Cocaine falls into oblivion during volitional initiation of choice trials

When facing a choice, most animals quit drugs in favour of a variety of nondrug alternatives. We recently found, rather unexpectedly, that choice of the nondrug alternative is in fact inflexible and habitual. One possible contributing factor to habitual choice is the intermittency and uncontrollability of choice trials in previous studies. Here, we asked whether and to what extent volitional control over the occurrence of choice trials could change animals' preference by preventing habitual choice. To do so, rats were trained to nosepoke in a hole to trigger the presentation of two operant levers: one associated with cocaine, the other with saccharin. Rats were then free to choose among the two levers to obtain the corresponding reward, after which both levers retracted until rats self-initiated the next choice trial. Overall, we found that volitional control over choice trials did not change preference. Most rats preferred saccharin over cocaine and selected this option almost exclusively. Intriguingly, after repeated choice and consumption of saccharin, rats transiently lost interest in this option (i.e., due to sensory-specific satiety), but they did not switch to cocaine, preferring instead to pause during long periods of time before reinitiating a choice trial for saccharin. This finding suggests that during volitional initiation of a choice trial, rats fail to consider cocaine as an option. We discuss a possible associative mechanism to explain this perplexing behaviour.

Factors Influencing Undergraduate Students' Preference of Health Sciences Specialties

BACKGROUND

It is necessary to determine what motivates students to pursue a particular specialty of their choosing to maintain a balance of medical practitioners from various disciplines.

OBJECTIVE

The study aims to assess factors influencing undergraduate students of Applied Medical Sciences in choosing a specialty or discipline.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study was conducted among first-year students of the faculty of applied medical sciences at Taibah University. One hundred and twenty-five participants were enrolled in the study. The students were asked to respond and complete the designed 9-item questionnaire. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (BM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 23.0, Armonk, NY: IBM Corp.) was used to analyze the data. A comparison between departments of the faculty was carried out.

RESULTS

125 participants were satisfied with their current faculty or discipline. They stated that medicine was the first choice (43.2%), followed by clinical nutrition (11.2%), dentistry (8%), diagnostic radiology (7.2%), and clinical laboratory (5.6%). The most important factors that affect students' choice of discipline were helping patients and the community (32.8%), personal desire (30.4%), personal desire and helping patients (22.4%), and job opportunity and prestige (9.5%), with gender variations. Family enforcement and finances were less frequent factors affecting students' specialty preferences.

CONCLUSION

The human medicine specialization was the first choice for most female and male undergraduate students who entered the faculty of applied medical sciences. Furthermore, the most influencing factor affecting students' choices was helping patients and the community.

Opportunity Neglect: An Aversion to Low-Probability Gains

Seven preregistered studies (N = 2,890, adult participants) conducted in the field, in the lab, and online documented opportunity neglect: a tendency to reject opportunities with low probability of success even when they come with little or no objective cost (e.g., time, money, reputation). Participants rejected a low-probability opportunity in an everyday context (Study 1). Participants also rejected incentive-compatible gambles with positive expected value-for both goods (Study 2) and money (Studies 3-7)-even with no possibility of monetary loss and nontrivial rewards (e.g., a 1% chance at $99). Participants rejected low-probability opportunities more frequently than high-probability opportunities with equal expected value (Study 3). Although taking some real-life opportunities comes with costs, we show that people are even willing to incur costs to opt out of low-probability opportunities (Study 4). Opportunity neglect can be mitigated by highlighting that rejecting an opportunity is equivalent to choosing a zero probability of success (Studies 6-7).

