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Resurgence occurs when a previously reinforced and then extinguished target response increases due to reducing/eliminating an alternative source of reinforcement or punishing an alternative response. We evaluated whether duration of reinforcement history for a target response (1) affects the degree to which resurgence is observed in humans and (2) produces different gradients of response generalization around target responding during extinction testing. We arranged a novel touchscreen interface in which university students could swipe a 3D soccer ball to spin any direction. In Phase 1, the first direction swiped became the target and produced points exchangeable for money for 3 or 1 min across 2 groups. The first swipe was recorded but had no programmed consequence in a third group. In Phase 2, swipes 180-degrees from the target resulted in points for 3 min in all groups. Point deliveries ceased for 2 min to test for resurgence in Phase 3. Target responses resurged during testing to a relatively greater extent with longer Phase-1 training but gradients of response generalization did not differ among groups. These findings extend prior research on the role of training duration on resurgence. We discuss methodological and conceptual issues surrounding the assessment of response generalization in resurgence.

Representative Learning Design advocates that practice should simulate the demands of competition. The effectiveness of increased task representativeness to improve serving skill of junior tennis players was assessed after a six-week intervention. Thirty-three participants (15.4 ± 1.9 years of age) were assigned to one of the three groups; "serve only" (participants served to no opponent), "serve return" (participants served to an opponent and hit no extra shots) or "serve +3

The effect of predictability in changes of time, magnitude, and direction of the accommodation demand on the accommodation response latency and its magnitude are insignificant, which suggests that repetitive accommodative tasks such as the clinical accommodative facility test may not be influenced by potential anticipation effects.The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of stimulus' time, magnitude, and direction predictability, as well as their interactions, on accommodation latency and response magnitude.Monocular accommodative response and latency were measured in 12 young subjects for nine different conditions where the stimulus accommodative demand changed several times in a steplike fashion for a period of 120 seconds. Each change in accommodative demand could have different time duration (i.e., 1, 2, or 3 seconds), magnitude (1, 2, or 3 diopters), and/or direction (i.e., accommodation or disaccommodation). All conditions were created permuting the factors of time, magnitude, and direction with two levels each: random and not random. The baseline condition was a step signal from 0 to 2 diopters persisting for 2 seconds in both accommodative demands. After each condition, subjects were asked to provide a score from 1 to 5 in their perceived predictability.Friedman test conducted on the perceived predictability of each condition resulted in statistically significant differences between the nine conditions (χ = 56.57, P.01). However, repeated-measures analysis of variance applied to latency and accommodative response magnitude did not show significant differences (P.05). In addition, no correlation was found between the perceived predictability scores and both latency and accommodative response magnitudes between the most predictable and the most unpredictable conditions.Subjects were able to perceptually notice whether the stimulus was predictable or not, although our results indicate no significant effect of stimuli predictability on either the accommodation latency or its magnitude.

The generalization of conditioned fear responses has been shown to decrease as a function of perceptual similarity. However, generalization may also extend beyond the perceptual discrimination threshold, ostensibly due to contributions from processes other than perception. Currently the neural mechanisms that mediate perceptual and non-perceptual aspects of fear generalization are unclear. To investigate this question, we conducted a Pavlovian fear conditioning and generalization experiment, collecting functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), skin conductance and explicit shock likelihood ratings, in 37 healthy subjects. Face stimuli were initially paired (CS+) or not paired (CS ) with an electrical shock. During the generalization phase, responses were measured to the CS+, CS and a range of CS + -to CS morphs (generalization stimuli), selected for each participant based on that participant's discrimination ability. Across multiple measurements, we found that fear generalization responses were limited to stimuli that could not be distinguished from the CS + stimulus, thus following a gradient closely linked to perceptual discriminability. These measurements, which were correlated with one another, included skin conductance responses, behavioral ratings, and fMRI responses of anterior insula and superior frontal gyrus. In contrast, responses in areas of the default network, including the posterior cingulate gyrus, angular gyrus and hippocampus, showed a negative generalization function extending to stimuli that were more likely to be distinguished from the CS+. In addition, the generalization gradients of the anterior insula and the behavioral ratings showed some evidence for extension beyond perceptual limits. Taken together, these results suggest that distinct brain areas are involved in perceptual and non-perceptual components of fear generalization.

OBJECTIVE Two studies examined 4-7-year-old maltreated children's "I don't know" (IDK) responses to wh- questions after receiving various interview instructions. HYPOTHESES We predicted (H1) children would be less inclined to give IDK responses and more inclined to guess to color/number questions compared to other wh- questions; (H2) IDK instructions would increase children's IDK responding compared to no instructions, with an increase in accuracy; but (H3) instructions would be less effective in reducing guessing for color/number questions than other wh- questions. In Study 1, we predicted that (H4) verbalizing a commitment to answer IDK would be particularly effective. In Study 2, we predicted that (H5) IDK instructions would reduce children's accurate corrective responses, but that (H6) the negative effect of IDK instructions on corrective responses would be alleviated by a "correct the interviewer" instruction. METHOD Across 2 studies, 301 four- to seven-year-old (M = 5.60, SD = 1.09) maltreated children viewed videos and answered wh- questions about true and false details. Both studies included a within-subjects manipulation of wh- types (color/number & wh- detail) and a between-subjects manipulation of instructions (Study 1: IDK practice, IDK practice/verbalize, control; Study 2: IDK, correct me, IDK + correct me, control). RESULTS In both studies, (a) color/number questions elicited more guessing than wh- detail questions, (b) IDK instructions decreased inaccurate responses, but they also decreased accurate responses, including accurate corrective responses, and (c) IDK instructions had a larger effect on wh- detail questions, reducing accurate corrective responses. In Study 1, verbalization failed to enhance the effect of instructions. In Study 2, the negative effect of IDK instructions on accurate corrective responses was not alleviated by instructions to correct the interviewer. CONCLUSIONS Among young maltreated children, color/number questions elicit higher rates of guessing than other wh- questions. IDK instructions reduced inaccurate responses, but also reduced accurate responses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

