JEAB May 2016

JEAB May 2018 highlights

Li, Hautus & Elliffe tested whether Bayesian modeling of variable-interval response data by pigeons would lead to multivariate analyses of predicted behavior (post-reinforcement pausing and inter-reinforcer intervals). The predictions were based on Catania's operant reserve (responding depletes a limited reserve, which is replenished by reinforcement.) In general, they were encouraged about the strategy, although there were mismatches between predicted and observed functions. (Will, if there is more meat on this bone, let us know.) https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.330

Naude et al. studied framing effects on delay discounting by humans. In two experiments, they did not find effects for explicit vs. hidden zero framing (e.g., $15 today and $0 in 13 days  vs $0 today and $35 in 13 days, where the italicized portion was presented in the explicit condition and omitted in the hidden-zero condition)

Kuroda & Mizutani showed that zebrafish can acquire a behavior with delayed reinforcement of 1 to 6 s, although none succeeded at 12-s reinforcement delays

Renda et al. reported that rats improved in delay discounting (reduced impulsive choice) if they were initially trained with delayed reinforcers

Sundberg et al. (Covert verbal mediation in arbitrary MTS) trained college students and adults with intellectual disabilities on an arbitrary MTS task (visual symbols, hand signs, nonsense words). If covert labeling was disrupted (using a condition in which multiple different relations had the same label), performance was compromised for the high-verbal college students but not the other group, indicating that the students used verbal labels to mediate performance. [Note: College students made about half as many errors in their worst condition as the adults with ID in their best condition. Clearly, the availability of unique verbal labels helped, but there was much more going on between these groups than just verbal labeling. This is an interesting paper for us, because of course monkeys wouldn't use verbal labels--although they might benefit from unique symbols if those symbols were familiar and meaningful. It is also interesting because, like Sundberg and collaborators should have done, we'd like to know what other than verbal ability distinguishes between the two groups. https://doi.org/10.1002/jeab.434