The effects of reinforcer magnitude on timing in rats

The relation between reinforcer magnitude and timing behavior was studied using a peak procedure. Four rats received multiple consecutive sessions with both low and high levels of brain stimulation reward (BSR). Rats paused longer and had later start times during sessions when their responses were reinforced with low-magnitude BSR. When estimated by a symmetric Gaussian function, peak times also were earlier; when estimated by a better-fitting asymmetric Gaussian function or by analyzing individual trials, however, these peak-time changes were determined to reflect a mixture of large effects of BSR on start times and no effect on stop times. These results pose a significant dilemma for three major theories of timing (SET, MTS, and BeT), which all predict no effects for chronic manipulations of reinforcer magnitude. We conclude that increased reinforcer magnitude influences timing in two ways: through larger immediate after-effects that delay responding and through anticipatory effects that elicit earlier responding.     

错误相关负波（ERN）在精神病理学研究中的应用

错误相关负波（error-related negativity, ERN）是由行为错误诱发的一种脑电波成分,最大峰值在错误反应之后的50ms左右,偶极子源定位于前扣带回（anterior cingulate cortex, ACC）附近。错误加工（error processing）的经典研究范式中出现的ERN成分可能反映了ACC具有错误检测、冲突监控、强化学习、情绪动机等功能。大量研究表明过度的和不足的错误相关脑活动（hyperactive and hypoactive error processing）可能分别与精神病理学的内化性和外化性障碍（internalizing and externalizing disorders）相关联。内化性和外化性障碍的内表型（endophenotype）的研究,还存在许多值得进一步探索的问题。     

法则关系方法在研究中的应用及其问题思考

重要概念之间的理论关系或合理关系的连锁系统被称作是一个法则关系。法则关系包括原有模型、前因变量或结果变量。应用结构方程模型来检验法则关系中各组成部分之间的法则有效性,从而对原模型作进一步修正,该方法能够更加科学地揭示出多变量间的因果关系。文中还提到了应用法则关系方法时需要注意的问题,并指出未来的研究应当着重于进一步构建其理论框架、借助其来有效地开发和验证测量工具、以及探索该方法效度的影响因素等方向。     

脑功能可塑性与灾后心理功能康复

神经系统具有惊人的可塑性,这种可塑性可以终生保留。大脑不仅可因个体的经验与行为而改变,也可因内在思维、放松和注意的不同而发生改变。如汶川地震这样的大型自然灾害,因其突发性和巨变性,可使身临其境的人大脑功能状态在瞬间就发生持久的改变,从而表现为认知、情感等心理功能的改变。反过来,利用有关神经可塑性的认识,同样可使受损的大脑得以修复,使发育障碍的个体增强功能,亦可使由各种内外因素导致的心灵扭曲重新舒展开来。利用放松、修复、重建的3R脑功能重塑技术,可望解决包括地震灾后心理健康重建在内的各种神经和心理问题,具有广泛的应用前景     

MINDS, INTRINSIC PROPERTIES, AND MADHYAMAKA BUDDHISM

Certain philosophers and scientists have noticed that there are data that do not seem to fit with the traditional view known as the Mind/Brain Identity theory (MBI). This has inspired a new theory about the mind known as the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition (HEC). Now there is a growing controversy over whether these data actually require extending the mind out beyond the brain. Such arguments, despite their empirical diversity, have an underlying form. They all are disputes over where to draw the line between intrinsic and relational causal powers. The second-century Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna deals with similar issues when he argues for a middle way between the two positions that were known in his time by the terms eternalism and nihilism. Eternalism, like MBI, asserts that the mind is a permanent enduring substance (although the two theories disagree as to how long mind endures). Nihilism argued that the mind had no intrinsic existence, and today some argue that HEC could lead us to a similar conclusion. Nagarjuna's argument for a middle way between these two extremes is similar to an argument that can be made for HEC. We can accept that neither the brain nor any other single physical item is identical to the mind without falling down the slippery slope that leads to "The mind does not really exist, and therefore we are one with everything." Nagarjuna was correct to say that the mind has conventional reality—that the mind exists even though there is no sharp border between the mind and the world.     