When honey bees (Apis mellifera)feed on flowers they extend their proboscis to absorb the nectar, i.e. they perform the proboscisextension response (PER). The presence of pollen and/or nectar can beassociated with odors, colors or visual patterns, which allows the bee torecognize food sources in the environment. Bees can associate similar, thoughdifferent, stimuli with the presence of food; i.e. bees discriminate and generalize among stimuli. Here, we evaluated generalization among pollen scents from six different plantspecies. Experiments were based on the PER conditioning protocol over twophases: (1) Conditioning, in whichbees associated the scent of each pollen type with sucrose, and (2) Test, in which bees were presented witha novel scent, to evaluate generalization. Generalization was evinced by beesextending their proboscis to a novel scent. The level of PER increased over thecourse of the conditioning phase for all pollen scents. Bees generalizedpollenfrom Pyracantha coccinea and from Hypochaeris radicata. These two plants havedifferent amountsamount of protein and are not taxonomically related. WeW suggest that both pollen types may share volatile compoundsthat play key roles in perception similarity. Our results highlight theimportance of analyzing the implications of the generalization betweenpollen types of different nutritional quality, since it could provide valuableinformation for beekeeping and agricultural producers (generalization of apollen of lower quality towards one of higher quality can benefit thedevelopment of the hive, increase pollination or honey production). Besides, weobserved that not only chemical features but also temporality are parametersdefining olfactory similarity. Fil: Pietrantuono, Ana Laura. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Patagonia Norte. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria San Carlos de Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias Bariloche. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias Bariloche; Argentina Fil: Requier, Fabrice. Université Paris Sud; Francia Fil: Fernandez Arhex, Valeria Cristina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Patagonia Norte. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria San Carlos de Bariloche. Instituto de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias Bariloche. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigaciones Forestales y Agropecuarias Bariloche; Argentina Fil: Winter, Josefina. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Industrial; Argentina Fil: Huerta, Guillermo. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro Regional Patagonia Norte. Estación Experimental Agropecuaria San Carlos de Bariloche; Argentina Fil: Guerrieri, Fernando Javier. Universite de Tours; Francia

Electrophysiological studies on adults suggest that humans are efficient at detecting threat from facial information and tend to grant these signals a priority in access to attention, awareness, and action. The developmental origins of this bias are poorly understood, partly because few studies have examined the emergence of a generalized neural and behavioral response to distinct categories of threat in early childhood. We used event-related potential (ERP) and eye-tracking measures to examine children's early visual responses and overt attentional biases towards multiple exemplars of angry and fearful vs. other (e.g., happy and neutral) faces. A large group of children was assessed longitudinally in infancy (5, 7, or 12 months) and at 3 years of age. The final ERP dataset included 148 infants and 132 3-year-old children; and the final eye-tracking dataset included 272 infants and 334 3-year-olds. We demonstrate that 1) neural and behavioral responses to facial expressions converge on an enhanced response to fearful and angry faces at 3 years of age, with no differentiation between or bias towards one or the other of these expressions, and 2) a support vector machine learning model using data on the early-stage neural responses to threat reliably predicts the duration of overt attentional dwell time for threat-related faces at 3 years. However, we found little within-subject correlation between threat-bias attention in infancy and at 3 years of age. These results provide unique evidence for the early development of a rapid, unified response to two distinct categories of facial expressions with different physical characteristics, but shared threat-related meaning.

Participation in extracurricular activities is a promising avenue for enhancing students' school motivation. Using self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), the goal of this study was to test a serial multiple mediator model. In this model, students' perceptions of autonomy support from their extracurricular activity leader predicted their activity-based intrinsic and identified regulations. In turn, these regulations predicted their school-based intrinsic and identified regulations during the same school year. Finally, these regulations predicted their school-based intrinsic and identified regulations one year later. A total of 276 youths (54% girls) from disadvantaged neighborhoods were surveyed over two waves of data collection. The proposed mediation model was supported for both types of regulation. These results highlight the generalization effects of motivation from the extracurricular activity context to the school context.

