Children’s spontaneous comparisons from 26 to 58 months predict performance in verbal and non-verbal analogy tests in 6th grade

Comparison supports the development of children’s analogical reasoning. The evidence for this claim comes from laboratory studies. We describe spontaneous comparisons produced by 24 typically developing children from 26 to 58 months. Children tend to express similarity before expressing difference. They compare objects from the same category before objects from different categories, make global comparisons before specific comparisons, and specify perceptual features of similarity/difference before non-perceptual features. We then investigate how a theoretically interesting subset of children’s comparisons – those expressing a specific feature of similarity or difference – relates to analogical reasoning as measured by verbal and non-verbal tests in 6th grade. The number of specific comparisons children produce before 58 months predicts their scores on both tests, controlling for vocabulary at 54 months. The results provide naturalistic support for experimental findings on comparison development, and demonstrate a strong relationship between children’s early comparisons and their later analogical reasoning

Micro-bulge testing applied to neutron irradiated materials

Micro-bulge testing was conducted on several Fe--Ni--Cr alloys irradiated as 0.3 mm thick disks to 10 dpa at 603 and 773 K in the Oak Ridge Research Reactor. Miniature tensile tests were performed on specimens of the same alloys irradiated concurrently. Good correlation between the tensile yield strength and the bulge yield load was observed in unirradiated specimens, however, the correlation was not simple for irradiated specimens. Good correlation was also observed between the ultimate tensile strength and the maximum bulge load. While irradiation produced a significant reduction in total elongation in the tensile test, irradiation caused only a small decrease in the deflection corresponding to the maximum bulge load compared to that observed on thinner disks used in earlier experiments. The results suggest that the thinner disk is better suited for ductility evaluations than the thicker disk. The area bounded by the load-deflection traces of the bulge tests shows a systematic variation with both alloy composition and irradiation condition which is not observed in the tensile data. It is anticipated that this parameter may prove useful in the evaluation of material toughness

Auditory but Not Audiovisual Cues Lead to Higher Neural Sensitivity to the Statistical Regularities of an Unfamiliar Musical Style

It is still a matter of debate whether visual aids improve learning of music. In a multisession study, we investigated the neural signatures of novel music sequence learning with or without aids (auditory-only: AO, audiovisual: AV). During three training sessions on 3 separate days, participants (nonmusicians) reproduced (note by note on a keyboard) melodic sequences generated by an artificial musical grammar. The AV group (n = 20) had each note color-coded on screen, whereas the AO group (n = 20) had no color indication. We evaluated learning of the statistical regularities of the novel music grammar before and after training by presenting melodies ending on correct or incorrect notes and by asking participants to judge the correctness and surprisal of the final note, while EEG was recorded. We found that participants successfully learned the new grammar. Although the AV group, as compared to the AO group, reproduced longer sequences during training, there was no significant difference in learning between groups. At the neural level, after training, the AO group showed a larger N100 response to lowprobability compared to high-probability notes, suggesting an increased neural sensitivity to statistical properties of the grammar; this effect was not observed in the AV group. Our findings indicate that visual aids might improve sequence reproduction while not necessarily promoting better learning, indicating a potential dissociation between sequence reproduction and learning. We suggest that the difficulty induced by auditory-only input during music training might enhance cognitive engagement, thereby improving neural sensitivity to the underlying statistical properties of the learned material

Assessment of concentration mechanisms for organic wastes in underground storage tanks at Hanford

Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) has conducted an initial conservative evaluation of physical and chemical processes that could lead to significant localized concentrations of organic waste constituents in the Hanford underground storage tanks (USTs). This evaluation was part of ongoing studies at Hanford to assess potential safety risks associated with USTs containing organics. Organics in the tanks could pose a potential problem if localized concentrations are high enough to propagate combustion and are in sufficient quantity to produce a large heat and/or gas release if in contact with a suitable oxidant. The major sources of oxidants are oxygen in the overhead gas space of the tanks and sodium nitrate and nitrite either as salt cake solids or dissolved in the supernatant and interstitial liquids

Priming Analogical Reasoning with False Memories

Like true memories, false memories are capable of priming answers to insight-based problems. Recent research has attempted to extend this paradigm to more advanced problem-solving tasks, including those involving verbal analogical reasoning. However, these experiments are constrained inasmuch as problem solutions could be generated via spreading activation mechanisms (much like false memories themselves) rather than using complex reasoning processes. In three experiments we examined false memory priming of complex analogical reasoning tasks in the absence of simple semantic associations. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated the robustness of false memory priming in analogical reasoning when backward associative strength among the problem terms was eliminated. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we extended these findings by demonstrating priming on newly created homonym analogies that can only be solved by inhibiting semantic associations within the analogy. Overall, the findings of the present experiments provide evidence that the efficacy of false memory priming extends to complex analogical reasoning problems

Weighing up Exercises on Phrasal Verbs: Retrieval Versus Trial-And-Error Practices

EFL textbooks and internet resources exhibit various formats and implementations of exercises on phrasal verbs. The experimental study reported here examines whether some of these might be more effective than others. EFL learners at a university in Japan were randomly assigned to four treatment groups. Two groups were presented first with phrasal verbs and their meaning before they were prompted to retrieve the particles from memory. The difference between these two retrieval groups was that one group studied and then retrieved items one at a time, while the other group studied and retrieved them in sets. The two other groups received the exercises as trial-and-error events, where participants were prompted to guess the particles and were subsequently provided with the correct response. One group was given immediate feedback on each item, while the other group tackled sets of 14 items before receiving feedback. The effectiveness of these exercise implementations was compared through an immediate and a 1-week delayed post-test. The best test scores were obtained when the exercises had served the purpose of retrieval, although this advantage shrank in the delayed test (where scores were poor regardless of treatment condition). On average 70% of the post-test errors produced by the learners who had tackled the exercises by trial-and-error were duplicates of incorrect responses they had supplied at the exercise stage, which indicates that corrective feedback was often ineffective

Inquiry pedagogy to promote emerging proportional reasoning in primary students

Proportional reasoning as the capacity to compare situations in relative (multiplicative) rather than absolute (additive) terms is an important outcome of primary school mathematics. Research suggests that students tend to see comparative situations in additive rather than multiplicative terms and this thinking can influence their capacity for proportional reasoning in later years. In this paper, excerpts from a classroom case study of a fourth-grade classroom (students aged 9) are presented as they address an inquiry problem that required proportional reasoning. As the inquiry unfolded, students' additive strategies were progressively seen to shift to proportional thinking to enable them to answer the question that guided their inquiry. In wrestling with the challenges they encountered, their emerging proportional reasoning was supported by the inquiry model used to provide a structure, a classroom culture of inquiry and argumentation, and the proportionality embedded in the problem context

Low energy positron diffraction from Cu(111): Importance of surface loss processes at large angles of incidence

Intensities of positrons specularly diffracted from Cu(111) were measured at the Brandeis positron beam facility and analyzed in the energy range 8eV40{degree}. 30 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab