Toward the Formation of a “Cultural Mosaic”: A Case Study

This study describes an intervention designed to promote integration between Ethiopian and Israeli students (N = 93) in Grades 2 to 5 and adaptation of these immigrants to school norms of behavior and to discipline. The metaphor of cultural mosaic was used for describing the goal state. To achieve a comprehensive school reform, the curriculum was enacted on four levels: individual student, school and classroom, staff, and community (parents and local council). The intervention effects were evaluated in three domains via questionnaires, interviews, and observations – the domains being the academic, behavioral, and personal-social realms. Four stages were identified in the process: an opening stage, the euphoria stage, the setback stage, and the final stage of a new equilibrium. Results suggest that both the natives' and the immigrants' needs and difficulties have to be attended to in each of the stages. The social domain was found to be the most salient in the integration process, although integration within it may take less time and be more feasible than academic accommodation.     

Generating interior search directions for multiobjective linear programming

A new multiobjective linear programming (MOLP) algorithm is presented. The algorithm uses a variant of Karmarkar's interior-point algorithm known as the affine-scaling primal algorithm. Using this single-objective algorithm, interior search directions are generated and used to provide an approximation to the gradient of the (implicitly known) utility function. The approximation is guided by assessing locally relevant preference information for the various interior directions through interaction with a decision maker (DM). The resulting algorithm is an interactive approach that makes its progress towards the solution through the interior of the constraints polytope.     

The visual search analogue of latent inhibition: Implications for theories of irrelevant stimulus processing in normal and schizophrenic groups

Latent inhibition (LI) is a robust phenomenon that is demonstrated when a previously inconsequential stimulus is less effective in a new learning situation than a novel stimulus. Despite LI’s simplicity, there is considerable disagreement as to its theoretical basis. Attentional theories claim that unattended stimulus preexposures reduce stimulus associability. Alternatively, it has been asserted that associability is unaffected and that LI is a result of competition/retrieval processes. The present article reviews a series of visual search studies, some with normal subjects, both undifferentiated and divided into low and high schizotypals, and others with pathologies that entail dysfunctional attention, such as schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and anxiety. The visual search conditions were designed to model those of traditional LI experiments, while tapping attentional processes independently of the learning scores that index LI. A variety of evidence from these and other studies is used to support the involvement of attentionaland retrieval processes in LI. A model of the mechanism of action of these processes in LI is presented, together with its application to schizophrenia.     

Feature-based versus category-based induction with uncertain categories

Previous research has suggested that when feature inferences have to be made about an instance whose category membership is uncertain, feature-based inductive reasoning is used to the exclusion of category-based induction. These results contrast with the observation that people can and do use category-based induction when category membership is known. The present experiments examined the conditions that drive feature-based and category-based strategies in induction under category uncertainty. Specifically, 2 experiments investigated whether reliance on feature-based inductive strategies is a product of the lack of coherence in the categories used in previous research or is due to the use of a decision-only induction procedure. Experiment 1 found that feature-based reasoning remained the preferred strategy even when categories with relatively high internal coherence were used. Experiment 2 found a shift toward category-based reasoning when participants were trained to classify category members prior to feature induction. Together, these results suggest that an appropriate conceptual representation must be formed through experience with a category before it is likely to be used as a basis for feature induction.