The effect of predictive cues on freezing in rats

Rats were given five shocks over a 5-min period and then observed for 20 min. Much more freezing was observed in animals that remained in the shock situation than in animals moved to another situation. Freezing, therefore, seems to be controlled primarily by external shock-related cues. Freezing appears to be also partly controlled by the inherent stimulus properties of the situation.     

Social and asocial cues about new food: Cue reliability influences intake in rats

Dietary generalists often treat new foods with caution and may rely on social cues to identify new foods that are safe to eat. However, not all generalists show the same degree of caution, nor do they all rely on social cues to the same extent. The cue reliability approach (CRA) attempts to account for this variation by quantifying the costs and benefits of sampling a new food for the first time. The experiments reported here tested predictions of the CRA, and the results suggested that rats eat more new food when asocial cues predict that new foods will prove more profitable than familiar foods. The experimental results also suggested that rats are more likely to seek out social cues when asocial cues are unreliable.     

Developmental influences of science process skill instruction

Science educators have claimed that well-conceived instructional strategies and curricular sequences, emphasizing the process aspects of science, will foster an understanding of the nature of science. Furthermore, a process emphasis on science has been cited for its ability to promote logical thinking skill, develop a locus of control “shift,” and enhance science content acquisition. The intent of this investigation was to examine the purported influence and developmental nature of a science process emphasis during a given semester of study, as well as over extended curricular sequences, each sequence being representative of three recognized preservice elementary science teacher preparatory programs. Data were collected from 135 elementary preservice teachers enrolled in science teaching methods courses at the endpoint of one of three sequences: (a) introductory process instruction with three subsequent semesters of integrated science content and teaching methods, (b) process instruction with separate subsequent content and teaching methods, and (c) only science content with subsequent teaching methods. Another 29 preservice teachers, assessed prior to entry into instructional sequences, provided a cross-sectional sample for examining developmental changes in locus of control, logical thinking, nature of science, and science content knowledge. Statistical procedures included Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA and Wilcoxon tests. Results indicated that a one-semester process skills course was influential in developing a basis for science content acquisition and in fostering an understanding of the nature of science. Results further indicate that expected additional gains are significant in science content acquisition through matriculation in an extended curricular sequence. Implications for science educators are discussed.     

Only tomorrow: Delayed effects of teachers attitude on motor skill learning

Motor skill tasks provide unique opportunities to examine the impact of teachers' feedback on learners’ performance, as the quality and quantity of motor behavior can be objectively assessed during the practice session (online-gains) and afterwards (delayed, offline-gains). We tested the learning and overnight retention of a newly instructed movement sequence in young healthy adults in three conditions of teacher-learner interaction, determined by the feedback afforded by the teacher: Indifferent-minimal (IM), General-encouragement (GE), Positive-social-comparison (PSC). All three conditions resulted in robust within-session gains in speed with no loss of accuracy. However, overnight, most trainees in the GE and PSC groups, but not in the IM group, expressed additional delayed gains. PSC group also exhibited feedback-induced increase in positive mood, which was correlated with their delayed gains. These results indicate that teacher-learner interactions during the learning session can affect long-term skill by modulating memory consolidation processes, even when within-session gains are unaffected.     

Search for autonomy in motor task learning in physical education university students

The study focused on discovering the influence that an autonomous motor task learning programme had on the improvement of perceived competence, intrinsic regulation, incremental belief and motivational orientations. The study was performed with two groups of participants (n = 22 and n = 20) aged between 19 and 35 years. The instruments used were the incremental factor of the Conceptions of the Nature of Athletic Ability Questionnaire (CNAAQ-2), the Goal Orientation in Exercise Scale (GOES), the intrinsic regulation factor of the Behavioural Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire (BREQ-2), the perceived autonomy factor of the autonomy measurement scale (EMA) and the perceived competence factor of the Motives for Physical Activity Measure Revised Scale (MPAM-R). The questionnaires were handed out over 3 months in a weekly session with pre-test and post-test. The results showed that the use of an autonomy-based teaching programme increased perceived competence, intrinsic motivation, incremental ability belief and task-involving motivational orientation.     

