Pedagogy of Play

“Pedagogy of play” focuses on the educational value of this field of experience, by claiming that play characterizes the two fundamental guidelines which are at the basis of education; the spontaneous and natural direction on the one side, and the intentional one on the other side. It is commonly assumed that pedagogy of play concerns only the latter of the two above-mentioned aspects of education, that is to say the design and management of playing experiences and materials with clear educational goals; instead, this discipline critically analyzes the whole playing experience, therefore trying to grasp its potentialities, its material conditions, and its overall meanings in the making of the subject. Moving from some considerations about the discovery of play as an emblematic index of the “discovery of childhood” at the beginning of Modern Age (Ariès, 1960), the first part of this essay underlines three aspects: the first concerns the investment on play as an educational device (from Locke to Montessori, up to Children’s Museums), pointing out the shift from the classic principle of ludendo docere to the modern ludendo discere. The second aspect focuses on the retrieval of the natural dimension of play, which finds in Rousseau its main source; the third takes into consideration toys and their identity both as pedagogical devices and as media. In the second part of the essay, the focus is on free play and its educational value, which is here interpreted especially as the first field of experience for children’s “political education”. The final remarks include some speculations the relationship between play and daily life, suggesting the idea that “life-long playing” could be defined as a meaningful aspect of long-life education.     

The influence of semantic and morphological complexity of verbs on sentence recall: Implications for the nature of conceptual representation and category-specific deficits

One hundred and forty normal undergraduate students participated in a Proactive Interference (PI) experiment with sentences containing verbs from four different semantic and morphological classes (lexical causatives, morphological causatives, and morphologically complex and simplex perception verbs). Past research has shown significant PI build-up effects for semantically and morphologically complex verbs in isolation (de Almeida & Mobayyen, 2004). The results of the present study show that, when embedded into sentence contexts, semantically and morphologically complex verbs do not produce significant PI build-up effects. Different verb classes, however, yield different recall patterns: sentences with semantically complex verbs (e.g., causatives) were recalled significantly better than sentences with semantically simplex verbs (e.g., perception verbs). The implications for the nature of both verb-conceptual representations and category-specific semantic deficits are discussed.     

Differential effects of PACAP-38 on synaptic responses in rat hippocampal CA1 region

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP-38) is a member of the vasointestinal polypeptide (VIP)/secretin/glucagon family of neuropeptides for which neuroregulatory functions have been postulated. PACAP-38 receptors are expressed in different brain regions, including hippocampus. In this study, we examined the dose-dependent effects of PACAP-38 on the excitatory postsynaptic field potential (fEPSP) evoked at the Schaffer collateral-CA1 synapse in rat hippocampal slices. Bath application of low dose (0.05 nM) of PACAP-38 induced long-lasting facilitation of the fEPSP. This enhancement was blocked by the cholinergic receptor antagonist atropine and partially by the NMDA receptor antagonist 2-amino-5-phosphonovalerate (APV) and therefore, shares a common mechanism with LTP. In contrast, a high dose (1 μM) of PACAP-38 induced a persistent depression of the fEPSP that was not blocked by antagonists of cholinergic receptors (i.e., atropine and mecamylamine), adenosine receptors (i.e., DCPCX), or glutamatergic NMDA receptors (APV). Intermediate doses (0.1–0.5 μM) of PACAP-38 produced an initial decrease of the fEPSP followed by an enhancement. This decrease was not blocked by atropine whereas the facilitation was. These results show that PACAP-38 modulates CA1 synaptic transmission in a dose-dependent manner and that the peptide interacts with cholinergic and glutamatergic systems.     

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide hormone (PACAP) at very low dosages improves memory in the rat

To ascertain whether very low dosages of pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) influence learning in mammals, immediately after the acquisition trial of a passive avoidance response (PAR) paradigm, PACAP-38 was administered intracerebroventricularly at increasing dosages (0, 0.02, 0.2, 2, 20, and 200 ng in 10 microl saline) to different groups of rats. The mnemonic effects were measured by means of retention testing 48 and 96 h later. At intermediate PACAP-38 concentrations there was a significant mnemonic improvement of the PAR. The maximal effect was observed after the 0.2-ng PACAP-38 administration (longer step-through latencies). There was a lesser effect at the subsequent higher concentration, 2 ng. Higher dosages had no effects. It is concluded that PACAP-38 acts as an enhancer of mammalian mnemonic processes even at very low dosages. The positive effect follows an inverted U-shaped dose-response curve. The results may be of interest for the therapy of some neuropathological conditions.     

