Two experiments examined pigeons' generalization to intermediate forms following training of concept discriminations. In Experiment 1, the training stimuli were sets of images of dogs and cats, and the transfer stimuli were head/body chimeras, which humans tend to categorize more readily in terms of the head part rather than the body part. In…

Despite the seminal studies of response differentiation by the method of successive approximation detailed in chapter 8 of "The Behavior of Organisms" (1938), B. F. Skinner never actually shaped an operant response by hand until a memorable incident of startling serendipity on the top floor of a flour mill in Minneapolis in 1943. That occasion…

Many instructors have expressed a recent interest in incorporating service-learning activities into their courses. Several authors have maintained that service-learning opportunities help students to better understand class concepts and also lead to desirable outcomes in students, such as enhanced self esteem and an increased interest in social…

A partnership between a university and a science and technology magnet school brings a renowned herpetologist. Dr. Meg Stewart, to involve third-graders in her studies of coqui frogs. These students prepared to meet this scientist with a series of lesson plans (eight activities and four lab lessons) to learn the anatomy, behavior, and diversity of…

Imitation is an important means by which infants learn new behaviours. When infants do not have the opportunity to immediately reproduce observed actions, they may form a memory representation of the event which can guide their behaviour when a similar situation is encountered again. Imitation procedures can, therefore, provide insight into infant…

Surprising downshifts from more preferred (training incentive) to less preferred incentives (test incentive) are usually accompanied by emotional activation and suppression of conditioned behavior in rats. Two experiments were designed to determine whether consummatory behavior is similarly affected by downshifts of equal proportions. Within…

Nonhuman animals, like humans, appear sensitive to the structure of the elements of sequences, perhaps even when the structure relates nonadjacent elements. In the present study, we examined the contribution of chunking, rule learning, and item memory when rats learned serial patterns composed of two interleaved subpatterns. In one group, the…

As the title says, this article considers the dog-on-the-beach problem from the perspective of the calculus of variations, making connections with the brachistochrone problem and Snell's law.

Rats were runway trained with sequences of rewards that changed in 3 phases. In Phase 1 (24 days), the sequences were NP', SNP', and P'SNP' (n = 3), or NS', PNS', and S'PNS', where P and P' refer to 4 and 8 plain Noyes pellets, and S and S' are 4 and 8 sucrose pellets. N was a 30-s confinement in the goal without reward. In Phase 2 (14 days) the…

This is the second program in the Science Safari series produced by the Fairfax Network of the Fairfax County Public Schools. The series and the accompanying print materials are designed to show students a broad spectrum of animal life, introduce students to a variety of people who work with animals, and help students become aware of the important…

This full-size poster profiles 11 wildlife species that are endangered. Color illustrations of animals and plants are accompanied by narrative describing their habitats and reasons for endangerment. The reverse side of the poster contains information on the Endangered Species Act, why protecting endangered and threatened species is important, how…

This is the fourth program in the Science Safari series produced by the Fairfax Network of the Fairfax County (Virginia) Public Schools. It focuses on large animals, their life, advantages and disadvantages of their size, and the adaptations that allow them to survive in their environments. The large animals highlighted include the Komodo dragon,…

Reports on research related to the theory that the nervous systems, and hence the behavior, of animals may be permanently modified during initial periods of early life in response to environmental stimuli. (GS)

Presents models that ascribe social behavior, such as altruism and parental sacrifices for the young, to a kind of genetic imperative wherein individuals maximize their genetic contribution to the next generation. (GS)

Cherokee Indian children were named after those animals they had most frequently killed until a chief dreamed that children's names should be derived from the first animal seen at dawn. (JC)