The Impact of Pavlov on the Psychology of Learning in English-Speaking Countries

La traducción de las conferencias de Pavlov (Pavlov, 1927) proporcionó a los psicólogos angloparlantes el acceso al panorama global de la investigación y las ideas teóricas de Pavlov. El impacto que esto supuso para su estudio de la psicología del aprendizaje puede evaluarse mediante el examen de libros influyentes en esta área. Esto revela que Watson (1924) promovió eficazmente la errónea idea de que Pavlov era un teórico del E-R. Esta suposición no fue cuestionada por Tolman (1932), Hilgard y Marquis (1940) o Hull (1943). Sin embargo, Skinner (1938) no cometió este error y además proporcionó los más sólidos argumentos contra la creencia de Pavlov de que los efectos conductuales requieren una explicación en términos de procesos fisiológicos. A partir de 1927 la mayor parte de la investigación en aprendizaje en los países angloparlantes usó procedimientos instrumentales más que pavlovianos. Con todo, muchos de los temas planteados por estas investigaciones habían sido planteados por primera vez por Pavlov, así que se puede considerar que su influencia principal fue la de definir un programa de investigación para los estudiosos del aprendizaje.The translation of Pavlov’s lectures (Pavlov, 1927) provided English-speaking psychologists with access to the full scope of Pavlov’s research and theoretical ideas. The impact this had on their study of the psychology of learning can be assessed by examining influential books in this area. This reveals that Watson (1924) had been highly effective in promoting the misleading idea that Pavlov was a fellow S-R theorist. This assumption was not questioned by Tolman (1932), Hilgard and Marquis (1940) or by Hull (1943). However, this mistake was not made by Skinner (1938), who also provided the strongest arguments against Pavlov’s belief that behavioral effects required explanation in terms of physiological processes. Post-1927 most learning research in the English-speaking countries continued to use instrumental, rather than Pavlovian, conditioning procedures. Nevertheless, many of the issues addressed by this research were ones that Pavlov had been the first to raise, so that his major influence can be seen as that of defining a research program for subsequent students of learning

Placebo caffeine reduces withdrawal in abstinent coffee drinkers

Background: Expectancies have been shown to play a role in the withdrawal syndrome of many drugs of addiction. However no studies have examined the effects of expectancies across a broad range of caffeine withdrawal symptoms, including craving. Aims: The purpose of the current study was to use caffeine as a model to test the effect of expectancy on withdrawal symptoms, specifically whether the belief that one has ingested caffeine is sufficient to reduce caffeine withdrawal symptoms and cravings in abstinent caffeine drinkers. Methods 24-h abstinent regular coffee drinkers completed the Caffeine Withdrawal Symptom Questionnaire (CWSQ) before and after receiving decaffeinated coffee. Half the participants were led to believe the coffee was regular caffeinated coffee (Told group) and half were told that it was decaffeinated (Low Expectancy group). Results: Participants in the High Expectancy group reported a significantly greater reduction in craving, fatigue, lack of alertness and flu-like feelings factors of the CWSQ than those in the Low Expectancy. Conclusions: These results indicate that the belief that one has consumed caffeine can affect caffeine withdrawal symptoms, especially craving, even when no caffeine has been consumed

A high-fat high-sugar diet predicts poorer hippocampal-related memory and a reduced ability to suppress wanting under satiety

Animal data indicate that greater intake of fats and sugars prevalent in a Western diet impairs hippocampal memory and tests of behavioral inhibition known to be related to hippocampal function (e.g., feature negative discrimination tasks). It has been argued that such high fat high sugar diets (HFS) impair the hippocampus, which then becomes less sensitive to modulation by physiological state. Thus retrieval of motivationally salient memories (e.g., when seeing or smelling food) occurs irrespective of state. Here we examine whether evidence of similar effects can be observed in humans using a correlational design. Healthy human participants (N = 94), who varied in their habitual consumption of a HFS diet, completed the verbal paired associate (VPA) test, a known hippocampal-dependent process, as well as liking and wanting ratings of palatable snack foods, assessed both hungry and sated. Greater intake of a HFS diet was significantly associated with a slower VPA learning rate, as predicted. Importantly, for those who regularly consumed a HFS diet, while reductions in liking and wanting occurred between hungry and sated states, the reduction in wanting was far smaller relative to liking. The latter effect was strongly related to VPA learning rate, suggestive of hippocampal mediation. In agreement with the animal literature, human subjects with a greater intake of a HFS diet show deficits in hippocampal-dependent learning and memory, and their desire to consume palatable food is less affected by physiological state – a process we suggest that is also hippocampal related

