Visual search deficits are independent of magnocellular deficits in dyslexia

The aim of this study was to investigate the theory that visual magnocellular deficits seen in groups with dyslexia are linked to reading via the mechanisms of visual attention. Visual attention was measured with a serial search task and magnocellular function with a coherent motion task. A large group of children with dyslexia (n = 70) had slower serial search times than a control group of typical readers. However, the effect size was small (η _p² = 0.05) indicating considerable overlap between the groups. When the dyslexia sample was split into those with or without a magnocellular deficit, there was no difference in visual search reaction time between either group and controls. The data suggest that magnocellular sensitivity and visual spatial attention weaknesses are independent of one another. They also provide more evidence of heterogeneity in response to psychophysical tasks in groups with dyslexia. Alternative explanations for poor performance on visual attention tasks are proposed along with avenues for future research.     

MedBiquitous and journal publishers: scholarly content and online medical communities

MedBiquitous is a consortium whose members are working to develop a common technology framework that will support reforms in healthcare education and competence assessment. The mission of MedBiquitous is to advance healthcare education through technology standards that promote professional competence, collaboration, and better patient care. The consortium members include professional medical associations, technology companies, e‐learning firms, and publishers, among others. Two publishers actively working within MedBiquitous are John Wiley & Sons, Inc., and the American Academy of Pediatrics, who are pursuing their own objectives to help to create improved online medical communities.     

Transfer of escape conditioning to extinction of a food-reinforced response

Four experiments test the hypothesis that escape learning in response to shock will transfer to a similar food-reinforced response and affect resistance to appetitive extinction. In the first two experiments, subjects were given escape training in a straight alley followed by continuous food reinforcement and then extinction. Prior escape training resulted in greater resistance to extinction of the food-reinforced response as compared to several control procedures. In the third experiment, the escape response was manipulated to be compatible or incompatible with the subsequent food-reinforced response. Greater resistance to extinction was shown when the two responses were compatible. The fourth experiment confirmed and extended this finding. The relationship of the present results to Amsel’s theory of persistence was discussed.     

Can the Emotion Recognition Ability of Deaf Children be Enhanced? A Pilot Study

We evaluated the effectiveness of an 11-lesson psychoeducational program designed to enhance the ability of deaf children to understand the emotional experience of themselves and other people. The "Funny Faces Program" was provided to 14 children, aged 9 to 13, with moderate to profound hearing impairments. All children were enrolled in an "oral" education program at a school for the deaf. Alternate forms of the Emotion Recognition Scales (Dyck, Ferguson, & Shochet, 2001) were administered at pretest and posttest. Results indicate significant increases in emotion vocabulary and emotion comprehension but not in the speed or accuracy of emotion recognition (ER), from pretest to posttest. At posttest, children whose hearing loss was moderate to severe did not differ from hearing children in ER abilities but children with profound hearing loss continued to show substantial ability deficits.     

Conditions of preexposure and passive avoidance behavior in rats

In the first experiment, rats given a 5-min period of preexposure (simple exploration) to a two-compartment box showed poorer passive avoidance of the compartment where they were subsequently shocked than a control group which was not preexposed to the apparatus. The second experiment involved preexposure to sugared milk (SM), flashing light and loud noise (LN), or simply the apparatus (EC). One group received no exposure to the apparatus (NC). Following one shock trial, the groups were ordered LN > NC > EC > SM from most to least passive avoidance. The results were discussed in the context of latent inhibition and an averaging model of positive and negative events.