Re: Observational learning (and those damned cetaceans confuse me)
I see that I was wrong: I believed that the number of species having the ability to learn through observation was fairly small. Probably a vestige of my desire to believe in some version of a "chain of being," with us, of course, being near the top (just below the angels). Thank you all--Susan Morton, Kathy Morgan, Paul Smith, Deb Brihl, Linda Walsh, Stephen Black (twice, or was it thrice?), and David Likely (God, I hope I haven't forgotten anybody)--for enlightening me and showing me once again that I have not become the all-knowing being I had always suspected I could be (there's that chain-of-being idea sneaking in again. I blame it on being raised Catholic. I WAS a cute alter boy, though, even if I never could get the Latin right). Now my question (inspired by Stephen): what is the difference between dolphins and porpoises? I know that there is one, but I can't remember. Jeff -- Jeffry P. Ricker, Ph.D. Office Phone: (480) 423-6213 9000 E. Chaparral Rd.FAX Number: (480) 423-6298 Psychology Department[EMAIL PROTECTED] Scottsdale Community College Scottsdale, AZ 85256-2626 "The truth is rare and never simple." Oscar Wilde "Science must begin with myths and with the criticism of myths" Karl Popper Listowner: Psychologists Educating Students to Think Skeptically (PESTS) http://www.sc.maricopa.edu/sbscience/pests/index.html
Imitative behavior: Bibliography
After I sent that last message, I discovered the bibliography Sea World put together on animal behavior/learning. Their most recent listing is 1986. http://www.seaworld.org/animal_training/atbib.html *** Animal Training at SeaWorld Bibliography Banks, Edwin M. and John A. Heisey. Animal Behavior. Chicago: Educational Methods, 1977. Barlow, John A. Stimulus and Response. New York: Harper and Row, 1968. Blackman, Derek. Operant Conditioning: An Experimental Analysis of Behavior. London: Methuen Co., Ltd., 1974. Bowers, C.A. and R.S. Henderson. Project Deep OPS, Deep Object Recovery with Pilot and Killer Whales (INUC TP 306). San Diego: Naval Undersea Center, 1972. Caldwell, David and Melba. The World of the Bottlenosed Dolphin. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1972. Dean, Anabel. How Animals Communicate. New York: Julian Messner, 1977. Dewsbury, Donald A. Comparative Animal Behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. Ferster, Charles B. and Stuart A. Culbertson. behavior Principles. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1982. Freedman, Russell and James E. Morriss. How Animals Learn. New York: Holiday House, 1969. Haley, Delphine, ed. Marine Mammals. 2nd Edition. Seattle: Pacific Search Press, 1986. Harrison, R.J., et al. The Behavior and Physiology of Pinnipeds. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. Herman, Louis M., ed. Cetacean Behavior: Mechanisms and Functions. New York: John Wiley Sons, 1980. Manning, Aubrey. An Introduction to Animal Behavior. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1972. Matthews, L. Harrison. The Natural History of the Whale. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. pp. 164-182. Morris, Desmond. Dogwatching New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1986. Norris, Kenneth. The Porpoise Watcher. New York: W.W. Norton Company, Inc., 1974. Nye, Robert D. What is B.F. Skinner Really Saying? Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1979. Peterson, Richard S. and George A. Bartholomew. The Natural History and Behavior of the California Sea Lion, Special Publication No. 1 The American Society of Mammalogists, 1967. Pryor, Karen. Lads Before the Wind. Adventures in Porpoise Training. New York: Harper Row, 1975. Reese, Ernst S. and Frederick J. Lighter, eds. Contrasts in Behavior. New York: John Wiley Sons, 1978. Rembaugh, Duane M., ed. Language Learning by a Chimpanzee. The Lana Project. New York: Academic Press, 1977. Reynolds, G.S. A Primer of Operant Conditioning. Palo Alto, California: Schott, Foresman and Co., 1975. Slijper, E.J. Whales. Second Edition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979. pp. 179-201. Sutherland, N.S. and N.J. Mackintosh. Mechanisms of Animal Discrimination Learning. New York: Academic Press, 1971. Tinbergen, Niko. Animal Behavior. New York: Time Life Books, 1965. Winn, Howard E. and Bori L. Olla. Behavior of Marine Animals, Vol. 3: Cetaceans. New York: Plenum Press, 1979. Zupanc, Gunther K.H. Fish and Their Behavior. Melle, West Germany: Tetra-Press, 1985. *** -- Sue Frantz, Asst Prof of Psych [EMAIL PROTECTED] Faculty Office Bldg, 2400 Scenic Drive Office: (505)439-3731 New Mexico State Univ. - AlamogordoFax: (505)439-3802 Alamogordo, NM 88310 USA http://web.nmsu.edu/~sfrantz
