Redundancy and blocking in the spatial domain: A connectionist model.

How can the observations of spatial blocking (Rodrigo, Chamizo, McLaren
 & Mackintosh, 1997) and cue redundancy (OKeefe and Conway, 1978) be
 reconciled within the framework provided by an error-correcting,
 connectionist account of spatial navigation? I show that an implementation
 of McLarens (1995) better beta model can serve this purpose, and examine
 some of the implications for spatial learning and memory

The relationship between creativity and moral judgment

A sample of 50 male and female subjects ranging in age from 12 to 73 were divided into three groups according to the scale of maturity of moral judgment developed by Lawrence Kohlberg. Subjects were also tested on a measure of creativity developed by Torrance after the formulations of Guilford in order to test the hypothesis that the re^- lationship between creativity and maturity of moral judgment is curvilinear. Researchers have failed to develop any working hypothesis concerning the relationship between creativity and moral judgment or postulate any consistent theoretical framework concerning the possible relationship between these two constructs. The empirical investigation involved a scientific testing of a random selection of elementary subjects9 high school adolescents, and creative adults. Tests included Kohlberg8s Moral dilemmas and Guilford's Product Improvement Task. A trend analysis was conducted to reveal whether or not a curvilinear relationship existed between the independent variable (Moral Maturity Stages) and the de~ pe dent variable (creativity performance under each level). Curvilinear trends were observed in two out of four creativity subscales but were not statistically significant. It was concluded that these contradictory findings were due to the relatively small number of subjects tested, the narrow range or moral judgment scores, and the limited conception of creativity defined by the creativity measure used (The Product Improvement Task). It was suggested that an instrument assessing an identity status would be most useful as well as a creativity measure better suited for a theory of creativity essentially developmental in perspective

Open Access in UCL: a new paradigm for London's Global University in research support

Open Access provides an opportunity for researchers to disseminate their research globally, but it comes with challenges. This article looks at the various ways in which UCL (University College London) has addressed those challenges, by investing in Open Access activities at the university

Refinement of the Reflective Function Questionnaire for Youth (RFQY) Scale B using item response theory

We conducted item response theory (IRT) analyses to refine the Reflective Function Questionnaire for Youth (RFQY) Scale B. Data from a non-clinical sample of young people (n = 737; ages 18-25) was used to derive a shortened version of the RFQY. Results were replicated in a clinical sample of inpatient adolescents (n = 467; ages 12-17), resulting in a five-item measure, thereafter named the RFQY-5. The RFQY-5 item set was then scrutinized for construct validity against the original 23-item RFQY item set in a randomly selected sample of 100 inpatient adolescents not included in the IRT replication, and 186 healthy adolescents drawn from the community. Results showed that the RFQY-5 performed similarly as the long version in terms of associations with criterion variables, and outperformed the longer version in discriminating between inpatient and community-dwelling adolescents who differed in their levels of borderline traits. The study provides evidence in support of the use of the RFQY-5 in research and clinical settings

Power in the Multinational Corporation in Industry Equilibrium

Recent theories of the multinational corporation introduce the property rights model of the firm and examine whether to integrate our outsource firm activities locally or to a foreign country. This paper focus instead on the internal organization of the multinational corporation by examining the power allocation between headquarters and subsidiaries. We provide a framework to analyse the interaction between the decision to serve the local market by exporting or FDI, market acces and the optimal mode of organization of the multinational corporation. We find that subsidiary managers are given most autonomy in their decision how to run the firm at intermediate levels of local competition. We then provide comparative statics for changes in fixed FDI entry costs and trade costs, information technology, the number of local competitors, and in the size of the local market

Antonio Gramsci’s impact on critical pedagogy

This paper provides an account of Antonio Gramsci’s impact on the area of critical pedagogy. It indicates the Gramscian influence on the thinking of major exponents of the field. It foregrounds Gramsci's ideas and then indicates how they have been taken up by a selection of critical pedagogy exponents who were chosen on the strength of their identification and engagement with Gramsci's ideas, some of them even having written entire essays on Gramsci. The essay concludes with a discussion concerning an aspect of Gramsci's concerns, the question of powerful knowledge, which, in the present author's view, provides a formidable challenge to critical pedagogues.peer-reviewe

Attention and perceptual learning

Perceptual learning as a phenomenon. We are all of us experts. Each one of us is able to effortlessly distinguish between a large number of people that we encounter in our everyday lives. When considered as stimuli in the abstract this is a difficult discrimination task as the stimuli are all rather similar to one another, yet we can identify an individual in a moment with an accuracy that would put a supercomputer to shame. We will argue that this particular expertise comes about because we are very experienced with the class of stimuli in question (in this case faces), and that it is simply a more commonplace example of a type of expertise that we can study in twitchers (experts in the identification of birds), field botanists (experts in plant identification in a particular habitat) and dog show judges (experts in fine discriminations betweens dogs drawn from the same class such as gundogs; as reported in Perceptual learning, in its broadest sense, can be understood to be any enhancement of learning to a stimulus as a consequence of experience with that stimulus. Thus the proposal would be that perceptual learning is a consequence of the allocation of attention based on past experience with a particular stimulus type. This assertion is a natural (and plausible) response to the data, but is it the correct line to take? The question addressed in this chapter is whether perceptual learning phenomena can be explained by appealing to mechanisms that control attention (we will conclude that in some cases they can) or whether there is a need to appeal to other mechanisms as well (we hope to show that there is!). Starting with some examples of what might be considered perceptual learning phenomena taken from our early work, we go on to discuss them in the context of current research on perceptual learning, with an emphasis on analysing the possible role that attention might play in producing these effects. We will focus on perceptual learning in humans, but will allow ourselves to appeal to evidence from infra-human studies where appropriate. Enhanced acquisition of a discrimination after stimulus exposure. The general idea of the experiments reported here was to have participants learn discriminations in much the same circumstances as an animal (such as the rat) might. In the test or discrimination phase, a pair of stimuli would be presented side by side on a VDU with the arbitrarily designate

The Leeds Risk Index: Field-test of a stratified psychological treatment selection algorithm

Clinical guidelines for the treatment of depression and anxiety recommend psychological interventions organised in a stepped care model, where patients initially access low intensity guided self-help followed by high intensity psychotherapies if their symptoms persist. The Leeds Risk Index (LRI) is a data-driven tool that enables clinicians to profile patients into subgroups with low, moderate or high risk of poor response to treatment. A prior retrospective analysis of routine care data suggested that clinical outcomes for high risk cases could be improved by directly assigning them to high intensity treatments (stratified care) rather than usual stepped care. This study was the first prospective field-test of a stratified treatment selection approach based on the LRI tool. Post-treatment depression (PHQ-9) and anxiety (GAD-7) remission rates, dropout rates and treatment duration were compared between 157 stratified care cases vs. 125 stepped care controls. The results indicate that stratified care significantly improved the efficiency of psychological treatment, attaining comparable clinical outcomes in a shorter overall treatment duration