Biomedical subjects

H Rachlin

Publications and source records attributed to H Rachlin.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1992

Teleological behaviorism.

A psychological science of efficient causes, using internal mechanisms to explain overt behavior, is distinguished from another psychological science, based on Aristotelian final causes, using external objects and goals to explain overt behavior. Efficient-cause psychology is designed to answer the question of how a particular act is emitted; final-cause psychology is designed to answer the question of why a particular act is emitted. Physiological psychology, modern cognitive psychology, and some parts of behaviorism including Skinnerian behaviorism are efficient-cause psychologies; final-cause psychology, a development of Skinnerian behaviorism, is here called teleological behaviorism. Each of these two conceptions of causality in psychology implies a different view of the mind, hence a different meaning of mental terms.

Behaviorism↗

PubMed1992

Diminishing marginal value as delay discounting.

The fundamental law underlying economic demand and exchange is the tendency for value of marginal units to diminish with increasing amounts of a commodity. The present paper demonstrates that this law follows from three still-more-basic psychological assumptions: (a) limited consumption rate, (b) delay discounting, and (c) choice of highest valued alternative. Cases of diminishing marginal value apparently due to pure intensity of reward may plausibly be attributed to the above three factors. The further assumption that maximum consumption rate may vary within and across individuals implies that some substances may be unusually addictive and that some individual animals may be unusually susceptible to addiction.

Animals↗

PubMed1991

Economic substitutability of electrical brain stimulation, food, and water.

Concurrent variable-ratio schedules of electrical brain stimulation, food, and water were paired in various combinations as reinforcement of rats' lever presses. Relative prices of the concurrent reinforcers were varied by changing the ratio of the response requirements on the two levers. Economic substitutability, measured by the sensitivity of response ratio to changes in relative price, was highest with brain stimulation reinforcement of presses on both levers and lowest with food reinforcement of presses on one lever and water reinforcement of presses on the other. Substitutability with brain stimulation reinforcement of presses on one lever and either food or water reinforcement for presses on the other was about as high as with brain stimulation for presses on both levers. Electrical brain stimulation for rats may thus serve as an economic substitute for two reinforcers, neither of which is substitutable for the other.

Animals↗

PubMed1991

Subjective probability and delay.

Human subjects indicated their preference between a hypothetical $1,000 reward available with various probabilities or delays and a certain reward of variable amount available immediately. The function relating the amount of the certain-immediate reward subjectively equivalent to the delayed $1,000 reward had the same general shape (hyperbolic) as the function found by Mazur (1987) to describe pigeons' delay discounting. The function relating the certain-immediate amount of money subjectively equivalent to the probabilistic $1,000 reward was also hyperbolic, provided that the stated probability was transformed to odds against winning. In a second experiment, when human subjects chose between a delayed $1,000 reward and a probabilistic $1,000 reward, delay was proportional to the same odds-against transformation of the probability to which it was subjectively equivalent.

Adult↗

PubMed1979

Syntheses, analgetic activity, and physical dependence capacity of 5-phenyl-6,7-benzomorphan derivatives.

The synthesis, analgetic activity, and physical dependence capacity of a large number of 5-phenyl-6,7-benzomorphan derivatives are described. Observations made during the Stevens' rearrangement of 1-benzyl-1-methyl-delta 3-piperidinium salt derivatives (V) under various conditions are discussed. The absolute configuration of the 9-demethyl series and the 2'-deoxy series is established by comparison of their ORD and CD spectra with those of 49, whose absolute configuration was previously established by X-ray crystallography. A convenient synthesis of 3H-labeled phenols using 3H3PO4 is described, as well as the preparation of 14C-labeled compounds by conventional methods.

Analgesics, Opioid↗