Action speaks louder than words: young children differentially weight perceptual, social, and linguistic cues to learn verbs

This paper explores how children use two possible solutions to the verb-mapping problem: attention to perceptually salient actions and attention to social and linguistic information (speaker cues). Twenty-two-month-olds attached a verb to one of two actions when perceptual cues (presence/absence of a result) coincided with speaker cues but not when these cues were placed into conflict (Experiment 1), and not when both possible referent actions were perceptually salient (Experiment 2). By 34 months, children were able to override perceptual cues to learn the name of an action that was not perceptually salient (Experiment 3). Results demonstrate an early reliance on perceptual information for verb mapping and an emerging tendency to weight speaker information more heavily over developmental time.     

One-trial context fear conditioning with immediate shock: The roles of transport and contextual cues

In three experiments, using a total of 120 albino rats, we assessed whether transportation cues might evoke some of the freezing (i.e., defensive immobility) that we see in a context on a day following a footshock given immediately after placement in that context. The results suggested that immediate shock could directly condition strong fear to both simulated and actual transport cues. Although conditioning to transport cues explains some of the freezing that is seen on the test day, it does not explain all of it. We also found evidence that some of the freezing is due to conditioning to permanent features of the context in which the immediate shock is given. The results support a role for transport cues in theories of context conditioning and argue against shock-processing accounts of the conditioning deficit that results from immediate shock.     

从感性直观到感性活动：马克思对费尔巴哈哲学的超越

费尔巴哈对事物从感性的、直观的形式去理解,对后来马克思主义哲学的产生有着举足轻重的作用,这种作用表现为：马克思对对象的理解超越了费尔巴哈的直观,着眼于实践去理解,从主体方面去理解,这一超越为马克思哲学开辟了新的道路。     

Sustained attention,intelligence, and the crucial role of perceptual processes

The contribution of perceptual processes to the correlation between measures of sustained attention and intelligence was investigated in considering computerized and paper–pencil tests of sustained attention. Perceptual processes were represented by tasks demanding signal detection and stimulus discrimination. A total of 117 participants completed two attention tests, as well as two tests that required signal detection and stimulus discrimination. Intelligence was measured by means of Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM) and Berliner Intelligenzstruktur-Test (BIS). Structural equation modeling showed that intelligence was best predicted by one independent latent variable, which included loadings of sustained attention, speed of signal detection, and of stimulus discrimination. The investigation of the structure of prediction revealed speed of stimulus discrimination and genuine sustained attention as major predictors of intelligence.     

School climate: perceptual differences between students,parents, and school staff

Research suggests that school climate can have a great impact on student, teacher, and school outcomes. However, it is often assessed as a summary measure, without taking into account multiple perspectives (student, teacher, parent) or examining subdimensions within the broader construct. In this study, we assessed school climate from the perspective of students, staff, and parents within a large, urban school district using multilevel modeling techniques to examine within- and between-school variance. After adjusting for school-level demographic characteristics, students reported worse perceptions of safety and connectedness compared to both parent and staff ratings (all p < 0.05). Parents gave the lowest ratings of parental involvement, and staff gave the lowest ratings of academic emphasis (ps < 0.05). Findings demonstrate the importance of considering the type of informant when evaluating climate ratings within a school. Understanding how perceptions differ between informants can inform interventions to improve perceptions and prevent adverse outcomes.     

How teachers learn: the roles of formal,informal, and independent learning

A qualitative study of math and science teachers at two middle schools identifies how their system for learning to integrate technology into their teaching goes beyond what school leaders typically consider when planning for teachers’ learning. In addition to (a) the district-initiated, or formal, system of professional development (PD) and professional learning communities (PLCs), it includes (b) teacher-initiated, or informal, learning with colleagues as well as (c) teachers’ independent learning activities. Analysis of why and how they form their system highlights how by only supporting the formal PD activities and PLCs, the district not only loses the valuable collective knowledge of the districts’ teachers derived from their informal and independent learning activities, but also diminishes the learning teachers derive from the formal PD activities since informal collaborations and independent work after formal PD activities often helps to bring the learning from the training room to the classroom. We present teachers’ insights and then discuss implications for the design of a holistic approach to facilitate teachers’ formal, informal, and independent learning that is tied together and supported by technology. While research on formal, informal and independent teacher learning exists, with technology frequently mentioned as a potential support for each of these three modes, these approaches have not been considered together as interdependent parts of the same holistic system for teacher learning nor has the way technology might knit these modes of teacher learning together been imagined as a part of that system.     

