Avoidance of heat by rats: Effects of thermal context on rapidity of extinction

Rats were trained to avoid radiant heat in a one-way, jump-up apparatus. The animals that could avoid heat responded more frequently and more rapidly than did yoked controls that received heat, but for whom no avoidance contingency was deliberately arranged. Control animals trained with light, rather than heat, did not learn to avoid. Using this jump-up avoidance, rats were trained to avoid heat in a room maintained at 27°C. They were then given a series of extinction trials, with no heat presentations, with the temperature maintained at either 27 or 7°C. Placing the rats in a cold environment facilitated extinction of heat avoidance behavior, but only in animals that had previously experienced heat while they were in the cold. Prior heat experience administered in a warm, rather than cold, context was not sufficient to potentiate the effect of ambient temperature on avoidance extinction. Implications of these results for theories of avoidance learning are discussed.     

Stimulus-reinforcer and response-reinforcer relations in the control of conditioned appetitive headpoking (“goal tracking”) in rats

Experiment 1 studied the effect of several Pavlovian appetitive conditioning procedures on rats' headpoking into a food tray (goal tracking). The procedures included forward delay conditioning, CS-alone extinction, differential conditioning, and simultaneous compound conditioned inhibition training. In general, the headpoke behaved in all of these treatments much like a Pavlovian CR; however, one could also say that the headpoke behaved like an adventitiously reinforced operant for which the CS was an S^D. Experiment 2, therefore, used the differential-nondifferential technique (E. Gamzu & D. R. Williams, Science, 1971, 171, 923–925), and Experiment 3 used an omission technique (F. D. Sheffield, in W. F. Prokasy, Ed., Classical conditioning, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1965; D. R. Williams & H. Williams, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1969, 12, 511–520), to try to separate the role of stimulus-reinforcer and response-reinforcer relations in controlling the headpoke. These techniques proved inadequate. The results of Experiment 2 could be given either operant or Pavlovian interpretations. Those of Experiment 3 showed that headpoking is dominated by response-reinforcer, rather than by stimulus-reinforcer, relations when the two compete but forced no conclusion about which dominates when the two act together as in acquisition. Implications for pigeon autoshaping are discussed.     

Attention to components or compounds as a factor in discrimination transfer performance.

Prior to being tested with standard reversal or extradimensional (ED) shift procedures, two groups of mentally retarded subjects (MA: 4 to years) were pretrained using two different methods. The Component group received two problems which could be solved easily only by attending to the form components. The Compound group was trained on two problems requiring attention to compound color-form cues. It was assumed that the two solution modes would carry over to the third problem, which was for both groups a standard form discrimination with color variable and irrelevant within settings. The fourth problem was either an ED shift or a reversal. The Component group learned reversal faster than ED shift whereas the opposite was true for the Compound group. Subproblem analyses of ED shift performance showed dependent settings for the Component group and independent settings for the Compound group. Results are consistent with the view that compound and component solutions of discriminative problems are achieved by attention to the abstract dimensions of compounds or components and that attention to either of these dimensions can be trained at higher or lower developmental levels even though the salience of the compound dimension may be initially greater for lower level subjects.     

Objective self-awareness,standards of evaluation,and moral behavior

In a performance setting, subjects were given an opportunity to cheat without fear of detection on puzzle problems. Subjects were led to believe that successful performance was due to ability in some conditions, but to luck in other conditions. In fact, most of the problems were insolvable, so that success was impossible without cheating. Self-awareness was induced in half the subjects by having them sit in front of a mirror and listen to a tape recording of their own voice as they worked on the puzzle problems; the remaining subjects were not exposed to a mirror and listened to a tape of someone else's voice as they worked on the problems. It was predicted that cheating frequency would be higher under ability attribution conditions than under luck attribution conditions, and that this effect of performance attribution would be greater among self-aware subjects than among non-self-aware subjects. Results confirmed these hypotheses. Discussion centered on the differential use of morality and competence standards for behavior when in a state of self-awareness.     

Consistency of the labial temperature change measure of human female eroticism

Six adult, human female volunteers participated in a study to determine the consistency of their pattern of sexual arousal to two erotic films over two experimental sessions. Sexual arousal was assessed objectively by means of continuous measurement of temperature changes of the labia minora and subjectively by periodic self-ratings. Each subject developed increases in labial temperature to both film presentations that ranged from about 0.10°C to 1.36°C above basal levels. The amount of temperature change in a subject's labia minora during the first film presentation was significantly correlated with that during the second film, and there was a reasonable degree of consistency across the two sessions with regard to the rate at which the subject's labial temperature subsided towards basal levels after the cessation of erotic stimulation. Labial temperature changes and subjective ratings were also significantly correlated during each of the two film presentations.     

Retrieval failure, rehearsal deficiency, and short-term memory loss in the aphasic adult

Studies show that aphasic patients typically are grossly impaired in short-term memory performance. Since aphasics generally experience difficulty in word retrieval, it is conceivable that short-term memory loss is partially the result of verbal rehearsal deficiency which, in turn, is caused by the word retrieval problem. This paper reports an experiment in which five aphasic adults were nonverbally to recall individualized lists of pictures they could easily name and lists of pictures they could not name. Final items in the two lists were recalled with equal accuracy; this was expected in that the recency effect usually reflects sensory rather than verbal storage. Initial items were recalled with greater accuracy than middle-list items in the nameable sets but not in the unnameable sets. This primacy effect suggests the aphasics rehearsed the nameable pictures, but both lists were recalled so poorly that rehearsal deficit was considered responsible for no more than a fraction of the aphasics' reduction in short-term memory.     

Lateral-frontal slow potential shifts preceding language acts in deaf and hearing adults

Slow potential EEG shifts (SPSs) recorded over Broca's area and the paired contralateral site preceding cued language acts have been reported to identify the language-dominant hemisphere. A contingent negative variation paradigm SPS method was applied to the comparative study of 10 hearing adults and of 10 adult prelingually deaf persons whose first learned language was American Sign Language. Volunteers performed both language and non-language acts in both oral and manual expressive modes. The hearing group showed no lateralized SPS, failing to replicate previous reports. The deaf group showed a nonsignificant trend opposite in laterality to that of hearing groups in previous reports.     

A multimethod analysis of selected self-esteem measures

This study investigated the convergent and discriminant validity of selected measures of global self-esteem and social self-esteem, using the multitrait-multimethod design. Orderliness was included as the third trait for appraising the discriminant validity of the self-esteem measures. Each trait was measured by three different methods: true-false self-report inventory, multipoint self-report inventory, and simple self-ratings. The Tennessee Self-Concept Scale and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (short form) were the selected measures of global self-esteem. The revised Janis-Field Feelings of Inadequacy Scale and the Self-esteem scale of the Jackson Personality Inventory were included as measures of social self-esteem, while orderliness measures included the Order scales from the Personality Research Form and Comrey Personality Scales. Results from the multitrait-multimethod matrix and the multimethod factor analysis of data based on 93 males and 103 females provided strong evidence for the convergent and discriminant validity of the various trait measures.