Error is proportional to distance measured by honeybees: Weber’s law in the odometer

Honeybees were trained to fly a specific distance, the same over trials, down a tunnel for a reward. After training, they were tested occasionally with the reward absent. On tests, bees fly to or just past the expected place of reward, then turn around and fly back. After some distance, they turn back again, and may continue turning back and forth a number of times. Past research has shown that distance estimation in this task is based on the retinal flow of visual texture on the walls of the tunnel. Here we measured the errors in distance estimation as a function of training distance. Errors were measured as the standard deviation across trials of the positions of the first two turns (Turn1 and Turn2), and of the Middle (average of Turn1 and Turn2) and Spread (difference between Turn1 and Turn2). All errors were proportional to the training distance, thus obeying Weber’s law. Models of possible mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are discussed. The mean Spread matches the errors in Turn1 and Middle, suggesting that the bee chooses the spread of its search to match the expected odometric error. Received: 28 April 1998 / Accepted after revision: 19 November 1998     

SIMULTANEOUS-SUCCESSIVE SYNTHESES AND PLANNING IN CHINESE READERS*

The present study investigated simultaneous-successive syntheses and planning as cognitive processing constructs in 66 grade 4 and 63 grade 6 Chinese children. Principal factor and promax analyses provided evidence of the realities of these independent factors. Simultaneous and successive components contributed to composite reading with varying degrees of variance for each grade. The Luria paradigm provides a useful framework for research into patterns of readers.     

Phonemic confusability,precategorical acoustic storage,and the suffix effect

Ss attempted ordered recall of acoustically presented strings of seven consonant-vowel syllables. In a control condition, each string was followed by a tone in presentation, while in the experimental (suffix) conditions, a verbal syllable followed the last to-be-remembered item. The independent variable was the phonemic similarity between the verbal suffix and the memory stimuli Although the verbal syllables produced a large suffix effect as compared with the control condition, and although more errors were made overall when similarity was high, the degree to which the verbal suffix items reduced the recency advantage at the end of the series was independent of their phonemic similarity to the stimuli. This independence was taken as support for a distinction between acoustic and articulatory coding.     

学习困难儿童的神经心理研究

本研究用中国修订的HR成套神经心理测验(HRB(m)-RC)、韦氏儿童智力量表(WISC-CR)、韦氏记忆量表(WMS-RC)和分类测验测查9—14岁学习困难儿童和正常儿童各50名。研究了学习困难儿童的神经心理特点和神经心理功能与学习成绩的关系,从神经心理学角度来讨论学习困难的教育干预。     

Family Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Gender Differences in Taiwanese Teenagers’ Perception of Parental Rearing Behaviors

Journal of Child and Family Studies - This study investigated Taiwanese middle school students’ perceptions of their parents’ rearing behaviors, examining the gender invariance of the...     

父母、同伴依恋与希望的相互作用模型:一项大学新生的追踪研究

为了考察父母、同伴依恋与希望的纵向关系,本研究以大学新生为研究对象,采用父母、同伴依恋问卷与希望量表,对1283名大一学生进行为期一年共三次的追踪研究。结果发现：（1）三次测量的父母、同伴依恋均与希望存在正相关;（2）交叉滞后模型表明,父母、同伴依恋与希望均存在相互影响的关系;（3）基于性别差异的分组模型分析表明,仅同伴依恋与希望的横断关系存在性别差异,女生相关系数显著大于男生。研究揭示,依恋与希望存在稳定的横向相关关系,并且依恋与希望存在相互预测的纵向关系。     

When Cognitive Diagnosis Meets Computerized Adaptive Testing: CD-CAT

Computerized adaptive testing (CAT) is a mode of testing which enables more efficient and accurate recovery of one or more latent traits. Traditionally, CAT is built upon Item Response Theory (IRT) models that assume unidimensionality. However, the problem of how to build CAT upon latent class models (LCM) has not been investigated until recently, when Tatsuoka (J. R. Stat. Soc., Ser. C, Appl. Stat. 51:337–350, 2002) and Tatsuoka and Ferguson (J. R. Stat., Ser. B 65:143–157, 2003) established a general theorem on the asymptotically optimal sequential selection of experiments to classify finite, partially ordered sets. Xu, Chang, and Douglas (Paper presented at the annual meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education, Montreal, Canada, 2003) then tested two heuristics in a simulation study based on Tatsuoka’s theoretical work in the context of computerized adaptive testing. One of the heuristics was developed based on Kullback–Leibler information, and the other based on Shannon entropy. In this paper, we showcase the application of the optimal sequential selection methodology in item selection of CAT that is built upon cognitive diagnostic models. Two new heuristics are proposed, and are compared against the randomized item selection method and the two heuristics investigated in Xu et al. (Paper presented at the annual meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education, Montreal, Canada, 2003). Finally, we show the connection between the Kullback–Leibler-information-based approaches and the Shannon-entropy-based approach, as well as the connection between algorithms built upon LCM and those built upon IRT models.     

The Impacts of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic and Socioeconomic Development on the Living Arrangements of Older Persons in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Country-Level Analysis

This study investigates whether socioeconomic development and the HIV/AIDS pandemic are associated with living arrangement patterns in older persons in 23 sub-Saharan African countries. Country-level aggregate data were taken from previous household surveys and information provided by the United Nations, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization. Results showed that 13.5% of older persons (aged 60 years or over) were living with grandchildren but not adult children (i.e., skipped generation households). Countries higher in HIV/AIDS prevalence had more skipped generation households, and also more older persons living with spouse only and fewer older persons living with other relatives. Countries with higher socioeconomic development had fewer older persons living with children younger than 25 years old and more living with spouse only or with other relatives and unrelated persons. The pandemic and socioeconomic development combine to accelerate the breakdown of the extended family structure so that older persons are less and less likely to reside with, and to receive support from, their children.     

Conscientiousness and self-motivation as mutually compensatory predictors of university-level GPA

To help account for variability across studies in the predictive utility of conscientiousness, we proposed that conscientiousness and self-motivation mutually compensate for each other in predicting university-level academic performance. Consistent with this expectation, we found evidence of such mutual moderation in a sample of 377 college undergraduates. First, we found that conscientiousness and self-motivation compensated for each other in predicting university GPA: Students who were either high in conscientiousness or high in self-motivation had better academic performance (GPA) than those who were low in both conscientiousness and self-motivation. Second, these findings were still evident after we controlled for the students’ previous academic performance (high school rank) and academic ability (SAT/ACT). The study of mutually compensatory predictors not only offers the potential of developing better predictive models; it also helps to account for why some “main effect” predictors of university GPA are variable across studies in their degree of predictive utility.