Flattening generalization gradients, context, and perceptual learning

The present research investigated the effects of physical context change and perceptual learning on generalization. In a video game, participants learned to suppress their mouse-clicking behavior in the presence of one stimulus (AX). Generalization was observed between the AX stimulus and another stimulus (BX) that was designed to be similar. When testing was conducted in a context different from that in which AX was used in training, responding to AX was attenuated, and responding to BX was enhanced. That is, the generalization gradient flattened. The latter effect was only evident in groups for which generalization had been reduced through a preexposure manipulation believed to produce perceptual learning. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the increase in generalization observed in the first experiment was due to the context change between the preexposure and test rather than to a change between the conditioning and test contexts. Implications for flattening generalization gradients and mechanisms of perceptual learning are discussed.     

Risks, rules, and roles

Summary Based on ten years of fieldwork with a focus on macro-micro linkages from organizational ethos and structure to language behavior and roleplaying, this report centers on institutional changes that affect cognitive, social, and linguistic development of youth. Argued here is the resilience of those young people who find their way to youth-based (as distinct from youth-serving) organizations during their out-of-school lives. These organizations provide an institutional force to fill the voids left by intergenerational communication and nurturance breakdowns and an absence of meaningful work for youth in community and family life. Part 1 gives an overview of areas of interaction, work, and support that institutions fail to give in post-industrial societies and sets up the framework to view the fact that some youth create an institutional force through youth-based organizations that take over key socialization roles. Here crossage peers become their own agents to create an ecology of learning significantly different from customary agents of transmissive socialization. Part 2 answers the questions of what happens in this ecology of learning, and how learning works in youth-based organizations that place high emphasis on the real work of production and performance. Within these organizations that offer a type of liminal zone between childhood and full entry into adult life, youth take risks, play roles, and set their own rules in order to achieve a group goal of excellence in performance. Part 3 looks at language use within these organizations and addresses the means by which youth-based organizations remain dynamic and responsive to the rapidly changing dimensions of youth needs. Part 4 sets out certain changes necessary in the thinking of adults about models of socialization and their role in helping to make possible learning ecologies young people will see as effective. Part 5 pulls together the macro and micro dimensions of the findings to highlight the importance of research on the ways that rules, roles, and risks play within the work of learning.

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Zusammenfassung Risiken, Regeln und Rollen. Jugendperspektiven zur Lernarbeit in der Gemeindeentwicklung Basierend auf zehn Jahren Feldforslchung mit dem Fokus auf den Makro-Mikro-Zusammenh?ngen zwischen organisationaler Struktur und dazugeh?rigem Ethos einerseits und Sprachverhalten und Rollenspiel andererseits konzentriert sich dieser Beitrag auf den institutionellen Wandel, der sich auf die kognitive, soziale und sprachliche Entwicklung der Jugend auswirkt. Auff?llig ist die Selbstbehauptungskraft derjenigen Jugendlichen, die in ihrer au?erschulischen Freizeit den Weg zu jugendzentrierten Einrichtungen finden. Diese Organisationen vermitteln eine institutionelle Macht, die die Leere der intergenerationellen Kommunikation, der Bildungsabbrüche und der fehlenden Aufgaben für Jugendliche im Familien- und Gemeindeleben füllt. Abschnitt 1 gibt zum einen einen überblick über Interaktionsbereiche, die Arbeit und Unterstützung, die Institutionen der postindustriellen Gesellschaft nicht geben, und zeigt dann auf, welche institutionelle Kraft manche Jugendliche durch Engagement in jugendzentrierten Initiativen entwickeln, denen Schlüsselfunktionen in ihrer Sozialisation zukommen. Hier werden altersgemischte Peergruppen ihre eigenen Interessenvertreter, um eigene Lernumgebungen zu schaffen, die sich signifikant von den herk?mmlichen, auf Stoffvermittlung bestehenden Ans?tzen unterscheiden. Teil 2 beantwortet die Fragen, was in diesen Lernumwelten geschieht und welch wichtigen Platz Lernen in diesen jugendzentrierten Einrichtungen mit ihrer deutlichen Betonung von ernsthafter produktorientierter Arbeit und Darstellung einnehmen. In diesen Projekten mit ihrem Angebot für den Zeitraum zwischen Kindheit und vollst?ndigem Eintritt in das Erwachsenenleben akzeptieren Jugendliche Risiken, spielen Rollen und setzen sich Regeln, um hervorragende Gruppenergebnisse, z. B. bei einer Theateraufführung, zu erreichen. Abschnitt 3 betrachtet die Sprache, die in diesen Organisationen benutzt wird, und benennt die Mittel, mit deren Hilfe jugendzentrierte Einrichtungen dynamisch bleiben und auf die raschen Wechsel der jugendlichen Bedürfnisse antworten. Teil 4 beschreibt einige notwendige ?nderungen im Denken der Erwachsenen hinsichtlich der Sozialisationsmodelle und beschreibt ihre Rolle für die effektive Gestaltung von Lernumgebungen für junge Menschen. Im fünften Abschnitt werden Forschungsergebnisse der Makro- und Mikroebene zusammengefasst, um die Wichtigkeit der Forschung zu unterstreichen, die darüber aufkl?rt, welche Rolle Regeln, Rollen und Risiken in der Lernarbeit spielen.

