A cusp catastrophe: Hysteresis, bimodality, and inaccessibility in rabbit eyelid conditioning

Three properties of the cusp catastrophe: bimodality, inaccessibility, and hysteresis were evaluated in rabbit eyelid conditioning. Bimodality was evidenced by the fact that responding tended to occur at either very low or very high levels, and inaccessibility by the fact that intermediate levels of responding were rarely encountered. Hysteresis was demonstrated when: (a) levels of responding attained under a continuous schedule of reinforcement were largely maintained by a schedule which was too lean to promote conditioning by itself; and (b) levels of responding attained with a high intensity unconditional stimulus were largely maintained by a lower intensity unconditional stimulus which was too weak to promote conditioning in its own right. These results are consistent with the model of conditioning suggested by P. W. Frey and R. J. Sears (Psychological Review, 1978, 85, 321–340) which postulates response-mapping rules based on the cusp catastrophe.     

Modeling semantic memory: Effects of presenting semantic information in different modalities

How is semantic information from different modalities integrated and stored? If related ideas are encountered in French and English, or in pictures and sentences, is the result a single representation in memory, or two modality-dependent ones? Subjects were presented with items in different modalities, then were asked whether or not subsequently presented items were identical with the former ones. Subjects frequently accepted translations and items semantically consistent with those presented earlier as identical, although not as often as they accepted items actually seen previously. The same pattern of results was found when the items were French and English sentences, and when they were pictures and sentences. The results can be explained by the hypothesis that subjects integrate information across modalities into a single underlying semantic representation. A computer model, embodying this hypothesis, made predictions in close agreement with the data.     

Behavioral inference in young children

Three experiments are reported on behavioral inference in children of 3 to 5 years of age. In each experiment the children learned two separate sequences of behavior which they were required to put together in the final test stage in order to obtain a reward. In the first experiment moderate levels of behavioral inference were obtained, although a relatively high proportion of children failed to respond in the test phase. In the second experiment different instructions were used in the test phase, the number of nonresponders was greatly reduced and a much higher proportion of children showed behavioral inference. The third experiment obtained similar results under conditions which excluded the possibility of mediation during a memory test, which was included in the previous experiments. It was concluded that behavioral inference is found, under suitable conditions, in children as young as 3-years-old, and that reports by other investigators of failure to find such inference up to the age of about 8 were due to problems with apparatus and instructions.     

The processing of fundamental frequency in a dichotic matching task

The temporal characteristics of auditory memory were investigated using a reaction time paradigm. The study attempted to determine whether or not there are functionally distinct left and right hemisphere components of auditory memory with different capacities for the retention of nonlinguistic information, such as fundamental frequency, over the course of several seconds. The results indicated that fundamental frequency information in auditory memory remains substantially unchanged over the course of 2 sec. No evidence was found for the existence of separate left and right hemisphere components of auditory memory with different temporal characteristics. The implications of this finding for the organization of auditory memory in the brain are discussed.     

Are members of low status groups perceived as bad, or badly off? Egalitarian negative associations and automatic prejudice

Three studies explored the hypothesis that implicit measures of prejudice can tap negative, yet egalitarian associations. In Study 1, automatically associating African Americans with oppression predicted greater automatic prejudice. In Studies 2 and 3, classically conditioning associations between the novel group Noffians and words like oppressed, maltreated, and victimized led to greater automatic prejudice against Noffians. Results suggest that White Americans’ negative automatic associations with African Americans may partly result from associating members of low status groups with unfair circumstances. Because automatic associations predict prejudiced behaviors, the burden of proof is on those wishing to argue that egalitarian negative associations complicate the assessment of automatic attitudes rather than contribute to prejudiced responses. Discussion focuses on the implications of egalitarian negative associations for the theory and measurement of automatic prejudice.     

Who shapes the self of independents and interdependents? Explicit and implicit measures of the self's relatedness to family,friends and partner

We suggest that social relationships shape the self in different ways, depending on whether persons define themselves as independent or interdependent. While the self of independents is most strongly associated with mental representations of others to whom they are related because of their own deliberate action (e.g. friends), the self of interdependents is most strongly connected with representations of others with whom they share allocated group memberships (e.g. family members). We took both explicit (Study 1) and implicit measures (Studies 2, 3 and 4) on how strongly independent and interdependent selves are associated with self‐chosen versus allocated close others. In Studies 3 and 4, we additionally primed the independent or interdependent self. Both explicit and implicit measures indicated that mental representations of family members were more strongly associated with the interdependent self than with the independent self, while romantic partners and friends were connected with both the independent and interdependent self. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Estimation of the Nonlinear Random Coefficient Model when Some Random Effects Are Separable

A method is presented for marginal maximum likelihood estimation of the nonlinear random coefficient model when the response function has some linear parameters. This is done by writing the marginal distribution of the repeated measures as a conditional distribution of the response given the nonlinear random effects. The resulting distribution then requires an integral equation that is of dimension equal to the number of nonlinear terms. For nonlinear functions that have linear coefficients, the improvement in computational speed and accuracy using the new algorithm can be dramatic. An illustration of the method with repeated measures data from a learning experiment is presented.     

On the determinants of implicit evaluations: When the present weighs more than the past

It is often assumed that implicit evaluations are influenced by early childhood experiences, whereas explicit evaluations reflect recent experiences. However, previous findings supporting this assumption remain ambiguous as to whether the differential effects of early versus recent experiences are driven by their temporal distance or their affective versus cognitive nature. Controlling for affectivity by using a predominantly affective attitude object (i.e., religion), the present study found that both implicit and explicit evaluations were related to recent, but not early, experiences. This pattern consistently emerged for self-reported experiences as well as independent reports from parents. Moreover, the relation of recent experiences to one type of evaluation remained significant after controlling for the respective other type of evaluation, suggesting that recent experiences influenced implicit and explicit evaluations independently. Implications for attitudinal dissociations and processes of attitude change are discussed.     

An Empirical Comparison of Audition,Vision, and Touch in the Discrimination of Temporal Patterns and Ability to Reproduce them

Two conditional reasoning tests were administered to 34 students (17 males and 17 females) at each of four grade levels (i.e., 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th). Both tests contained conditional reasoning arguments which assessed students' comprehension of five basic principles of inference. However, they varied systematically according to the sex typing of the content (i.e., masculine or feminine). The results indicated that there were no significant sex differences according to grade level, type of content, or principle of inference. On the other hand, at each grade level, there were consistent differences among the mean scores for the five principles, and valid principles were significantly easier than invalid principles. The implications of these findings for future research were discussed.     

Measuring coherence using LP-models

This paper introduces a technique for measuring the degree of (in)coherence of inconsistent sets of propositional formulas. The coherence of these sets of formulas is calculated using the minimal models of those sets in G. Priest's Logic of Paradox. The compatibility of the information expressed by a set of formulas with the background or domain knowledge can also be measured with this technique. In this way, Hunter's objections to many-valued paraconsistent logics as instruments for measuring (in)coherence are addressed.