Serial position and clustering effects in a chimpanzee’s “flee recall”

Lana, a chimpanzee sophisticated in the language Yerkish, was tested for free recall on lists consisting of from one to eight words randomly drawn from one of three taxonomic categories or on lists consisting of nine words with every third word from a different category. Serial position effects were observed for the four- to eight-item lists, with statistically significant first-item primacy effects on the seven- and eight-word lists and last~position recency effects on the six-, seven-, and eight-word lists. Also, above-chance clustering was observed in the recall of the nine-item categorized lists. These results were compared and contrasted with the serial position and clustering effects obtained in free recall with humans. Several alternative theoretical accounts of the results were considered.     

Variability and moral phenomenology

Many moral philosophers in the Western tradition have used phenomenological claims as starting points for philosophical inquiry; aspects of moral phenomenology have often been taken to be anchors to which any adequate account of morality must remain attached. This paper raises doubts about whether moral phenomena are universal and robust enough to serve the purposes to which moral philosophers have traditionally tried to put them. Persons’ experiences of morality may vary in a way that greatly limits the extent to which moral phenomenology can constitute a reason to favor one moral theory over another. Phenomenology may not be able to serve as a pre-theoretic starting point or anchor in the consideration of rival moral theories because moral phenomenology may itself be theory-laden. These doubts are illustrated through an examination of how moral phenomenology is used in the thought of Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler, Francis Hutcheson, and Søren Kierkegaard.     

‘Someone to talk to who'll listen’: addressing the psychosocial needs of children and families

The paper presents the Lewisham Community Child and Family Service (LCCFS), a community‐based intervention providing psychosocial help for children, young people, parents and families. The service is focused on early intervention, prevention and promotion in the improvement of local health. It works under a service framework based on inter‐agency collaboration, and a counselling model based on community and interpersonal partnerships, grounded in personal construct theory (Kelly, 1955). The policy demands and local need for accessible and acceptable mental health are discussed, and quantitative and qualitative findings of the needs assessment preceding the establishment of the LCCFS are presented, supporting the need for community mental health provision. The feasibility for the LCCFS to reconcile and meet the policy demands and the needs of parents with respect to child psychosocial help and services are discussed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

‘The threat of the Other’: Using mixed quantitative and qualitative methods to elucidate racial and cultural dynamics in the counselling process

This paper examines the use of mixed quantitative and qualitative methods in the study of racial and cultural dynamics in the counselling process. The approach is illustrated by the author's own research which combined quantitative survey instruments with a blend of qualitative methods. Emphasis is given to complex racial and cultural phenomena arising from the qualitative methods of data collection and data analysis, particularly the pervasive experience of ‘threat of the Other’. These phenomena were seen to permeate the counselling interactions both explicitly and implicitly. The emerging racial dynamics are discussed with reference to theoretical concepts which stress the interrelationship between intrapsychic development and sociopolitical issues. The effectiveness of employing pluralistic methods in this field of enquiry is also evaluated.     

Explaining Gender Differences in Responses to Supportive Messages: Two Tests of a Dual-Process Approach

We propose a comprehensive explanation for gender differences in responses to supportive communication grounded in a dual-process theory of communication outcomes. Two studies confirmed consistent gender differences in responses by US college students to supportive communication and assessed the mediating effects of an ability factor (cognitive complexity) and two motivational factors (expressive and instrumental orientations) on situation elaboration and message evaluation. Study 1 focused on everyday comforting contexts (N?=?318), whereas Study 2 focused on bereavement (N?=?103). Both studies found that cognitive complexity mediated gender differences in situation elaboration and further found that cognitive complexity and expressive orientation collectively mediated gender differences in evaluative responses to supportive messages. Theoretical and pragmatic implications of the results are discussed.     

Change in action: how infants learn to walk down slopes

A critical aspect of perception–action coupling is the ability to modify ongoing actions in accordance with variations in the environment. Infants’ ability to modify their gait patterns to walk down shallow and steep slopes was examined at three nested time scales. Across sessions, a microgenetic training design showed rapid improvements after the first session in infants receiving concentrated practice walking down slopes and in infants in a control group who were tested only at the beginning and end of the study. Within sessions, analyses across easy and challenging slope angles showed that infants used a ‘braking strategy’ to curb increases in walking speed across increasingly steeper slopes. Within trials, comparisons of infants’ gait modifications before and after stepping over the brink of the slopes showed that the braking strategy was planned prospectively. Findings illustrate how observing change in action provides important insights into the process of skill acquisition.     

Immediate early gene activation in hippocampus and dorsal striatum: effects of explicit place and response training

Evidence from lesion, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging studies support the hypothesis that the hippocampus and dorsal striatum process afferent inputs in such a way that each structure regulates expression of different behaviors in learning and memory. The present study sought to determine whether rats explicitly trained to perform one of two different learning strategies, spatial or response, would display disparate immediate early gene activation in hippocampus and striatum. c-Fos and Zif268 immunoreactivity (IR) was measured in both hippocampus and striatum 30 or 90 min following criterial performance on a standard plus-maze task (place learners) or a modified T-maze task (response learners). Place and response learning differentially affected c-Fos-IR in striatum but not hippocampus. Specifically, explicit response learning induced greater c-Fos-IR activation in two subregions of the dorsal striatum. This increased c-Fos-IR was dependent upon the number of trials performed prior to reaching behavioral criterion and accuracy of performance during post-testing probe trials. Quantification of Zif268-IR in both hippocampus and striatum failed to distinguish between place and response learners. The changes in c-Fos-IR occurred 30 min, but not 90 min, post-testing. The synthesis of c-Fos early in testing could reflect the recruitment of key structures in learning. Consequently, animals that were able to learn the response task efficiently displayed greater amounts of c-Fos-IR in dorsal striatum.