The two landscapes of northern Norway

Our concepts of the world come from our common activities in the world. Without coastal fishing, or seafaring, in boats too large for their crews to draw them ashore, there is no place for the concept of a harbour. And without reindeer herding, there will be no concept of JASSA. That is one point. The other is this: without some of the coastal fisherman's skill and local knowledge, you will not be able to recognize a natural harbour when you see one. And without the reindeer herder's skill, you will not be able to recognize a JASSA when you see one. To put it all rather bluntly. Though there is more of both work and experience behind the first part of this article, about the world of coastal fishing, most of my academic friends have found the latter part, about the concept JASSA, the better and more readable. Can it be that the better teacher is the one who has just learnt the lesson himself?     

Muscular Fatigue and the Learning and Performance of a Motor Control Task

Four groups of 12 female college students performed a pursuit-rotor task during learning under one of four conditions of exercising the muscles of the limb used in the task: (a) no muscular exercise, (b) low-fatiguing, (c) medium-fatiguing, and (d) high-fatiguing muscular exercise. All four groups were tested 48 hr later on the same pursuit-rotor task with no exercise interpolated between the ten 20-sec trials. Differences in the performances among the four groups were not statistically significant on either the first or the second day alone or when the data of the two days were combined. The data appear to support the hypothesis of an inverted-U or inverted-J model relating performance (and learning) to muscular fatigue in motor-control tasks.     

Quiet Eye Duration,Expertise, and Task Complexity in Near and Far Aiming Tasks

Skilled (n = 12) and less skilled (n = 12) billiards players participated in 2 experiments in which the relationship between quiet eye duration, expertise, and task complexity was examined in a near and a far aiming task. Quiet eye was defined as the final fixation on the target prior to the initiation of movement. In Experiment 1, skilled performers exhibited longer fixations on the target (quiet eye) during the preparation phase of the action than their less skilled counterparts did. Quiet eye duration increased as a function of shot difficulty and was proportionally longer on successful than on unsuccessful shots for both groups of participants. In Experiment 2, participants executed shots under 3 different time-constrained conditions in which quiet eye periods were experimentally manipulated. Shorter quiet eye periods resulted in poorer performance, irrespective of participant skill level. The authors argue that quiet eye duration represents a critical period for movement programming in the aiming response.     

Visual search,anticipation, and reactive comparisons between highly-skilled and beginning tennis players

Abstract

Simulated tennis playing situations were created for the laboratory testing of visual search patterns, anticipation, reactions, and movements to compare male and female high-level and beginning players. Of particular interest was the degree to which each measure would differentiate the groups. Participants were highly-rated university players (N-30) and students enrolled in a beginning tennis class (N = 30). Under one testing condition, visual search patterns were recorded as they viewed filmed opponents serve (60 trials) and hit ground strokes (60 trials). Also recorded was anticipation accuracy and speed of the intended type and location of serves and the intended placement of ground strokes. In other testing, execution of a split step was followed by moving rapidly to the comet location for a simulated stroke in response to a series of light cues. Reaction and movement times were recorded. Discrimination analysis revealed that experts and beginners were most differentiated due to fixations on certain cues and predicting ball direction. As to visual search analysis of fixation duration for nine possible areas during the serves, only the head area was significant. Beginners directed more time toward the head region than did the highly skilled. Experts and novices had similar visual patterns with respect to ground strokes, and a few differences existed within the two female groups, in the two male groups. as well as between males and females. Anticipation measures for the serve indicated that experts were faster and more accurate than beginners, and males were faster than females. Ground stroke data revealed that the highly-skilled were faster and more accurate than novices. Finally, the simulated split-step data showed that reaction times and movement times were faster for the experts versus the beginners, and males were quicker in movement times than females.     

Studies in Affective Reaction: II. Dependence of Affective Ratings upon the Stimulus-Situation

Meehl, Paul E. Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and Review of the Evidence. Minneapolis: Univ. Minnesota Press, 1954. Pp. 149. Reviewed by Henry Winthrop.     

Grandparent-grandchild relationships from the children's perspective: shared activities and socialization styles

The objective of this study is to describe the relationships between grandchildren and their favourite grandparents, by studying the socialization styles used by latter and the shared activities undertaken. The participants were 360 children between 10 and 12 years old, who completed the grandparent-grandchild relationship questionnaire of Rico, Serra and Viguer (2001) and the socialization questionnaire of Rey and Ruiz (1990). The results demonstrate the importance of gender and family line in the selection of the favourite grandparent, differences being shown in the types of shared activities and in socialization styles. It is concluded that in the majority of cases the profile of the favourite grandparent is the maternal grandmother, retired or a house wife, aged between 60-70, who lives in the same city as his/her grandchild, and who has contact with them several times a week. Furthermore, favourite grandparents get more involved with granddaughters than with grandsons, both in support and care activities and in cultural-recreational activities, and they primarily employ a democratic style. However, there are differences depending on the gender of the grandchild, with democratic principles being used more with girls and authoritarian ones with boys.     

Evidence for detection of one duration sample and default responding to other duration samples by pigeons may result from an artifact of retention-test ambiguity

S. C. Gaitan and J. T. Wixted (2000) proposed that when pigeons are trained on a conditional discrimination to associate 1 duration sample with 1 comparison and 2 other duration samples with a 2nd comparison, they detect only the single duration, and on trials involving either of the 2 other duration samples, they respond to the other comparison by default. In 2 experiments, the authors show instead that pigeons lend to treat the retention intervals (such as those used by Gaitan and Wixted) as intertrial intervals, and thus, they tend to treat all trials with a delay as 0-s sample trials. The authors tested this hypothesis by showing that divergent retention functions do not appear when the retention interval is discriminably different from the intertrial interval.     

Cognitive alteration of feeling states: Historical background

Within the scientific community there is a growing awareness and acceptance of the notion that people do not exist only in a world of physical forces and events. A person's perception of the world in which they live in a world is also defined by their own perceptions, experiences, and biases. In other words, a person responds and reacts, not only to objective or experimenter-defined stimuli, but also to his or her apperception and subjectively defined stimuli. Reprinted from London, Harvey and Richard E. Nisbett.Thought and Feeling: Cognitive Alteration of Feeling States. Aldine.