Effects of maze geometry and experience on exploratory behavior in the rat

Rats were exposed twice in a rotated sequence to a series of six mazes, consisting of hexagonal alleys, balanced for different alley length and structural complexity. Locomotor activity increased with alley length and decreased with structural complexity of the mazes. Locomotion became less stereotyped with increased experience, showing an increasing number of turns, less constant velocity, loss of the initial preference for outward leading alleys and weakening of the forward tendency at reentry from side alleys into hexagonal alleys. In contrast to these qualitative changes of locomotion, the amount of activity remained almost unchanged throughout the experiment. The results suggest that these increases in locomotion complexity depend upon complex interactions between experience and stimulus content of the mazes.     

Effects of maternal absence due to employment on the quality of infant-mother attachment in a low-risk sample

Recent reports have suggested that day-care experience initiated prior to 12 months of age is associated with increased proportions of infants whose attachment to mother is classified as "insecure-avoidant." However, reviewers have questioned the generality of these findings, noting that samples in which associations between early day-care experience and avoidant attachment patterns have been reported come from high-risk populations, and/or that the infants' day-care settings may not have been of high quality. In the present study, effects of maternal absences on infant-mother attachment quality were assessed in a low-risk, middle-class sample (N = 110). In all instances, substitute care had been initiated at least 4 months prior to the infant's first birthday and was provided in the infant's home by a person unrelated to the baby. Infants were assessed using the Ainsworth Strange Situation when they were 12-13 months of age. Analyses indicated that a significantly greater proportion of infants whose mothers worked outside the home (N = 54) were assigned to the category "insecure-avoidant" as compared to infants whose mothers remained in the home (N = 56) throughout the first year of life. Analyses of demographic and psychological data available for the sample indicated that this relation is dependent upon maternal parity (primi- vs. multiparous mother). The association between attachment quality and work status was significant only for firstborn children of full-time working mothers. The results are interpreted as evidence that the repeated daily separations experienced by infants whose mothers are working full-time constitute a "risk" factor for the development of "insecure-avoidant" infant-mother attachments.     

Effects of novelty-reducing preparation on exploratory behavior and cognitive learning in a science museum setting

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between (a) novelty and exploratory behavior, (b) novelty and cognitive learning, and (c) exploratory behavior and cognitive learning in science museums. Sixty-four sixth-grade public school students participated in a posttest-only control group design. The control group received a treatment designed to decrease the novelty of a field trip setting through a vicarious exposure while the placebo group received an informative but not novelty-reducing treatment. Both groups then visited the field site where they were videotaped. Statistical analyses were conducted on both dependent variables with socioeconomic status and academic achievement as covariates, novelty-reducing preparation as the independent variable, and gender as moderator variable. Exploratory behavior was shown to be positively correlated with cognitive learning. Significant differences were detected for exploratory behavior. For both dependent variables, gender by treatment group interaction was significant with novelty-reducing preparation shown to be highly effective on boys but having no effect on girls.     

The impact of maternal characteristics and contextual variables on infant-mother attachment

This prospective study examined the effects of maternal characteristics, social support, and risk factors on infant-mother attachment in a heterogeneous sample. Two hundred and six women between the ages of 18 and 40 were interviewed during their last trimester of pregnancy and 1 year postpartum. Structural equation modeling revealed that maternal attachment experiences were significantly related to prenatal representations of the infant and of the self as a mother, which were significantly related to infant-mother attachment assessed by the Strange Situation. Maternal risk factors were significantly related to prenatal representations, and social support from other women predicted infant-mother attachment. The overall model indicated a good fit. Thus, both individual and contextual factors were important in explaining infant attachment security.     

Stimulus change and complexity in exploratory behavior

It has recently been proposed (Fowler, 1967, 1971) that the incentive value of novelty can be defined in terms of stimulus change. An experiment is reported which examines the relationship between changes in complexity and the consequent exploratory behavior. Following extended exposure to a midcomplexity stimulus, rats were allowed to choose between a stimulus change and the now familiar midcomplexity stimulus. For some Ss the change was to a stimulus of higher complexity, and for others the change was to a lower complexity stimulus. The results suggest that physical stimulus changes to a stimulus of greater complexity is a more effective novel stimulus than physical stimulus changes to lesser complexity, although both changes may function as incentives.     

The relative effects of maternal and child problems on the quality of attachment: a meta-analysis of attachment in clinical samples.

In this meta-analysis of 34 clinical studies on attachment the hypothesis is tested that maternal problems such as mental illness lead to more deviating attachment classification distributions than child problems such as deafness. A correspondence analysis on 21 North American studies with normal subjects produced a baseline against which the clinical samples could be evaluated. Separate analyses were carried out on studies containing the traditional A, B, C classifications and on studies that also included the recently discovered D or A/C category. Results show that groups with a primary identification of maternal problems show attachment classification distributions highly divergent from the normal distributions, whereas groups with a primary identification of child problems show distributions that are similar to the distributions of normal samples. The introduction of the D or A/C classifications (about 15% in normal samples) reveals an overrepresentation of D or A/C in the child problem groups, but the resulting distribution still is much closer to the normal distributions compared to the samples with maternal problems. In clinical samples, the mother appears to play a more important role than the child in shaping the quality of the infant-mother attachment relationship.     

