Many authors claim that students' attention declines approximately 10 to 15 min into lectures. To evaluate this claim, we reviewed several types of studies including studies of student note taking, observations of students during lectures, and self-reports of student attention, as well as studies using physiological measures of attention. We found that the research on which this estimate is based provides little support for the belief that students' attention declines after 10 to 15 min. Most studies failed to account for individual differences in attention. Our findings indicate that instructors should take into account individual differences in student attention when lecturing and determine whether students are recording the relevant content of the lecture in their notes.
123 naive female albino rats were given 30 trials a day for 4 days on a shuttle-box avoidance task. Different groups received 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, and 4.5 ma. of shock during training. The results showed that relatively intense shock interferes with the acquisition of both escape and avoidance responses. Learning falls off rapidly after 1.0 ma. and is probably maximally disrupted at about 2.5 ma. with further increase in intensity having relatively limited additional effect up to 4.5 ma., the maximum intensity used. The effects on extinction were highly variable and the differences between the groups were not statistically significant. However, differences in the manner of extinction as a function of shock level were observed. The discrepancy between these findings and those of previous investigations is discussed.
The frequency of the use of deception in American psychological research was studied by reviewing articles from journals in personality and social psychology from 1921 to 1994. Deception was used rarely during the developmental years of social psychology into the 1930s, then grew gradually and irregularly until the 1950s. Between the 1950s and 1970s the use of deception increased significantly. This increase is attributed to changes in experimental methods, the popularity of realistic impact experiments, and the influence of cognitive dissonance theory. Since 1980 there appears to have been a decrease in the use of deception as compared to previous decades which is related to changes in theory, methods, ethical standards, and federal regulation of research.
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