The Multipoint Two-Hand coordinator: Apparatus for Studying the Acquisition and Tran sf er of Skill in Performing Subject-Paced Tasks

The Multipoint Two-Hand Coordinator 1 retains the control mechanism of the Two-Hand Coordinator described elsewhere by Shephard and Lewis ( 1). Both devices require the turning of two lathe-like cranks to effect changes in the position of a target follower. The essential difference between them is that the Multipoint utilizes a stationary hard-rubber plate bearing an irregular pathway of small circular brass buttons instead of a revolving disk and a single moving target. Consequently, the Multipoint provides subject-paced (unpaced) tasks while the more familiar Two-Hand Coordinator provides paced tasks

Do Students Benefit From Supplemental Instruction? Evidence From a First-Year Statistics Subject in Economics and Business

Peer assisted study sessions (PASS) are a type of supplemental instruction (SI) that provide students with out-of-class study review sessions with a group of peers. A student, who has successfully completed the subject and acts as a mentor, facilitates the voluntary sessions. Results of the PASS program at the University of Wollongong have been quite positive in that students, on average, who attend more PASS, achieve higher marks. However, a simple comparison does not control for self-selection bias. We control for self-selection in two ways. Firstly, we use Heckman’s two-stage correction technique to analyze the 2002 cohort. Secondly, students in the 2003 cohort were randomly allocated into three groups of equal size: 1. A control group that was allocated to normal tutorials with standard class sizes and ineligible to attend PASS; 2. A group that was eligible to attend PASS and had normal tutorials of standard sizes; 3. A group that was ineligible to attend PASS but allocated to normal tutorials with smaller class sizes. The results of both methods are consistent and indicate the PASS program has a positive impact on the academic performance of students after correcting for selection bias.Economics Education; Teaching of Economics; Design of Experiments

Pitch Perception of Frequency Glides

A rising or falling frequency glide at the end of a sustained tone is perceived as being of greater extent and longer duration than the identical physical phenomenon occurring at the beginning of the tone. This is true for both complex and pure tones, with intensity constant or varying

Toward a Formal Analysis of Deceptive Signaling

Deception has long been an important topic in philosophy (see Augustine 1952; Kant 1996; Chisholm & Feehan 1977; Mahon 2007; Carson 2010). However, the traditional analysis of the concept, which requires that a deceiver intentionally cause her victim to have a false belief, rules out the possibility of much deception in the animal kingdom. Cognitively unsophisticated species, such as fireflies and butterflies, have simply evolved to mislead potential predators and/or prey. To capture such cases of “functional deception,” several researchers (e.g., Sober 1994; Hauser 1997; Searcy & Nowicki 2005, Skyrms 2010) have endorsed the broader view that deception only requires that a deceiver benefit from sending a misleading signal. Moreover, in order to facilitate game-theoretic study of deception in the context of Lewisian sender-receiver games, Brian Skyrms has proposed an influential formal analysis of this view. Such formal analyses have the potential to enhance our philosophical understanding of deception in humans as well as animals. However, as we argue in this paper, Skyrms's analysis, as well as two recently proposed alternative analyses (viz., Godfrey-Smith 2011; McWhirter 2016), are seriously flawed and can lead us to draw unwarranted conclusions about deception

Toward a Formal Analysis of Deceptive Signaling

Deception has long been an important topic in philosophy (see Augustine 1952; Kant 1996; Chisholm & Feehan 1977; Mahon 2007; Carson 2010). However, the traditional analysis of the concept, which requires that a deceiver intentionally cause her victim to have a false belief, rules out the possibility of much deception in the animal kingdom. Cognitively unsophisticated species, such as fireflies and butterflies, have simply evolved to mislead potential predators and/or prey. To capture such cases of “functional deception,” several researchers (e.g., Sober 1994; Hauser 1997; Searcy & Nowicki 2005, Skyrms 2010) have endorsed the broader view that deception only requires that a deceiver benefit from sending a misleading signal. Moreover, in order to facilitate game-theoretic study of deception in the context of Lewisian sender-receiver games, Brian Skyrms has proposed an influential formal analysis of this view. Such formal analyses have the potential to enhance our philosophical understanding of deception in humans as well as animals. However, as we argue in this paper, Skyrms's analysis, as well as two recently proposed alternative analyses (viz., Godfrey-Smith 2011; McWhirter 2016), are seriously flawed and can lead us to draw unwarranted conclusions about deception

