Applicant Perceptions of Test Fairness: Integrating Justice and Self-Serving Bias Perspectives

The justice perspective is the current dominant framework for research on applicant perceptions of test fairness. Recently, an emerging perspective suggests that self-serving bias mechanisms may be operative in the development of test fairness perceptions. Using data from 494 actual applicants to an entry-level State Police Trooper position, this study integrates both the justice and self-serving bias perspectives to achieve a better understanding of test fairness perceptions. Results from structural equation modeling show that perceived job-relevance affects perceived fairness. In addition, test performance affects both perceptions indirectly through perceived performance.     

Teaching Different Tasks Using Different Stimuli in a Heterogeneous Small Group

The effectiveness of a simultaneous prompting procedure was evaluated in a heterogeneous small group using different tasks and different stimuli for each student. Participants included four middle school students whose functioning levels ranged from typically developing to moderate and severe disabilities. A multiple probe design across behaviors and replicated across students was used. Observational learning maintenance, and generalization also were assessed. Results indicate that the procedure was successful in teaching all four students their targeted stimuli as well as some of the non-targeted stimuli (i.e., observational learning). Students maintained and generalized their information with a high degree of accuracy. Limitations of the study and future research implications are discussed.     

On the Question 'Do Numbers Exist?'

Since we know that there are four prime numbers less than 8 we know that there are numbers. This 'short argument' is correct but it is not an ontological claim or part of philosophy of mathematics. Both realists (Quine) and nominalists (Field) reject the short argument and adopt the idea that the existence of numbers might be posited to explain known mathematical truths. Philosophers operate with a negative conception of what numbers are: they are not in space and time, not related causally to us, not perceivable, etc. This preliminary outlook does not actually characterize a kind of existing thing at all. It creates the atmosphere of weirdness characteristic of both fictionalism and Platonism. Positing things for the sake of explanation makes sense in empirical contexts, but the intelligibility of positing cannot not survive the move to philosophy of mathematics. Modal realism is a model for the unsatisfactory thinking that generates ontological commitment in mathematics.     

Prehension movements and perceived object depth structure

This study asked the question, “Will the motor pattern to a perceived two-dimensional (2-D) object differ from that same object when it is perceived as three dimensional (3-D)?” Subjects were required to reach and grasp an apple that could appear to be 2-D or 3-D. Two experimental sessions were conducted. In Condition A, the apple was initially perceived to be 2-D, but, for 20% of trials, it suddenly shifted to a 3-D apple at movement onset. In Condition B, the apple was initially perceived to be 3-D, but, for 20% of trials, it suddenly shifted to a 2-D silhouette of the same apple. For control trials, subjects grasped the perceived 2-D apple as if it were a disc (82%), and they grasped the 3-D apple, as they would a normal apple, with a whole-hand grasp (86%). For Condition A perturbed trials, there was a rapid change from a 2-D precision grip to a 3-D whole-hand prehension, whereas the converse was true for the opposite perturbation. Peak acceleration was anticipated for Condition A perturbed trials but not for Condition B perturbed trials. These results indicate that the motor patterns we use in interacting with an object are strongly influenced by the way we perceive the object in real time, and that object affordances, such as dimension, can override the influence exerted by existing representations.     

Peripheral control of drinking: gastrointestinal filling as a negative feedback signal, a theoretical and experimental analysis.

The studies described here investigated the hypothesis that the osmotic postingestional satiety signal proposed by McCleary operates through a mechanism related to gut filling rather than by osmotically induced shifts of fluid from osmoreceptors in the brain. A control theory model is presented, which was designed to make quantitatively explicit the hypothesis under question. The results showed that when mannitol, which is not absorbed from the intestine, is added to a highly palatable saccharin-glucose mixture, the amount of fluid consumed decreased in inverse proportion to the mannitol concentration. Mannitol was also shown to block fluid absorption from the intestine at a low concentration (approximately .070 M) and at higher concentrations to lead to a net flux of fluid into the intestinal lumen. It was also shown that mannitol in concentrations that reduced the intake of the palatable solution did not induce thirst when the animals were in water balance. It did induce thirst, however, when the animals were tested in a state of negative water balance. The results of these studies, considered as a whole, support the view that McCleary's osmotic postingestional satiety signal acts as an intestinal distention signal rather than by inducing thirst. The model is found to be reasonably accurate as a first approximation, and suggestions are made for improvements.