势头不减当年时琼·贝兹

琼·贝兹是20世纪60年代最有成就的诠释性民歌歌唱家和歌曲作家,几乎影响到了流行音乐的方方面面,而她的事业迄今仍势头强劲。1941年1月9日,琼·钱多斯·贝兹出生于纽约的斯塔腾岛。她以极富个性的声线闻名,到目前已经公开演唱了近50年,发行了30多张专辑,并用至少8种语言录制过歌曲。     

Training rats to discriminate between the odors of individual conspecifics

To determine the influence of genetic and microbiological factors in producing individually unique urine odors, we used a go/no-go operant task to assess the ability of eight male Long-Evans rats to discriminate between urine odors from the following pairs of male rats: (1) two outbred Long-Evans rats, (2) individual conventionally housed rats differing genetically only at the major histocompatibility complex (PVG vs. PVG.R1), (3) individual PVG versus PVG.R1 rats born by cesarean section and raised in germfree conditions, and (4) conventionally housed, genetically identical individuals of the PVG or PVG.R1 strains. Discriminable differences were present between the urine odors used in all four tasks. Analysis of the errors to a criterion of 85% correct discrimination responses revealed different learning patterns in each task. When bacteria were not present in genetically different rats (Task 3) and when bacteria were present but there were no genetic differences between rats (Task 4), the discrimination was the most difficult. The easiest discrimination involved the presence of bacteria and a genetic difference at the major histocompatibility complex (Task 2). These results indicate that, although bacteria are not necessary for the production of discriminable odor differences, they do influence the discriminability of the urine odors of rats.     

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.     

The Influence of Risk Factors on Preschoolers’ Spanish Vocabulary Development in the Context of Spanish Instruction

Research Findings: This longitudinal study investigated the Spanish vocabulary development of dual-language-learning (DLL) children (N = 150) from Spanish-speaking, low-income, predominantly immigrant homes who were enrolled in a state-funded preschool program that provided instruction in Spanish. Children’s Spanish vocabulary trajectories were examined, as were patterns of co-occurring risk. In addition, the relation of individual and cumulative risk factors at preschool entry on Spanish vocabulary development was explored. Findings reveal that, on average, children’s receptive Spanish vocabulary skills, which started below age-level norms at the beginning of the preschool year, grew to surpass age-level norms by the end of the year. These gains were made despite children facing, on average, eight risk factors. The investigation of patterns of co-occurring risk and the effect of individual risk factors on Spanish vocabulary outcomes reveal that some social risk factors, such as having an unemployed parent, might function as a protective factor in this population. Practice or Policy: This study paves the way for future work in determining the role of native-language instruction for supporting language growth among DLL children. In addition, it expands the research literature on the nature and influence of social and economic risks in this population of children.     

The Role of Generic Language in the Early Development of Social Categorization

Classifying people into categories not only helps humans simplify a complex social world but also contributes to stereotyping and discrimination. This research examines how social categorization develops by testing how language imbues with meaning otherwise arbitrary differences between people. Experimental studies (N = 129) with 2‐year‐olds showed that generic language—language that refers to abstract kinds—guides the development of social categorization. Toddlers learned a new category after hearing generic language about individuals who shared an arbitrary perceptual feature but not after hearing matched specific language, simple labels, or plural (but nongeneric) language about the same set of individuals. These findings show how subtle linguistic cues shape the development of social categorization.     

Rates of Self-reported Delinquency among Western Australian Male and Female High School Students: The male–female gender gap

The Adapted Self-Report Delinquency Scale (ASDS) was administered to 328 adolescents (174 males and 154 females) from eight high schools in Perth, Western Australia. The ages of the sample ranged from 13 to 17 years. Males reported a greater percentage level of involvement than females in 36 of 40 individual delinquent behaviours comprising the ASDS. A between-subjects multivariate analysis of variance using a Bonferroni adjusted alpha revealed a significant multivariate main effect of gender, F(6, 318) = 3.98, p?η ²?=?0.08. No significant main effect of age was evident. Univariate F-tests revealed that males scored significantly higher than females on only one of seven delinquent factors (physical aggression). These data are discussed in light of established evidence showing male predominance in delinquency, recent reports suggesting a male–female gender gap, and theories that have attempted to explain this disparity in offending among males and females.     

Early Ontogeny of Vocal Behavior of Japanese Infants in Response to Maternal Speech

Discriminant analysis was used to distinguish statistically between the comfort-state vocalizations uttered by Japanese infants following 5 different types of pitch contours of maternal speech. Ontogenetic changes of their vocal behaviors were investigated during the first 5 months of life. Structural variability in infant vocalizations across variants of maternal speech was found to be characterized by a set of quantifiable physical parameters. However, infant's age when a vocalization was recorded was not an important contributor. Successful attempts at cross-validation, in which the discriminant profiles derived from one sample of vocalizations were used to classify a second set of vocalizations, indicated that the result obtained was not an artifact of using the same data set to derive the profiles to test reclassification accuracy. Proportion of cross-validated vocalizations that were misclassified decreased as age increased. The results of the present study demonstrate that a statistically significant relation exists between acoustic features of maternal speech and those of following infant vocalizations, and that such a relation strengthens over age.     

