The Perspective of Islamic Fundamentalists and the Limits of Rational Choice Theory

How can we best understand Islamic fundamentalism? As fundamentalism has become an increasingly significant political force, many different interpretations have been offered, with fundamentalism explained as both a rational reaction against modernity and as a pathological retreat from reality. We argue here that part of the scholarly failure to understand and deal with the growth of religious fundamentalism results from a failure to recognize the importance of cognitive differences in worldviews held by fundamentalists. By providing an empirical analysis of how fundamentalists see the world—what we identify as a fundamentalist perspective—we hope to supply an important missing piece in the literature on fundamentalism. To do so, we utilized a narrative and survey interview technique to contrast the worldviews of fundamentalists with those of comparable Muslims who are not fundamentalists. Our analysis suggests Islamic fundamentalism attracts because it provides a basic identity, an identity which in turn provides the foundation for daily living. The fundamentalist perspective itself is best understood through reference to a worldview which makes no distinction between public and private, in which truth is revealed by revelation, and reason is subservient to religious doctrine. Religious dictates dominate on all basic issues, and only within the confines of the fundamentalist identity are choices decided by a cost/benefit calculus.     

Freedom, Preference and Autonomy

Philosophers have advocated different kinds of freedom, but each has value and none should be neglected in a complete theory of freedom and responsibility. There are three kinds of freedom of preference and action that should be distinguished. A person S may fully prefer to do A at every level, and that is one kind of freedom. A person S may autonomously prefer to do A when S has the preference structure concerning doing A because S prefers to have that very preference structure, and that is a second kind of freedom. A person S may prefer to do A when S could have preferred otherwise, and that is a third kind of freedom. These forms of freedom may be combined, but they are valuable and essentially independent. They all involve the metamental ascendence of preference over desire, but it is autonomous preference that makes a person the author of his or her preference. The responsibility a person has for what he or she does out of a preference for doing it depends on the kinds of freedom of preference the person has and must be ranked in terms of them.     

观察不同形状和颜色时眼运动的顺序性

实验使用EVM3200型眼动仪测量被试在观察四种不同形状和四种不同颜色时眼运动轨迹的特点,来研究人眼运动的顺序性。结果表明：人眼在观察不同形状和颜色时,眼运动具有时间序列和空间序列的特性;形状和颜色一样具有诱目性序列特征;眼运动凝视点受到刺激所处空间位置的明显影响;首次凝视点是研究眼运动的重要变量。     

独体汉字的字形相似性研究

本文以速示呈现方式获得了一系列独体汉字和字符的混淆矩阵。用Luce（1963）的选择模型特混淆矩阵分解为对称的相似矩阵和反应倾向矢量。基于相似矩阵,以聚类分析和多维量表法探索了汉字和字符的视觉特征及其表征形式,为揭示汉字视觉特征的几何特性和潜在结构,在研究方法上作了有意义的偿试、此外,本研究的结果支持了作者（1995）关于在含“十”或“口”的独体汉字中,“十”与“口”是该类汉字的突出视觉特征的结论。     

The influence of "preparedness" on autoshaping, schedule performance, and choice.

Two groups of experimentally naive pigeons were exposed to an autoshaping procedure in which the response key was mounted on the wall (the conventional location) or on the floor of the chamber. In two experiments, subjects readily responded to the wall key, but floor-key subjects required shaping. A subsequent experiment compared performance of wall- and floor-key groups on an ascending series of fixed-ratio schedule values, resistance to extinction, differential reinforcement of other behavior, and reversal of key assignment. Each experiment was followed by several sessions of fixed-ratio training; the performance of the wall- and floor-key groups was almost identical throughout. In the final experiment, a fixed-ratio requirement could be completed on either or both keys. Birds initially chose the key on which they had responded during the preceding (reversal of key assignment) experiment. However, within a few sessions both groups showed almost exclusive preference for the floor key. Preference for a key located on the floor may follow from the fact that pigeons are ground feeders and may thus be more "prepared" to peck the floor than to peck a wall. However, autoshaping, under the conditions prevailing here, occurred much more readily to the wall key, suggesting that pecking a vertical surface is more highly prepared. Difficulties in determining relative preparedness seem moot, however, given the lack of between-group differences in the intervening experiments. It is thus unlikely that schedule performances critically depend upon the specific operant response involved.     

Mechanics of the animate.

