Co‐speech gesture as input in verb learning

People gesture a great deal when speaking, and research has shown that listeners can interpret the information contained in gesture. The current research examines whether learners can also use co‐speech gesture to inform language learning. Specifically, we examine whether listeners can use information contained in an iconic gesture to assign meaning to a novel verb form. Two experiments demonstrate that adults and 2‐, 3‐, and 4‐year‐old children can infer the meaning of novel intransitive verbs from gestures when no other source of information is present. The findings support the idea that gesture might be a source of input available to language learners.     

Effects of working memory capacity on mental set due to domain knowledge

The present set of studies examines how working memory capacity (WMC) relates to performance on a Remote Associates Task (RAT), originally designed by Mednick as a quantifiable creative problem solving assessment. The source of fixation was manipulated across two sets of RAT items. One set was neutral with no specific fixation embedded in them, while the second set was baseball-misleading, designed so that prior knowledge of baseball would lead to an incorrect solution attempt. WMC scores were positively related to performance on RAT items in all conditions, except one. High baseball knowledge participants' WMC scores did not relate to performance on the baseball-misleading RAT. While in general WMC may lead to better RAT performance, these results suggest that when there is a candidate solution strongly activated by prior knowledge, WMC may actually lead to too much focus on the incorrect solution and exacerbate mental sets.     

A long-term case study of analysis,response suppression,and treatment maintenance involving life-threatening pica

Behavioral assessment and intervention strategies used to treat chronic, life-threatening pica in an institutionalized, 16-year-old male with profoundly retarded collateral self-injurious and aggressive conduct, are described and evaluated. Thirty-minute observation sessions, conducted under baited contitions, revealed that bait saliency and the absence of caregiver supervision were discriminative for high rates of pica. Oral delivery of response-contingent lemon juice suppressed pica to near zero rates, while a procedural package incorporating delivery of water mist contingent on response-antecedant wandering contributed to further reductions in pica. Considerable suppression was maintained for approximately 18 months, with administration by paraprofessional staff. Data spanning nearly four years indicated that pica suppression was primarily a function of the introduction, maintenance, and withdrawal of aversive contingencies, rather than of concurrent schedules of positive reinforcement. Positive and negative side effects, and ethical questions associated with the use of aversive stimuli in treating life-threatening behavior, are discussed.     

Effects of vagino-cervical stimulation upon sociosexual behaviors in female rats

The role of vagino-cervical stimulation in the control of feminine copulatory behavior in the behaviorally estrous rat was examined in a complex environment that allowed the test female to pace her contacts with sexually active males, sexually passive males and ovariectomized females. Manipulations of vagino-cervical stimulation by administration of a topical anesthetic or by probing with a glass rod, immediately before testing in the complex environment, did not significantly alter any aspect of behavior in behaviorally estrous females. Transection of the pelvic nerve increased the number of intromissions and ejaculations that the females received and increased the amount of time that the females spent with the sexually active males. The present results implicate the pelvic nerve in the modulation of motivation for coital contacts in the female rat.