The allure of forbidden food: On the role of attention in self-regulation

The aim of the present studies was to examine the impact of food cues on restrained eaters’ attention for food. Previous research has shown that restrained eaters spontaneously activate hedonic thoughts in response to palatable food cues, and that such food cues also lead them to inhibit their dieting goal. We argue that as a consequence, restrained eaters’ selective attention will automatically be drawn towards hedonically relevant food items. Consistent with our expectations, the results of two studies revealed that restrained eaters, but not unrestrained eaters, displayed an attentional bias for hedonically rated food items when they had been pre-exposed to food cues. However, this attentional bias did not occur when restrained eaters were primed with the concept of dieting, thereby rendering the regulation of eating behavior more successful. These findings are discussed in the context of implicit processes in self-regulation.     

Cooperative Learning Groups at the College Level: Differential Effects on High, Average, and Low Exam Performers

A repeated-measures mixed-design was used in examining the effects of cooperative learning study teams on exam performance for 378 undergraduate students enrolled in one of 10 large sections of an introductory educational psychology course over a two-semester period. Students were assigned to 5-member cooperative groups based on previous exam achievement (low, average, high). Bonuses (20% of exam score) were offered to groups who improved their mean exam performance to a pre-established criterion in the cooperative-group phase. Results yielded an overall effect size of 0.42 for cooperative study versus individual study. Students who had obtained low and average scores on the preceding exam improved significantly during cooperative study, but the previously high achievers decreased somewhat.     

Caring for Nature: From Fact to Value, from Respect to Reverence

Abstract. Despite the classical prohibition of moving from fact to value, encounter with the biodiversity and plenitude of being in evolutionary natural history moves us to respect life, even to reverence it. Darwinian accounts are value‐laden and necessary for understanding life at the same time that Darwinian theory fails to provide sufficient cause for the historically developing diversity and increasing complexity on Earth. Earth is a providing ground; matter and energy on Earth support life, but distinctive to life is information coded in the genetic molecules that superintends this matter‐energy. Life is generated and regenerated in struggle, persists in its perishing. Such life is also a gift; nature is grace. Biologists and theologians join in celebrating and conserving the genesis on Earth, awed in their encounter with this creativity that characterizes our home planet.     

Prediction Errors and Attention in the Presence and Absence of Feedback

ABSTRACT— Contemporary theories of learning typically assume that learning is driven by prediction errors—in other words, that we learn more when our predictions turn out to be incorrect than we do when our predictions are correct. Results from the recording of electrical brain activity suggest one mechanism by which this might happen; we seem to direct visual attention toward the likely causes of previous prediction errors. This can happen very rapidly—within less than 200 milliseconds of the error-causing object being presented. It is tempting to infer that if learning is driven by prediction errors, then little can be learned in the absence of feedback. Such a conclusion is unwarranted. In fact, the substantial learning that is sometimes the result of simple exposure to objects can also be explained by processes of directing attention toward the likely causes of previous prediction errors.     

C. S. PEIRCE,G. W. F. HEGEL,AND STUART KAUFFMAN'S COMPLEXITY THEORY: A RESPONSE

Stuart Kauffman's work on complexity and self‐organization echoes ideas found in writings of C. S. Peirce and G. W. F. Hegel. Included in these common threads are the understanding of science as historical narrative, the recognition of emergence as a phenomenon associated with complex systems, and the appreciation of agency as an emergent property that serves as both a creative and determining force in evolution.     

CONTINGENT REINFORCEMENT FOR BENZODIAZEPINE-FREE URINES: EVALUATION OF A DRUG ABUSE TREATMENT INTERVENTION

This study evaluated contingent reinforcement for benzodiazepine-free urines as a therapeutic intervention for promoting reduced use of supplemental benzodiazepine drugs among methadone maintenance outpatients. Ten methadone maintenance patients were selected for participation on the basis of positive urinalysis results. During a 12-week intervention period these patients were offered clinic privileges, including monetary payments or methadone take-home doses, contingent on benzodiazepine negative urinalysis test results. Eight of ten participants responded to the intervention with at least 2.5 weeks of consecutive clean urines. An increase in benzodiazepine-negative tests during the contingent reinforcement period was significant for the group as a whole. The results suggest that more widespread application of contingent reinforcement procedures may be warranted in drug abuse treatment clinics.     

