The kinematics of locomotion toward a goal.

Proposes a mathematical model that treats rats in runways as uniformly accelerated bodies. The purpose of the model is to permit conversion of the continuously varying measures of runway speeds at different points in the alley into 3 invariant parameters of performance: start latency, acceleration, and brakepoint. It is suggested that this model fits most of the data examined and that changes in the parameters throw new light on phenomena such as the partial reinforcement acquisition effect. It is shown that partially reinforced rats accelerate faster but cease accelerating earlier in the runway than do continuously reinforced rats. This explains the qualitative differences often found between start and goal speed measures. The analysis takes as its unit patterns of terminal behavior rather than the rate of the responses that constitutes them, and thus may permit coherent treatment of instrumental and operant behavior. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching apes to ape language: Explaining the imitative and nonimitative signing of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes).

Examined 15 videotaped conversations of a chimpanzee and his trainers using American Sign Language to determine whether the S was using imitation to learn about new language forms as some human children do and whether the S's nonimitative utterances implied knowledge of linguistic structures. Interactions were categorized on the basis of presence or absence of imitative signs in the S's utterances into 4 types of discourse relations (imitation, expansion, novel, or spontaneous). Results show that imitation was not used to learn new signs, and nonimitative utterances did not indicate linguistic knowledge. Results suggest that the utterances lacked the semantic and syntactic organization found in the utterances of most children. Instead of learning to use signs as symbols for communicating propositional messages, it is suggested that the S learned to use gestures as nonsymbolic instrumental responses under the stimulus control of objects in the signing context and verbal and nonverbal cues from the trainers. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Response coding and visuomotor transformation in the Simon task: The role of action goals.

Manual responses can be defined by differing response parameters. Any of them may generate a Simon effect. For all those response parameters, the same implementation of the Simon effect (in terms of subserving mechanism) is assumed. In 3 experiments, subjects had to respond with either fingers or sticks. Temporal properties of the Simon effect changed with response parameters relevant in a task. The Simon effect for manual responses decayed. For stick responses, in which the action goal differed from the anatomical mapping of the acting hand, a sustained Simon effect was observed. However, if the action goal for stick responses was not instrumental for selecting the correct response, the Simon effect decayed. The findings are consistent with the notion of different mechanisms involved in generating a Simon effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Choosing to be afraid: Preferences for fear as a function of goal pursuit.

According to an instrumental approach to emotion regulation (M. Tamir, in press), people may not always prefer to feel pleasant emotions and avoid unpleasant ones. Instead, they may be motivated to experience even unpleasant emotions when they might be useful for goal attainment. Given that fear serves to promote successful avoidance, these studies tested this hypothesis by examining preferences for fear in preparation for avoidance goal pursuits. Consistent with the predictions of the instrumental approach, participants preferred to increase their level of fear as they prepared to pursue an avoidance goal. Such preferences were higher than preferences for either excitement or anger and were unique to avoidance (vs. approach or confrontational) goal pursuits. Given the aversive nature of fear, these findings clearly demonstrate that people may sometimes prefer to feel bad if doing so can lead to instrumental benefits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moving shadows contribute to the corridor illusion in a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes).

Previous studies have reported that backgrounds depicting linear perspective and texture gradients influence relative size discrimination in nonhuman animals (known as the “corridor illusion”), but research has not yet identified the other kinds of depth cues contributing to the corridor illusion. This study examined the effects of linear perspective and shadows on the responses of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) to the corridor illusion. The performance of the chimpanzee was worse when a smaller object was presented at the farther position on a background reflecting a linear perspective, implying that the corridor illusion was replicated in the chimpanzee (Imura, Tomonaga, & Yagi, 2008). The extent of the illusion changed as a function of the position of the shadows cast by the objects only when the shadows were moving in synchrony with the objects. These findings suggest that moving shadows and linear perspective contributed to the corridor illusion in a chimpanzee. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Shifting closeness: Interpersonal effects of personal goal progress.

In this article, we examine how the shifting motivational priority of personal goals affects relationship closeness. We hypothesize that people will draw closer to significant others who are instrumental (vs. noninstrumental) for a goal that has not been progressing well—a goal that is thus high in motivational priority. Once the goal has progressed successfully, we predict that people will cease to draw closer to instrumental others. Five studies support these predictions by showing that the impact of goal progress on reduced preference for instrumental others (Experiment 1) depends on the framing of progress as partial attainment (vs. greater commitment, Experiment 2) and the intention to balance across goals (vs. focus on one goal; Experiments 3–4). We find that moving away from instrumental others post progress is functional, in that it allows for drawing closer to those who are instrumental for alternative goals (Experiment 5). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Performance as a function of motive strength and expectancy of goal-attainment.

