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Show Study on self destructive behavior underway by SUSC psychologist go through the motions he had learned to obtain food. He con-tinued con-tinued to press the bar despite his awareness that it would lead to discomfort. Mr. Watkins hopes to fur- ther refine his experiments so that he can reach some reliable reli-able and definite conclusions regarding the animal's reactions reac-tions which could lead to a logical assumption involving human behavior. After receiving his degree from SUSC, Mr. Watkins plans to continue his studies in graduate school. He began his college education in 19G9 after locating in Cedar City a year earlier following a series of moves from Arizona, his home state, to Oklahoma, Alaska, and California. Although now in his 40s, he was prompted to take up the new challenge after finding little satisfaction in the usual work-a-day routine he had followed fol-lowed for many years. Mr. Watkins said he made the change after receiving encouragement en-couragement from "the right people." Some of the "right" people are his wife, Hose Marie, and his daughter and son, Dianan 8 and Bryan 1 A Cedar City father of two healthy, productive children is attempting to learn why some other, less fortunate, children indulge in severe self destructive destruc-tive behavior. John Watkins, a psychology major at Southern Utah State College, has attracted wide interest in-terest to his behavior studies with rats in the psychology laboratory at SUSC. Mr. Watkins chose the project pro-ject after becoming interested in the problems of autistic children and others with sevier emotional and mental conditions condi-tions which led them to punish themselves physically with head banging and other self destructive actions. The theory which he is attempting at-tempting to prove or disprove with his studies involves a hypothesis that in certain individuals in-dividuals pain actually becomes be-comes a form of pleasure. Mr. Watkins felt that if he could learn more about the physiological physio-logical and neurological processes pro-cesses involved in the transmission trans-mission !of different types of signals to and from the ibrain he could find some answers to the reasons for self punishing punish-ing and painful .behavior in certain Individuals. . ' . To facilitate his studies he is using rats fitted with special spec-ial electrodes to induce artificial arti-ficial stimuli to the brain center cen-ter controlling pleasure impulses. im-pulses. The three rats used by Mr. Watkins have been handled handl-ed carefully and humanely for the experiments. Before any stimulus is introduced, in-troduced, the rat's brain is carefully mapped out to determine deter-mine exactly where the pleasure plea-sure centers lie. Then, using completely sterile techniques, the electrodes are introduced to provide artificial sensations. One of the experiments has dealt with the natural impulse im-pulse of the animal to secure food and the pleasure derived from eating. After having been placed in a Skinner box, a specially equipped glass receptacle, re-ceptacle, the rat was taught to press a bar in order to obtain ob-tain food. After the rat had built up a conditioned response re-sponse in completing the procedure pro-cedure needed to get the food, stimulus in the form of a mild shock was introduced to the pleasure center of the animal's brain each time he pressed the food bar. The un-pleasurable un-pleasurable sensation did not deter him from continuing to EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM. John Watkins, left, and Leslie Neal Jones, attach apparatis to rat that is being used in experiment to learn reasons for self-destructive self-destructive behavior in some children. |