Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Psychology
Rats In Bliss: A Minimal-Deviation Model Of Ratio Schedule Performance, Jennifer Bredthauer '96
Rats In Bliss: A Minimal-Deviation Model Of Ratio Schedule Performance, Jennifer Bredthauer '96
Honors Projects
The minimum-deviation theory predicts that an organism will seek to minimize the behavioral distance between an unconstrained baseline and constrained conditions caused by reinforcement schedules (Staddon, 1979). According to the performance model proposed by Allison (1983), behavior under scheduled constraint will come as close as possible to an unconstrained "bliss point" or behavioral ideal. The present study examined applications of these models to fixed ratio (FR) schedules. Six rats were first exposed to a paired baseline procedure to establish their individual bliss points. Each rat was then exposed to a series of two fixed ratio schedules: FR 2 and FR …
Immunolesions Using Site Specific Injections Of 192-Lgg Saporin Into The Basal Forebrain Fail To Affect Radial Arm Maze Performance In The Male Rat, Lesley J. Hickman '96
Immunolesions Using Site Specific Injections Of 192-Lgg Saporin Into The Basal Forebrain Fail To Affect Radial Arm Maze Performance In The Male Rat, Lesley J. Hickman '96
Honors Projects
In this study I investigated the effects of 192-lgG saporin injections into the medial septal area.(MSA) and nucleus basalis magnocel/ularis (NBM) on radial arm maze performance in the male rat. The results of the present study reveal that combined injections of 192-lgG saporin into the basal forebrain failed to disrupt RAM performance when compared to vehicle-injected controls. In addition, intraperitoneal injections using a muscarinic receptor blocker, scopolamine, failed to reveal a compensatory response of the cholinergic basal forebrain that may have explained the lack of behavioral effects of 192IgG saporin. Consequently, the results of this study suggest that a selective …
The Effects Of Blocking On Selective Attention In Visual Search, Kristen Lewandowski '96
The Effects Of Blocking On Selective Attention In Visual Search, Kristen Lewandowski '96
Honors Projects
In studies of attention in visual search, older adults consistently perform more poorly than young adults. In most visual attention computer tasks, simple, conjunction, and unconfounded trials are presented randomly. This study explores the possibility that older adults are slower than young adults at changing their search strategies to match each type of trial. If this is the case, blocking the trials together so that the subject sees a series of each type of trial should allow the older adults to perfect their search strategies, giving them reaction times similar to those of young adults. In this experiment, 14 young …
The Effects Of Visual Field Size On Search Performance, Heather A. Lang '96
The Effects Of Visual Field Size On Search Performance, Heather A. Lang '96
Honors Projects
In the fields of both cognitive development and cognitive aging, similar patterns of performance on selective attention tasks have been found between children and older adults. Presently, there exist few studies of selective attention across the lifespan. A 1995 study by Shapiro, Shapiro, Cointin, and Forbes addressed this absence through investigating search performance in a cross-sectional, life-span study. In the Shapiro et al. study, a compelling pattern of performance was found: in conjunction conditions, which require serial searches, older adults' performance differed significantly from the younger adults' performance across increasing display size only in target absent trials. The present study …