Conditioned leg movement in the cat with massed trials,trace conditioning,and weak US intensity

Six male cats served as subjects in a classical conditioning experiment designed to assess the development of an overt conditioned response with experimental parameters that had been demonstrated to produce conditioning of neuro-electrical activity in immobilized cats. The subjects were physically restrained by means of an adjustable full-body cast during the experimental sessions which consisted of 75 habituation trials (light flash alone) followed by 225 trials with light and shock paired in a trace conditioning manner, and 75 additional extinction trials (light alone). The subjects were divided into two groups, and three different experimental sessions were given to each on three consecutive days. Group I received low US intensity (18 v) conditioning on the first day, high US (45–85 v) conditioning on Day 2 and pseudoconditioning on Day 3. Group II received the same sessions, but in a pseudoconditioning —high US—low US order. The results indicated that a conditioned leg movement was produced when the CS was paired in a trace conditioning fashion with either the high or low intensity shock US. The development of the conditioned leg movement across trials was found to be very similar to that of the conditioned neural activity in a previous study using comparable stimuli and procedures.     

Individual differences in cognition: Some relationships between personality and memory

Individual differences in cognition were studied in the form of the hypothesis that arousal, as indexed by personality measures of extraversion and neuroticism, affects the way in which verbal material is organized in memory. Subjects pretested on measures of these personality variables participated in either a paired-associates learning or a free-recall experiment. On the paired-associates task, subjects who were thought to be high on arousal made fewer errors when response terms were semantically similar than low arousal subjects. On the other hand, subjects thought low on arousal made fewer errors when response words were phonetically similar than high arousal subjects. On the free-recall task, low arousal subjects were found to cluster words together on the basis of semantic category at a higher rate than high arousal subjects. These results were taken to support the view that high arousal (as indexed by personality measures) leads to a focus on the physical aspects of verbal material, whereas low arousal leads to a memory organized around semantic aspects. The implications of these findings for other views of memory are discussed.     

Depth of processing: When the principle of congruity fails

Two factors, level of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) and congruity (Schulman, 1974), known to have large effects on the recall of experimenter-provided responses to questions, were examined in a series of five incidental learning experiments using subject-generated responses. The data show that manipulation of level of processing has the same effect on recall of subjectgenerated responses as it does on experimenter-provided responses. However, the effect of congruity is reversed for subject-generated responses. The data suggest that the difficulty of generating unrelated responses (“incongruous“ items) may account, at least in part, for the failure of the “principle of congruity“ with subject-generated responses.     

The effect of couples training and partner co-operativeness in the behavioral treatment of obesity

To evaluate the influence of spouse co-operativeness and couples training in the treatment of obesity, 29 obese men and women were assigned to three experimental conditions: (1) Co-operative spouse-couples training: subjects attended all meetings with spouses. Spouses were trained in modeling, monitoring, and reinforcement techniques; (2) Co-operative spouse-subject alone: subjects attended meetings alone even though their partners had agreed to become involved in treatment; (3) Non-cooperative spouse: subjects had spouses refusing to participate in the program, and attended sessions alone. At the 3-month and 6-month maintenance assessments. subjects in the spouse training condition lost significantly more weight than subjects in the other two conditions. Weight losses compared favorably to those of any controlled study with subjects in the couples training group averaging nearly 30 lbs lost after 8$\text{1}\text{2}$ months of treatment. In the absence of spouse training, subjects with co-operative spouses did no better than subjects with non-co-operative spouses. The findings suggest that spouse training may have a potent facilitative effect in weight reduction, and that this effect may promote long-term maintenance of weight loss.     

The Use of the Devereux Scales of Mental Disorders in the Assessment of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Conduct Disorder

The present study was designed to gather validity data on the Devereux Scales of Mental Disorders (DSMD) for distinguishing among children and adolescents with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD; N = 32), Conduct Disorder (CD; N = 34), or no clinical diagnosis (NC; N = 65). Three types of indicators were compared: (a) DSMD scale, composite, and total scores, (b) the number of ADHD or CD-related items endorsed, and (c) diagnostic efficiency statistics (e.g., sensitivity, positive and negative predictive power). The clinical groups did not differ significantly from each other, but both were significantly higher than the NC group on all DSMD scales. Moreover, there were significant differences between the ADHD and the CD groups on the number of respective ADHD and CD-related items endorsed. A cut-off of seven to eight items yielded the best discrimination between the two diagnostic groups. Diagnostic efficiency statistics indicate that the DSMD may be effective at differentiating between similar disruptive behavior disorders.     

