Children vary in the extent to which their development is shaped by particular experiences (e.g. maltreatment, social support). This variation raises a question: Is there no single level of plasticity that maximizes biological fitness? One influential hypothesis states that when different levels of plasticity are optimal in different environmental…

The subject of the research is to build methodologies to evaluate the student knowledge by testing. The author points to the importance of feedback about the mastering level in the learning process. Testing is considered as a tool. The object of the study is to create the test system models for defence practice problems. Special attention is paid…

A quiet methodological revolution, a modeling revolution, has occurred over the past several decades, almost without discussion. In contrast, the 20th century ended with contentious argument over the utility of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST). The NHST controversy may have been at least partially irrelevant, because in certain ways the…

Comments on articles by Botvinick et al. and Jacob et al. M. M. Botvinick, T. S. Braver, D. M. Barch, C. S. Carter, and J. D. Cohen (2001) implemented their conflict-monitoring hypothesis of cognitive control in a series of computational models. The authors of the current article first demonstrate that M. M. Botvinick et al.'s (2001)…

This package contains four FORTRAN 77 programs for Markov Model based learning experiments. One program estimates the likelihood of a one-stage learning model, another delivers estimates for a two-stage learning model. The third and fourth were designed for hypothesis testing the parameter differences between and within experimental conditions,…

A FORTRAN 77 program is described that computes both the different response success-error patterns and their summary statistics for learning and forgetting in fixed trial experiments using a two-stage Markov model. (Author/GDC)

A complete package for Markov model-based fixed trial learning experiments contains four FORTRAN 77 programs. Two of the programs deliver likelihood and parameter estimates of one- and two-stage learning models, and two may be used for hypothesis testing of parameter differences between and within experimental conditions. (Author/GDC)

When investigating differences between two sets of scores, the t test is appropriate. If the two sets of data are from two groups of subjects, then the independent t test is appropriate. If the two sets are from the same subjects, the dependent t test is required. In this paper, the authors describe the use of a third test when part of a data set…

Fifteen FORTRAN 77 programs are contained in the described package. Three programs are available for each of five forgetting models involving 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10-parameter models. The programs compute parameter estimates and test parameter estimates both between and within experimental conditions. (Author/GDC)

Describes the basic philosophy, nomenclature, and techniques used in mathematical modelling to enable biologists, engineers, land managers, and others to understand the concepts and usefulness of models. Contrasts conceptual and empirical approaches, using ecosystem models as an example of the former. (DC)

Biological phenomena can be investigated at multiple levels, from the molecular to the cellular to the organismic to the ecological. In typical biology instruction, these levels have been segregated. Yet, it is by examining the connections between such levels that many phenomena in biology, and complex systems in general, are best explained. We…

The mechanisms of perceptual learning are analyzed theoretically, probed in an orientation-discrimination experiment involving a novel nonstationary context manipulation, and instantiated in a detailed computational model. Two hypotheses are examined: modification of early cortical representations versus task-specific selective reweighting.…