     

Language and reading: Some perceptual prerequisites

Conclusion Since Orton first noted the communicative and perceptual deficits of reading impaired children, many investigators have attempted to delineate in more detail the nature of perceptual impairment in children with language and reading disabilities. Considerable advances in our knowledge concerning the manner in which speech is processed as a code have occurred since Orton’s time. These advances have made it possible to demonstrate a more direct link between perceptual deficits and the development of communication skills, including reading. Presented at the 30th Annual Conference of The Orton Society, Indianapolis, November 1979.     

Postdoctoral researchers: roles,functions and career prospects

Concerns with postdoctoral research training and employment outcomes are growing at an international level. Recent studies of postdoctoral and other contract researchers in various countries emphasize common issues associated with these appointments, including the absence of any systematic definition of postdoctoral research positions, lack of policy and data on postdoctoral researchers, and increasing dissatisfaction among postdoctoral researchers with the nature of their position and with their future employment prospects. These issues are explored further in the study reported here, through an interview‐based investigation of the views of both postdoctoral researchers and postdoctoral supervisors with regard to the nature of postdoctoral research positions and the career development support provided within those positions. Key findings include substantial variation in the functions of postdoctoral researchers, and in the perceived purposes of such positions. Despite a widespread perception among both postdocs and their supervisors of limited employment opportunities in academia or research positions, there was a consistent focus among both parties on the postdoctoral period as providing preparation for such positions.     

Suicide intervention: Training,roles, and knowledge of school psychologists

Practitioner‐members of the National Association of School Psychologists (N = 162) completed questionnaires regarding their suicide prevention and postvention roles, training, preparedness, and knowledge. Most were crisis team members, yet less than one‐half reported graduate training in suicide risk assessment and less than one‐fourth in postvention. Compared to nondoctoral‐level practitioners, doctoral‐trained practitioners felt better prepared to handle suicidal students. Most respondents had participated in a suicide risk assessment in the past 2 years, with few using standardized measures. Performance was moderately strong on questions about knowledge of risk factors, warning signs, and appropriate steps to respond to a suicidal student, but respondents showed less familiarity with postvention recommendations intended to discourage contagion. Training suggestions were identified. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 157–170, 2007.     

Rules, roles and tools: Activity theory and the comparative study of e-learning

Activity theory (AT) is a powerful tool for investigating 'artefacts in use', ie, the ways technologies interrelate with their local context. AT reveals the interfaces between e-learning at the macro- (strategy, policy, 'campus-wide' solutions) and the micro-organisational levels (everyday working practice, iterative change, individual adaptation). In AT, contexts are conceived of as activity systems in which human, technological and organisational elements are interrelated and largely inseparable. Both the subjects of the activity system (internal) and the wider community (external) mediate their activities through tools, rules and roles. This paper shows how a course management system (CMS) exerts an influence over all three of these mediators, though the exact nature of this influence depends on the particular configuration of each activity system. This is illustrated with reference to two case study programmes, both of which used Moodle as their CMS, but which had activity systems structured in quite different ways; the programmes also had different relationships with their external organisational environment.