People differ in the extent to which they discount the values of future rewards. Behavioural economists measure these differences in terms of functions that describe rates of reduced valuation in the future – temporal discounting – as these vary with time. They measure differences in preference for risk – differing rates of probability discounting – in terms of similar functions that describe reduced valuation of rewards as the probability of their delivery falls. So-called ‘impulsive’ people, including people disposed to addiction, (...) tend to choose rewards in patterns that are described by unusually steeply sloped discount functions. The empirical literature is ambivalent as to whether this applies to pathological gamblers (PGs) who manifest most other behavioural patterns associated with addiction, with different, equally careful studies suggesting opposite conclusions (Petry & Casarella 1999; Holt, Green & Myerson 2003). This puzzle may arise from the fact that most previous experiments on discounting behaviour were not designed so as to allow effects of high temporal discounting to be distinguished from effects of low probability discounting. (Addiction has sometimes been associated with the latter because it seems to involve, at least in the starting addict, under appreciation of risk.) Our research project investigates both forms of discounting behaviour and their relationship to severity of risk of PG in a community sample of South African gamblers. (shrink)

Research on academic pay finds an unexplained gender pay gap that has not fully dissolved over time and that appears to increase with years of experience. In this study, I consider how role congruity bias contributes to this pay gap. Bias is more likely to manifest in a context where there is some ambiguity about performance and where stereotypes are stronger. I predict that bias in the attribution of credit for coauthored research leads to lower returns to research for female (...) professors. To test this prediction, I use a sample of Canadian faculty in accounting, where research is typically coauthored, where females are underrepresented at the most senior ranks, and where many universities evaluate merit in research, teaching, and service to determine salary increases. In regressions of salary on individual and institutional determinants of salary, I find that women earn marginally less than men. However, the pay gap is only evident for women who publish in a selective list of journals; for the subset of faculty with no publications from this list, there are no significant differences in salary. For researching faculty, the pay gap relates specifically to research productivity. While women publish less on average than men, the returns to their research are also lower. In particular, the relation between the individual’s research ranking and salary is significantly lower for women who publish a higher proportion of their work with men, than for all other faculty. Additional analysis of salary and coauthor patterns confirms that women receive significantly less credit for coauthored articles they publish with men than those they publish with other women but that no similar variations in reward are evident for men across publishing patterns. These findings suggest bias in the attribution of credit for coauthored research in the determination of salary, consistent with role congruity theory, and provide an important potential explanation for why salaries for women vary systematically from those of men even after considering productivity. Providing lower rewards for equal work represents a continuing ethical issue in academe and compounds the challenges women already facing in the profession. (shrink)

Healthcare workers who are on the front line of coronavirus disease 2019 and are also undergoing shift schedules face long work hours with few pauses, experience desynchronization of their circadian rhythm, and an imbalance between work hours effort and reward in saving lives, resulting in an impact on work capacity, aggravated by the lack of personal protective equipment, few resources and precarious infrastructure, and fear of contracting the virus and contaminating family members. Some consequences are sleep deprivation, chronic (...) insomnia, stress-related sleep disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These sleep alterations critically affect mental health, precipitating or perpetuating anxiety, stress, and depression, resulting in the inability to regulate positive and negative emotions. Pre-existing sleep disorders are an important risk factor for the development and maintenance of PSTD when individuals are exposed to an important stressor such as a COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, how an individual regulates the emotion associated with worries during daytime functioning impacts nighttime sleep, precipitating and perpetuating difficulties in sleeping. All of these changes in sleep and emotional regulation also alter the immune system. Sleep deprivation is commonly associated with chronic inflammatory diseases, due to the desynchronizations in circadian rhythms, causing possible psychophysiological disorders and impaired neuroimmune-endocrine homeostasis. From this perspective, we clarify in this article how sleep disorders affect the immune system and emotional regulation, explaining their phenomenological and neurobiological mechanisms, and discussing elements of cognitive and behavioral coping for health professionals to adopt and manage a healthier sleep pattern in the COVID-19 outbreak. (shrink)

The temporal pattern of the terminal response on periodic schedules depends on when responding begins. Pigeons pecking on fixed-interval and fixed-time schedules of food reinforcement responded, or accelerated, faster the later in an interval they began responding.

