Emotional stimulation, defensive orientation, and hemispheric activation

Lateral eye movements (LEM) were measured for 32 right-handed subjects while responding to questions rated for verbal and visual-spatial cognitive content and for varying levels of emotionally stimulating content. The results indicated that eye movements were distributed to the right and left in response to verbal and spatial items, respectively, and that emotional content enhanced leftward responding. In addition, the defensive style of subjects, as measured by a defense mechanism inventory, interacted with the cognitive and affective dimensions of questions and was a determinant of LEM.     

A note on remembering to execute planned actions

The purpose of this article is to call attention to the necessary role of remembering in the execution of planned actions, such as following instructions, delivering messages, and keeping appointments. Remembering in this context is considered within a theoretical framework of activities, actions, and operations advanced by Soviet developmental psychologists. The importance of remembering planned actions in applied settings, strategies employed by children and adults in remembering planned actions, relationships between motivation and remembering, and developmental relationships are discussed. In addition, several characteristics of the Soviet developmental approach are briefly noted.     

The effects of induced affective states on letter discrimination in disadvantaged preschool children

The relationship between affective state and academic performance was examined using 30 4- to 6- year old economically disadvantaged black children. Children were assigned to one of three affective induction groups: positive, negative, or neutral affect. Changes from pre- to posttest administrations of a letter discrimination task suggest that negative and positive affect inductions produce different changes in both errors and response latency. These findings suggest that further research on the possibility that negative affect may be responsible in part for the academic difficulties of disadvantaged children and other children under stress is warranted.     

Vibrotactual choice reaction time,tactile receptor systems and ideomotor compatibility

In most of the literature on human performance the results of an experiment by Leonard (1959) are quoted as the most outstanding example of perfect S-R-compatibility. In that experiment the fingertips were stimulated by a 50 Hz vibration; the vibrating armature had to be depressed and the reaction times of the right index finger were recorded. The reaction time was found not to increase with an increasing number of tactual choices. In experiment 1 of the present study, also applying 50 Hz vibrations, the reaction times of other fingers were also reported. In addition the response stimulus interval (RSI) was varied. Leonard's results were not replicated: reaction time increased with the number of tactual choices at all levels of RSI. In experiment 2 the frequency and amplitude of vibration were systematically varied and it turned out that these variables could account for the differences between the results found. An increase in reaction time with the number of tactual choices was found with weak vibrations, but not with strong vibrations. The differences in reaction time patterns appeared to be caused by differences in tactile receptor systems (i.e. the non-Pacini versus the Pacinian system). It was concluded that the concept of S-R-compatibility did not cover the pattern of results but that the concept of ideomotor compatibility did.     

Wage rate,nonlabor income,and labor supply in rats

Thirsty rats pressed a lever for water under fixed-ratio schedules, with or without free water at the start of the 1-hr session. Total water intake fell steadily as the fixed-ratio requirement increased; when the fixed-ratio requirements covered a relatively broad range, total lever presses rose and then fell as the requirement increased. Free water decreased total lever presses but increased total intake, especially at the higher fixed-ratio requirements; its effect on total intake proved relatively hard to detect, but grew more apparent as the amount of free water increased. The results conformed more closely to a recent revision of the conservation model than to the original model. By viewing milliliters per press as a wage rate, and free water as nonlabor income, results are brought to bear on predictions derived from economic labor supply theory. In economic terms, rising wage rates were accompanied by a rise followed by a fall in total labor supply, but a steady rise in total income, in conformity with the backward bending labor supply curve. Nonlabor income cut the supply of labor but raised total income, especially at the lower wage rates.     

Transfer of conditioned appetitive stimuli to conditioned aversive excitatory and inhibitory stimuli

The transfer of Pavlovian appetitive stimuli to Pavlovian aversive stimuli was examined in three experiments. In Experiment 1, rats received appetitive (Ap) conditioning designed to establish a flashing-light stimulus as either a CS+, CSo, or CS? for food, or to maintain it as a novel stimulus for US-alone subjects. Then, the stimulus was employed as a signal for weak shock in conditioned-emotional-response (CER) training. Both acquisition and extinction results showed that the ApCS+ facilitated and the ApCS? retarded aversive excitatory conditioning relative to the ApCSo and US-alone controls. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1 with both a moderate and a severe shock in CER training. In Experiment 3, different groups received the same appetitive conditioning as before, but to a flashing-light stimulus which was then employed as a signal for no shock in CER training. The ApCS? facilitated and the ApCS+ retarded aversive inhibitory conditioning relative to ApCSo and US-alone controls. Collectively, these findings establish that, in Pavlovian conditioning, transfer of an appetitive CS to an aversive excitor or inhibitor is facilitated by maintaining the initial conditioning contingency.     

