The capacity to predict future events permits a creature to detect, model, and manipulate the causal structure of its interactions with its environment. Behavioral experiments suggest that learning is driven by changes in the expectations about future salient events such as rewards and punishments. Physiological work has recently complemented these studies by identifying dopaminergic neurons in the primate whose fluctuating output apparently signals changes or errors in the predictions of future salient and rewarding events. Taken together, these findings can be understood through quantitative theories of adaptive optimizing control.

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A Neural Substrate of Prediction and Reward

Well-being : the foundations of hedonic psychology

This article considers the role of the hippocampus in memory function. A central thesis is that work with rats, monkeys, and humans--which has sometimes seemed to proceed independently in 3 separate literatures--is now largely in agreement about the function of the hippocampus and related structures. A biological perspective is presented, which proposes multiple memory systems with different functions and distinct anatomical organizations. The hippocampus (together with anatomically related structures) is essential for a specific kind of memory, here termed declarative memory (similar terms include explicit and relational). Declarative memory is contrasted with a heterogeneous collection of nondeclarative (implicit) memory abilities that do not require the hippocampus (skills and habits, simple conditioning, and the phenomenon of priming). The hippocampus is needed temporarily to bind together distributed sites in neocortex that together represent a whole memory.

Memory and the hippocampus: A synthesis from findings with rats, monkeys, and humans.

the total number of papers may exceed 10,000. Nevertheless, cost consideration forced us to consider mostly published papers and technical reports in English. 4 Formula 4 in Seifert (1991) is in error—a multiplier of n, of cell size, is missing in the numerator. 5 Unfortunately, the technique of meta-analysis cannot be applied, at present time, to such effects because the distribution of dis based on a sampling of people, whereas the statistics of techniques such as ARIMA are based on the distribution of a sampling of observations in the time domain regardless of the size of the people sample involved (i.e., there is no way to compare a sample of 100 points in time with a sample of 100 people). That is, a sample of 100 points in time has the same degrees of freedom if it were based on an observation of 1 person or of 1,000 people. 258 KLUGER AND DENISI From the papers we reviewed, only 131 (5%) met the criteria for inclusion. We were concerned that, given the small percentage of usable papers, our conclusions might not fairly represent the larger body of relevant literature. Therefore, we analyzed all the major reasons to reject a paper from the meta-analysis, even though the decision to exclude a paper came at the first identification of a missing inclusion criterion. This analysis showed the presence of review articles, interventions of natural feedback removal, and papers that merely discuss feedback, which in turn suggests that the included studies represent 1015% of the empirical FI literature. However, this analysis also showed that approximately 37% of the papers we considered manipulated feedback without a control group and that 16% reported confounded treatments, that is, roughly two thirds of the empirical FI literature cannot shed light on the question of FI effects on performance—a fact that requires attention from future FI researchers. Of the usable 131 papers (see references with asterisks), 607 effect sizes were extracted. These effects were based on 12,652 participants and 23,663 observations (reflecting multiple observations per participant). The average sample size per effect was 39 participants. The distribution of the effect sizes is presented in Figure 1. The weighted mean (weighted by sample size) of this distribution is 0.41, suggesting that, on average, FI has a moderate positive effect on performance. However, over 38% of the effects were negative (see Figure 1). The weighted variance of this distribution is 0.97, whereas the estimate of the sampling error variance is only 0.09. A potential problem in meta-analyses is a violation of the assumption of independence. Such a violation occurs either when multiple observations are taken from the same study (Rosenthal, 1984) or when several papers are authored by the same person (Wolf, 1986). In the present investigation, there were 91 effects derived from the laboratory experiments reported by Mikulincer (e.g., 1988a, 1988b). This raises the possibility that the average effect size is biased, because his studies manipulated extreme negative FIs and used similar tasks. In fact, the weighted average d in Mikulincer's studies was —0.39; whereas in the remainder of the

The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory.