Background: Anecdotally, clinical presentations in which pain seems to be elicited by non-noxious stimuli are often explained using a classical conditioning framework. We were primarily interested in whether (a) clinicians think that pain can be a classically conditioned response to a non-noxious stimulus, and (b) clinicians think that there is evidence to support that idea.Method: Practising healthcare clinicians participated anonymously in an online survey. The information collected included descriptive demographics, clinical experience, personal experience of chronic pain, beliefs about pain, and beliefs about classical conditioning and pain. Responses to the pre-requisite question – whether pain can occur without nociception – were compared to a historical data set from 2004.Results: 1090 people from 57 countries and eight distinct types of health profession completed the survey. 86% stated that pain can occur without nociception; 96% of those believed that pain can be a classically conditioned response to a non-noxious stimulus; 98% of those believed that there is evidence to support that statement. The 2004 data showed that 44% of participants distinguished between pain and nociception.Conclusions: This broad sample overwhelmingly endorsed the ideas that clinicians think that pain can be a classically conditioned response to a non-noxious stimulus and think that there is evidence to support that idea, revealing a discrepancy between beliefs in the clinical community and the scientific evidence. The distinction between nociception and pain has become more accepted by the clinical community over the last 10 years. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Humans routinely face novel environments in which they have to generalize in order to act adaptively. However, doing so involves the non-trivial challenge of deciding which aspects of a task domain to generalize. While it is sometimes appropriate to simply re-use a learned behavior, often adaptive generalization entails recombining distinct components of knowledge acquired across multiple contexts. Theoretical work has suggested a computational trade-off in which it can be more or less useful to learn and generalize aspects of task structure jointly or compositionally, depending on previous task statistics, but it is unknown whether humans modulate their generalization strategy accordingly. Here we develop a series of navigation tasks that separately manipulate the statistics of goal values (“what to do”) and state transitions (“how to do it”) across contexts and assess whether human subjects generalize these task components separately or conjunctively. We find that human generalization is sensitive to the statistics of the previously experienced task domain, favoring compositional or conjunctive generalization when the task statistics are indicative of such structures, and a mixture of the two when they are more ambiguous. These results support a normative “meta-generalization” account and suggests that people not only generalize previous task components but also generalize the statistical structure most likely to support generalization., Author summary To act in new situations, people not only have to generalize from previous experiences, but they also have to decide how to do so. One strategy is to re-use behaviors they’ve already learned, but this will only be helpful if all aspects of the new situation are similar enough. Alternatively, people can combine knowledge from multiple sources and devise a new plan. For example, a skilled musician may re-use the hand motions learned playing the guitar to play a different style of music on a banjo. Previous theoretical work has suggested that the best strategy is to learn from the statistics of the environment to decide how to best generalize, whereby some environments imply that all parts of a task should be re-used as a whole, whereas others suggest that different components can be generalized separately. Here, we test whether people’s generalization strategy changes with their environment using three navigation tasks, in which people have to decide both where they want to go and how to get there. We varied whether it was advantageous to generalize these two pieces of information separately or together and found that people adapted their generalization in line with an optimal computational model of meta generalization. These results suggest that people not only generalize what they learn within a single task, but they also generalize their generalization strategy as well.

Two experiments investigated methods that reduce the resurgence of an extinguished behavior (R1) that occurs when reinforcement for an alternative behavior (R2) is discontinued. In Experiment 1, R1 was first trained and then extinguished while R2 was reinforced during a 5- or 25-session treatment phase. For half the rats, sessions in which R2 was reinforced alternated with sessions in which R2 was extinguished. Controls received the same number of treatment sessions, but R2 was never extinguished. When reinforcement for R2 was discontinued, R1 resurged in the controls. However, the alternating groups showed reduced resurgence, and the magnitude of the resurgences observed during their R2 extinction sessions decreased systematically over Phase 2. In Experiment 2, R1 was first reinforced with one outcome (O1). The rats then had two types of double-alternating treatment sessions. In one type, R1 was extinguished and R2 produced O2. In the other, R1 was unavailable and R2 produced O3. R1 resurgence was weakened when O2, but not O3, was delivered freely during testing. Together, the results suggest that methods that encourage generalization between R1 extinction and resurgence testing weaken the resurgence effect. They are not consistent with an account of resurgence proposed by Shahan and Craig (2017).

Exposure to electric foot-shocks can induce in rodents contextual fear conditioning, generalization of fear to other contexts and sensitization of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis to further stressors. All these aspects are relevant for the study of post-traumatic stress disorder. In the present work we evaluated in rats the sex differences and the role of early life stress (ELS) in fear memories, generalization and sensitization. During the first postnatal days subjects were exposed to restriction of nesting material along with exposure to a "substitute" mother. In the adulthood they were exposed to (i) a contextual fear conditioning to evaluate long-term memory and extinction and (ii) to a novel environment to study cognitive fear generalization and HPA axis heterotypic sensitization. ELS did not alter acquisition, expression or extinction of context fear conditioned behavior (freezing) in either sex, but reduced activity in novel environments only in males. Fear conditioning associated hypoactivity in novel environments (cognitive generalization) was greater in males than females but was not specifically affected by ELS. Although overall females showed greater basal and stress-induced levels of ACTH and corticosterone, an interaction between ELS, shock exposure and sex was found regarding HPA hormones. In males, ELS did not affect ACTH response in any situation, whereas in females, ELS reduced both shock-induced sensitization of ACTH and its conditioned response to the shock context. Also, shock-induced sensitization of corticosterone was only observed in males and ELS specifically reduced corticosterone response to stressors in males but not females. In conclusion, ELS seems to have only a minor impact on shock-induced behavioral conditioning, while affecting the unconditioned and conditioned responses of HPA hormones in a sex-dependent manner.

Inhibition of fear generalization with new learning is an important process in treatments for anxiety disorders. Generalization of maladaptive cognitions related to traumatic experiences (overgeneralized beliefs) have been demonstrated to be associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adult populations, whereas more balanced, accommodated beliefs are associated with symptom improvement. It is not yet clear whether: 1) overgeneralization and accommodation are associated with PTSD treatment outcome in youth, or 2) whether accommodated beliefs can interact with or inhibit cognitive overgeneralization, as has been demonstrated in research on behavior-based fear generalization. The current study examined the relationships between overgeneralized and accommodated beliefs, child age, and symptom reduction in a sample of 81 youth (age 7-17 years), who received Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Overgeneralized and accommodated beliefs expressed during the exposure phase of treatment were coded in audio-recorded therapy sessions. Overgeneralization predicted (a) higher internalizing symptom scores at post-treatment, particularly for younger children, and less improvement over treatment, and (b) higher externalizing scores at 1 year follow-up and steeper symptom increases over this period. In contrast, accommodation was associated with (a) lower post-treatment internalizing symptoms and greater improvement over treatment, and (b) lower externalizing scores at 1 year follow-up, particularly for younger children. High levels of accommodation moderated the relationship between overgeneralization and worse symptom outcomes, except when predicting the slope of internalizing scores over treatment, and age did not moderate these effects. There were no significant predictors of child-reported PTSD-specific symptoms, although PTSD symptoms did decrease significantly over the course of treatment and maintain one year after treatment.

