SDT analysis of binary decisions and sensory intensity ratings to noxious thermal stimuli

During three sessions, each of 24 Ss responded to noxious thermal stimuli, using the following judgments: binary decision, S responded “high” or “low”; sensory intensity rating, S rated his sensory experience along a thermal intensity continuum; and concurrent report, S’s binary decision was followed by an intensity rating. The binary-decision d’ was significantly higher than the rating d′, suggesting that Ss could not maintain multiple thermal criteria in a consistent fashion. The criteria for pain obtained with single and concurrent intensity rating judgments did not differ. These results suggest that the most efficacious and valid method for the study of experimental pain is to obtain concurrent responses, and to use binary decisions to compute d’ and sensory intensity ratings to locate S’s criterion for reporting pain.     

Process thought in Tillich's eschatology

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

THE APPLICATION OF GENERALIZED CORRECT SOCIAL CONTINGENCIES: AN EVALUATION OF A TRAINING PROGRAM1

Two aides operating a kindergarten-style program for institutionalized mental retardates were trained, using observer feedback, to apply generalized “correct” social contingencies to 10 defined classes of appropriate and inappropriate child behaviors. A multiple baseline design was used to demonstrate, sequentially, the effects of the training procedure upon the attending behavior of each teacher. After withdrawal of feedback, a posttraining follow-up served to assess the durability of training. For both aides, the effect of training was to increase the proportion of appropriate child behaviors attended to, compared with baseline data, and a follow-up over a number of weeks indicated that the effects of training were apparently durable.     

PROGRAMMING THE GENERALIZATION OF A GREETING RESPONSE IN FOUR RETARDED CHILDREN1

Reinforcement techniques of prompting and shaping were employed to develop hand-waving, a useful social greeting response, in four institutionalized retarded subjects. A multiple-baseline design across subjects demonstrated the reliable functioning of the training procedures. Specifically, it showed that training and maintenance of the greeting response by one experimenter was not usually sufficient for generalization of the response to the more than 20 other members of the institution staff who had not participated in the training of the response. However, high levels of generalization to staff members were recorded for three subjects over periods ranging from one to six months after a second experimenter trained and maintained the response in conjunction with the first experimenter. The fourth subject, although never receiving training by a second experimenter, showed similar results following a second training by the first experimenter.     

The sequential structure of the quantal experiment

A linear model is proposed for the interrelation of successive responses in the quantal experiment. The model is based on a direct mechanism of response linkage rather than on an indirect relation by means of fluctuations in sensitivity, because Neisser's published results implicate the former mechanism rather than the latter. The proportion of increments detected is an unbiased estimator of the detection probability and has a statistical efficiency of only 20%. In view of this unexpectedly low efficiency it is possible that rectilinear psychometric results have occurred by means of a biased, but unwitting, selection of data.     

The use of muroid rodents in the psychology laboratory

The rodent superfamily Muroidea represents a group of animals with much potential for comparative behavioral study as they are readily acquired, easy to maintain, and exist with sufficient ecological and behavioral diversity to enhance the likelihood of significant results. The superfamily includes Old World rodents, gerbils, hamsters, and a considerable variety of New World rats, mice, and voles which inhabit all 48 adjacent United States. Potential uses of muroid rodents, their taxonomy, and their husbandry are described with particular reference to the 28 species that have been maintained in the author’s laboratory. Although research on muroid behavior is just beginning, available data already support the proposed utility of these animals in behavioral research.     

Biochemistry of nervous dogs

Previous behavioral studies on a nervous strain of pointer dogs have demonstrated genetic as well as environmental components in the nervous trait. Behaviorally these animals are extremely hypervigilant, with an apparent low threshold to fear and show strong avoidance of humans. In addition, the nervous E strain dogs show an unusually high degree of sensitivity to the mange mite. These observations led to the initiation of studies to determine whether differences exist between the normal A strain and the E strain of dogs at the biochemical level. Although a number of biochemical parameters examined have shown no statistically significant difference between the two strains, the modification of serum creatine phosphokinase (CPK) activity in response to various types of stress does differ as a function of strain—the nervous dogs being less, not more, responsive than the healthy dogs. When not specifically subjected to stress the serum CPK levels in both strains were highly related to age. Significant differences between strains also have been demonstrated in the cerebrospinal fluid acetyl cholinesterase activity levels in older animals. Tryptophan loading experiments, conducted in the presence and absence of the monoamine oxidase inhibitor, tranylcypromine, resulted in no readily observable behavioral modification of either strain and the response of the cerebrospinal fluid 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid levels was similar for the two strains.     

Masking of tones by tones and of noise by noise

Using a two-alternative temporal forced-choice technique, two binaural detection experiments were performed. In the first, the detectability of a 250-Hz 128-msec tonal signal masked by a gated 70-dB SPL tone of the same frequency and duration was measured as a function of the level of the signal, the phase angle at which the signal was added to the masker, and the interaural phase difference of the signal. In the second experiment, the signal was a wideband (100-3,000 Hz) 128-msec Gaussian noise masked by a continuous Gaussian noise of the same bandwidth and coherent with the signal. The detectability of this noise signal was measured as a function of the same variables investigated in the first experiment. In both experiments detectability was found to follow a simple energy- or power-detection model when the interaural phase difference was 0 deg. When the interaural phase difference was 180 deg, the function relating the signal level required for a constant level of performance to the signal-masker phase angle is such that neither the Webster-Jeffress hypothesis nor Durlach’s E-C model accounts for the data. The data are reasonably well fit by a model proposed by Hafter and Carrier.