Chemosensory abilities in consumers of a western-style diet

People vary in their habitual diet and also in their chemosensory abilities. In this study we examined whether consumption of a Western-style diet, rich in saturated fat and added sugar, is associated with either poorer or different patterns of chemosensory perception, relative to people who consume a healthier diet. Participants were selected based on a food frequency questionnaire, which established whether they were likely to consume a diet either higher or lower in saturated fat and added sugar. Eighty-seven participants were tested for olfactory ability (threshold, discrimination, identification), gustatory ability (PROP sensitivity, taste intensity, quality and hedonics), and flavour processing (using dairy fat-sugar-odour mixtures). A Western-style diet was associated with poorer odour identification ability, greater PROP sensitivity, poorer fat discrimination, different patterns of sweetness taste enhancement, and hedonic differences in taste and flavour perception. No differences were evident for odour discrimination or threshold, in perception of taste intensity/quality (excluding PROP) or the ability of fats to affect flavour perception. The significant relationships were of small to moderate effect size, and would be expected to work against consuming a healthier diet. The discussion focuses on whether these diet-related differences precede adoption of a Western-style diet and/or are a consequence of it

Informing the development of Australia's national eating disorders research and translation strategy : a rapid review methodology

Background Eating disorders (EDs) are highly complex mental illnesses associated with significant medical complications. There are currently knowledge gaps in research relating to the epidemiology, aetiology, treatment, burden, and outcomes of eating disorders. To clearly identify and begin addressing the major deficits in the scientific, medical, and clinical understanding of these mental illnesses, the Australian Government Department of Health in 2019 funded the InsideOut Institute (IOI) to develop the Australian Eating Disorder Research and Translation Strategy, the primary aim of which was to identify priorities and targets for building research capacity and outputs. A series of rapid reviews (RR) were conducted to map the current state of knowledge, identify evidence gaps, and inform development of the national research strategy. Published peer-reviewed literature on DSM-5 listed EDs, across eight knowledge domains was reviewed: (1) population, prevalence, disease burden, Quality of Life in Western developed countries; (2) risk factors; (3) co-occurring conditions and medical complications; (4) screening and diagnosis; (5) prevention and early intervention; (6) psychotherapies and relapse prevention; (7) models of care; (8) pharmacotherapies, alternative and adjunctive therapies; and (9) outcomes (including mortality). While RRs are systematic in nature, they are distinct from systematic reviews in their aim to gather evidence in a timely manner to support decision-making on urgent or high-priority health concerns at the national level. Results Three medical science databases were searched as the primary source of literature for the RRs: Science Direct, PubMed and OVID (Medline). The search was completed on 31st May 2021 (spanning January 2009-May 2021). At writing, a total of 1,320 articles met eligibility criteria and were included in the final review. Conclusions For each RR, the evidence has been organised to review the knowledge area and identify gaps for further research and investment. The series of RRs (published separately within the current series) are designed to support the development of research and translation practice in the field of EDs. They highlight areas for investment and investigation, and provide researchers, service planners and providers, and research funders rapid access to quality current evidence, which has been synthesised and organised to assist decision-making

Multi-level computational methods for interdisciplinary research in the HathiTrust Digital Library

