EFFECTS OF INTERMITTENT PUNISHMENT ON SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR: AN EVALUATION OF SCHEDULE THINNING

Although the use of punishment often raises ethical issues, such procedures may be needed when the reinforcers that maintain behavior cannot be identified or controlled, or when competing reinforcers cannot be found. Results of several studies on the effects of intermittent schedules of punishment suggest that therapists must use fairly rich schedules of punishment to suppress problem behavior. However, residential caretakers, teachers, and parents often have difficulty implementing programs that require constant monitoring of the client's behavior. In this study, we examined the feasibility of gradually thinning the delivery of punishment from a continuous schedule to an intermittent schedule during the course of treatment for self-injurious behavior (SIB). Results of functional analyses for 5 individuals who had been diagnosed with profound mental retardation indicated that their SIB was not maintained by social consequences. Treatment with continuous schedules of time-out (for 1 participant) or contingent restraint (for the other 4 participants) produced substantial reductions in SIB. When they were exposed to intermittent schedules of punishment (fixed-interval [FI] 120 s or FI 300 s), SIB for all but 1 of the participants increased to levels similar to those observed during baseline. For these 4 participants, the schedule of punishment was gradually thinned from continuous to FI 120 s or FI 300 s. For 2 participants, SIB remained low across the schedule changes, demonstrating the utility of thinning from continuous to intermittent schedules of punishment. Results for the other 2 participants showed that intermittent punishment was ineffective, despite repeated attempts to thin the schedule.     

定量运动负荷和个性特征对动觉准确性和动作稳定性的影响

目的在于了解个性特征和定量运动负荷与同射箭运动员技术水平密切相关的肘关节动觉方位准确性和手动作稳定性的关系。研究结果表明：个性特征对肘关节动觉方位准确性和手动作稳定性的影响不显著;定量运动负荷可以使肘关节动觉方位准确性明显提高,而手动作稳定性变化不显著。本研究初步证明了韩国射箭训练中利用跑步等手段使运动员处于较高心率之下进行射准练习的方法是实用有效的。     

A person-oriented approach to hand hygiene behaviour: Emotional empathy fosters hand hygiene practice

Objectives: Adopting a social-psychological approach, this research examines whether emotional empathy, an affective reaction regarding another’s well-being, fosters hand hygiene as this affects other’s health-related well-being extensively.

Design: Three studies tested this notion: (a) a cross-sectional study involving a sample of health care workers at a German hospital, (b) an experiment testing the causal effect of empathy on hand hygiene behaviour and (c) an 11-week prospective study testing whether an empathy induction affected disinfectant usage frequency in two different wards of a hospital.

Main outcome measures: Self-reported hand hygiene behaviour based on day reconstruction method was measured in Study 1, actual hand sanitation behaviour was observed in Study 2 and disinfectant usage frequency in two different hospital wards was assessed in Study 3.

Results: Study 1 reveals an association of empathy with hand hygiene cross-sectionally, Study 2 documents the causal effect of empathy on increased hand sanitation. Study 3 shows an empathy induction increases hand sanitiser usage in the hospital.

Conclusions: Increasing emotional empathy promotes hand hygiene behaviour, also in hospitals. Besides providing new impulses for the design of effective interventions, these findings bear theoretical significance as they document the explanatory power of empathy regarding a distal explanandum (hand hygiene).     

基于通道的内源性注意对声音诱发闪光错觉的影响

声音诱发闪光错觉是指当视觉闪光伴随不相等数量的听觉声音在100 ms内相继或同时呈现时, 个体会错觉性地知觉到视觉闪光的个数与听觉声音的数量相等。研究采用经典的声音诱发闪光错觉范式, 将注意以内源性的方式指向视觉通道或者听觉通道, 考察了基于通道的内源性注意对声音诱发闪光错觉的影响。结果发现, 当注意内源性地指向视觉通道时, 相对于基线条件, 裂变错觉的量显著减小; 当注意内源性地指向听觉通道时, 相对于基线条件, 裂变错觉的量存在增大的趋势。说明了基于通道的内源性注意可以影响声音诱发闪光错觉中的裂变错觉, 但不影响融合错觉。     

Do we need positive illusions to carry out plans? Illusion: and instrumental coping

This study tested the theory that positive illusions and instrumental (problem-focused) coping behaviours are related (Brown, J. D. (1993). Coping with stress: The beneficial role of positive illusions. In A. P. Turnbull, J. M. Patterson, S. K. Behr, D. L. Murphy, J. G. Marquis, & M. J. Blue-Banning (Eds.), Cognitive coping, families, and disability, Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.). Positive illusion was assessed as a discrepancy between positive bias towards the self in trait ratings and positive bias towards average others, where ratings were self-favouring. Problem-focused coping was assessed through recall of coping with a recent stressful situation. The results showed that positive illusion scores were unrelated to problem-focused coping scores. It was suggested that although individuals need to be positive to cope well they do not need positive illusions. Tests for gender differences showed that males held more positive illusions than females. No gender differences were found for problem-focused coping but females used emotion-focused coping more than males to cope with a recent stressful situation.     

