Interstimulus interval and viewing time effects in monkey list memory

Two rhesus monkeys were tested in 6- and 10-item list memory tasks for performance changes as a function of the exposure duration of the list stimuli and the interstimulus interval (ISI) between successive list stimuli. Accuracy increased with longer item exposure duration and tended to decrease with longer ISI duration. Humans, by contrast, typically show increases in accuracy with ISI, a result taken as evidence of rehearsal. The decrease in accuracy for monkeys suggests that they were not using rehearsal processes in these list memory experiments. Further tests in which choice accuracy with predictable ISIs was compared with choice accuracy with unpredictable ISIs also yielded no evidence of rehearsal by the monkeys. This apparent absence of rehearsal mechanisms in monkeys, in situations also shown to support human rehearsal, is discussed as a potential difference in the visual working memory processes of the two species.     

Peer Teachers With Autism Teaching 3D Modeling

ABSTRACT

Few autism programmes address the needs of adolescents and young adults, and those that do are unlikely to include individuals with autism in the design and evaluation of the programme. This study involved nine youth with autism (ages 16–25) in the development and evaluation of a peer teaching programme where they taught three-dimensional modelling to other students with autism spectrum disorder. The methodology was participant-oriented research where the students with autism were co-designers and programme evaluators in the research. This approach highlighted their unique strengths and abilities and shifted the power such that they were leaders and not simply the recipients of knowledge from instructors. Four themes emerged through the qualitative analysis of the students’ perceptions of the peer teaching programme: 1) the meaning of peer teaching, 2) motivations for peer teaching, 3) challenges and 4) coping with the challenges of the role.     

An approach to psychosexual counselling

Summary In considering in this paper the origins, development and need for psychosexual counselling to be an integral part of the provision of a counselling service, one must not lose sight of the fact that some higher educational institutions still have no general counselling provision.It is interesting to note that in the UK at a time when the age of consent and voting age were lowered to eighteen years (Family Law Reform Act, 1969, operational 1970 and Representation of the People Act, 1969), and students were rejecting the idea of wardens and academic tutors acting in loco parentis, the National Union of Students (at their annual conference in 1969) passed a resolution pressing for Counselling Services to be established in each higher educational institution-staffed by fully trained personnel, Milner (1974). Nine years later this resolution has not yet been fully implemented.The university community represents a cross-section of the population, any of whom may have a psychosexual problem and seek help from the counselling service. Counsellors must be trained to treat psychosexual problems as part of their normal range of activities.Storr (1960) points out that it is The individual as well as the disease that needs treatment. This applies in counselling as it does in medicine, so that the counsellor should be able to treat the individual as a whole, and at the same time treat his psychosexual problem.University of Reading     

Behavioural additionality of R&D subsidies: A learning perspective

The use of R&D grants as a policy instrument has been motivated by economic arguments of market failure. Neo-classical econometric studies have analysed the additionality of one Euro of subsidies on both the investments of companies in the R&D process and the output of that R&D process. More recently, behavioural additionality has been launched as a third form of additionality. In contrast to input and output additionality, behavioural additionality is related to changes in the processes that take place within the firm. In this paper, we analyse the determinants of the behavioural additionality of R&D grants. To explain the mechanism through which behavioural additionality is obtained, we use organizational learning theory as a guide to formulate our hypotheses. Hypotheses are tested using a telephone survey of 192 recipients of R&D grants provided by the IWT in Flanders in 2001–2004, matched to a sample of 84 firms that undertake innovation activities but which had never had a grant bid accepted. We find that congenital learning and interorganizational learning lead to increased behavioural additionality. However, these learning effects decrease with the number of subsidized projects that are undertaken by the company.     

Three types of conduct‐problem boys in an educational setting

Third grade boys identified as being disruptive to on‐going classroom activities were grouped according to their teacher's ratings of their behaviour characteristics as unco‐operative (Type I), easily flustered (Type II), and unco‐operative and easily flustered (Type III). No significant differences in performance existed between types on individually administered tests of perception and psycholinguistic abilities. On group administered tests of academic achievement and intelligence, the uncooperative boys did significantly better than the other two types. It was also determined that the easily flustered boys did substantially better on individually administered measures of IQ. than they did on group administered measures. These findings suggest that teachers should avoid using group tests to evaluate disruptive boys they perceive as being easily flustered.     

Effectiveness of the PPVT-R for screening gifted students

The PPVT-R and the WISC-R were administered to a sample of 35 students, grades 1 through 8, who were nominated for possible participation in gifted programming. The correlation between the PPVT-R and Full Scale IQ was .27, which probably was affected by the restricted range of ability assessed. The PPVT-R showed modest incremental effectiveness beyond informal referral procedures in predicting toward a WISC-R criterion score.     

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.