Preschool peer perceptions of the behavior of hyperactive and aggressive children

To assess if preschool children can successfully identify externalizing symptomatic behaviors in their male classmates, and if these perceptions are associated with peer-rated popularity and rejection, 154 preschool boys and girls were interviewed using a peer nomination procedure. Behavioral data on the same preschool boys (N=86) were also provided by their respective teachers. Preschool children were capable of providing stable nominations of popularity, rejection, and aggression, boys and girls significantly agreed in their nominations, and these nominations were not a function of the age of the rated child, although they differed somewhat as a function of the age of the rater. Teachers and peers reflected significant convergence in ratings of hyperactivity and aggression and teacher ratings of peer problems significantly agreed with actual peer nominations of popularity and rejection. Boys nominated as aggressive were more rejected by their classmates, whereas boys nominated as hyperactive were either more popular and /or more rejected. Limited evidence for differential patterns of relationships among hyperactivity, aggression, and peer status was obtained for both the peer and teacher data.Portions of this paper were presented as part of a symposium, W. Pelham (Chair),Peer relations in hyperactive children: Diagnostic, symptomatic, and treatment consideration, at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, August 1981. This research was supported, in part, by NIMH grant #32992 to the first author.     

SOCIETAL MEMBERSHIP,SCORE STATUS,AND GAME BEHAVIOR

Appartenance sociale, bilan relatif des gains acquis et comportement de jeu. Analyse phénoménologique. — Etude des preférénces, des raisons et du comportement reel de choix de sujets belges et américains dans une tâche qui laisse la possibilité de se comporter coopérativement ou compétitivement. La tâche utilisée est un jeu à somme non-nulle dont la matrice est structuréd de telle sorte que l'on puisse différencier deux objectifs parmi trois possibles : maximiser son propre gain (ou le gain conjoint des deux partenaires) ou bien maximiser la différence entre son propre gain et celui de l'autre. Les Auteurs ont comparé 15 dyades de sujets belges et 15 dyades de sujets américains, jouant en 100 essais. Les résultats montrent que le choix réel des sujets est trés semblable d'une culture à l'autre et que, dans chaque culture, il varie selon que les gains déjà acquis par un sujet sont supérieurs, inférieurs ou égaux à ceux du partenaire, au moment du choix. Enfin, on note que, bien qu'aucune différence marquée n'apparaisse dans le comportement réel, il y a des différences sensibles d'une culture à l'autre dans les raisons invoquées par les sujets pour justifier leurs préférences : ces différences sont encore plus apparentes si on tient également compte de l'état relatif des gains déjà acquis par un sujet par rapport à son partenaire. En général, les sujets belges ont tendance à justifier leur préférence pour la compétition par des raisons de compétition; les sujets américains, surtout quand ils ont l'avantage, par des raisons relatives à leur gain personnel. Cette dernière réaction est “irrationnelle” dans la présente tâche puisque la préférence pour une attitude coopérative permet de maximiser son propre gain.     

Sequence-Specific Impairment of Memory Formation by NCAM Antisense Oligonucleotides

The functional role of NCAM gene expression in memory formation was studied in the one-trial passive avoidance task in day-old chicks by pretraining injections of one of three different 18-mer end-protected oligonucleotides corresponding to positions 190-, 207-, and 332- of the NCAM Ig1 domain. Twenty-four-hour-old chicks were trained by pecking at a bitter-tasting bead and tested for avoidance 30 min, 3, 8, or 24 hr later. Memory retention was significantly reduced only in the group of animals injected with the NCAM antisense corresponding to position 207- (AS-ODN-207), and only if given twice, both immediately after hatching and 12 hr before training. This antisense was without effect on the general behavior of the chicks, training or acquisition, and did not produce observable neurotoxic damage. Under such conditions amnesia was evident by 3 hr after training and lasted until at least 24 hr after training. The two other tested oligonucleotides were without behavioral effect. To control for nonsequence-specific effects of AS-ODN-207, brains from injected and trained animals were processed for Western blotting and probed using anti-NCAM, anti-L1, and anti-actin antibodies. NCAM antisense corresponding to position 207- significantly reduced the level of NCAM, whereas the level of L1 and actin remained unchanged. These results confirm our earlier conclusion that NCAM is necessary for longer term memory retention.