N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) are critically involved in various learning mechanisms including modulation of fear memory, brain development and brain disorders. While NMDARs mediate opposite effects on medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) interneurons and excitatory neurons, NMDAR antagonists trigger profound cortical activation. The objectives of the present study were to determine the involvement of NMDARs expressed specifically in excitatory neurons in mPFC-dependent adaptive behaviors, specifically fear discrimination and fear extinction. To achieve this, we tested mice with locally deleted Grin1 gene encoding the obligatory NR1 subunit of the NMDAR from prefrontal CamKIIα positive neurons for their ability to distinguish frequency modulated (FM) tones in fear discrimination test. We demonstrated that NMDAR-dependent signaling in the mPFC is critical for effective fear discrimination following initial generalization of conditioned fear. While mice with deficient NMDARs in prefrontal excitatory neurons maintain normal responses to a dangerous fear-conditioned stimulus, they exhibit abnormal generalization decrement. These studies provide evidence that NMDAR-dependent neural signaling in the mPFC is a component of a neural mechanism for disambiguating the meaning of fear signals and supports discriminative fear learning by retaining proper gating information, viz. both dangerous and harmless cues. We also found that selective deletion of NMDARs from excitatory neurons in the mPFC leads to a deficit in fear extinction of auditory conditioned stimuli. These studies suggest that prefrontal NMDARs expressed in excitatory neurons are involved in adaptive behavior.

Balancing costs and performance Deciding whether a novel object is another instance of something already known or an example of something different is an easily solved problem. Empirical mapping of human performance across a wide range of domains has established an exponential relationship between the generalization gradient and interstimuli distance. Sims now shows that this relationship can be derived from a consideration of the costs of optimal information coding. Science , this issue p. 652

Fear learning is highly adaptive if utilized in appropriate situations but can lead to generalized anxiety if applied too widely. A role of predictive cues in inhibiting fear generalization has been suggested by stress and fear learning studies, but the effects of partially predictive cues (ambiguous cues) and the neuronal populations responsible for linking the predictive ability of cues and generalization of fear responses are unknown. Here, we show that inhibition of adult neurogenesis in the mouse dentate gyrus decreases hippocampal network activation and reduces defensive behavior to ambiguous threat cues but has neither of these effects if the same negative experience is reliably predicted. Additionally, we find that this ambiguity related to negative events determines their effect on fear generalization, that is, how the events affect future behavior under novel conditions. Both new neurons and glucocorticoid hormones are required for the enhancement of fear generalization following an unpredictably cued threat. Thus, adult neurogenesis plays a central role in the adaptive changes resulting from experience involving unpredictable or ambiguous threat cues, optimizing behavior in novel and uncertain situations.

Memories become less precise and generalized over time as memory traces reorganize in hippocampal-cortical networks. Increased time-dependent loss of memory precision is characterized by an overgeneralization of fear in individuals with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or age-related cognitive impairments. In the hippocampal dentate gyrus (DG), memories are thought to be encoded by so-called 'engram-bearing' dentate granule cells (eDGCs). Here we show, using rodents, that contextual fear conditioning increases connectivity between eDGCs and inhibitory interneurons (INs) in the downstream hippocampal CA3 region. We identify actin-binding LIM protein 3 (ABLIM3) as a mossy-fiber-terminal-localized cytoskeletal factor whose levels decrease after learning. Downregulation of ABLIM3 expression in DGCs was sufficient to increase connectivity with CA3 stratum lucidum INs (SLINs), promote parvalbumin (PV)-expressing SLIN activation, enhance feedforward inhibition onto CA3 and maintain a fear memory engram in the DG over time. Furthermore, downregulation of ABLIM3 expression in DGCs conferred conditioned context-specific reactivation of memory traces in hippocampal-cortical and amygdalar networks and decreased fear memory generalization at remote (i.e., distal) time points. Consistent with the observation of age-related hyperactivity of CA3, learning failed to increase DGC-SLIN connectivity in 17-month-old mice, whereas downregulation of ABLIM3 expression was sufficient to restore DGC-SLIN connectivity, increase PV+ SLIN activation and improve the precision of remote memories. These studies exemplify a connectivity-based strategy that targets a molecular brake of feedforward inhibition in DG-CA3 and may be harnessed to decrease time-dependent memory generalization in individuals with PTSD and improve memory precision in aging individuals.

Until now, the equivalence property of reflexivity-matching physically identical stimuli to themselves after training on a set of arbitrary matching relations-has not been demonstrated in any animal, human or nonhuman. Previous reports of reflexivity have either implicitly or explicitly involved reinforced training on other identity matching relations. Here we demonstrate reflexivity without prior identity matching training. Pigeons received concurrent successive matching training on three arbitrary matching tasks: AB (hue-form), BC (form-hue), and AC (hue-hue with different hues in the A and C sets). Afterwards, pigeons were tested for BB (form-form) reflexivity. Consistent with the predictions of Urcuioli's () theory, pigeons preferentially responded to B comparison stimuli that matched the preceding B sample stimuli in testing (i.e., BB reflexivity). A separate experiment showed that a slightly different set of arbitrary matching baseline relations yielded a theoretically predicted "anti-reflexivity" (or emergent oddity) effect in two of five pigeons. Finally, training on just two arbitrary successive matching tasks (AB and BC) did not yield any differential BB responding in testing for five of eight pigeons, with two others showing reflexivity and one showing antireflexivity. These data complement previous findings of symmetry and transitivity (the two other properties of equivalence) in pigeons.

