Momentary maximizing in concurrent schedules with a minimum interchangeover interval

Eight pigeons were trained on concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules with a minimum interchangeover time programmed as a consequence of changeovers. In Experiment 1 the reinforcement schedules remained constant while the minimum interchangeover time varied from 0 to 200 s. Relative response rates and relative time deviated from relative reinforcement rates toward indifference with long minimum interchangeover times. In Experiment 2 different reinforcement ratios were scheduled in successive experimental conditions with the minimum interchangeover time constant at 0, 2, 10, or 120 s. The exponent of the generalized matching equation was close to 1.0 when the minimum interchangeover time was 0 s (the typical procedure for concurrent schedules without a changeover delay) and decreased as that duration was increased. The data support the momentary maximizing theory and contradict molar maximizing theories and the melioration theory.     

Altruistic Eudaimonism and the Self-Absorption Objection

The Journal of Value Inquiry -     

Spirituality in Clinical Practice: The Perspective of Brazilian Medical Students

Journal of Religion and Health - The purpose of this study was to evaluate the beliefs, opinions, and experiences of medical students from a Catholic confessional university concerning spirituality...     

Murray Sidman: A life of giving

Murray Sidman's contributions to the science of behavior span many areas including avoidance behavior, coercion and its effects, stimulus control, errorless learning, programmed learning, stimulus equivalence, and single-subject methodology. He was also a great mentor to many and helped shape the discipline we now call behavior analysis. In this memoriam, we briefly highlight his scholarly legacy and share some personal anecdotes.     

New Reflections on the Mirror: the Interests Proximity Bias Solution

Philosophia - We worry about becoming non-existent, but not about coming into being. But both events are similarly bad according to Deprivationism; hence, it seems that we should display symmetric...     

Extinction-induced immobility in the water maze and its neurochemical concomitants in aged and adult rats: a possible model for depression?

Extinction of escape behavior in the water maze due to the removal of the platform, was hypothesized to induce a negative state, including the development of immobility, which is held to reflect a state of "despair" when measured in the forced swimming test. 27 aged and 8 adult animals (26 and 3 months old Wistar rats, respectively) were tested in the water maze during nine days with a platform hidden, followed by 7 days of extinction trials with the platform absent. As expected, both age groups developed immobility over the extinction trials, with the aged showing more than the adults. To examine whether the age difference in immobility was related to performance differences during acquisition, the aged were subdivided into superior, intermediate and inferior learners (n = 9 per group) on the basis of overall times to platform during acquisition, and compared with each other and the adults. Results showed that the aged inferior learners displayed the highest levels of immobility among the aged. Immobility scores were then correlated with post-mortem neurotransmitter contents in the hippocampus and ventral striatum. In the ventral striatum, levels of immobility were correlated with levels of acetylcholine, dopamine and the metabolite dihydroxyphenylacetic acid in the aged, and with norepinephrine in the adults. The data support the hypothesis that multiple extinction trials in the water maze result in immobility that may indicate "behavioral despair," and that striatal neurotransmitter systems correlate with the degree of its expression. The concept of extinction-induced despair is held to provide the promise of a conceptual and empirical model of human depression that is the consequence of loss of reinforcers.     

On the representation of Portuguese gender-inflected words in the mental lexicon

This study aims at verifying whether Portuguese gender-inflected nouns and adjectives are represented as full forms as suggested by Spanish data (Dominguez, Cuetos, & Segui, 1999). A series of lexical decision experiments is reported. Grammatical gender, frequency dominance, and grammatical category are manipulated and cumulative frequency is controlled. The results do not provide support for a full form representation of gender-inflected words. They suggest that grammatical category, or the nature of the inflectional process involved (lexical or syntactic), affects the way words are represented and accessed. Shorter recognition latencies were obtained for nouns drawn from Feminine dominant gender-inflected pairs than from Masculine dominant pairs whereas a tendency in the opposite direction was observed in adjectives. The effect of frequency dominance appears, nevertheless, to be restricted to feminine nouns. The data are compatible with the view that masculine nouns and adjectives are represented as gender-unmarked forms. These results are discussed in relation to current dual-access models of word recognition and to the notion of "interpretability" of lexico-syntactic features, as put forward in the Minimalist Program of Generative Linguistics.     

Degree of illiteracy and phonological and metaphonological skills in unschooled adults

Phonological and metaphonological skills are explored in 97 Brazilian illiterate and semiliterate adults. A simple letter- and word-reading task was used to define the degree of illiteracy. Phonemic awareness was strongly dependent on the level of letter and word reading ability. Phonological memory was very low in illiterates and unrelated to letter knowledge. Rhyme identification was relatively preserved in illiterates and semiliterates, and unrelated to letter and word reading level. Phonetic discrimination (minimal pairs) was fairly good and marginally related to reading ability. These results suggest that phonological sensitivity, phonological memory, rhyme identification, and phonemic awareness are distinctive cognitive processes, and that only phonemic awareness is clearly and strongly dependent on the alphabetical acquisition.