Attitudinal Effects of Stimulus Co-occurrence and Stimulus Relations: Paradoxical Effects of Cognitive Load

Research suggests that evaluations of an object can be jointly influenced by (a) the mere co-occurrence of the object with a pleasant or unpleasant stimulus (e.g., mere co-occurrence of object A and negative event B) and (b) the object’s specific relation to the co-occurring stimulus (e.g., object A starts vs. stops negative event B). Three experiments investigated the impact of cognitive load during learning on the effects of stimulus co-occurrence and stimulus relations. Counter to the shared prediction of competing theories suggesting that effects of stimulus relations should be reduced by cognitive load during learning, effects of stimulus relations were greater (rather than smaller) under high-load compared with low-load conditions. Effects of stimulus co-occurrence were not significantly affected by cognitive load. The results are discussed in terms of theories suggesting that cognitive load can influence behavioral outcomes via strategic shifts in resource allocation in response to task-specific affordances.

Attitudinal Effects of Stimulus Co-Occurrence and Stimulus Relations: Range and Limits of Intentional Control

Research suggests that evaluations of an object can be simultaneously influenced by (a) the mere co-occurrence of the object with a pleasant or unpleasant stimulus (e.g., mere co-occurrence of object A and negative event B) and (b) the object’s particular relation to the co-occurring stimulus (e.g., object A starts vs. stops negative event B). Using a multinomial modeling approach to disentangle the two kinds of influences on choice decisions, three experiments investigated whether learners can intentionally control the relative impact of stimulus co-occurrence and stimulus relations. An integrative analysis of the data from the three experiments ( N = 1,154) indicate that incentivized instructions to counteract effects of stimulus co-occurrence by focusing on stimulus relations increased the impact of stimulus relations without affecting the impact of stimulus co-occurrence. Implications for evaluative learning, intentional control, and public policy are discussed.

Tolerance Training with Adolescents in a Residential Juvenile Facility

For individuals receiving treatment in residential juvenile facilities, the inability to tolerate typical but unpleasant stimulus events may manifest in aggressive behavior toward staff or other residents. Such behaviors can lead to loss of privileges, interfere with other treatments, and contribute to negative staff-student relationships. As a procedure, tolerance training (TT) involves systematically increasing the duration of exposure to an undesired stimulus event or situation. The current study evaluated the effects of a procedure to increase tolerance of aversive situations for four adolescents who were receiving treatment for sexual offenses in a residential detention facility. Results from single-subject experimental designs indicate that TT increased all four adolescents’ ability to tolerate a non-preferred stimulus event. We briefly discuss the clinical implications of the use of behavior-analytic procedures to improve skill sets for adolescents in residential treatment facilities.

Effect of Heat Compresses Hydrotherapy to Reduction of Pain Labor Stage 1st

Labor pain is an unpleasant stimulus that causes fear and worry. This situation will be stimulate an increase in catecholamineswhich can be cause interference with the strength of uterine contractions so that uterine insertion occurs if not corrected, which will be cause prolonged labor, so that’s necessary to prevent maternal care in the form of methods of pain transfer The One non-pharmacological method is heat compresshydrotherapy. The type of research was used Quasi Experimental withcross sectional approach one group pretest-posttest design. The results of data analysis stated that sig (p) = 0,000 where α = 0.05, p <α, means that therewas an effect of giving heat compress hydrotherapy to the reduction of labor pain in the active phase. Correlation or influence using Wilcoxon Correlation =-0.382.

Representation of Pleasant and Aversive Taste in the Human Brain

In this study, the representation of taste in the orbitofrontal cortex was investigated to determine whether or not a pleasant and an aversive taste have distinct or overlapping representations in this region. The pleasant stimulus used was sweet taste (1 M glucose), and the unpleasant stimulus was salt taste (0.1 M NaCl). We used an on/off block design in a 3T fMRI scanner with a tasteless solution delivered in the offperiod to control for somatosensory or swallowing-related effects. It was found that parts of the orbitofrontal cortex were activated ( P < 0.005 corrected) by glucose (in 6/7 subjects) and by salt (in 6/7 subjects). In the group analysis, separate areas of the orbitofrontal cortex were found to be activated by pleasant and aversive tastes. The involvement of the amygdala in the representation of pleasant as well as aversive tastes was also investigated. The amygdala was activated (region of interest analysis, P< 0.025 corrected) by the pleasant taste of glucose (5/7 subjects) as well as by the aversive taste of salt (4/7 subjects). Activation by both stimuli was also found in the frontal opercular/insular (primary) taste cortex. We conclude that the orbitofrontal cortex is involved in processing tastes that have both positive and negative affective valence and that different areas of the orbitofrontal cortex may be activated by pleasant and unpleasant tastes. We also conclude that the amygdala is activated not only by an affectively unpleasant taste, but also by a taste that is affectively pleasant, thus providing evidence that the amygdala is involved in effects produced by positively affective as well as by negatively affective stimuli.