Demand characteristics and research into drug use

Abstract

Health research makes frequent use of verbal reports; and such reports are usually assumed to be the surface indicants of measurable entities such as attitudes, beliefs, intentions, etc. which reside inside the person. It is our assertion that verbal reports themselves are motivated and variable; they are functional and context-dependent and their meaning and significance are localised. Consequently discourse cannot be treated as if it were fixed and categorical data to be retrieved from memory by asking questions that appear objective or disinterested. A method is postulated, using a social perception analogy with signal detection (SD) theory. The method allows for the assessment of subject criterion, and permits an examination of signal-strength in terms of the researcher's motivation. Data are evaluated in terms of their “robustness”, a measure which derives from the variability of response in different contexts, and under different elicitation procedures. The method requires few assumptions to be made about the “truth” or “falsity” of verbal reports. It focuses on the types of social activities that are performed by utterances and thus on the contextual variability revealed by asking questions in different situations and in different ways. This procedure does not presume a direct correspondence between verbal reports and mental representations.     

Interactional Styles of Bullies and Victims Observed in a Competitive and a Cooperative Setting

Observational data were used to examine the interactional styles of bullies and victims while they participated in 2 different games: 1 cooperative and 1 competitive. Participants included 17 bullies, 18 victims, and 35 controls (all aged 8–11 years) selected through a peer nomination questionnaire. Bullies and victims were observed 4 times in total: twice during the cooperative game and twice during the competitive game, each time paired with a partner of opposite status or control status. Results indicated that when bullies and victims interacted together, bullies showed a dominant style in the dyad, often regulating and opposing victims' initiatives. Victims, on the other hand, complied with bullies' requests and presented a submissive style of interaction. However, interactions involving control partners indicated that (a) bullies opposed those partners' initiatives less frequently and (b) victims tended to affirm themselves by asking for help and explanations. These data provide evidence for an interactional model in explaining the dynamics between bullies and victims.     

"Let's work together": what do infants understand about collaborative goals?

Collaboration is fundamental to our daily lives, yet little is known about how humans come to understand these activities. The present research was conducted to fill this void by using a novel visual habituation paradigm to investigate infants’ understanding of the collaborative-goal structure of collaborative action. The findings of the three experiments reported here suggest that 14-month-old infants understand that the actions of collaborative partners are complementary and critical to the attainment of a common collaborative goal. Importantly, 14-month-olds do not interpret the actions of two individuals in terms of a collaborative goal when their actions are not causally related. The implications of our findings for theories of collaboration and folk psychology are discussed.     

Effects of mastery criterion on the emergence of derived equivalence relations

In this study, we manipulated mastery criterion form (rolling or block) and stringency (across 6 or 12 trials) and measured the emergence of derived relations. College students learned neuroanatomy equivalence classes and experienced one of two rolling mastery criteria (6 or 12 consecutive correct responses) or a block mastery criterion (12 trials in a block) during training. The study found that block and rolling mastery criteria produced similar outcomes. Effectiveness was hampered when the criterion was less stringent.     

Comparing different kinds of words and word-word relations to test an habituation model of priming

Huber and O'Reilly (2003) proposed that neural habituation exists to solve a temporal parsing problem, minimizing blending between one word and the next when words are visually presented in rapid succession. They developed a neural dynamics habituation model, explaining the finding that short duration primes produce positive priming whereas long duration primes produce negative repetition priming. The model contains three layers of processing, including a visual input layer, an orthographic layer, and a lexical-semantic layer. The predicted effect of prime duration depends both on this assumed representational hierarchy and the assumption that synaptic depression underlies habituation. The current study tested these assumptions by comparing different kinds of words (e.g., words versus non-words) and different kinds of word-word relations (e.g., associative versus repetition). For each experiment, the predictions of the original model were compared to an alternative model with different representational assumptions. Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction that non-words and inverted words require longer prime durations to eliminate positive repetition priming (i.e., a slower transition from positive to negative priming). Experiment 2 confirmed the prediction that associative priming increases and then decreases with increasing prime duration, but remains positive even with long duration primes. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of repetition and associative priming using a within-subjects design and combined these effects by examining target words that were expected to repeat (e.g., viewing the target word ‘BACK' after the prime phrase ‘back to'). These results support the originally assumed representational hierarchy and more generally the role of habituation in temporal parsing and priming.     

The dynamics of successive induction in larval zebrafish

Charles Sherrington identified the properties of the synapse by purely behavioral means—the study of reflexes—more than 100 years ago. They were subsequently confirmed neurophysiologically. Studying reflex interaction, he also showed that activating one reflex often facilitates another, antagonistic one: successive induction, which has since been demonstrated in a wide range of species, from aphids to locusts to dogs and humans. We show a particularly orderly example in zebrafish (Danio rerio) larvae; the behavior (locomotion) of larvae is low in dark and intermediate in light, but low in light and substantially higher in dark when dark followed light. A quantitative model of a simple dynamic process is described that readily captures the behavior pattern and the effects of a number of manipulations of lighting conditions.     

Influences of information processing and disengagement in infants' looking behaviour

The present study considers the joint influences of information processing and disengagement in looking behaviour within a habituation paradigm. Six‐month‐old infants were habituated, during which their heart rate (HR) was measured. A parametric model of habituation yielded for each infant parameter estimates of their habituation performance. These parameters were interpreted as assessing information processing and disengagement. Corresponding measures were obtained from the HR data. The HR measures and habituation model parameter estimates were significantly correlated, as predicted. In addition, an attention getter, presented prior to each habituation trial, influenced indicators of information processing, but not of disengagement. Results confirmed the advantages of a modelling approach. In addition, and more importantly, findings led to the conclusion that both information processing as well as disengagement are involved in infants' looking behaviour in visual habituation. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

中外两种推理理论的实验比较研究

通过两个实验对中国学者提出的“推理题与推理者的推理知识双重结构模型”和Evans提出的“双重加工理论”进行了实验比较研究。实验一通过两种评定方法对相应性质命题进行评定后所得实验结果表明Evans等(1983)有关“信念效应”研究中的“结论可信性”变量可以视为与胡竹菁等(1996)实验中的“内容正确性”变量是同一性质的变量; 实验二根据“形式正确性”和“内容正确性”两个自变量设计的推理实验结果与Evans等(1983)的研究结果基本一致; 但增加“内容熟悉性”这一自变量设计的推理实验结果表明“推理题与推理者的推理知识双重结构模型”比Evans提出的“双重加工理论”能更好地解释推理者对性质三段论的推理结果。     

中西方心理健康标准的比较与整合

心理健康标准是心理健康研究中的重要理论问题。比较中西方心理健康标准,在研究恩路、自我观念、人格观念等方面存在差异,在重视人际关系的和谐、重视对自我和现实的认识、重视对人生意义的探索等方面有相似之处。整合中西方心理健康标准应重视探讨社会群体的心理健康标准;引导青少年树立正确的自我观念;塑造具有独立性与创造性的现代社会人格。     

Trichotomous preferences for gambles

Let G_X be the set of all gambles on a set X of decision outcomes. Trichotomous preferences divide G_X into three disjoint subsets, viz., the set P⁺ of preferable gambles, the set P⁰ of indifferent gambles, and the set P^- of unpreferable gambles. Those preference comparisons are made against the status quo, i.e., the do-nothing alternative. This paper presents and discusses dyadic representations of such trichotomous preferences and identifies necessary and sufficient axioms for the existence of those representations.