As one of the most effective medical technologies for the infertile patients, in vitro fertilization has been more and more widely developed in recent years. However, prolonged waiting for IVF procedures has become a problem of great concern, since this technology is only mastered by the large general hospitals. To deal with the insufficiency of IVF service capacity, this paper studies an IVF queuing network in an integrated cloud healthcare system, where the two key medical services, that is, egg retrieval (...) and transplantation, are assigned to accomplish in the general hospital, while the routine medical tests are assigned into the community hospital. Based on continuous-time Markov procedure, a dynamic large-scale server scheduling problem in this complicated service network is modeled with consideration of different arrival rates of multiple type of patients and different service capacities of multiple servers that can be defined as doctors of the general hospital. To solve this model, a reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed, where the reward functions are designed for four conflicting subcosts: setup cost, patient waiting cost, penalty cost for unsatisfied patient personal preferences, and medical cost of patient. The experimental results show that the optimal service rule of each server’s queue obtained by the RL method is significantly superior to the traditional service rule. (shrink)

In recent years, the changing landscape for the conduct and assessment of research and of researchers has increased scrutiny of the reward systems of science. In this context, correcting the research record, including retractions, has gained attention and space in the publication system. One question is the possible influence of retractions on the careers of scientists. It might be assessed, for example, through citation patterns or productivity rates for authors who have had one or more retractions. This is an (...) emerging issue today, with growing discussions in the research community about impact. We have explored the influence of retractions on grant review criteria. Here, we present results of a qualitative study exploring the views of a group of six representatives of funding agencies from different countries and of a follow-up survey of 224 reviewers in the US. These reviewers have served on panels for the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and/or a few other agencies. We collected their perceptions about the influence of self-correction of the literature and of retractions on grant decisions. Our results suggest that correcting the research record, for honest error or misconduct, is perceived as an important mechanism to strengthen the reliability of science, among most respondents. However, retractions and self-correcting the literature at large are not factors influencing grant review, and dealing with retractions in reviewing grants is an open question for funders. (shrink)

Summary Twenty?four primary schools were randomly selected from all those listed in a local education authority in the West Midlands of England. Heads or deputy headteachers of 21 of these schools were interviewed using a structured interview schedule very similar to the one used for a recent survey of secondary schools. Data were obtained about the general rule structures of the schools and the system of sanctions and rewards used to maintain them. The findings were then compared with those from (...) the secondary survey. Primary schools were less likely than secondary schools to have written rule structures but most were in the process of producing them in response to new pressures. It was more common for all the teachers in the primary school to be considered responsible for seeing that rules were kept. Generally, primary school headteachers identified fewer sanctions being used to uphold their rules than in secondary schools. The number of rewards used in both types of school was about equal. Comment is made on the difference between sanctions and rewards identified as being used in schools and some observed classroom practice. (shrink)

This study investigates the ability of individuals with psychopathy to perform passive avoidance learning and whether this ability is modulated by level of reinforcement/punishment. Nineteen psychopathic and 21 comparison individuals, as defined by the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised (Hare, 1991), were given a passive avoidance task with a graded reinforcement schedule. Response to each rewarding number gained a point reward specific to that number (i.e., 1, 700, 1400 or 2000 points). Response to each punishing number lost a point punishment (...) specific to that number (i.e., the loss of 1, 700, 1400 or 2000 points). In line with predictions, individuals with psychopathy made more passive avoidance errors than the comparison individuals. In addition, while the performance of both groups was modulated by level of reward, only the performance of the comparison population was modulated by level of punishment. The results are interpreted with reference to a computational account of the emotional learning impairment in individuals with psychopathy. (shrink)

All 24 secondary schools in a West Midlands local education authority were visited and a structured interview was conducted with the head or another senior teacher. An interview schedule was used to record details concerning the rule structure which had been established to control the conduct of the pupils. Information was also gathered about the sanctions and rewards used to maintain this behaviour and from most schools copies of the rules were available. It was found that almost all schools had (...) rule systems that were in written form and that these were made available to staff and students, chiefly through booklets or other material given to pupils when they first enrolled. All schools backed up their rules, whether written or not by a series of sanctions, most of which related to non?conforming behaviour. Some sanctions were applied to poor work but this was usually treated by special provision or special tutoring. Most also used rewards but these tended to be reserved for good performance. There were few cases where good behaviour was found to be rewarded systematically in any way. (shrink)

