A Reinforcer Pathology perspective on relapse

The Reinforcer Pathology theory proposes conditions under which drugs emerge as excessively preferred reinforcers compared to other available reinforcers among drug users. The theory highlights 2 key variables as important determinants of drug preference: (a) excessive preference for immediate rewards (high discounting of future rewards); and (b) excessive valuation for addictive reinforcers (e.g., drugs). Two iterations of the Reinforcer Pathology theory exist with the latest iteration (i.e., Reinforcer Pathology 2.0) specifying that the temporal window of reinforcer integration (measured by delay discounting) is a determinant of reinforcer value. The 2 iterations of the Reinforcer Pathology theory are described. A novel insight and understanding of abstinence and relapse from a Reinforcer Pathology perspective, limitations, and future directions are discussed. The Reinforcer Pathology theory continues the long-standing efforts to scientifically understand and better define novel concepts and methods to further translational research and improve treatment outcomes. Exploring the complementary relation between the Reinforcer Pathology perspective and other current approaches could have a valuable effect.     

Well-being through learning: a systematic review of learning interventions in the workplace and their impact on well-being

The view that learning is central to well-being is widely held and the workplace is an important setting in which learning takes place. Evaluations of the effectiveness of well-being interventions in work settings are commonplace, but to date, there has been no systematic review of the effectiveness of learning interventions with regard to their impact on well-being. The review synthesizes evidence from 41 intervention studies, and although no studies report a negative impact on well-being, 14 show no effect on well-being, with 27 studies having a positive impact. We classify the studies according to the primary purpose of the learning intervention: to develop personal resources for well-being through learning; to develop professional capabilities through learning; to develop leadership skills through learning; and to improve organizational effectiveness through organizational-level learning. Although there is an abundance of workplace learning interventions, few are evaluated from a well-being perspective despite the commonly held assumption that learning yields positive emotional and psychological outcomes. The evidence indicates an important gap in our evaluation of and design of workplace learning interventions and their impact on well-being, beyond those focusing on personal resources. This raises important theoretical and practical challenges concerning the relationship between learning and well-being in the context of professional capability enhancement, leadership capability and organizational learning.     

Reading and Character: Weil and McDowell on Naïve Realism and Second Nature

Both Simone Weil and John McDowell analogize value or meaning to sensations such as colour or heat, and this analogy is a strategy for resisting anti‐realism. However, McDowell's analogy tacitly accepts the very dualism which he is criticizing, while Weil's analogy is both more naïve and more radical than his. Like McDowell, Weil argues that virtuous character is the actualization of a second nature, but she emphasizes the role of the body in this process. Fully trained, the agent's body is a transparent medium through which she reads circumstances – and through which the circumstances, clearly perceived, express themselves in action.     

Self‐Priming in Production: Evidence for a Hybrid Model of Syntactic Priming

Syntactic priming in language production is the increased likelihood of using a recently encountered syntactic structure. In this paper, we examine two theories of why speakers can be primed: error‐driven learning accounts (Bock, Dell, Chang, & Onishi, 2007; Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006) and activation‐based accounts (Pickering & Branigan, 1999; Reitter, Keller, & Moore, 2011). Both theories predict that speakers should be primed by the syntactic choices of others, but only activation‐based accounts predict that speakers should be able to prime themselves. Here we test whether speakers can be primed by their own productions in three behavioral experiments and find evidence of structural persistence following both comprehension and speakers’ own productions. We also find that comprehension‐based priming effects are larger for rarer syntactic structures than for more common ones, which is most consistent with error‐driven accounts. Because neither error‐driven accounts nor activation‐based accounts fully explain the data, we propose a hybrid model.     

Parent and actometer measures of motor activity level in the young infant

Motor activity level is one dimension of infant temperament for which parental judgment can be validated against a truly independent criterion. Two studies were conducted, the first involving a 27-min sample of behavior in a structured, attention-getting situation, and the second involving a 24-hr sample of in-home behavior. In both studies, parent perception of the 3- or 4-month-old as measured by the Activity Level (AL) scale of the Rothbart Infant Behavior Questionnaire was compared to the composited readings from four mechanical motion recorders (actometers) worn, one per limb, by the infant. The AL scale did not correlate with the actometer measure, r=.05 and R=.00, and the expected convergence of the 3-month version of the IBQ activity scale with its mechanical counterpart was not found. In the 24-hr study, birth order and ponderal index were significantly correlated with 24-hr actometer scores; first-borns and thin infants were most active.     

Knowing when to move on: cognitive and perceptual decisions in time

We investigated people's ability to decide how much time to spend on the task at hand. To make such decisions well, one must take into account, among other things, the cost of failing and how one's task performance changes as a function of time. We first investigated timing decisions when the underlying task was perceptual. Decisions were highly efficient and suggested that people can make good use of perceptual knowledge and abstract reward information. Previous studies have found that perceptual decisions are generally optimal, but that cognitive decisions are generally suboptimal--a perception-cognition gap. Does a similar gap exist for timing decisions? We compared timing decisions for a perceptual task with timing decisions for more cognitive tasks. Performance was highly similar across the tasks, which suggests that knowledge can be acquired, and used to make timing decisions, in an equally efficient way regardless of whether that knowledge is derived through perceptual or cognitive experience.