Reinforcement of inhibition

A differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior (DRO) schedule with trials and delayed reinforcement was investigated. Periodically a wheel was briefly available to rats, followed six seconds later by brief availability of a bar. Variable-ratio food reinforcement of wheel turns was adjusted to give 95% turns. After variable-ratio-five reinforcement of bar presses produced 100% pressing, then separate ratio schedules were used for presses following turns (turn presses) and presses following nonturns (nonturn presses). Increasing nonturn-press reinforcements decreased turns, even though total reinforcements increased. Reversal by decreasing nonturn-press reinforcements raised turns, though with hysteresis. Thus food reinforcement increased nonturns even though delayed six to ten seconds after nonturns, a delay that greatly reduces response reinforcement. Those and other results indicate that the turn decrease was not due to reinforcement of competing responses. Evidence against other alternatives, and the reduction of responding by increased reinforcement, indicate that the term inhibition is appropriate for the phenomenon reinforced. Response-specific inhibition appears appropriate for this particular kind, since its effects are more specific to particular responses than Pavlovian conditioned-inhibition. Response-specific inhibition seems best considered a behavioral output comparable to responses (e.g., both reinforcible) but with important properties different from responses (e.g., different reinforcement-delay gradients).     

Uninstructed human responding: Sensitivity of low-rate performance to schedule contingencies

College students' presses on a telegraph key occasionally turned on a light in the presence of which button presses produced points later exchangeable for money. Initially, responding was maintained by low-rate contingencies superimposed on either random-interval or random-ratio schedules. Later, the low-rate contingencies were relaxed. Low-rate key pressing had been established for some students by shaping and for others by demonstration and written instructions. After the low-rate contingencies were relaxed, higher response rates generally did not increase point earnings with random-interval scheduling, but did so with random-ratio scheduling. In both cases, shaped responding usually increased, and instructed responding usually continued at an unchanged low rate. The insensitivity of instructed responding typically occurred despite contact with the contingencies. The differential sensitivity to schedule contingencies of shaped responding relative to instructed responding is consistent with the different properties of contingency-governed and rule-governed behavior and is not rate-dependent.     

CONTINGENT REINFORCEMENT OF ABSTINENCE WITH INDIVIDUALS ABUSING COCAINE AND MARIJUANA

Two males diagnosed with cocaine dependence received a behavioral intervention comprised of contingency management and the community reinforcement approach. During the initial phase of treatment, reinforcement was delivered contingent on submitting cocaine-free urine specimens. The community reinforcement approach involved two behavior therapy sessions each week. Almost complete cocaine abstinence was achieved, but regular marijuana use continued. During a second phase, reinforcement magnitude was reduced, but remained contingent on submitting cocaine-free specimens. Behavior therapy was reduced to once per week. Cocaine abstinence and regular marijuana use continued. Next, reinforcement was delivered contingent on submitting cocaine- and marijuana-free specimens. This modified contingency resulted in an abrupt increase in marijuana abstinence and maintenance of cocaine abstinence. One- and 5-month follow-ups indicated that cocaine abstinence continued, but marijuana smoking resumed. These results indicate that the behavioral intervention was efficacious in achieving abstinence from cocaine and marijuana; maintenance, however, was achieved for cocaine only.     

Responding under positive and negative response contingencies in pigeons and crows

Four crows were trained to key peck for food. Then, they were exposed to a positive response contingency that required them to peck the key when it was illuminated briefly (the trial) in order to receive food. This procedure resulted in consistent within-trial pecking. When the contingency changed so that food was presented at the end of a trial when no response occurred, but the trial terminated immediately and food was omitted when a response occurred (negative response contingency), responding decreased markedly. Eight pigeons were studied under the same change in contingencies. These birds varied in their response histories from naive to having several years' experience. The previously naive pigeons also showed rapid declines in responding under the negative contingency; the responding of the birds with extended training histories declined much more slowly. Eventually, however, six of the eight pigeons showed little or no responding under the negative contingency, while they responded consistently when re-exposed to the positive contingency. These findings question the power and the generality of the negative automaintenance phenomenon.