The salience of choice reduces social responsibility: evidence from lab experiments and compliance with COVID-19 stay-at-home orders

The tension between self-interest and the collective good is fundamental to human societies. We propose that the idea of choice is a key lever that nudges people to act in a self-interested manner because it leads people to value independence. Making one inconsequential choice at the beginning of an incentive-compatible lab experiment made people 41% more likely to choose a monetary allocation that maximized their own payoff while minimizing the total payoff of their group (Studies 1A and 1B). The next two studies featured seven-participant experimental markets in which sellers decided whether to produce conventional goods (which imposed costs on others) or socially responsible goods (which did not impose any costs), and buyers decided which goods to purchase. In markets in which members made a single inconsequential choice, the market share of the socially responsible good was reduced by a factor of 34% (Studies 2A and 2B). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, framing socially responsible actions as choices increased people's willingness to hoard and violate social distancing rules (Study 3). Highlighting the idea of choice reduced people's desire to engage in corporate social responsibility, and this effect was mediated by an increased emphasis on independence (Study 4). Finally, using cell phone location data, an archival study found that in states in which people were more likely to search for choice-related words on the internet in 2019, residents were more likely to leave their homes following a stay-at-home order, after controlling for state-level income, education, diversity, population density, and political orientation (Study 5).

Perspectives and practices associated with consumer-directed care in Australia: Synergies and tensions in supporting planning and delivery of home care for older people with dementia

This study used a qualitative, cross-sectional design to address a gap in understanding the perspectives and practices of care planners and case managers in supporting consumer- directed care (CDC) for community dwelling people living with dementia. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of n = 16 planners and managers from seven providers of the Australian home care packages (HCP) program in NSW (Australia). All interviewees described the aspirations of supporting choice within CDC as synergistic with their values and with person-centred care. Some described new flexibilities within the more open-ended planning conversations enabled by CDC. However, most acknowledged their capacity to enable choice for clients with dementia was limited by the capped care budgets, as well as the skills and time needed to support choice and decision- making. Organisational practice changes associated with the shift to a market-based system were also perceived as limiting the capacity to support choices. Reducing centralised systems, increasing individual budgets and improving staff capacity to support decision-making by people with dementia may help to improve this situation. However, results suggest a deeper need to re-evaluate whether the CDC model is the most appropriate for supporting the rising numbers of people with dementia to age well in place.

Conditioned stimulus effects on paired or alternative reinforcement depend on presentation duration: Implications for conceptualizations of craving

Conditioned stimuli (CS) associated with alcohol ingestion are thought to play a role in relapse by producing a craving that in turn increases motivation to drink which increases ethanol-seeking and disrupts other ongoing behavior. Alternatively, such CS may provide information indicating a likely increase in the density of the paired unconditioned stimulus and simultaneously elicit behavior that may be incompatible with other ongoing behavior, i.e., approach toward the CS. To explore these possibilities, rats were trained to respond for ethanol or food in two different components of the same session after which a light above the ethanol-lever was lighted twice during each component and each light presentation was followed by ethanol delivery. The duration of this CS was 10 s initially and then increased to 30 s, then to 100 s, and finally returned to 30 s. The change in responding for ethanol or food was compared to a matched period immediately preceding CS presentation. The CS presentation increased responding to ethanol, and this effect increases with longer CS presentations. In contrast, the CS presentation decreased responding to food, and this effect decreases with longer CS presentations. These results appear to support the informational account of CS action rather than simply a change in the motivation to seek and consume ethanol. This suggests that craving as it is commonly understood likely represents multiple behavioral processes, not simply increased desire for alcohol and that reports of craving likely reflect labeling based upon past experiences rather than a cause of future drug-taking.

Contraception among HIV-positive women in Latvia- knowledge, experience and factors influencing the choice

OBJECTIVES

Latvia has one of the highest numbers of new HIV cases in the EU. The latest SRH national survey confirmed low effective contraceptive prevalence in the general population, no data were available about women living with HIV (WLHIV). The study aimed to assess knowledge on the use of different contraceptives, to identify factors in choosing contraception, to assess the availability of family planning health care services, and to investigate contraception habits.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted among WLHIV aged 18-49 recruited with assistance of non-governmental organisations addressing HIV issues. Interviews in Latvian and Russian languages were based on pre-tested questionnaire. Data were processed and analysed using IBM SPSS 22.0.

