Safety signals provide "relief" through predicting the absence of an aversive event. At issue is whether these signals also act as instrumental reinforcers. Four experiments were conducted using a free-operant lever-press avoidance paradigm in which each press avoided shock and was followed by the presentation of a 5-sec auditory safety…

Attentional capture and behavioral control by conditioned stimuli have been dissociated in animals. The current study assessed this dissociation in humans. Participants were trained on a Pavlovian schedule in which 3 visual stimuli, A, B, and C, predicted the occurrence of an aversive noise with 90%, 50%, or 10% probability, respectively.…

The contradiction emerging between the lived experience of a minority of marginalised urban youth and the punitive operant conditioning of antisocial behaviour legislation is illustrative of the increasing gap between society's expectations of behaviour and the coming reality. In this paper, Loic Wacquant's sociology of advanced marginality is…

In this study, the authors explored the effect that particular patterns of communicative interactions may have on young children's understanding of representations and the link between knowledge of a 2nd language and theory of mind. The authors tested 140 single language users and 57 dual language users (aged 3-4 years old) on a deceptive task…