Effects of Metacontingencies on Cooperative Behavior: A Systematic Replication Using Innovative Procedures during Isolation

The Psychological Record - The study replicated research on metacontingencies that used a chessboard simulating a simplified chess game, in a completely online environment, with participants in...     

Data‐driven Methods for Modeling Social Perception

How do we model the complexity of social perception? A major methodological problem is that the space of possible variables driving social perceptions is infinitely large, thus posing an insurmountable hurdle for conventional approaches. Here, we describe a set of data‐driven methods whose objective is to identify quantitative relationships between high‐dimensional variables (e.g., visual images) and behaviors (e.g., perceptual decisions) with as little bias as possible. We focus on social perception of faces, although the methods could be applied to other visual and nonvisual categories. We review two reverse correlation approaches: (a) psychophysical methods based on judgments of images altered with randomly generated noise, where the analysis relates the random variations of the images to judgments; and (b) methods based on judgments of randomly generated faces from a statistical, multidimensional face space model, where the analysis relates the dimensions of the face model to judgments.     

Shock intensity and signaled avoidance responding

Five rats were submitted to a signaled free-operant avoidance contingency. Throughout the experiment, shock intensity was varied from 0.1 to 8.0 mA, with shock duration constant at 200 milleseconds. Results indicate: (a) an all-or-none effect of shock intensity on response and shock rates, on percentage of shocks avoided, and on frequency of occurrence of responding during the preshock stimulus; and (b) no systematic effect of shock intensity on stimulus control, measured either by the percentage of stimulus presentations accompanied by a response or by the percentage of responses that occurred during those preshock stimuli. Such results indicate that for each subject there is a minimum shock intensity necessary to establish and maintain avoidance responding; intensities higher than this minimum value have little or no effect on responding (with an upper limit for those strong intensities with a general disruptive effect on behavior).     

Spatial offloading in multiple task monitoring

Coordinating multiple tasks requires a high degree of cognitive control, and individuals with limited executive functions often show difficulties in everyday multitasking. We tested the hypothesis that demands on executive control can be alleviated by internally representing the temporal pattern of goals and deadlines as spatial relations. In two experiments, participants completed a multitasking session by monitoring deadlines of four clocks running at different rates, along with separate tasks of executive functioning and spatial ability. In Experiment 1, individual and gender-related differences in spatial ability (mental rotation) predicted multitasking performance, beyond the contributions of both the updating and inhibition components of executive functioning, and even when spatial cues were eliminated from the layout of the monitoring task. Experiment 2 extended these findings by showing that concurrent spatial load impaired task monitoring accuracy, and that these detrimental effects were accentuated when spatial abilities were compromized due to fluctuation in female sex hormones. These findings suggest that multiple task monitoring involves working memory-related functions, but that these cognitive control demands can be offloaded by relying on spatial relation processes.     

Cooperative responding in rats: II. Performance on fixed-ratio schedules of mutual reinforcement

Coordinated responses of 5 dyads of rats were investigated under fixed-ratio (FR) schedules of mutual water reinforcement. Coordinated responding was defined as 2 consecutive lever-presses, 1 from each of 2 rats, occurring <.5 s apart. In the FR schedules, each coordinated episode was defined as 1 response in the FR sequence. The size of FR schedules was parametrically manipulated assuming the values of FR 1, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 50, and 9, in this order. Each FR remained in effect until responding reached stability. Under all conditions, pairs of rats received access to water simultaneously (mutual reinforcement). Rates and proportions of coordinated responding showed a bitonic inverted U-shaped function of ratio size. Postreinforcement pauses increased systematically as the interreinforcement interval increased. Local rates and proportions increased as a function of response location within ratios. Results of a control condition with relaxed temporal constraints for mutual reinforcement showed decreases in rates and proportion of coordinated responses, suggesting that the coordinated responses were controlled by the mutual reinforcement contingencies. The present experiment showed that coordinated responding is quantitatively affected by 3 properties of FR schedules: response requirement, reinforcement rates, and proximity to reinforcement.     