Assessment of progressively delayed prompts on guided skill learning in rats

We examined the controlling factors that allow a prompted skill to become autonomous in a discrete-trials implementation of Touchette’s (1971) progressively delayed prompting procedure, but our subjects were rats rather than children with disabilities. Our prompted skill was a left-right lever-press sequence guided by two panel lights. We manipulated (a) the effectiveness of the guiding lights prompt and (b) the presence or absence of a progressively delayed prompt in four groups of rats. The less effective prompt yielded greater autonomy than the more effective prompt. The ability of the progressively delayed prompt procedure to produce behavioral autonomy depended upon characteristics of the obtained delay (trial duration) rather than on the pending prompt. Sequence accuracy was reliably higher in unprompted trials than in prompted trials, and this difference was maintained in the 2 groups that received no prompts but yielded equivalent trial durations. Overall sequence accuracy decreased systematically as trial duration increased. Shorter trials and their greater accuracy were correlated with higher overall reinforcement rates for faster responding. Waiting for delayed prompts (even if no actual prompt was provided) was associated with lower overall reinforcement rate by decreasing accuracy and by lengthening trials. These findings extend results from previous studies regarding the controlling factors in delayed prompting procedures applied to children with disabilities.     

The role of experimenter-odor cues in the performance of object-memory tasks by rats

Two experiments assessed whether odors left on stimulus objects by experimenters who handle them might confound the interpretation of ostensibly visually guided object-memory tasks for rats. In Experiment 1, rats were able to discriminate the relative recency with which an experimenter touched two otherwise identical objects (intertouch interval = 4 sec), presumably on the basis of an odorintensity discrimination. However, after the rats mastered the odor discrimination with no delay between when the second of the two stimulus objects was last touched by the experimenter and when the rats were permitted to attempt the discrimination, their performance dropped to chance levels when this delay was increased to 15 sec. In Experiment 2, rats were trained in two slightly different ways to perform a delayed-nonmatching-to-sample (DNMS) task, one that involved systematic differences in the temporal order in which the experimenter handled the sample and novel stimulus objects and one that did not. There were no significant differences in the rate at which rats mastered the DNMS task with these two procedures, and the performance of rats that were trained according to the former procedure was unaffected when they were switched to the latter procedure. Moreover, rats required considerably fewer trials to master the DNMS task than the rats in Experiment 1 required to master the odor discrimination. These findings demonstrate that, under certain circumstances, rats can discriminate the relative recency with which two objects are handled by an experimenter, but that this ability contributes little to their performance of conventional object-based DNMS tasks.     

The effect of different goals and self-recording on self-regulation of learning a motor skill in a physical education setting

This study examined the effect of different goals (process, performance outcome, and multiple goals) and self-recording on self-regulation of learning a dart-throwing skill. Participants were 105 fifth and sixth graders who were randomly assigned to six (3 Goal type × 2 self-recording) experimental and one control group. Results showed a positive effect of self-recording on students’ performance, while no difference was found between the goal conditions. Moreover, goal group students made more technical attributions and adaptive inferences compared to the control group students. Results are discussed with reference to self-regulated learning, the pursuit of multiple goals and self-recording in physical education.     

Motivational cues as determiners of stimulus control in rats

Four rats were each trained to perform a light-intensity discrimination and a sound-intensity discrimination. For half of the subjects, light training sessions were preceded by food deprivation, and correct choices were reinforced with food. Sound training sessions, on the other hand, were preceded by water deprivation, and correct choices were reinforced with water. For the remaining subjects, light training sessions were associated with water deprivation, whereas sound sessions were associated with food deprivation. When the rats were tested in the presence of compounds of sound and light, choices tended to be controlled by light when testing was preceded by the deprivation condition associated with light discrimination task. Reliably fewer light-consistent choices were made under the other deprivation condition, though some preference for responding on the basis of light remained. Following extended training in the presence of all four combinations of light and sound stimuli, this preference was reduced somewhat. When additional testing sessions were preceded by combined food and water deprivation, the tendency to respond on the basis of either light or sound was shown to be related to both deprivation and reinforcement factors.     

How autonomy support and ethical value alignment influences attitudes towards diversity in English police

ABSTRACT

Antagonism towards diversity, an attitude reflecting low egalitarian ethical values, has been a topic within policing that has received increasing attention in the last decade. Using two-wave data and applying self-determination theory, we investigated how autonomy support versus autonomy frustration, ways of being motivated either through encouraging one’s sense of volition, or otherwise, coercing and imposing pressures, can improve diversity attitudes through its relation with ethical values. Study 1 (n= 398 police officers and staff) found that autonomy-supportive communications fostered ethical values, and hence was negatively related to diversity antagonism. Study 2 (n= 859 police officers and staff) indicated that motivation to overcome prejudice mediates the relationship between ethical values and diversity antagonism. Perceptions of workplace culture as lacking in autonomy support acted as a boundary condition for the ethical values and diversity antagonism relationship; no relationship was present when autonomy support was low.     

