Symptoms of Psychological Distress Among Mothers and their Adult Offspring: A Longitudinal Examination

We examined the association between maternal psychological distress during offspring’s early development and offspring’s later distress in adulthood, as well as the influence of maternal characteristics at offspring’s birth and offspring’s characteristics in adulthood on distress. Data were obtained from the British Cohort Study, a longitudinal study of children born in a one-week period in 1970. Children were followed up multiple times from birth through to age 30. Results indicate that greater symptoms of maternal psychological distress during offspring’s early childhood are associated with greater symptoms of distress in adult offspring. A large component of this association is indirect, occurring through mother’s distress in later childhood and offspring’s problem behavior during adolescence. Findings that the association between maternal and offspring’s distress is more indirect than direct support arguments that early maternal distress has long-term consequences for offspring.     

Modeling and prediction of driver preparations for making a right turn based on vehicle velocity and traffic conditions while approaching an intersection

This paper focuses on modeling and predicting the influence of a vehicle’s velocity and the relative position between a driver’s vehicle and a vehicle to the front or rear on the onset of driver preparations for making a right turn at an intersection. Repeated experiments were carried out on a public road to measure driver preparations, including releasing the accelerator pedal, moving the right foot to cover the brake pedal, and activating the turn signal, as well as to record vehicle velocity and the relative distances to the leading and following vehicles. Structural equation modeling was applied to estimate these relationships quantitatively. Two separate latent variables accounting for the interaction between the driver’s vehicle and leading or following vehicles, and the onset point where driving behavior changes from straight mode to preparation mode before a right turn, were introduced in the specification of the structural equation model. The model estimates and testing indicate that the proposed structural equation model represents well the relationship hypothesized by observational analysis: that the vehicle velocity and the traffic conditions surrounding the driver’s vehicle strongly influence the driver’s deceleration and more weakly influenced turn signal activation. The proposed structural equation model contributes to the prediction of the onset locations of covering the brake pedal and activating the turn signal based on the vehicle velocity and the relative distances to the front and rear vehicles when the accelerator pedal is released. The prediction accuracy is high compared with predictions in which the vehicle velocity and the headway or rear distances are not taken into account or predictions using a single regression model with one independent variable, namely driving speed. Finally, a possible new addition to in-vehicle navigation systems that detects unusual driver behavior by predicting the driver’s preparatory maneuvers is discussed.     

BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS: THRIVING,BUT HOW ABOUT ITS FUTURE?

Behavior analysis has been thriving by continuing to make important theoretical and empirical contributions to a wide array of problems, as well as by contributing to interdisciplinary research. Applied research in behavior analysis is flourishing. Despite these positive signs there may be an erosion of support for basic research in animal learning and behavior, including behavior analysis. Increased attention by behavior analysts to fundamental problems in areas of cognition, including decision-making and language, may help behavior analysis to evolve more successfully. An experimental analysis of gambling may prove particularly fruitful.     

An Invitation to Behavior Analysts: Review of in Search of Memory: The Emergence of A New Science of Mind by Eric R. Kandel

This fascinating autobiography and multifaceted case history in neuroscience research is accessible to laymen and potentially instructive to working scientists. Kandel takes the reader through his thought processes as he describes experiments that led to some of the past decades'' major neuroscience discoveries (some highlights of which are summarized in the review''s Appendix), and eventually to his Nobel Prize. The review analyzes some of the terminological and conceptual issues that have often inhibited communication between behavior analysts and neuroscientists, with special attention to some of Bennett and Hacker''s admonitions viewed from the perspective of language evolution and linguistics. The review then discusses opportunities for behavior analysts to collaborate with neuroscientists by applying behavioral contingency analysis to help specify the independent variables of neuroscience experiments described by Kandel. Finally, it examines Kandel''s provocative heuristics for locating important research problems, and the lessons that can be gleaned from the book regarding the attributes of potentially great achievers.     

On the origins of emergent differential sample behavior

Two experiments evaluated the source(s) of emergent differential sample behavior in pigeons. Initially, pigeons learned two-sample, two-alternative symbolic matching in which different patterns of sample responding were required to produce the comparisons. Afterwards, two other samples nominally identical to the comparisons were added to the matching task. On new-sample trials, completion of either sample-response requirement produced comparison alternatives which were either the same as or different from the alternatives on the familiar-sample trials. Differential responding to the new samples developed only when the comparisons were the same as the familiar samples. The results are consistent with acquired sample equivalence and adventitious reinforcement accounts of emergent sample behavior and are inconsistent with bidirectional transfer (symmetry) between the response patterns explicitly required to the originally trained (familiar) samples and the subsequently reinforced comparisons.     

The Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior at fifty

The Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior was founded in 1958 by a group of male psychologists, mainly from the northeastern USA and connected with either Harvard or Columbia. Fifty years later about 20% of both editors and authors reside outside this country and almost the same proportion is made up of women. Other changes in the journal include having its own website for more than a decade and now publishing online as well as on paper. A recent connection with PubMed Central of the National Library of Medicine has made possible the completely free electronic presentation of the entire archive of about 3,800 articles.     

Using Creative Writing Techniques to Enhance the Case Study Method in Research Integrity and Ethics Courses

The following article explores the use of creative writing techniques to teach research ethics, breathe life into case study preparation, and train students to think of their settings as complex organizational environments with multiple actors and stakeholders.     

情绪和社会行为的迷走神经活动基础

Porges基于自主神经进化观点提出的多迷走神经理论, 区分了无髓鞘迷走神经与髓鞘迷走神经的不同功能。认为对心脏等起调控作用的髓鞘迷走神经, 经由进化逐渐与调控头面部肌肉的脑神经之间产生了神经上的联系, 成为情绪和社会行为的神经基础。已有的相关实证研究表明, 髓鞘迷走神经与个体的情绪表达与调节、社会行为以及情绪与社会行为障碍密切相关。较低的迷走神经张力、较低的迷走抑制与较低的情绪调节能力相关; 迷走抑制较高的学前儿童有较少的行为问题以及较好的社交技能; 焦虑障碍的个体表现出较低的基线迷走张力以及较低的迷走抑制水平等。多迷走神经理论及其实证研究的结果, 对于推动情绪和社会行为的自主神经基础研究具有重要的意义。     

严谨性的结构及其应用研究述评

严谨性(Conscientiousness)是指个体在按照社会规范的要求控制冲动的倾向、以任务和目标为导向、先思后行、延迟满足以及遵守规范和纪律等方面上的个体差异。由于其在应用心理学领域(如, 组织管理心理学)的重要作用而被广泛而深入的研究, 主要内容涉及严谨性对工作绩效和其他工作相关行为的的预测、对健康行为和寿命的预测、对学业表现的预测等方面。文章全面回顾了近年来严谨性的结构及其在管理、教育和健康领域的相关研究, 并指出将来的研究应进一步深入探索严谨性的次级结构、测量工具的编制、严谨性与绩效间关系的假设、严谨性与寿命和健康行为之间的关系等问题。