Maintenance of keypecking in pigeons by a food avoidance but not by a shock avoidance contingency

Response key illuminations were followed by food delivery or shock, and keypecks were programmed to prevent the occurrence of whichever stimulus was scheduled. At high shock intensity, pigeons did not peck: at low shock intensity, pigeons pecked in about half of the trials. When different key colors signaled food and shock trials, pigeons pecked on food trials, thus preventing food delivery, but not on shock trials, thus failing to avoid shock delivery. That pecks occurred despite the fact that they avoided food but did not occur when they avoided shock is taken as evidence that the keypeck is frequently governed by biological predispositions, and not by its consequences.     

Reactive attachment disorder: Implications for school readiness and school functioning

School readiness and functioning in children diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) are important issues due to the dramatic impact RAD has on multiple areas of development. The negative impact of impaired or disrupted early relationships, characterized by extreme neglect, abuse, parental mental illness, domestic violence, and repeated changes in caregivers is examined. A key component of social and emotional development is self‐regulation, which is a critical variable in school readiness and is often impaired in children with RAD. Highlighted topics include the academic and school areas which may exacerbate attachment disturbances as well as ways in which teachers and other school professionals can encourage the development of more productive relationships. Interventions are provided which lead to greater success in school for these children. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 43: 471–479, 2006.     

The basis of feeling-of-knowing judgments in patients with schizophrenia

We examined the basis of feeling-of-knowing judgments (FOK) in patients with schizophrenia. Such patients typically have impaired memory and awareness, but not metamemory-accuracy deficits. The magnitude of FOKs are lower for patients with schizophrenia than for healthy participants, but judgments equally predict memory performance. In healthy participants, FOK is based on accessible information, including retrieval of partial-target (e.g., retrieving the first letter) and contextual information (e.g., related facts). In Experiment 1, we examined if accessible information predicts FOKs for episodic memory in patients with schizophrenia. Patients and healthy controls learned names paired with drawings of imaginary animals. The results showed that patients’ FOK increased with the retrieval of partial-target and contextual information. In Experiment 2, using semantic-memory general-information questions, accessible partial-target information predicted FOKs in patients with schizophrenia. The accessibility model of FOK applies to patients with schizophrenia, and it is important to determine what occurs in other memory-impaired populations.