A psychophysiological model of emotion space

Despite a wide variety of emotions that can be subjectively experienced, the emotion space has consistently revealed a low dimensionality. The search for corresponding somato-visceral response patterns has been only moderately successful. The authors suggest a solution based on an assumed parallelism between emotion coding and color coding. According to the color detection model proposed by Sokolov and co-workers, neurons responsible for color detection are triggered by a combination of excitations in a limited number of input cells. Similarly, a limited number of input channels may feed complex emotion detectors being located on a hypersphere in a four-dimensional emotion space, the three angles of which correspond to emotional tone, intensity, and saturation, in parallel to hue, lightness, and saturation in color perception. The existence of such a four-dimensional emotion space in the subjective domain is shown by using schematic facial expressions as stimuli. A neurophysiological model is provided in which reticular, hypothalamic, and limbic structures constitute input channels of an emotion detecting system, thus acting as the first layer of emotion predetectors. Hypothalamic neurons with differential sensitivity for various transmitters may elicit a subsequent selective activation in a second layer of predetectors at the thalamic level. The latter are suggested to trigger emotion detectors located in cortical areas, the action of which should be revealed by measures of central nervous system activity. Preliminary results from evoked potential studies show that switching between schematic faces that express different emotions may be used as an objective measure for establishing a psychophysiological emotion space.     

Still No Evidence For Temporally Extended Shock-frequency Reduction As A Reinforcer.

There is no consensus and very little overlap in the criticisms of my target article. Because the primary consequences of avoidance behavior are by definition alterations in the distribution of shocks in time, any theory about the reinforcement of such behavior necessarily must begin with that dimension. However, the safety‐signal version of two‐process theory calls on positively and negatively correlated stimuli, including the responses themselves serving as stimuli, to transmit the effects of those alterations to the relevant behavior. Meanwhile, the Herrnstein—Hineline single‐process theory hypothesizes an additional source of reinforcement: a direct effect of reduction in the density of shock over some extended period of time. I can find no data that selectively support that hypothesis.     

二级强化程序在药物成瘾研究中的应用

二级强化程序是一种以物质的强化效应为基础,评价药物的精神依赖性潜力的方法,将其应用到自身给药实验中,即为二级强化自身给药模型。在这个模型中,动物在条件性刺激的影响下按压杠杆以寻求药物的行为反映了其对成瘾性药物的渴求。使用二级强化程序,人们发现：条件性刺激既能够影响觅药行为的获得和保持,也能够影响这种行为的消退;伏隔核的核区、杏仁核基底外侧部和内侧前额皮层等部位在药物相关的条件性刺激诱导动物产生觅药行为的过程中起重要作用。二级强化程序的应用为开发治疗药物成瘾的物质提供了一条新思路     

判断偏差分析的认知-生态取样途径

对判断偏差的研究曾主要侧重于考察个体的动机和认知缺陷,而近期从认知-生态取样角度对判断偏差进行的研究则表明,判断偏差源于人与环境的交互作用。从认知-生态取样角度分析人的判断偏差着重考察以下四方面的问题：基于样本的判断涉及的多个变量,现实环境中刺激的分布,取样过程及其结果,取样过程中的心理预设与限制。认知-生态取样角度的研究对判断偏差产生的原因提供了一种全新的解释,同时,它也存在一些亟待解决的问题     

阈下语义启动的任务分离研究模式及其理论模型

阈下语义启动（subliminal semantic activation SSA）作为无意识研究的一个重要领域,目前已取得丰富的研究成果。在阈下语义启动研究中主要有一致和不一致模式、无直接效应的间接效应模式、大于直接效应的间接效应模式和回归分析模式等4种研究模式。研究者运用激活扩散模型﹑反应竞争模型和复合线索模型等理论模型对阈下语义启动的无意识机制进行理论解释。     

Identity matching of consonant-vowel-consonant words by prereaders

Using an identity matching-to-sample procedure, normally developing prereaders who matched individual letters with high accuracy (e.g., m and s) did not show high accuracy in matching three-letter printed words that differed only in the first letter (e.g., mad and sad). Teachers and researchers should not assume that children who can discriminate individual letters can also discriminate minimally different words that contain those letters.     

Sign-tracking with an interfood clock

Food was presented to pigeons, irrespective of their behavior. The fixed 60-s interfood interval was segmented into ten 6-s periods, each signaled by a distinctive stimulus color, ordered by wavelength. This “interfood clock” reliably generated and maintained successively higher rates of key pecking at stimuli successively closer to food. Under extinction, key pecking ceased. When the standard stimulus sequence was changed to a different sequence for each bird, accelerated responding again emerged and was sustained under each of the new color sequences. However, responding was neither maintained nor acquired when each successive interfood interval provided a different random sequence of the ten stimuli. Thus, the interfood clock generated and maintained sign-tracking under stimulus control, and the resulting behavior was attributable neither to stimulus generalization nor to a simple temporal gradient.     

REPEATED ACQUISITION OF BEHAVIORAL CHAINS: RESPONSE SEQUENCES OR CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATIONS?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether pigeons learn a sequence of positional responses or a series of conditional discriminations under a repeated-acquisition-of-behavioral-chains procedure. Three pigeons were trained under a repeated-acquisition procedure in which three different key colors served as stimuli correlated with the three steps in a chain. The order of presentation of the three stimuli was altered during the latter part of each test session after acquisition had occurred. If the pigeons had acquired a response sequence, the pattern of responding should remain the same as in the initial portion of the test session. However, if the pigeons had acquired a conditional discrimination, the response pattern should change in accordance with the changed order of the key colors. Although the results of this study do not rule out the possibility that the subjects acquired, to some degree, a response sequence, the results suggest that the behavior of pigeons under a repeated-acquisition-of-behavioral-chains procedure is controlled primarily by conditional discriminative stimuli.     

Concept learning by monkeys with video picture images and a touch screen.

Two rhesus monkeys were trained in a same/different task to discriminate digitized computer-stored picture stimuli. The pictures were digitized from 35-mm slides and presented in pairs on a computer monitor. The monkeys were required to touch the pictures and then make a choice response to indicate whether the pictures were identical or nonidentical. The response areas and stimuli were located to the sides of the picture stimuli. Responses were defined and monitored by an infrared matrix touch screen. After learning the same/different task, both monkeys showed performance accuracy with novel picture stimuli similar to that with training picture stimuli. This accurate novel-picture transfer indicates that a same/different concept had been learned, a concept similar to the one they had previously demonstrated in a different apparatus with rear-projected slide stimuli and a response lever.     

视空间和听觉数字记忆的混合广度

Ｆｒｉｃｋ成功地增加了混合通道的广度,其必要条件是同时呈现视觉刺激和反序报告。该文采用干扰更少的Ｃｏｒｓｉ视空间测验,即序列呈现视觉刺激,并用正序报告,进行混合广度的新实验。发现在分离通道报告的条件下其混合广度都明显地高于单一通道的广度,因此Ｆｒｉｃｋ的两个必要条件不总是必需的。这种新的混合广度实验可能对研究工作记忆的中央执行系统有益。比较了刺激呈现模式和被试反应方式对混合广度的影响