Effects of reinforcer delays on choice as a function of income level

Three rats earned their daily food ration by responding during individual trials either on a lever that delivered one food pellet immediately or on a second lever that delivered three pellets after a delay that was continuously adjusted to ensure substantial responding to both alternatives. Choice of the delayed reinforcer increased when the number of trials per session was reduced. This result suggests that models seeking closure on choice effects must include a parameter reflecting how preference changes with sessionwide income. Moreover, models positing that reinforcer probability and immediacy (1/delay) function equivalently in choice are called into question by the finding that probability and immediacy produce opposing effects when income level is changed.     

DISPOSABLE BODIES,DISABLED MINDS,AND CHRISTIAN HOPE: RESURRECTION IN LIGHT OF TRANSHUMANISM AND INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

This piece brings into critical conversation Christian resurrection hope, virtual versions of transhumanism, and intellectual disability and demonstrates that Christian resurrection provides a more cogent hope for people with severe intellectual disabilities than transhumanism. I argue that transhumanist virtual futures are theologically problematic, as bodily resurrection is neither required nor desirable. It is particularly problematic for people with severe intellectual disabilities given the way they would be excluded from these futures. Disability theology also raises issues with the traditional notions of “healing” in the resurrection and the implications for the value and identity of persons with intellectual disabilities. Starting with these problems, I explore the nature of Christian hope, noting the inadequacies of a virtual transhumanist future with respect to both resurrection faith and intellectual disability, and address how resurrection hope can account for issues raised in disability theology, and so properly include people with intellectual disabilities.     

Intellectual humility predicts COVID-19 preventive practices through greater adoption of data-driven information and feelings of responsibility

Preventive health practices have been crucial to mitigating viral spread during the COVID-19 pandemic. In two studies, we examined whether intellectual humility—openness to one's existing knowledge being inaccurate—related to greater engagement in preventive health practices (social distancing, handwashing, mask-wearing). In Study 1, we found that intellectually humble people were more likely to engage in COVID-19 preventive practices. Additionally, this link was driven by intellectually humble people's tendency to adopt information from data-driven sources (e.g., medical experts) and greater feelings of responsibility over the outcomes of COVID-19. In Study 2, we found support for these relationships over time (2 weeks). Additionally, Study 2 showed that the link between intellectual humility and preventive practices was driven by a greater tendency to adopt data-driven information when encountering it, rather than actively seeking out such information. These findings reveal the promising role of intellectual humility in making well-informed decisions during public health crises.     

Simultaneous auditory discrimination.

Stimuli in many visual stimulus control studies typically are presented simultaneously; in contrast the stimuli in auditory discrimination studies are presented successively. Many everyday auditory stimuli that control responding occur simultaneously. This suggests that simultaneous auditory discriminations should be readily acquired. The purpose of the present experiment was to train rats in a simultaneous auditory discrimination. The apparatus consisted of a cage with two response levers mounted on one wall and a speaker mounted adjacent to each lever. A feeder was mounted on the opposite wall. In a go-right/go-left procedure, two stimuli were presented on each trial, a wide-band noise burst through one speaker and a 2-kHz complex signal through the other. The stimuli alternated randomly from side to side across trials, and the stimulus correlated with reinforcement for presses varied across subjects. The rats acquired the discrimination in 400 to 700 trials, and no response position preference developed during acquisition. The ease with which the simultaneous discrimination was acquired suggests that procedures, such as matching to sample, that require simultaneous presentation of stimuli can be used with auditory stimuli in animals having poor vision.     

幼儿从电视中学单词──项伴随学习的研究

对幼儿从电视中伴随学习单词的可能性及其影响因素进行了初步的探讨。４０名小班幼儿和４６名大班幼儿参加了实验,他们在接近自然的状态下观看有字幕的动画片。结果发现：幼儿在无任何指导的情况下观看有字幕的动画片,能伴随学习到汉字,这表明,电视对幼儿的词汇发展有着积极的影响;不同性别的儿童都能同等程度地从电视中伴随学习到单词;词义的伴随学习受幼儿原有的词汇水平和幼儿对目标词熟悉程度的影响;词音的伴随学习只发生在词汇水平较高的幼儿当中,并且随着幼儿对目标词熟悉程度的增加而增加;词音和词义的伴随学习存在频度效应。     

