History,philosophy, and science teaching: A brief review

School science education is currently the subject of much debate. Historians and philosophers of science should play a role in this debate. Since the late nineteenth century there has been a persistent, if minor, tradition arguing for the incorporation of historical and philosophical dimensions in the teaching of school science. With the current crisis in science teaching, there are encouraging signs that more attention is being paid to this tradition. What is required is much greater collaboration between philosophers, historians, and science educators, particularly in the training of teachers.This article is a shortened version of my 1988, A Role for History and Philosophy in Science Teaching, inEducational Philosophy and Theory 20 (2). All references are to the following History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching: A Bibliography.This special number ofSynthese is part of a large international project on the place of history and philosophy in science teaching. Special issues ofEducational Philosophy and Theory, Interchange, andStudies in Philosophy and Education are being produced. An international conference on the subject will be held at Florida State University in November 1989. Details of the journals and the conference can be obtained from the author.The project commenced while the author was on leave at Florida State University in 1987. It began with a gracious invitation from Jaakko Hintikka to guest edit this number, and was furthered with the support and encouragement of David Gruender. I thank them both, and also the Philosophy Department for its hospitality. Special appreciation is due to the nearly 30 authors who have contributed papers to the project. I hope that their efforts will re-open the needed dialogue between historians, philosophers, and science educators.     

Activity status in psychophysiologic studies. "Changes in the general activity level in psychophysiologic studies--an analysis of objective and subjective parameters"

The general activation level (GAL) is one of the sources of influence in psychophysiological experiments. That means most of the results are dependent on the GAL. Taken this into account one can furthermore elucidate a part of the high variability of the interesting physiological data. We analysed heart rate (HR), auditory evoked potentials (AEP) elicited by background stimuli and the subjective assessment of the internal state of the subjects to describe changes of the GAL. Summarizing the results we can show different influences of the GAL on the physiological data. Changes of HR and AEP-parameters are caused by specific experimental conditions. The distinct influence of the subjective state of the subjects on the AEP-shapes allows the conclusion that subjective data should be more taken into consideration. The comprehensive characterization of the GAL requires data of different integrative levels.     

The effect of control and predictability in learned helplessness

The present 2 x 2 study deals with the influence of controllability and predictability of an aversive noise stimulus on a subsequent learning task. Eighty-four subjects participated in two experiments. In correspondence with the concept of learned helplessness, controllability was shown to be the dominant factor in the first experiment. In the second experiment, a modified test task was used in which both factors were shown to act in specific ways: The main influence of controllability is upon response measures (latency, omission), whereas unpredictability retardates learning of new predictive connections. The results are discussed in terms of contingency learning.     

Depressive characteristics of physically abused children

Physically abused and nonabused children were compared on child-completed measures of depression, hopelessness, self-esteem, and locus of control. Results indicated that, in comparison with nonabused controls, abused children evidenced more depressive symptoms, heightened externality, lower self-esteem, and greater hopelessness about the future. Group differences in depressive symptomatology were not accounted for on the basis of differences in age, sex, race, gender, IQ, or socioeconomic status. Results replicate the results of Kazdin, Moser, Colbus, and Bell (1985) derived from a sample of physically abused psychiatric inpatients and extend the generality of these findings to abused children of nonpatient status. Implications of the findings for clinical interventions, theoretical models of child depression, and future research are discussed.The authors wish to thank Alvin Hadley and the staff of Franklin County Children Services.Appreciation is also extended to Dr. Charles Wenar.     

Lesbians' and gay men's experiences of discrimination and harassment in a university community

A survey of 125 lesbians and gay men in a university community was conducted to determine the incidence of discrimination, harassment, and violence. Nearly three fourths had experienced verbal abuse; 26% were threatened with violence; and 17% had personal property damaged. Students and roommates were most often those responsible. Most incidents were not reported to authorities, and many made changes in their daily routines to avoid harm. Over half of the sample feared for their personal safety; their fear was related to the amount of harassment and previous property damage. Men were more often victimized than women.     

