Enacting silence: Residual categories as a challenge for ethics,information systems,and communication

Residual categories are those which cannot be formally represented within a given classification system. We examine the forms that residuality takes within our information systems today, and explore some silences which form around those inhabiting particular residual categories. We argue that there is significant ethical and political work to be done in exploring residuality.     

Postgraduate Education and the Student's Contribution to Research

The Swinnerton‐Dyer Report of the Working Party on Postgraduate Education bases its recommendations on meeting the manpower needs of society. It largely omits from consideration the contribution to research and knowledge that postgraduates may make while working towards research degrees.

This article uses interview and observational data from a study of postgraduate research students in physics to attempt to predict the possible effects on university research of any reductions in the number of postgraduate students. It is argued that manpower needs is only one of a number of criteria which need to be used in any consideration of future postgraduate numbers.     

The role of habituation of the response to LiCl in the US-preexposure effect

In two experiments, rats received preexposure consisting of six intraperitoneal injections of lithium chloride (LiCl). This treatment reduced the magnitude of the unconditioned response (UR; suppressed consumption of a novel flavor) evoked by an additional injection (Experiment 1) or by oral consumption (Experiment 2) of LiCl. In both experiments, preexposure also attenuated the acquisition of a conditioned aversion with an LiCl injection as the unconditioned stimulus (US) but had no effect on the aversion produced when the US was oral consumption of LiCl (Experiment 2). These results are consistent with the view that the reduced ability of the preexposed US to serve as a reinforcer depends on blocking by injection-related cues and is independent of habituation of the UR recorded in the present study. Possible interpretations of this dissociation are discussed.     

Studying culture-cognition relations in collective practices of daily life: a research framework / El estudio de las relaciones cultura-cognición en las prácticas colectivas cotidianas: un modelo de investigación

This article sketches a framework for the study and analysis of culture-cognition relations that I present in my recent book, Cultural Development of Mathematical Ideas: Papua New Guinea Studies. Taking an historical approach, I focus on the reproduction and alteration of representational forms for number and the functions that representational forms serve in collective practices in and out of school. My key argument is that, in the context of their goal-directed communicative activities in collective practices in daily life, people unwittingly reproduce and alter representational forms and the functions that these forms serve. The process leads to continuities and discontinuities in form-function relations in communities over historical time. To provide evidence for this process and its role in the cultural development of ideas, I report selected findings from research conducted in 1978, 1980 and 2001 in Oksapmin communities; I focus on historical shifts in the forms and functions of the Oksapmin body part counting system over time. I then update that body of research with a sketch of a recent 2014 follow-up study. I close with reflections on the utility of my framework for the study of culture-cognition relations in other communities and on cognitive domains other than mathematics.     

In search of consolidation of short-term memory in nonhuman animals

Wixted (Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 235 – 269, 2004) has argued that forgetting is due to consolidation failure. Previous research with humans and nonhuman animals has reported evidence for consolidation in intermediate or long-term memory (LTM). The present study examines whether consolidation occurs in short-term memory in pigeons. Delayed matching-to-sample accuracy was reduced when retroactive interference (an extraneous task in Experiment 1 or houselight illumination in Experiment 2) was interpolated in the retention interval. Accuracy was not greater, however, when interference occurred at the end of the retention interval, as compared with when it occurred at the beginning. That is, there was no evidence for consolidation in short-term memory for pigeons. We did find, however, the beginning–end effect originally reported by Roberts and Grant (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 4, 219–236, 1978) and the recovery from forgetting reported by White and Brown (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 96, 177–189, 2011). The results are discussed in relation to temporal distinctiveness theory as an alternative to consolidation.     

Challenging assumptions about values,interests and power in further and higher education partnerships

This article raises questions that challenge assumptions about values, interests and power in further and higher education partnerships. These topics were explored in a series of semi-structured interviews with a sample of principals and senior higher education partnership managers of colleges spread across a single region in England. The data suggest that common assumptions evident in the literature and professional discourse about the hegemony of higher education institutions in partnerships with further education and sixth form colleges may be misplaced. Questions are also raised about an exclusive focus upon shared values in educational partnerships, and it is suggested that greater clarity about the focus of educational partnerships can explain how successful partnerships can negotiate which values and interests are shared and which are not – an approach that can be a useful modus operandi in the increasingly competitive educational markets in which universities and colleges operate.     

Student and Teacher Outcomes of The Superkids Quasi-Experimental Study

In this article, we report kindergarten student and teacher outcomes from a quasi-experimental evaluation of The Superkids, a systematic, phonics-based, comprehensive K-2 reading program. We recruited 23 kindergarten teachers to implement The Superkids program from a diverse, yet predominantly ethnic minority, group of classrooms from across the United States. We then employed a precise computerized matching methodology to derive a statistically equivalent comparison group of 20 control teachers who implemented their standard “business as usual” core literacy program. Multilevel analyses of classroom-level effects of The Superkids revealed achievement advantages of more than 1/10 of a standard deviation, d = 0.11, to 1/4 of a standard deviation, d = 0.25, for the treatment group on the 5 subtests from the Stanford Achievement Test, 10th edition (SAT-10). Four measures of teachers’ self-reported satisfaction with the core reading program used in their classrooms also revealed statistically significant advantages for Superkids of nearly three-quarters of a standard deviation, d = 0.72, to nearly 1½ standard deviation units, d = 1.49.