Counter-stereotypical impulsivity and violence among African American college men

The study examined the relationship between impulse control and violence in terms of past feelings and acts among African American males enrolled in Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Data were gathered from a sample of 1,874 male undergraduates in eleven colleges and universities with predominantly African-American students. Less than six percent were classified as impulsive, and even less than half of the impulsive males had past feelings and acts of violence. The study offers strategies for impulse control which may help to further minimize incidents of violence on the college campus.     

Quantifiers and question answering in young children

Two hypotheses were tested about how young children answer questions with the quantifiers all and some: (a) that children use syntactic cues in determining which noun phrase is quantified, and (b) that children evaluate a some-statement as part of evaluating an all-statement. To test these hypotheses, the same group of 60 4- to 7-year-olds were asked four contrasting types of quantitative questions. The results indicated that children can use syntactic cues under some presentation conditions. However, there was no evidence for an asymmetry between the all-and some-questions. A model of how young children might answer quantitative questions was then considered.     

On unpredictability as a causal factor in “learned helplessness”

In two replications, two groups of dogs were exposed to a series of uncontrollable, electric shocks. For one group the shocks were preceded by a tone (i.e., Paired). For the other group the shocks were randomly related to the tones and hence unpredictable (i.e., Random). Each replication also included a third group; in the first it was exposed only to the series of tones (CS-only), while in the second, it was exposed only to a series of shocks (Shocks-only). Then, all dogs were required to learn a discriminative choice escape/avoidance task in which the required response was to lift the correct paw in the presence of each of two visual S^Ds to escape or avoid the shocks [($\text{S}{}_1{}^{\mathrm{D}}\text{?R}{}_1\text{)}\text{(S}{}_2{}^{\mathrm{D}}\text{?R}{}_2$)]. Dogs preexposed to random tones and shocks were least successful in learning the task relative to those groups which experienced either predicted shocks, only the tones, or only the shocks, which in turn did not differ from each other. These results permitted the inference that the proactive interference with choice behavior following random tone CSs and shocks was attributable to a learned irrelevance generalized with respect to CSs.     

谶纬“河图”、“洛书”中神话意象诠释

谶纬“河图”、“洛书”神话,是在原始思维的集体记忆的基础上,发挥玄想,以象立意.根据受众的不同,可以将其分为政治、民生两类.从诠释发生的角度、诠释方式和诠释功能而言,谶纬“河图”、“洛书”与《周易》有异曲同工之妙.谶纬“河图”、“洛书”中的神话意象和意境,看似为非理性的构思,实为理性智慧的阐发,它阐释的重点是儒家仁政学说和民本思想,展现了汉儒的普世精神和政治诉求.     

The extinction of within-compound flavor associations

Three experiments studied extinction of the associations which are formed between two flavors presented in a simultaneous compound. In Experiment 1 those associations were identified by a sensory preconditioning procedure in which the poisoning of one element of the compound led to the rejection of the other element. Separate presentation of either element between their joint occurence and the poisoning of one element sharply attenuated the rejection of the other element. That attenuation was interpreted in terms of the extinction of within-compound associations. Experiment 2 obtained similar results with an alternative extinction procedure in which the elements of the original compound were presented in other compounds. Experiment 3 obtained similar results when the existence of the within-compound associations was determined by an alternative assessment procedure in which one element of the compound was made more attractive by the induction of a specific hunger. These experiments suggest that within-compound associations can be extinguished when the elements are separately presented outside of the compound. Experiments 2 and 3 make less plausible an alternative interpretation of the effects of separate element presentation in terms of reduction of the novelty of the element. The findings may be taken as implying that the elements of a simultaneously presented compound are joined by a single symmetrical association which acts at various points during a sensory preconditioning experiment.     

Speech comprehension after unilateral injection of sodium amytal

A unilateral cerebral dominance model predicts that speech comprehension will be disrupted after injection of sodium amytal into one hemisphere but not after the other. This model was supported when an auditory receptive task involving relatively nonredundant stimuli similar to that contained in the Token Test (E. DeRenzi & L. Vignolo, 1962, Brain, 85, 665–687) was administered to 17 epileptic patients undergoing bilateral amytal injections.     

Information processing abilities in twins reared apart

A battery of information processing measures and psychometric tests of specific and general cognitive abilities was administered to a sample of 105 individuals which included 34 monozygotic and 13 dizygotic reared apart twin pairs or triplets. Correlations between information processing parameters and psychometric abilities as well as twin resemblances for the information processing parameters were examined. In a principal components analysis of the information processing parameters, three components were identified which accounted for 67% of the total variation; Overall Speed of Response (OSR), Speed of Information Processing (SIP), and Speed of Spatial Processing (SSP). OSR was significantly correlated with WAIS IQ, and psychometric measures of verbal reasoning, spatial ability, and perceptual speed and accuracy. SIP was significantly correlated with WAIS IQ, measures of verbal reasoning, and one of the perceptual speed and accuracy measures. SSP was significantly correlated with measures of both spatial ability and perceptual speed and accuracy. Due to the small size of the dizygotic twin sample, no strong conclusions could be drawn regarding the magnitude of their resemblance. The correlation between component scores of reared apart monozygotic twins was significant for OSR, but not for SIP or SSP.     

Pavlovian processes do mediate control of the “advance” response strategy

Two parallel experiments used pigeons in a transfer of control design to determine the basis of the transfer of the use of the “advance strategy” across successive discriminations (W. K. Honig & H. Lindsay, Learning and Motivation, 1975, 6, 157–178). Pigeons were first trained under instrumental contingencies to use an “advance” response to maximize their exposure to S^D and minimize their exposure to S^Δ. Then orthogonal stimuli (key lights in Experiment 1 and diffuse illuminations in Experiment 2) were independently established through separate discriminative Pavlovian procedures as CS+ and CS? or as CS^o's. Later in special tests, it was demonstrated that the associative values of the Pavlovian CS's were a major factor governing the use of the advance strategy: only pigeons exposed to $\text{CS+}\text{CS?}$ used the advance response to regulate their exposure to either CS. Although these experiments showed that the necessary and sufficient conditions for utilization of the advance strategy are the Pavlovian associative values of the discriminative stimuli, opportunity for differential “operant” responding during the discriminative stimuli seems to be a contributor to the optimal use of the advance response across successive discriminations.