Ecological Mural as Community Reconnection

Murals are particularly visually captivating forms of public art due to their size and accessibility. Mural images also capture public attention and provoke viewers to explore layers of meaning and find hidden stories. They are often in places that people come to visit, study, play, congregate and discuss matters that may relate to the content of the mural. To this end, murals can be effective tools for helping communities think about their environmental issues. This article discusses the Mystic River mural project in Somerville, Massachusetts, USA. It addresses how the local art councils, mural artists, local students, community members and non‐profit organisations collaborated to carry out this ongoing mural project. The purpose of this research is to examine how Mystic River eco‐murals were created, what challenges and benefits the eco‐murals provided, how local social concerns were represented through the eco‐murals, how eco‐murals can continue to promote environmental awareness and inspire youth about their community and the local environment, and how the mural can continue to reflect or affect the meaning of the place. This process can serve as an example for other communities that seek to address their environmental concerns through public art.     

The Effects of a Kit-Based Science Curriculum and Intensive Science Professional Development on Elementary Student Science Achievement

The science achievement of 226 5th graders from districts that have a kit-based inquiry science curriculum supported by intensive professional development (PD) is compared with data from a group of 173 5th graders from other districts that use nonkit science materials and do not have systematic science PD for teachers. Within the kit-based project, the sample of project teachers is stratified to select teachers with a high number of science PD hours versus those with few hours. While there were no significant differences in the mean total scores for kit-based students with low PD versus high PD teachers, the kit-based classrooms scored significantly higher than students in nonkit classrooms on both the pretest and posttest, though there were significantly more minutes of science instruction in the nonkit classrooms. Finally, nonkit teachers taught more units of shorter length and reported lower levels of preparedness to use reform pedagogical approaches.     

Concept learning by pigeons: Matching-to-sample with trial-unique video picture stimuli

Pigeons were trained to match-to-sample with several new methodologies: a large number of stimuli, computer-drawn color picture stimuli, responses monitored by a computer touch screen, stimuli presented horizontally from the floor, and grain reinforcement delivered onto the picture stimuli. Following acquisition, matching-to-sample concept learning was assessed by transfer to novel stimuli on the first exposure to pairs of novel stimuli. One group (trial-unique), trained with 152 different pictures presented once daily, showed excellent transfer (80% correct). Transfer and baseline performances were equivalent, indicating that the matching-to-sample concept had been learned. A second group (2-stimulus), trained with only two different pictures, showed no evidence of transfer. These results are discussed in terms of the effect of numbers of exemplars on previous failures to find concept learning in pigeons, and the implications of the positive finding from this experiment on abstract concept learning and evolutionary cognitive development.     

Perseveration of associative strength in rabbit nictitating membrane response conditioning following ISI shifts

The present experiment determined whether associative strength based upon 15 CS-US pairings at various interstimulus intervals (ISIs) could survive shifts of the ISI to influence the subsequent acquisition of the nictitating membrane (NM) CR. The choice of 15 preshift pairings was based upon previous work, which had shown that this training level produced substantial associative strength without NM CR acquisition. Consequently, this experiment, by shifting the ISI before the beginning of CR acquisition, served as an extension to traditional ISI-shift studies that have imposed the manipulation after CR acquisition. The findings of the experiment indicated that 15 preshift pairings in Stage 1 at ISIs from 250 to 4,000 msec were as effective as 15 pairings at a 500-msec ISI in determining the number of trials to the first NM CR in Stage 2 in which the training ISI was 500 msec. Moreover, 15 pairings in Stage 1 at ISIs from 250 to 2,000 msec were equivalent to 15 pairings at 500 msec in controlling the number of trials to 10 successive NM CRs in Stage 2. These outcomes demonstrate that, within a large ISI range, the associative strength based upon relatively few pairings is preserved despite various shifts of the ISI. Therefore, these results suggest that the reductions in CR performance, which have been consistently observed in traditional studies following ISI shifts, are not due to the loss of associative strength.     

Genetic influences in different aspects of language development: the etiology of language skills in 4.5-year-old twins

The genetic and environmental etiologies of diverse aspects of language ability and disability, including articulation, phonology, grammar, vocabulary, and verbal memory, were investigated in a U.K. sample of 787 pairs of 4.5-year-old same-sex and opposite-sex twins. Moderate genetic influence was found for all aspects of language in the normal range. A similar pattern was found at the low end of the distribution with the exception of two receptive measures. Environmental influence was mainly due to nonshared factors, unique to the individual, with little influence from shared environment for most measures. Genetic and environmental influences on language ability and disability are quantitatively and qualitatively similar for males and females.     

Certainty of Punishment and Criminal Thinking: Do the Rational and Non-rational Parameters of a Student’s Decision to Cheat on an Exam Interact?

The purpose of this study was to determine whether criminal thinking interacts with the rational requirements of human decision-making in a group of college students. A convenience sample of 315 undergraduates (114 males, 201 females) completed self-report measures of criminal thinking and estimated their likelihood of cheating on an exam given different levels of certainty of apprehension. A repeated-measures analysis of covariance revealed that students were significantly more likely to seize on the opportunity to cheat when the certainty of getting caught was 10% than when it was 50% and that students with higher levels of criminal thinking were more likely to take the opportunity to cheat than students with lower levels of criminal thinking. In addition, students exhibiting moderate proactive criminal thinking and moderate to high reactive criminal thinking were significantly less likely to be deterred from cheating when the odds of getting caught were low.     

Adjunctive drinking during variable and random-interval food reinforcement schedules

Rats were trained to leverpress for food and subsequently exposed to either arithmetic series or random variable-interval reinforcement schedules. Adjunctive drinking developed in all subjects exposed to arithmetic variable-interval reinforcement, but did not develop in six of the eight animals trained on the random schedule. The results suggest that adjunctive drinking is the result of an interaction between the tendency of rats to drink after eating and the ability of locally low probabilities of reinforcement within schedules to induce conditioned behavioral states.