Rater Agreement on IQ and Achievement Tests: Effect on Evaluations of Learning Disabilities

Protocols from 110 evaluations utilizing the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Third Edition (WISC-III) and the Woodcock/Johnson Tests of Achievement-Revised (W/J-R) were scored by two different raters to determine (a) whether subtests with more difficult levels of scoring yield lower interrater correlation coefficients, (b) whether scoring errors on subtests affect broad score estimates, (c) the effect of expertise of rater on scoring errors, and (d) whether scoring errors affect a learning disability determination based on IQ/achievement discrepancy. Scoring errors were found on almost 25% of Comprehension and Vocabulary subtests; however, the effect of these scoring errors was minimal. About 42% of Writing Samples subtests had scoring errors, resulting in a mean change of 1.75 points on the Broad Written Language Cluster subtest. On the WISC-III, but not the W/J-R, there were significantly more errors made by inexperienced testers. Scoring errors resulted in two cases in which learning disability determination would be changed. Overall, the study corroborates previous findings of strong interrater reliability on most subtests of common IQ and achievement tests and indicates that novice scorers are not likely to make scoring mistakes that will significantly impact an IQ/achievement discrepancy-based documentation of learning disability.     

Generality, repetition, and the role of descriptive learning models

Previous studies of learning in certain classes of games appear to lead to inconsistent conclusions. Studies that focus on the observed sequential changes in behavior support models that imply high-action inertia and allow for different parameters in different games. Studies that use simulation-based analysis and focus on the prediction of behavior in new games support models that imply little-action inertia, and demonstrate the value of models that assume general parameters over certain classes of games. We show that this apparent inconsistency emerges even when analyzing a large data set with a single model. We then show that the inconsistency between the two analyses can be a product of the tendency by subjects to repeat past choices.     

Threat processing in obsessive-compulsive disorder: evidence from a modified negative priming task

Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) often experience intrusive thoughts. These intrusions may be due to biases in information processing mechanisms, including attention, memory, and learning. To examine this hypothesis, we presented a modified negative priming (NP) paradigm with idiographically selected words to 19 individuals with OCD (OCs) and 19 matched non-anxious control participants (NACs). The words included OCD-relevant threat, OCD-relevant positive, and neutral words. This paradigm typically elicits positive priming because participants may learn the contingency between the prime and probe that facilitates responding [Frings and Wentura (2006). Strategy effects counteract distractor inhibition: NP with constantly absent probe distractors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 854-864]. As predicted, NACs showed facilitation (i.e., positive priming) rather than NP for all word types, whereas OCs exhibited facilitation for only neutral words. For positive words, OCs exhibited no priming and for threat words they exhibited NP. These results suggest that for idiographic, OCD-relevant threat information, individuals with OCD show difficulty learning the contingency between the information in the prime and probe displays relative to the NACs.     

Predictive coding explains binocular rivalry: an epistemological review

Binocular rivalry occurs when the eyes are presented with different stimuli and subjective perception alternates between them. Though recent years have seen a number of models of this phenomenon, the mechanisms behind binocular rivalry are still debated and we still lack a principled understanding of why a cognitive system such as the brain should exhibit this striking kind of behaviour. Furthermore, psychophysical and neurophysiological (single cell and imaging) studies of rivalry are not unequivocal and have proven difficult to reconcile within one framework. This review takes an epistemological approach to rivalry that considers the brain as engaged in probabilistic unconscious perceptual inference about the causes of its sensory input. We describe a simple empirical Bayesian framework, implemented with predictive coding, which seems capable of explaining binocular rivalry and reconciling many findings. The core of the explanation is that selection of one stimulus, and subsequent alternation between stimuli in rivalry occur when: (i) there is no single model or hypothesis about the causes in the environment that enjoys both high likelihood and high prior probability and (ii) when one stimulus dominates, the bottom-up, driving signal for that stimulus is explained away while, crucially, the bottom-up signal for the suppressed stimulus is not, and remains as an unexplained but explainable prediction error signal. This induces instability in perceptual dynamics that can give rise to perceptual transitions or alternations during rivalry.     

Simplicity and generalization: Short-cutting abstraction in children's object categorizations

Development in any domain is often characterized by increasingly abstract representations. Recent evidence in the domain of shape recognition provides one example; between 18 and 24 months children appear to build increasingly abstract representations of object shape [Smith, L. B. (2003). Learning to recognize objects. Psychological Science, 14, 244-250]. Abstraction is in part simplification because it requires the removal of irrelevant information. At the same time, part of generalization is ignoring irrelevant differences. The resulting prediction is this: simplification may enable generalization. Four experiments asked whether simple training instances could shortcut the process of abstraction and directly promote appropriate generalization. Toddlers were taught novel object categories with either simple or complex training exemplars. We found that children who learned with simple objects were able to generalize according to shape similarity, typically relevant for early object categories, better than those who learned with complex objects. Abstraction is the product of learning; using simplified - already abstracted instances - can short-cut that learning, leading to robust generalization.     

