Considers the potential value of two bodies of thought arising from work on animals in connection with rehabilitating abnormal behavior. One deals with the processes of catch-up and self-regulation, the other with optional periods of learning in development. (MP)

An interview with Duane Rumbaugh and Mary Ann Romski, researchers on the use of alternative communication systems for severely and profoundly retarded persons, focuses on applications from their primate research and the use of a computerized keyboard system to investigate language acquisition in severely retarded persons. (CL)

Describes five new children's books about animals and other books about the development of anesthetics, the effects of bacteria, and the discovery of pheromones (scent chemicals that facilitate communication between members of an animal species). (GT)

The rhythmic patterning of man's biochemical, physiological, and psychological behavior and the temporal relationships among various functions are the province of chronobiology. Citing animal and human studies, the author documents the progress of this new science and poses complex questions that it may answer about human behavior. (Editor/SJL)

Studies the effects of playroom deprivation on self-motion play, or peragration, for rhesus monkeys of ages 24 to 36 weeks. (Author/SS)

Aims at providing data for evaluating the proposition that associations between exteroceptive (outside) stimuli and illness play a role in determining the effect of unconditioned stimulus preexposure on subsequent taste aversion conditioning. (Author/RK)

Discusses four experiments concerned with environmental determiners of the taste familiarity effect. Specifically, external environmental stimulation experienced by the subject at the time of taste preexposure and taste conditioning was varied in order to assess its influence on taste aversion learning. (Author/RK)

Examines the influence of hormonal factors during pregnancy on maternal responsiveness in infrahuman animals and human beings. Argues that it is likely that maternal behavior in humans has a physiological basis. (PCB)

Discusses contributions of E. O. Wilson and others to the development of sociobiology. Considers sociobiology's origins, the study of social behavior, the inclusive fitness theory of behavior, haplodiploidy, reciprocal altruism, ecological perspectives, species richness, social evolution, societal explanations for infanticide, sociobiology and the…

Examines one component of an African Grey parrot's monologue behavior, private speech, while he was being taught new vocalizations. The data are discussed in terms of the possible functions of monologues during the parrot's acquisition of novel vocalizations. (85 references) (GLR)

Rats cached pieces of cheese on four different arms of an eight-arm radial maze. On a retrieval test given 45min later, rats learned to return to arms where food was cached before arms where food had not been cached. Tests were then performed in which cache sites on one side of the maze were always modified (pilfered or degraded), but cache sites…

Pigeons pecked left versus right keys contingent upon the color presented at 1 of those locations. Spatial-response latencies were shorter when the color appeared at the same location as the required response than at the opposite location. This Simon effect occurred when the stimulus on the alternative key was constant, varied from trial to trial,…

Humans find some sounds more pleasing than others; such preferences may underlie our enjoyment of music. To gain insight into the evolutionary origins of these preferences, we explored whether they are present in other animals. We designed a novel method to measure the spontaneous sound preferences of cotton-top tamarins, a species that has been…

In this interrupted case, students read about the alarm-calling behavior of a certain type of ground squirrel and then work in groups to develop hypotheses to explain the behavior and describe data that might be used to test their hypotheses. Students are then given real data and asked to interpret the evolutionary relevance of the results.…

Attempts to examine the effects of variations in relative conditioned reinforcement rate on choice have been confounded by changes in rates of primary reinforcement or changes in the value of the conditioned reinforcer. To avoid these problems, this experiment used concurrent observing responses to examine sensitivity of choice to relative…