Memory span for heterospecific individuals' odors in an ant, Cataglyphis cursor

Only recently have researchers studied the ability of ants to learn and remember individual heterospecific odors. Cataglyphis cursor adults have the capacity to learn these odors, but the duration of their memory and the factors that affect its formation remain unknown. We used a habituation/discrimination paradigm to study some of these issues. C. cursor adult workers were familiarized to an anesthetized Camponotus aethiops on four successive encounters. Then they were either isolated or placed with 20 nestmates for a certain length of time before undergoing a discrimination test that consisted of reintroducing the familiar C. aethiops, as well as introducing an unknown member of the same colony. The results showed that adult C. cursor ants can retain in memory a complex individual odor for at least 30 min, as well as differentiate it from the odor of another closely related individual. However, when ants were replaced in a rich social background between the habituation and the discrimination trials, we did not observe a significant discrimination between the known and unknown C. aethiops ants. Our study shows, for the first time, the existence of long-term memory for individual odors in mature ant workers.     

It Looks a Bit Like This: Prototyping in an Academic Library

Abstract

Prototyping is an incremental process that facilitates those looking to make changes in products, services, or resources. Originating in industrial fabrication process, prototyping can be adapted by librarians to examine changes made to library services, amenities, and resources. They offer a cost-effective way of trying something new and needed, to ensure that patron needs are met. This article modifies prototyping into a five-step process and reviews five examples where the Lee Library used prototyping to inform library decisions to inform the development of library services, amenities, processes, and resources to better serve its patrons.     

Mr. Mom in the News: The Relationship Between Stereotypes and Perceptions of Gendered News Stories

This study examined the relationship between women’s stereotypes and their perceptions of gendered news stories, specifically about stay-at-home parenthood. A between-subjects experiment with undergraduate women revealed that participants with stereotypes about women thought a news story about a stay-at-home mother was more typical than one about a stay-at-home father. Additionally, participants with stereotypes about women thought the news stories were low in realism, regardless of the story’s gendered content. Notably, participants who read the news story about a stay-at-home father found it more enjoyable than the story about a stay-at-home mother, regardless of their stereotypes.     

Fat in School: Applied Interdisciplinarity as a Basis for Consultation in Oppressive Social Context

Children and youth in schools are subject to the effects of the larger culture's attitudes and values related to body size. When negatively biased, these attitudes and values can have detrimental effects and thus emerge as relevant to educational and psychological consultants. Drawing on the nascent field of Fat Studies with its focus on the cultural meanings attached to large bodies, we identify direct implications of fat phobia for school-age children and youth. Via a brief case example, an initial review of literature, and several examples of health-positive programming, we describe the social justice implications of fat phobia for consultants in school and community settings. In this consideration of the role of consultants for addressing fat bias and supporting health, we also suggest the merit of applied interdisciplinarity as a strong ground for consultation research and practice. The academic area of Fat Studies provides illustration of the integration of disciplinary perspectives (e.g., sociology, anthropology, biology, psychology). Educational and psychological consultation is ideally situated for systematically engaging such interdisciplinarity in support of practical outcomes that are healthy, sustainable, and socially just.     

A Review of: “Answers to the Health Questions People Ask in Libraries. Kane,Laura Townsend; McConnaughy,Rozalynd P.; Wilson,Steven P.; with David L. Townsend as Medical Consultant.”

This article reviews the formation of the Frontera Collaboration, a coalition of health sciences librarians serving clinicians and public health personnel in the U.S.-Mexico border region. Based on findings from an assessment of the target populations’ learning needs, the Frontera Collaboration participants developed a shared set of training materials that have been used in pilot training sessions. The Frontera Collaboration's participants learned several lessons related to collaborative health information outreach and increased their understanding of the concerns and needs of clinicians and public health personnel serving border communities.     

Profile of Australian preschool children with speech sound disorders at risk for literacy difficulties

Abstract

Speech sound disorders are a common communication difficulty in preschool children. Teachers indicate difficulty identifying and supporting these children. The aim of this research was to describe speech and language characteristics of children identified by their parents and/or teachers as having possible communication concerns. 275 Australian 4- to 5-year-old children from 45 preschools whose parents and teachers were concerned about their talking participated in speech-language pathology assessments to examine speech, language, literacy, non-verbal intelligence, oromotor skills and hearing. The majority (71.3%) of children demonstrated lower consonant accuracy than expected for their age, 63.9% did not pass the language-screening task, 65.5% had not been assessed and 72.4% had not received intervention from a speech-language pathologist. The 132 children who were identified with speech sound disorder (phonological impairment) were more likely to be male (62.9%) who were unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners, and had poor emergent literacy and phonological processing skills, despite having typical hearing, oral structures, and intelligence. Children identified by parents and teachers with concerns may have a range of speech, language and communication needs requiring professional support.     

Student connections among counting problems: an exploration using actor-oriented transfer

The purpose of this article is to explore student-generated connections among counting problems. The literature indicates that such problems pose difficulties for students, who struggle to detect common structures and identify models of underlying problem types. A case study is presented here, in which students elaborate upon connections they make during the problem solving process. The selected case study highlights student work on three particular combinatorics problems, one of which highlights tendencies toward over-counting. The conception of Lobato (Educational Researcher 3(1):17–20, 2003) of actor-oriented transfer, in which students’ (as opposed to experts’) notions of similarity are emphasized, is used as a means by which to analyze the resulting qualitative data. Results include (1) a domain-specific categorization of fundamental types of actor-oriented transfer in combinatorics and (2) implications that there is much to be gained when students attend to features of problems that experts might not emphasize.     

Black power ideology rhetoric and reality in a student sample

In America the ethic of individual achievement has always been balanced by complementary norms of group action. Blacks, however, have been handicapped by a lack of the in-group loyalty required for a united struggle against racial oppression. Black power ideology was conceived as a sociotherapy to increase the level of black group cohesion. This study was designed to provide much needed data on the success of the “therapy.” A survey of 611 black high school students and 93 black college students yielded little evidence that verbally professed endorsement of black power ideology was translated into action. In an experiment. 323 black high school students manifested a consistent tendency to be less helpful to scientists identified as black than to unidentified scientists, regardless of the students' claimed level of black power orientation.     

Individual differences in working memory, nonverbal IQ, and mathematics achievement and brain mechanisms associated with symbolic and nonsymbolic number processing

Individual differences in mathematics performance may stem from domain-general factors like working memory and intelligence. Parietal and frontal brain areas have been implicated in number processing, but the influence of such cognitive factors on brain activity during mathematics processing is not known. The relationship between brain mechanisms during symbolic and nonsymbolic number comparison and individual differences in working memory, nonverbal IQ, and mathematics achievement were investigated to determine possible associations with behavior and brain function. A number of brain areas showed correlations with working memory and number processing. For symbolic digits, working memory showed a positive relationship with brain activity in a network of bilateral parietal, temporal, and right frontal regions. For nonsymbolic dot arrays, working memory showed a negative relationship with several parietal and frontal brain areas. This relationship indicates differences between behavioral and brain function measures and points to the importance of working memory and basic number processing.