A reduction rule for Peirce formula

A reduction rule is introduced as a transformation of proof figures in implicational classical logic. Proof figures are represented as typed terms in a -calculus with a new constant P ⁽⁽⁾⁾. It is shown that all terms with the same type are equivalent with respect to -reduction augmented by this P-reduction rule. Hence all the proofs of the same implicational formula are equivalent. It is also shown that strong normalization fails for P-reduction. Weak normalization is shown for P-reduction with another reduction rule which simplifies of (( ) ) into an atomic type.This work was partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research No. 05680276 of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Japan and by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Hiroakira Ono     

Evidence of the origin of specific spontaneous head turns during intertrial intervals

Direction and the frequency of spontaneous head movements during the ITIs following forward and backward paired trials were compared to an acquisition of a conditioned orienting (alpha) response directed to the side of the tone source. The head movements were analyzed from video recordings using classification of head turns to preferred and to nonpreferred directions. The results showed a significant increase in the alpha responses during the forward paired conditioning to the preferred direction and rapid extinction during the subsequent backward conditioning sessions. Spontaneous head movements during the ITIs increased to the same preferred direction as the conditioned alpha responses. The results of this experiment suggest that the response initially elicited by the CS can later appear as “spontaneous,” instrumental behavior, the form and the nature of which is determined by the characteristics of the conditioned alpha response developing as a result of classical conditioning.     

A comparison of pecking generated by serial, delay, and trace autoshaping procedures

Pigeons were exposed to serial, delay, and trace autoshaping procedures. In Experiment I, all conditioned stimuli (CSs) were changes in illumination of the response key. The number of trials to acquisition of the keypeck increased from serial, to 4-sec delay, 8-sec delay, and 8-sec trace procedures, in that order. In Experiment II, which used a longer intertrial interval, trials to criterion increased from 8-sec delay, to 28-sec delay, 8-sec trace, and 28-sec trace procedures, in that order. In Experiment III, two groups received serial procedures in which the first CS was either a tone or a houselight, and the second was a keylight. The tone group acquired the key peck more rapidly than the houselight group. Early in conditioning in these experiments, and when the conditioned stimulus was a change in the keylight, there was a short latency to the onset of pecking and pecking was directed at the CS. After extensive conditioning, or when the CS was relatively diffuse, pecking still occurred, but had a longer latency and was not reliably directed toward the conditioned stimulus.     

The Holte Sleeping Technique: An experimental study

The Holte Sleeping Technique is an alternative to medication to facilitate sleep onset in situations of normal stress. The technique is based on a combination of conditioning within the theory of learning, simulation of natural bodily processes, and manipulation of naturally available sleep-releasing stimuli. The author describes the technique and reports on experimental testing of its efficacy. Fifty-six female subjects were selected according to criteria based on questionnaires and sleep logs. The subjects were randomly assigned to a treatment group, a placebo group, and a no-treatment group. A pre-test-post-test design was used. The author questions the generalizability of findings from modern electronic sleep laboratories to the bedrooms of everyday life. In order to optimize the combination of normal stress, objective criteria and generalizability, sleep onset was measured by behavioural criteria based on the "fog-horn procedure" developed by the author. At post-test 67% of the treatment group fell asleep, while only 17% of the placebo group and 25% of the no-treatment group fell asleep. The differences were significant. It is concluded that the Holte Sleeping Technique is highly effective. In a discussion of placebo trials the author argues that traditional medical trials do not take into consideration the differentiating psychological attribution effects occurring by giving the same experimental instruction under different experimental conditions. As a consequence the active treatment is given better conditions than the placebo in traditional clinical trials.     

齐国古典文献中的民本思想及其现代启示、

齐国的开国君主姜太公在兴周灭商的过程中,充分领悟到了民众的巨大作用。因此,在齐国的建国之初,他就将民本思想列为治国之策。记录太公言论的《六韬》就充分证明了这一点。其后,春秋时期,管仲创造性地继承和发展了太公的治国方略,他在《管子》一书中正式提出了“以人为本”的概念,并且从爱民、利民、富民、惠民等几个方面阐释了以人为本的思想内涵。到了战国时．齐国的民本思想得到了空前的发展。在这一时期,齐国创建和发展繁荣稷下学宫,荟萃天下学人,百家争鸣,著书立说。随着以孔孟苟为代表的儒家思想传人齐国,极大地丰富了齐国的民本思想,并从理论上把民本思想升华到一个空前的高度。齐国的民本思想不仅内容十分丰富,而且具有鲜明的特色。这对我们今天建设有中国特色社会主义现代化强国,深入落实“三个代表”重要思想,树立科学发展观,具有极其重要的启示和借鉴价值。     

Unconscious transfer of meaning to brands

We examine semantic conditioning in a consumer context. We subliminally paired neutral ideographs with attributes. In experiment 1, the ideographs served as primes during a lexical decision task and slowed down response times to target words with the opposite semantic meaning. In experiment 2, the ideographs served as brand names of beverages, and attitudinal responses to them were less favorable when the associated attributes were incongruent with existing schemas. These results showed that semantic conditioning (1) can occur unconsciously, (2) can have significant and meaningful consequences for brand evaluation, and (3) influences subsequent attitudinal responses via conceptual disfluency processes.     