Behavior is treated as basic physics. Dimensions are identified and their transformations from physical specification to axes in behavioral space are suggested. Responses are treated as action patterns arrayed along a continuum of activation energy. Behavior is seen as movement along a trajectory through this behavior space. Incentives or reinforcers are attractors in behavior space, at the centers of basins of lowered potential. Trajectories impinging on such basins may be captured; repeated capture will warp the trajectory toward a geodesic, a process called conditioning. Conditioning is enhanced by contiguity, the proximity between the measured behavior and the incentive at the end of the trajectory, and by contingency, the depth of the trajectory below the average level of the potential energy landscape. Motivation is seen as the potential of an organism for motion under the forces impinging on it. Degree of motivation is characterized by the depth of the potential field, with low motivation corresponding to a flat field and a flat gradient of activation energy. Drives are the forces of incentives propagated through behavior space. Different laws for the attenuation of drive with behavioral distance are discussed, as is the dynamics of action. The basic postulate of behavior mechanics is incentive-tracking in behavior space, the energy for which is provided by decreases in potential. The relation of temporal gradients to response differentiation and temporal discrimination is analyzed. Various two-body problems are sketched to illustrate the application of these ideas to association, choice, scalar timing, self-control, and freedom.     

Multicategorical spline model for item response theory

Additional information contained in incorrect responses calls for a multicategorical rather than a binary analysis of multiple choice data. A nonparametric divided-by-total model for joint maximum likelihood estimation of probability-of-choice functions (for particular responses) and of latent ability is proposed. The model approximates probability functions by rational splines. Some illustrative examples of real test data analysis and the results of a Monte Carlo study are presented.The research in this paper was supported by the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Grants OGP0105521 and APA 320 awarded to the first and the second author, respectively. The authors are indebted to R. Melzack and A. Baker for making available the data analyzed in this paper. We would also like to thank J. McKenna and B. Cont for their assistance in editing this paper.     

IMPULSIVITY IN STUDENTS WITH SERIOUS EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE: THE INTERACTIVE EFFECTS OF REINFORCER RATE,DELAY, AND QUALITY

We conducted two studies extending basic matching research on self-control and impulsivity to the investigation of choices of students diagnosed as seriously emotionally disturbed. In Study 1 we examined the interaction between unequal rates of reinforcement and equal versus unequal delays to reinforcer access on performance of concurrently available sets of math problems. The results of a reversal design showed that when delays to reinforcer access were the same for both response alternatives, the time allocated to each was approximately proportional to obtained reinforcement. When the delays to reinforcer access differed between the response alternatives, there was a bias toward the response alternative and schedule with the lower delays, suggesting impulsivity (i.e., immediate reinforcer access overrode the effects of rate of reinforcement). In Study 2 we examined the interactive effects of reinforcer rate, quality, and delay. Conditions involving delayed access to the high-quality reinforcers on the rich schedule (with immediate access to low-quality reinforcers earned on the lean schedule) were alternated with immediate access to low-quality reinforcers on the rich schedule (with delayed access to high-quality reinforcers on the lean schedule) using a reversal design. With 1 student, reinforcer quality overrode the effects of both reinforcer rate and delay to reinforcer access. The other student tended to respond exclusively to the alternative associated with immediate access to reinforcers. The studies demonstrate a methodology based on matching theory for determining influential dimensions of reinforcers governing individuals' choices.     

THE BEHAVIORAL THEORY OF TIMING: TRANSITION ANALYSES

Gibbon and Church (1990, 1992) have recently confirmed an important, parameter-free prediction of the behavioral theory of timing (Killeen & Fetterman, 1988): The times of exiting from a bout of activity are positively correlated with the times of entrance to it. The correlations were slightly less than predicted, however, and the correlations between the start of an activity and the time spent engaged in that activity were negative, rather than zero. We adapted their serial model as an augmented (one-parameter) version of the behavioral theory, positing a lag between the receipt of a pulse from the pacemaker and transition into the next class of responses. The augmented version of the behavioral theory further improved the correspondence between the theory and the correlational data reported by Gibbon and Church. It also accounts for previously unpublished data from our laboratory derived from a new timing technique, the “peak choice” procedure. We show that the measured variance of movement times from one key to another closely approximates the estimated variance of transition times recovered from fits of the augmented model to the data. Such correspondence both attests to the correct identification of this source of variance and suggests ways to remove it, both from behavior and from our models of behavior.     

Preference for less frequent shock under fixed-interval schedules of electric-shock presentation.

Lever pressing by 2 squirrel monkeys was maintained under fixed-interval 6-min and fixed-interval 2-min schedules of electric-shock presentation. Preference for these schedules was assessed during three experimental phases. In all phases, responses on one lever produced shock according to one or the other fixed-interval schedule, and responses on a second, changeover, lever switched between schedules. The opportunity to change over was presented during separate choice periods (during which the fixed-interval schedules did not operate) that followed the first through fourth shocks in each schedule. If no changeover occurred during those choice periods, a changeover automatically occurred following the fifth shock. In Phase I, durations of the choice periods were fixed. In Phase II, the choice periods equaled a proportion of their respective fixed interval. During Phase III (completed with 1 monkey) a response on the changeover lever during a given choice period reinstated the most recent fixed interval, and a failure to respond resulted in a changeover. During each of these phases, distinct preferences developed for the 6-min schedule. These results suggest that the maintenance of lever pressing by fixed-interval presentation of electric shock may not be an example of positive reinforcement, and that the response-maintaining characteristics of shock presentation may derive from other properties of the schedule.