The purpose was to examine the effects of type of program (integrated vs. segregated) and type of sport (basketball vs. swimming) on sport skills, four domains of perceived competence, and general self-worth. Participants were 48 adolescent females with mental retardation (MR) divided equally into six groups: (a) segregated basketball, (b) integrated basketball, (c) segregated swimming, (d) integrated swimming, (e) adapted physical activity (APA), (f) sedentary. The experimental treatment was 8 months long. We administrated sport skill tests and Harter’s (1985) Self-Perception Profile for Children four times to determine changes in sport skill, perceived competence, and general self-worth. Results indicated (a) significant improvement in skill for all sports groups, (b) no changes in perceived social acceptance and physical appearance, (c) significantly lower perceived athletic competence for the integrated basketball group compared to the sedentary group, (d) significantly lower perceived conduct for the basketball groups compared to the APA and sedentary groups, (e) and no significant changes in general self-worth.

How the distribution of resources affects the spatial distribution of animals is a central concern of behavioral ecology, One influential model relating population dynamics to individual foraging behavior is that of ideal free distribution (Fretwell & Lucas, 1970). This model assumes foragers of equal competitive abilities, moving freely from one habitat to another; the choices made by each individual subject are supposed to equalize gains across habitats, The resulting distribution at the group level, or ideal free distribution, has been tested with various animal species, Here we report an experimental test with human subjects competing for money, The results approximate those predicted by the ideal free model, the degree of approximation being consistent with that obtained in other species, This similarity of results supports the application of behavioral ecology models to human performance, The ideal free model (Fretwell & Lucas, 1970) has been proposed by behavioral ecologists to account for the distribution of animals in their environment (see Sutherland, 1996), Resources such as food or mates often occur in different habitats, or sites, among which foraging animals traveL The main insight behind the ideal free model is that an individual's gain in a site depends not only on the amount of resources available in this site, but also on the number of foragers exploiting them; as this number increases, the gain for each individual declines (e.g. Hassell & Varley, 1969), Assuming that the foraging animals are of equal competitive abilities, that they move freely from one site to another and optimize their resource intake by choosing the site with the highest gain, foragers will distribute themselves among sites until, at the equilibrium, all sites provide the same gain per individual (Fretwell & Lucas, 1970), Why this should be so is easy to understand at an intuitive level: If one site provides higher gains than the others, optimal foragers should, by hypothesis, move to this site; as a result, however (see The data of the 20-subject group were part of a poster on the ideal free distribution, presented at the 1996 annual meeting of ARC (Association pour la Recherche Cognitive). We thank Claudine Boyer, Bruno Broutin, Fabrice Clin, Karine Gravelin, and Jean-Louis Monestes for their help in running the experiments. We also thank William Baum, Franck Cezilly, Reid Hastie, Joel Myerson, and an anonymous reviewer for their comments on the manuscript. The data set of individual subjects can be obtained from M. Sokolowski,

Interval timing is a key element of foraging theory, models of predator avoidance, and competitive interactions. Although interval timing is well documented in vertebrate species, it is virtually unstudied in invertebrates. In the present experiment, we used free-flying honey bees (Apis mellifera ligustica) as a model for timing behaviors. Subjects were trained to enter a hole in an automated artificial flower to receive a nectar reinforcer (i.e. reward). Responses were continuously reinforced prior to exposure to either a fixed interval (FI) 15-sec, FI 30-sec, FI 60-sec, or FI 120-sec reinforcement schedule. We measured response rate and post-reinforcement pause within each fixed interval trial between reinforcers. Honey bees responded at higher frequencies earlier in the fixed interval suggesting subject responding did not come under traditional forms of temporal control. Response rates were lower during FI conditions compared to performance on continuous reinforcement schedules, and responding was more resistant to extinction when previously reinforced on FI schedules. However, no “scalloped” or “break-and-run” patterns of group or individual responses reinforced on FI schedules were observed; no traditional evidence of temporal control was found. Finally, longer FI schedules eventually caused all subjects to cease returning to the operant chamber indicating subjects did not tolerate the longer FI schedules.

Background: Behavioral economic approaches have revealed several characteristics of alcohol demand (e.g., intensity, elasticity, and essential value) in university students; however, these approaches have not yet examined alcohol demand among students outside of the United States. The current study examined alcohol demand among student samples in the United States and France using a hypothetical alcohol purchase task (APT) and a novel APT Choice task, in which nonalcoholic beverages were concurrently available at a fixed low price.Methods: Participants at each site (United States, n = 132; France, n = 132) were asked to complete an Internet-based survey including the APT, APT Choice, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, Daily Drinking Questionnaire, and Drinking Motives Questionnaire-Revised Short Form. Group demand functions were produced for each of the 2 samples in both country-specific and standardized drink units, and the exponential demand equation was fitted to each of the APT and APT Choice demand curves. Slope analyses were performed on the Non-Alcoholic Cross-Price demand to assess substitutability.Results: APT data revealed that in both samples, alcohol price and consumption were inversely related and demand measures were significantly associated with other alcohol measures. In addition, the availability of a nonalcoholic alternative reduced alcohol demand in both samples, with evidence of substitutability revealed by increases in cross-price consumption.Conclusions: Low-cost alcohol is associated with increased alcohol consumption in both French and U.S. university students, and concurrent availability of a nonalcoholic beverage within the APT both reduces alcohol demand and demonstrates behavioral economic substitutability. These findings will inform future studies investigating behavioral and environmental factors underlying transcultural differences and specific prevention efforts.

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