RESULTS

102 WLHIV were interviewed and 99 of them met the inclusion criteria. Most women were aware of at least one effective contraceptive method yet around half of them had misconceptions about hormonal methods. Most of the women were able to evaluate the effectiveness of contraceptives. Sexually active women usually used male condoms (76.3%) although around 40% did not use them permanently especially if their partner was HIV-positive. Contraception usage after HIV infection decreased. Women mainly trusted medical professionals on information provided about contraceptives. Over 50% of women experienced situations they could not afford a visit to a gynaecologist or contraceptives.

CONCLUSIONS

The survey showed a wide prevalence of misconceptions and prejudice about hormonal contraceptives. There is a need for health education including sexuality education and financial support to make effective contraception available and affordable for WLHIV.

The Influence of Proportion Dominance and Global Need Perception on Donations

Many donation-raising platforms request that first-time donors choose the charitable causes they most care about so that future campaign recommendations can best match donors’ charitable preferences. While matching charitable campaigns to donors’ reported preferences has its benefits, little is known about other effects that choosing charitable causes may evoke. We focus on how choosing charitable causes influences charitable behavior. We find two effects of the number of charitable causes donors choose on their subsequent charitable behavior. In studies 1 and 2, we show that a reference number of the maximum charitable causes donors can choose has a negative effect on charitable behavior. A small (versus large) reference number yields a greater likelihood to donate and a higher donation amount. This effect is aligned with the proportion dominance rationalization. In studies 3 and 4, we show that the number of charitable causes donors voluntarily choose as important to them is positively associated with subsequent charitable behavior. This association is mediated by global need perception. As the number of causes donors choose increases, donors experience an escalation in their perception of global neediness, which in turn motivates their willingness to donate and the donation amount. In Study 5, we show how the two effects together shape charitable behavior. These effects are observed while controlling the donors’ inherent prosocial attitudes toward help giving. With more than 1.5 million registered non-profit organizations operating in the United States (National Center for Charitable Statistics, 2019), it has become almost impossible for donors to easily choose which charitable campaigns to support. Online charitable fundraising platforms (e.g., One Today by Google, Round Up, and Charity Miles), websites (e.g., AmazonSmile) and crowdfunding platforms (e.g., Fundly, JustGiving, and GoFundMe) try to ease donors’ search and decision processes by offering them personalized charitable options. First-time donors are asked to indicate the charitable causes they care most about, and then asked to donate to charitable campaigns that best match their preferences. Interestingly, little is known about how this initial stage of choosing charitable causes influences subsequent donation behavior. In this research, we ask how choosing the charitable causes one cares most about influences subsequent response to a charitable appeal. Obviously, the mere selection of preferred causes enables charities to offer personalized campaigns and create a better fit between non-profits and donors, which has a generally positive effect on charitable giving. However, in this research we focus on an overlooked aspect of these practices. We examine how the number of charitable causes donors indicate as important to them influences their donation giving. We test two opposite effects: the proportion dominance effect, an effect driven by prior research, and the global need perception effect, a new effect identified in this article. Both effects are driven by the number of causes donors choose.

Increasing selection of and engagement in physical activity in children with autism spectrum disorder

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) engage in reduced levels of physical activity relative to neurotypical children. Researchers conducted 2 studies to 1) evaluate the influence of the number of physical activity options and effort on choice and 2) develop a token-based intervention to increase physical activity engagement and evaluate whether the opportunity to access the intervention supported responding similar to physical or sedentary activity alone. Four children with ASD participated. Additional physical activity options alone did not increase physical activity selection, but increased effort reduced selection of sedentary activity. Tokens increased physical activity for 2 participants. A combination of physical and sedentary activities maintained as much as or more responding than either activity in isolation for all participants. Limitations and potential areas of future research on choice and physical activity are discussed.