Perception of degraded vocalizations by budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus)

Three budgerigars were trained with operant techniques to discriminate examples of species-specific contact calls. Once the birds learned the discrimination among a large set of calls, they were tested with the calls altered in various ways. The birds’ performance on altered calls was compared with performance on normal calls. Results show that the birds could tolerate large spectral and temporal alterations in the calls with little or no decrement in performance. A comparison of the birds’ performance across conditions shows clear evidence of a redundancy in information contained in the calls. The birds were equally adept at discriminating among the calls when given only high-frequency information and when given only low-frequency information. The birds also performed just as well when presented with only the short beginning portions of the calls as they did when presented with somewhat longer portions near the end of the calls. This ability of budgerigars to discriminate among species-specific vocal signals that are highly distorted is reminiscent of the ability of humans to discriminate and recognize highly distorted speech sounds.     

Varieties of perceptual learning

Although most studies of perceptual learning in human participants have concentrated on the changes in perception assumed to be occurring, studies of nonhuman animals necessarily measure discrimination learning and generalization and remain agnostic on the question of whether changes in behavior reflect changes in perception. On the other hand, animal studies do make it easier to draw a distinction between supervised and unsupervised learning. Differential reinforcement will surely teach animals to attend to some features of a stimulus array rather than to others. But it is an open question as to whether such changes in attention underlie the enhanced discrimination seen after unreinforced exposure to such an array. I argue that most instances of unsupervised perceptual learning observed in animals (and at least some in human animals) are better explained by appeal to well-established principles and phenomena of associative learning theory: excitatory and inhibitory associations between stimulus elements, latent inhibition, and habituation.     

I Don't Want to Pick! Introspection on Uncertainty Supports Early Strategic Behavior

Although some evidence indicates that even very young children engage in rudimentary forms of strategic behavior, the underlying mechanisms remain largely unknown. This study tested the hypothesis that uncertainty monitoring underlies such behaviors. Three‐, four‐, and five‐year‐old children (N = 88) completed a perceptual discrimination task. Results indicated that children are more likely to withhold (vs. volunteer) responses on trials for which, when forced to provide an answer, they report subjective uncertainty (vs. subjective certainty). Furthermore, uncertainty monitoring positively predicted the strategic regulation of accuracy via withholding of incorrect responses, even when controlling for individual differences in inhibitory control. Overall, results suggest that children's awareness of their own knowledge states contributes to early strategic behavior.     

Preliminary evidence for color stimuli discrimination in the Asian small-clawed otter (Aonyx cinerea)

Color discrimination ability can be determined through anatomy or perceptual ability. In this study we tested perceptual ability. Three Asian small-clawed otters (Aonyx cinerea), one male and two females, were trained via operant conditioning to discriminate stimuli within a training task. If they passed criteria for this task, they were tested on as many as six delayed matching-to-sample experimental tasks. These experimental tasks involved comparing varying saturations of the colors blue, green, and red against varying shades of gray, as well as against each other. The male reached criterion on five of the experimental tasks, indicating an ability to discriminate the stimuli. One female participated in only two tasks and did not achieve the criteria as set. The second female did not pass the training task, and thus was not experimentally tested. This study overall showed some early evidence that Asian small-clawed otters may have the ability to learn to discriminate different stimuli on the basis of color cues. Sensory studies conducted on two other otter species and the results of this study indicate that color vision may be a common trait across Lutrinae species.     

The Nature of Analogical Explanations: High School Physics Teachers Use in Kenya

This paper is about a study into the nature of analogies recorded from three Form 2 (Grade 10) classes in Kenya, instructed by three physics teachers. Through a case study method involving classroom observation, several analogies were recorded and analysed. These analogies were predominantly environmental (drawn from students socio-cultural environment) and anthropomorphic (life and human characteristics ascribed to analogues involving familiar concepts). A small number were scientific (those in which analogues are drawn from the science knowledge domain) – ones the author, for pedagogical reasons, wishes to see exploited. In addition, targets (concepts to be explained) were not freed from analogues (concepts used to explain), which is problematic. Also recorded were instances of students making statements that contained counter-physics messages. These included statements conveying literal understanding of technical terminology, sense experience understanding, which proved very robust, and obvious transfer of error from a particular knowledge domain to another. Caution is therefore advised to ensure that before developing and deploying analogies, students understanding of the analogues must be sought. This most likely will reveal problems in their understanding and should be rectified before applying its meaning to the target.     

INNLEDNING

Engvik, H., Kvale, S. &; Havik, O. E. (1970). Rater Reliability in Evaluation of Essay and Oral Examinations. Scand. J. educ. Res. 14, 195‐220. The rater reliability for the examination system at the Psychological Institute in Oslo was investigated. The essay and oral performances of the candidates are evaluated by an examination committee of three. Significant differences in arithmetic mean were found both among and within the committees. When rating the same essays within a committee a wide variation of reliability coefficients was found — from —.16 to +.90. At the critical boundaries of the scale, such as the Laudabilis boundary for access to further study of psychology, considerable variations between raters were demonstrated. There was demonstrated a slight, but significant trend for female students to improve more than male students at the oral examination. The general rater reliability found is not satisfactory, either with respect to current standards for psychometric tests or with respect to the importance of the marks for the individual students.     

