Avoidance,induction, and the illusion of reinforcement

Environmental events that impact reproductive success may be called phylogenetically important events (PIEs). Some promote reproductive success, like mates and food; others threaten reproductive success, like predators and injury. Beneficial PIEs induce activities that enhance them, and detrimental PIEs induce activities that mitigate or avoid them. Free-operant avoidance relies on electric shock as a proxy for injury, a PIE. One theory takes avoidance behavior to be reinforced by its reducing shock rate. A more complete explanation is that avoidance both reduces shock rate and is induced by the PIEs it usually prevents. Shocks received act in concert with shock-rate reduction, in a feedback system. Four parametric data sets were analyzed to show that avoidance is induced by received shock rate according to power functions. Avoidance is not reinforced at all; avoidance is induced by its failures. Induction explains not only avoidance itself, but also phenomena unique to avoidance, like warmup and effects of unavoidable shock. Induction explains behavior more generally than reinforcement, because induction explains not only food-maintained operant and nonoperant behavior, but also shock-maintained behavior, including avoidance. Reinforcement fails to explain behavior when reinforcement is defined as strengthening by consequences. Induction erases the distinction between consequences and antecedents.     

P3b反映基于相似性的图形类别归纳决策过程(309)

先前关于归纳推理的研究没有探讨过图形类别归纳任务中决策过程的事件相关电位(ERPs)特征。该研究采用图形材料,通过记录和分析图形类别归纳推理任务的结论评估阶段的脑电信号,探讨了不同类别条件下图形归纳推理决策过程的ERP特征。实验结果显示,推理决策过程中,当前提为一些狗具有某种属性特征时,结论一致类别(狗类及马类)比结论不一致类别下(椅子类)的归纳推理诱发了更大的P3b的波幅; 而结论一致类别下,类别内(狗类)比类别外(马类)推理诱发更大的后部脑区的P3b的波幅,反映了相似性对类别归纳的贡献。该研究为理解类别归纳过程的决策阶段的动态加工过程提供了神经电生理学证据。研究结果进一步支持了类别归纳的相似性理论模型。     

Sexual risk behaviour among HIV-infected women in the first twelve months after delivery in South Africa

This study aimed to assess sexual risk behaviour and its social correlates in HIV-infected women living in rural South Africa at six and twelve months post-partum. Participants were 699 HIV-positive women recruited prenatally by systematic sampling from twelve community health centres in Mpumalanga province, South Africa (mean age = 28.4 years, SD = 5.7; married =41.1%; serodiscordant or unknown partner status = 74.9%). They self-reported on their sexual activity six to twelve months after delivery; including use of condoms and partner involvement. Generalised linear mixed models were utilised to estimate unsafe sex outcomes from a prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) intervention, socio-demographic factors, disclosure, and male involvement. About 20% of sexually active women in the past week had used condoms inconsistently at six and twelve months after delivery. Moreover, 16% and 18% of the women had not used a condom at last sex and 11% and 13% had unprotected sex with HIV-uninfected or unknown-status partners following delivery at six and twelve months, respectively. Higher inconsistent condom use was likely with lower male involvement. Promotion of condom use post-partum, as well as male involvement in sexual decisions, are important for safer sex post-partum by seropositive women.     

Food rejection and the development of food category-based induction in 2–6 years old children

We studied children’s inductive inferences within the domain of food categories. There has so far been little research on inductive reasoning about food among children, despite the theoretical and practical importance of knowing what knowledge children bring to the table and how they use it. We tested the hypotheses that children’s food category-based induction performances and their food rejection are negatively correlated, and that these performances are influenced by the colour typicality of the food items. We recruited 126 children aged 2–6 years, and administered a category-based induction task. Participants were successively shown 8 sets of three pictures containing one target picture (a vegetable) and two test pictures (a vegetable dissimilar in colour to the target picture and a fruit similar in colour to the target picture). For each set, participants were told a novel property about the target picture and asked to generalise this property to one of the two test pictures. Additionally, the parents of each child filled out a questionnaire about his or her food rejection tendencies. Results on accuracy (i.e. if participants generalised the properties according to category membership, not perceptual similarity) provided the first empirical evidence in favour of a negative relationship between children’s food rejection and food category-based induction.     