Item does not contain fulltext Research in nonhuman animals reveals threat-sensitive generalization of defensive behavior that favors widespread generalization when threat intensity is high and limited generalization (i.e., specificity) when threat intensity is low. Here, we used Pavlovian fear conditioning to systematically investigate whether threat intensity widens behavioral generalization gradients to stimuli that decreasingly resemble a learned threat cue. Using a between-subjects design, volunteers underwent fear conditioning with a tone paired with either a high-intensity or low-intensity aversive stimulus prior to a test of fear generalization to novel tones. Results showed no effect of threat intensity on initial acquisition of conditioned fear. However, volunteers who underwent fear conditioning with a high-intensity aversive stimulus exhibited widespread generalization of autonomic arousal (skin conductance responses) as compared to volunteers who received a low-intensity aversive stimulus. These results show a transition from normal (selective) to overgeneralized fear as threat intensity increases, and have implications for understanding overgeneralization characteristic of trauma- and stress-related disorders. (PsycINFO Database Record

We examined whether the generalization of recently acquired likes and dislikes depends on feature-specific attention allocation. Likes and dislikes were established by means of an evaluative-conditioning procedure in which participants were presented with several exemplars of two subordinate categories (e.g., young men vs. old women). Whereas exemplars of one category were consistently paired with negative stimuli, exemplars of the second category were consistently paired with positive stimuli. In addition, we manipulated feature-specific attention allocation for specific stimulus dimensions (e.g., gender vs. age), either during (Experiments 1 and 2) or before the acquisition phase of the experiment (Experiment 3). Both direct and indirect attitude measures revealed a clear impact of this manipulation on attitude generalization. More specifically, only generalization stimuli that were similar to the CSs in terms of the stimulus dimension that was selectively attended to were evaluated in a manner that was congruent with the acquired liking of those CSs.

Visuomotor deficits in parietal patients suffering from Optic Ataxia (OA) have been so far studied during natural reaching movements. We aimed at understanding if these disorders are also present when more abstract visuomotor transformations are involved. A patient with unilateral OA was tested during both standard reaches and isometric actions, therefore in the absence of hand displacement. Isometric action was affected similarly to standard reaches, with endpoint errors to visual targets that were found in both central and peripheral vision. The dissociation of perceptual and motor components of errors highlighted the existence of field, hand and hemispace effects, which depended on the type of error investigated. A generalization of the reaching disorder to learned isometric conditions would suggest that lesions of posterior parietal cortex (PPC) affect sensory-motor transformations not only for standard reaches, but also when visual signals need to be aligned with information from hand force receptors, therefore regardless of the specific remapping required to generate the directional motor output. The isometric impairment emerged with high and similar severity regardless of whether targets were in central or peripheral vision. Since under all isometric conditions gaze and hand position were decoupled, the spatial correspondence between the hand and the gaze seems to play a critical role in this syndrome. This indicates that regardless of the action to be performed and the specific remapping required, there exists in PPC an abstract representation of the directional motor output, where the computation of eye–hand alignment by parietal neurons plays a crucial role.

Previous research has demonstrated that Old World primates (both apes and monkeys) seek information about the location of a hidden food item, unless they are privy to the hiding process. This has been cited as evidence of metacognition. However, these results could also be interpreted using non-metacognitive accounts, including a generalized search response to uncertainty, in which subjects reach for food when it is seen, or search for food until it is spotted. In the present research, lion-tailed macaques were tested on an object-choice task. Conditions varied with respect to the visibility of the baiting process, and whether the location of the hidden food could be inferred by logical exclusion. Additionally, the hidden food could be located visually before a choice was made, by peering under the objects through a Plexiglas tray. Across conditions, monkeys consistently looked for the food when it had not been seen, even if its location could be inferred, despite the fact that these monkeys are capable of inference by exclusion. This suggests that apparently 'metacognitive' information seeking in monkeys may instead reflect a generalized search strategy. Alternatively, it is possible that monkeys only have metacognitive access to certain types of knowledge, including that obtained visually. Results are discussed with respect to the likelihood of metacognition in this species and the evolutionary emergence of metacognition across species.

Auditory-vocal interaction, the modulation of auditory sensory responses during vocal production, is an important but poorly understood neurophysiological phenomenon in nonhuman primates. This sensory-motor processing has important behavioral implications for self-monitoring during vocal production as well as feedback-mediated vocal control for both animals and humans. Previous studies in marmosets have shown that a large portion of neurons in the auditory cortex are suppressed during self-produced vocalization but have primarily focused on a single type of isolation vocalization. The present study expands previous analyses to compare auditory-vocal interaction of cortical responses between different types of vocalizations. We recorded neurons from the auditory cortex of unrestrained marmoset monkeys with implanted electrode arrays and showed that auditory-vocal interactions generalize across vocalization types. We found the following: 1) Vocal suppression and excitation are a general phenomenon, occurring for all four major vocalization types. 2) Within individual neurons, suppression was the more general response, occurring for multiple vocalization types, while excitation tended to be more specific to a single vocalization type. 3) A subset of neurons changed their responses between different types of vocalization, most often from strong suppression or excitation for one vocalization to unresponsive for another, and only rarely from suppression to excitation. 4) Differences in neural responses between vocalization types were weakly correlated with passive response properties, measured by playbacks of acoustic stimuli including recorded vocalizations. These results indicate that vocalization-induced modulation of the auditory cortex is a general phenomenon applicable to all vocalization types, but variations within individual neurons suggest possible vocalization-specific coding.

