Using MEL in a networked classroom

With Micro Experimental Laboratory (MEL) and network software in a computer-assisted classroom, an instructor can run class demonstrations and projects with great control and flexibility. The network allows quick file transfer between the instructor’s and the students’ machines. MEL allows easy reprogramming of experiments for more interactive demonstrations, and data merging for comparison of individual and group data. In this article, the pros and cons of running MEL on a network are discussed, and its use at the University of California at Berkeley is outlined.     

Telephone counseling increases cessation rates among young adult smokers.

During June 2000-May 2001, the American Cancer Society conducted a randomized trial of telephone counseling among more than 3,500 current smokers who called to seek assistance in quitting. All eligible callers were randomized to receive either self-help booklets through the mail or booklets and up to 5 sessions of telephone counseling. Approximately 12% (420/3,522) of study participants were 18-25 years of age. Using intent to treat analyses, 3- and 6-month quit rates among both younger and older smokers were significantly higher among those who received telephone counseling than among those who received self-help booklets only. Three-month rates were 20% versus 9% for 18-25 year olds and 15% versus 10% for older adults. Results indicate that younger smokers can benefit from telephone counseling.     

125 years of the American Journal of Psychology: a historical overview

The American journal of Psychology celebrates 125 years of publication this year. From its inception, the Journal has attempted to record and communicate the results of research conducted in laboratories of psychology. It has also provided its readers with laboratory plans and designs for apparatus for research and demonstrations and described experimental procedures to facilitate the conduct of research. Its attention to reviews of books over a wide range of psychological topics and its inclusion of articles that provide historical perspectives on the development of psychology and its concerns broaden the context in which laboratory research is carried out. This brief overview of the Journal's history offers a perspective on the role of the Journal in, and its contributions to, the development of scientific psychology.     

Some comments on Lehrer semantics

Lehrer Semantics, as it was devised by Adrienne and Keith Lehrer, is imbedded in a comprehensive web of thought and observations of language use and development, communication, and social interaction, all these as empirical phenomena. Rather than for a theory, I take it for a ??model?? of the kind which gives us guidance in how to organize linguistic and language-related phenomena. My comments on it are restricted to three aspects: In 2 I deal with the question of how Lehrerian sense can be empirically distinguished from Lehrerian reference as a precondition for the claim that sense relationships are in general more stable than reference relations. It seems that this very claim must already be presupposed for doing the respective empirical investigation. But in 3, I argue for the option to interpret the Lehrers?? concept of sense resp. sense vectors as intension concepts, by which move one may gain a generalized concept, so-to-say ??graded analyticity??, containing Carnapian strict analyticity for language systems as the extreme case of sense vectors with maximum value. Such graded sense may also be empirically investigated in the case of normal languages. In 4, I plead for my view that what the Lehrers take for communal languages are really collections of family-resembling idiolects of individual speakers and hypotheses of individual speakers about the idiolects of their fellow speakers. This move should free us from the fiction of, and sterile discussions about, the ??true?? meanings of words, but nevertheless keep normal language communication possible. As a concluding remark I propose in 5 to have both: normal languages from an empirical point of view, and codified languages from a logical reconstructionist one.     

Design, Development, and Evaluation of a Second Generation Interactive Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education (SEEE2)

This paper describes a second generation Simulator for Engineering Ethics Education. Details describing the first generation activities of this overall effort are published in Chung and Alfred (Sci Eng Ethics 15:189?C199, 2009). The second generation research effort represents a major development in the interactive simulator educational approach. As with the first generation effort, the simulator places students in first person perspective scenarios involving different types of ethical situations. Students must still gather data, assess the situation, and make decisions. The approach still requires students to develop their own ability to identify and respond to ethical engineering situations. However, were as, the generation one effort involved the use of a dogmatic model based on National Society of Professional Engineers?? Code of Ethics, the new generation two model is based on a mathematical model of the actual experiences of engineers involved in ethical situations. This approach also allows the use of feedback in the form of decision effectiveness and professional career impact. Statistical comparisons indicate a 59 percent increase in overall knowledge and a 19 percent improvement in teaching effectiveness over an Internet Engineering Ethics resource based approach.     

Sex moderates associations between prenatal glucocorticoid exposure and human fetal neurological development

Maternal cortisol levels (at 15, 19, 25, 31 and 37 weeks’ gestation) and fetal movement response to vibroacoustic stimulation (VAS; at 25, 31 and 37 weeks) were assessed in 190 mother‐fetus pairs. Fetuses showed a response to the VAS at 25 weeks and there was evidence of increasing maturation in the response at 31 and 37 weeks. Early elevations in cortisol predicted a failure to respond to the VAS at 25 weeks and later elevations in cortisol were associated with a larger response among fetuses when assessed near term. The associations between cortisol and VAS emerged earlier and were more apparent among female fetuses than among the males. The findings provide support for the role of prenatal glucocorticoids in shaping human fetal CNS development.     

Processing Differences between Feature‐Based Facial Composites and Photos of Real Faces

Computer‐generated faces (composites) constructed by select2ing individual facial features (e.g. eyes, nose, mouth) are poorly recognized because this process contrasts with the natural holistic processing of real faces. This result suggests that there should be differences in the cognitive processing of these composites compared with photos of real faces, which would make these stimuli problematic for theories seeking to explain real face processing. We conducted five experiments to test potential conditions for moving composite processing closer to how real face photos are processed, first taking the perspective of researchers who construct composites with a random selection of available features and then taking a perspective closer to police by creating each composite to match a real face photo. Composites with randomly selected features (but configured like real faces) showed no face inversion effect and recognition memory for these composites benefited from increased encoding time, unlike real face photos. Although composites constructed to match real face photos yielded an inversion effect, they still were remembered differently than the photos. Researchers should not use feature‐based composites as proxies for real face photos. We conclude with a discussion of alternative methods of constructing composites. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Open-Minded Discussion in Organizations: A Meta-Analytic Evaluation of Cooperation and Competition Theory

Journal of Business and Psychology - Despite the extensive interest in open-minded discussion in organizations, inconsistencies regarding its antecedents and consequences remain. Drawing upon...