This article is an attempt by Japanese physicians to introduce the practice patterns and moral justification of Japanese critical care to the world. Japanese health care is characterized by the fact that the fee schedule does not reward high technology medicine, such as surgery and critical care. In spite of the low reimbursement, our critical care practice pattern is characterized by continuing futile treatment for terminal patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). This apparently wasteful practice can be explained (...) by fundamental Japanese cultural values, social factors in Japan, the availability of extensive insurance coverage, physicians' psychological factors, lack of cost-benefit considerations and the pragmatic approach the Japanese take to situations. We attempt to make some brief suggestions regarding the improvement of our critical care practices. Although we can not fully present quantitative data to support our argument, this article represents our real-world approaches to the ethical issues in the ICU in Japan. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the way humans interact with domestic companion animals, with a focus on ‘positive reward-based training’ methods, particularly for dogs. From a biosemiotic perspective, I discuss the role of animal training in today’s society and examine what binary reward- based reinforcement schedules communicate, semiotically. I also examine the extent to which reward-based training methods promote better welfare, when compared to the more traditional methods which rely on aversive stimuli and punishment, if and (...) when they are relied upon excessively. I conclude that when used as the primary means of communication, they have the potential to be detrimental to animal welfare, because the underlying social signal is control and resource dominance. As an alternative view to behaviourist-based learning theory and conditioning, I outline how enactivist theories of cognition support a semiotic approach to interspecific human-animal communication. I therefore propose a move toward a dynamic semiosis and mutual understanding based upon Peirce’s phenomenology, resulting in a more balanced merging of Umwelten. The aim is to create rich and more complex semiospheres around humans and domestic animals, which allow for individual agency and autonomy. (shrink)

Insect vision is nothing if not active. The regular head movements, called saccades, enable the fly Drosophila to keep a straight path in flight despite inequalities in the thrust of the wings. Using their own motion, bees in flight measure the ranges of nearby objects. A long history of research shows that bees discriminate visually in ways that depend on their activity or task, so we must distinguish between vision during flying, fixating or hovering and landing.Bees return again and again (...) for a reward of sugar solution and use their eyes to find their way. In an apparatus that makes them discriminate between two simulataneously visible but regularly interchanged targets, seen at a distance of 27 cm, bees are able to distinguish a remarkable number of simple patterns, but they fail in certain critical cases. The results can be explained with the hypothesis that bees have several broadly tuned overlapping filters with large fields that respond to the predominant orientation in a region of the image, and others for radial and circular patterns. Together with colour, these filters are independent of range. Bees prefer to use landmarks where they can, then global pattern at the largest scale, and lastly the detail around the goal. The way that discrimination of one visual feature is independent of other variables can be explained by models analogous to the colour triangle in colour discrimination. (shrink)

Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus is an effective treatment for the motor symptoms of movement disorders including Parkinson's Disease. Despite its therapeutic benefits, STN-DBS has been associated with adverse effects on mood and cognition. Specifically, apathy, which is defined as a loss of motivation, has been reported to emerge or to worsen following STN-DBS. However, it is often challenging to disentangle the effects of STN-DBSper sefrom concurrent reduction of dopamine replacement therapy, from underlying PD pathology or from disease (...) progression. To this end, pre-clinical models allow for the dissociation of each of these factors, and to establish neural substrates underlying the emergence of motivational symptoms following STN-DBS. Here, we performed a systematic analysis of rodent studies assessing the effects of STN-DBS on reward seeking, reward motivation and reward consumption across a variety of behavioral paradigms. We find that STN-DBS decreases reward seeking in the majority of experiments, and we outline how design of the behavioral task and DBS parameters can influence experimental outcomes. While an early hypothesis posited that DBS acts as a “functional lesion,” an analysis of lesions and inhibition of the STN revealed no consistent pattern on reward-related behavior. Thus, we discuss alternative mechanisms that could contribute to the amotivational effects of STN-DBS. We also argue that optogenetic-assisted circuit dissection could yield important insight into the effects of the STN on motivated behavior in health and disease. Understanding the mechanisms underlying the effects of STN-DBS on motivated behavior-will be critical for optimizing the clinical application of STN-DBS. (shrink)