In this article we propose mechanisms that govern the processing of emotional information, particularly those involved in fear reduction. Emotions are viewed as represented by information structures in memory, and anxiety is thought to occur when an information structure that serves as program to escape or avoid danger is activated. Emotional processing is denned as the modification of memory structures that underlie emotions. It is argued that some form of exposure to feared situations is common to many psychotherapies for anxiety, and that confrontation with feared objects or situations is an effective treatment. Physiological activation and habituation within and across exposure sessions are cited as indicators of emotional processing, and variables that influence activation and habituation of fear responses are examined. These variables and the indicators are analyzed to yield an account of what information must be integrated for emotional processing of a fear structure. The elements of such a structure are viewed as cognitive representations of the stimulus characteristic of the fear situation, the individual's responses in it, and aspects of its meaning for the individual. Treatment failures are interpreted with respect to the interference of cognitive defenses, autonomic arousal, mood state, and erroneous ideation with reformation of targeted fear structures. Applications of the concepts advanced here to therapeutic practice and to the broader study of psychopathology are discussed.

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Emotional processing of fear : exposure to corrective information

Skinner and Pavlov had innovative ways to measure both the times of their subject's responses, as well as the rate of their responses. Since then, different subfields within the study of animal behavior have prioritized either the rate or timing of responses, creating a divide in data and theory. Both timing and conditioning fields have proven fruitful, producing large bodies of empirical data and developing sophisticated models. Despite their individual successes, a unified view of simple behavior is still lacking. This may be caused, at least in part, by the differential emphasis on data collection and analysis techniques. The result is that these subfields produce models that fit their data well, but fail to translate to the other domain. This is startling given the fact that both subfields use nearly identical experimental procedures. To highlight similarities within the subfields, and provide empirical data in support of this integration, 18 Sprague-Dawley rats were trained on trace, delay, and backward conditioning procedures. Using these empirical data we discuss how traditional summary measures used by these subfields can be limiting, and suggest methods that may aid in the integration of these subfields toward common goals.

Integrating timing and conditioning approaches to study behavior.

A simultaneous temporal processing account of response rate

The study of thermally motivated instrumental behavior was extended to the avoidance-conditioning paradigm. Six Ss were trained on a thermal Sidman avoidance schedule. The UCS temperature and the ambient temperature were varied, while the temporal properties of the schedule were held constant. The results indicated that whenever the difference between the two thermal conditions is sufficient to sustain responding, the probability of an avoidance response is related to the mean of the UCS and ambient temperatures.

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Avoidance of thermal stimuli in the rat

Seven types of data often need to be accessed from a computer-controlled experiment. Some of them involve only a single word and must be available within a fraction of a second; others may involve hundreds of thousands of words, but need not be available until a few hours after an experimental session. A time-sharing program for on-line control of psychological experiments should have the facilities for dealing with all seven types of data.

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Seven types of data from computer-controlled experiments

Author(s): Labliuk, Tatiane Panzarini; Guilhardi, Paulo; Cravo, Andre Mascioli; Church, Russell M; Caetano, Marcelo Salvador | Abstract: Humans and rats can discriminate different fixed intervals (FIs) that are signaled by different stimuli With only a few pairings of stimuli with intervals, temporal performance becomes a function of the stimuli, with responding increasing earlier for stimuli that signal shorter FIs compared to stimuli that signal longer FIs As predicted by timing and conditioning models, the amount of training with the different stimuli and intervals determines the development of such stimulus control This study reviews some earlier work from our group suggesting that the amount of training is necessary, but not sufficient, to account for the development of stimulus-controlled performance Moreover, it describes an experiment in which participants were trained in a computerized shooting task with three FIs (target speeds) signaled by three stimuli (different background colors) In the first phase, the number of trials trained with each FI was held constant (60 trials each) across five experimental groups, but the order in which these trials were trained differed between groups, from a randomly determined FI in each trial (intermixed) to three consecutive blocks of 60 trials each (blocked) Intermediate groups had blocks of 10, 20, and 30 consecutive trials of each FI Results showed that, although the amount of training was held constant across groups, the longer the training block the fewer the participants who demonstrated stimulus-controlled performance In Phase 2, another 60 trials of each FI were trained, but intermixed for all groups Results showed stimulus-controlled performance for all participants These results represent another instance in which the amount of training is necessary, but not sufficient, for the development of stimulus control in temporal discriminations, and describe the effect of the number of consecutive trials within a block of training on temporal discriminations

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Russell M. Church

Papers

Integrating timing and conditioning approaches to study behavior.

A simultaneous temporal processing account of response rate

Avoidance of thermal stimuli in the rat

Seven types of data from computer-controlled experiments

Determinants of temporal or stimulus control in humans and rats