Face and voice attractiveness judgments change during adolescence

Attractivenessjudgments are thought to underpin adaptive mate choice decisions. We investigated how these judgmentschange during adolescence when mate choice is becoming relevant. Adolescents aged 11–15 evaluated faces and voices manipulated along dimensions that affect adults' judgments of attractiveness and that are thought to cue mate value. Facial stimuli consisted of pairs of faces that were more or less average, more or less feminine, or more or less symmetric. The adolescents selected the more average, symmetric, and feminine faces as more attractive more often than chance, but judgments of some facial traits differed significantly with rater age and sex, indicating a role of development in judgments of facial cues. Vocal stimuli consisted of pairs of voices manipulated to raise or lower perceived pitch. The older but not younger girls selected the lower-pitched male voices as more attractive at rates above chance, while the younger but not older boys selected the higher-pitched female voices as more attractive. Controlling for rater age, increased pubertal development was associated with increased selection of lower-pitched boys' voices by girls and decreased selection of feminized male faces by boys. Our results are the first to demonstrate that adolescents show somewhat similar attractivenessjudgments to adults in age-matched stimuli and that age, sex, and pubertal development have measurable effects on adolescents' attractivenessjudgments. They suggest that attractivenessjudgments in humans, at least for some traits, are facultatively calibrated to the individual's life stage, only reaching adult values upon sexual maturity when mate choice decisions become relevant

The students' point of view about quality of educational multimedia software

The study reported here is part of an international project supported by EU (PEDACTICE - Educational Multimedia in Compulsory School: From Pedagogical Assessment to Product Assessment) and had as main goal to know the opinion and the perception of the Portuguese students about criteria of quality of educational multimedia software. In order to obtain elements on the student`s point of view about educational multimedia software, we decided to interview small groups of pupils who are involved in the work with multimedia materials and than gather, organize and analyse the information got. The sample of interviewed pupils can be considered as representative of the Lisbon schools attended by teachers and pupils very much interested in multimedia materials which these students use not only as an aid to learning activities but also as a support to home and school work. As main results of the study we can refer: a) the confirmation of the success of computers and multimedia among the young Portuguese student population, being manifest either in their attitudes or in the diversity of their experiences, including the technical mastery of informas; b) the acknowledgment, by the students, of the role of the school and of those of their teachers who had till now led the process; c) an unexpected emphasis attached by the students, mainly by the older ones, to the use of computer as a resource for school work which, till now, was done without it; and d) the rare use of the computer for supporting tasks of creative or autonomous nature.European Comissio

ICT in primary education: A perspective study into the use and selection procedures of software designed to support the development of basic literacy skills for able and less able pupils (KS1)

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The British government is heavily committed to successfully applying technology in primary education through a series of expensive initiatives stressing the importance of technology in teaching across the curriculum and the belief that technology can contribute to pupils' academic achievement. One would assume that educators use it regularly in their classrooms in the subject of basic literacy. One of the factors that may impede the use of technology in teaching is the good quality software. There are numerous software available but of poor quality. Unfortunately, no criteria are available for teachers to select computer packages. Pupils' contribution to designing software is highly recommended but their views have been ignored in relation to what elements should be included in computer packages. This study was set: a) To explore the use and selection procedure of initial literacy software in primary / nursery schools, and b) To explore young pupils (KS1) thoughts on using basic literacy software and on the technical features and instructional characteristics in such programs. This inquiry investigated the above aims involving the views of the three stakeholders - teachers, developers, and children. Namely, 112 primary school teachers, mostly mature in age and experience, of five LEAs in Southwest area of London, 98 KSI (62 Yrl and 36 Yr2), and 10 software companies. The constructivist paradigm by Cuba & Lincoln was employed to reach joint constructions by comparing and contrasting differences, but mostly to give weight to the perspectives of the less power - children - to "give voice". The study has found that young pupils do not have frequent access to such programs, and to computers in general, though schools are equipped with computers and literacy software. The ratio of computers to pupils is large, 1: 13. Schools opt for the ICT suite in order to secure equal access. Just over half of the teachers feel sufficiently trained in using ICT. The older in age and in teaching experience teachers feel less confident in using technology. Developers share the view that teachers' ICT skills are poor. Half of the available software does not undergo any testing before reaching classrooms since only half of developers evaluate their products, and equally half of teachers preview it, but both without pupils involved. Young in the profession teachers and teachers who feel sufficiently trained tend to preview software more than the rest of their colleagues. No criteria are used in order to select computer packages and teachers feel that they need more skills for that reason. The older in the teaching profession educators find more influential software that has been tried out with children. The criteria found in this study are the same as the ones provided by the literature and the ones used by few teachers. Pupils like to work on computers. They believe that computers contribute to their learning, and equally literacy games contribute to the development of pre-reading skills. They like to work in pairs and explain why. The views of pupils on the difficulties they encounter match the views of teachers and developers. Regarding the software elements the study has shown differences between the two age groups (Yrl and Yr2). Similarly, differences are found between the three stakeholders in relation to technical features in software. The study provides a list of recommendations for classroom teachers.This study is partly funded by Brunel University

