Training domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) on a novel discrete trials odor-detection task

Dogs can be trained to reliably detect a wide variety of odors. Little scientific research, however, has been published on the rate at which dogs can learn to detect an odor, the variables influencing this rate, and how this rate may vary across dogs. In two experiments, we developed a procedure that allows the study of individual differences in the acquisition of an odor detection task in dogs. We demonstrate that differential reinforcement can be used to train a rooting response in a bin under the control of a novel odorant in discrete trials. In initial testing, we showed that as a group, twenty dogs performed significantly above chance within 24 trials, with two dogs meeting an individual criterion for above chance performance. In a follow-up experiment, we compared burying accessible food inside the target bin (with inaccessible food in the non-target bin) to the experimenter delivering food by hand following correct responses. We assessed the effect of this procedural variation on both an odor discrimination and a visual discrimination. Dogs learned faster on the odor task when the experimenter delivered food, compared to when food was placed directly in the bins. Performance on the visual task was lower than on the odor task and was unaffected by how food was delivered. Our discrete-trials procedure with experimenter-delivered food may be a useful method to study rapid acquisition of an odor-detection in dogs.     

How a “Reasonable Doubt” Instruction Affects Decisions of Guilt

Jurors are instructed to render a guilty verdict if they feel the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury is often told that this does not mean an absolute certainty of guilt and that even if it were possible to imagine a scenario in which the defendant is innocent, a guilty verdict may still be appropriate. Here, participants read a case summary. They were either told to say that the defendant was guilty if they believed in guilt beyond a reasonable doubt or were given more detailed instruction stressing that they did not have to be absolutely certain of guilt to give a guilty verdict. In Experiment 1, participants provided “think-aloud” protocols. Content analysis revealed that those who were given this instruction often used the phrase reasonable doubt to justify their guilty verdicts by saying that although they were not certain of the defendant's guilt, their belief exceeded the reasonable doubt threshold. None of the participants in the control group did this. Experiment 2 was designed to test if the instruction affected belief in guilt and the reasonable doubt threshold quantitatively. The instruction affected both people's belief in guilt and the threshold that they used to define reasonable doubt. The implied values for reasonable doubt were 63% for those who received the instruction and 77% for the control group. Implications for jury decision making are discussed.     

Is the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act Guilty of Disability Discrimination?

South Africa's Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1996 implicitly expresses the attitude that the prenatal detection of foetal abnormality justifies selective abortion, even at a stage when abortion is in general morally prohibited. It will be argued that this attitude is logically incompatible with a simultaneous commitment to non-discrimination against persons with disabilities, in that the Act makes allowance for the subjection of beings that are considered to be morally significant, but that exhibit disabling characteristics, to worse treatment than their non-disabled counterparts, despite the fact that this differential treatment is not always justified by the presence of impairment.     

Alfarabi's imaginative critique: overflowing materialism in Virtuous Community

Though currently marginalised in Western philosophy, tenth-century Arabic philosopher Abu Nasr Alfarabi is one of the most important thinkers of the medieval era. In fact, he was known as the ‘second teacher’ (after Aristotle) to philosophers such as Avicenna and Averroes. As this epithet suggests, Alfarabi and his successors engaged in a critical and creative dialogue with thinkers from other historical traditions, including that of the Ancient Greeks, although the creativity of his part is often marginalised as well. In this article, I offer a new interpretation of Alfarabi's sweeping volume, The Principles of the Opinions of the Virtuous Community. My focus is the materialism that overflows Alfarabi's account of soul in general and the imaginative power in particular. The political conclusion of this account is that Virtuous Community does not directly present Alfarabi's ideal ruler or community. Instead, it offers a materialist critique that prefigures critical theory and post-structuralism and thereby provides guidelines for how to more effectively engage monotheistic communities in the pursuit of social justice – including along the axes of race, gender and sexual orientation.     