自主性外语学习的影响因素

长期以来我国的教学模式使学生依赖性较强，自觉性较差，而发展学生的自觉性应从转变学生的自主学习态度入手。文章认为自主学习受诸多因素影响，必须多方努力，发挥各方面的优势，实现内外因素结合的最优化．以培养和提高学习者自主学习的意识和能力。     

技能训练要心智技能和操作技能相结合

讲练一体化教学是实现心智技能和操作技能相结合的有效途径．指导与示范是促进技能形成的关键。符合学生技能训练心理行为特征的要求是：目的明确，方法正确，由易到难，速度适当，方式多样，及时反馈。要运用学习迁移的原理，提高技能训练效果。     

关于城市社区自治立法的思考

在新形势下,中国社区法制建设的重要性、迫切性与复杂性日益凸现。现有社区自治的主要法律依据是1989年颁布的《中华人民共和国城市居民委员会组织法》。本文从该法的特点开始,分析其存在的若干问题;对该法从宏观和微观角度进行了思考,认为它已不适应我国社会发展的需要,完善该法已是刻不容缓。     

The vicissitudes of autonomy in early adolescence

A sample of 865 10-16-year-olds from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds completed a questionnaire battery concerning 3 aspects of autonomy: emotional autonomy in relationship with parents, resistance to peer pressure, and the subjective sense of self-reliance. The observed patterns of relations among the measures cast doubt on the notion that autonomy is a unidimensional trait manifested similarly across a variety of situations. For most boys and girls, the transition from childhood into adolescence is marked more by a trading of dependency on parents for dependency on peers, rather than straightforward and unidimensional growth in autonomy. Moreover, contrary to long-standing notions about the greater salience of autonomy to adolescent males than to females, girls score higher than boys on all 3 measures of autonomy at all age levels.     

篮球技能学习初期两侧性运动迁移的实验研究

采用教学实验法探讨两侧性迁移对篮球运动技能学习产生的影响.结果表明,篮球运动技能学习初期存在着两侧性迁移;并且在篮球行进间技能的教学过程中,采用"两侧性运动迁移"的练习方法,可以加快学生技能学习的进程,促进学生两侧肢体技能的平衡发展.     

Overshadowing of environmental cues by an odor in toxicosis-based conditioning in rats

It was demonstrated that an odor presented to rats in a distinctive environment can interfere with toxicosis-based conditioning to the environmental cues. Rats poisoned when they drank unflavored water in a black compartment odorized with oil of eucalyptus exhibited no suppression of water intake when they were subsequently tested in the same compartment minus the odor. In contrast, rats poisoned in the same compartment minus the odor later exhibited reduced water consumption in that environment. Oil of eucalyptus proved to be as effective an overshadowing stimulus as a taste cue (a 1.5% NaCl solution).     

The effects of autonomy support on student engagement in peer assessment

Although peer assessment is widely implemented in higher education, not all students are highly engaged in it. To enhance student engagement in peer assessment, we designed and developed a web-based tool, autonomy-supportive peer assessment (ASPA), to support students’ need for autonomy when they conducted peer assessment. Students’ sense of autonomy, and their behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement in peer assessment were examined via interviews and surveys. We also examined students’ academic performances, including their improvement from initial to revised essays and the quality of feedback they provided. Survey results indicated that the ASPA group (1) experienced a slightly higher sense of autonomy than the non-ASPA group, and (2) spent much more time on each evaluation criterion than the non-ASPA group. Interviews suggested that both the ASPA and non-ASPA groups were engaged in peer assessment. However, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in behavioral, emotional, cognitive engagement, and academic performances.     

A comparison of learned aversions to gustatory and exteroceptive cues in rats

The experiment provides a direct comparison of the ability of subjects (rats) to associate gustatory and exteroceptive stimuli with illness. Previous experiments which have made similar comparisons between gustatory and exteroceptive cues have suffered from certain methodological problems involving stimulus control and compounding. The present experiment utilized a between-subjects design wherein half of the subjects had an auditory cue associated with poisoning and half had a taste cue. In both cases, the other cue was present, but was not predictive of poisoning, The auditory cue, like the taste cue, occurred only during drinking. This comparison was made in both an immediate and a delayed poisoning situation. The experiment found that while subjects were able to quickly associate a taste cue with illness, they were unable to form a similar association between poisoning and the exteroceptive stimulus. Results also showed that subjects will fail to acquire a taste aversion to a novel and salient gustatory cue when that cue is followed by illness only 50% of the time. This latter effect was more pronounced in the delayed poisoning situation.