Discriminative activation and maintenance of contingent self-reinforcement

The present experiment studied the process by which environmental events come to exercise some degree of control over the activation of contingent self-reinforcement. Through differential training, animals learned to impose performance requirements for self-reward in certain environmental contexts but not in others. Both contextual influences and periodic negative consequences for noncontingent self-reward increased adherence to response requisites for self-reinforcement.     

Relative preference for external and self-controlled reinforcement in monkeys

Monkeys were tested for their relative preference for self-monitored and externally imposed systems of reinforcement. One monkey clearly preferred to self-reward his own performances. whereas a second monkey favored slightly the externally administered system but displayed a small gradual shift toward self-reward as the sessions progressed. Unlike previous findings. unmerited self-reward did not result in rapid discarding of self-imposed performance requirements. The level of work output and the interactive effects of multiple reinforcement control are possible operative factors in sustaining self-imposed contingencies long after punishment for unmerited self-reward has been discontinued.     

Overpaid or Overworked? Cognitive and Behavioral Reactions to Inequitable Rewards1

Although early studies support the equity theory prediction that increasing rewards for task performance enhance the effort devoted to the task, these findings may be challenged on a number of counts. Social exchange theory suggests, for example, that when rewards exceed what is felt to be equitable, the recipient may increase his perception of task difficulty and his estimate of what is a fair return for his efforts. In this case, there should be little need to devote increased energy to task performance. The present study, conducted in both Italy and the United States, supports this reasoning. Compared with equitably rewarded subjects, those rewarded by either 40% or 80% over their estimate of what was fair, altered both their perceptions of task difficulty and of a fair return. No performance differences were found.     

Size contrast as a function of figural similarity

Size contrast occurs in numerous configurations where a test figure appears apparently larger when surrounded by small elements and apparently smaller when surrounded by large elements. Using the Ebbinghaus illusion, the magnitude of this effect is shown to vary as a function of apparent similarity between test and inducing element.     

A high-speed computer-coinpatible event recorder

Design considerations, construction information, and programming considerations of a high-speed event recorder are presented. The device records discrete events on magnetic tape for later processing by a large computer. Although the design information is general, the instrument has 120 event channels, a time resolution of up to 100 microsec, and can record 60 or more events per second.     

Assortative marriage and the familiality of cognitive abilities in families of extremely gifted students

The top 1% of the extremely bright students identified by the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (Benbow & Stanley, 1980b) were tested along with their parents, using a battery of specifically designed cognitive tests. These students represented the top 0.03% of their age group in intellectual ability. The results showed that the parents were extremely able and resembled one another significantly more than parents in the general population. In addition, the intellectually precocious children resembled their parents to a lesser extent than children of average ability resemble their parents. These results suggest that considerable assortative mating has occurred among the parents of these extremely gifted youth, but that extreme giftedness cannot be predicted reliably solely as a result of the mating of bright parents.     

Senile dementia and informed consent

Senile dementia in the elderly is a prevalent condition which requires ongoing medical treatment. This disease causes a deterioration of cognitive processes and, consequently, it is likely to impair the capacities required to give informed consent to needed medical care. However, a diagnosis of senile dementia does not necessarily indicate that the afflicted individual is incompetent. The means of assessing competency in dementia patients and their likely impairments according to five standards is described in this paper. Recommendations for obtaining consent from the competent dementia patient are made and mechanisms for providing special protection to the incompetent patient in the consent process are discussed.     

Clocking g: Relating intelligence and measures of timed performance

The relationships between intelligence test scores and measures derived from reaction time (RT) and perceptual speed procedures were investigated in 137 twelve-year-old students with IQs ranging from 59 to 142. A range of intelligence tests were used and the scores factor analyzed to produce general, spatial and verbal factors. Test and factor scores were correlated with perceptual speed and with measures taken from 2, 4, and 8 choice RT tasks using a response keyboard upon which the subject's fingers directly rested, thus avoiding interpretive problems associated with a “home key.” Inspection time correlated poorly with intelligence. Only three of the RT measures produced correlations greater than .25 with the general factor. These were the slope of Hick's law, B, (correlation −.28), the 8 choice mean RT, RT8, (−.33) and the 8 choice standard deviation, SD8 (−.41), compared with the average intercorrelation between the intelligence measures of .40. Test-retest correlations of the RT measures, taken over a year for half the subjects, were low as reliability measures, with .35 for B, .52 for RT8, and .48 for SD8. Correlations of RT measures with spatial scores were not significantly greater than with verbal scores, suggesting that whatever relationship exists is with a general factor rather than only a spatial one.