Acceleration and suppression of rats' responding to avoid foot shock and tail shock

Signalled response-independent shocks were superimposed on rats' wheel-turn responding to avoid shock administered to their feet through a grid floor or to their tails through fixed electrodes. In Experiment I, a tone paired with response-independent foot shock increased responding in three of four rats; a tone paired with tail shock increased responding in only one of four rats and suppressed responding in two rats. In Experiment II, a tone presented randomly with respect to response-independent shock had no reliable effect on responding to avoid foot shock or tail shock. In Experiment III, tail shock and foot shock were compared in a within-subject design while the temporal pattern of responding during conditioned stimuli was recorded. Responding during the conditioned stimulus preceding foot shock was characterized by initial suppression of responding at tone onset, followed by increased responding just before response-independent shock. Responding was suppressed throughout the conditioned stimulus preceding tail shock. Foot shock elicited bursts of responding, but tail shock did not.     

Perceived overqualification,felt organizational obligation,and extra-role behavior during the COVID-19 crisis: The moderating role of self-sacrificial leadership

Past research has found that employees who view themselves as overqualified for their jobs tend to hold negative job attitudes and be unwilling to go beyond the call of duty. In challenging situations such as during the COVID-19 crisis, when having “all hands-on deck” may be important to an organization's survival, mitigating the negative tendencies of these employees becomes important. Adopting a sensemaking perspective on crisis management, we examine whether supervisors' self-sacrificial leadership can mitigate these negative tendencies. First, we propose that employee perceived overqualification is associated with lower levels of felt obligation to the organization and thereby lower levels of extra-role behaviors (i.e., helping and proactivity). We next propose that supervisors' self-sacrificial leadership during the COVID-19 crisis can evoke, especially when COVID-19 more strongly impacts the organization, a sense of collectivism toward the organization, which mitigates the negative association of perceived overqualification with felt obligation and thus extra-role behaviors. We tested our theorizing in samples from the UK (n = 121, pilot study) and US (n = 382, main study) in studies with a multi-wave, time-lagged design. Findings from both studies provide support for our theorizing. We discuss implications for research and practice concerning perceived overqualification during a crisis.     

A brief assessment tool for body image in systemic lupus erythematosus

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) may adversely affect body image in multitude ways. Development and validation of a brief and valid SLE specific body image tool were undertaken. Eleven items were identified on interview of 21 SLE patients for the Body Image Lupus Scale (BILS v1.0). The tool was administered to 70 SLE patients. Based on analysis, feedback, and refinement of items, the final iteration BILS v1.2 with five items was administered to 233 SLE patients along with validated body image measures (Situational Inventory of Body Image Dysphoria and Body Image Quality of Life Inventory) and health-related quality of life measures for a subsample. The BILS scores' had an internal consistency reliability of .94. It correlated with both the referent body image measures, and with health-related quality of life. It differentiated participants by health status and disease activity. Test-retest reliability estimates exceeded .90. These results support the psychometric properties of BILS.     

Pitch chroma discrimination, generalization, and transfer tests of octave equivalence in humans

Octave equivalence occurs when notes separated by an octave (a doubling in frequency) are judged as being perceptually similar. Considerable evidence points to the importance of the octave in music and speech. Yet, experimental demonstration of octave equivalence has been problematic. Using go/no-go operant discrimination and generalization, we studied octave equivalence in humans. In Experiment 1, we found that a procedure that failed to show octave equivalence in European starlings also failed in humans. In Experiment 2, we modified the procedure to control for the effects of pitch height perception by training participants in Octave 4 and testing in Octave 5. We found that the pattern of responding developed by discrimination training in Octave 4 generalized to Octave 5. We replicated and extended our findings in Experiment 3 by adding a transfer phase: Participants were trained with either the same or a reversed pattern of rewards in Octave 5. Participants transferred easily to the same pattern of reward in Octave 5 but struggled to learn the reversed pattern. We provided minimal instruction, presented no ordered sequences of notes, and used only sine-wave tones, but participants nonetheless constructed pitch chroma information from randomly ordered sequences of notes. Training in music weakly hindered octave generalization but moderately facilitated both positive and negative transfer.     

Chickadees fail standardized operant tests for octave equivalence

Octave equivalence occurs when an observer judges notes separated by a doubling in frequency perceptually similar. The octave appears to form the basis of pitch change in all human cultures and thus may be of biological origin. Previously, we developed a nonverbal operant conditioning test of octave generalization and transfer in humans. The results of this testing showed that humans with and without musical training perceive the octave relationship between pitches. Our goal in the current study was to determine whether black-capped chickadees, a North American songbird, perceive octave equivalence. We chose these chickadees because of their reliance on pitch in assessing conspecific vocalizations, our strong background knowledge on their pitch height perception (log-linear perception of frequency), and the phylogenetic disparity between them and humans. Compared to humans, songbirds are highly skilled at using pitch height perception to classify pitches into ranges, independent of the octave. Our results suggest that chickadees used that skill, rather than octave equivalence, to transfer the note-range discrimination from one octave to the next. In contrast, there is evidence that at least some mammals, including humans, do perceive octave equivalence.     

Expressed emotion, communication deviance, and culture in families of patients with schizophrenia: a review of the literature

The aim of this article is to critically review the literature on expressed emotion (EE), communication deviance (CD), and culture in families of patients with schizophrenia. There is growing evidence that EE and CD are highly linked. Yet the two constructs together predict the development of schizophrenia and the associated symptoms better than either construct alone. In this article, the authors review data indicating that both the expression and the levels of high EE and CD vary by ethnicity. It may be especially difficult for family members to communicate coherently and in a less critical manner when focusing on patients' inability to sustain particular cultural norms and values that are endorsed by their family and ethnic background. The authors propose that more attention to the role of culture in EE and CD and greater focus on the proper assessment of these variables would further enhance our understanding of these constructs.     

Frequency-range discriminations and absolute pitch in black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus), mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli), and zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata)

The acoustic frequency ranges in birdsongs provide important absolute pitch cues for the recognition of conspecifics. Black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus), mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli), and zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) were trained to sort tones contiguous in frequency into 8 ranges on the basis of associations between response to the tones in each range and reward. All 3 species acquired accurate frequency-range discriminations, but zebra finches acquired the discrimination in fewer trials and to a higher standard than black-capped or mountain chickadees, which did not differ appreciably in the discrimination. Chickadees' relatively poorer accuracy was traced to poorer discrimination of tones in the higher frequency ranges. During transfer tests, the discrimination generalized to novel tones when the training tones were included, but not when they were omitted.     

Factors influencing inhibitory stimulus control: discrimination training and prior non-differential reinforcement

In Exp. I, shallow U-shaped gradients of inhibition in the line-orientation dimension were obtained from birds that had a vertical (0°) line on a green surround correlated with extinction and a blank green surround correlated with reinforcement. Birds that had massed extinction in the presence of the 0° line showed flat gradients. Thus, discrimination training, but not massed extinction, appears to generate inhibitory control. In Exp. II, as in studies of control by a stimulus correlated with punishment, non-differential training across the line-orientation dimension preceded further sessions. Steep inverted gradients about the 0° line were obtained after discrimination training with the 0° line correlated with extinction. Gradients obtained after massed extinction tended to be flat. Again, discrimination training was critical in obtaining negative gradients of stimulus control.