dolphins and porpoises
Jeff Ricker wrote: Now my question (inspired by Stephen): what is the difference between dolphins and porpoises? I know that there is one, but I can't remember. According to the website maintained by the North Carolina Aquariums at http://www.aquariums.state.nc.us/ata/porpoise.htm: "In general, porpoises are smaller and plumper than dolphins, rarely reaching lengths of more than 6 feet and weights of more than 300 pounds. They have a rounded head and a small, triangular dorsal fin. Porpoises lack the "beak" characteristic of most dolphins, having a blunt snout instead." From the high desert, but apparently inspired by the early monsoons, Sue -- Sue Frantz, Asst Prof of Psych [EMAIL PROTECTED] Faculty Office Bldg, 2400 Scenic Drive Office: (505)439-3731 New Mexico State Univ. - AlamogordoFax: (505)439-3802 Alamogordo, NM 88310 USA http://web.nmsu.edu/~sfrantz
Psychic alert
Courtesy of FMS Foundation, this alert: CBS's newsmagazine "48 Hours" will repeat (from last August 5): Thursday, July 29 10pm EST The World Beyond 48 Hours explores the world of the paranormal, looking for proof that the claims are true. Do psychics and regressive therapists really access another reality, or are they fast-talking fakers? Find out. I can hardly wait. It has a good display of what can be done with hypnotism: watch Yale- trained psychiatrist Brian Weiss, M.D., recover memories in a patient from 2000 years ago. -Stephen Stephen Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's Universitye-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Department web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy Check out TIPS listserv for teachers of psychology at: http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips/
[Fwd: observational learning]
Dan Willingham had difficulty sending the folowing message to TIPS Jeff Ricker Jeff tried to send this to the list and it got bounced back. . . Marc Hauser's book "Wild Minds" has a chapter full of interesting cases of observational learning, including the classic of of some species of bird (forgotten which) learning to tear the foil top from delivered bottles of milk in order to get the cream inside. the book is well worth a look. Cheers, Dan Daniel B. Willingham, Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, 102 Gilmer Hall, P.O. Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400 (804) 982-4938 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.people.virginia.edu/~dbw8m/ "If your friends suggest that you write a book, get new friends." Bill Hensler, author of "Sex, Lies, and Video Games"
Re: Jet Lag
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tipsines, I know I am becoming a Tips abuser. Maybe it's time for a Tips 12 step program. Anyway, I am curious. Why is it easier for people to recover from their jet lag flying east to west (when they suddenly have an unnaturally long day) then it is west to east, when they are still relatively energetic on arrival? Or, is this not really the issue when one may make both legs of a round trip within 72 hours or so? Is it really uniformly harder for all people to fly west to east? Nancy: This is only a guess. There is some literature (Takahashi Zatz 1982 Regulation of circadian rhythmicity. Science. 217, 1104-.) that suggests our circadian clock - if left to run without external cues - is slightly longer than 24 hours. That is, if people are in virtual caves with no access to clocks or natural sunlight, their days are about 25 hours and they go to bed an hour later each day. Supposedly, there is individual variation in how much a person's clock deviates from the 24 hour cycle, but for each person it consistent across time. If true, the flight from west to east is a double-whamy (you go from a 24/25 hour day to 23 or less), but if you fly west you have extra time on your clock that softens the blow. I have heard the "25 hour clock" is disputed, but don't have all the refeneces of the dispute.. -- --- John W. Kulig[EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Psychology http://oz.plymouth.edu/~kulig Plymouth State College tel: (603) 535-2468 Plymouth NH USA 03264fax: (603) 535-2412 --- "The only rational way of educating is to be an example - if one can't help it, a warning example." A. Einstein, 1934.
