An investigation of the arousal model of interpersonal intimacy

In a study designed to test Patterson's arousal model of nonverbal intimacy, the heartrate, gaze, smiles, body orientation, and body lean of each of 40 female subjects who interacted with an accomplice were measured. Within a factorial design, subjects were induced to view more or less favorably the accomplice, who subsequently increased or maintained the same level of nonverbal immediacy as she did in an earlier session. It was hypothesized that (1) an increase in the accomplice's immediacy would effect an increase in subjects' arousal (heartrate) which, in turn, (2) would lead to either reciprocal or compensatory nonverbal adjustments by subjects, depending on whether they viewed the accomplice more or less favorably, respectively. The results supported the first but not the second hypothesis. However, interpretation of the results suggests, nevertheless, that they may be consistent with the arousal model.     

Semantic differential studies of children's language development: Some methodological problems

A semantic differential study of development of antonym meanings revealed methodological problems (e.g., concept-scale interaction and developmental changes in scale-checking style) not fully considered in previous semantic differential investigations of child language development. Twenty adjectives were rated on 10 scales by subjects from grades K to 5 (approximately 6 through 11 years old) and adults. Analyses by means, polarity ratings, and average sums of squared differences failed to yield consistent developmental trends. Subjects' choices of scale ratings did show clear age-related differences: Grades K and 1 chose extreme ratings almost exclusively; grades 2 through 4 showed an increase in neutral choices and decreases in extreme ratings; grades 4 and 5 and adults chose extreme ratings least often, neutral choices most often, and more intermediate ratings than any younger subjects. Results show that scale choice is a crucial factor in designing semantic differential studies with children, there is a low correlation between mean scores and ratings given by individual children, and shifts in scale-checking style should be considered when interpreting apparent developmental changes in children's semantic differential ratings.     

Incidental learning,attention, and curiosity in squirrel monkeys calorie deprived as infants

The long-term effects of infantile malnutrition on information processing were studied in squirrel monkeys. From 2 through 8 weeks of age, four low-calorie infants were fed reduced amounts of a high protein diet, limiting their mean body weight gain to 23% of that of four well-fed controls, with all of this gain occurring during the first 2 weeks on the low-calorie diet. Thereafter, both groups received the standard diet ad libitum. At 68 weeks of age, incidental learning was tested by introducing shape cues that were redundant to the solution of a previously learned, two-choice, color discrimination. Removal of the color cues showed that the low-calorie monkeys had learned significantly less about the shape cues than had the controls. The basis for this incidental learning failure was then examined with an embedded-figures dicrimination, to measure attentional ability, and a novel stimulus substitution task, to measure curiosity. The groups did not differ in detecting embedded figures, but the low-calorie monkeys were significantly less likely than controls to select or handle novel stimuli that had been substituted for previously learned discriminative cues. It was concluded that undernutrition in infancy may induce a long-term strategy of only learning information which leads to an immediate reward, while suppressing the acquisition of information due to intrinsic curiosity.     

Response strength in multiple periodic and aperiodic schedules

Responding in multiple periodic and aperiodic schedules of equal mean reinforcement rate was examined during extinction, satiation, and in the presence of various free-food schedules. In Experiments I and II, pigeons were trained on multiple variable-interval–fixed-interval schedules. Decreases in the rate of responding due to extinction, satiation, or food schedules were approximately equal regardless of the temporal pattern of reinforcer presentation. In Experiment III, pigeons responded on a two-component multiple schedule in which each component was a two-member homogeneous response chain terminating in a fixed-interval schedule during one component and in a variable-interval schedule during the other. The length of both terminal links was varied over a series of conditions. Initial-link responding in the fixed-interval component was reduced more by increasing terminal-link length than was initial-link responding in the variable-interval component. However, no differences in resistance to satiation and extinction were obtained across the fixed and variable components. If the relative decrease in responding produced by satiation and extinction is used as an index of the “value” of the conditions maintaining responding, then these data suggest that fixed and variable schedules of equal mean length are equally valued. This conclusion, however, is not consistent with findings of preference for variable over fixed schedules obtained in studies using concurrent-chain procedures.     

Incorporating inferences in narrative representations: A study of how and why

Four experiments examined the conceptual organization of narrative passages and the extent to which these representations were explanatory in a variety of experimental tasks. The conceptual representation of a passage consisted of a graph of labeled nodes and labeled, directed arcs which were adopted from the Conceptual Dependency Theory. These representations included both explicitly stated information and inferences which had been empirically extracted by a question-answering procedure. Symbolic procedures for answering how- and why-questions were also delineated. The conceptual representations and the symbolic procedures that operate on these representations together accounted for 91% of the answers generated from question-answering protocols in Experiment 1, and also the rated quality of specific answers to specific questions in Experiment 2. Experiments 3 and 4 supported the hypothesis that structural properties of the representations can predict recall of explicitly stated nodes and verification ratings of inference nodes. The results provide encouraging support for the proposed graphic representations and also for the use of question-answering protocols in uncovering prose inferences.     

Spontaneous configuring to a tone-light compound using appetitive training

Rats were trained to bar-press for water in the presence of a simultaneous compound tone-light stimulus using a discrete-trial procedure. Different groups were given between 300 and 3900 trials. When subsequently tested in extinction, all rats showed consistent levels of responding to the compound stimulus but responding to the tone and light components declined as a function of number of training trials. This is a demonstration of spontaneous configuring. Two other experiments showed that with similar procedures generalization from a component of the training stimulus to other values on the same continuum decreases with increased training with the compound stimulus. It was concluded that configuring and generalization from a single stimulus involve the same processes.     

A characterization of stochastic independence by association,with an application to random utility theory

A characterization of stochastic independence in terms of association of random variables is given. The result is applied to yield a simple proof of the Sattath-Tversky inequality without continuity assumptions.     

Speaker bias in children's evaluation of the external consistency of statements

The hypothesis of this study is that an assumption of speaker credibility affects children's judgments of the external consistency of statements. In two experiments, first and third grade children (6 and 8 years of age, respectively) and college adults were read short paragraphs containing contradictory information from a contextual source and a speaker. The contextual source was described as either authoritative or nonauthoritative and discredited. The speaker was either an adult or child. Thus the contextual source was either more or less reliable than the speaker. Subjects were asked to affirm or contradict the speaker's statement, and to choose either the source or the speaker as most believable. The results showed that adult responses varied with the contextual source alone, while the responses of the first graders varied primarily with the speaker's age. The responses of the third graders varied with both factors. The results suggest young children can assess the external consistency of statements but frequently do not because of their assumptions about speakers and other performance factors.     

Effects of food priming on instrumental acquisition and performance

Four experiments investigated the effects of a priming food reinforcement, given 0 or 75 sec pretrial, on runway performance of rats. The studies differed in the use of between-versus-within-subject designs, and by using food or water as the goal reinforcer. In Experiment 1, using food as the goal reward, subjects primed with food 0 sec pretrial conditioned slower than subjects primed 75 sec pretrial. In Experiment 2, using water as the goal reward, subjects primed with food 0 sec pretrial conditioned faster. These differences were evident on both prefed trials and on nonprefed test trials. Experiments 3 and 4 showed an opposite pattern of results when within-subject comparisons of 0- and 75-sec pretrial intervals were used: Food priming immediately pretrial facilitated food-rewarded running but inhibited water-rewarded running. The results suggest prefeeding has differential effects on acquisition and performance of instrumental behavior, and also depending upon the similarity of the priming and goal reinforcers.