Remembrance of places lasts: Proactive inhibition and patterns of choice in rat spatial memory

A series of experiments was carried out to evaluate the notion that rats given a sequence of massed daily trials on the radial maze reset working memory at the end of each trial by deleting its contents. Although curves presented by D. S. Olton [Scientific American, 1977, 236, 82–98; In S. H. Hulse, H. Fowler, & W. K. Honig (Eds.), Cognitive processes in animal behavior, Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1978] show that rats return to errorless performance at the beginning of each trial after the first, the fact that accuracy falls less rapidly over choices on Trial 1 than on subsequent trials suggests a proactive inhibition (PI) effect. In Experiment 1, Olton's findings were replicated, and a PI effect was observed on Days 1–2 of testing. On Days 3–5, overall accuracy improved significantly and was associated with the development of a strong tendency for rats to enter adjacent alleys, which became particularly marked on the final trials of a day's testing. In order to prevent rats from achieving accurate performance by using an adjacent alleys pattern, a procedure was used in Experiment 2 which involved initial forced random choices followed by a retention test consisting of free choices. Repeated daily trials with this procedure yielded a significant PI effect, which was more marked at a 60-sec delay than at a 0-sec delay. Experiments 3 and 4 showed this PI effect to be robust and resistant to manipulations designed to produce release from PI. Both the PI effect and a strong tendency found in Experiment 1 for animals to avoid on the initial choices of Trial n those alleys most recently entered on Trial n?1 argue that rats do not reset working memory between trials.     

Toward a reconceptualization of the reciprocal imitation phenomenon: Two experiments

This paper reports two experiments which consider the increased imitation exhibited by models who have been imitated. Experiment 1 was concerned with whether the reciprocal imitation effect is really reciprocal or if the subsequent imitation will generalize to someone else. It was found that adult subjects who were previously imitated at the 75% rate on a perceptual judgments task subsequently imitated their partner more, rated their partner more attractive, and felt more confidence when imitated than did subjects imitated at the 25% rate. These results were obtained regardless of which confederate the subjects imitated, thus indicating that reciprocal imitation is not necessarily reciprocal, but is generalizable. Experiment 2 assessed whether the subsequent imitation is the product of the effects of being imitated or is the result of the subject observing the imitator's imitation. The results indicated that after having observed imitation at a 75% rate, adult onlookers are more likely to subsequently imitate and be attracted to the imitator, the imitated person, and a person new to the situation than are onlookers who observed a 25% imitation rate. A theoretical modification is advanced which holds that subsequent imitation effects, whether from observing others imitate or from being the target of the imitation, result from a process of imitation of imitativeness. The results of these two experiments have implications for theory in imitation and social learning.     

Hyperlexia as a variant of developmental language disorder

Memory and associative reasoning skills of 10 hyperlexic children are examined. The results suggest superior visual and isolated auditory memory skills along with impaired associative language ability. The results are discussed in relation to various theories of hyperlexia.     

Organizational features of a young child's behaviors

The study was designed to investigate the nature of response-class phenomena and the possibility of indirect contingency control. A single subject was employed. Prior to the start of the study, the experimenter established the process of maintaining stimulus constancy during a preexperimental phase. Subsequent to the first baseline phase, a factor analysis was done to define the response class and the behavior categories constituting the class. Manipulating a single adult consequence to a response-class category over subsequent baseline and manipulation phases revealed frequency changes in all behavior categories in the response class. The data gave support to indirect behavior control. Search for possible explanations of frequency changes showed that the direction of the frequency changes were predictable from the results of the factor analysis.     

The effect of a conditioned fear inhibitor (CS-) during response prevention upon extinction of an avoidance response

Pairing a Pavlovian safety signal (CS—) with a response prevention period was contrasted with other response prevention procedures to determine relative effectiveness for the elimination of learned avoidance behavior. After acquiring a one-way avoidance response, five groups of ten rats received various blocking or control treatments and were then compared on extinction performance. The four blocking treatments included blocking paired with a safety signal; blocking only; blocking paired with a novel stimulus; and blocking paired with a preexposed noncontingent tone. The fifth group served as a handling control. Compared to the handling control, all four blocking groups reached extinction criterion in fewer trials. Further, the safety signal group extinguished faster than the blocking only group or the blocking with noncontingent tone group. Results were viewed as an indication of the potential efficacy of pairing-conditioned fear-inhibiting cues with response prevention procedures for the elimination of fear-motivated behavior. Implications for behavioral therapy techniques were discussed.     

An exploratory investigation of the origin and maintenance of phobias

Phobies were asked to relate past events which they believed caused or contributed to their fear, and to describe cognitive events experienced while imagining phobic interactions. Approximately half the subjects were able to recall relevant learning experiences, with direct experiences far more common than vicarious experiences or learning based on verbal instruction. Almost all of the subjects reported self-verbalizations while imagining the phobic situation, in every case phobic relevant. However, in a minority of instances were the verbalizations ‘catastrophic’ in nature. In only about half the cases did the phobies report that, in vivo, thoughts preceeded fear in the phobic situation (in contrast to a comparison group of less fearful subjects for which thoughts did preceed fear to a significant degree). Results are discussed in terms of possible limitations of a cognitive interpretation of phobic behavior.     

Social insulation, self-complexity, and social attraction: A theory chain

In a theory chain extending Byrne's theory of social attraction, links are described between breadth of social interaction and complexity of the self-concept as well as between complexity of the self-concept and social attraction. In the first series of studies, it was shown that communication-handicapped adolescents and physically handicapped children, as well as terminally ill patients, indicate lower self-complexity. In a second series of studies, it was found that persons with more complex self-concepts identify more closely with others, perceive themselves as more similar to objectively dissimilar others, and are more popular sociometrically.     

Simultaneous and successive syntheses and intelligence

Recent studies on information processing have developed an alternative model of mental abilities which constitutes an integration of Russian clinical research and North American factor analytic research. This model proposes that information may be processed in a simultaneous synthesis or a successive synthesis. The present study examines variations in these syntheses in three intelligence groups in order to identify the types of information processing characteristic of different intelligence groups. A stratified sampling of verbal and nonverbal IQ was used to select 60 boys of age 9–10 in each of three verbal IQ ranges: 71–90, 91–110, and 111–130. A battery of tests used in previous research was administered to all subjects. Multivariate analyses of variance and discriminant analyses indicated that the IQ groups differed markedly on tests used to identify simultaneous synthesis, most notably Raven's Progressive Matrices, and differed slightly less on tests of successive synthesis. Factor analyses of the test intercorrelations for each group revealed more factorial invariance across the IQ groups than had been suggested by a previous exploratory study. It was concluded that strong individual differences exist in simultaneous and successive syntheses over the major portion of the standardized intelligence range, and no high degree of specialization of information processing was characteristic of an intelligence group.