Spatial limits on referred touch to an alien limb may reflect boundaries of visuo-tactile peripersonal space surrounding the hand

In this study, the spatial limits of referred touch to a rubber hand were investigated. Participants rated the strength of the perceived illusion when the rubber hand was placed in one of six different spatial positions (at a distance of 17.5-67.5cm horizontal from the participant's own hand). The results revealed a significant nonlinear relationship in the strength of the illusion, with the strongest ratings given when the two hands were closest; decaying significantly after a distance of 30cm. The time taken to elicit the illusion followed a similar trend. These results may reflect the response properties of bimodal visuo-tactile cells encoding peripersonal space around the hand.     

Seeing an image of the hand affects performance on a crossmodal congruency task for sequences of events

The crossmodal congruency effect (CCE) is augmented when viewing an image of a hand compared to an object. It is unclear if this contextual effect extends to a non-spatial CCE. Here, participants discriminated the number of tactile vibrations delivered to the hand whilst ignoring visual distractors on images of their own or another’s hand or an object. The CCE was not modulated by stimulus context. Viewing one’s hand from a third person perspective increased errors relative to viewing an object (Experiment 1). Errors were reduced when viewing hands, from first or third person perspectives, with additional identity markers (Experiments 2 and 3). Our results suggest no effect of context on the non-spatial CCE and that differences in task performance between hand and object images depend on their visual properties. These findings are discussed in light of the relationship between body representation and perception of body-centred stimuli in the temporal domain.     

身体拥有感错觉对疼痛的影响及其作用机制

身体拥有感错觉以多通道的感官整合为基础,包括视觉-触觉、视觉-本体感觉、触觉-本体感觉、视觉-内感受的整合等。来自实验室急性痛以及慢性痛的大量结果表明拥有感错觉可产生镇痛作用。身体部位尺寸大小、肢体透明度等相关影响因素也逐渐得到揭示。拥有感错觉影响疼痛的机制与身体表征的改变有关,该过程可能涉及“身体网络”与“疼痛网络”间的连接,其中后顶叶皮层可能有重要作用。未来研究应更为深入地探索拥有感错觉范式以考察不同因素对疼痛的影响;在现有多感官整合的范式中重视内感受的作用;考察拥有感错觉改变疼痛的认知神经机制;区分急、慢性痛条件下以及不同慢性痛类型中拥有感错觉对疼痛的不同影响。     

A strange hand: On self-recognition and recognition of another

This article provides a phenomenological analysis of the difference between self-recognition and recognition of another, while referring to some contemporary neuroscientific studies on the rubber hand illusion. It examines the difference between these two forms of recognition on the basis of Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s work. It argues that both phenomenologies, despite their different views on inter-subjectivity, allow for the specificity of recognition of another. In explaining self-recognition, however, Husserl’s account seems less convincing. Research concerning the rubber hand illusion has confirmed that self-recognition involves more than an immediate experience of oneself. Merleau-Ponty’s later work, describing self-recognition as the result of assimilative identification, will be used to explain the possibility of illusion between one’s “hereness” and “thereness”. The possibility of this illusion is inherent to self-recognition, while it is lacking in recognition of another.

Roughness perception during the rubber hand illusion

Watching a rubber hand being stroked by a paintbrush while feeling identical stroking of one’s own occluded hand can create a compelling illusion that the seen hand becomes part of one’s own body. It has been suggested that this so-called rubber hand illusion (RHI) does not simply reflect a bottom–up multisensory integration process but that the illusion is also modulated by top–down, cognitive factors. Here we investigated for the first time whether the conceptual interpretation of the sensory quality of the visuotactile stimulation in terms of roughness can influence the occurrence of the illusion and vice versa, whether the presence of the RHI can modulate the perceived sensory quality of a given tactile stimulus (i.e., in terms of roughness). We used a classical RHI paradigm in which participants watched a rubber hand being stroked by either a piece of soft or rough fabric while they received synchronous or asynchronous tactile stimulation that was either congruent or incongruent with respect to the sensory quality of the material touching the rubber hand. (In)congruencies between the visual and tactile stimulation did neither affect the RHI on an implicit level nor on an explicit level, and the experience of the RHI in turn did not cause any modulations of the felt sensory quality of touch on participant’s own hand. These findings first suggest that the RHI seems to be resistant to top–down knowledge in terms of a conceptual interpretation of tactile sensations. Second, they argue against the hypothesis that participants own hand tends to disappear during the illusion and that the rubber hand actively replaces it.