An apparatus for the assessment of prepulse inhibition in the frog

A system for studying prepulse inhibition in the leopard frog is described herein. It entails a modification of an apparatus developed almost a century ago, by Yerkes, for his investigations of hearing in the frog. With the present system, a frog is restrained in a cylindrical vessel (constructed from a 35-mm film canister), and the canister is positioned in the apparatus so that the animal’s legs hang downward. A miniature solenoid is used to deliver a startle eliciting tap to the frog’s head, and the resulting leg movement is detected by an optical densitometer. In addition to providing a convenient way to restrain frogs, our system enabled us to, in part, replicate Yerkes’s basic procedures with these subjects. As did Yerkes, we found that an acoustic signal just prior to a tap on a frog’s head inhibits the leg movement that would otherwise be elicited.     

The Effect of Emotional Valence on Auditory Word Recognition Memory in English as a Foreign Language

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - The present study investigated the effect of emotional valence on auditory word recognition memory in English as a foreign language. Participants included 48...     

A Q Analysis on the Impact of Shadow Education on the Academic Life of High School Students

Shadow education, more commonly known as private tutoring, has been actively supplementing the formal mainstream education system in both developed and developing countries. Using the Q methodology, a quali-quantilogical approach, the study determined how private tutoring has impacted the academic life of high school students by exploring and analyzing their subjective experiences in relation to being part of shadow education. This was done by asking 30 high school students to perform a Q sort of 48 statements that depicts the impact of shadow education or private tutoring. The findings revealed that exposure to shadow education activities affected the general attitude of the participants towards their studies and learning and their perception about their selves and their ability to perform tasks related to their schooling. Likewise, results also showed that exposure to shadow education activities had an effect on the academic performance of the participants. The effect of exposure to shadow education activities are not limited to those commonly reported in literature.