Acute nicotine reinforcement requires ability to discriminate the stimulus effects of nicotine

This review of research on behavioral discrimination of nicotine and how it informs public health policy for reducing risk of tobacco dependence is adapted from Kenneth A. Perkins's American Psychological Association Division 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse) 2020 Med Associates Brady/Schuster Award Lecture. The author's initial programmatic clinical research on nicotine is introduced, especially efforts to develop and validate a novel method of acute nicotine dosing. After the public health rationale for characterizing the discriminative stimulus effects of nicotine in humans are described, details from two separate programs of research on nicotine discrimination in humans are presented. The first, conducted with nicotine dosing by nasal spray, documented that humans could discriminate nicotine administered rapidly, examined nicotine's neuropharmacological specificity, identified discrimination threshold dose in smokers and nonsmokers, and explored other conditions that might alter ability to discriminate its effects. The second, more recent program focused on threshold doses for discrimination of nicotine by cigarette smoking, a program that was very difficult to do until the past decade, and how nicotine's self-reported "reward" and preference via choice behavior relate to its discriminability. Differences due to menthol and degree of tobacco dependence were also examined. For each of these two programs, the main findings of selected studies are noted, followed by very recent work on nicotine discrimination and choice that informs Food and Drug Administration's efforts to formulate public policy to improve health and reduce the nearly half million American deaths per year due to persistent tobacco use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Rate matching, probability matching, and optimization in concurrent ratio schedules

Much research has documented rate matching in concurrent variable-interval schedules, but comparatively little research has examined performance in concurrent variable-ratio schedules, except in discrete-trials procedures that sometimes produce probability matching. One should expect that the two types of schedule would result in different performances, because ratio schedules cannot improve with time the way interval schedules do; ratio schedules lack the temporal dynamics of interval schedules. The present experiment exposed rats to concurrent variable-ratio schedules. Seven unsignaled components were presented in random order within each daily session, with probability ratios ranging from 1:8 to 8:1. Three conditions were studied that varied the overall probability of food while leaving probability ratios the same. Choice appeared to conform to probability matching, because sensitivities in the rate-matching relation were close to 0.5, whereas sensitivities to probability ratio were close to 1.0. The sensitivities alone, however, could not confirm probability matching, because undermatching to rate occurs often. Analyses at smaller time scales supported the interpretation of probability matching. In particular, control by food deliveries was highly local in concurrent variable-ratio schedules, in contrast with concurrent variable-interval schedules, in which control is extended. Activity continued to switch between alternatives throughout components, contradicting optimal sampling theory.

Effects of repeated exposure to escalating versus constant punishment intensity on response allocation

The present experiment investigated the effects of 1) repeated exposures to escalating punishment intensities and 2) repeated exposure to punishment after periods of vacation on response allocation between punished and unpunished responding in three groups of rats. The first group (intensity + vacation) experienced repeated exposures to escalating punishment intensities after a period of vacation (i.e., return to baseline) from punishment. The second group (intensity-only) experienced repeated exposures to escalating punishment intensities without vacation from punishment. The third group (vacation-only) experienced repeated exposures to a constant punishment intensity after a period of vacation from punishment. Results showed that superimposition of punishment on one of two concurrently available responses decreased allocation toward the punished response and increased allocation toward the unpunished response. Furthermore, greater changes in allocation were observed with the introduction of a moderate constant intensity than with the introduction of a low intensity that increased across sessions. Reexposure to punishment had different effects between the groups. Although there was evidence that high shock intensities can enhance the efficacy of lower intensities to shift allocation away from the punished response and toward the unpunished response, there was little evidence of changes in response allocation with reintroduction of punishment after a period of vacation.

