Conditioning trial duration affects ethanol-induced conditioned place preference in mice

The present experiments were designed to determine the effect of conditioning trial duration on strength of ethanol-induced conditioned place preference in mice. In a counterbalanced, differential conditioning procedure, DBAI2J mice received four pairings of a distinctive tactile (floor) stimulus with injection of ethanol (2 g/kg); a different floor stimulus was paired with saline. Different groups were exposed to the floor stimuli for 5, 15, or 30 min after injection. Conditioned place preference was inversely related to trial duration, with mice in the 5-, 15-, and 30-mmn groups, spending 83%, 74%, and 66% of their time, respectively, on the ethanol-paired floor during a choice test. This outcome was replicated in a second experiment, which also showed that context familiarity can influence conditioned place preference. In general, these findings suggest that ethanol’s rewarding effect is greatest shortly after injection.     

Preference effects on acquisition and retention of concurrent discriminations by rhesus monkeys

Ten rhesus monkeys were trained on five tasks, each of which consisted of eight concurrently presented object discrimination problems. Sequences of presentation were devised to allow one, two, or three new tasks to intervene between acquisition and retention tests or to provide a 30-day period of no testing. Equivalent and proficient performances were obtained in all retention tests, and no relationship was observed between retention and the initial preference characteristics of various objects. Object pReferences did produce significant influences upon acquisition, but these effects were not as pronounced in early tasks as in later ones. An additional retention test provided support for the contention that monkeys do not necessarily process information about specific object pair discriminations. Rather, they appeared to retain a list of previously rewarded objects even when object pairings were different from those provided during acquisition. Concurrent discriminations involving many distinct objects were resistant to interference and independent of preference characteristics over long retention periods.     

Effects of intertrial interval and exteroceptive feedback duration on discriminative avoidance acquisition in the gerbil

A series of studies of shuttlebox-avoidance learning in the gerbil evaluated the efficacy of an exteroceptive feedback stimulus (FS). Experiment 1 assessed the relative effectiveness of a FS at 30- and 90-sec intertriai intervals (ITIs), and found that the FS and warning signal termination contingencies were additive sources of avoidance reinforcement; i.e., they produced “supernormal acquisition” at the short ITI, but not at the 90-sec ITI. The effectiveness of a FS at the 30-sec ITI was further explored in Experiments 2 and 3, in which FS duration was varied in delayed and trace avoidance conditioning, respectively. In both studies, a FS facilitated acquisition but FS duration was not a critical determinant of performance. These results were interpreted in terms of an expectancy account of the informational value of a FS, and the problem of experimentally distinguishing between cognitive and inhibition-of-fear accounts of avoidance learning was discussed.     

Stimulus preference and the transitivity of preference

Four pigeons were exposed to multiple schedules with concurrent variable interval (VI) components and then tested for preference transfer. Half of the pigeons were trained on a multiple concurrent VI 20-sec, VI 40-sec/cuncurrent VI 4G-sec5 VI 80-sec schedule. The remaining pigeons were trained on a multiple concurrent VI 80-sec, VI 40-sec/concurrent VI 40-sec, VI 20-sec schedule-After stability criteria for time and response proportions were simultaneously met, four preference transfer tests were conducted with the stimuli associated with the VI 40-sec schedules. During the transfer tests, each pigeon allocated a greater proportion of responses (M=0,79) and time (M=0.82) to the stimulus associated with the VI 40-sec schedule that was paired with the VI 80-sec schedule than lo the VI 40-sec schedule stimulus paired with the VI 20-sec schedule. Absolute reinforcement rates on the two VI 40 sec schedules were approximately equal and unlikely to account for the observed preference. Nor was the preference consistent with the differences in local reinforcement rates associated with the two stimuli. Instead, the results were interpreted in terms of the differential value that stimuli acquire as a function of previous pairings with alternative schedules of reinforcement.     

Sex preference and body orientation preference in huddling behavior of rat pups

The social huddling of six litters of rat pups (Rattus norvegicus) was observed on Days 6–9 postpartum without the dam present. Each litter was reduced to three male and three female pups. Thirty-six pups were used as subjects (18 male, 18 female). Tests for the effects of sex of subject, age of subject, sex of littermate huddled against, and body orientation during huddling were carried out. Results indicated that subjects huddled against opposite-sex Uttermates more frequently than against same-sex littermates. Huddling was a curvilinear function of age, with average frequency of huddling reaching a peak on the second day of observation (Day 7 postpartum) and decreasing thereafter. Results also showed that subjects, regardless of sex, huddled using an orientation that allowed their heads to touch more frequently than an orientation in which the head was touching the body of a sibling. These data on early sex preference and body orientation pReferences during huddling suggest that rat pups are competent in aspects of behavior having attachment potential. The findings also help define the age of social competence in this species.     

The maintenance of matching behavior when contrast occurs in multiple concurrent concurrent schedules of reinforcement

Pigeons were trained on a multiple schedule of reinforcement in which each component was a concurrent schedule. The concurrent schedules were programmed by the changeover-key procedure. The primary purpose was to determine if the relative behavior allocated to two response alternatives is affected when absolute changes in these behaviors occur; i.e., to determine if matching is affected when positive behavioral contrast occurs. Results showed that (1) relative behavior in the unaltered component of the multiple schedule is not disrupted when positive contrast occurs in that component, (2) positive contrast occurred when the overall frequency of reinforcement in the reinforcement-correlated component(s) was high, but not when it was low, (3) changeover behavior was susceptible to positive contrast effects, and (4) changeover contrast and food-key contrast are independent phenomena.     