Behavioral screening remains a contentious issue for animal studies of tinnitus. Most paradigms base a positive tinnitus test on an animal’s natural tendency to respond to the “sound” of tinnitus as if it were an actual sound. As a result, animals with tinnitus are expected to display sound-conditioned behaviors when no sound is present or to miss gaps in background sounds because tinnitus “fills in the gap.” Reliable confirmation of the behavioral indications of tinnitus can be problematic because the reinforcement contingencies of conventional discrimination tasks break down an animal’s tendency to group tinnitus with sound. When responses in silence are rewarded, animals respond in silence regardless of their tinnitus status. When responses in silence are punished, animals stop responding. This study introduces stimulus classification as an alternative approach to tinnitus screening. Classification procedures train animals to respond to the common perceptual features that define a group of sounds (e.g., high pitch or narrow bandwidth). Our procedure trains animals to drink when they hear tinnitus and to suppress drinking when they hear other sounds. Animals with tinnitus are revealed by their tendency to drink in the presence of unreinforced probe sounds that share the perceptual features of the tinnitus classification. The advantages of this approach are illustrated by taking laboratory rats through a testing sequence that includes classification training, the experimental induction of tinnitus, and postinduction screening. Behavioral indications of tinnitus are interpreted and then verified by simulating a known tinnitus percept with objective sounds.

We evaluated a procedure for teaching two children, one typically developing and one with autism, a higher-order generalized operant response class of unscrambling sight words. The procedures were efficacious in teaching the participants to unscramble words appearing in isolation and in the context of a sentence, with 98% of the presented discriminative stimuli novel to the participants.

Background The conditions under which memory generalization occurs are not well understood. Although it is believed that fear memory generalization is gradually established after learning, it is not clear whether experiences soon after learning affect generalization. Results Using a contextual fear conditioning paradigm in mice, we found that fear memory generalization occurred when mice were exposed to a familiar, unconditioned context soon after fear learning. Conclusions Our results suggest that the familiarity of contexts and the timing of their exposure influences memory generalization, which increases our understanding of the mechanisms of generalization. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13041-015-0184-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

OBJETIVO: analisar as mudanças fonológicas decorrentes da aplicação do Modelo de Oposições Múltiplas no que se refere ao Percentual de Consoantes Corretas-Revisado (PCC-R), no número de fonemas adquiridos no inventário fonológico e nos tipos de generalização. MÉTODO: o grupo pesquisado foi constituído por cinco sujeitos com desvio fonológico. Foram realizadas avaliações fonoaudiológicas e complementares. Os dados da fala foram coletados e analisados por meio da avaliação fonológica pré e pós-tratamento. Os sujeitos foram submetidos à terapia pelo Modelo de Oposições Múltiplas. RESULTADOS: constatou-se que houve diferença estatisticamente significante no que tange ao PCC-R, ao número de fonemas adquiridos, à generalização a itens lexicais não utilizados no tratamento, para outra posição da palavra e para outras classes de sons. Não houve diferença estatística para a generalização dentro de uma classe de sons, porém, observou-se um aumento do percentual no pós-tratamento. CONCLUSÃO: o Modelo de Oposições Múltiplas foi efetivo para o tratamento desses sujeitos falantes do Português Brasileiro, pois proporcionou mudanças no PCC-R, no número de fonemas adquiridos e algumas generalizações (a itens lexicais não utilizados no tratamento, para outra posição na palavra, dentro de uma classe de sons, para outras classes de sons). PURPOSE: to analize the phonological changes resulting from the application of the Multiple Opposition Approach concerning the Percentage of Consonants Correct - Revised (PCC-R), on the number of phonemes that were acquired in the phonological inventory and on the types of generalization. METHOD: the researched group included five subjects with phonological disorders. It was carried out phonological and complementary assessments. The speech data were transcribed and analyzed through the phonological assessment pre and post-treatment. The subjects underwent the treatment based on the Multiple Opposition Approach. RESULTS: an increase in PCC-R, number of acquired phonemes and presence of different types of generalization in the final assessment, which was statistical difference, except the results of the generalization within sound class were not statistical difference in the pos-treatment. CONCLUSION: the Multiple Oppositions Approach was effective for the treatment of Brazilian Portuguese speakers because the model provided changes in the PCC-R, number of acquired phonemes and some generalizations (to lexical items non used during treatment, to another position of the word, inside a sound class and to other sound class).

Contains fulltext : 193282.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) It is commonly assumed that one eye is dominant over the other eye. Eye dominance is most frequently determined by using the hole-in-the-card test. However, it is currently unclear whether eye dominance as determined by the hole-in-the-card test (so-called sighting eye dominance) generalizes to tasks involving interocular conflict (engaging sensory eye dominance). We therefore investigated whether sighting eye dominance is linked to sensory eye dominance in several frequently used paradigms that involve interocular conflict. Eye dominance was measured by the hole-in-the- card test, binocular rivalry, and breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS). Relationships between differences in eye dominance were assessed using Bayesian statistics. Strikingly, none of the three interocular conflict tasks yielded a difference in perceptual report between eyes when comparing the dominant eye with the nondominant eye as determined by the hole-in-the-card test. From this, we conclude that sighting eye dominance is different from sensory eye dominance. Interestingly, eye dominance of onset rivalry correlated with that of ongoing rivalry but not with that of b-CFS. Hence, we conclude that b-CFS reflects a different form of eye dominance than onset and ongoing rivalry. In sum, eye dominance seems to be a multifaceted phenomenon, which is differently expressed across interocular conflict paradigms. Finally, we highly discourage using tests measuring sighting eye dominance to determine the dominant eye in a subsequent experiment involving interocular conflict. Rather, we recommend that whenever experimental manipulations require a priori knowledge of eye dominance, eye dominance should be determined using pretrials of the same task that will be used in the main experiment. 13 p.

