Thorndike's Legacy: Learning, Selection, And The Law Of Effect

Recording Neural Reward Signals in a Naturalistic Operant Task Using Mobile-EEG and Augmented Reality

The electrophysiological response to rewards recorded during laboratory tasks has been well documented, yet little is known about the neural response patterns in a more naturalistic setting. Here, we combined a mobile-EEG system with an augmented reality headset to record event-related brain potentials (ERPs) while participants engaged in a naturalistic operant task to find rewards. Twenty-five participants were asked to navigate toward a west or east goal location marked by floating orbs, and once participants reached the goal location, the orb would then signify a reward (5 cents) or no-reward (0 cents) outcome. Following the outcome, participants returned to a start location marked by floating purple rings, and once standing in the middle, a 3 s counter signaled the next trial, for a total of 200 trials. Consistent with previous research, reward feedback evoked the reward positivity, an ERP component believed to index the sensitivity of the anterior cingulate cortex to reward prediction error signals. The reward positivity peaked ∼230 ms with a maximal at channel FCz (M = -0.695 μV, ±0.23) and was significantly different than zero (p < 0.01). Participants took ∼3.38 s to reach the goal location and exhibited a general lose-shift (68.3% ±3.5) response strategy and posterror slowing. Overall, these novel findings provide support for the idea that combining mobile-EEG with augmented reality technology is a feasible solution to enhance the ecological validity of human electrophysiological studies of goal-directed behavior and a step toward a new era of human cognitive neuroscience research that blurs the line between laboratory and reality.

Recording neural reward signals in the real-world using mobile-EEG and augmented reality

The electrophysiological response to rewards recorded during laboratory-based tasks has been well documented over the past two decades, yet little is known about the neural response patterns in 'real-world' settings. To address this issue, we combined a mobile-EEG system with an augmented reality headset (which blends high definition "holograms" within the real-world) to record event-related brain potentials (ERP) while participants navigated an operant chamber to find rewards. 25 participants (age = 18-43, Male=6, Female=19) were asked to choose between two floating holograms marking a west or east goal-location in a large room, and once participants reached the goal location, the hologram would turn into a reward (5 cents) or no-reward (0 cents) cue. Following the feedback cue, participants were required to return to a hologram marking the start location, and once standing in it, a 3 second counter hologram would initiate the next trial. This sequence was repeated until participants completed 200 trials. Consistent with previous research, reward feedback evoked the reward positivity, an ERP component believed to index the sensitivity of the anterior cingulate cortex to reward prediction error signals. The reward positivity peaked around 235ms post-feedback with a maximal at channel FCz (M=-2.60μV, SD=1.73μV) and was significantly different than zero (p < 0.01). At a behavioral level, participants took approximately 3.38 seconds to reach the goal-location and exhibited a general lose-shift (68.3% ± 3.5) response strategy and were slightly slower to return to the start location following negative feedback (2.43 sec) compared to positive feedback (2.38 sec), evidence of post-error slowing. Overall, these findings provide the first evidence that combining mobile-EEG with augmented reality technology is a feasible solution to enhance the ecological validity of human electrophysiological studies of goal-directed behavior and a step towards a new era of human cognitive neuroscience research that blurs the line between laboratory and reality.

Teaching a Course on the History of Behavior Analysis

Teaching the history of behavior analysis can be approached in many ways. One is to embed history in courses on the field's discipline and subdisciplines (e.g., its basic and applied sciences and their conceptual foundations) and practice. Another is to teach courses on the histories of the discipline and subdisciplines and practice. Still another is to teach a stand-alone course that includes these approaches and more (e.g., their integration, relations with other sciences, the influence of U.S. history and culture). The purpose of this article is to foster teaching the stand-alone course. It has four sections. The first addresses structural considerations: course titles, catalog descriptions, curricula, certification, and accreditation. The second addresses contextual considerations: purposes of teaching history; distinctions between history and historiography; and starting points in selecting textbooks. The third addresses functional considerations: course content organized by topics and their required and recommended readings. The fourth discusses how the course might be revised by eliminating topics (e.g., the Middle Ages), expanding topics and subtopics (e.g., the behaviorisms, philosophy of science) and adding topics and subtopics (e.g., institutional history; diversity, inclusion, and equity). Given the field's continuing development as a science, system, and practice and the rapid growth in its number and variety of its members, its history is becoming its common core-and a means of teaching it. The course elucidates the field's integrity; incorporates the entirety of its community of students, scientists, scholars, and practitioners; and advance its coherence as a cultural practice.

Event-Related Potentials Are Associated With Unexpected Gain and Loss: Using a Gambling Paradigm

OBJECTIVE

Previous neuroimaging studies have described altered activity in brain areas associated with reward processing following reward or punishment. This study examines the extent to which feedback-based experience of gain and loss is associated with electrophysiological correlates.

METHODS

Twenty-nine healthy participants used a gambling task that focused on actual nonpredictable gains and losses. During the task, an electroencephalography recording was performed in order to assess reward processing. Event-related potentials were analyzed when participants were receiving gain/loss feedback.

RESULTS

Event-related potentials revealed higher feedback-related negativity for both overall gain and loss compared with a neutral condition in fronto-centro-parietal electrodes. P3 potentials were significantly increased for high gains/losses compared to neutral and small gains/losses.

CONCLUSION

These results indicate that the paradigm is suitable to evoke specific patterns of reward-related electrophysiological responses. The wavelet analysis showed that electroencephalography frequency variations depended on the amount of gains/losses.