Accuracy, conditionalization, and probabilism

Accuracy-based arguments for conditionalization and probabilism appear to have a significant advantage over their Dutch Book rivals. They rely only on the plausible epistemic norm that one should try to decrease the inaccuracy of one's beliefs. Furthermore, conditionalization and probabilism apparently follow from a wide range of measures of inaccuracy. However, we argue that there is an under-appreciated diachronic constraint on measures of inaccuracy which limits the measures from which one can prove conditionalization, and none of the remaining measures allow one to prove probabilism. That is, among the measures in the literature, there are some from which one can prove conditionalization, others from which one can prove probabilism, but none from which one can prove both. Hence at present, the accuracy-based approach cannot underwrite both conditionalization and probabilism

Age and Handedness as Factors in the Performance of a Complex Pursuit Task: Results of a Study at the Iowa State Fair

In connection with systematic studies of the underlying variables which affect the learning and retention of complex skills, it has been found that certain patterns of response-the steering and pointing patterns, in particular--are firmly ingrained in the average person before adulthood is reached. They are so rigidly fixed that alterations of them are extremely difficult to produce in reasonable lengths of time, under laboratory conditions. They depend on a high degree of coordination of perceptual and motor components of behavior, and are presumably acquired during many years of reinforced practice. Steering left when turning right is desired is seemingly as behaviorally abhorrent as pointing up when pointing down is the thing to do. The purpose of the present investigation, made last summer at the State Fair in Des Moines, was to determine whether age and handedness are factors in the performance of a task requiring responses basically like the ordinary ones of steering and pointing. It was hoped that the results would reveal something about the way the steering and pointing habits grow, indicate the approximate age at which they become fully developed, and disclose any interactions between the effects of age and handedness

Assessing the Connotative Strengths of Random Shapes

After sets of mutually equally discriminable random shapes, all generated from a single prototype, had been identified, the members of the several sets were immediately recognized as differing in associativeness or meaningfulness. The meaningfulness (m) of each shape was determined through an application of the production method. The computed values of m did not, in many cases, coincide with the meaningfulness of the shapes as judged by several trained observers. Satisfactory indices of the heterogeneity (and, conversely, the homogeneity) of the verbal responses to each of the shapes seemed impossible to obtain. Thereupon, the degree of appropriateness of each verbal response (word or short phrase) for describing its corresponding shape was determined through an interval scaling procedure. The mean of 22 scale values-descriptive appropriateness values-for each shape was taken to be the connotative strength (cs) of the shape. The Pearson r for the m and cs values was an insignificant .09. The tentative, but fairly firm, conclusion was that values of cs were more clearly indicative, than were values of m, of what the shapes signified when seen by groups of untrained observers

Accuracy, conditionalization, and probabilism

Accuracy-based arguments for conditionalization and probabilism appear to have a significant advantage over their Dutch Book rivals. They rely only on the plausible epistemic norm that one should try to decrease the inaccuracy of one's beliefs. Furthermore, conditionalization and probabilism apparently follow from a wide range of measures of inaccuracy. However, we argue that there is an under-appreciated diachronic constraint on measures of inaccuracy which limits the measures from which one can prove conditionalization, and none of the remaining measures allow one to prove probabilism. That is, among the measures in the literature, there are some from which one can prove conditionalization, others from which one can prove probabilism, but none from which one can prove both. Hence at present, the accuracy-based approach cannot underwrite both conditionalization and probabilism

Motor Performance After Four Kinds of Verbal Pretraining

Four groups of 20 Ss each were given 36 paired-associates trials on each of six random shapes. The four groups learned verbal responses which were, respectively, high in association value and formally distinct (HD), high in association value and formally similar (HS), low in association value and formally distinct (LD), and low in association value and formally similar (LS). An additional group (A) attended to motor task stimuli during 216 nonverbal pretraining trials, while a control group (I) learned medium association value distinct syllables to stimuli different from those which subsequently appeared in the motor task. Errors and correct responses were recorded. Subsequent to verbal or attention pretraining, all Ss were given 36 trials on a discriminative motor task provided by the Star Discrimeter. Errors and correct responses were recorded for each Star trial. A significant interaction on motor performance was found between the distinctiveness and association value variables, indicating that in some manner the association value of pretraining responses is an effective variable. Significant differences among experimental groups HD and HS, LD and LS, and between groups HD and I were taken as compatible with the postulation of a verbally mediated cue for the prediction of differential criterion performance after different kinds of verbal pretraining