Persistence of social investigatory behavior in the male rat: Evidence for long-term memory of initial copulatory experience

The duration of active social investigation by sexually mature male rats, following exposure to a novel conspecific, was investigated to assess the influence of former social experience. In Experiments 1 and 2, pretest social isolation of older males with extensive heterosexual experience and of younger males with limited heterosexual experience failed to affect their subsequent persistence in social investigation. Older and sexually experienced rats, however, engaged in significantly less investigatory behavior than did younger, sexually inexperienced males. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 demonstrated that this difference was associated with prior copulatory experience. A single copulatory series with either an intact female or a hormone-primed castrate female effected a significant and sustained decrease in social investigatory behavior. The results are interpreted as demonstrating a form of long-term memory for associations formed during initial copulatory experience.     

Pre-service Physics Teachers and Conceptual Difficulties on Temperature and Heat

In this article the ‘lesson preparation method’ was used to investigate pre-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, in particular their knowledge of pupils’ conceptual difficulties on temperature and heat. A relation is found between the conceptual difficulties pre-service teachers expect their pupils to have and the conceptual difficulties they themselves have or have had. The discussion considers what pedagogical content knowledge teacher educators should include in the initial or inservice teacher education curriculum.     

Convergent validity of bibliometric Google Scholar data in the field of chemistry—Citation counts for papers that were accepted by Angewandte Chemie International Edition or rejected but published elsewhere,using Google Scholar,Science Citation Index,Scopus, and Chemical Abstracts

Examining a comprehensive set of papers (n = 1837) that were accepted for publication by the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition (one of the prime chemistry journals in the world) or rejected by the journal but then published elsewhere, this study tested the extent to which the use of the freely available database Google Scholar (GS) can be expected to yield valid citation counts in the field of chemistry. Analyses of citations for the set of papers returned by three fee-based databases – Science Citation Index, Scopus, and Chemical Abstracts – were compared to the analysis of citations found using GS data. Whereas the analyses using citations returned by the three fee-based databases show very similar results, the results of the analysis using GS citation data differed greatly from the findings using citations from the fee-based databases. Our study therefore supports, on the one hand, the convergent validity of citation analyses based on data from the fee-based databases and, on the other hand, the lack of convergent validity of the citation analysis based on the GS data.     

The linguistic milieu of Norwegian children with hearing loss

The article is based on a national survey in Norway of the linguistic situation of deaf children. Parents, teachers, and children were asked to make judgments on topics related to the children's language milieu at home and at school by means of detailed questions using two response methods: a language inventory and rating scales. The inventory is more detailed than those in other studies and required all three groups to consider not only the use of the two native languages, Norwegian and Norwegian Sign Language, but other forms combining sign and speech. The data revealed that languages used with the children included both native languages as well as various mixtures depending on context, situation, and the nature and purpose of the communication. The results are considered from the perspective of the amount and quality of language input and intake necessary for language acquisition and literacy.     

Visual and social determinants of shock-elicited aggressive responding in rats

Light and dark reared, social and isolate housed, male Long-Evans hooded rats were tested in bright and dim light for aggressive response to footshock. Test lighting and socialization main effects were significant, with greater fighting in dim light than in bright light and greater fighting by isolates than by socially housed animals. Test lighting interacted with prior visual experience and socialization interacted with past and present illumination variables. The results suggest an inhibitory effect of test illumination dependent upon prior social and visual experience.     

Territorial behavior of laboratory rats under conditions of peripheral anosmia

Two experiments investigated the influence of peripheral anosmia with zinc sulfate solution on aggressive and nonaggressive behaviors of rats in the colony intrusion paradigm. Experiment I was a replication of a previous observation that anosmic intruders arenot attacked by resident males. No significant differences were found in aggressive response to normal or anosmic intruders. Experiment II tested colony residents under normal and anosmic conditions for aggressive and nonaggressive response to intruders. The results were in agreement with previous reports that anosmia abolishes differential responding between males and females as well as all aggressive acts normally directed against unfamiliar males.     

Vocalization as an objective measure of shock-elicited social aggression in rats

Intense vocalizations emitted by pairs of shocked rats were compared when physically separated by a transparent partition and when free to engage in social aggression. Greater vocalization occurred in the free-access condition and was positively correlated with visually observed attack scores in pairs that had prior experience with shock. A second experiment determined the influence of repeated fighting exposures upon the correlation between observed attack and vocalization. High positive correlations were obtained after initial sessions within a broad range of intermediate fighting. At high and low extremes of fighting, correlations were nonsignificant. The results are discussed with reference to restriction imposed upon variation of attack scores based upon standard criteria of observation.     

Ideology and Morality in Host Language Learning: American Protestants in the Former Yugoslavia

ABSTRACT

American Protestants serving overseas must learn their host communities’ “heart” language from the twin moral imperative to minimize their burden on host partners and to embody their faith through their language practice. Language learning thus has moral consequences; not merely proficiency attainment, but faithfulness and calling are at stake. The author, a Protestant himself, conducted an ethnography of Americans serving in a Protestant organization at field sites in Bosnia and Slovenia. Two ideologies emerged from this study and were analyzed as a polycentric system exerting moral authority. These were (a) a dogmatic ideology of using the “right” language, the “national” or “heart language” corresponding to a people group, and (b) a pragmatic ideology of using “whatever” linguistic resources available to convey their gospel. These ideologies overlapped and shifted over time, with consequences for fieldworkers’ longevity, the linguistic ecology of host communities, and Christian understandings of language learning.