Emergent patterns of feedback strategies in performing a closed motor skill.

This sturdy identified self-chosen patterns of feedback usage and how they influenced accuracy and consistency in performing a closed motor skill. Learners completed 100 practice trials with 25 opportunities to receive knowledge of results (KR), the timing of which was self-chosen, followed by 25 no KR retention trials. The study identified two patterns of self-chosen KR, namely, a faded frequency pattern and a reversed faded frequency pattern. Analyses of variance indicated a significant trial block effect for accuracy in acquisition and no significant main effects or interactions associated with self-chosen patterns of KR. Quantification of regularity of KR patterns yielded correlations indicating that less regularity was associated with greater accuracy in performing the task. These results were congruent with previous research on self chosen feedback.     

Prenatal testosterone treatment potentiates the aggression‐inhibiting effect of the neurosteroid dehydroepiandrosterone in female mice

The neurosteroid dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) is a powerful inhibitor of aggression in murine models when given for 15 days and potentially may be useful in the management of inappropriate human aggression. Although the biosynthesis and metabolism of DHEA have been described, little is known about the potential effect of the steroidal environment during sexual differentiation on the subsequent response to DHEA. Whether prenatal androgen exposure influences the subsequent response to DHEA was assessed by comparing the effect of DHEA (80 μg/d) on aggression in female offspring where dams were treated with 1, 10, or 100 μg of testosterone (T) on days 15 to 18 of gestation (Experiment I) or that developed in different uterine positions (Experiment II). The results showed that DHEA decreased attack behavior in general and that the 100‐μg prenatal T treatments enhanced the antiaggressive effect of this neurosteroid. Neither the lower doses of exogenously administered T nor the uterine position led to an enhanced response to DHEA. In addition, whether DHEA produced changes in social and nonsocial activities was examined. In the 100‐μg T females, DHEA increased the duration of the former and decreased the frequency and duration of the latter, indicating that it was not a general decrement in behavioral expression that mediated the enhanced response to the antiaggressive effect of DHEA. In the second experiment, DHEA treatment led to increased frequencies of social nonaggressive and nonsocial activities. However, the uterine positions × treatment interactions were not significant, demonstrating that contiguity to male fetuses did not differentially affect the response to DHEA. Aggr. Behav. 27:130–138, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Local News Media Cultivation of Host Receptivity in Plainstown

This message‐system and cultivation analysis investigated the influence of local news on the host receptivity of native‐born “Plainstown” residents toward immigrants. The message‐system analysis revealed that regional television and newspaper immigration coverage was more pessimistic, while local newspaper immigration coverage was more optimistic. A cultivation analysis confirmed that attention to pessimistic coverage interacted with conversations about immigration to reduce host receptivity. This research contributes to the study of cross‐cultural adaptation by constructing and validating a measure of Y. Y. Kim's (2001) concept of host receptivity. By demonstrating that second‐order cultivation is the product of on‐line cognitive processes, this research provided additional validation of Shrum's (2004) online model of second‐order cultivation. Findings suggest that optimistic immigration news frames may facilitate host receptivity.     

Why does a girl become an unmarried mother?

Pastoral Psychology -     

Breathwork as a Therapeutic Modality: An Overview for Counselors

Using the breath as a vehicle for accessing psychological material is a topic rarely discussed in the counseling literature, despite the use of conscious engagement with the breath by many spiritual traditions for the purpose of personal transformation. This article describes 3 types of conscious breathing (circular breathing, conscious connected breathing, and fast and full breathing) and the use of therapeutic breathwork within the counseling process. The authors describe the many facets of the breathwork experience, provide a case study, and address clinical considerations when engaging in breathwork with clients.     

The visual control of aimed hand movements to stationary and moving targets.

The present study attempted to determine if during short-duration movements visual feedback can be processed in order to make adjustments to changes in the environment. The effect that varying the importance of monitoring target position has on the relative importance of vision of hand and vision of target (Carlton 1981a; Whiting and Cockerill 1974) was also examined. Subjects performed short- (150 ms) and longer-duration (330 ms) aimed hand movements under four visual feedback conditions (lights-on/lights-off by target-on/target-off) to stationary and moving targets. For the lights-off and target-off conditions, the lights and target, respectively, were extinguished 50 ms after movement initiation. For all moving-target conditions, the target started to move as the movement was initiated. Subjects were able to process visual information in 165 ms, as movement endpoints were biased in the direction of target motion for movements of this duration. Removing visual feedback 50 ms after movement initiation did not alter this finding. Subjects performed equally well with target and lights on or off, independent of whether the target remained stationary or moved. Presumably, during the first 50 ms of the movement subjects received sufficient visual information to aid in movement control.     

RELATIVISM AND ANTI-REALISM

I characterise a relativist account of truth as one according to which the truth value of a sentence can vary without its meaning changing. Relativism is to be contrasted with absolutism, which states that the truth values of sentences cannot change, so long as their meanings remain constant. I argue that absolutism follows from the realist account of meaning and truth conditions. According to realism, the meaning of a sentence consists in objective truth conditions and sentences are true if and only if certain objective conditions obtain. Relativism is a consequence of anti-realism. Anti-realists believe that the meanings of sentences consist in recognisable conditions and that sentences are true if and only if certain recognisable conditions obtain. I contrast the sorts of relativism which results from partial, empiricism-based anti-realisms, and global anti-realism, which is linked to a coherence theory of knowledge. I offer a few remarks on how global anti-realists can restrict the scope of their relativism.     

小学生的智力因素,非智力因素与学业成绩

许多跨文化研究指出.中国学生学业成绩优异的主要原因,是由于中国学生的非智力因素方面更有利于学习。本项研究主要采用层系回归分析,以智力及一般非智力因素预测学业成绩,其中一般非智力因素再细分为学业性及非学业性部分;受试者为中国153名小学生。结果表明：智力及非智力因素均能预测学业成绩,但以后者的预测力较大,而非智力因素中,学业性部分较非学业性部分更能准确预测学生的学业成绩。