism where people rarely endorse the conclusions as well as those (valid and fallacious) where endorsements are common. Three experiments are reported, which show first that there is a marked tendency to reject unbelievable conclusions relative to abstract or neutral controls on all kinds of syllogism and under both types of instruction. There was also significant evidence of positive belief bias (increased acceptance of believable conclusions) and of interactions between belief bias effects and logical form. The results are discussed with particular respect to accounts of belief bias offered by theorists in the mental-model tradition.     

Viewing-position effects in the Stroop task: Initial fixation position modulates Stroop effects in fully colored words

In two experiments that we conducted with adult (Experiment 1) and child (Experiment 2) participants, we experimentally controlled the eyes' first fixation in the word using a variable viewing-position technique in a classical all-letter-coloring Stroop procedure. We explored the impact of initial-fixation position (optimal viewing position [OVP] vs. end of the word) on the magnitude of Stroop effects (both interference and facilitation). The results showed that both interference and facilitation effects were reduced when the first fixation was located at the end of the word rather than at the OVP. These data make a new contribution to the study of the role of low-level processes in Stroop effects and add support to the growing body of research indicating that oculomotor processes can act as moderators of cognitive processes in the determination of Stroop effects.     

Teacher Acquisition of Functional Analysis Methods Using Pyramidal Training

Pyramidal training involves an experienced professional training a subset of individuals who, in turn, train additional individuals. Pyramidal training is effective for training a variety of behavior-analytic skills with direct-care staff, parents, and teachers. As teachers’ roles in behavioral assessment increase, pyramidal training may be useful to improve the procedural fidelity with which teachers conduct functional analyses. In the current study, previously trained teachers taught six other teachers (trainees) to conduct standard functional analysis conditions in a pyramidal training model. All trainees quickly acquired the skills necessary to conduct attention, escape, play, and tangible conditions during analog role-plays. Trainees also implemented functional analysis conditions with fidelity in their classrooms with students. Using a pyramidal training model may help to disseminate behavior-analytic procedures.     

A “Healthy-Contingencies” Behavioral Intervention

Interventions based on functional analyses may result in better treatment outcomes than those using arbitrary reinforcers. However, functional analyses may be impractical in some situations, or an immediate intervention may be necessary while a functional analysis is being conducted. In these situations, delivering the social reinforcers most commonly identified by functional analyses (attention, access to tangibles, and escape from demands) following appropriate behavior and withholding these events following problem behavior may improve behavior. We assessed the extent to which this type of intervention would improve child behavior with three participants. All participants engaged in moderate to high rates of problem behavior and very little appropriate requesting during baseline, and high rates of appropriate requests and reduced rates of problem behavior during treatment.