Local context and the comparator hypothesis

“Comparator” accounts of associative conditioning (e.g., Gibbon & Balsam, 1981; Miller & Matzel, 1988) suggest that performance to a Pavlovian CS is determined, by a comparison of the US expectancy of the CS with the US expectancy of general background cues. Recent research indicates that variation in the excitatory value of cues in the local temporal context of a CS may have a profound impact on conditioned responding to the CS (e.g., Kaplan & Hearst, 1982), implicating US expectancy based on local, rather than overall, background cues as the critical comparator term for a CS. In two experiments, an excitatory training context attenuated responding to a target CS. In Experiment 1, the context was made excitatory by interspersing unsignaled USs with target CS-US trials. In this case, posttraining extinction of the conditioning context restored responding to the target CS. In Experiment 2, the target CS’s local context was made excitatory by the placement of excitatory “cover” stimuli in the immediate temporal proximity of each target CS-US trial. In this experiment, posttraining extinction of the proximal cover stimuli, not extinction of the conditioning context alone, restored responding to the target CS. An observation from both experiments was that signaling the otherwise unsignaled USs did not appear to influence the associative value of the conditioning context. The results are discussed in relation to a local context version of the comparator hypothesis and serve to emphasize the importance of local context cues in the modulation of acquired behavior. Taken together with other recent reports (e.g., Cooper, Aronson, Balsam, & Gibbon, 1990; Schachtman & Reilly, 1987), the present observations encourage contemporary comparator theories to reevaluate which aspects of the conditioning situation comprise the CS’s comparator term.     

The Struggle for Early Childhood Curricula: A comparison of the English Foundation Stage Curriculum,Te Wha¨riki and Reggio Emilia

Parents, teachers, researchers and politicians often have strong and conflicting views about what is right for young children in the years before school. Curricula can become 'sites of struggle' between ideas about what early childhood education is for, and what are appropriate content and contexts for learning and development in early childhood. This paper focuses upon the way visions for early childhood are expressed through the curricula offered in three very different contexts--in England, New Zealand and Reggio Emilia in Northern Italy. These three examples of early childhood curricula are compared in order to explore how a growing pressure from vocational and instrumental influences can impact on progressive and socioculturally inspired early childhood curricula and approaches. A comparison of these examples also reveals how early childhood curricula and educational systems are often forged amidst differing contexts in relation to national and local control of early childhood curricula and approaches. These differing contexts can also give rise to differing conceptualisations of knowledge, learning and pedagogy. Des professeurs, des chercheurs et des politiciens ont souvent des vues fortes et contradictoires au sujet de ce qui est bon pour les jeunes enfants dans les anne´es avant l'e´cole. Les programmes d'e´tudes peuvent devenir 'des sites de lutte' entre les ide´es au sujet du but de la premie ¤ re e´ducation d'enfance, et au sujet du contenu et des contextes pertinents a ¤ l'apprentissage et le de´veloppement dans la petite enfance. Cet article se focalise sur la manie ¤ re que des visions pour la petite enfance sont exprime´es par les programmes d'e´tudes offerts en trois contextes tre ¤ s diffe´rents--en Angleterre, Nouvelle-Ze´lande et Reggio Emilia dans l'Italie Septentrionale. Ces trois exemples des programmes d'e´tudes de la petite enfance sont compare´s afin d'explorer comment une pression croissante des influences professionnelles et instrumentales peut faire une forte impression sur les programmes d'e´tudes et des approches progressifs et inspire´s par des approches socioculturels. Une comparaison de ces exemples re´ve ¤ le aussi comment les programmes d'e´tudes de la petite enfance et les syste ¤ mes d'e´ducation sont souvent forge´s parmi des contextes diffe´rents par rapport au controle national et local de programmes d'e´tudes sur la premie ¤ re enfance et des approches diffe´rents. Ces contextes qui diffe ¤ rent peuvent engendrer aussi conceptualisations qui diffe ¤ rent sur la connaissance, l'apprentissage et la pe´dagogie. Los padres, los profesores, los investigadores y los poli´ticos tienen a menudo visiones fuertes y en conflicto sobre lo que es correcto para los nin ¨ os pequen ¨ os en los an ¨ os que preceden a la escuela. Los planes de estudios pueden convertirse en "sitios de lucha" entre las ideas sobre el propo´sito de la educacio´n preescolar y sobre cuales son el contenido y contextos apropiados para aprender y para el desarrollo en la primera infancia. Este arti´culo se centra sobre la manera que las visiones para la nin ¨ ez temprana son expresadas a trave´s de los planes de estudios ofrecidos en tres contextos muy diversos--en Inglaterra, Nueva Zelanda y en Reggio Emilia en el norte de Italia. Estos tres ejemplos de los planes de estudios de la nin ¨ ez temprana se comparan para explorar co´mo una presio´n cada vez mayor de influencias vocacionales e instrumentales puede afectar los planes de estudios y acercamientos metodolo´gicos progresistas e inspirados por tendencias socioculturales. Una comparacio´n de estos ejemplos tambie´n revela co´mo los planes de estudios de la nin ¨ ez temprana y los sistemas educativos se forjan a menudo en medio de contextos divergentes en lo referente al control nacional y local de los planes de estudios y de los acercamientos metodolo´gicos sobre la nin ¨ ez temprana. Estos contextos divergentes pueden tambie´n dar lugar a conceptualizaciones divergentes del conocimiento, del aprendizaje y de la pedagogi´a.     

The importance of vowel diacritics for reading in Hebrew: What can be learned from readers with prelingual deafness?

This study investigates the importance of voweldiacritics for the reading of Hebrew inindividuals with different levels ofphonological control. A paradigm calling forwritten ordered-recall of 12 lists of 8consecutively displayed Hebrew nouns was usedas a test tool. Item presentation andbetween-item interval were computer-controlled.Half of the nouns on the lists were presentedwith vowel diacritics designating their vowels.The remaining nouns appeared with their voweldiacritics removed. Thirty-nine hearingstudents (mean grade 6.5) and twenty-seven students withprelingual deafness (mean grade 6.9)participated in the experiment. Analyses of thegroups' recall rate, recall-order accuracy, andintrusion error rate indicate that, overall,adding vowel diacritics had a facilitatingeffect on the participants' quantitative andqualitative STM performance. Fine-tunedpost-hoc examinations further suggest thatproviding vowel diacritics may be particularlyworthwhile for Hebrew readers with impoverishedreading skills. These findings are discussedwith regard to their implications for thereading of Hebrew.     

The influence of shock during response prevention upon resistance to extinction of an avoidance response

A recent study found that avoidance extinction is equally facilitated by response prevention (blocking) whether the latter involves CS-alone or CS-shock presentations. An experiment was performed to determine whether this result was due to the use of a lengthy shock (5 sec) during response prevention. Five groups of rats were extinguished: (1) without prior blocking, (2) after blocking with CS only, (3) after blocking with a lengthy (5 sec) CS-contingent shock, (4) after blocking with a brief (.5 sec) CS-contingent shock, or (5) after blocking with a brief (.5 sec) shock only. The group blocked with the brief CS-contingent shock was substantially more resistant to extinction than the other four groups. The unblocked group and the group blocked with brief shock only required more trials to extinguish than the groups blocked with CS only or with lengthy CS-contingent shock, but did not differ from each other. The groups blocked with CS only or with lengthy CS-contingent shock also failed to differ from one another. The data support a significant role for Pavlovian conditioning processes in the effect of response prevention upon avoidance extinction.     

Serial learning,interitem associations,phrasing cues,interference, overshadowing,chunking, memory,and extinction

