Age-related differences in rats’ spontaneous alternation

Fifteen-day-old rats made random choices in a T-maze, while adult levels of alternation (approximately 70%) were noted among 30-day-olds. Also, younger pups were insensitive to a lengthening of the intertrial interval, unlike older animals whose rate of alternation decreased when a 1-h delay was interposed between arm entries. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that hippocampal development is a factor in the ontogeny of postweaning locomotion. The unsystematic pattern of goal-arm selections among 15-day-olds suggests that ontongenetic variation in the utilization of stimuli may underlie developmental shifts in spontaneous alternation.     

The role of extramaze cues in spontaneous alternation in a plus-maze

Performance on various spatial tasks is superior in the presence of extramaze cues that provide guidance in locating the goal. This study was an investigation of the effect of such cues on nonrewarded, continuous spontaneous alternation in a plus-maze, a spatial task with no explicit reinforcement. Rats were tested in five daily sessions. Alternation scores, which reflect how frequently the least recently visited arms are chosen, were calculated for each day. On the first day only, rats in the stimulus-rich condition, with cues added to the curtain that surrounded the maze, alternated more than did rats in the stimulus-poor condition. Over days, the stimulus-rich group showed a significant downward trend in alternation, whereas the stimulus-poor group showed an upward trend, but all the groups always alternated at levels greater than chance. Thus, although performance on this task can be enhanced by the presence of extramaze cues, other types of information support alternation.     

Angle between choice alleys as a critical factor in spontaneous alternation

Rats were tested for spontaneous alternation in a variety of mazes differing in the angle between choice alleys. Uniformly high alternation rates were found at all angles from 330 down to 90 deg. At 45 or 0 deg, the rates approximated a chance 50%, and at angles between 45 and 90 deg the alternation rates were also intermediate. The hypothesis that the spatial distance between goal regions is the critical factor was rejected, and it was concluded that the angle between alleys is the principal factor determining alternation under these conditions. The results support the idea that alternation in the rat is basically a vestibular phenomenon.     

Repeated failures in reducing rat’s spontaneous alternation through the intertrial disruption of spatial orientation

Three experiments examined the contention that an extramaze cue representing relative spatial direction controls rats’ spontaneous alternation. Attempts to eliminate this short-term directional memory by horizontally rotating the Ss were without effect. These data, along with other recent findings, cast doubt upon the completeness of Douglas’s model of spontaneous alternation.     

Cues To Reading

In recent years, the roles of cognitive and emotional processes in student demoralization have become important research topics. Drawing from the educational and sport psychology research literature, this paper (a) presents an attributional analysis of chronic failure experiences in physical education settings, (b) identifies and describes two important antecedents of student demoralization; namely, the competitive achievement structures of our traditional school systems and reactive teaching behaviors, and (c) outlines equity teaching approaches, proactive teaching styles, and reattribution training as potential remedies for chronic student failure experiences. The suggestion is made that teachers of physical education need to be sensitized to attribution theory if they are to fully understand both the adaptive and maladaptive implications of their own teaching behaviors, and that they should enhance the motivation of all students, not just those who currently excel.     

Cues To Readings

In team sports, playing well means choosing the right course of action at the right moment and performing that course of action efficiently and consistently throughout the match. Research on decision making in sports indicates that although experts make more accurate decisions based on earlier occurring information, they tend to have speed, rather than accuracy, context-specific advantage in decision making. In light of the key notion of configuration of play, elements underlying its perception and interpretation and the ensuing anticipation and decision making are discussed. In connection with teachinglearning settings, observation and verbalization are presented as key strategies for eliciting critical thinking and the development of strategic and tactical knowledge. Finally, the authors present a dynamic model exploiting (a) action settings. (b) observation settings, and (c) debate-of-idea settings for the ultimate goal of conshucting strategic and tactical knowledge in team sports.     

用VBA编程实现PowerPoint课件的智能交互

利用VBA编程可以使PowerPoint课件具有一定的智能交互功能,提高PowerPoint课件的使用灵活性.     