Conditioned fear-induced opiate analgesia on the Formalin test: Evidence for two aversive motivational systems

Fear, conditioned to apparatus cues associated with electric shock, was measured by recording freezing. Pain reactivity was simultaneously measured by recording the paw-licking and paw-lifting response to Formalin injected into a paw. Stimuli associated with shock produced freezing and inhibited the responses to Formalin; whereas various control stimuli did neither. These results indicate that one of the responses to fear is analgesia. The opiate antagonist naltrexone reversed this analgesia, suggesting that the analgesia has an opiate nature. The results were interpreted in terms of a two-aversive-motivational-systems model. One system, the pain system, is instigated by tissue-damaging stimuli and produces recuperative behavior that functions to promote healing. The other system, the fear system, is triggered by conditioned fear stimuli. It produces species-specific defensive reactions and also inhibits the pain system via analgesia.     

Differences in matching-to-sample performance with element and compound sample stimuli in pigeons

This series of experiments examined zero-delay matching-to-sample performance in pigeons with element and compound sample stimuli. In Experiment 1, compound sample stimuli were consistently followed by compound comparison stimuli and matching accuracy during testing was equivalent to element sample-element comparison trials on the color dimension. In Experiment 2, element comparisons suddenly introduced following compound samples produced a decrement on the line dimension only. Subsequent testing at various sample durations revealed higher matching accuracy following element samples than following compound samples on both the color and line-tilt dimensions. Experiment 3 replicated the results of Experiments 1 and 2 and also demonstrated that the superiority of element over compound matching performance remains constant over the sample durations tested. In Experiment 4 testing at sample durations up to 30 sec produced an overall decrement in matching performance, but again the element vs compound matching difference remained constant. The stimulus-generalization decrement hypothesis provided a better explanation of these results than either the information-overload hypothesis or the rule hypothesis.     

Extinction of the context and latent inhibition

The hypothesis that latent inhibition could be reduced by extinguishing the experimental context, that is, exposing the rats to the context between exposure to the conditional stimulus (CS) and conditioning, was tested. All experiments used the conditioned emotional response procedure. In Experiment 1, extinction was not effective when the animals were exposed to the clicker 40 times off the baseline of responding for food and when the clicker CS was partially reinforced with shocks during the test phase. In Experiments 2 and 3, latent inhibition could be reduced by extinction if the animals were exposed to the CS 24 or 16 times on-baseline, and if continuous reinforcement was used during the test. In Experiments 4, 5, and 6, we attempted to determine which variable was responsible for the discrepant results. In Experiment 4, extinction was effective with 20 or 40 on-baseline exposures to the CS, using continuous reinforcement during the test. In Experiment 5, extinction was not effective with exposure on- or off-baseline, using 24 exposures and partial reinforcement. Finally, in Experiment 6, extinction reduced latent inhibition using continuous, but not partial, reinforcement with 40 exposures off-baseline. From these results, we concluded that Wagner's model of habituation was not sufficient to account for latent inhibition and that a hybrid model, using both associative and cognitive representational processes, was necessary.     

The vocational side of a new start in life: A career model of immigrants

The research tests a career model of immigrants with the following stages: crystallization, vocational retraining, job entry and trial, establishment, and maintenance. Two samples of immigrants, one consisting of 89 newcomers and another consisting of 60 white-collar workers with an average seniority of 5 years in the country, are followed up during a period of 2 years, after initially taking a test battery measuring vocationally relevant traits. Dependent criterion variables are occupational government examinations and adjustment to the job. Smallest space analysis is used to construct the career space of the newcomer cohort, and multiple regression of criterion variables on success predictors was performed. Both methods confirmed the model. The need arose to reconsider the duration of career stages of immigrants and their link to certain ages in comparison to the models in use. The research brought into focus the continuity of the process of career reconstruction after the interruption of vocational activity caused by emigration.