Sex-specific cognitive–behavioural profiles emerging from individual variation in numerosity discrimination in <Emphasis Type="Italic">Gambusia affinis</Emphasis>

The relationship between an individual’s cognitive abilities and other behavioural attributes is complex, yet critical to understanding how individual differences in cognition arise. Here we use western mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis, to investigate the relationship between individual associative learning performance in numerical discrimination tests and independent measures of activity, exploration, anxiety and sociability. We found extensive and highly repeatable inter-individual variation in learning performance (r = 0.89; ICC = 0.89). Males and females exhibited similar learning performance, yet differed in sociability, activity and their relationship between learning and anxiety/exploration tendencies. Sex-specific multivariate behaviour scores successfully predicted variation in individual learning performance, whereas combined sex analyses did not. Female multivariate behaviour scores significantly predict learning performance across females (ρ = 0.80, p = 0.005) with high-performing female learners differentiated from female non-learners and low-performing learners by significant contributions of activity and sociability measures. Meanwhile, males of different learning performance levels (high-, low- and non-learners) were distinguished from each other by unique behavioural loadings of sociability, activity and anxiety/exploration scores, respectively. Our data suggest that despite convergence on learning performance, the sexes diverge in cognitive–behavioural relationships that are likely products of different sexual selection pressures.     

Integrating ethics in design through the value-sensitive design approach

The Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) has declared that to achieve accredited status, “engineering programs must demonstrate that their graduates have an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility.” Many engineering professors struggle to integrate this required ethics instruction in technical classes and projects because of the lack of a formalized ethics-in-design approach. However, one methodology developed in human-computer interaction research, the Value-Sensitive Design approach, can serve as an engineering education tool which bridges the gap between design and ethics for many engineering disciplines. The three major components of Value-Sensitive Design, conceptual, technical, and empirical, exemplified through a case study which focuses on the development of a command and control supervisory interface for a military cruise missile.     

Effects of preshift small magnitude of reward received during goalbox placements on the negative contrast effect

During preshift, one experimental group of rats was given a large magnitude of food reward following a traversal of a straight alley and during a goalbox placement, while the other experimental group was given a small reward during goalbox placement and a large reward following a run. During postshift, all experimental groups were given a small reward of food following a traversal down the runway and during a goalbox placement. A control group was maintained on small reward during placements and following a traversal throughout the study. Only the group who received preshift large reward during placement and following a runway response ran slower to small reward during postshift than the control group maintained on small reward (negative contrast effect).     

Everyday Marital Conflict and Child Aggression

Children's immediate aggressive responding to exposure to marital conflict was examined. Participants were 108 families with 8- to 16-year-old children (53 boys, 55 girls), with diary records of children's reactions to marital conflict in the home completed by 103 mothers (n = 578 records) and 95 fathers (n = 377 records) during a 15-day period. Child responses to analog presentations of marital conflict tactics were also obtained. Exposure to destructive conflict tactics and negative parental emotionality increased the likelihood of aggressive behavior in children when they witnessed marital conflict, whereas constructive conflict tactics and positive parental emotionality decreased the probability of aggression. Conflict topics presumed to be threatening to the child (child- or marital-related) also heightened the likelihood of aggression. Aggressive responding to conflict in both home and laboratory predicted externalizing behavior problems. Fathers' and mothers' separate diary reports, and child responses to analog presentation of conflict, provided generally consistent findings. An exposure hypothesis for marital conflict as an influence on child aggression is discussed.     

Fighting by the rules: Women street-fighting in Chihuahua,Chihuahua, Mexico

Chihuahua, Chihuahua, Mexico cholo society's rules for the participation of males and females in street-fighting are examined as reported in interview contexts with youth of both sexes. Interview accounts are then compared to an observed instance of use of physical force by females against males in that city. Barrio peer group dynamics are explored and contrasted with the dynamics of similar groups in the northern Mexican cities of Nogales, Sonora, and Tijuana, Baja California, that do not share Chihuahua's unique characteristics.     

SIDE EFFECTS OF THERAPEUTIC PUNISHMENT ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND EYE CONTACT

The effects of therapeutic punishment delivered following inappropriate behavior on the academic responding and eye-to-face contact of 2 persons with developmental handicaps was examined using a counterbalanced alternating treatment design. Each subject was sequentially taught by two therapists each day. While one of the therapists taught the subject, the second therapist stood in close proximity directly behind the subject. During baseline, neither therapist delivered punishment following inappropriate behavior. During the treatment condition, one of the therapists delivered all punishment regardless of whether she was teaching or standing behind the subject. The therapist who delivered all punishment for 1 subject did not deliver any punishment for the other subject. During the last condition, the therapist delivering all punishment was reversed for 1 of the subjects. The results indicated that the task being taught was mastered by each subject only when the therapist delivering punishment was teaching. Data collected also indicated that each subject made more eye-to-face contact when the therapist delivering all punishment was teaching. Although neither therapist had to deliver punishers often, punishment had to be administered less often when the therapist teaching the subject was also the therapist delivering punishment.     

Sex differences in cognitive performance and style across domains in mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis)

Animal Cognition - Given that the sexes often differ in their ecological and sexual selection pressures, sex differences in cognitive properties are likely. While research on sexually dimorphic...     

<Emphasis Type="BoldItalic">Special Topic:</Emphasis> Creativity in Christianity and Confucianism

In order respectfully and adequately to compare Confucian and Christian conceptions of creativity, it is necessary to have proper comparative categories. Put roughly, we need to know what creativity is in order to see how Confucianism and Christianity have various versions of it. In respect of what do they agree or differ? So the first order of business is to put forward, however briefly, a theory of creativity in light of which comparisons can be made. Creativity, of course, is a very complicated notion in the West and in East Asia. Two philosophical topics can reveal something of its complication: the problem of the one and the many, and the nature of change.     

The role of child adrenocortical functioning in pathways between interparental conflict and child maladjustment

This study examined the interplay between interparental conflict and child cortisol reactivity to interparental conflict in predicting child maladjustment in a sample of 178 families and their kindergarten children. Consistent with the allostatic load hypothesis (McEwen & Stellar, 1993), results indicated that interparental conflict was indirectly related to child maladjustment through its association with individual differences in child cortisol reactivity. Analyses indicated that the multimethod assessment of interparental conflict was associated with lower levels of child cortisol reactivity to a simulated phone conflict between parents. Diminished cortisol reactivity, in turn, predicted increases in parental reports of child externalizing symptoms over a 2-year period. Associations between interparental conflict, child cortisol reactivity, and child externalizing symptoms remained robust even after demographic factors and other family processes were taken into account.