The error statistical philosopher as normative naturalist

We argue for a naturalistic account for appraising scientific methods that carries non-trivial normative force. We develop our approach by comparison with Laudan’s (American Philosophical Quarterly 24:19–31, 1987, Philosophy of Science 57:20–33, 1990) “normative naturalism” based on correlating means (various scientific methods) with ends (e.g., reliability). We argue that such a meta-methodology based on means–ends correlations is unreliable and cannot achieve its normative goals. We suggest another approach for meta-methodology based on a conglomeration of tools and strategies (from statistical modeling, experimental design, and related fields) that affords forward looking procedures for learning from error and for controlling error. The resulting “error statistical” appraisal is empirical—methods are appraised by examining their capacities to control error. At the same time, this account is normative, in that the strategies that pass muster are claims about how actually to proceed in given contexts to reach reliable inferences from limited data.     

Learning from Tolstoy: Forgetfulness and Recognition in Literary Edification

Philosophers have often applied a distinctively epistemic framework to the question of how moral knowledge can be derived from fictional literature, by considering how true propositions, or their argumentative support, can be the cognitive fruits of reading works of fiction. I offer an alternative approach. I focus not on whether readers fail to assent to the truth of a proposition or fail to provide it rational support. Instead, I focus on how readers fail to accord a truth (which they already accept) adequate importance in their web of beliefs about living a good human life. This is a form of ignorance, but in the form of neglect, or failure to pay proper regard – which is one sense of the term ‘forgetfulness’. I argue that works of fictional literature may, at times, stimulate audience members to overcome their own particular forms of forgetfulness in this respect. And I use Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich as a case in point.

Learning in a task of complex auditory streaming and identification

Adult humans were studied for improvements in their ability to segregate natural whole speech in background noise, in 6 test sessions spaced with a very wide range of inter-session interval (ISI) ranging from minutes to weeks apart so as to examine the effect of this parameter on initial (early) and late components of perceptual learning. Improvements were found even with spacings of 3 weeks between the punctate task sessions. All subjects showed similar total learning amounts but there were sex- and ISI-dependent differences in learning patterns, which we indexed by dividing the overall exponentially-decreasing learning pattern into an early phase between the first two sessions and a later phase between the second and sixth sessions. Males tested at all ISIs and females tested at short (2, 5 and 15 min) and long (1–21 days) ISIs showed small amounts of early-phase learning and large amounts of late-phase learning. However, females tested at intermediate (30 min and 1 h) ISIs showed only early learning, i.e., faster learning given that the total learning was the same. This sex- and ISI-specific deviant pattern could be changed to the standard pattern by interposing an overnight interruption that included sleep amongst test sessions. Thus, improvement in this complex auditory streaming and identification task can occur even with very brief and widely-spaced exposure, generally through a standard pattern of slower overall learning, but also through a sex- and ISI-specific deviant pattern of very rapid early learning which can be modulated by interposed delay unlike the standard pattern.     

Medial prefrontal cortex infusions of bupivacaine or AP-5 block extinction of amphetamine conditioned place preference

The present experiments used reversible lesion techniques and intra-mPFC infusions of the n-methyl d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist d,l-2-amino-5-phosphonovaleric acid (AP-5) to examine the role of the mPFC in extinction of an amphetamine conditioned place preference (CPP). Following initial training and testing for an amphetamine (2 mg/kg) CPP, adult male Long–Evans rats were given extinction trials that were identical to training, except in the absence of peripheral amphetamine injections. Immediately prior to each extinction trial, rats received intra-mPFC infusions of the anesthetic drug bupivacaine (0.75% solution/0.5 μl), AP-5 (1.25, 2.5, 5.0 μg/0.5 μl), or saline. Following extinction training, rats were given a second CPP test session. Rats receiving intra-mPFC infusions of saline displayed extinction of CPP behavior. In contrast, intra-mPFC infusions of bupivacaine or AP-5 (2.5, 5.0 μg) blocked CPP extinction. The findings indicate (1) the mPFC mediates extinction of approach behavior to drug-associated environmental contexts, and (2) NMDA receptor blockade within the mPFC is sufficient to block extinction of amphetamine CPP behavior.     

Inhibition of PKA anchoring to A-kinase anchoring proteins impairs consolidation and facilitates extinction of contextual fear memories

Both genetic and pharmacological studies demonstrated that contextual fear conditioning is critically regulated by cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA). Since PKA is a broad range protein kinase, a mechanism for confining its activity is required. It has been shown that intracellular spatial compartmentalization of PKA signaling is mediated by A-kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs). Here, we investigated the role of PKA anchoring to AKAPs in different stages of the memory process (acquisition, consolidation, retrieval and extinction) using contextual fear conditioning, a hippocampus-dependent learning task. Mice were injected intracerebroventricularly or intrahippocampally with the membrane permeable PKA anchoring disrupting peptides St-Ht31 or St-superAKAP-IS at different time points during the memory process. Blocking PKA anchoring to AKAPs resulted in an impairment of fear memory consolidation. Moreover, disrupted PKA anchoring promoted contextual fear extinction in the mouse hippocampus. We conclude that the temporal and spatial compartmentalization of hippocampal PKA signaling pathways, as achieved by anchoring of PKA to AKAPs, is specifically instrumental in long-term contextual fear memory consolidation and extinction, but not in acquisition and retrieval.