Exploring evaluative conditioning using a working memory task

Johnsrude, Owen, Zhao, and White (1999) demonstrated that evaluative conditioning (EC) can occur even while participants conduct a working memory task. This is consistent with claims that EC can occur outside awareness, and hence is an automatic process. In their study, three abstract patterns were paired differentially with a candy reinforcer: 90, 50, or 10%. On reinforced trials a red ball was presented in one of three locations on a computer screen. Participants were instructed to keep a tally for each location. We argue that if EC is automatic, then it will not consume cognitive/attentional resources, and hence co-occurrence of red ball and reinforcer should be irrelevant. Results from four experiments indicate that learning is only evident when the red ball and reinforcer co-occur or when the complexity of the working memory task is reduced. Together, the results suggest that EC is governed by specific attentional constraints on working memory. This interpretation questions the automatic nature of EC.     

项目诊断性在特征推理中作用的研究

该研究在Murphy等人2005年研究的基础上,探讨了项目诊断性对特征推理的影响。实验1探讨归类情况下,项目诊断性对特征推理的影响。实验2探讨不归类情况下,项目诊断性对特征推理的影响。实验结果表明,归类与否决定项目诊断性是否影响特征推理。在归类情况下,高低两种诊断性条件下的特征概率判断没有差异,表明归类情况下,项目诊断性不影响特征推理;在不归类的情况下,高低两种诊断性条件下的特征概率判断存在显著差异,表明不归类情况下,项目诊断性影响特征推理。     

The Future is Bright? Effects of Mood on Perception of the Future

Most people believe that the future will bring them more good things than bad, and therefore have high hopes for the future (MacLeod et al. Cogn Emot 10:69–85, 1996). However, many patients with mood disorders do not hold this positive belief about the future. At the extreme, low expectations of positive outcomes in the future can lead to feelings of hopelessness (O’Connor et al. Psychol Health Med 5:155–161, 2000). This paper aims to extend the literature on subjective probability of future events, using a mood induction paradigm to examine the effects of transient mood change on perceived likelihood of future events in a non-clinical community sample. Participants rated likelihood of future events from a standardized list and from their own lives. Ratings were made in both normal and experimentally-induced positive or negative mood. Results show that self-generated future events were perceived to be more likely than those from a standardized list, and that negative mood significantly biased perceived likelihood of other-generated future events. Participants rating standardized list events saw positive outcomes as less likely and negative outcomes as more likely in induced negative mood than they did in normal mood. Mood had no effect on ratings of self-generated events. Possible directions for future research are discussed.

The development of an attentional bias for angry faces following Pavlovian fear conditioning

Although it is well documented that fear responses develop following aversive Pavlovian conditioning, it is unclear whether fear learning also manifests in the form of attentional biases for fear-related stimuli. Boschen, Parker, and Neumann (Boschen, M. J., Parker, I., & Neumann, D. L. (2007). Changes in implicit associations do not occur simultaneously to Pavlovian conditioning of physiological anxiety responses. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 21, 788-803.) showed that despite the acquisition of differential skin conductance conditioned responses to angry faces paired (CS+) and unpaired (CS−) with an aversive shock, development of implicit associations was not subsequently observed on the Implicit Association Test. In the present study, participants (N = 76) were assigned either to a Shock or NoShock group and completed a similar aversive Pavlovian conditioning procedure with angry face CS+ and CS− stimuli. Participants next completed a visual probe task in which the angry face CS+ and CS− stimuli were paired with angry face control stimuli and neutral faces. Results confirmed that differential fear conditioning was observed in the Shock group but not in the NoShock group, and that the Shock group subsequently showed a selective attentional bias for the angry face CS+ compared with the CS− and control stimuli during the visual probe task. The findings confirm the interplay between learning-based mechanisms and cognitive processes, such as attentional biases, in models of fear acquisition and have implications for treatment of the anxiety disorders.     

A new definition of well-behaved discrimination functions

A discrimination function shows the probability or degree with which stimuli are discriminated from each other when presented in pairs. In a previous publication [Kujala, J.V., & Dzhafarov, E.N. (2008). On minima of discrimination functions. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 52, 116–127] we introduced a condition under which the conformity of a discrimination function with the law of Regular Minimality (which says, essentially, that “being least discriminable from” is a symmetric relation) implies the constancy of the function’s minima (i.e., the same level of discriminability of every stimulus from the stimulus least discriminable from it). This condition, referred to as “well-behavedness,” turns out to be unnecessarily restrictive. In this note we give a significantly more general definition of well-behavedness, applicable to all Hausdorff arc-connected stimulus spaces. The definition employs the notion of the smallest transitively and topologically closed extension of a relation. We provide a transfinite-recursive construction for this notion and illustrate it by examples.     