A spanish translation and validation of the daily stress inventory and a comparison of the level of stress experienced by three culturally distinct hispanic groups

Two studies were conducted, the first to establish a valid Spanish version of the Daily Stress Inventory (DSI). A second study was conducted using the bilingual version of the DSI to assess differences in the level of stress experienced by three selected Hispanic groups: (a) very Hispanic/Hispanic-oriented bicultural, (b) true bicultural, and (c) Anglo-oriented bicultural/very Anglicized as determined by the adapted version of the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans (ARSMA). It was expected that stress levels would be highest for the least acculturated group. The results of the first study indicate that the Bilingual DSI scores are highly correlated with the scores of the original DSI when both instruments are responded to simultaneously by fully bilingual individuals. In Study 2, the initial data analyses showed no difference in the level of stress reported by Hispanics at different levels of acculturation as measured by the ARSMA. When a median-split method was employed, differences in the DSI I/E measures between the two groups were significant, suggesting that acculturation level may be related to stress level.     

Psychopathy and structure of primary mental abilities

The Comprehensive Ability Battery (CAB) was used to assess 18 primary mental abilities in 53 white, male prison inmates for whom highly reliable ratings of psychopathy were available. None of the correlations between ratings of psychopathy and scores on the CAB tests was significant, and the overall pattern or structure of abilities was the same for inmates with low and high ratings of psychopathy. The possibility is raised that the personality characteristics of psychopaths make them appear to be brighter and more creative than they actually are. Compared with norms for male high school students, the inmates as a group generally performed well, falling near the 50th percentile on 11 of the tests. The inmates performed significantly better than the normative sample on tests of verbal ability, esthetic judgment, aiming, and representational drawing, and significantly worse on tests of ideational fluency, spontaneous flexibility, and word fluency.This research was supported by Grant MT-4511 from the Medical Research Council of Canada.     

THE UNIT PLAY MANAGER AS FACILITATOR OF PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITIES AMONG INSTITUTIONALIZED PROFOUNDLY AND SEVERELY RETARDED BOYS

Child care workers were trained in specified techniques (play manager routines) in an effort to increase purposeful activity among a group of profoundly and severely retarded institutionalized boys. A system of prompts, increasing the availability of toys and regular staff monitoring, were alternated with normal institutional routines in an ABA reversal design. On the average, activity level increased from 10% to a mean of 70% during treatment conditions. Correspondingly, stereotyped or harmful behaviors decreased from an average of 20% to 70% during treatment.     

Kindergarten attendance in relation to educational level and intelligence in adulthood: A geographical analysis

Level of school education and performance on an intelligence test were analysed for 32 557 Danish young adult males as a function of the geographical region in which they were reared. Positive associations were found between both educational levels and test scores on the one hand, and the proportion of infants attending kindergartens in the given regions (according to official statistics) on the other. Adults who were reared in regions where kindergarten attendance had been high tended to have higher educational levels and test scores, although the data do not permit a precise estimate of the magnitude of this effect. The relationship between kindergarten attendance and intelligence test score appears to have been mediated by educational level. Kindergarten attendance was more common in regions with high population density and high average incomes but the relationship of kindergarten attendance to educational level was significantly independent of these associations. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that kindergarten attendance can have long-term educational benefits, and might therefore partially explain the upward trend in intelligence test scores over the last few decades.     

Control of responding by location of auditory stimuli: adjacency of sound and response.

Four rhesus monkeys were trained to respond on one key when a one-second noise burst was presented through one speaker and to respond on a second key when the noise burst was presented through a second speaker. The acquisition of stimulus control was studied under three conditions, in each of which the relationship between the sound source and the response-key positions varied: an adjacent condition in which the noise burst was presented through the key and a response on this key was reinforced; a reversed-adjacent condition in which the noise burst was presented through one key and responding on the other key was reinforced: and a nonadiacent condition in which responding on the key nearer the sound was reinforced. Under adjacent conditions, stimulus control developed within one or two sessions. Under reversed and nonadjacent conditions, 10 sessions were required for the development of control. The asymptote of correct responding was the same under each condition in all animals.