Variability of color choice in the Lüscher Color Test--sex differences

In this preliminary investigation of variability of responses on the Lüscher Color Test, subjects were 567 volunteers administered the test twice with a 10-min. interval between them. Two hypotheses were tested: (a) that variability of responses attests to the personality of the respondent (tested by the relations of variability and MMPI scale scores), and (b) variability of responses is based on learning the test's content. As such, men's scores should be more variable than women's. Analysis showed that variability was not correlated with scores for personality on the MMPI scales. Men's scores are more variable than women's, but only until age 45.     

On recognizing proper names: the orthographic cue hypothesis

Five experiments investigated the recognition of proper names and common nouns using the lexical decision paradigm. In Experiments 1-3 the case of the initial letter of written stimuli was systematically varied. An advantage was consistently found for proper names written with the first letter in capital. Crucially, response times to proper names with the first letter in lowercase and to common nouns irrespective of the case of the first letter did not differ from each other. No difference between proper names and common nouns emerged in Experiment 4 where the stimuli were presented auditorily, and in Experiment 5 where a visual lexical decision task was performed with illegal non-words. The pattern of results shows that the proper name advantage is orthographic in nature and rules out an account in terms of semantic, morphological or other lexical variables. A model is proposed in which information about the case of the first letter is specified in the abstract multidimensional orthographic representation mediating written word recognition.     

Multinational data show that conspiracy beliefs are associated with the perception (and reality) of poor national economic performance

While a great deal is known about the individual difference factors associated with conspiracy beliefs, much less is known about the country-level factors that shape people's willingness to believe conspiracy theories. In the current article we discuss the possibility that willingness to believe conspiracy theories might be shaped by the perception (and reality) of poor economic performance at the national level. To test this notion, we surveyed 6723 participants from 36 countries. In line with predictions, propensity to believe conspiracy theories was negatively associated with perceptions of current and future national economic vitality. Furthermore, countries with higher GDP per capita tended to have lower belief in conspiracy theories. The data suggest that conspiracy beliefs are not just caused by intrapsychic factors but are also shaped by difficult economic circumstances for which distrust might have a rational basis.     

COVID-19 Vaccination Acceptance: A Case of Interplay Between Political and Health Dimensions

Vaccines are essential for the eradication of diseases. Yet for many reasons, individuals do not embrace them completely. In the COVID-19 pandemic and with the possibility of the Brazilian population's immunization against the disease, both political and health-related dimensions might have had a role in individual COVID-19 vaccination acceptance. In two studies (n = 974), we tested the hypothesis that participants' vaccination acceptance is related to their past vote in the 2018 Brazilian presidential election (being or not being a Jair Bolsonaro voter) and their different levels of perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD). We further tested whether Bolsonaro's opposition or ambiguous messages towards vaccination (vs. control) increased vaccination rejection among those who have (vs. have not) voted for him and who are low (vs. high) in PVD. Results show that Bolsonaro (vs. non-Bolsonaro) voters accepted less vaccination, with higher rejection rates when participants expressed low (vs. high) PVD. Also, when primed either with Bolsonaro's opposed or ambiguous messages towards COVID-19 vaccination, such participants accepted less vaccines (vs. participants primed with neutral information). These findings are the first to show that the COVID-19 vaccine acceptance is related to their past vote and leadership influence but also different levels of perceived vulnerability to disease.     

Attention shifts produce spatial stimulus codes

Summary In the Simon task the spatial position of the stimulus, though task irrelevant, influences speed of response. We (Umiltà & Nicoletti, 1992) proposed that the orienting of attention to the imperative stimulus produces a Stroop-like interference. This paper reports the results of three experiments that provide empirical support for two predictions of this hypothesis. One is that the stimulus spatial code is formed with relation to the position to which attention is directed. The other prediction is that the Simon effect is obtained on condition that attention can orient to the stimulus.Some of the results of Experiments 1 and 2 were reported briefly in Umiltà and Nicoletti (1992)