Constraints on enhanced extinction resulting from extinction treatment in the presence of an added excitor

Three Pavlovian fear conditioning experiments with rats as subjects explored the effect of extinction in the presence of a concurrent excitor. Our aim was to explore this particular treatment, documented in previous studies to deepen extinction, with novel control groups to shed light on the processes involved in extinction. Relative to subjects extinguished on the target CS alone, Experiments 1 and 2 found across a range of parameters that any appreciable effect of facilitated extinction due to the concurrent excitor was submerged by generalization decrement going from extinction to testing. In Experiment 3 we used different durations for the target and concurrent stimuli in order to discourage configuring and an ABC renewal design to increase sensitivity, and observed diminished renewal resulting from extinction in the presence of a second excitor. Our findings suggest that there are distinct limits to the observation of enhanced extinction in the presence of an excitor and identifies some of the sources of these limitations.     

Causal-based property generalization

A central question in cognitive research concerns how new properties are generalized to categories. This article introduces a model of how generalizations involve a process of causal inference in which people estimate the likely presence of the new property in individual category exemplars and then the prevalence of the property among all category members. Evidence in favor of this causal-based generalization (CBG) view included effects of an existing feature's base rate (Experiment 1), the direction of the causal relations (Experiments 2 and 4), the number of those relations (Experiment 3), and the distribution of features among category members (Experiments 4 and 5). The results provided no support for an alternative view that generalizations are promoted by the centrality of the to-be-generalized feature. However, there was evidence that a minority of participants based their judgments on simpler associative reasoning processes.     

情绪音乐影像库的初步编制与评定

音乐表演影像材料的情绪诱发功能有音乐和影像的共同优势,但目前缺乏以音乐表演为内容的情绪音乐影像库。试图建立可供相关研究使用的情绪音乐影像系统。根据前期研究使用过的材料、相关研究结果及音乐专业人士的建议,收集分别表达愤怒、恐惧、悲伤和开心的音乐,包括歌剧、交响乐、民乐等,剪辑为30秒左右的片段,非音乐专业被试对材料的情绪类型和强度进行评定,最终筛选出能有效诱发目标情绪的64条音乐影像材料。未来可在测量指标的客观性和审美性及被试和音乐材料的样本量两方面改进。     

A Note on Goodman's Theorem

Goodman's theorem states that intuitionistic arithmetic in all finite types plus full choice, HA + AC, is conservative over first-order intuitionistic arithmetic HA. We show that this result does not extend to various subsystems of HA, HA with restricted induction.     

Pavlovian contingencies and resistance to change in a multiple schedule

According to theoretical accounts of behavioral momentum, the Pavlovian stimulus—reinforcer contingency determines resistance to change. To assess this prediction, 8 pigeons were exposed to an unsignaled delay-of-reinforcement schedule (a tandem variable-interval fixed-time schedule), a signaled delay-of-reinforcement schedule (a chain variable-interval fixed-time schedule), and an immediate, zero-delay schedule of reinforcement in a three-component multiple schedule. The unsignaled delay and signaled delay schedules employed equal fixed-time delays, with the only difference being a stimulus change in the signaled delay schedule. Overall rates of reinforcement were equated for the three schedules. The Pavlovian contingency was identical for the unsignaled and immediate schedules, and response—reinforcer contiguity was degraded for the unsignaled schedule. Results from two disruption procedures (prefeeding subjects prior to experimental sessions and adding a variable-time schedule to timeout periods separating baseline components) demonstrated that response—reinforcer contiguity does play a role in determining resistance to change. The results from the extinction manipulation were not as clear. Responding in the unsignaled delay component was consistently less resistant to change than was responding in both the immediate and presignaled segments of the signaled delay components, contrary to the view that Pavlovian contingencies determine resistance to change. Probe tests further supported the resistance-to-change results, indicating consistency between resistance to change and preference, both of which are putative measures of response strength.