Additive effects of publicly posting individual feedback following group goal-setting and feedback were evaluated. The turn-signal use of pizza deliverers was studied in a multiple baseline design across two pizza stores. After baseline observations, pizza deliverers voted on a group turn-signal goal and then received 4 weeks of group feedback on their turn-signal use (i.e., group feedback phase). Then, for the next 4 weeks, individual turn-signal use means were publicly posted along with the group feedback (i.e., individual feedback phase). Deliverers at Store A ( n = 24) increased their use of turn signals from a mean of 5% during baseline to 16.9% during the group feedback phase and then to 30% during the individual feedback phase. Turn-signal use at Store B (n = 20) increased from 28.9% during baseline to 43.6% during group feedback phase and to 56% during the subsequent individual feedback phase. Individual analyses suggested that deliverers who improved the target behavior during group feedback phase did not increase their turn-signal use further when individual feedback was added. Conversely, most deliverers who did not improve during the group feedback phase increased their turn-signal use when individual feedback was added. Complete intersection stopping increased concurrently with the turn-signal intervention phases from baseline means of 12% and 30% at Store A and B, respectively, to means of 21% and 48% during the interventions.

We trained subjects to identify either upright or inverted faces in a 10AFC task and measured performance subsequently in four conditions: same- and different-upright faces, and same- and different-inverted faces. Performance improved for both the upright-trained and the inverted-trained groups. The improvements were highly specific to the trained face exemplars, and largely specific to the trained face orientations. This pattern of results yielded an increase in the face-inversion effect after upright-training, and a decrease in the inversion effect after inverted-training, but only for the trained set of faces in both groups. A similar pattern of results was found for phase-scrambled faces in which the configural structure of faces had been removed: although there was no baseline inversion effect for the scrambled stimuli, inversion effects emerged after training. We consider the implications of this pattern of learning for current views on the face-inversion effect, and face-encoding more generally.

The present studies investigated why video racing games increase players’ risk-taking inclinations. Four studies reveal that playing video racing games increases risk taking in a subsequent simulated road traffic situation, as well as risk-promoting cognitions and emotions, blood pressure, sensation seeking, and attitudes toward reckless driving. Study 1 ruled out the role of experimental demand in creating such effects. Studies 2 and 3 showed that the effect of playing video racing games on risk taking was partially mediated by changes in self-perceptions as a reckless driver. These effects were evident only when the individual played racing games that reward traffic violations rather than racing games that do not reward traffic violations (Study 3) and when the individual was an active player of such games rather than a passive observer (Study 4). In sum, the results underline the potential negative impact of racing games on traffic safety.

Maintenance of stable central eye fixation is crucial for a variety of behavioral, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging experiments. Naive observers in these experiments are not typically accustomed to fixating, either requiring the use of cumbersome and costly eyetracking or producing confounds in results. We devised a flicker display that produced an easily detectable visual phenomenon whenever the eyes moved. A few minutes of training using this display dramatically improved the accuracy of eye fixation while observers performed a demanding spatial attention cuing task. The same amount of training using control displays did not produce significant fixation improvements, and some observers consistently made eye movements to the peripheral attention cue, contaminating the cuing effect. Our results indicate that (1) eye fixation can be rapidly improved in naive observers by providing real-time feedback about eye movements, and (2) our simple flicker technique provides an easy and effective method for providing this feedback. S. Suzuki, satoru@northwestern.edu

Behavioral data supports the commonsense view that babies elicit different responses than adults do. Behavioral research also has supported the babyface overgeneralization hypothesis that the adaptive value of responding appropriately to babies produces a tendency for these responses to be over-generalized to adults whose facial structure resembles babies. Here we show a neural substrate for responses to babies and babyface overgeneralization in the amygdala and the fusiform face area (FFA). Both regions showed greater percentage BOLD signal change compared with fixation when viewing faces of babies or babyfaced men than maturefaced men. Viewing the first two categories also yielded greater effective connectivity between the two regions. Facial qualities previously shown to elicit strong neural activation could not account for the effects. Babyfaced men were distinguished only by their resemblance to babies. The preparedness to respond to infantile facial qualities generalizes to babyfaced men in perceivers’ neural responses just as it does in their behavioral reactions.

Models of social phobia suggest that socially anxious individuals have critical evaluation expectancies, expecting others to be inherently critical in their appraisal of performance. One potential source for these expectancies is generalization or projection of an individual's own critical evaluation tendencies. We recruited 89 students, informing them that they would be asked to deliver an impromptu speech. Participants were shown three short pre-recorded speeches and asked to rate the performance of the speaker in each. Participants were also asked to rate how well they thought they would perform. While social anxiety symptoms were correlated with predictions of poorer self-performance, the relationship between social anxiety symptoms and a tendency to more critically appraise the performance of others was only observed for speakers who displayed low levels of anxiety symptoms.

This study taught three moderately to severely mentally handicapped women skills to enable them to make use of cafeterias. While some work has been carried out in this area (e.g. Marholin et al., 1979; Van den Pol et al., 1981; Desai, 1983), it has not established whether hospital-based individuals with this level of handicap and no previous experience of cafeterias can be taught how to use them. A role-playing procedure was used during training with in vivo assessments being carried out before and after training. An in vivo generalization assessment was also conducted. Training was found to be successful with the skills taught transferring to the real life situation and subjects' improved performance, in the majority of the skill areas, generalizing to a 'new' cafeteria which had a completely different system of use.

