Exposure to Spatial Cues Facilitates Visual Discrimination but Not Spatial Guidance

The performance in a radial-arm maze of two groups of rats with restricted access to extra-maze visual cues was studied. One group received extensive exposure to the visual environment of the maze, whereas the second group was never exposed to the environment, aside from their experience in the maze itself. Spatial exposure resulted in a slightly improved ability to discriminate between previously visited and unvisited spatial locations, which can be explained on the basis of general perceptual learning processes. However, there was no evidence that spatial exposure resulted in control of choices by the spatial relations among the maze locations. These results are discussed in terms of theories of spatial learning which appeal to perceptual learning and cognitive mapping.     

Kinesthetic Cues in the Development of Time Concepts

The intent of this study was to document general behavioral correlates of cognitive impulsivity. Fourth-grade children were individually administered the Matching Familiar Figures (MFF) test, and the resulting measures (latency and errors) were correlated with a group administered scale of impulsivity, the Impulsivity Scale for Children (ISC) and eight teacher ratings evaluating the child on a series of different behaviors. No relationships existed between MFF measures and the ISC; and only one teacher rating correlated significantly with either MFF variable. This teacher rating (tendency to respond) was found to be the only discriminating teacher rating, and the high correlation between it and the MFF latency was explained because of the high task similarity between MFF requirements and the behaviors rated on “tendency to respond.” Cognitive impulsivity was not predicted by classroom behavior, implying that an individual's preferred conceptual tempo is not a part of a global impulsive behavior pattern but rather a relatively independent dimension of cognitive style. The questionable validity of the ISC was discussed for children of this age group, as was the significant correlation between Primary Mental Abilities (PMA) scores and the ISC scores.     

Perseverance Counts but Consistency Does Not! Validating the Short Grit Scale in a Collectivist Setting

The present research aims to validate the Short Grit Scale (Duckworth et al. Journal of Personality Assessment 91:166–174, 2009) among a sample of university (n?=?220) and high school students (n?=?606) from a collectivist culture (i.e., the Philippines) using both within-network and between-network approaches to construct validation. Our results revealed interesting cross-cultural differences in grit. First, grit was comprised of two distinct dimensions rather than as a hierarchical construct. Only the perseverance of effort dimension loaded onto the higher-order grit factor. Second, perseverance of effort was more salient in predicting key psychological outcomes (i.e., academic engagement and subjective well-being) compared to consistency of interests. This suggests that in collectivist cultures, the perseverance of effort dimension of grit is more relevant compared to the consistency of interest. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Number, But Not Rhythmicity, of Temporal Cues Determines Phrasing Effects in Rat Serial-Pattern Learning

Recent work on experimental manipulations that affect chunking in sequential learning has shown that cues inserted into a sequence, termed “phrasing cues,” can facilitate learning by serving as discriminative cues that overshadow associations between sequence items (Stempowski, Carman, & Fountain, 1999). This experiment assessed whether rhythmicity is an important determinant of temporal phrasing effects or, instead, that a discrimination learning view can adequately account for the results of manipulating the number and sequential positioning of phrasing cues. Rats learned serial patterns in which the number and organization of phrasing cues were manipulated so that phrasing cues were positioned at the beginning of four or eight chunks in an eight-chunk serial pattern. Alternate Chunks phrasing, Aperiodic phrasing (four cues always positioned before the first, third, fourth, and seventh chunks), and Random phrasing (four cues positioned at four chunks chosen randomly for each new pattern presentation) produced equal facilitation of acquisition for cued chunks relative to a No Phrasing condition, but not as much facilitation as Every Chunk phrasing. Cue removal produced deficits, with greater impairment observed for the eight- versus four-cue conditions. Thus, the effects of temporal phrasing cues were predicted less by their rhythmicity than by the common discrimination learning notion that associative strength is a function of the number of stimulus–response pairings.     

Composition as Identity Does Not Entail Universalism

Composition as Identity is the view that, in some sense, a whole is numerically identical with its parts. Compositional universalism is the view that, whenever there are some things, there is a whole composed of those things. Despite the claims of many philosophers, these views are logically independent. Here, I will show that composition as identity does not entail compositional universalism.     

Learned Irrelevance Is Not the Sum of Exposure to CS and US

In three experiments hungry rats received appetitive conditioning trials with a light that signalled the delivery of sucrose solution. In Experiment 1, prior exposure to uncorrelated presentations of the conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US) retarded conditioning significantly more than did prior exposure to the CS alone. In Experiments 2 and 3, groups exposed to uncorrelated presentations of the CS and US within the same session conditioned significantly more slowly than groups given separate sessions of exposure to the CS followed by sessions of exposure to the US (or vice versa). Some part of the learned irrelevance effect depends on exposure to a zero correlation between the CS and US, perhaps because this promotes learning that the CS predicts no change in the probability of the US.     

Serotonin Depletion Does Not Prevent Intrinsic Sensitization in the Leech

Intrinsic sensitization is a form of behavioral facilitation that is distinct from the extrinsic sensitization normally studied. To examine whether intrinsic and extrinsic sensitization are mediated by different physiological processes, the effects of 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine-induced serotonin (5-HT) depletion on intrinsic sensitization of the leech whole-body shortening response were observed. Previous experiments have shown that 5-HT depletion disrupts dishabituation and extrinsic sensitization of this behavior in the leech. Intrinsic sensitization was observed in preparations from both control and 5-HT-depleted animals, indicating that this form of behavioral facilitation was not affected by 5-HT depletion. The differences in the effects of 5-HT depletion on intrinsic versus extrinsic sensitization suggest that there are distinct neurophysiological processes mediating these two forms of behavioral facilitation. In addition, 5-HT depletion appeared to disrupt a putative extrinsic form of habituation of the shortening reflex. These data support the hypothesis that both intrinsic and extrinsic processes of neuromodulation mediate habituation and sensitization.     

Giving Reasons Does Not Always Amount to Arguing

Topoi - Both because of the vagueness of the word ‘give’ when speaking about giving reasons, and because we lack an adequate definition of ‘reasons’, there is a harmful...     

Prelinguistic Infants, but Not Chimpanzees, Communicate About Absent Entities

ABSTRACT— One of the defining features of human language is displacement , the ability to make reference to absent entities. Here we show that prelinguistic, 12-month-old infants already can use a nonverbal pointing gesture to make reference to absent entities. We also show that chimpanzees—who can point for things they want humans to give them—do not point to refer to absent entities in the same way. These results demonstrate that the ability to communicate about absent but mutually known entities depends not on language, but rather on deeper social-cognitive skills that make acts of linguistic reference possible in the first place. These nonlinguistic skills for displaced reference emerged apparently only after humans' divergence from great apes some 6 million years ago.