Do chimpanzees reason logically?

Psychologists disagree about the development of logical concepts such as or and not. While some theorists argue that infants reason logically, others maintain that logical inference is contingent on linguistic abilities and emerges around age 4. In this Registered Report, we conducted five experiments on logical reasoning in chimpanzees. Subjects (N = 16; 10 females; M = 24 years) participated in the same setup that has been administered to children: the two-, three-, and four-cup-task. Chimpanzees performed above chance in the two-cup-, but not in the three-cup-task. Furthermore, chimpanzees selected the logically correct option more often in the test than the control condition of the four-cup-task. We discuss possible interpretations of these findings and conclude that our results are most consistent with non-deductive accounts.     

A social skills intervention programme for kindergarten children at risk of developing behavioural problems

ABSTRACT

A programme for training social skills to a group of 6‐year‐old children was developed and evaluated. The group consisted of eight children, four boys and four girls; three of these were considered to be at risk of developing emotional and behavioural problems. The targeted skills were supporting, cooperating, establishing social contacts, participating, reducing aggression and handling conflict situations. The theoretical framework underlying the social skills intervention programme was based on cognitive‐social learning theory and scaffolding. The programme consisted of nine, 30‐35 minute, training sessions which were presented over a one and a half month period. Pretest/posttest assessment indicated that the intervention programme was effective in increasing some positive and reducing some negative behaviours. The sociometric assessment, however, showed few changes from pre‐training to posttraining.     

Understanding Starts in the Mesocosm: Conceptual metaphor as a framework for external representations in science teaching

In recent years, researchers have become aware of the experiential grounding of scientific thought. Accordingly, research has shown that metaphorical mappings between experience-based source domains and abstract target domains are omnipresent in everyday and scientific language. The theory of conceptual metaphor explains these findings based on the assumption that understanding is embodied. Embodied understanding arises from recurrent bodily and social experience with our environment. As our perception is adapted to a medium-scale dimension, our embodied conceptions originate from this mesocosmic scale. With respect to this epistemological principle, we distinguish between micro-, meso- and macrocosmic phenomena. We use these insights to analyse how external representations of phenomena in the micro- and macrocosm can foster learning when they (a) address the students’ learning demand by affording a mesocosmic experience or (b) assist reflection on embodied conceptions by representing their image schematic structure. We base our considerations on empirical evidence from teaching experiments on phenomena from the microcosm (microbial growth and signal conduction in neurons) and the macrocosm (greenhouse effect and carbon cycle). We discuss how the theory of conceptual metaphor can inform the development of external representations.     

The Teaching of English as a Second Language in Primary Schools

For the last few years projects of foreign language instruction in primary schools have been planned and carried out by a growing number of school authorities. It would be wrong to maintain that such schemes are a completely new feature of primary education. ‘If we include … the older practices in private schools and the accepted practices in the developing countries of Africa and Asia, we will find that the teaching at the primary level is far more widespread than is commonly believed and it is ‘experimental’ only in the public educational systems of those countries in which the second-language start in the secondary school has been the rule.’¹ Countries where a lingua franca is needed, bilingual areas, and smaller linguistic communities, are quite naturally expected to adopt a policy of early language learning. What is new in this context and particularly with regard to countries like Britain, France, Germany, or the United States, is the shift in emphasis which gives priority to the educational aspect and at the same time stresses the need to develop more effective methods of instruction. At any rate, this is the impression the reader gets from H. H. Stern's reports on the Hamburg conferences organized by the UNESCO Institute for Education in 1962 and 1966. In countries of a multilingual or bilingual type the motivational force of the surroundings, in which language learning takes place, is so strong that less refined techniques of teaching may still have certain chances of success. But this does not apply to the second group. It is easier to persuade pupils to tackle a second language and to keep them going, if their daily experience convinces them of the immediate surrender value of the matter learned, than to introduce such a language into an educational environment where the teachers cannot rely to that extent on advantages easily demonstrated in the community's life. Thus ways and means must be found to overcome the obstacles inherent in the learing situation, and there is no doubt that schools all over the world will profit from such progress in methodology. Therefore it is not lack of enthusiasm or the traditionalists horror of innovations, but a sober assessment of the present state of research when, for instance, the Plowden Report says with reference to the Leeds project; ‘for this, and other reasons, we hope that the experimental nature of the project will be recognized and that no attempt will be made to press further the teaching of second language in primary schools until the results of the experiment can be fully assessed.’²     