Inhibition of evaluative and perceptual odour–taste learning by attention to the stimulus elements

Pairing of odours and tastes in solution results in the odour taking on the taste's hedonic and perceptual properties. Theoretical accounts of such conditioning propose that the stimulus elements form a configuration with hedonic and/or perceptual properties. One implication of this account is that configural binding may be inhibited by allocation of attention to the individual elements during conditioning (analytical attention). This was tested here by training participants to attend analytically or synthetically during pairing of odours with either sucrose or water. Differential conditioning effects for sucrose- and water-paired odours were seen only in the synthetic group, with sucrose-paired odours increasing in both smelled sweetness and liking. These data support configural models as explanations for these forms of associative learning and emphasize the role of top-down processes in mediating transfer of perceptual and hedonic properties from tastes to odours.     

The spread of fear: Symbolic generalization mediates graded threat-avoidance in specific phobia

Overgeneralization of fear and threat-avoidance represents a formidable barrier to successful clinical treatment of anxiety disorders. While stimulus generalization along quantifiable physical dimensions has been studied extensively, less consideration has been given to symbolic generalization, in which stimuli are indirectly and arbitrarily related. The present study examined whether the magnitude and extent of symbolic generalization of threat-avoidance and threat-beliefs differed between spider-phobic and nonphobic individuals. Initially, participants learned two sets of stimulus equivalence relations (A1?=?B1?=?C1; A2?=?B2?=?C2). Next, one cue (B1) was established as a conditioned stimulus (CS?+?; threat) that signalled onset of spider images and prompted avoidance, and another cue (B2) was established as a CS– (safety cue) that signalled the absence of such images. Subsequent testing showed that phobics compared to nonphobics exhibited greater symbolic generalization of threat-avoidance to threat cues A1 and C1 (indirect CS+ threat cues related via symmetry and equivalence, respectively), while all individuals showed nonavoidance to indirect safety cues A2 and C2. The enhanced symbolic generalization of threat-beliefs and avoidance behaviour observed in spider phobics warrants further investigation.     

Cholinergic modulation of trace conditioning trained in serial compound: A developmental analysis

In four experiments the effects of serial compound conditioning on responding to a trace-conditioned CS were evaluated using a fear conditioning paradigm. The subjects were 18- and 25-day-old Sprague-Dawley rats, previously shown to exhibit little or no trace fear conditioning. Here, animals as young as 18 days of age were shown to be capable of trace conditioning between a visual CS1 and a shock US, provided the trace interval was filled with a non-target CS2 during serial conditioning trials (CS1-->CS2-->US). To explore cholinergic mechanisms involved in trace and serial conditioning, additional experiments assessed conditioned responding following pre-training administration of the muscarinic receptor antagonist scopolamine. Scopolamine produced a dose-dependent reduction in responding to the trace CS1, regardless of whether subjects were trained with standard trace (CS1-->trace interval-->US) or serial (CS1-->CS2-->US) trials. Responding to CS2 was unaffected by scopolamine. These data suggest that central cholinergic systems are functional in the young animals, but are not normally sufficiently activated by standard trace conditioning procedures. The results suggest that serial compound conditioning can promote trace conditioning in young rats, as it does in adults, perhaps by enhancing cholinergic activity during training. Implications for the late ontogenetic emergence of trace conditioning as it relates to maturation of neural pathways and their role in the potentiating effects of a gap filler are discussed.     

Sex categorization of conspecific pictures in Japanese monkeys (Macaca fuscata)

We investigated whether monkeys discriminate the sex of individuals from their pictures. Whole-body pictures of adult and nonadult monkeys were used as stimuli. Two male Japanese monkeys were trained for a two-choice sex categorization task in which each of two choice pictures were assigned to male and female, respectively. Following the training, the monkeys were presented with novel monkey pictures, and whether they had acquired the categorization task was tested. The results suggested that while monkeys discriminate between the pictures of adult males and females, discrimination of nonadult pictures was difficult. Partial presentations of the pictures showed that conspicuous and sexually characteristic parts (i.e., underbellies including male scrotums or breasts including female nipples) played an important role in the sex categorization.