In the present study, we investigated possible influences on the unitization of responses. In Experiments 1, 2, 3, and 6, we found that when the same small fragment (i.e., a few consecutive responses in a sequence) was presented as part of two larger sequences, participants responded to it faster when it was part of the sequence that was presented…

Data from the Oregon Youth Study, consisting of the verbal behavior of 210 adolescent boys determined to be at risk for delinquency (targets) and 210 of their friends (peers), were analyzed for their conformance to the complete family of matching theory equations in light of recent findings from the basic science, and using recently developed…

Previous literature has focused on students' perceptions of participation in experiments, but has not measured the effect of participation on learning. In Study 1, students rated their perceptions of learning about psychology; they compared the classroom experience to experiment participation, reading about psychology, or summarizing a journal…

Many academic librarians are interested in pursuing research studies that involve students, faculty, and other library patrons; these projects must be approved by an institutional review board (IRB). This article reviews federal requirements and regulations for human subjects research and explains the IRB application process. The author discusses…

"Science Friday's" motto "Making Science User-Friendly" was the authors' inspiration, as was its format for a segment on the morning broadcast at Forest View Elementary School. Patterned after National Public Radio's "Science Friday," this special feature was designed to provide an opportunity for budding scientists to communicate their…

An experiment is conducted, which in four 3 h laboratory sessions, introduces third year undergraduate Biochemistry students to the technique of real-time PCR in a biological context. The model used is a murine erythroleukemia cell line (MEL cells). These continuously cycling, immature red blood cells, arrested at an early stage in erythropoiesis,…

Thermoacoustic instability plays an important role in various technical applications, for instance in jet or rocket motors, thermoacoustic engines, pulse combustors and industrial burners. The main objective of this paper is to present the theory of thermoacoustic oscillations, and for this purpose a Rijke-type thermal device was built. The Rijke…

Theories and methods from the prospective memory literature were used to anticipate how individuals would maintain and retrieve intentions in a continuous monitoring dynamic display task. Participants accepted aircraft into sectors and detected aircraft conflicts during an air traffic control simulation. They were sometimes required to substitute…

Two experiments examined the role of compatibility of input and output (I-O) modality mappings in task switching. We define I-O modality compatibility in terms of similarity of stimulus modality and modality of response-related sensory consequences. Experiment 1 included switching between 2 compatible tasks (auditory-vocal vs. visual-manual) and…

In 3 experiments, subjects named pictures with low- or high-frequency superimposed distractor words. In a 1st experiment, we replicated the finding that low-frequency words induce more interference in picture naming than high-frequency words (i.e., distractor frequency effect; Miozzo & Caramazza, 2003). According to the response exclusion…

The role of anticipatory auditory imagery in music-like sequential action was investigated by examining timing accuracy and kinematics using a motion capture system. Musicians responded to metronomic pacing signals by producing three unpaced taps on three vertically aligned keys at the given tempo. Taps triggered tones in two out of three blocked…

The Dimension Action (DA) model asserts that the visual system is modular, and that each task involves multiple-response mechanisms rather than a unitary-response selection mechanism. The model has been supported by evidence from single-task interference paradigms. We use the psychological refractory period paradigm and show that dual-task…

The University of Colorado's Physics Education Technology (PhET) website offers free, high-quality simulations of many physics experiments that can be used in the classroom. The Circuit Construction Kit, for example, allows students to safely and constructively play with circuit components while learning the mathematics behind many circuit…

Pupils' expectation-related errors oppose the development of an appropriate scientific attitude towards empirical evidence and the learning of accepted science content, representing a hitherto neglected area of research in science education. In spite of these apparent drawbacks, a pedagogy is described that "encourages" pupils to allow their…

A recent study by Apperly et al. (2006) found evidence that adults do not automatically infer false beliefs while watching videos that afford such inferences. This method was extended to examine true beliefs, which are sometimes thought to be ascribed by "default" (e.g., Leslie & Thaiss, 1992). Sequences of pictures were presented in which the…