Damage to the hippocampal formation in rats selectively impairs the ability to learn cue relationships

We assessed the contribution of the hippocampal formation to performance in tasks that require rats to respond to a relationship between discriminative stimuli. The first experiment employed a nonmatching-to-sample procedure in a Y-maze. Three pairs of boxes were used which differed in brightness of the walls and in the odors that they contained. The rats were trained prior to receiving kainic acid and colchicine-induced damage to the hippocampal formation or electrolytic damage to the amygdala. After surgery all rats performed the nonmatching-to-sample task accurately if both brightness and odor cues were present in the sample and choice boxes or if the boxes contained either visual cues alone or odor cues alone. If the available cue modality was different in sample and choice boxes, then the amygdala-damaged, but not the hippocampal-damaged, rats performed accurately. In the second experiment control rats or rats with hippocampal formation damage were trained postoperatively in a conditional black/white discrimination task in a Y-maze. Only the control group successfully learned to select the white arm if the start box was illuminated and the black arm if the start box was dark. Subsequently, both groups learned a simple black/white discrimination. The same rats were tested in the hidden platform version of the Morris water task and only the control group learned to swim accurately to the goal. Both groups learned to swim accurately to a visible black platform. The results are consistent with the notion that the hippocampal formation is essential to learning that involves control exerted by a configural relationship among cues, independently of the spatial or conditional requirements of tasks.     

Adult interpretations of child behavior

This study extends an earlier study (Meyer & Sobieszek, 1972) of the effects of the sex of a child on adult interpretations of its behavior. Videotapes of two 17-month-old children were shown to a sample of 69 adults, who were asked to rate each child's behavior on a number of sex-linked adjectives. Half of the time the sex of the child was wrongly misdescribed. Results from the present study support most findings of the earlier research. Female subjects, especially those reporting high contact with children, described children as possessing fewer stereotypical characteristics of their attributed sex than did male subjects. In addition, males and females attributed more of any qualities to same-sex children and also liked same-sex children more. Males also are more confident in rating same-sex children, while females are somewhat likelier to express more confidence in their ratings of male children.A version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Toronto, 1974.     

MSA for a special spearman matrix

Kaiser's measure of sampling adequacy is applied to a special Spearman matrix and a specialq-cluster generalization. The result supports the contention that the measure should be no less than .5 for data to be appropriate for factor analysis.The research reported in this note was supported in part by the Program in Applied Mathematics and Statistics, National Science Foundation, and by the National Institute of Education, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.     

How parents view professional behaviors: A cross-professional analysis

This study examined the responses of more than 900 parents of children with serious emotional disorders to survey questions about the importance and frequency of professional behaviors and compared these responses across professions. The findings indicated that parents with lower income and less education tended to work more with social workers, counselors, and teachers, less with psychologists and psychiatrists. Professional behaviors concerned with the parent-professional relationship, honesty, non-blaming attitude, supportiveness, and inclusion in decision-making were considered important by most parents regardless of the professional with whom they worked. Parents rated professions differently on the importance of evaluation, home visits, and providing child-raising information, probably reflecting expectations that parents have about the roles and training of professionals. The behaviors that parents considered important also tended to occur frequently. Significant differences across professions were found with respect to the frequency of providing information on child rearing, advocacy, home visits, providing information on resources, and help with coping, although these behaviors were considered relatively less important by parents. An examination of discrepancies between what parents considered important and what they experienced suggested that parents' expectations were only partially met. Implications for practice, professional education, and research are discussed.Editor's Note: We acknowledge the sampling issue raised by the low survey return rate in this study and the resulting threat to generalizability of findings. Nevertheless, the study is judged to merit publication as one of the first efforts to examine empirically parents' views of their relationships with mental health professionals. Our hope is that this report will serve to stimulate further scientific investigation on the topic—Donald Oswald (AE).     

An analysis of a performance feedback system: the effects of timing and feedback, public posting, and praise upon academic performance and peer interaction

In the first experiment, after establishing baseline composition rates in each classroom, timing (announcing time limits) and feedback (student self-scoring) were introduced followed by the introduction, removal, and reintroduction of public posting of highest scores. Timing and feedback improved story writing performance and public posting of highest scores improved performance even further in both classrooms. Teacher praise produced further improvement in one classroom but had no effect on performance in the other. Changes in on-task behavior paralleled changes in writing rate. Comments made by children concerning their own work or work of their peers were recorded throughout the experiment. Although the baseline rate of performance comments was almost zero, the introduction of each variable markedly increased the rate of performance comments. In the second experiment, baseline rates on reading and language exercises were established in a fifth-grade classroom. The entire performance feedback system was introduced on a multiple baseline across the two behaviors and then removed during the final phase of the experiment. Introducing the system improved performance on both tasks. These results further increased the generality of some of the findings of the previous experiment and of previous research on the efficacy of the experimental package of timing, feedback, public posting, and praise.