Estradiol enhances the induction of homosynaptic long-term depression in the CA1 region of the adult, ovariectomized rat

An ovarian steroid-dependent cycle of synaptogenesis and synapse shedding occurs naturally in the hippocampus of the adult female rat. The newly formed axospinous synapses in CA1 may differ functionally from extant axospinous synapses, e.g., in terms of their modifiability. Here we assess whether estradiol alters the induction of homosynaptic long-term depression of the Schaffer collateral-CA1 synapses in vitro. Sprague-Dawley rats were bilaterally ovariectomized and, beginning 6-8 days later, received a series of injections of either 17beta-estradiol or sesame oil sc. Field potentials were recorded in hippocampal slices. In estradiol-treated animals, asynchronous, low-frequency stimulation led to significant long-term depression of the activated synapses in CA1 s. radiatum and no change of the inactive synapses in s. oriens. In contrast, this conditioning stimulation did not significantly alter any CA1 responses in oil-treated control animals. Subsequent high-frequency conditioning stimulation significantly potentiated the activated s. radiatum synapses in both estradiol- and oil-treated animals. Thus, given the stimulation conditions used here, estradiol enables the induction of homosynaptic long-term depression at the CA3-CA1 synapses in adult females.     

Apparent distance of sounds recorded in echoic and anechoic chambers

With miniature microphones inserted into the external ear canals of a model and the sound source 90 degrees to left of midline, low-pass, and broadband noise bursts were picked up and recorded on magnetic tape. The bursts were generated in two highly contrasting acoustic environments: an anechoic and an echoic chamber. The taped sounds were played back monaurally and binaurally via headphones to 16 listeners seated in an acoustically neutral setting. They were instructed to estimate the distance of the stimuli. Apparent distances of bursts recorded in the echoic or reverberant chamber far exceeded those recorded in the anechoic chamber. It mattered not whether the sounds were presented monaurally or binaurally. What did influence distance estimates dramatically was the frequency composition of the stimuli. Low-pass sounds recorded in either acoustic environment were consistently judged to be further removed than high-pass sounds recorded in the same setting. They were also more likely to appear from behind the listener. In our moment-to-moment transaction with the acoustic environment, distant sounds generally have less acoustic energy in the higher audio frequency. We suggest that this lifetime of auditory experience influenced our listeners' scale of relative distance.     

Implementation and Preliminary Feasibility of an Individualized,Supportive Approach to Behavioral Care for Parents of Young Children Newly Diagnosed With Type 1 Diabetes

There are significant stressors related to parenting a young child with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes (T1D). Despite these challenges, there are not yet clearly defined interventions to help promote psychological health and adherence for families with young children with T1D. First STEPS is a tailored stepped care design intervention to positively impact parents’ emotional functioning and children’s glycemic control in young children newly diagnosed with T1D. The First STEPS intervention is derived from a combination of Cognitive Behavioral Theory and Social Cognitive Theory to support family adjustment to T1D, promote parental mastery over T1D tasks, increase coping skills to manage stressors associated with T1D, and build on the strengths of families newly diagnosed with T1D to help them achieve positive health and wellbeing outcomes. We present details about the intervention and describe two pilot participants as case studies. Results indicated that the treatment and delivery model were acceptable to the pilot participants, as evidenced by treatment completion and satisfaction ratings. Future directions for this work include testing the efficacy of this new treatment in a randomized controlled trial.     

Effects of role model exposure on STEM and non‐STEM student engagement

Studies examining factors (e.g., STEM stereotypes) that underlie the recruitment and retention of STEM students are critical as the demand for STEM professionals is rapidly increasing. This experimental study tested the effects of role model biographies that challenge common STEM stereotypes (i.e., STEM is for gifted individuals and for European American males) on 1035 STEM and non‐STEM undergraduate students. Findings showed that role model exposure had positive effects on both STEM and non‐STEM students’ interest in STEM as well as their perceived identity compatibility between the self and STEM. Role model exposure had a positive impact on academic sense of belonging among STEM and non‐STEM students, and a positive impact on academic self‐efficacy among STEM students, but not non‐STEM students.     