"Particular motives (Achievement, Affiliation, Power, etc.) are conceived as latent dispositions to strive for certain goal states (aims) that are engaged in performance of an act when the cues of the situation arouse the expectancy that performance of an act is instrumental to attainment of the goal of the motive. The total motivation to perform the act is conceived as a summation of strengths of all the motives that have been aroused by appropriate expectancies of goal-attainment cued-off by the situation. The relationship of achievement motive (as measured by imaginative TAT stories) to performance is shown to be significantly positive when the expectancy that performance is instrumental to producing a feeling of pride in accomplishment is aroused and few if any other expectancies of goal-attainment are aroused." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tumour necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-2 differentially affect hippocampal serotonergic neurotransmission, behavioural activity, body temperature and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis activity in the rat

Intraperitoneal endotoxin injection and central administration of interleukin (IL)-1beta profoundly activate hippocampal serotonergic neurotransmission. This study was designed to investigate, using in vivo microdialysis, the effects of another endotoxin-induced proinflammatory cytokine, tumour necrosis factor-alpha, and the effects of the non-inflammatory cytokine, IL-2, on hippocampal extracellular levels of serotonin. To compare the effects of these cytokines on neurotransmission with the effects on physiological parameters and behaviour, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis activity, body temperature and behavioural activity were monitored as well. Time-dependent changes in serotonergic neurotransmission and HPA axis activity were determined by measuring serotonin, its metabolite 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid and free corticosterone in dialysates. Total behavioural activity was scored by assessing the time during which rats were active. Core body temperature was measured by biotelemetry. Intracerebroventricular injection of 50 or 100 ng recombinant murine tumour necrosis factor-alpha exerted no effect on hippocampal serotonergic neurotransmission, and induced no signs of sickness behaviour. However, these doses produced a dose-dependent increase in body temperature and free corticosterone levels. In contrast, intracerebroventricular administration of 500 ng, but not of 50 ng, recombinant human IL-2 produced a marked increase in hippocampal extracellular concentrations of serotonin and 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, accompanied by a pronounced behavioural inhibition and other signs of sickness. Moreover, both doses of IL-2 caused a dose-dependent increase in body temperature and free corticosterone levels. Interestingly, intracerebroventricular pretreatment with the IL-1 receptor antagonist showed that the effects of IL-2 on hippocampal serotonin were completely dependent on endogenous brain IL-1. However, IL-1 seemed to play only a minor role in the IL-2-induced increase in free corticosterone. Taken together, the results show that cytokines produce partially overlapping brain-mediated responses, but are selectively effective in stimulating hippocampal serotonergic neurotransmission and inducing sickness behaviour. Moreover, we postulate that activation of hippocampal serotonin release is instrumental in the full development of behavioural inhibition.     

When frustration is repeated: Behavioral and emotion responses during extinction over time.

Persistence of instrumental responding and negative facial expressions in response to repeated goal blockage was studied in 53 4-month-old infants. All participants experienced 2 sessions comprising baseline (no stimulation), contingency (stimulation resulting from infant action), and extinction (no stimulation) on consecutive days. Performance criteria identified 2 groups of infants, those who learned in Session 1 (Learning Group 1) and those who learned in Session 2 (Learning Group 2). Individual differences in instrumental responses and facial expression during extinction were compared as a function of learning group. Across sessions, the repetition of extinction for Learning Group 1 was associated with both a persistent instrumental response and anger expressions. The level of instrumental response and anger expression was equivalent to that observed for Learning Group 2 but only in Session 2, the day on which that group learned. Sadness and anger/sadness blended expressions were initially more common in Learning Group 2, but these expressions were attenuated given another exposure to the contingency in Session 2. Implications for the relations among infant emotion, cognition, and behavior are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of drug expectancy in the control of human drug seeking.