Rating the Net

Rating systems provide an impressive solution to the problem of sexually explicit speech on the Internet. Members of the Internet community are rightly enthusiastic about the benefits filtering software promises. Those benefits, though, come at a cost. Sites may be stripped out of the filtered universe because of deliberate political choices on the part of ratings service administrators, and because of inaccuracies inherent in the ratings process. If a ratings service is to categorize a large number of sites, it cannot simultaneously achieve consistency and nuance; the techniques it must rely on to achieve consistency make it more difficult to capture nuance, and make it less likely that users will find the ratings useful. The necessity of excluding unrated sites may disproportionately bar speech that was not created by commercial providers for a mass audience. These concerns are especially troubling because it seems likely that many adults will reach the Net through approaches monitored by filtering software

The comprehension revolution : a twenty-year history of process and practice related to reading comprehension

Includes bibliographie

Perceiving Sociable Technology: Exploring the Role of Anthropomorphism and Agency Perception on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

With the arrival of personal assistants and other AI-enabled autonomous technologies, social interactions with smart devices have become a part of our daily lives. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to understand how these social interactions emerge, and why users appear to be influenced by them. For this reason, I explore questions on what the antecedents and consequences of this phenomenon, known as anthropomorphism, are as described in the extant literature from fields ranging from information systems to social neuroscience. I critically analyze those empirical studies directly measuring anthropomorphism and those referring to it without a corresponding measurement. Through a grounded theory approach, I identify common themes and use them to develop models for the antecedents and consequences of anthropomorphism. The results suggest anthropomorphism possesses both conscious and non-conscious components with varying implications. While conscious attributions are shown to vary based on individual differences, non-conscious attributions emerge whenever a technology exhibits apparent reasoning such as through non-verbal behavior like peer-to-peer mirroring or verbal paralinguistic and backchanneling cues. Anthropomorphism has been shown to affect users’ self-perceptions, perceptions of the technology, how users interact with the technology, and the users’ performance. Examples include changes in a users’ trust on the technology, conformity effects, bonding, and displays of empathy. I argue these effects emerge from changes in users’ perceived agency, and their self- and social- identity similarly to interactions between humans. Afterwards, I critically examine current theories on anthropomorphism and present propositions about its nature based on the results of the empirical literature. Subsequently, I introduce a two-factor model of anthropomorphism that proposes how an individual anthropomorphizes a technology is dependent on how the technology was initially perceived (top-down and rational or bottom-up and automatic), and whether it exhibits a capacity for agency or experience. I propose that where a technology lays along this spectrum determines how individuals relates to it, creating shared agency effects, or changing the users’ social identity. For this reason, anthropomorphism is a powerful tool that can be leveraged to support future interactions with smart technologies

1999 Abstract Booklet

Complete Schedule of Events for the 1st Annual Undergraduate Research Conference at Minnesota State University, Mankato

Nurturing Intelligence in the Classroom

There is a fine balance, a significant subtlety, for a teacher to sustain in order to be a functional force in the classroom nurture of intelligence. Keenly sensitive perceptions are required if teachers are to Follow along, so to speak, ahead of the children, helping them to clarify, organize, and extend meanings as they reach out for understanding. I Teachers\u27 roles in this process demand a high degree of knowledge about our language and an active, creative part in its use. Pervasive habits of observing and listening should be enmeshed in the whole approach to teaching. More than that; as children seek constantly to organize their knowledge into conceptual structures, their efforts must be met by teachers with responsible steps to support, to stretch the scope, of these understandings. Challenges and choices facing teachers in designing programs for classroom learnings then become the crucial fulcrum in understanding and counter-poising the differing aspects of what children do know, can know, and should know

A crusade for morality : status politics and Internet filtering legislation

This thesis demonstrates that particular interest groups supporting the limiting and restricting of patron access on Internet tenninals in public libraries is motivated by a desire to maintain their dominant cultural hegemony. These groups, identified in this work as Crusaders are seeking to pass federal legislation that would require that public libraries install Internet filtering software on public terminals or forfeit federal funding provided through the e-rate subsidy. The importance of such a law is not its instrumental value, but its symbolic value. The sociological theory known as status politics supplies the theoretical basis for this thesis. Briefly, status politics argues that laws serve a symbolic function in society. The laws of a society not only apply order to human behavior, but also reflect the values and beliefs of societal culture. Those who have the power to establish laws also have the power to impose their ideological beliefs and values on the general public. Those who have legislative power see their status and prestige reflected in the laws they establish. By applying Kenneth Burke\u27s five elements of dramaturgical analysis to Crusader testimony given in the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, and the Children\u27s Internet Protection Act of 1999, the strategies employed on the part of Crusaders to pass such legislation are revealed. This analysis shows the techniques employed by the Crusaders to convince their audience that Internet filtering laws must be established. This thesis shows that Crusader attempts to pass Internet filtering legislation is an example of status politics