Pigeons’ memory for empty time intervals marked by visual or auditory stimuli

In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained to discriminate the duration (2 or 8 sec) of an empty interval separated by two 1325-Hz tone markers by responding to red and green comparison stimuli. During delay testing, a choose-short bias occurred at 1 sec, but a robust choose-long bias occurred at 9 sec. Responding in the absence of tone markers indicated that the pigeons were attending to the markers and not simply timing the total trial duration. The birds were then trained to match short (2-sec) or long (8-sec) empty intervals marked by light to blue/yellow comparisons. For both visual and auditory markers, delay testing produced a choose-short bias at 1 sec and a choose-long bias at 9 sec. In Experiment 2, the pigeons were shifted from a fixed to variable intertrial intervals (ITI) within sessions. On trials with tone markers, the duration of both the empty interval and the preceding ITI affected choice responding. On trials with light markers, only the duration of the empty interval influenced choice responding. Subsequent delay testing in the context of variable ITIs replicated the memory biases previously obtained. In Experiment 3, performance was assessed at various delay intervals on trials in which either the first or the second marker was omitted. The data from these omission tests indicated that the first marker initiated timing but that the second marker sometimes initiated the timing of a new interval. Explanations of these effects in terms of the internal clock model of timing are discussed, and a simple quantitative model of the delay interval data is tested.     

Finding without seeking: the information encounter in the context of reading for pleasure

This paper examines nongoal oriented transactions with texts in order to investigate the information encounter in the context of daily living. Findings are reported from a larger research project based on intensive interviews with 194 committed readers who read for pleasure. The paper analyses interview responses that illuminate two aspects of the readers' experience of reading for pleasure: (1) how readers choose books to read for pleasure; and (2) books that have made a significant difference in readers' lives. The paper concludes with five themes emerging from this analysis that have implications for the information search process: the active engagement of the reader/searcher in constructing meaning from texts; the role of the affective dimension; ‘trustworthiness’; the social context of information seeking; and the meta-knowledge used by experienced readers in making judgments about texts.     

The Me in Memory: The Role of the Self in Autobiographical Memory Development

This article tests the hypothesis that self-development plays a role in the offset of childhood amnesia; assessing the importance of both the capacity to anchor a memory to the self-concept, and the strength of the self-concept as an anchor. This research demonstrates for the first time that the volume of 3- to 6-year old's specific autobiographical memories is predicted by both the volume of their self-knowledge, and their capacity for self-source monitoring within self-referencing paradigms (N = 186). Moreover, there is a bidirectional relation between self and memory, such that autobiographical memory mediates the link between self-source monitoring and self-knowledge. These predictive relations suggest that the self-memory system is active in early childhood.     

Teaching structured troubleshooting: integrating a standard methodology into an information technology program

Troubleshooting skills are integral for the Information Technology professional. In order to address faculty concerns that students were not effectively learning required troubleshooting skills, a standardized troubleshooting methodology (the DECSAR Method) was created and integrated into the standard curriculum of a college information technology program. Components of troubleshooting were measured using a pre-/post-testing approach with the Social Problem Solving Inventory—Revised. Testing indicated improvement in several areas of troubleshooting reinforced by DECSAR. The context in which the troubleshooting methodology was applied was associated with post-test change.