Diarrhoen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Western and Chinese development discourses: Education,growth and sustainability

This article examines Western and Chinese discourses of education, sustainable growth and development. Education is increasingly considered as a means to fuel economic growth, especially since the 1980s, when conservative economic values became predominant in Western development thought. Despite a discourse on sustainability favouring ecologically sound and equitable growth, education is increasingly economy-centred. Through analysis of China’s market-based socialism, its development path, and the expansion of its Africa cooperation, this article seeks to demonstrate that the China-proposed development and education models are very similar to the Western growth-based development paradigm, although the discourse is different.     

Ethikkommissionen �C Stand und Perspektiven

Ethikkommissionen sind ein verwaltungsrechtliches Ph?nomen vor allem in den Bereichen des Krankenanstalten-, Universit?ts-, Arzneimittel- und Medizinprodukterechts. Als ein Instrument der Forschungskontrolle werfen sie aus verfassungsrechtlicher und verwaltungsrechtlicher Sicht Fragestellungen auf, so etwa jene nach ihrem organisationsrechtlichen Status, der Einordnung ihrer Akte in das Rechtsschutzsystem und die gesetzliche Determinierung ihres Handelns. Der vorliegende Beitrag unternimmt es, auf diese strittigen Fragen m?gliche Antworten zu geben.     

Modulation of attention in discrimination learning: The roles of stimulus relevance and stimulus–outcome correlation

The advantage in learning after an intradimensional shift rather than an extradimensional shift has been widely used as a behavioural marker of attentional changes during discrimination learning in different fields of neuroscientific study. However, some of the factors assumed to guide these attentional changes have not been completely disentangled by previous research. In two predictive-learning experiments, we investigated the importance of stimulus relevance and of stimulus-outcome correlation for the modulation of attention. In each experiment, participants were trained on two discrimination problems given in successive order. Each problem required participants to differentiate stimuli varying on two dimensions. We found that acquisition of the second discrimination was influenced by whether its relevant dimension (Exp. 1) or its irrelevant dimension (Exp. 2) had previously been trained as relevant and uncorrelated or as irrelevant and uncorrelated. We also observed that acquisition of the second discrimination was independent of whether its relevant dimension (Exp. 1) or its irrelevant dimension (Exp. 2) had previously been trained as relevant and uncorrelated or as relevant and correlated. Our results indicated that the modulation of attention is guided by stimulus relevance and not by stimulus-outcome correlation.     

On the Roots of Difficulties in Learning about Cell Division: Process‐based analysis of students’ conceptual development in teaching experiments

Empirical investigations on students’ conceptions of cell biology indicate major misunderstandings of scientific concepts even after thorough teaching. Therefore, the main aim of our research project was to investigate students’ difficulties in learning this topic and to study the impact of learning activities on students’ conceptions. Using the Model of Educational Reconstruction, a four‐phase design was carried out. Firstly, there was the clarification of science subject matter. Secondly, students’ conceptions were investigated, and finally, the learning activities were designed. An evaluation of these learning activities was carried out using five teaching experiments, each with three 9^th grade students (15–16 years, Grammar school). Interpretation of students’ “pathways of thinking” and their conceptual change during instruction was framed theoretically by experiential realism. Theoretical framework, methods and outcomes of the study may contribute to a deeper understanding of students’ ways of thinking in the field of cell biology and reveal the process of conceptual development by using well planned learning activities.