Trial order and retention interval in human predictive judgment

The influences of order of trial type and retention interval on human predictive judgments were assessed for a cue that was reinforced on half of its training presentations. Subjects observed 10 cue-outcome presentations (i.e., reinforced trials) and 10 cue-alone presentations (i.e., nonreinforced trials) in one of three different orders: all nonreinforced trials followed by all reinforced trials(latent inhibition), reinforced and nonreinforced trials interspersed (partial reinforcement), or al lreinforced trials followed by all nonreinforced trials (extinction). Ratings were based mainly on the most recent event type (i.e., a recency effect) when the test occurred immediately after training but were based mainly on initial event types (i.e., a primacy effect) when the test occurred after a 48-h delay. The subjects tested both immediately and with a long retention interval did not exhibit this shift to primacy (i.e., the recency effect persisted). These results demonstrate noncatastrophic forgetting and the flexible use of trial order information in predictive judgments.     

Substance or style? An investigation of the NEO-PI-R validity scales

The Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992b) has been criticized for the absence of validity scales designed to detect response distortion. Recently, validity scales were developed from the items of the NEO-PI-R (Schinka, Kinder, & Kremer, 1997) and several studies have used a variety of methods to test their use. However, it is controversial whether these scales are measuring something that is substantive (such as psychopathology or its absence) or stylistic (which might be effortful distortion or less conscious processes such as lack of insight). In this study, we used a multimethod-multitrait approach to examine the validity of these scales in a clinical sample of 668 participants diagnosed with personality disorders or major depression. Using various indicators of both stylistic and substantive variance, confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) suggested that these validity scales measure something that may be conceptually distinct from, yet highly related to, substantive variance in responding.     

Aftereffects of the surprising presentation and omission of appetitive reinforcers on key-pecking performance in pigeons

The reinforcement-omission effect (ROE), also known as frustration effect, refers to greater response strength immediately after nonreinforcement (N) than reinforcement (R). The ROE was traditionally interpreted as transient invigoration after N induced by primary frustration. Pigeons demonstrate similar ROEs whether outcomes are surprising (partial R) or expected (discrimination training) in runway (Experiment 1) and Skinner box situations (Experiments 2-3). Variations in the interval between N and the opportunity to respond indicate that the ROE results from an aftereffect of food consumption (Experiment 4). Increasing reinforcer magnitude increased the after-R effect, without modifying the after-N function (Experiment 5). These results are reviewed in the context of comparative research on spaced-trial successive negative contrast and related phenomena that have failed to appear in experiments involving nonmammalian vertebrates.     

Assembling an army: considerations for just war theory

The aim of this paper is to draw attention to an issue which has been largely overlooked in contemporary just war theory – namely the impact that the conditions under which an army is assembled are liable to have on the judgments that are made with respect to traditional principles of jus ad bellum and jus in bello. I argue that the way in which an army is assembled can significantly alter judgments regarding the justice of a war. In doing so, I present and defend a principle of ‘just assembly’ and argue that satisfying this principle is an essential part of any deliberation regarding the justice of a particular conflict.     

What You Know When You Know an Answer to a Question

A significant argument for the claim that knowing‐wh is knowing‐that, implicit in much of the literature, including Stanley and Williamson (2001), is spelt out and challenged. The argument includes the assumption that a subject's state of knowing‐wh is constituted by their involvement in a relation with an answer to a question. And it involves the assumption that answers to questions are propositions or facts. One of Lawrence Powers’ counterexamples to the conjunction of these two assumptions is developed, responses to it are rebutted, and the possibility of rejecting the second rather than the first of these assumptions is explored briefly.     

Interaction between preexposure and overshadowing: Further analysis of the extended comparator hypothesis

Three experiments with rats used conditioned suppression of barpress to test predictions of the extended comparator hypothesis, which assumes that the effectiveness of (first-order) comparator stimuli in modulating responding to a target conditioned stimulus (CS) is itself modulated by other (second-order) comparator stimuli. Experiment 1 demonstrated that both pretraining exposure to the target CS alone (i.e., CS-preexposure effect, also known as latent inhibition) and pretraining exposure to a compound of the target CS and nontarget CS (i.e., compound-CS-preexposure effect) counteract overshadowing, and that posttraining deflation (i.e., extinction) of the overshadowing stimulus attenuates responding to the target CS when overshadowing is preceded by a CS-preexposure treatment (i.e., yields a CS-preexposure effect), but not when overshadowing is preceded by a compound-CS-preexposure treatment. Experiment 2 examined the consequences of posttraining associative inflation of the overshadowing stimulus or the preexposure companion stimulus following conjoint compound-CS-preexposure and overshadowing treatment. Experiment 3 examined the consequences of posttraining inflation of the overshadowing stimulus or the context following conjoint CS-alone preexposure and overshadowing treatment. The results support the expression-focused comparator view in contrast to recent acquisition-focused models of retrospective revaluation.     

I—Seeing the Anger in Someone's Face

Starting from the assumption that one can literally perceive someone's anger in their face, I argue that this would not be possible if what is perceived is a static facial signature of their anger. There is a product–process distinction in talk of facial expression, and I argue that one can see anger in someone's facial expression only if this is understood to be a process rather than a product.