It has been reported in non-contingent schedules that the variety of patterns of behavior is affected by the temporal variation of water deliveries. While temporal variation is accomplished by delivering water at fixed or variable times, spatial variation is usually accomplished by varying the number of dispensers and distance among them. Such criteria do not consider the possible ecological relevance of the location of water dispensers. Nevertheless, it is plausible to suppose that the intersection of the programed contingencies, the (...) ecological differentiated space, and the relative location of relevant objects and events could set up an integrated system with the behavioral patterns of the organism. In the present study, we evaluated the eco-functional relevance of two locations of the dispensers upon behavioral dynamics in Wistar rats using fixed and variable time schedules in a modified open-field system. In Experiment 1, three subjects were exposed to a fixed time 30-s water delivery schedule. In the first condition, the water dispenser was located at the center of the experimental chamber. In the second condition, the water dispenser was located at the center of a wall of the experimental chamber. Each location was present for 20 sessions. In Experiment 2, conditions were the same, but a variable time schedule was used. Routes, distance to the dispenser, recurrence patterns, time spent in zones, entropy, and divergence were analyzed. Our findings suggest a robust differential relevance of the location of the dispensers that should be considered in studies evaluating behavioral dynamics. Results are discussed from an integrative, ecological-parametric framework. (shrink)

Elucidating distinct morphological atrophy patterns of Alzheimer’s disease and its prodromal stage, namely, mild cognitive impairment helps to improve early diagnosis and medical intervention of AD. On that account, we aimed to obtain distinct patterns of voxel-wise morphological atrophy and its further perturbation on structural covariance network in AD and MCI compared with healthy controls. T1-weighted anatomical images of matched AD, MCI, and HCs were included in this study. Gray matter volume was obtained using voxel-based morphometry and compared among three (...) groups. In addition, structural covariance network of identified brain regions exhibiting morphological difference was constructed and compared between pairs of three groups. Thus, patients with AD have a reduced hippocampal volume and an increased rate of atrophy compared with MCI and HCs. MCI exhibited a decreased trend in bilateral hippocampal volume compared with HCs and the accelerated right hippocampal atrophy rate than HCs. In AD, the hippocampus further exhibited increased structural covariance connected to reward related brain regions, including the anterior cingulate cortex, the putamen, the caudate, and the insula compared with HCs. In addition, the patients with AD exhibited increased structural covariance of left hippocampus with the bilateral insula, the inferior frontal gyrus, the superior temporal gyrus, and the cerebellum than MCI. These results reveal distinct patterns of morphological atrophy in AD and MCI, providing new insights into pathology of AD. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic affects all population segments and is especially detrimental to university students because social interaction is critical for a rewarding campus life and valuable learning experiences. In particular, with the suspension of in-person activities and the adoption of virtual teaching modalities, university students face drastic changes in their physical activities, academic careers, and mental health. Our study applies a machine learning approach to explore the gender differences among U.S. university students in response to the global pandemic. Leveraging a (...) proprietary survey dataset collected from 322 U.S. university students, we employ association rule mining techniques to identify and compare psychological, cognitive, and behavioral patterns among male and female participants. To formulate our task under the conventional ARM framework, we model each unique question-answer pair of the survey questionnaire as a market basket item. Consequently, each participant's survey report is analogous to a customer's transaction on a collection of items. Our findings suggest that significant differences exist between the two gender groups in psychological distress and coping strategies. In addition, the two groups exhibit minor differences in cognitive patterns and consistent preventive behaviors. The identified gender differences could help professional institutions to facilitate customized advising or counseling for males and females in periods of unprecedented challenges. (shrink)