Decision neuroscience and neuroeconomics: Recent progress and ongoing challenges

In the past decade, decision neuroscience and neuroeconomics have developed many new insights in the study of decision making. This review provides an overarching update on how the field has advanced in this time period. Although our initial review a decade ago outlined several theoretical, conceptual, methodological, empirical, and practical challenges, there has only been limited progress in resolving these challenges. We summarize significant trends in decision neuroscience through the lens of the challenges outlined for the field and review examples where the field has had significant, direct, and applicable impacts across economics and psychology. First, we review progress on topics including reward learning, explore-exploit decisions, risk and ambiguity, intertemporal choice, and valuation. Next, we assess the impacts of emotion, social rewards, and social context on decision making. Then, we follow up with how individual differences impact choices and new exciting developments in the prediction and neuroforecasting of future decisions. Finally, we consider how trends in decision-neuroscience research reflect progress toward resolving past challenges, discuss new and exciting applications of recent research, and identify new challenges for the field. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Reasoning and Decision Making Psychology > Emotion and Motivation.

Reward Salience and Choice in a Controlling Context: A Lab Experiment

One of the challenges in the motivation literature is examining the simultaneous effect of different motivational mechanisms on overall motivation and performance. The motivational congruence theory addresses this by stipulating that different motivational mechanisms can reinforce each other if they have similar effects on the perceived locus of causality. Reward salience and choice are two motivational mechanisms which their joint effects have been long debated. Built upon the motivational congruence effect, a recent empirical study affirms that a salient reward in a condition characterized by lack of choice and a non-salient reward in a condition characterized by provision of choice both increase overall motivation and performance. In this study, we examine the effect of reward salience and choice on overall motivation and performance in a controlling context, an effect which has not been studied before. A 2 (choice: present, absent) × 3 (reward: salient, non-salient, none) factorial design was conducted to examine research hypotheses. The results show that under controlling conditions, salient reward improves overall motivation and performance compared to non-salient and no-reward conditions.

Relapse after incentivized choice treatment in humans: A laboratory model for studying behavior change

Behavior change interventions that incentivize desired behavior are highly effective for improving personal health, but difficult to maintain long term. Relapse is common and examining the mechanisms that contribute to relapse in experimental settings can identify processes relevant to substance abuse treatment. We developed a laboratory task that parallels a recent operant model of relapse after incentivized choice reported in the rodent laboratory. In two experiments, undergraduate participants first learned to make an operant response (keyboard button; R1) to earn a reinforcer consisting of an image of a preferred snack food (O1). In a second phase (Phase 2), R1 was still reinforced, but a new response (R2) was introduced and reinforced with a different reinforcer (a coin; O2). In a test phase, contingent incentives for R2 were removed (extinction) and relapse of R1 was assessed. Experiment 1 found that the O2 contingency suppressed R1 during Phase 2, and R1 relapsed rapidly in the test. Neither effect was consistently related to O2 value. Experiment 2 examined whether noncontingent presentations of O1 or O2 during the test could weaken relapse. Here, we found that noncontingent reinforcers did little to reduce or slow the increase in R1 responding. The present experiments highlight a laboratory approach to studying variables that may influence relapse after incentivized treatment. We identify and discuss areas for development to address differences between the present results and prior observations from animal and clinical studies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessing the efficacy of and preference for positive and corrective feedback

Feedback is an effective strategy for improving performance and consists of multiple characteristics. One characteristic that can influence feedback efficacy is its nature (whether feedback is positive or corrective) and little is known about the conditions under which individuals may prefer corrective over positive feedback. Thus, the purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of and preference for positive and corrective feedback during the acquisition of novel tasks. In the first phase, participants received either positive, corrective, or no feedback across three novel tasks. Participants only mastered the task in which they received corrective feedback. In the second phase, participants chose to receive either positive or corrective feedback after completing trials of the previous phase's control task. All participants chose to receive corrective feedback more frequently than positive feedback. We discuss the implications of the results for feedback delivery in the workplace and provide suggestions for future research.