We show how faceted search using a combination of traditional classification systems and mixed-membership topic models can go beyond keyword search to inform resource discovery, hypothesis formulation, and argument extraction for interdisciplinary research. Our test domain is the history and philosophy of scientific work on animal mind and cognition. The methods can be generalized to other research areas and ultimately support a system for semi-automatic identification of argument structures. We provide a case study for the application of the methods to the problem of identifying and extracting arguments about anthropomorphism during a critical period in the development of comparative psychology. We show how a combination of classification systems and mixed-membership models trained over large digital libraries can inform resource discovery in this domain. Through a novel approach of “drill-down” topic modeling—simultaneously reducing both the size of the corpus and the unit of analysis—we are able to reduce a large collection of fulltext volumes to a much smaller set of pages within six focal volumes containing arguments of interest to historians and philosophers of comparative psychology. The volumes identified in this way did not appear among the first ten results of the keyword search in the HathiTrust digital library and the pages bear the kind of “close reading” needed to generate original interpretations that is the heart of scholarly work in the humanities. Zooming back out, we provide a way to place the books onto a map of science originally constructed from very different data and for different purposes. The multilevel approach advances understanding of the intellectual and societal contexts in which writings are interpreted

Animal Cognition as Part of Cognitive Science: A Fringe Activity?

This paper on "The mind of organisms" by Prato Previde, Colombetti,PoH and Spada provides an excellent account of the aims and assumptions underlying contemporary research in animal cognition

Self-Starvation in the Rat: Running versus Eating

Las ratas sometidas simultáneamente a restricción de comida y acceso a una rueda de actividad pierden peso hasta el extremo de morir si no son retiradas a tiempo de estas condiciones. Aunque este hecho es conocido desde hace cuarenta años, la razón por la cual esto sucede permanece sin resolver. Lo paradójico de este fenómeno reside en que, aunque sería esperable que las ratas comiesen más a medida que su peso disminuye, en realidad estos animales comen menos que sus controles sedentarios. En esta conferencia se examina, en primer lugar, algunos factores que influyen en el desarrollo de la auto-inanición como son la edad, el tiempo de acceso a... (Ver más) la comida, el tipo de comida y la temperatura ambiental. A continuación se comparan algunas explicaciones tales como la adaptación del ritmo circadiano, la termorregulación y la aversión adquirida a la comida. Tal como ocurre con frecuencia en psicología, la auto-inanición es el resultado de diferentes factores. Finalmente, se examinarán algunas implicaciones más generales de esta investigación, incluida su posible utilidad como modelo animal para el estudio de la anorexia nerviosa en humanos.Rats given the combination of unrestricted access to an activity wheel and restricted access to food can lose weight to the extent that they will die unless removed from these conditions. Although this has been known for forty years, why this happens has remained unclear. The phenomenon is paradoxical in that one might expect such rats to eat more as their weight decreases, but in fact they eat less than resting controls. This lecture first examines some of the factors than influence whether self-starvation will occur, such as age, time of food access, type of food and ambient temperature. It then compares competing explanations such as circadian... (Ver más) adaptation, thermo-regulation and food aversion learning. As so often in psychology, it turns out that selfstarvation results from a combination of many separate factors. The general implications of this research are examined, including whether it provides a useful animal model for human anorexia nervosa

Animal Cognition as Part of Cognitive Science: A Fringe Activity?

This paper on "The mind of organisms" by Prato Previde, Colombetti,PoH and Spada provides an excellent account of the aims and assumptions underlying contemporary research in animal cognition

The impact of Pavlov on the psychology of learning in English-speaking countries

The translation of Pavlov's lectures (Pavlov, 1927) provided English-speaking psychologists with access to the full scope of Pavlov's research and theoretical ideas. The impact this had on their study of the psychology of learning can be assessed by examining influential books in this area. This reveals that Watson (1924) had been highly effective in promoting the misleading idea that Pavlov was a fellow S-R theorist. This assumption was not questioned by Tolman (1932), Hilgard and Marquis (1940) or by Hull (1943). However, this mistake was not made by Skinner (1938), who also provided the strongest arguments against Pavlov's belief that behavioral effects required explanation in terms of physiological processes. Post-1927 most learning research in the English-speaking countries continued to use instrumental, rather than Pavlovian, conditioning procedures. Nevertheless, many of the issues addressed by this research were ones that Pavlov had been the first to raise, so that his major influence can be seen as that of defining a research program for subsequent students of learning