Compulsive Conditioned Sexual Responding of Male Japanese Quail in Extinction.

Previous experiments showed that following acquisition of an association between a terry-cloth object conditioned stimulus (CS) and a live female unconditioned stimulus (US), male quail increased the frequency of their copulations with the inanimate CS during subsequent CS-alone (extinction) trials. The present experiment was conducted to identify the potential factors responsible for this unexpected increase in conditioned sexual behavior during extinction. A total of 57 naïve male quail were given pairings of a terry-cloth CS with a live female during acquisition. A total of 36 of these quail (the approach responders) showed only conditioned approach response to the CS object, whereas the remaining 21 quail (the consummatory responders) also displayed copulatory or consummatory responses to the CS. In the extinction phase, these two sets of quail were divided into two subgroups: one subgroup received a female in their home cages while the other did not. Consummatory responders that were not exposed to a female quail in the home cage showed a significant increase in conditioned consummatory responding as the extinction trials progressed (i.e., compulsive conditioned sexual responding), whereas the other subgroup showed no change. However, both subgroups showed resistance to extinction in both conditioned approach and consummatory behavior. These findings indicate that the increase in copulation with the terry-cloth CS during extinction is possibly caused by US deprivation. The findings also suggest that conditioned copulation with the terry-cloth CS may lead to partial drive satisfaction, which may contribute to persistence of the behavior. Implications of these findings for paraphilias and compulsive sexual behavior are discussed.

Age-related changes in the Wisconsin card sorting test performances of 8- to 11-year-old Turkish children.

The leading aim of the present study was to examine developmental trends in performance on a computerized version of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) in Turkish children. Participants were 449 children aged between 8 and 11. Findings suggested that children's WCST scores improve with age, and developmental changes in executive functions follow distinct processes as assessed by different components of the WCST. The most striking improvement was noted in perseverative tendencies around age 10. This study also explored the effects of parental education on WCST performances of children, and maternal education emerged as the most important predictor.