A transfer of stimulus control procedure was used to teach a retarded deaf girl manual signing skills. Eight manual signs were trained in the receptive modality; eight others in the expressive modality. Acquisition of receptive and expressive signing skills occurred for most signs after they had been trained in multiple baseline order. There was a marked difference in cross modal generalisation between each of the trained signing modalities. With some exception training of receptive sign discrimination had little effect on the expressive usage of these signs. In contrast, training in the expressive usage resulted in a near perfect acquisition of receptive sign discrimination.

People are able to explicitly resist using knowledge about one person to evaluate another person from the same group. After learning about positive and negative behaviors performed by one individual from each of two different groups, participants were introduced briefly to new individuals from the groups. Implicit evaluations of the original individuals readily generalized to the new individuals; explicitly, participants resisted such generalization. Days later, both implicit and explicit evaluations of the original individuals generalized to the new individuals. The results suggest that associative links (e.g., shared group membership) are sufficient for implicit attitude generalization, but deliberative logic (e.g., individual group members are not necessarily the same) can reduce explicit generalization by association. When knowledge distinguishing who did what is unavailable, such as after forgetting, associative knowledge provides the basis of explicit evaluation. We conclude that a simple association linking one individual to another can produce implicit attitude generalization immediately and explicit attitude generalization eventually.

Nut cracking is restricted to communities of wild chimpanzees living in West Africa, suggesting it is an example of a socially transmitted tradition. Detailed study of the acquisition of nut cracking in wild chimpanzees is consistent with this conclusion. However, only 2, small-scale experiments have been carried out in captivity to explore the role of social transmission in the acquisition of this behavior. The study presented here does this with a comparatively larger, statistically viable sample of 11 sanctuary-living chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii), permitting both between- and within-subjects experimental manipulations. Results confirmed that nut cracking can be acquired in a matter of days by social learning, but only in chimpanzees 3 to 4 years old and older. Direct comparisons are made with a study carried out in the wild, revealing striking similarities in developmental profiles.

Primates' understanding of tool functionality has been investigated extensively using a paradigm in which subjects are presented with a tool that they must use to obtain an out-of-reach reward. After being given experience on an initial problem, monkeys can transfer their skill to tools of different shapes while ignoring irrelevant tool changes (e.g., color). In contrast, monkeys without initial training perform poorly on the same tasks. Compared to most monkeys, great apes show a clear propensity for tool using and may not require as much experience to succeed on tool functionality tasks. We investigated this question by presenting 171 apes (Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus, Gorilla gorilla, and Pongo pygmaeus) with several tool-use problems without giving them initial training or familiarizing them with the test materials. Apes succeeded without experience, but only on problems based on basic properties such as the reward being supported by an object. However, only minimal experience was sufficient to allow them to quickly improve their performance on more complex problems in which the reward was not in contact with the tool.

Previous studies on tool using have shown that presenting subjects with certain modifications in the experimental setup can substantially improve their performance. However, procedural modifications (e.g. trap table task) may not only remove task constraints but also simplify the problem conceptually. The goal of this study was to design a variation of the trap-table that was functionally equivalent to the trap-tube task. In this new task, the subjects had to decide where to insert the tool and in which direction the reward should be pushed. We also administered a trap-tube task that allowed animals to push or rake the reward with the tool to compare the subjects’ performance on both tasks. We used a larger sample of subjects than in previous studies and from all the four species of great apes (Gorilla gorilla, Pan troglodytes, Pan paniscus, and Pongo pygmaeus). The results showed that apes performed better in the trap-platform task than in the trap-tube task. Subjects solved the tube task faster than in previous studies and they also preferred to rake in rather than to push the reward out. There was no correlation in the level of performance between both tasks, and no indication of interspecies differences. These data are consistent with the idea that apes may possess some specific causal knowledge of traps but may lack the ability to establish analogical relations between functional equivalent tasks.

Four experiments investigated the ability to prepare for the level of forthcoming stimulus-response correspondence in choice-response tasks. In a Simon task, participants responded to the color of spatially variable stimuli with spatially variable responses. Participants were given advance information about whether a forthcoming stimulus-response event would be spatially corresponding, neutral, or spatially noncorresponding. Reliable cues decreased reaction times (RTs) in the corresponding conditions of 2- and 3-choice tasks, decreased RTs in noncorresponding conditions of a 2-choice task but not in a 3-choice task, and left RTs in neutral conditions unaffected. The pattern of results suggests that participants used reliable cues for responding to the nominally irrelevant stimulus location if the correct response could be inferred from location (attention switching). By contrast, the lack of cueing effects on performance in noncorresponding conditions of 3-choice tasks suggests that participants cannot use cues for changing the attentional weights of processing channels for different stimulus dimensions (gating). In summary, gating may be involved in the regulation of experienced response conflict, but the present results suggest that it is not involved in the regulation of expected (i.e., predicted) response conflict.

Numerical competencies were investigated for the 1st time in very young nonhuman animals. Chicks (Gallus gallus) learned to identify the 3rd, 4th, or 6th positions in a series of 10 identical positions (Experiment 1). Use of spatial information (i.e., distances) was ruled out in Experiment 2 (chicks generalized the reinforced response to an array of stimuli rotated by 90 degrees as compared with training) and Experiment 3 (chicks generalized their response to a series in which distances between the single positions had been manipulated). Chicks found the correct position even when both identity and distance of each position changed from trial to trial (Experiment 4). Overall, young chicks seemed to use ordinality when required to identify a target by its numerical serial position.