Inhibition of exploratory behavior in the rat by handling

The effect of tail-handling on exploratory behavior of the rat, measured as step-through latency in a well-lighted, two-box apparatus, was investigated. Male adult Wistar rats, aged 60 days, were employed in all three experiments. Experiment 1, in which the subjects were handled at different times after entering the goal chamber (0, 10, 30, 60, 300, and 600 sec), showed that immediate handling, relative to detention in the goal chamber (delay of handling) had an inhibitory effect on exploration. Experiment 2 showed that groups handled immediately after entering the goal chamber but then detained there for different durations all showed the same progressive inhibition of exploration. Experiment 3 showed that the inhibition of exploration (very long step-through latencies) due to tail-handling immediately after entering the goal chamber could be significantly decreased by further trials in which handling was delayed for a sufficient duration (30 sec or more). Handling is discussed as a stimulus that is aversive enough to elicit conditioned passive-avoidance responses (inhibition of exploratory behavior), although it is subject to rapid extinction.     

Experiential aspects of exploratory behavior in rats

Twenty-four male rats were reared under three feeding conditions. These conditions manipulated the number and variety of exploratory behaviors required to obtain diets of powdered food and water in feeding boxes. One group performed minimal exploratory responses to obtain their diets. Another group shuttled between two feeding stations, thereby executing several exploratory components, primarily locomotor. The third group performed a considerable number and variety of exploratory components in search of their diets, located unsystematically throughout the feeding box. Adult testing occurred without food and water in an apparatus resembling the feeding boxes. The results showed that exploratory behavior was affected by feeding conditions, enhanced with increased dietary deprivation, and reduced across both trials and within-trial intervals. These results indicate that the particular exploratory behavior measured must be selected by reference to the subjects’ prior experience.     

Adult support and the exploratory behavior of children with learning disabilities

Low- and moderate-exploratory children with learning disabilities engaged in exploratory behavior independently and with an adult who communicated support in one of two nonintrusive ways. Consistent with a developmental motivation perspective, low- and moderate-exploratory children showed higher levels of exploration under both kinds of supportive conditions.     

Change in atypical maternal behavior predicts change in attachment disorganization from 12 to 24 months in a high-risk sample

This longitudinal study examined links between disorganization and atypical maternal behavior at 12 and 24 months in 71 adolescent mother-child dyads. Organized attachment and maternal not disrupted behavior were more stable than disorganization and disrupted behavior, respectively. At both ages, disorganization and maternal disrupted behavior were significantly correlated. Change in atypical maternal behavior predicted change in disorganization across time. The results provide substantial support for extant theories linking anomalous maternal behavior to the development of disorganized attachment. The Interesting-but-Scary paradigm, introduced in this study, promises to be a useful tool for assessing attachment and maternal behavior in toddlerhood.     

Determinants of withdrawal behavior: An exploratory study

Research on college persistence has typically classified nonreturnees as dropouts. Recently, this practice has been criticized by Tinto (1987) who argues that such a practice merges together different types of withdrawal behavior whose determinants may vary as a function of the particular departure behavior under consideration. This paper empirically examines whether the determinants of decisions to withdraw from the institution are similar to those affecting decisions to transfer to other institutions of higher education for the 1984 entering freshman class at a large southern institution. Results provide support for Tinto's proposition of differentiating between different types of voluntary withdrawal behavior. While institutional commitment, academic performance, finance attitudes, and student perceptions of faculty concern for student development and teaching discriminated between persisters and dropouts, only final institutional commitment and final goal commitment discriminated between persisters and transfers.An earlier version of this paper was presented before the 1990 American Educational Research Association annual meeting.     

Maternal behavior and attachment in low-birth-weight twins and singletons

Early mother-infant interaction and later security of attachment were assessed for 17 pairs of twins, 5 singleton survivors of twin pairs, and 20 singletons, all low-birth-weight preterm infants. Mother and infant behavior during home observations at 6 weeks and 3, 6, and 9 months was rated on scales developed by Ainsworth and Egeland and Brunquell. A, B, and C patterns of behavior in the Strange Situation conformed to the frequencies predicted from prior full-term samples and were not affected by twinship. However, the proportion of B1 and B4 dyads in the B group significantly exceeded that predicted from normative data. Mothers in B2 and B3 dyads were rated more sensitive and responsive than all others at all 4 observations. Contrary to our expectations that mothers in A and C dyads would receive the lowest ratings, this occurred only at 6 weeks. At later observations mothers in B1 and B4 dyads consistently received the lowest ratings. The discussion focuses on possible reasons for this unexpected finding.