Computer-Aided Careers Guidance: An Investigation Involving an Artificial System

Customer satisfaction with the occupational suggestions provided by computer-aided guidance systems is uniformly high. User satisfaction and reactions to an artificial system, and two conventional and profile-matching system, were compared. The results suggested that user satisfaction is influenced by several factors which are largely unrelated to the quality or novelty of the occupational suggestions received. The project also raises several issues regarding the validity of profile-matching in comparison to other less-complex databank-reduction procedures.     

Defensive burying, nest relocation, and pup transport in lactating female rats

A wire-wrapped wooden dowel was inserted through the wall of the nest compartment of a two-compartment box. There were four conditions. Some lactating female rats were shocked by the dowel when they first touched it, and some were not, after which the dowel was either immediately withdrawn from the chamber or left in place for the duration of the ensuing 30-min test period. Three defensive behaviours were observed during the tests: the mothers buried the shock source with bedding from the floor of the chamber, they transported their pups to the adjoining “safe” chamber, and they built a new nest in the safe chamber from material salvaged from their original nest. The shocked mothers that were confronted with the shock source throughout the test period displayed significantly more of each of these three defensive behaviours than did the mothers in the other three conditions. The methods used in this study provide a simple, reliable, safe paradigm for studying maternal defensive behaviour; the results indicate that the defensive capacities of the rat extend far beyond stereotypical flight, freeze, and fight responses, which have been the focus of most research on rodent defense.