Experimental evaluation of matching via a commercially available basketball video game

Many recent nonlaboratory-based quantitative analyses of behavior have relied on archival competitive sporting data. However, the ratio-based reinforcement schedules in most athletic competitions and the correlational nature of archival data analyses raise concern over the contributions of such findings to the behavior analytic literature. The current experiment evaluated whether matching in a human operant paradigm would approximate matching observed in nonlaboratory-based sports data. To this end, we used in-game attributes to parametrically manipulate 2- and 3-point shooting in a commercially available basketball video game. The behavior of 6 of 9 participants conformed to the generalized matching equation. These results suggest matching in sporting contexts may be a product of restricted nonindependent concurrent random-ratio schedules. Implications of this experiment, including those in applied behavior analysis and potential influence on gamification, are discussed.     

A behavioral study of alpha-1b adrenergic receptor knockout mice: increased reaction to novelty and selectively reduced learning capacities

Knockout mice lacking the alpha-1b adrenergic receptor were tested in behavioral experiments. Reaction to novelty was first assessed in a simple test in which the time taken by the knockout mice and their littermate controls to enter a second compartment was compared. Then the mice were tested in an open field to which unknown objects were subsequently added. Special novelty was introduced by moving one of the familiar objects to another location in the open field. Spatial behavior and memory were further studied in a homing board test, and in the water maze. The alpha-1b knockout mice showed an enhanced reactivity to new situations. They were faster to enter the new environment, covered longer paths in the open field, and spent more time exploring the new objects. They reacted like controls to modification inducing spatial novelty. In the homing board test, both the knockout mice and the control mice seemed to use a combination of distant visual and proximal olfactory cues, showing place preference only if the two types of cues were redundant. In the water maze the alpha-1b knockout mice were unable to learn the task, which was confirmed in a probe trial without platform. They were perfectly able, however, to escape in a visible platform procedure. These results confirm previous findings showing that the noradrenergic pathway is important for the modulation of behaviors such as reaction to novelty and exploration, and suggest that this is mediated, at least partly, through the alpha-1b adrenergic receptors. The lack of alpha-1b adrenergic receptors in spatial orientation does not seem important in cue-rich tasks but may interfere with orientation in situations providing distant cues only.     

Incremental validity of the MMPI-2 PSY-5 scales in assessing self-reported personality disorder criteria

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) Personality Psychopathology-Five (PSY-5) scales were developed to measure abnormal personality symptomatology. The present study examines the incremental validity of the PSY-5 scales beyond the clinical and content scales in assessing criteria associated with personality disorders. The current sample includes 240 male and 407 female clients from private practice settings who completed the MMPI-2 and the Multiaxial Diagnostic Inventory (MDI), a self-report checklist of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (3rd ed., revised) symptoms. Six of the MDI personality disorder scales, conceptually related to the PSY-5 scales, are used as criteria. Hierarchical regression analyses determine the incremental validity of each PSY-5 scale. In most analyses, PSY-5 scales add a significant increment of variance to the clinical and content scales. Implications of the results are discussed.     

The Unsettled German Discussions of Justification: Abiding Differences and Ecumenical Blessings

Abstract :  This essay provides an analysis of The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification . It argues that the future of ecumenism demands greater attention to doctrinal differences than was evident after 1980 in much of the Roman‐Lutheran dialogue on justification, especially as it unfolded in Germany.     

Reflexive attention attenuates change blindness (but only briefly)

Humans are remarkably insensitive to large changes in a visual display if the change occurs simultaneously with a secondary perceptual event. A widely held view is that this change blindness occurs because the secondary perceptual event prevents the change from capturing attention. However, whereas some studies have shown that top-down attentional priming can attenuate change blindness, the evidence regarding the effect of bottom-up attentional capture on change blindness is less clear-cut. Here, we compare the effects of attentional capture on change detection with participants' performance on a well-established attentional paradigm (a Posner-style cuing task). Experiment 1 established the time course of attentional capture in our paradigm. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this attentional capture was associated with facilitated change detection at short (150-msec), but not long (480-msec), latencies. These data show that reflexive attentional shifts facilitate change detection and are consistent with the view that shifts of attention are a necessary precondition for visual awareness.     

Line-bisectioning and obstacle avoidance: Evidence for separate strategies

Previous studies have frequently applied a combination of line-bisection tasks (in which participants indicate the middle of a line) and obstacle avoidance tasks (in which participants move their hand between two obstacles) with the aim of revealing perception–action dissociations in certain neurological disorders, such as visual form agnosia and optic ataxia. However, valid conclusions about the underlying processing pathways can only be drawn if participants apply the same strategy in both tasks (i.e. finding the middle between the obstacles). Yet, this assumption has never been tested directly. In this experiment, we investigated whether participants perform obstacle avoidance and line-bisectioning using similar strategies by manipulating the position of the obstacles and the start position of the hand relative to the obstacles. Our results indicate that the lateral hand position during obstacle avoidance does not only vary as a function of obstacle location but also strongly depends on the start position. Moreover, participants showed increased sensitivity to obstacle shifts occurring closer to the hand's start position. In contrast, during line-bisectioning the sensitivity to obstacles shifts was unaffected by the hand's start position. The findings suggest that during obstacle-avoidance the need to keep a safe distance from the obstacles is balanced with the requirement to minimise energetic demands. In contrast, the main intention during line-bisectioning is to move to the perceived midpoint as accurately as possible. The fact that very different constraints underlie trajectory planning in both tasks implies that caution has to be taken when interpreting differences in performance levels.     

Activity and exploratory behavior after lesions of the medial entorhinal cortex in the woodmouse (Apodemus sylvaticus)

The effects of bilateral electrolytic lesions of the entorhinal cortex were studied in male adult woodmice. Experiments were designed to allow separate analysis of the basal activity level and exploratory behavior. Activity recording was conducted in three situations: (a) 24-hr wheel running in the home cage pre- and postoperatively; (b) 24-hr activity composition in a large enclosure over 4 days, 5 to 9 days postoperatively; and (c) sequence and duration of visits in a residential plus maze 11 to 14 days postoperatively. Medial entorhinal cortex lesion involving the para- and presubiculum increased the 24-hr amount of movements in the enclosure (b) without increasing wheel running in any situation (a or b). This lesion also enhanced the locomotor reactivity to being introduced into the plus maze and impaired exploratory behavior. This last effect was equally apparent when the whole situation was new or when part of the familiar maze was modified. Lesioned woodmice did notice the new element but did not show active focalization of their behavior on that element. Data showed that lesion induced hyperactivity and changes of exploratory behavior were not necessarily associated. Novelty detection was performed but it is not clear now on what information this discrimination was based.     

Evaluating video modeling and video modeling with video feedback to enhance the performance of competitive dancers

This study evaluated the use of video modeling and video modeling plus video feedback to enhance four adolescents' performance of a dance movement. Intervention was evaluated in a multiple baseline across participants design. This study found that video modeling enhanced performance from baseline, but the addition of video feedback produced further increases. For one participant, improvement was dependent on the perspective of the video model. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.