Location preference and flavor aversion reinforced by amphetamine in rats

To associate the identical drug state with both a location and a flavor, rats were given intraperitoneal amphetamine injections and then confined for 20 min in one side of a shuttlebox with access to a flavored solution; on control trials without injections, they were confined for 20 min in the opposite side with a different flavor. In the first experiment, the rats were placed in the shuttlebox immediately after injections; in the second experiment, they were placed in the shuttlebox 20 min after injections. Subsequent free-choice tests in both experiments revealed an increased choice of the side of the shuttlebox associated with amphetamine but also an aversion to the flavored solution associated with the drug.     

Changing Research Contexts in Teacher Education in Australia: Charting new directions

This paper examines research into initial teacher education in light of current Australian policy initiatives concerned with both the quality of research conducted in higher education and the quality of teacher education programs. The purpose of the paper is to explore some ways in which the research is, and can be, positioned in the current policy context. The paper begins with a brief overview of some of the main characteristics of the research concerned with initial (pre‐service) teacher education in Australia over the last decade. In terms of scope, scale and methodology, the research can be characterised in the following way: typically small‐scale; many one‐off studies; localised in nature; and a growing application of qualitative research methods. An obvious strength of this type of research is that it is closely tied to practice and to the day‐to‐day workings of initial teacher education programs. An equally obvious weakness is that the research does not necessarily have so called ‘impact’ in relation to policy debates and/or other measures of success in the wider research community. The paper charts some possible new directions for teacher education research in ways that build on the strengths and address the weaknesses. The directions can be characterised as follows: a ‘big funding’ approach; an ‘institutional aggregation’ approach; and a ‘platforms and protocols’ approach.     

The Development of Memory and Processing Capacity

The assumption of some developmental theories that short-term memory is the workspace of higher cognitive processes, and consequently that span measures processing capacity, is claimed to be inconsistent with the working memory literature. 4 experiments, using children aged 5 to 12 years, contrast this theory with a model in which short-term memory and the processing space component of working memory are at least partly distinct. Experiments 1 and 2 varied processing load, holding duration constant. The processing load manipulation had little effect on recall of a short-term memory preload. Experiments 3 and 4 failed to support the prediction that the greater processing efficiency of older children would be associated with slower loss of information from short-term memory. Although counting and rehearsal rates increased with age, and correlated with span, they did not predict the rate of loss of memory preload due to intervening counting. The data suggest that effects obtained with short-term memory span do not provide clear indications of overall working memory development, because short-term memory span and the processing space component of working memory entail distinct systems.