Spontaneous alternation behavior in Paramecium

Spontaneous alternating behavior (SAB), the tendency of an organism to successively turn left and right in a maze, is a standard metric of short-term memory in developmental and pyschopharmacological studies. Although SAB is perhaps the most phylogenetically widespread behavior in motile lifeforms, conflicting data on SAB exist for several sets of closely related taxa. For example, previous studies provide contradictory evidence concerning the existence of spontaneous alternation behavior in the protozoanParamecium. However, these studies tested different species, using very different experimental designs. Using a single, factorial design for both previously tested species,P. multimicronucleatum andP. caudatum, we found that, in fact, the two species do not differ in their alternation behavior; specifically, they alternate in mazes with short tracks, but not in mazes with long tracks. These results are in accord with alternation studies on other taxa, and they fully resolve the apparent contradictions in the earlier studies onParamecium. They also indicate that caution should be used in interpreting variable results across species tested with different experimental designs and suggest that, in at least some taxa, SAB may not be strictly dependent on the use of short-term memory.     

Context Cues in Early Reading

An investigation was carried out to examine any significant differences in the use of four types of context cues by good and poor readers in the early stages of their reading development. Sentences incorporating proactive and retroactive syntactic, and proactive and retroactive semantic cues were presented in the form of deletions at three levels of difficulty. Sixty-four subjects, 32 of each sex, were drawn equally from the six to seven and seven to eight year age levels and subdivided into groups of good and poor readers. Results indicated that all groups other than the youngest poor readers found the proactive semantic cues the most useful and made miscues displaying semantic associations across cue types. Implications for an understanding of strategies employed in early reading and approaches for instruction are discussed.     

Analysis of alternation patterning in goldfish

In Experiment 1, goldfish trained with alternation of reward (R) and nonreward (N) for responding to a single color gave clear evidence of patterning (more rapid responding on R than on N trials). In Experiment 2, patterning was found for each of two colors alternately rewarded and nonrewarded in the sequence blue R, yellow R, blue N, yellow N, …. Changes in performance with subsequent changes in the sequence of the two colors suggested that the patterning was based on carryover rather than on associative memory of R and N.     

Locusts,gerbils and barley

Literacy teaching and learning in English primary schools has changed over the last few years. In particular the Literacy Hour has established more firmly a number of literacy activities such as shared reading and shared writing as well as creating a clear focus and time for literacy. However, it has also led, this article argues, to a devaluing of books, children and teachers. The Literacy Hour for the early years in Key Stage 1 may be too restrictive, formal and inappropriate for the youngest primary school children.     

An Assessment of Pronouns as Linguistic Cues for Predicting Work Attitudes

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (Reich, 1993) proposed that the pronouns employees use to describe their organization reveal information about their levels of engagement and affective commitment at work. In particular, he predicted that employees who describe their organization using the pronoun “we” are more engaged and committed than those who use the pronoun “they” in describing their organization. Reich's proposal has intuitive appeal and has been repeated in popular press accounts, but the accuracy of his prediction has not been empirically evaluated. In this article, we systematically examine the “Reich test” and find that the gender of the respondent is an important boundary condition to Reich's prediction. That is, our findings suggest that use of the pronoun “we” may serve as a predictor of work engagement and affective commitment for men, but not for women. We discuss the implications of these findings and the promise of exploring employees' linguistic indicators to understand social, affective, and cognitive psychological processes.     

Avoidance differences between rats and gerbils

Gerbils and rats learned equally well to discriminate the lighted, safe arm from the unsafe arm during Y-maze avoidance trials. Gerbils, however, were inferior to rats in initiating this response in time to avoid shock. Two subsequent experiments on passive avoidance did not support the interpretation of these data based on a greater incidence of shock-induced activity suppression in gerbils. In both experiments, gerbils required more shocks than rats to learn a staying response, indicating a pronounced locomotor response bias in gerbils that is not compatible with the required passive avoidance response. A fourth experiment, using a shuttlebox, found that the relative active avoidance performance by these species depends upon whether intertriai responses are permitted and punished. When they are, gerbils are inferior to rats, since their high level of locomotor responding is not compatible with the behavior required, i.e., staying during the intertrial interval and running during the CS-US interval. On the other hand, gerbils are not inferior when intertrial responses are prohibited, since their locomotor bias is not punished and is compatible with the required avoidance response.     

论网络教学中的非实时交互

当前，远程教育在教学上偏于强调课堂中的师生实时交互，却对非实时交互有所忽视，从而在相当程度上影响了网络教学的应有效果。本文提出，各种交互形式都是网络教学的必备工具；与实时交互相比，非实时交互在某些方面更能体现现代远程教育的特征与宗旨。