Perceived Age,Gender, and Racial/Ethnic Discrimination in Europe: Results from the European Social Survey

The present study evaluated the relationship between individual characteristics (ascribed, achieved, and psychosocial) and country characteristics (e.g., discrimination at the country level) and perceived discrimination. Analysis was based on the fourth round of the European Social Survey, which encompasses 54,988 respondents from 28 countries. Hierarchical linear modeling was conducted. In most countries, there was a general trend towards a higher prevalence rate of perceived age discrimination (mean prevalence rate across countries = 34.5%; SE = .002), followed by gender (mean prevalence rate across countries = 24.9%; SE = .002), and ethnic discrimination (mean prevalence rate across countries = 17.3%; SE = .002). Variations in perceived discrimination were largely attributed to individual differences. The findings are discussed in light of a distinction between perceived and actual discrimination.     

Summation and transfer of negative occasion setting

Two experiments examined the summation and transfer of negative occasion setting in serial feature negative (X→A?/A+) and negative patterning discriminations (X→A?/X+/A+) in a discrete-trial operant task with rats. With both discrimination procedures, negative occasion setting transferred readily (but not perfectly) to cues trained as targets in another similar discrimination procedure, but not to cues that were separately trained. Furthermore, with both discrimination procedures, the negative occasion-setting powers of features from two individual discriminations summed, both when those features were trained with the same targets and when they were trained with different targets. After negative patterning discriminations, in which the feature (X) cues were separately reinforced, this summation of negative occasion setting occurred despite the concomitant summation of the features’ excitatory control in the absence of an explicit target cue. These data, which replicated and extended previously reported data from Pavlovian feature negative procedures, are discussed in the context of hierarchical, generalization, and network models of discrimination learning.     

Time-course of control by specific stimulus features and relational cues during same-different discrimination training

We trained 7 pigeons to discriminate visual displays of 16same items from displays of 16different items. The specific stimulus features of the items and the relations among the items could serve as discriminative stimuli. Unlike in most studies of same-different discrimination behavior, we gave a small number of probe tests during each session of acquisition to measure the time-course of control by the learning of specific stimulus features and relational cues. Both the specific stimulus features and relational cues exerted reliable stimulus control, with the specific stimulus features exerting more control during the final three fourths of same-different learning. These findings replicate research suggesting that pigeons encode both the specific stimulus features and relational cues, and for the first time document the time-course of control by each kind of cue.     

陇南礼县“说春”词简论

礼县"说春"词,是一种独特的陇南民歌。内容主要有传播节气农时知识,祝福来年万事如意,宣扬孝道、和善、勤劳节俭等思想,反映当地民风民俗,倾诉"春官"苦辛,赞美展望富足美好生活等。采用韵文形式,以七言为主,杂以三言、八言;多用《诗经》"赋"法,善于铺陈叙事;夸张运用灵活生动;语言平实质朴,通俗易懂。     

论祥林嫂与海丝特·白兰的命运

不同的历史时期，经济环境，文化内涵导致了祥林嫂与海丝特·白兰性格发展和命运走向的不同。本文在浅析两位女主人公差异的基础上，着重透视了它们所面临的男权主义统治的共同背景，从而揭示出她们丧失自我主体成为物化了的附庸的共同本质，以及他们成为男性文化下贞洁、禁欲等女性价值观念的牺牲品的共同遭遇；并剖析出作者本身在深切关注女性生存状态的同时不自觉流露出的男权意识。     

Students’ experience of synchronous learning in distributed environments

This article reports on a two-year ethnographic study of learners participating in multi-site, graduate-level education classes. Classes sometimes met face-to-face in the same physical location; at other times part of the class met physically elsewhere. Yet all were linked through the virtual space. Ethnographic analysis of four data types explored how the instructor and students were able to interact through videoconferencing technologies. Most of the interaction occurred between the local and distance learners by way of cultural guides, local students assigned to host a distance learner through Google Video chat. The distance learners were able to receive real-time attention from the instructor and were able to share differing perspectives that contributed to increased satisfaction in the course. These interactions allowed for a dynamic collaborative effort among a diverse set of actors in the field of education.     

Rhesus monkeys (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Macaca mulatta</Emphasis>) select Arabic numerals or visual quantities corresponding to a number of sequentially completed maze trials

Four number-trained rhesus monkeys were trained to enumerate their sequential responses. After completing a series of computerized maze trials, the monkeys were given a same/different discrimination involving a numerical stimulus (an Arabic numeral or a visual quantity) and the letterD. The goal was to choose the numerical stimulus if it matched the number of just-completed maze trials, and to choose the letterD if it did not. There were large individual differences in performance, but one animal performed above 70% when receiving randomly intermixed series of 1, 3, 5, and 9 maze trials. This indicates that the monkey was keeping track of the approximate number of maze trials completed in each series and using that numerical cue to respond during the same/different discrimination.