Within-Family Effects of Smoking during Pregnancy on ADHD: the Importance of Phenotype

We sought to test within- and between- family associations of smoking during pregnancy (SDP) and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms using a structured interview based on the conventional Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV) symptoms and the Strengths and Weaknesses of ADHD-Symptoms and Normal-Behavior (SWAN) scale, which is a population based measure that grew out of the notion that an ADHD diagnosis exists on the extreme end of a continuum of normative behaviors and includes both above- and below- average performance on attention and activity. We used a sibling-comparison approach in a sample of 173 families including siblings aged 7–16 years (52% male) drawn from the state of Missouri, USA, wherein mothers smoked during one pregnancy but not the other. There was a within-family effect of smoking during pregnancy on SWAN hyperactivity/impulsivity and SWAN total ADHD behaviors. The associations between SDP and DSM-IV-based ADHD symptom dimensions as well as SWAN inattention were explained by familial confounds. These findings suggest that SDP exerts a potentially causal effect on increased ADHD hyperactive/impulsive behaviors and that this SDP effect is best captured when hyperactivity/impulsivity is assessed more normatively across the population, rather than specifically assessing problematic behaviors via DSM symptoms. Thus, any potentially causal effect of SDP on ADHD symptom dimensions may be restricted to hyperactive/impulsive behaviors rather than inattention, and normative, non-DSM-IV based behavioral measures may provide a more sensitive test of mechanisms of SDP-ADHD symptom associations, particularly in non-clinical samples.     

Interaction between the DRD4 VNTR polymorphism and proximal and distal environments in alcohol dependence during emerging and young adulthood

The manifestation of alcohol dependence at different developmental stages may be associated with different genetic and environmental factors. Taking a developmental approach, we characterized interaction between the dopamine receptor 4 variable number tandem repeat (DRD4 VNTR) polymorphism and developmentally specific environmental factors (childhood adversity, college/Greek organization involvement, and delayed adult role transition) on alcohol dependence during emerging and young adulthood. Prospective data were obtained from a cohort of 234 White individuals (56% women, 44% men) who were followed up at ages 18 through 34. A longitudinal hierarchical factor model was estimated to model a traitlike persistent alcohol dependence factor throughout emerging and young adulthood and 2 residual statelike alcohol dependence factors limited to emerging adulthood and young adulthood, respectively. We accounted for those alcohol dependence factors by modeling 3 two-way interaction effects between the DRD4 VNTR polymorphism and the 3 developmentally specific environment factors. Carriers of the DRD4 long allele showed greater susceptibility to environmental effects; they showed more persistent symptoms of alcohol dependence as childhood adversity increased and more alcohol dependence symptoms limited to emerging adulthood as college/Greek organization involvement increased. Alcohol dependence among noncarriers of the long allele, however, did not differ as a function of those environments. Although replication is necessary, these findings highlight the importance of repeated phenotypic assessments across development and modeling both distal and proximal environments and their interaction with genetic susceptibility at specific developmental stages.     

Interaction of frequency and magnitude of reinforcement on concurrent performances

Frequency and magnitude of reinforcement were varied in concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules of reinforcement. The relative response rate to the two stimuli did not support the notion that choice approximately matches relative total access to food (the product of frequency and magnitude of reinforcement in one schedule divided by the sum of products of frequency and magnitude in both schedules). Relative response rates matched relative reinforcement value when that measure was adjusted to give more emphasis to reinforcement frequency than to reinforcement duration.     

Component duration and relative response rates in multiple schedules

Pigeons were trained on a multiple variable-interval 30-sec, variable-interval 90-sec schedule with each component presented alternately for an equal (on the average) duration. This average duration of exposure to each component was varied from 5 to 300 sec. The main concern was with rate of response in the variable-interval 30-sec component relative to rate of response in the variable-interval 90-sec component. In all cases, rate of response was higher in the variable-interval 30 sec component, but the discrepancy in the rate produced by the two schedules tended to be greatest when the duration of component presentation was brief. The mean proportion of responses emitted during the variable-interval 30-sec component (responses in variable-interval 30-sec component divided by total responses) varied from about 0.60 to 0.71, where 0.75 would be expected on the basis of a matching rule, and 0.59 was that obtained by Lander and Irwin (1968). These results are in agreement with data reported by Shimp and Wheatley (1971) from a similar experiment.