Love, sex, and commitment: relationship choices and trajectories among unmarried youth in India

There is limited research in India to understand young people's decision-making processes about intimate relationships before marriage. This paper, adopting a life course perspective, explains relationship choices and diachronic trajectories of relationships from adolescence to young adulthood. Retrospective data were collected from 1240 never married 20-29-year-old men and women living in Pune using a relationships history calendar. All the relationships from 10 years of age onwards were plotted on the calendar, and information on predictor variables was collected through structured questionnaires. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. Sequence analysis approach was used to identify different typologies. Overall, 76% of the participants reported having at least one relationship. More women compared to men (84% vs 70%) ever had a relationship. The median age of starting the first relationship was 17 years for women and 18 for men. Different relationship types were reported, such as "serious", casual, "friends with benefit", and "exploring". The level of emotional involvement, commitment, and physical intimacy significantly differed in different relationship types with significant gender differences. Four typologies of relationships were observed, labelled as (1) Commitment-No sex (N = 187); (2) Commitment-Sex-Some exploration (N = 189); (3) No commitment-Exploration (N = 281), and (4) No relationship (N = 583). Compared to men, women were more likely to follow the trajectory of "Commitment-No sex" (RR 2.13, CI 1.5-3.03). Family environment was significantly related to young people's relationship choices. The findings strongly suggest the need to adopt a developmental perspective towards intimate relationships to understand and address the vulnerabilities of young people across the life course.

Reward Value Revealed by Auction in Rhesus Monkeys

Economic choice is thought to involve the elicitation of the subjective values of the choice options. Thus far, value estimation in animals has relied on stochastic choices between multiple options presented in repeated trials and expressed from averages of dozens of trials. However, subjective reward valuations are made moment-to-moment and do not always require alternative options; their consequences are usually felt immediately. Here, we describe a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction-like mechanism that provides more direct and simple valuations with immediate consequences. The BDM encourages agents to truthfully reveal their true subjective value in individual choices ("incentive compatibility"). Male monkeys reliably placed well-ranked BDM bids for up to five juice volumes while paying from a water budget. The bids closely approximated the average subjective values estimated with conventional binary choices (BCs), thus demonstrating procedural invariance and aligning with the wealth of knowledge acquired with these less direct estimation methods. The feasibility of BDM bidding in monkeys paves the way for an analysis of subjective neuronal value signals in single trials rather than from averages; the feasibility also bridges the gap to the increasingly used BDM method in human neuroeconomics.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The subjective economic value of rewards cannot be measured directly but must be inferred from observable behavior. Until now, the estimation method in animals was rather complex and required comparison between several choice options during repeated choices; thus, such methods did not respect the imminence of the outcome from individual choices. However, human economic research has developed a simple auction-like procedure that can reveal in a direct and immediate manner the true subjective value in individual choices [Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) mechanism]. The current study implemented this mechanism in rhesus monkeys and demonstrates its usefulness for eliciting meaningful value estimates of liquid rewards. The mechanism allows future neurophysiological assessment of subjective reward value signals in single trials of controlled animal tasks.

The ethical challenges of artificial intelligence-driven digital pathology

Digital pathology - the digitalisation of clinical histopathology services through the scanning and storage of pathology slides - has opened up new possibilities for health care in recent years, particularly in the opportunities it brings for artificial intelligence (AI)-driven research. Recognising, however, that there is little scholarly debate on the ethics of digital pathology when used for AI research, this paper summarises what it sees as four key ethical issues to consider when deploying AI infrastructures in pathology, namely, privacy, choice, equity, and trust. The themes are inspired from the authors' experience grappling with the challenge of deploying an ethical digital pathology infrastructure to support AI research as part of the National Pathology Imaging Cooperative (NPIC), a collaborative of universities, hospital trusts, and industry partners largely located across the North of England. Though focusing on the UK case, internationally, few pathology departments have gone fully digital, and so the themes developed here offer a heuristic for ethical reflection for other departments currently making a similar transition or planning to do so in the future. We conclude by promoting the need for robust public governance mechanisms in AI-driven digital pathology.