SIGNIFICANCE

This gambling paradigm is appropriate to measure aspects of feedback processing and could help analyze disease-specific alterations of the reward system in patients.

Reevaluating the initial impact of John Broadus Watson on American psychology: The necessity of comparative parameters

In recent decades, various studies have challenged the traditional view that John Broadus Watson's Behaviorist Manifesto prompted a psychological revolution. However, methodological hindrances underlie all these attempts to evaluate the impact of Watson's study, such as the absence of comparative parameters. This article remedies this problem by conducting a comparative citation analysis involving Watson and eight other representative psychologists of the time: J. R. Angell, H. Carr, J. M. Cattell, J. Dewey, G. S. Hall, W. James, E. L. Thorndike, and E. B. Titchener. Eight important American journals were scrutinized for the period between 1903 and 1923, a decade before and a decade after the publication of Watson's Manifesto. The results suggest that even if Watson's study cannot be taken as revolutionary, it had an impact between 1914 and 1923 that was close to Dewey's, Titchener's, and Thorndike's and higher than Angell's, Carr's, Cattell's, and Hall's, although distant from James's. Finally, some methodological implications of this study are discussed.

Oscillatory profiles of positive, negative and neutral feedback stimuli during adaptive decision making

The electrophysiological response to positive and negative feedback during reinforcement learning has been well documented over the past two decades, yet, little is known about the neural response to uninformative events that often follow our actions. To address this issue, we recorded the electroencephalograph (EEG) during a time-estimation task using both informative (positive and negative) and uninformative (neutral) feedback. In the time-frequency domain, uninformative feedback elicited significantly less induced beta-gamma activity than informative feedback. This result suggests that beta-gamma activity is particularly sensitive to feedback that can guide behavioral adjustments, consistent with other work. In contrast, neither theta nor delta activity were sensitive to the difference between negative and neutral feedback, though both frequencies discriminated between positive, and non-positive (neutral or negative) feedback. Interestingly, in the time domain, we observed a linear relationship in the amplitude of the feedback-related negativity (neutral>negative>positive), a component of the event-related brain potential thought to index a specific kind of reinforcement learning signal called a reward prediction error. Taken together, these results suggest that the reinforcement learning system treats neutral feedback as a special case, providing valuable information about the electrophysiological measures used to index the cognitive function of frontal midline cortex.

Did John B. Watson Really "Found" Behaviorism?

Developments culminating in the nineteenth century, along with the predictable collapse of introspective psychology, meant that the rise of behavioral psychology was inevitable. In 1913, John B. Watson was an established scientist with impeccable credentials who acted as a strong and combative promoter of a natural science approach to psychology when just such an advocate was needed. He never claimed to have founded "behavior psychology" and, despite the acclaim and criticism attending his portrayal as the original behaviorist, he was more an exemplar of a movement than a founder. Many influential writers had already characterized psychology, including so-called mental activity, as behavior, offered many applications, and rejected metaphysical dualism. Among others, William Carpenter, Alexander Bain, and (early) Sigmund Freud held views compatible with twentieth-century behaviorism. Thus, though Watson was the first to argue specifically for psychology as a natural science, behaviorism in both theory and practice had clear roots long before 1913. If behaviorism really needs a "founder," Edward Thorndike might seem more deserving, because of his great influence and promotion of an objective psychology, but he was not a true behaviorist for several important reasons. Watson deserves the fame he has received, since he first made a strong case for a natural science (behaviorist) approach and, importantly, he made people pay attention to it.

Dissociated roles of the anterior cingulate cortex in reward and conflict processing as revealed by the feedback error-related negativity and N200

The reinforcement learning theory of the error-related negativity (ERN) holds that the impact of reward signals carried by the midbrain dopamine system modulates activity of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), alternatively disinhibiting and inhibiting the ACC following unpredicted error and reward events, respectively. According to a recent formulation of the theory, activity that is intrinsic to the ACC produces a component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) called the N200, and following unpredicted rewards, the N200 is suppressed by extrinsically applied positive dopamine reward signals, resulting in an ERP component called the feedback-ERN (fERN). Here we demonstrate that, despite extensive spatial and temporal overlap between the two ERP components, the functional processes indexed by the N200 (conflict) and the fERN (reward) are dissociable. These results point toward avenues for future investigation.

Which way do I go? Neural activation in response to feedback and spatial processing in a virtual T-maze

In 2 human event-related brain potential (ERP) experiments, we examined the feedback error-related negativity (fERN), an ERP component associated with reward processing by the midbrain dopamine system, and the N170, an ERP component thought to be generated by the medial temporal lobe (MTL), to investigate the contributions of these neural systems toward learning to find rewards in a "virtual T-maze" environment. We found that feedback indicating the absence versus presence of a reward differentially modulated fERN amplitude, but only when the outcome was not predicted by an earlier stimulus. By contrast, when a cue predicted the reward outcome, then the predictive cue (and not the feedback) differentially modulated fERN amplitude. We further found that the spatial location of the feedback stimuli elicited a large N170 at electrode sites sensitive to right MTL activation and that the latency of this component was sensitive to the spatial location of the reward, occurring slightly earlier for rewards following a right versus left turn in the maze. Taken together, these results confirm a fundamental prediction of a dopamine theory of the fERN and suggest that the dopamine and MTL systems may interact in navigational learning tasks.