Some effects of the conditioned suppression paradigm on operant discrimination performance

Three experiments were conducted with rats to determine the effects of electric shock on responding during an operant discrimination. In two of these experiments, a conditioned suppression procedure was superimposed upon a stimulus signalling the availability of food reinforcement (S(D)). Response rates were greatly suppressed, not only in the warning signal periods which preceded each shock, but in the presence of S(D), and the stimulus signalling the unavailability of reinforcement (S(Delta)) as well. A third experiment, in which a very mild shock was used without a warning signal, demonstrated an increased response rate in S(D) and S(Delta), although this effect was rather unsystematic. In a similar study, Hearst (1965) found an increased rate in S(Delta) independent of any change in the S(D) rate. The present study failed to obtain Hearst's effect but illustrated a suppressive effect with a similar procedure.     

Diderot,Jacques, le Maître,le spectateur et l'amateur — Raconter le tableau,argumenter le goût

Résumé Dans une séquence deJacques le Fataliste, Diderot met aux prises deux approches du tableau: l'une, qui est le fait de Jacques, est fondée sur la médiation narrative et les puissances rhétoriques de l'énonciation langagière; l'autre, ironiquement visée par le Maître, implique les habitus de l'amateur et les savoirs du connaisseur. La peinture se trouve ainsi être l'enjeu de deux stratégies discursives, qui, en dernière analyse, renvoient à des régimes de langage et à des postures du sujet antithétiques: une dépense et une économie. Radicalisant un affrontement qui se faisait jour dans lesSalons, cette scène tardive nous rappelle que pour Diderot la vue ne saurait avoir le dernier mot.     

Conservatism and Perceptions of Poverty: An Attributional Analysis1

Attribution theory was used to relate causal explanations for poverty to affect and behavioral intentions. In Experiment 1, student subjects rated 13 causes of poverty on importance, the attribution of controllability, blame, affects of pity and anger, and judgments of help-giving (personal help and welfare). Two individual differences, conservatism and the belief in a just world, were also assessed. A principal components analysis categorized the causes into three types: individualistic, societal, and fatalistic. Conservatism correlated positively with a belief in the importance of individualistic causes, controllability, blame, and anger, and it correlated negatively with perceptions of the importance of societal causes, pity, and intentions to help. No systematic effects of the belief in a just world emerged. A structural equation analysis revealed that personal help is emotionally determined, whereas welfare judgments are directly related to attributions of responsibility and political ideology. Experiment 2 revealed a similar pattern of results using a nonstudent sample.     

Hick's interpretation of religious pluralism

Conclusion There is no question that Hick's theory rests upon multiple assumptions about a singular, transcendental grounding and the fundamental equality of the various religions that cannot be inductively verified beyond all doubt. That need not mean, however, that the attractiveness of his theory derives solely from the peculiar charm of supposing that the One and the Many are no more at odds in the realm of religion than anywhere else. For Hick's assumptions are not just an exercise in wishful thinking or wild speculation. They are based upon experience from within what he calls the benign circle of faith. Because the reality experienced is ambiguous, acceptance or rejection of his views will, of course, be a matter of choice. And, admittedly, this choice will be dictated not so much by a weighing of empirical evidence that might prove the various religions to be exactly as he sees them, as by a consideration of what we have been surveying in the preceding pages, namely, the import of seeing things as Hick does.

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Patterns and determinants of attitudes of psychiatric residents toward group therapy

The nature and origins of psychiatric residents' attitudes toward group psychotherapy were assessed by means of a semistructured interview. Subjects were 10 PGY-4 residents from five different residency training programs. Questions focused on subjects' perceptions of the possibilities and limitations of group therapy as a treatment modality, the efficacy and dangers of combined and conjoint treatment, the nature and extent of their training experiences in group approaches, the salient characteristics of their group therapy teachers and supervisors, and the attitudes of faculty about group psychotherapy that they were able to infer. Results suggest enormous variability of residents' attitudes. Hypotheses about the reasons for such variability are offered.     

Effects of relative immobilization on the speaker's nonverbal behavior and on the dialogue imagery level

People generally display an important amount of gestural and motoric activity when speaking. Since recent data have shown the limits of an explanation of this activity in terms of nonverbal or bodily communication, the present study attempted to explore what would happen if subjects were impeded from making the principal movements they normally perform during a conversation. Subjects were led to hold a 50-minute conversation while sitting in an armchair devised to restrain their movements of the head, arms, hands, legs, and feet during part of the experiment. The main dependent variables consisted of nonverbal activity in body zones that remained free to vary: eyebrows, eyes, mouth, and fingers. During the phase of movement restriction, highly significant increases in activity were recorded in these zones, with subsequent return to base levels when the subject recovered free movements. Also, significant interactions of conditions of movements and subject's conversational role (speaker vs. listener) were observed for most of the variables. Samples of dialogues submitted to a computerized technique of content analysis revealed a significant decrease in the vividness of imagery during movement restriction.