From Choice to Performance in Secondary Schools: Evidence from a Disadvantaged Setting in Italy

This study employs detailed micro-data to uncover the factors influencing secondary school choice and performance and, ultimately, dropout risks within a multidimensional framework. The findings reveal that young people’s choice of a comprehensive secondary school, characterised by a higher dropout rate, is highly influenced by future expectations and family background. Further, teachers’ role, learning methods and technology positively drive performance. Perceived cognitive skills only affect students’ performance given their choice. Besides, an ANOVA analysis assesses that the interaction between cognitive and non-cognitive skills impacts performance. Peer study is pivotal for success in individuals with perceived cognitive difficulties.

Parent Provision of Choice Is a Key Component of Autonomy Support in Predicting Child Executive Function Skills

Although previous work has linked parent autonomy support to the development of children's executive function (EF) skills, the role of specific autonomy-supportive behaviors has not been thoroughly investigated. We compiled data from four preschool-age samples in the Midwestern United States (N = 366; M age = 44.26 months; 72% non-Hispanic White, 19% Black/African American, 5% Multiracial) to examine three relevant autonomy-supportive behaviors (supporting competence, positive verbalizations, and offering choice) and their associations with child EF. We coded parent autonomy-supportive behaviors from a 10-min interaction between parent and child dyads working on challenging jigsaw puzzles together. Children completed a battery of EF. Overall, child EF was most consistently correlated with the offering choice subscale. Additionally, only the offering choice subscale predicted child EF while controlling for the other autonomy support subscales and child age. These results suggest that parent provision of choice is an especially relevant aspect of autonomy-supportive parenting and may be important to the development of EF in early childhood. Future research should directly measure children's experience with choice and how it relates to emerging EF.

Contextual extinction of drug-associated discriminative stimuli fails to attenuate drug-vs-food choice in rhesus monkeys

Relapse within the context of a substance use disorder can be triggered by cues that function as discriminative stimuli to signal contingencies of drug availability and promote drug-taking behavior. Extinction procedures can weaken this association between drug-associated cues and drug-taking behavior and may reduce the probability of relapse. This study evaluated a regimen of extinction training on cocaine and heroin self-administration in rhesus monkeys under a drug-vs-food choice procedure. Behavior was initially maintained under a concurrent schedule of food (1-g food pellets; fixed-ratio 100 schedule) and cocaine injections (0-0.1 mg/kg/injection; fixed-ratio 10) (n = 4 males) or heroin injections (0-0.01 mg/kg/injection; fixed-ratio 10) (n = 3 females and 1 male) during daily 2-hr choice sessions. Subsequently, choice sessions were supplemented by daily 20-hr saline self-administration sessions for 14 consecutive days. During saline self-administration sessions, only drug-associated discriminative stimuli were presented and responding produced saline injections. Drug continued to be available during choice sessions. Prior to extinction training, both cocaine and heroin maintained dose-dependent increases in drug-vs-food choice. Exposure to 14 saline self-administration sessions failed to significantly decrease drug choice and increase food choice. These preclinical results do not support the effectiveness of extinguishing drug-associated discriminative stimuli as a nonpharmacological treatment strategy for reducing drug choice.

Measuring Four Personal Opportunities for Adults With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

This study tests an empirically derived model for measuring personal opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) using National Core Indicators In-Person Survey (NCI-IPS) state and national datasets. The four personal opportunities measured, (a) privacy rights, (b) everyday choice, (c) community participation, and (d) expanded friendships, were informed by existing conceptualizations of service as well as NCI-IPS measures. Analyses confirmed the fit of a four-factor model and demonstrated that factors were significantly and positively correlated. To demonstrate the relationships between personal opportunities and personal and environmental characteristics, we estimated a structural equation model that regressed personal opportunities on age, gender, place of residence, and level of intellectual disability. Implications for using personal opportunities for evaluating service quality of IDD systems are discussed.