No abstract

People tend to discount rewards or losses that occur in the future. Such delay discounting has been linked to many behavioral and health problems, since people choose smaller short-term gains over greater long-term gains. We investigated whether the effect of delays on the subjective value of rewards is expressed in how people move when they make choices. Over 600 patrons of the RISK LAB exhibition hosted by the Science Gallery DublinTM played a short computer game in which they used a computer mouse to choose between amounts of money at various delays. Typical discounting effects were observed and decision dynamics indicated that choosing smaller short-term rewards became easier (i.e., shorter response times, tighter trajectories, less vacillation) as the delays until later rewards increased. Based on a sequence of choices, subjective values of delayed outcomes were estimated and decision dynamics during initial choices predicted these values. Decision dynamics are affected by subjective values of available options and thus provide a means to estimate such values.

Relational frame theory (RFT) Much of the meaning we glean from our world stems from the relations we observe and describe between events. We might be "late" for work, haveDenis O'Hora is now at the

Twenty-six monolingual and 46 bilingual college students were assigned to 2 groups on the basis of thei r performance on a complex relational task, an empirical model of instructional control (O'Hora, Barnes-Holmes, Roche, & Smeets, 2004). The subjects were then exposed to the vocabulary, arithmetic, and digit-symbol encoding subtests of the WAIS-ili. Subjects (N = 31) who successfully completed the relational task performed significantly better on the vocabulary and arithmetic subtests than those subjects (N = 44) who failed to do so. No significant differences in relational task performances of these 2 groups were obtained on the digit-symbol encoding subtest. In post-hoc statistical analyses, a low but significant correlation was obtained between the vocabulary and arithmetic scores and the percentage of correct responses emitted in 1 particular training phase of the relational task. Monolingual and bilingual subjects' performances were not significantly different in either the relational task or the WAIS subtests. These findings support the position that derived relational performances may provide a behavioral approach to human language abilities.Derived relational responding, and stimulus equivalence in particular, has been the focus of hundreds of laboratory studies (see Hayes, Sidman, 1994, for reviews). One reason for this interest was the suggestion by Sidman and Tailby (1982) that such relational responding could provide a behavioral model of semantic or symbolic relations. In particular, according to Sidman (1994):

The current study examined the effects of cardiorespiratory fitness, identified with a continuous graded cycle ergometry, and aerobic exercise on cognitive functioning and entropy of the electroencephalogram (EEG) in 30 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 14 years. Higher and lower fit participants performed an executive function task after a bout of acute exercise and after rest while watching a film. EEG entropy, using the sample entropy measure, was repeatedly measured during the 1500 ms post-stimulus interval to evaluate changes in entropy over time. Analysis of the behavioral data for lower and higher fit groups revealed an interaction between fitness levels and acute physical exercise. Notably, lower fit, but not higher fit, participants had higher error rates (ER) for No Go relative to Go trials in the rest condition, whereas in the acute exercise condition there were no differences in ER between groups; higher fit participants also had significantly faster reaction times in the exercise condition in comparison with the rest condition. Analysis of EEG data revealed that higher fit participants demonstrated lower entropy post-stimulus than lower fit participants in the left frontal hemisphere, possibly indicating increased efficiency of early stage stimulus processing and more efficient allocation of cognitive resources to the task demands. The results suggest that EEG entropy is sensitive to stimulus processing demands and varies as a function of physical fitness levels, but not acute exercise. Physical fitness, in turn, may enhance cognition in adolescence by facilitating higher functionality of the attentional system in the context of lower levels of frontal EEG entropy.

Rule-governed behavior is generally considered an integral component of complex verbal repertoires (Skinner, 1974) but has rarely been the subject of empirical research. In particular, little or no previous research has attempted to establish rulegoverned behavior in individuals who do not already posses the repertoire. This study consists of two experiments which evaluated multiple exemplar training procedures for teaching a simple component skill which may be necessary for developing a repertoire of rule-governed behavior. In both experiments, children with autism were taught to respond to simple rules which specified antecedents and the behaviors which should occur in their presence. In the first study, participants were taught to respond to rules containing "if/then" statements, where the antecedent was specified before the behavior. The second experiment was a replication and extension of the first. It involved a variation on the manner in which rules were presented. Both experiments eventually demonstrated generalization to novel rules for all participants, however variations to the standard procedure were required for several participants. Results suggest that rule-following can be analyzed and taught as generalized operant behavior and implications for future research are discussed.

Age-related declines in memory may be due in part to changes in the complexity of neural activity in the aging brain. Electrophysiological entropy provides an accessible measure of the complexity of ongoing neural activity. In the current study, we calculated the permutation entropy of the electroencephalogram (EEG) during encoding of relevant (to be learned) and irrelevant (to be ignored) stimuli by younger adults, older adults, and older cognitively declined adults. EEG entropy was differentially sensitive to task requirements across groups, with younger and older controls exhibiting greater control of encoding-related activity than older declined participants. Task sensitivity of frontal EEG during encoding predicted later retrieval, in line with previous evidence that cognitive decline is associated with reduced ability to self-initiate encoding-related processes.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: This paper analyses the electricity usage of 5,000 Irish residential consumers in response to the introduction of TOU tariffs and three different forms of financial feedback: immediate feedback from in-home displays (IHD), monthly billing and bimonthly billing. Halfhourly data on consumption collected during the trial indicated that TOU tariffs reduced consumption at peak, with some reductions lasting beyond the end of the peak period and post-peak spikes in usage were not observed. IHD feedback resulted in the most reliable reductions and bimonthly billing the least. Households with greater education used the information associated to the TOU tariffs slightly better than the average. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor may