Time needed to change the isometric force production of a response

This study investigated the time needed to change a motor program that specified the elbow flexor muscles to gradually increase the isometric force production from 15% to 75% of one's maximum voluntary contraction (MVC). A double-stimulation paradigm was used with the restriction that subjects (N = 12) be at 15% of their MVC before the presentation of the first stimulus. Subjects reacted to the first stimulus (randomly presented) by gradually increasing their isometric force from 15% to 75% of their MVC and then reacted to the second stimulus by altering the force production in one of four ways: (a) increasing the force to the 75% level rapidly instead of gradually, (b) discontinuing the increase and maintaining the level of force attained, (c) discontinuing all force production, or (d) reversing the direction of force so that it is produced by the elbow extensors. The data revealed that more time was needed to increase the force rapidly than to perform any of the other three conditions.     

The last step: Adding theory to practice

Colleges and universities have not adequately dealt with the education of the experienced adult student. Currently these students are forced to choose between traditional courses and independent studies and the assessment of learning. Courses and independent studies force students to spend time re-learning that which they've learned through experience. Even worse, students don't learn to integrate theoretical knowledge with practical knowledge. Assessment, on the other hand, places little emphasis on theoretical knowledge and provides little opportunity for interaction with other experts in the field. This paper outlines the problems inherent in those options and presents another alternative: educational workshops which focus on the theories in a field and the relationships between those theories and practical experience. In these workshops students gain the theoretical knowledge so often not gained through experience, and have the opportunity to interact with and learn from other experienced adults without being forced into the traditional classroom geared toward younger less experienced students.     

Development of the Biology Card Sorting Task to Measure Conceptual Expertise in Biology

There are widespread aspirations to focus undergraduate biology education on teaching students to think conceptually like biologists; however, there is a dearth of assessment tools designed to measure progress from novice to expert biological conceptual thinking. We present the development of a novel assessment tool, the Biology Card Sorting Task, designed to probe how individuals organize their conceptual knowledge of biology. While modeled on tasks from cognitive psychology, this task is unique in its design to test two hypothesized conceptual frameworks for the organization of biological knowledge: 1) a surface feature organization focused on organism type and 2) a deep feature organization focused on fundamental biological concepts. In this initial investigation of the Biology Card Sorting Task, each of six analytical measures showed statistically significant differences when used to compare the card sorting results of putative biological experts (biology faculty) and novices (non–biology major undergraduates). Consistently, biology faculty appeared to sort based on hypothesized deep features, while non–biology majors appeared to sort based on either surface features or nonhypothesized organizational frameworks. Results suggest that this novel task is robust in distinguishing populations of biology experts and biology novices and may be an adaptable tool for tracking emerging biology conceptual expertise.     

Shrinking selves in synthetic sites: On personhood in a Walt Disney World

In this essay we show how certain tendencies of theself are enhanced and hindered by technologicallyorganized places. We coordinate a cognitive andbehavioral technology for the control of personalidentity with the technologically totalizedenvironments that we call synthetic sites. Weproceed by describing Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi'sstrategy for intensifying experience and organizingthe self. Walt Disney World is then considered as theexample, par excellence, of a synthetic sitethat promotes ordered experience via self-shrinkage. Finally, we reflect briefly on problems andpossibilities of human life lived in a world that canbe described with increasing accuracy as anarchipelago of synthetic sites.