Human drug seeking may be goal directed in the sense that it is mediated by a mental representation of the drug or habitual in the sense that it is elicited by drug-paired cues directly. To test these 2 accounts, the authors assessed whether a drug-paired stimulus (S+) would transfer control to an independently trained drug-seeking response. Smokers were trained on an instrumental discrimination that established a tobacco S+ in Experiment 1 and a tobacco and a money S+ in Experiment 2 that elicited an expectancy of their respective outcomes. Participants then learned 2 new instrumental responses, 1 for each outcome, in the absence of these stimuli. Finally, in the transfer test, each S+ was found to augment performance of the new instrumental response that was trained with the same outcome. This outcome-specific transfer effect indicates that drug-paired stimuli controlled human drug seeking via a representation or expectation of the drug rather than through a direct stimulus-response association. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conspecific recognition in the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes): Cardiac responses to significant others.

The ability of a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) to recognize photographs of conspecifics was evaluated with heart-rate measures. Heart rate was recorded before, during, and after viewing photographs of an aggressive chimpanzee, a friendly companion animal, and an unfamiliar chimpanzee. The subject displayed a differential pattern of heart-rate response to the stimulus animals, without prior experience with the photographs. Responses to the aggressive animal were acceleratory, which suggests a defensive response. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia suggested that this response was associated with sympathetic activation. In contrast, responses to the familiar animal were minimal, whereas cardiac deceleration was observed in response to the strange chimp, which likely reflects an orienting response. Results suggest the chimpanzee is able to recognize photographs of individual conspecifics and that heart-rate change can reflect the nature of established social relationships between chimpanzees. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Studies of instrumental behavior with sexual reinforcement in male rats (Rattus norvegicus): II. Effects of preoptic area lesions, castration, and testosterone.

We studied effects of lesions to the medial preoptic area (POA), castration, and testosterone replacement on instrumental and unconditioned sexual behavior in male rats. We achieved instrumental measures of sexual motivation by training males to work for an estrous female, presented in an operant chamber under a second-order schedule of reinforcement. POA lesions abolished mounts, intromissions, and ejaculation but did not disrupt instrumental responses, investigation of the female, or abortive mounting attempts. Castration abolished attempts to copulate and also caused a marked decrease in instrumental responses. Testosterone resulted in the prompt reinstatement of instrumental responses and more gradual recovery of unconditioned sexual behavior. We discuss these results in terms of the motivational and performance effects of these neuroendocrine manipulations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Goal Congruency in Bimanual Object Manipulation.

In 3 experiments, the authors investigated the impact of action goals on the production of discrete bimanual responses. Similar to a bartender putting 2 glasses simultaneously on a shelf, participants placed 2 objects into either parallel or opposite orientations by carrying out either mirror-symmetrical or mirror-asymmetrical movements. In Experiment 1, performance was strongly affected by the congruency of the intended object orientations but was essentially unaffected by movement symmetry. Experiment 2 replicated this instrumental goal-congruency effect (and the absence of motor-symmetry effects) when actions were cued in advance. Experiment 3 revealed substantial motor-symmetry effects, provided the movements themselves became the action goal. The authors concluded that performance in bimanual choice reaction tasks is constrained by the creation and maintenance of goal codes rather than by properties inherent in the neuromuscular system that carries out these responses. These goals can relate to either body-intrinsic states or to body-extrinsic states according to the actor's current intentions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intentional action and action slips.

The main assumption in this article is that actions are guided by mentally represented intentions. Intentions are subdivided into goal intentions and their contingent instrumental intentions. The latter are generated to overcome anticipated difficulties in three problem areas: initiation, implementation, and termination of an intended action. The action-guiding intention can be identified at various goal levels that relate to the alternative modes of implementation-imminent or wide-spanned goal representations. An ongoing action is controlled by a wide-spanned mode whenever implementation consists of automatized acts that require little or no conscious control. A wide-spanned goal representation facilitates the simultaneous execution of related or unrelated activity. The 2 control modes of narrow and wide goal span set the stage for the occurrence of action slips. A collection of various action slips can be categorized according to the 3 problem areas in the enactment of goal intentions: initiation, implementation, and termination slips. This categorization helps to elucidate the various types of action slips, and it highlights the effectiveness of instrumental intentions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Numerical ordering in a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes): Planning, executing, and monitoring.