A Computational Model of Linguistic Humor in Puns

Humor plays an essential role in human interactions. Precisely what makes something funny, however, remains elusive. While research on natural language understanding has made significant advancements in recent years, there has been little direct integration of humor research with computational models of language understanding. In this paper, we propose two information‐theoretic measures—ambiguity and distinctiveness—derived from a simple model of sentence processing. We test these measures on a set of puns and regular sentences and show that they correlate significantly with human judgments of funniness. Moreover, within a set of puns, the distinctiveness measure distinguishes exceptionally funny puns from mediocre ones. Our work is the first, to our knowledge, to integrate a computational model of general language understanding and humor theory to quantitatively predict humor at a fine‐grained level. We present it as an example of a framework for applying models of language processing to understand higher level linguistic and cognitive phenomena.     

Cognitive contributions to theory of mind ability in children with a traumatic head injury

The objective of the current study is to examine the contribution of intellectual abilities, executive functions (EF), and facial emotion recognition to difficulties in Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities in children with a traumatic head injury. Israeli children with a traumatic head injury were compared with their non-injured counterparts. Each group included 18 children (12 males) ages 7–13. Measurements included reading the mind in the eyes, facial emotion recognition, reasoning the other’s characteristics based on motive and outcome, Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices, similarities and digit span (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Revised 95 subscales), verbal fluency, and the Behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Functions. Non-injured children performed significantly better on ToM, abstract reasoning, and EF measures compared with children with a traumatic head injury. However, differences in ToM abilities between the groups were no longer significant after controlling for abstract reasoning, working memory, verbal fluency, or facial emotion recognition. Impaired ToM recognition and reasoning abilities after a head injury may result from other cognitive impairments. In children with mild and moderate head injury, poorer performance on ToM tasks may reflect poorer abstract reasoning, a general tendency to concretize stimuli, working memory and verbal fluency deficits, and difficulties in facial emotion recognition, rather than deficits in the ability to understand the other’s thoughts and emotions. ToM impairments may be secondary to a range of cognitive deficits in determining social outcomes in this population.     

Multicultural Education in the Zionist State – The Mizrahi Challenge

In this paper, we explore a specific variant of multicultural education inIsrael that developed within the dominant Jewish cultural identity, that isthe claim of Jews from Islamic countries (Mizrahi Jews) for educational autonomy. This demand arose against the backdrop of an aggressive nationalist ideology – Zionism – that claimed torepresent all Jews, and yet was too ambivalent toward its non-European Jewish subjects. The Mizrahi Jews' dual identity, as Jews and as products of the Arab culture, conflated with the state's problematic self-conception as both Jewish and democratic. This phenomenon, apparently, is evidenced by the two types of multicultural responses that developed within the Mizrahi sector: a critical multiculturalism with a social-democratic character on the one hand, and an autonomist multiculturalism with fundamentalist featureson the other.     

Baumann on the Monty Hall problem and single-case probabilities

Peter Baumann uses the Monty Hall game to demonstrate that probabilities cannot be meaningfully applied to individual games. Baumann draws from this first conclusion a second: in a single game, it is not necessarily rational to switch from the door that I have initially chosen to the door that Monty Hall did not open. After challenging Baumann’s particular arguments for these conclusions, I argue that there is a deeper problem with his position: it rests on the false assumption that what justifies the switching strategy is its leading me to win a greater percentage of the time. In fact, what justifies the switching strategy is not any statistical result over the long run but rather the “causal structure” intrinsic to each individual game itself. Finally, I argue that an argument by Hilary Putnam will not help to save Baumann’s second conclusion above. See Moser and Mulder (1994, pp. 115–116, 118).     

Word acquisition, retention, and transfer: findings from contextual and isolated word training

Successful reading instruction entails not only acquiring new words but also remembering them after training has finished and accessing their word-specific representations when they are encountered in new text. We report two studies demonstrating that acquisition, retention, and transfer of unfamiliar words were affected differentially by isolated word and context training. Materials were individualized to include only those words that average readers in second grade were unable to name in context. Different words were trained in each condition; context training presented words in stories, and isolated word training presented words on flashcards. Together, the studies show that context training promotes word acquisition beyond that experienced from reading words in isolation. Contrary to the prevailing opinion, memory performance for words trained in context and in isolation did not differ; children demonstrated excellent retention over an 8-day interval in both conditions. Finally, transfer was maximized when the congruency between training and testing was high. Therefore, when reading trained words in novel circumstances, the best method of training was mediated by the transfer task employed at test.