Relationships among Facial,Prosodic, and Lexical Channels of Emotional Perceptual Processing

This study was designed to address the issue of whether there is a general processor for the perception of emotion or whether there are separate processors. We examined the relationships among three channels of emotional communication in 100 healthy right-handed adult males and females. The channels were facial, prosodic/intonational, and lexical/verbal; both identification and discrimination tasks of emotional perception were utilised. Statistical analyses controlled for nonemotional perceptual factors and subject characteristics (i.e. demographic and general cognitive). For identification, multiple significant correlations were found among the channels. For discrimination, fewer correlations were significant. Overall, these results provide support for the notion of a general processor for emotional perceptual identification in normal adult subjects.     

LEADERS IN READING RESEARCH AND INSTRUCTION

Five reading lesson instruction characteristics were examined in relation to first and second graders' end-of-year instructional reading level: (a) teacher's preferred interaction style (indicated by extent of teacher telling and coaching); (b) teacher's preferred grouping (indicated by extent of whole class and small group instruction); (c) teacher's preferred focus of reading activity (indicated by extent of focus on words/letters and comprehension); (d) degree of student active response; and (e) instruction material (indicated by extent of use of narrative text and worksheets). Sixteen first- and second-grade teachers and 166 of their students were observed during reading instruction three times across the school year. Analyses of covariance were conducted. Complex relationships heretofore not revealed appeared. Different patterns of relationships between instructional characteristics and instructional reading level emerged for higher achievers compared to lower achievers and for first compared to second grade.     

The Relationship between Imagery Ability and Imagery Use among Athletes

The present study aimed to provide a better understanding of the relationship between imagery ability and imagery use. Athletes completed the Movement Imagery Questionnaire—Revised Second Version, the Motivational Imagery Ability Measure for Sport, and the Sport Imagery Questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that imagery ability explained 20 to 41% of the variance in the use of the functions of imagery. Visual and kinesthetic imagery ability predicted cognitive specific imagery use; motivational general-mastery and motivational general-arousal imagery ability predicted the use of the motivational general functions of imagery. To assess imagery ability multiple methods of assessment must be used.     

A Quantitative Analysis of Athletes’ Voluntary Use of Slow Motion,Real Time,and Fast Motion Images

The current study examined athletes’ reported intentional use of slow-motion, real-time, and fast-motion images. Athletes (N = 604; 298 males and 306 females; M_age = 21.73 years, SD = 4.54) completed the Image Speed Questionnaire, an instrument created to assess the frequency with which athletes reported employing the three image speeds. Despite the applied sport psychology guideline of imaging only at real time speed, athletes reported employing all three image speeds to varying degrees depending on the function of imagery being employed and the stage of learning of the athlete. Gender and competitive level were found not to influence athletes’ reported voluntary image speed use. Athletes reported employing slow-motion images most often when learning or developing a skill or strategy. Real-time images were consistently used most often by athletes regardless of imagery function or stage of learning, and fast-motion images were used most often when imaging skills or strategies that had been mastered. Findings are discussed within the context of the stages of learning (Fitts & Posner, 1967 Fitts, P. M. and Posner, M. I. 1967. Human performance, Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.  [Google Scholar]) and the PETTLEP (Physical; Environmental; Task; Timing; Learning; Emotional, and Perspective) approach to motor imagery (Holmes & Collins, 2001 Holmes, P. S. and Collins, D. J. 2001. The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13: 60–83. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Implications for imagery practitioners and future directions for image speed research are also offered.     

Swinging Around Stigma: Gendered Marketing of Swingers’ Websites

Most research on swingers focus on the participants of this lifestyle. While research has examined swingers from a relational perspective, few, if any, have specifically examined the sources that facilitated swingers’ networks. In this paper, we are interested in how websites promote themselves and manage such a stigmatized activity. Specifically, we examine what aspects of swinging these websites focus on in order to attract members. Our findings indicate that these websites employ strategies that do not confront the stigma directly. In fact, this approach in and of itself is another strategy to swing around stigma. In addition, these websites are gendered and clearly target heterosexual men.