Blue Man Group Demonstrates Psychology
I'm in Las Vegas for the Society for Human Resource Management Conference and I saw the Blue Man Group performance tonight. I was astounded at how well they demonstrated psychology principles in their performance -- conformity, selective attention, obedience to authority, afterimages, flicker fusion rate, and hypnosis. I don't know if they have a video out; but, if they do I would highly recommend it. It should really appeal to the younger crowd. I don't know how to categorize them; but, the closest I could come is to say that the Blue Man Group is a Techno Rock Band using unusual instruments -- many of them made from PVC pipe. My favorite was their performance of eating Twinkies to Bolero where they bring an unsuspecting member of the audience up to join them at a table. She ends up imitating the blue men without any verbal instruction from the blue men. It looked almost like the Candid Camera sequence of the hats in the elevator commonly used to illustrate conformity. I finishes with a demonstration of obedience to authority where they gradually get her to do more and more disgusting things with the food using the gradual desensitization process used to explain how people can be taught to be cruel in response to orders from authority. The marvelous thing about this demonstration is that it is totally nonverbal. My other most favorite part was the demonstration of visual illusions. Here they used a scrolling ticker display to convey an accurate description of the visual system, why afterimages occur, and why we see movies as continuous action (flicker fusion rate.) -- -David Wheeler, Ph.D., CMT Associate Professor, Psychology Robert Morris College Pittsburgh PA USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2000 All rights reserved. Permission is granted for redistribution in whole or in part providing it is not used for monetary gains and this signature file is included. Remember, the Earth is a place, earth is dirt. See how silly this looks: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, earth, Venus, Mercury --
(Fwd) URL: ethics complaints APA resignation
It's the never-ending story... http://fmsf.net/apa-complaint.shtml
RE: Observational learning
Folks interested, Here is a relevant reference for observational learning in dogs. Observational learning of an acquired maternal behavior pattern by working dog pups: An alternative training method? by Slabbert,-J.-M.; Rasa,-O.-Anne-E. in Applied-Animal-Behavior-Science, 1997, 53(4), 309-316. 95 German shepherd pups from 20 untrained bitches and bitches trained in the location of narcotics were either separated from their mothers at 6 wks (standard raised) or at 3 mo of age (extended maternal care). Pups with extended maternal care which were allowed to observe their trained mothers locating and retrieving a sachet of odor-producing narcotic between the ages of 6-12 wks performed the same task significantly better than nonexposed pups when tested at the age of 6 mo, without further reinforcement during the interim period. This difference in performance was independent of the duration of maternal care or maternal origin of the pups and was attributed to differences in early experience acquired through observational learning. Take care, Mark - Mark Plonsky, Ph.D. 715-346-3961 wk- - Psychology Dept.715-346-2778 fx- - University of Wisconsin 715-344-0023 hm- - Stevens Point, WI 54481[EMAIL PROTECTED] - - http://www.uwsp.edu/acad/psych/mphome.htm -
Re: (Fwd) URL: ethics complaints APA resignation
Unless I am missing something, this is just an old story. It all seems to be at least 4 years old. Jim Guinee wrote: It's the never-ending story... http://fmsf.net/apa-complaint.shtml -- _ Rick Stevens __ _ Psychology Department __ _ University of Louisiana at Monroe ___ _ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ _ http://www.ulm.edu/~stevens/ulmpage.html _
Re: (Fwd) URL: ethics complaints APA resignation
Ah, but the m e m o r y is real! At 1:13 PM -0500 6/29/00, Rick Stevens wrote: Unless I am missing something, this is just an old story. It all seems to be at least 4 years old. Jim Guinee wrote: It's the never-ending story... http://fmsf.net/apa-complaint.shtml * PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Psychology Dept Minnesota State University, Mankato * * 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 * *http://www.mankato.msus.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html*
RE: (Fwd) URL: ethics complaints APA resignation
If this truly is just an old story, I would be very interested in how it turned out. This has made me less confident than I was at the beginning of the day to talk about constructed memories of abuse. Does anyone know how things turned out? -Original Message- From: Rick Stevens [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 2:13 PM To: TIPS Subject: Re: (Fwd) URL: ethics complaints APA resignation Unless I am missing something, this is just an old story. It all seems to be at least 4 years old. Jim Guinee wrote: It's the never-ending story... http://fmsf.net/apa-complaint.shtml -- _ Rick Stevens __ _ Psychology Department __ _ University of Louisiana at Monroe ___ _ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ _ http://www.ulm.edu/~stevens/ulmpage.html _
RE: (Fwd) URL: ethics complaints APA resignation
