Previous repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and neuroimaging studies showed that Broca's area is involved in the interaction between gestures and words. However, in these studies the nature of this interaction was not fully investigated; consequently, we addressed this issue in three behavioral experiments. When compared to the…

Terror management theory (TMT) highlights the motivational impact of thoughts of death in various aspects of everyday life. Since its inception in 1986, research on TMT has undergone a slight but significant shift from an almost exclusive focus on the manipulation of thoughts of death to a marked increase in studies that measure the accessibility…

The hierarchical competing systems model (HCSM) provides a framework for understanding the emergence and early development of executive function--the cognitive processes underlying the conscious control of behavior--in the context of search for hidden objects. According to this model, behavior is determined by the joint influence of a…

When the bottom halves of two faces differ, people's behavioral judgment of the identical top halves of those faces is impaired: they report that the top halves are different, and/or take more time than usual to provide a response. This behavioral measure is known as the composite face effect (CFE) and has traditionally been taken as evidence that…

The current article outlines a behavior-analytic approach to the study of so-called implicit attitudes and cognition. The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP), the conceptual basis of which was derived from relational frame theory, is offered as a methodology that may be used in the experimental analysis of implicit attitudes and…

Following G. T. Fechner (1966), thresholds have been conceptualized as the amount of intensity needed to transition between mental states, such as between a states of unconsciousness and consciousness. With the advent of the theory of signal detection, however, discrete-state theory and the corresponding notion of threshold have been discounted.…

The game of Matching Pennies (MP), a simplified version of the more popular Rock, Papers, Scissors, schematically represents competitions between organisms with incentives to predict each other's behavior. Optimal performance in iterated MP competitions involves the production of random choice patterns and the detection of nonrandomness in the…

Two experiments examined pictorial humor as an unusual but legitimate way to approach the study of children's representational activity and the transition from implicit to explicit knowledge. In both experiments, the participants were 3- and 4-year-old children. Experiment 1 studied the understanding of two pictorial jokes using two conditions,…

In everyday life, one can link anticipated specific cues (e.g. visiting a restaurant) with desired actions (e.g., ordering a healthy meal). Alternatively, intentions such as "I intend to eat more healthily" present the option to act when one encounters the same cue. In the first case, a specific cue triggers a specific action; in the second, one…

The authors propose a simple behavioral economic model (BEM) describing how reinforcement and interval timing interact. The model assumes a Weber-law-compliant logarithmic representation of time. Associated with each represented time value are the payoffs that have been obtained for each possible response. At a given real time, the response with…

The debate between Simulation-Theory (ST) and Theory-Theory (TT) provides the dominant theoretical framework for research on "theory of mind" (ToM). Behavioural research has failed to provide clear methods for discriminating between these theories, but a number of recent studies have claimed that neuroimaging methods do allow key predictions of ST…

In a study of working memory, the performance of rats under titrating-delayed-nonmatching- to-position (TDNMTP) procedures was examined. Overall accuracy and the number of trials completed were inversely related to titration value, whereas the highest delay attained was directly related to titration value. When given intraperitoneally,…

Research reported here concerns neural processes relating to stimulus equivalence class formation. In Experiment 1, two types of word pairs were presented successively to normally capable adults. In one type, the words had related usage in English (e.g., uncle, aunt). In the other, the two words were not typically related in their usage (e.g.,…

Theory of Mind, Weak Central Coherence and executive dysfunction, were investigated as a function of behavioural markers of autism. This was irrespective of the presence or absence of a diagnosis of an autistic spectrum disorder. Sixty young people completed the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), false belief tests, the block design test,…

Aphasia is an acquired language impairment that affects over 1 million individuals, the majority of whom are over age 65 (Groher, 1989). This disorder has typically been conceptualized within a cognitive neuroscience framework, but a behavioral interpretation of aphasia is also possible. Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior proposes a…