发挥中药在肿瘤症状处理中的作用——兼谈结直肠癌的中医“病证结合辨治”

改善症状是中医治疗晚期恶性肿瘤的优势,但简单的对症治疗显然体现不了中医的特色;辨证论治虽然是中医治疗的核心,但在对癌病本质的把握上缺乏理论和实践的支撑;单一的辨病论治强调以毒攻毒,却不能改善症状及预后。本文作者以对结直肠癌的治疗为例,认为抓主症,将病证与辨治相结合,有望较好地解决“症”“证”“病”三者的关系,在改善症状...     

围手术期抗菌药物合理使用与药品费用的相关性分析

通过对本地一所三级甲等医院进行的围手术期抗菌药物的干预对照研究,用SPSS软件对470个手术病例的调查资料进行了统计分析,加强抗菌药物的用药管理及进行用药干预,能在对住院时间和手术切口感染率无影响的同时,明显降低手术病例的药品费用,特别是抗茵药品的费用,减轻患者负担。     

青壮年肝癌患者围手术期心理特征与人文关怀

青壮年患者因其在家庭、社会生活中的重要角色,其在治疗阶段情绪波动较大,而围手术期患者紧张、悲观、焦虑和恐惧等心理反应会对其生理功能产生巨大的不良影响,限制了对患者诊疗过程中配合,尤其是对围手术期影响明显。为了降低围手术期患者心理应激产生的不良影响,同时适应生理一心理一社会医学模式的转变,管床医生在围手术期必须对手术患者...     

先秦国家安全思想及其当代借鉴价值

在中国历史上,关于国家安全问题的战略性思考起源于先秦时期,许多重要的指导思想和原则,如以民为本、和而不同、慎战、亲仁善邻等思想已在那时得到了明晰。这些宝贵的思想具有久远而深厚的文化基础。他们不仅为历朝历代安内攘外,维系中国作为世界上唯一不曾中断几千年文明进程的国家发挥了重要的历史作用。而且对于我们今天研究安全问题、制定国家安全战略提供了可资借鉴的价值。     

Sad people are more accurate at face recognition than happy people

Mood has varied effects on cognitive performance including the accuracy of face recognition (Lundh & Ost, 1996). Three experiments are presented here that explored face recognition abilities in mood-induced participants. Experiment 1 demonstrated that happy-induced participants are less accurate and have a more conservative response bias than sad-induced participants in a face recognition task. Using a remember/know/guess procedure, Experiment 2 showed that sad-induced participants had more conscious recollections of faces than happy-induced participants. Additionally, sad-induced participants could recognise all faces accurately, whereas, happy- and neutral-induced participants recognised happy faces more accurately than sad faces. In Experiment 3, these effects were not observed when participants intentionally learnt the faces, rather than incidentally learnt the faces. It is suggested that happy-induced participants do not process faces as elaborately as sad-induced participants.     

A study of retrieval processes in action memory for school-aged children: the impact of recall period and difficulty on action memory

ABSTRACT

Research in action memory for adults has shown that enacted encoding is not only retrieved more frequently but is also faster in comparison to verbal encoding. The aim of this study was to investigate retrieval processes in terms of recall period and recall difficulty for different encoding conditions in school-aged children (8-, 10-, 12-, 14-years old). The participants studied verbal tasks, subject-performed tasks and experimenter-performed tasks, and received immediate and final free-recall tests. The results revealed that older children not only outperformed younger children in terms of accuracy but also outpaced them in all recall periods. Moreover, recalls of subject-performed tasks and experimenter-performed tasks were better and faster compared with verbal encoding on both types of recall test, by increasing throughout the recall periods. These results are discussed in terms of memory strategies and information processing methods. Pedagogic implications for the use of action memory in children's learning are also considered.