Here's what the FMSF newsletter (Vol 5 No. 4, April 1, 1996) had to say about the article that can be found at http://fmsf.net/apa-complaint.shtml. http://www.fmsfonline.org/fmsf96.330.html * MORE SMEAR by FMSF Staff The willingness to accept something as fact based solely on belief -- without further verification -- is a hallmark of what has been called the "false memory syndrome phenomenon." Last month, we reported on the smear printed by the Toronto Star that led readers to assume that Elizabeth Loftus resigned from the American Psychological Association in order to avoid responding to some ethical complaints. We noted that Dr. Loftus wrote to the APA and expressed her willingness to deal with these complaints that she knew nothing about. The APA explained that: "...With very few exceptions, it is only when it is determined that a formal case shall be opened or that a preliminary investigation is begun, that the member is regarded as being 'under the scrutiny' of the Ethics committee and the member complainee is barred from resigning." In other words, when Elizabeth Loftus resigned from the American Psychological Association there were no formal ethics investigations pending, nor were there even any preliminary investigations. Further, the APA does not acknowledge whether or not specific complaints have even been filed. But that does not stop the "smearers." In an article published in David Calof's journal, "Treating Abuse Today," [Footnote: "Notes from the Controversy," Treating Abuse Today, Vol 5 no 6 Vol 6 No 1 (double issue, Nov-Dec Jan-Feb).] we learn who made the complaints and what they are about. This article has also been disseminated over the internet. One of the people who volunteered that she has complained about Dr. Loftus is Jennifer Hoult who won a $500,000 judgment against her father. Ms. Hoult complains that Dr. Loftus misrepresented her in an article that Loftus wrote. [Footnote: "Remembering Dangerously," Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 1995.] According to Treating Abuse Today: [Ms Hoult] "pointed out that Loftus claims that 'Jennifer was a 23-year-old musician who recovered memories in therapy of her father raping her from the time she was 4 ..Actually, Hoult began to remember the abuse at 24, at which time she was an artificial intelligence software engineer. Records in the case show that the bulk of her memories emerged outside of therapy. Furthermore, Hoult never stated that the rapes began when she was four, a 'fact' apparently created by Loftus for the purposes of her article." Following is the passage Ms. Hoult complains about. "Some writers have offered individual cases as proof that a stream of traumas can be massively repressed. Readers must beware that these case "proofs" may leave out critical information. Consider the supposedly ironclad case of Jennifer H. offered by Kandel and Kandel (1994) to readers of Discover magazine as an example of a corroborated de-repressed memory. According to the Discover account, Jennifer was a 23-year-old musician who recovered memories in therapy of her father raping her from the time she was 4 until she was 17..." (Kandel Kandel, 1994 (May) "Flights of Memory," Discover pp 32-37) In other words, the details that Ms. Hoult questions were published in Discover magazine, an article that cited her case as evidence for corroborated recovered repressed memories. "Treating Abuse Today" says Ms Hoult also disputes: "In another passage, Loftus claims that Hoult 'remembered one time when she was raped in the bathroom and went to her mother wrapped in a towel with blood dripping' (1995, p.27). A review of court records, however, shows that Loftus has added two elements of her own making: the memory of the rape itself (the trial transcript shows that Hoult never claimed to remember a 'rape') and the blood-soaked towel (again the transcript shows that Hoult only reported a small amount of blood between her legs, which wasn't visible to the mother until Hoult dropped the towel from around her body). Hoult argues that these misstatements by Loftus put her in violation of several APA ethics guidelines, among them ethics in media presentations and ethics regarding matters of law." If Ms. Hoult never claimed to have been raped, it's remarkable how many think she did. For example in Newsday, November 28, 1993 an article by Kessler began: "In another era, therapy might not have helped Jennifer Hoult recover memories of being raped by her father -- memories that led her to believe he raped her as many as 3,000 times between the ages of 6 and 16." p. 5 As for the blood soaked towel, we have no idea where "Treating Abuse Today" thinks that was written. Loftus wrote, "remembered one time when she was raped in the bathroom and went to her mother wrapped in a towel with blood dripping." Loftus does not refer to a "blood-soaked towel."
Re: More on imitative learning in animals
Stephen Black wrote: My previous note mentioned rats, so we have at least 8 species on a growing list. Still wanted: porpoise/dolphin. Thus prompted, I visited Sea World's website at http://www.seaworld.org/animal_training/atlearn.html. Here's what they have to say: ** What is observational learning? Observational learning is a term we use to describe how an animal learns by watching others. Observational learning occurs with no outside reinforcement -- the animal simply learns by observing. During the first few months of life many young animals' entire repertoire of behaviors is made up of behaviors that copy or mimic from others. Killer whales calves constantly follow their mothers and attempt to mimic everything they do. Adult animals trained with experienced animals may learn at a faster rate. An intriguing question with no simple answer, observational learning remains a powerful learning process. ** -- Sue Frantz, Asst Prof of Psych [EMAIL PROTECTED] Faculty Office Bldg, 2400 Scenic Drive Office: (505)439-3731 New Mexico State Univ. - AlamogordoFax: (505)439-3802 Alamogordo, NM 88310 USA http://web.nmsu.edu/~sfrantz