USING DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT TO DECREASE ACADEMIC RESPONSE LATENCIES OF AN ADOLESCENT WITH ACQUIRED BRAIN INJURY

The present study investigated the effects of contingency‐specifying rules and a token economy to decrease the latency to comply with academic instructions by a 16‐year‐old girl with acquired brain injury. Results showed that treatment was successful in reducing academic response latencies. These results replicate previous research in which differential reinforcement was used to decrease slow responding to academic tasks.     

Large-Scale Assessment of Change in Student Achievement: Dutch Primary School Students’ Results on Written Division in 1997 and 2004 as an Example

This article discusses large-scale assessment of change in student achievement and takes the study by Hickendorff, Heiser, Van Putten, and Verhelst (2009) as an example. This study compared the achievement of students in the Netherlands in 1997 and 2004 on written division problems. Based on this comparison, they claim that there is a performance decline in this subdomain of mathematics, and that there is a move from applying the digit-based long division algorithm to a less accurate way of working without writing down anything. In our discussion of this study, we address methodological challenges that come in when investigating long-term trends in student achievements, such as the need for adequate operationalizations, the influence of the time of measurement and the necessity of the comparability of assessments, the effect of the assessment format, and the importance of inclusion relevant covariates in item response models. All these issues matter when assessing change in student achievement.     

Lateralization of egocentric and allocentric spatial processing after parietal brain lesions

The purpose of this paper was to verify whether left and right parietal brain lesions may selectively impair egocentric and allocentric processing of spatial information in near/far spaces. Two Right-Brain-Damaged (RBD), 2 Left-Brain-Damaged (LBD) patients (not affected by neglect or language disturbances) and eight normal controls were submitted to the Ego-Allo Task requiring distance judgments computed according to egocentric or allocentric frames of reference in near/far spaces. Subjects also completed a general neuropsychological assessment and the following visuospatial tasks: reproduction of the Rey-Osterreith figure, line length judgement, point position identification, mental rotation, mental construction, line length memory, line length inference, Corsi block-tapping task. LBD patients presented difficulties in both egocentric and allocentric processing, whereas RBD patients dropped in egocentric but not in allocentric judgements, and in near but not far space. Further, RBD patients dropped in perceptually comparing linear distances, whereas LBD patients failed in memory for distances. The overall pattern of results suggests that the right hemisphere is specialized in processing metric information according to egocentric frames of reference. The data are interpreted according to a theoretical model that highlights the close link between egocentric processing and perceptual control of action.     

Anomalous brain dominance and the immune system: Do left-handers have specific immunological patterns?

Geschwind and Behan (1982) and Geschwind and Galaburda (1985a, 1985b, 1985c) suggested a correlation between brain laterality and immune disorders. To test whether this hypothesis holds true not only for the frequency of immune diseases and circulating autoantibodies, but extends also to cellular immunity, we examined the association between handedness and markers of cellular immunity. Twenty-seven left-handed and 37 right-handed subjects were serologically screened for cellular parameters and 22 left-handed subjects were typed for human leukocyte antigen (HLA). When compared to the right-handers, the left-handed group showed a significant decrease in the inflammatory cell types CD3(+) T cells (total T cells), CD4(+) T cells (T-helper cells), and HLA-Dr (MHC-II, antigen-presenting cells) as well as in the CD19(+) cells (B cells) and CD16/CD57(+) cells (natural killer cells). We assume a relationship exists between cerebral hemispheric specialisation and the immune system not only for humoral but also for cellular immunity, and we discuss the role of the major histocompatibility complex in neurological and immunological development.     

An empirical and computational investigation of perceiving and remembering event temporal relations

Events have beginnings, ends, and often overlap in time. A major question is how perceivers come to parse a stream of multimodal information into meaningful units and how different event boundaries may vary event processing. This work investigates the roles of these three types of event boundaries in constructing event temporal relations. Predictions were made based on how people would err according to the beginning state, end state, and overlap heuristic hypotheses. Participants viewed animated events that include all the logical possibilities of event temporal relations, and then made temporal relation judgments. The results showed that people make use of the overlap between events and take into account the ends and beginnings, but they weight ends more than beginnings. Neural network simulations showed a self-organized distinction when learning temporal relations between events with overlap versus those without.