Two experiments indicated that two approaches to serial learning are too extreme—the classical view that it consists only of interitem associations and various recent views that it involves no interitem associations. The novel assumption introduced here was that phrasing cues, normally conceptualized as merely segregating long series into smaller units or chunks, may also enter into associations with items, thereby reducing interitem interference and facilitating serial learning. It was found that one item could become a signal for another item, an interitem association, or be overshadowed by a phrasing cue, such as a brightness and temporal cue, also signaling that item. The items were .045-g pellets. Rats traversed a runway for items arranged in ordered series, 14-7-3-1-0 pellets (Experiment 1) or 10-2-0-10 (Experiment 2). Complete tracking of, for example, the 10-2-0-10 series would consist of fastest running to 10 pellets and slowest running to 0 pellets. In both investigations, the interitem association overshadowed was that between 0 pellets and the subsequent rewarded item, 0 → 14 (Experiment 1) or 0 → 10 (Experiment 2). Either repetitions of the 14-7-3-1-0 subpattern (Experiment 1) or merely the terminal 10-pellet item (Experiment 2) were phrased, both methods producing identical results. Overshadowing the 0-pellet item produced superior serial learning, more rapid extinction, and, in Experiment 1, considerable elevation of responding when the brightness phrasing cue was introduced in extinction, an effect said to be conceptually identical to spontaneous recovery and one demonstrating directly that phrasing cues are in reality overshadowing cues. It was suggested that many effects attributed to forgetting may be due to unrecognized overshadowing of memory cues by phrasing cues, giving rise to exaggerated estimates of forgetting.     

Obstacles faced by deaf people in the criminal justice system

Deaf people, especially those who are not well educated, are at risk for serious injustices when they enter the criminal justice system. The present study describes these risks at all stages of the legal process, including arrest, trial, probation, prison, and parole. These dangers are greatest for those who are poorly educated, read at a fourth-grade level or lower, have poor communication skills (American Sign Language and English), and lack awareness of their legal rights. Primitive personality disorder (PPD) is the term mental health professionals use to describe this set of characteristics. The risks that the segment of the deaf population with PPD faces when its members run afoul of the law are described, a case history provided, and some relevant legal and interpreting issues are discussed. A case is made for applying the concept of linguistic incompetence to deaf individuals with PPD.     

Sign iconicity and receptive vocabulary testing

Development of valid receptive sign vocabulary tests and the influence of sign iconicity on test performance were investigated. Forty items were taken from the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (Lloyd M. Dunn & Leota M. Dunn, 1982). For each target item, three alternative distractor items were developed to draw nonsigning participants away from a perceptual matching strategy. The sample comprised 34 deaf signing undergraduates and 36 hearing nonsigning undergraduates. Deaf students outperformed hearing students on both sets of items. Hearing students' scores on the original items were significantly higher than on the manipulated items, but both exceeded chance level (25%), indicating that many of the items were iconic for this sample. Complete elimination of iconicity is difficult for sophisticated participants. Recommendations for development of tests for signing deaf students include involvement of nonsigning hearing participants to reduce the effects of iconicity in obtaining valid results.     

Norm-referenced,Criterion-referenced,and Dynamic Assessment: What exactly is the point?

Assessment of individual children and young people has remained a major focus of professional activity for educational psychologists (EPs) and one surrounded by continuing controversy. Despite the arguments of the 'reconstructing movement' of the 1970s, and ensuing debates, individual assessment has survived seemingly as strong as ever. Subsumed within arguments concerning the prominence given to individual assessment, another set of discussions has concerned the paradigms from which such professional activity might derive. Located among constructs contrasting environment with individual and static with interactive perspectives, the particular debate within individual assessment has centred on the relative merits of norm-referenced, criterion-referenced, curriculum-based and dynamic methods. This article presents a taxonomy of purposes and procedures deriving from these major assessment paradigms. This collection is illustrated by examples taken from EP reports, and the relative familiarity and use of each approach by one major audience group is evaluated through examining questionnaire responses from 59 Special Educational Needs Coordinators within one Local Education Authority.     

Logistic Regression and Its Use in Detecting Differential Item Functioning in Polytomous Items

A computer simulation study was conducted to determine the feasibility of using logistic regression procedures to detect differential item functioning (DIF) in polytomous items. One item in a simulated test of 25 items contained DIF; parameters' for that item were varied to create three conditions of nonuniform DIF and one of uniform DIF. Item scores were generated using a generalized partial credit model, and the data were recoded into multiple dichotomies in order to use logistic regression procedures. Results indicate that logistic regression is powerful in detecting most forms of DIF; however, it required large amounts of data manipulation, and interpretation of the results was sometimes difficult. Some logistic regression procedures may be useful in the post hoc analysis of DlF for polytomous items.