The testing effect for visual materials depends on pre-existing knowledge

Remembering facilitates future remembering. This benefit of practicing by active retrieval, as compared to more passive re-learning, is known as the testing effect, and is one of the most robust findings in the memory literature. However, it has typically been assessed using verbal materials such as word-pairs, sentences, or educational texts. We here investigate if memory for visual materials equally benefits from retrieval-mediated learning. Based on cognitive and neuroscientific theories, we hypothesise that testing effects will be limited to meaningful visual images that can be related to pre-existing knowledge. In a series of four experiments, we systematically varied the type of material (meaningful object images vs non-meaningful “squiggle” shapes), the format of the test used to probe memory (a more visually driven alternative forced-choice test vs a remember/know recognition test), and the delay of the final test (immediate vs 1 week delay). We found that abstract shapes never showed a significant testing benefit, irrespective of test format, and even benefitted more from restudy than retrieval at longer delays, where testing effects are typically most prominent. Meaningful object images did benefit from testing, particularly at long delays, and with a test format probing the recollective component of recognition memory. Together, our results indicate that retrieval enhances memory for visual materials only when they have a unique, distinct meaning. This pattern of results is predicted by cognitive and neurobiologically motivated theories proposing that retrieval’s benefits emerge through spreading activation in pre-existing semantic networks, producing better integrated and more easily accessible memory traces.

Achieving Testing Effects in an Authentic College Classroom

Background: Findings from the testing effect literature suggest several ways to achieve testing effects in an authentic classroom, but few consider instructor workload, equity, and resources that determine feasibility and sustainability of testing effect methods in practice. Objective: To determine elements and procedures from the testing effect literature for practical application, devise a method for feasibly and sustainably implementing testing effect methods in practice, and determine if a simple way to incorporate retrieval practice into an existing introduction to psychology course was sufficient to observe testing effects. Method: Quiz scores of Introductory Psychology sections with and without retrieval practice were compared. Sections with retrieval practice also compared the effects of repeated and new questions on quiz performance. Results: Students with retrieval practice performed significantly better on quizzes than those without. Repeated and new retrieval practice were equally superior. Conclusion: Retrieval practices can successfully be implemented, feasibly and sustainably, in an authentic classroom environment. Retrieval practice questions can be related to delayed practice questions, rather than exact repeats, to achieve a testing effect. Teaching Implications: Distributing low stakes multiple-choice questions throughout lectures is effective for increasing test performance. The current method was neither burdensome to workload, content, or resources.

Effect of Acetamınophen on Ovulation and Implantation in Female Mice

Acetaminophen is known to inhibit prostaglandin synthesis and activate the endocannabinoid system, thereby has been linked to the regulation of mammalian reproductive processes through the same. Growing evidence tends to link acetaminophen reproductive effects in the regulation of ovulation and/or implantation. To provide further evidence, this study was designed to determine the effect of acetaminophen on ovulation and/or implantation. Female Swiss white mice were randomly divided into two experiments, one testing effects on ovulation and the other testing effects on implantation. The two groups were further sub-divided into treatment and control groups, each having N=5 mice. The mice in the treatment groups (TG1 and TG2) received 200mg/kg of acetaminophen while those in the control groups (CG1 and CG2) received the same quantities of normal saline. Mice in experiment group one (TG1, CG1) received acetaminophen/placebo before mating. Those in experiment group two (TG2, CG2) received acetaminophen/placebo for seven days post-mating. The presence of a vaginal plug confirmed mating success. The mice were sacrificed on the 7th day of pregnancy, the uterus harvested and all observed implantation sites counted and recorded. In both treatment groups (TG1 and TG2), a significant reduction in the number of implantation sites (P≤0.05) was observed when compared with the respective control group (CG1 and CG2). The observation points towards a role of acetaminophen in the regulation of ovulation and implantation in female mice reproduction.

Mass-Preserving Approximation of a Chemotaxis Multi-Domain Transmission Model for Microfluidic Chips

The present work is inspired by the recent developments in laboratory experiments made on chips, where the culturing of multiple cell species was possible. The model is based on coupled reaction-diffusion-transport equations with chemotaxis and takes into account the interactions among cell populations and the possibility of drug administration for drug testing effects. Our effort is devoted to the development of a simulation tool that is able to reproduce the chemotactic movement and the interactions between different cell species (immune and cancer cells) living in a microfluidic chip environment. The main issues faced in this work are the introduction of mass-preserving and positivity-preserving conditions, involving the balancing of incoming and outgoing fluxes passing through interfaces between 2D and 1D domains of the chip and the development of mass-preserving and positivity preserving numerical conditions at the external boundaries and at the interfaces between 2D and 1D domains.

Testing effects of hospitality employment on property crime in the United States

This study aims to model the effect of hospitality employment on property crime in economic crime equations, in which unemployment either indicates the opportunity cost of crime or suggests the decrease of targets. We developed a model of property crime that incorporates both unemployment rate and hospitality employment, in which the effect of unemployment rate on property crime is controlled to isolate the net effect of hospitality employment. We tested the model with the data of hospitality employment and property crime rates in the United States from 1972 to 2012, for which the date are available. On the one hand, we verified a negative causation from unemployment rate to property crime, suggesting that high unemployment rates reduce the targets of criminal activities, which in turn reduces property crime. On the other hand, by controlling for the effect of unemployment rate, we found a significantly negative causation from hospitality employment to property crime, suggesting that the decrease in property crime is due to hospitality employment that increases the opportunity cost of property crime.

Prototype of a Low-Cost Compact Horticultural Chamber for Indoor Cultivation of Tropical Highland Wetland Flora

An environmental chamber is a specialistic device used for testing effects of given controlled conditions on a variety of objects. In case of plant growth chambers, the conditions are controlled usually for plant cultivation and propagation or botanical examination undertaken on living plant material. The aim of the project was to design and build a prototype of a desktop device with a control system capable of being used as a chamber supporting plant cultivation and propagation processes by the means of partial automation of environment control. The conditions controlled in the chamber are based on the environmental requirements of plant genera, such as Heliamphora, Drosera, Orectanthe, Cyrilla, Stegolepis, Maguireothamnus, or Utricularia. These plants occur naturally in the Guiana Highlands region of Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana, especially around the upper parts of table-shaped mountain massifs called tepuis. The chamber was designed to simulate some of the peculiar natural factors and phenomena occurring in the high-tepui and surrounding mid-elevation wetland habitats, being the most significant for amateur-level plant cultivation, keeping the design as simple and low cost as possible. It was proven on the basis of the results of several tests made during the evaluation phase that the designed prototype of the chamber operates in a satisfying way, providing basic functionality matching the base assumptions.