The notion of science as a stratified system is clearly manifested in the markedly uneven distribution of productivity, rewards, resources, and recognition. Although previous studies have shown that institutional environments for conducting research differ significantly between national science systems, disciplines, and subfields, it remains to be shown whether any systematic variations and patterns in inequalities exist among researchers in different national and domain specific settings. This study investigates the positioning of citation elites as opposed to ‘ordinary’ researchers by way of (...) examining three dimensions of concentration (accumulation of publications and citations, specialisation, and institutional concentration) in biology, economics and physics in Denmark and the UK. Across all three dimensions, we put Richard Whitley’s bipartite theory to the test, suggesting a nexus between the intellectual structure of a discipline and the configuration of its elite. The study draws on a dataset of researchers who published most of their publications in either physics, biology, or economics over the 1980–2018 period and with at least one publication in 2017–2018 while affiliated to either a British or a Danish university. We find higher degrees of concentration in the UK compared to Denmark, and that physics and biology respectively display the greatest and lowest degree of concentration. Similar patterns in disciplinary differences are observed in both countries, suggesting that concentration patterns are largely rooted in disciplinary cultures and merely amplified by the national context. (shrink)

On a proximate level, altruism may well be a temporally extended pattern of behavior that often seems to be maintained without extrinsic rewards (we may find it just valuable to be an altruistic person). However, recent theory and experiments have uncovered significant and often nonobvious extrinsic rewards for “altruistic” behavioral patterns. Ultimately, these patterns may mostly lead to a net benefit.

Despite increasing numbers of women lawyers, gender segregation within the legal profession in the United States continues. The present article examines interorganizational differences in the employment of 34 men and 34 women lawyers in 12 in-house legal departments that varied by size and industry in corporations located in the northeast United States. There were differences among the firms with respect to the number, position, and salary of men and women lawyers. The findings suggest that women in-house counsel do not enter (...) the same type of practice or organizations, obtain the same positions, or earn the same salaries as men. The differential employment patterns, the article concludes, stem largely from organizational contingencies, such as a firm's market position, perceived needs, the kinds of rewards and training offered, and recruitment strategies. It also suggests that men's and women's differential location in the labor pool results not from their own career choices but from employer's hiring and work-allocation decisions that provide them with different experiences and expertise, which in turn constrain future employment options. (shrink)

Background: Digital technologies such as smartphones, tablets and laptops have become a mainstay part of nearly every household and are gradually being integrated into the lives of both adults and children. We aim to determine the extent of exposure and usage of digital technology by children in their daily activities and to understand the transition in technological preferences and attitudes over the generation. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 400 children aged 05-12 years living in Prayagraj city of Uttar (...) Pradesh, India, using a pretested interview schedule. Descriptive and bivariate statistics were used for data analysis. The phenomenological method was used to understand respondents’ viewpoints about their preferences and attitudes related to technology. Results: An overwhelming majority of households have television followed by digital cameras, laptops, tablets, kindle and video games such as Playstation. Nearly half of children began to use digital devices from the age of 7 to 8 years. Nearly two-third of the children learnt to use digital devices on their own, and about 12% of them reported often practicing media multitasking. Over the generation, differences are noted in terms of possession, use and perception regarding digital technology. Conclusion: The availability of media content on such devices influences the screen time of children of all ages. The study underscores the importance of parental monitoring and devising a policy to regulate the ownership of digital devices and to reduce screen time to less than two hours per day, especially during early childhood. (shrink)

Women use power in more prosocial ways than men and they also engage in more emotional labor. However, these two constructs have not been previously connected. We propose that gendered emotional labor practices and pressures result in gender differences in the prosocial use of power. We integrate the literature on emotional labor with research on the psychology of power to articulate three routes through which this happens. First, women may be more adept than men at the intrapersonal and interpersonal processes (...) entailed in emotional labor practices—a skill that they can apply at all hierarchical levels. Second, given women’s stronger internal motivation to perform emotional labor, they construe power in a more interdependent manner than men, which promotes a more prosocial use of power. As a result, female powerholders tend to behave in more prosocial ways. Third, when they have power, women encounter stronger external motivation to engage in emotional labor, which effectively constrains powerful women’s behaviors in a way that fosters a more prosocial use of power. We discuss how, by promoting prosocial behavior among powerholders, emotional labor can be beneficial for subordinates and organizations, while simultaneously creating costs for individual powerholders, which may reduce women’s likelihood of actually attaining and retaining power by making high-power roles less appealing, guiding women toward less prestigious and more precarious leadership roles, draining powerful women’s time and resources without equitable rewards, and making it difficult for women to legitimize their power in the eyes of subordinates. Thus, emotional labor practices can help explain the underrepresentation of women in top leadership positions. (shrink)