Reading comprehension and lateral preference in normal readers

The effect of lateral preference on passage comprehension and short-term memory function was examined for 48 normal fourth-grade males. Scores on a self-report measure of lateral preference were used to divide the children into groups who differed in their laterality. The subjects were tested for basic comprehension on written and aurally presented prose in standard and nonstandard phrase form. Consistently lateralized readers recalled more information under the auditory than under the written conditions, while bilateral readers showed no preference for mode of presentation. Between-group comparisons showed bilateral readers to comprehend significantly more in the written conditions than did the other group. Groups did not differ on recall of auditorily presented material or on short-term digit memory. These results may be interpreted as demonstrating that bilateral preference need not be tied to reading difficulty.     

Reliability and concurrent validity of light's retention scale

Light's Retention Scale was completed for 123 candidates to repeat the first grade. These same first-grade children were tested with a number of measures of maturity, including achievement tests, measures of intellectual functioning, visual-motor integration, self-concept, and physical maturity. Results indicated that Light's total score is not sufficiently reliable and has little concurrent validity for making retention decisions. The total score should never be used.     

Phonological awareness and reading acquisition

Recent research has suggested the importance of oral language ability in learning to read. It was proposed that the young child's awareness of the phonology of his language would greatly influence early reading success. The results revealed a strong relationship between the first grader's reading performance and two measures of his phonological awareness, invented spelling and phoneme segmentation abilities. Development of phonological awareness was not related to the child's sex, intelligence, socioeconomic status, or chronological age within a 12-month span. A third measure of phonological awareness, auditory analysis skills, was found to have less predictive value. The results suggest that an understanding of phonological relationships above and beyond that required for ordinary speaking and listening enables the beginning reader of English to make contact with his alphabetic writing system at the phonemic level. Instruction at the appropriate age level should facilitate this understanding.     

注释与二语词汇附带习得

本文综述了近年来注释对二语词汇附带习得影响的研究成果,讨论了与研究相关联的心理语言学理论,指出了研究的特点和研究缺陷,并提出了研究成果对二语词汇学习和词汇教学的启示.     

范畴使用与范畴学习

实验室有关范畴学习的研究只局限于对分类的研究上,这就导致实验室研究基础上提出的范畴模型不能够充分说明自然范畴的结构。所以,只有拓展实验室范畴研究的范围才能弥补二之间的差距。     

Vocabulary acquisition and reading ability

Lexical acquisition ability for aurally taught words was studied in fourthgrade children. Reading ability, intelligence, and working memory were evaluated as predictor factors in vocabulary learning. Reading ability was found to predict facility at learning the novel phonological sequences, while intelligence was the only factor which accounted for performance level for the semantic content of the words. The working memory measure, digit span, failed to make a significant contribution to either the phonological or semantic outcome measures. Examination of two subgroups of skilled and less-skilled readers indicated that less-skilled readers had more difficulty acquiring the phonological information for new words. No between-group differences were found in long-term retention or in the ability to provide definitions for the newly learned words. The findings suggest that the vocabulary deficits of less-skilled readers stem, at least in part, from difficulty establishing accurate phonological representations for new words.     

Iconicity and sign vocabulary acquisition

This study was designed to investigate learning and retention of isolated sign vocabulary as a function of sign classification (iconic, opaque, or abstract). The subjects were 28 hearing college students naive to sign vocabulary. They were drilled with 30 signs from American Sign Language that had been classified as iconic, opaque, or abstract. Training was conducted using two different media: computer-assisted instruction and videotaped presentation. Performance scores for the three types of signs were significantly different. Scores were consistently higher for iconic signs, regardless of the training mode. The videotaped presentation mode produced the greatest consistency in scores. The results of this study support the notion that it is easier for beginning students of sign language to learn and retain iconic signs.     

构词理据与英语词汇习得

语言符号与意义之间没有逻辑联系是语言最重要的识别特征之一。然而,语言的任意性不是绝对的。语言符号与意义之间存在关联。语言的约定俗成和任意性决定了语言表达的无限可能性。而理据性是语言作为交际媒介的必备条件,理据性可以帮助学习者探寻语言发展的重要规律。尤其是构词理据的探究可令枯燥的词汇记忆变成词汇习得。     

Preferred representations and knowledge acquisition

European Journal of Psychology of Education - There are two kinds of preferential representations. They are connected on the one hand to the degree of typicality of the instance in relation to the...     

Noncontingent and contingent no-choice intervals and concurrent performance

Pigeons responded to changeover-key concurrent variable-interval variable-interval reinforcement schedules while there were intervals during which the changeover key was inoperative (no-choice intervals). In Experiment 1, a multiple schedule on the changeover key signaled choice and no-choice intervals. All subjects showed near-perfect discrimination during initial discrimination training and rapid reacquisition of discrimination following contingency reversals. In Experiment 2, the onset of no-choice intervals was unsignaled and contingent on interchangeover time. The temporal distribution of changeover-key responses conformed to the temporal distribution of choice intervals. The results of both experiments suggest that changeover responding is modifiable as a function of its immediate consequences. The results of Experiment 2, in particular, suggest that time or some correlate of time since the last changeover response can determine subsequent changeover behavior.