How does the mental lexicon cope with phonetic variants in recognition of spoken words? Using a lexical decision task with and without fragment priming, the authors compared the processing of German words and pseudowords that differed only in the place of articulation of the initial consonant (place). Across both experiments, event-related brain…

The use of permanent magnet [to the thirteenth power]C NMR in large-section first-semester organic chemistry lab courses is limited by the availability of experiments that not only hinge on first-semester lecture topics, but which also produce at least 0.5 mL of neat liquid sample. This article reports a discovery-based experiment that meets both…

An internal standard method applicable to undergraduate instrumental analysis or environmental chemistry laboratory has been designed and tested to determine the Henry's law constants for a series of alkyl nitriles. In this method, a mixture of the analytes and an internal standard is prepared and used to make a standard solution (organic solvent)…

A classroom exercise for undergraduate and beginning graduate students that takes about one class period is proposed and discussed. It is an easy, interesting exercise that demonstrates important aspects of sampling techniques (sample amount, particle size, and the representativeness of the sample in relation to the bulk material). The exercise…

Practical knowledge has two dimensions--a visible, codified component that resembles the tip of an iceberg. The larger but crucial tacit component which lies submerged consists of values, procedures and tricks of the trade and cannot be easily documented or codified. Undergraduate science students were given an opportunity to explore this…

The attentional blink refers to the transient impairment in perceiving the 2nd of two targets presented in close temporal proximity in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect on human attentional-blink performance of disrupting the function of the magnocellular pathway--a major…

Although natural language appears to be largely compositional, the meanings of certain expressions cannot be straightforwardly recovered from the meanings of their parts. This study examined the online processing of one such class of expressions: "concealed questions", in which the meaning of a complex noun phrase ("the proof of the theorem")…

Three aspects of the concept of objectification emerge from the papers in this issue. First is the role of experience in the process of conceptual objectification. Objectification disaggregates experiences and renders some of them irrelevant by means of translation across semiotic modalities. Second is the recursive character of objectification.…

The term "antibiotic" was first proposed by Vuillemin in 1889 but was first used in the current sense by Walksman in 1941. An antibiotic is defined as a "derivative produced by the metabolism of microorganisms that possess antibacterial activity at low concentrations and is not toxic to the host." In this article, the author describes how…

This article presents activities to help students establish a connection between the mean and the balance point of a lever. The lever and its law are discussed briefly. Thought experiments with a meterstick are presented to emphasize different properties of the mean and weighted averages. (Contains 16 figures.)

In Experiment 1, a normal adult population drawn from a remote culture (Himba) in northern Namibia made similarity matches to [Navon, D. (1977). Forest before trees: The precedence of global features in visual perception. "Cognitive Psychology", 9, 353-383] hierarchical figures. The Himba showed a local bias stronger than that has been…

Understanding the dynamics of memory change is one of the current challenges facing cognitive neuroscience. Recent animal work on memory reconsolidation shows that memories can be altered long after acquisition. When reactivated, memories can be modified and require a restabilization (reconsolidation) process. We recently extended this finding to…

Atypical processing of eye contact is one of the significant characteristics of individuals with autism, but the mechanism underlying atypical direct gaze processing is still unclear. This study used a visual search paradigm to examine whether the facial context would affect direct gaze detection in children with autism. Participants were asked to…

We have designed a laboratory curriculum using the green and red fluorescent proteins (GFP and RFP) to visualize the cloning, expression, chromatography purification, crystallization, and protease-cleavage experiments of protein science. The EGFP and DsRed monomer (mDsRed)-coding sequences were amplified by PCR and cloned into pMAL (MBP-EGFP) or…

Because of the variability exhibited by individual animals' responses to their environment, studying animal behavior can be a wonderful way to engage students in self-directed, open-inquiry investigations. Individual animals react in ways that are a combination of instinct and learned behavior, but collectively they exhibit broader tendencies that…