Mécanismes d'apprentissage sériel chez les vertébrés

International audienceSerial learning has been studied in vertebrate species using two different methods. One consists of the successive presentation of several items, and the animal has to respond according to this order. As shown by a systematic enhanced recall of the items presented last (recency effect), short-term memory processes appear to play a determinant role at least at the beginning of successive serial learning. The second method consists of the presentation of all items simultaneously, and the animal learns the correct order of responding. Serial learning mechanisms involve various discriminative processes (special status of the first and last items, conditional discrimination learning, temporal distance to the reinforcer), rule learning and the development of a mental representation (linear or associative) of the series. These mechanisms appear to vary according to the species tested, and according to several experimental parameters, such as the serial learning method, the learning procedure and the series' length. Involvement of more elaborate processes does not seem to rule out involvement of less elaborate processes at the beginning of training or on early learning phases with a partial series which precede later phases with the entire series.Les mécanismes d'apprentissage sériel sont étudiés chez les vertébrés supérieurs grâce à deux types de protocoles. Dans l'un, l'animal doit reproduire l'ordre de présentation de plusieurs éléments présentés successivement, sollicitant fortement la mémoire à court terme. Dans l'autre, l'animal découvre l'ordre dans lequel il doit répondre à des éléments présentés simultanément. Les mécanismes d'apprentissage sériel incluent des processus discriminatifs, l'apprentissage de règles et le développement d'une représentation mentale. Ils ne s'excluent pas mutuellement pour un apprentissage donné, mais semblent varier selon l'espèce étudiée, et divers paramètres expérimentaux

Wily welfare capitalist: Werner von Siemens and the pension plan

The German firm of Siemens and Halske introduced many enterprising features of what later came to be known as welfare capitalism in the mid-nineteenth century. Profit sharing, annual bonuses, a pension fund, a reduction in work hours, and an annual party were all means to ensure a productive, trouble-free workforce. We investigate the reasons why Siemens and Halske introduced this internal welfare system. We focus on the by-far most expensive part of the welfare system: the pension fund introduced in 1872, more than a decade before the nationwide social security system was implemented in Germany. We find that the adoption of the internal welfare system increased labor productivity, and in addition discouraged workers from striking. We estimate that the company’s gains due to strike prevention and higher productivity were at least as high as the cost of the pension fund. This suggests that (1) the introduction of a pension fund is not inconsistent with simple profit maximizing behavior on the firm’s side and (2) increased labor unionization induced firms to introduce subjective components of workers’ remuneration packages.Welfare capitalism, Siemens, Productivity