Perceptual and cognitive processes underlying the skill of ordering numerals were assessed in a female chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) with previous experience in computer-assisted numerical competence tasks. The subject was required to order 3 numerals from the range of 0–9 into an ascending series, with occasional probe trials (referred to as switch trials) in which the positions of the 2nd and 3rd numerals were exchanged immediately after the selection of the 1st. On these trials, errors were scored frequently, whereas correct responses to the intermediate numeral became reliably slower. These and other data indicated that the subject had already established, before making the 1st choice, (a) the correct sequence in which she was to select the numerals and (b) the motor sequence leading to a correct answer. These findings show that a 3-unit ordering task is supported in the chimpanzee, much as it is in humans, by planning, executing, and monitoring phases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An interpretation of autoshaping and related phenomena in terms of stimulus-incentive contingencies alone.

Attempts to explain the emergence and maintenance of instrumental responses, as well as the topography of the responses, wholly in terms of stimulus-incentive (S:IS) contingencies. A detailed examination of the behavior displayed in 4 training procedures (autoshaping, omission-training, superstition, and shaping) points to the following tentative conclusions: (a) The emergence, maintenance, and topographies of the instrumental responses displayed in all the above training paradigms can be explained by the relative incentive-motivational values of situational stimuli. (b) It is not necessary to invoke any contribution of response-incentive (R:IS) contingencies in order to explain the behavior in these training procedures. (c) Certain features of the observed instrumental responding that are usually attributed to adventitious R:IS contingencies are not controlled by R:IS contingencies, but by S:IS contingencies. The generalizability of these conclusions to instrumental responses displayed in other types of learning paradigms remains to be investigated. (French summary) (60 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward a more complete science of development.

The present special issue is devoted to the problems in children's development--sensory, perceptual, cognitive, behavioural, social, and emotional. The scientific study of applied issues or practical problems in the everyday lives of children has only recently become an integral part of mainstream psychological science. In organization, the present volume progresses from sensory or motor-based problems to behavioural and cognitive disorders through to social/emotional difficulties. We could not cover all childhood problems in the available space. Our central goal was to present a representative selection of important, interesting work on major problems in child development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Delayed figure reconstruction by a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and humans (Homo sapiens).

A chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) was trained to construct a copy of 3-element compound figures from a set of 9 elements. Delay intervals between sample offset and element presentation varied. The chimpanzee maintained accuracy at about 80% correct for a delay of 32 s, which was slightly higher than the mean of 4 human (Homo sapiens) Ss. Excellent visual reproductive memory in the chimpanzee as compared with that in humans was demonstrated. However, the nature of the reproductive memory was different in the 2 species in that humans better constructed meaningful figures, which represented food items, than meaningless ones, whereas the chimpanzee constructed these 2 types of figures with the same accuracy. This outcome suggests that the reproductive memory for meaningful figures of the chimpanzee may have been processed separately from symbolic processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In cold blood: Characteristics of criminal homicides as a function of psychopathy.

This study investigated the relationship between psychopathy and the characteristics of criminal homicides committed by a sample of 125 Canadian offenders. It was hypothesized that the homicides committed by psychopathic offenders would be more likely to be primarily instrumental (i.e., associated with premeditation, motivated by an external goal, and not preceded by a potent affective reaction) or "cold-blooded" in nature, whereas homicides committed by nonpsychopaths often would be "crimes of passion" associated with a high level of impulsivity/reactivity and emotionality. The results confirmed these predictions; homicides committed by psychopathic offenders were significantly more instrumental than homicides by nonpsychopaths. Nearly all (93.3%) of the homicides by psychopaths were primarily instrumental in nature compared with 48.4% of the homicides by nonpsychopaths. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive activity during the recognition of a different number of objects in the adolescent chimpanzee

The ability of adolescent chimpanzee (5-7 years old) to recognise and generalize flat pictures of discrete amounts has been studied. A set of tasks (19 signal pairs) with pictures of different number of objects was used. Situational conditional reflexes of chimpanzee were developed in conditions of free behavior. Chimpanzee were taught to choose a large number of pictures. Reversion ability at conversion of signal value of irritants was examined. It is shown that chimpanzee are able to transfer the early developed knowledge to choose larger picture to larger number of objects. It points to rather developed function of generalization, and ability to make abstracts. Resolution of tasks with reversion appeared to be difficult for chimpanzee. Correlation between the ability to solve tasks of different complexity, latent period of choice and etiological indexes is revealed. Both common regularities and individual differences in formation of complex behaviour of chimpanzee are established.