The negative generation effect: Delineation of a phenomenon

In four experiments employing between-list designs, generation was found to have negative effects on free recall of word pairs and on cued recall of the second word. In addition, generation had negative effects on measures of word-pair integration and on clustering in recall. In contrast, positive effects of generation were found on free recall of second words alone, and on a recognition test for memory of the second word. It was concluded that in between-list designs, generation led to greater individual-item processing of the generated term than reading, but this processing occurred at the expense of processing the relation between the words in a pair and processing the relations between different pairs in a list.     

Evoked potentials and the study of sentence comprehension

Evoked brain potentials were used to monitor moment-by-moment decisions during language comprehension. Subjects read sentences containing temporary syntactic ambiguities for which one of the possible interpretations was semantically implausible. The N400 component of the evoked potential, which is sensitive to implausibility, was used to discover when during a sentence subjects made a decision about the ambiguity. The results demonstrate that readers try to interpret a syntactic ambiguity early in a sentence rather than waiting for disambiguating information. This introduces a new way to use brain activity to study sentence comprehension processes.     

Least-squares approximation of an improper correlation matrix by a proper one

An algorithm is presented for the best least-squares fitting correlation matrix approximating a given missing value or improper correlation matrix. The proposed algorithm is based upon a solution for Mosier's oblique Procrustes rotation problem offered by ten Berge and Nevels. A necessary and sufficient condition is given for a solution to yield the unique global minimum of the least-squares function. Empirical verification of the condition indicates that the occurrence of non-optimal solutions with the proposed algorithm is very unlikely. A possible drawback of the optimal solution is that it is a singular matrix of necessity. In cases where singularity is undesirable, one may impose the additional nonsingularity constraint that the smallest eigenvalue of the solution be , where is an arbitrary small positive constant. Finally, it may be desirable to weight the squared errors of estimation differentially. A generalized solution is derived which satisfies the additional nonsingularity constraint and also allows for weighting. The generalized solution can readily be obtained from the standard unweighted singular solution by transforming the observed improper correlation matrix in a suitable way.     

Different levels of complexity in the play-fighting by muroid rodents appear to result from different levels of intensity of attack and defense

Play-fighting in deer mice, Peromyscus maniculatus bairdii, prairie voles, Microtus ochrogaster, and montane voles, M. Montanus, was compared to that of laboratory rats, Rattus norvegicus. Play in rats appears more complex for two reasons: 1) more of the playful contacts elicit defensive behaviors, and 2) more of these defenses lead to counterattacks, and hence, role reversals between attackers and defenders. Neither high levels of defense, as shown by montane voles, nor high levels of counterattack, as shown by prairie voles, produce rat-like play-fighting. This only occurs when high rates of defense involving turning to face the attacker and counterattack are combined, as in rats. These two components are rarely combined together by deer mice, and so this species rarely exhibits rat-like play-fighting. Furthermore, playful counterattack appears to arise from playful attack, and not from an escalation of defense. These data suggest that the more complex forms of social play, such as play-fighting, have evolved, in part, via the escalation of defense in response to playful attack.     

Splitting visual space with attention

If a right-left spatial compatibility effect is observed, it can be maintained that the space has been segmented into right- and left-side parts. The present study aimed at showing a spatial compatibility effect (and, by implication, a right-left subdivision of space) solely attributable to the orienting of attention. Five groups of 8 normal subjects were required to give right-left discriminative responses to stimuli presented within one of six empty boxes arranged in a horizontal row. Reaction times and errors were recorded. The first two experiments showed that a right-left grouping of the boxes occurred regardless of whether subjects' fixation was kept at the intermediate position (Experiment 1) or at one extremity (Experiment 2) of the row. In Experiments 3 and 4, subjects' attention was not aligned with a fixed position but was moved, through peripheral cues, from trial to trial and positioned between different pairs of adjacent boxes. The results showed that the display was again subdivided into two regions and that the reference point for the right-left subdivision was the focus of attention. In Experiment 5, eye position was instrumentally monitored, and subjects' attention was directed by central cues. The results confirmed that the focusing of attention leads to a right-left partitioning of space, with the boundary at the locus of focal attention. In conclusion, we demonstrated, by employing a right-left spatial compatibility paradigm, that directing attention to a position in space brings about a right-left perceptual organization that predominates over that provided by the other egocentric reference axes.