Un análisis comparativo del papel del bucle fonológico versus la agenda visoespacial en el cálculo en niños de 7-8 años = A comparative analysis of the phonological loop versus the visuo-spatial sketchpad in mental arithmetic tasks in 7-8 y.o. children

En esta investigación se ha estudiado la relación entre dos subsistemas de la memoria de trabajo (bucle fonológico y agenda viso-espacial) y el rendimiento en cálculo con una muestra de 94 niños españoles de 7-8 años. Hemos administrado dos pruebas de cálculo diseñadas para este estudio y seis medidas simples de memoria de trabajo (de contenido verbal, numérico y espacial) de la «Batería de Tests de Memoria de Treball» de Pickering, Baqués y Gathercole (1999), y dos pruebas visuales complementarias. Los resultados muestran una correlación importante entre las medidas de contenido verbal y numérico y el rendimiento en cálculo. En cambio, no hemos encontrado ninguna relación con las medidas espaciales. Se concluye, por lo tanto, que en escolares españoles existe una relación importante entre el bucle fonológico y el rendimiento en tareas de cálculo. En cambio, el rol de la agenda viso-espacial es nulo

Espai creatiu. Expressió artística. Repetició, assimetria, contacte i contrast

Llapis i retoladors sobre paper 12 x 12 cm. Treball realitzat en els tallers de l'assignatura troncal d'educació artística de 2n de Mestres d'Educació Infantil durant el curs 2007-08. Ha estat proposat, dirigit i fotografiat o escanejat per la professora Muntsa Calbó, amb l'ajut de Dayan Castañeda

An analysis of the anxiolytic effects of ethanol on consummatory successive negative contrast

The anxiolytic properties of ethanol (1 g/kg, 15% dose, i.p.) were studied in two experiments with rats involving incentive downshifts from a 32% to a 4% sucrose solution. In Experiment 1, alcohol administration before a downshift from 32% to 4% sucrose prevented the development of consummatory suppression (consummatory successive negative contrast, cSNC). In Experiment 2, ethanol prevented the attenuating effects of partial reinforcement (random sequence of 32% sucrose and nothing) on cSNC, causing a retardation of recovery from contrast. These effects of ethanol on cSNC are analogous to those described for the benzodiazepine anxiolytic chlordiazepoxide, suggesting that at least some of its anxiolytic effects are mediated by the same mechanisms. 

Efectes sobre la creativitat del canvi del sistema educatiu : contrast entre EGB i ESO. 'Efectos sobre la creatividad del cambio del sistema educativo : contraste entre EGB y ESO'.

Demostrar que la creatividad, en tanto que componente de la inteligencia, no se puede enseñar, pero si que se puede interactuar para estimularla, como para reprimirla, especialmente en el entorno escolar. Corroborar que la evolución de la creatividad es diferente en función del sistema educativo que siguen los alumnos. 125 alumnos de centros públicos de la misma edad y condiciones sociofamiliares, 62 escolarizados en un IES cursando 2õ de ESO y 63 en dos escuelas de primaria cursando 8õ de EGB. En la primera parte del trabajo se estudia el marco teórico, dónde se describe el concepto de creatividad y como inciden ciertos factores sobre ella. Después se habla de los objetivos y del diseño del estudio. Se pasa una primera vez el Test del Factor G de Cattell y el Torrance Test of Creative Thinking, y se vuelve a repetir el test al cabo de dos años. Los resultados demostraron que no era el sistema educativo en sí el que estimulava la creatividad, sino el cambio de un tipo de enseñanza al otro, que también va asociado a un cambio de entorno, por el hecho de pasar de una escuela de primaria a un IES de secundaria. Las puntuaciones máximas en creatividad se observaron cuando los alumnos cambiaban de centro y de sistema educativo, por eso se dieron en momentos y edades diferentes en cada uno de los dos grupos de la muestra. Para aquellos que estaban escolarizados en el IES el incremento más importante fue sobre los 13 años, después de iniciar la ESO, en cambio, para los que procedían de las escuelas de primaria fue dos años más tarde, cuando se integraron en el segundo ciclo de la ESO. Al mismo tiempo se comprobó que a pesar de la implantación generalizada de la Reforma los alumnos con creatividad elevada y QI normal o normal bajo continúan abandonando los estudios por dificultades de integración en el entorno escolar. Especialmente por lo que respecta al sexo masculino, dado que en este grupo predomina el pensamiento divergente muy por encima del razonamiento lógico y los intereses creativos por sobre de los académicos; todo esto genera conflictos permanentes en el aula y acelera el abandono del centro tal y com venía pasando antes del cambio de sistema educativo. En las chicas, que generalmente toleran mejor las limitaciones y la estructura educativa, solo se suele producir el abandono cuando el QI es francamente bajo. Tal y como preconizaban autores como Goertzel y Goertzel, Simonton y otros queda claro que la creatividad se puede desarrollar no sólo en un ambiente libre de presiones y que facilite la elaboración y el planteamiento de nuevas alternativas, sinó que un ambiente más represivo también puede ser un estímulo para incrementarla.

Phonological short term memory in deaf children fitted with a cochlear implant : effects of phonological similarity, word lenght and lipreading cues. 'La memoria fonológica a corto plazo en niños sordos con implante coclear : efectos de la similitud fonológica, la longitud de la palabra y la lectura labial'.

Resumen basado en el de la publicación. Resumen en español

Phonological recovery in Spanish developmental dyslexics through the tip-of-the-tongue paradigm

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Phonological awareness in children who are deaf/hard of hearing

This paper examines the phonological awareness skills of young children who are hearing impaired through rime identification and onset detection.

Elaine Paden's phonological assessment of the hearing impaired

This paper is a study of the phonological test, Identifying Early Phonological Needs, and determining whether it is useful to plan speech therapy for young unintelligible hearing impaired children.

The effects of a phonological awareness training program for hearing-impaired children

This paper examines the effectiveness of a phonological awareness program for hearing impaired children.

The effects of phonological and semantic priming in speech production

This paper is a review of experiments to investigate the influence of experimental task, level of processing, and time course in speech production via the priming paradigm.

Phonological processing in the reading of deaf and normally hearing children

This paper reviews measurement of phonological processes in reading among deaf children and children who are of normal hearing.

Mechanisms for the land/sea warming contrast exhibited by simulations of climate change

The land/sea warming contrast is a phenomenon of both equilibrium and transient simulations of climate change: large areas of the land surface at most latitudes undergo temperature changes whose amplitude is more than those of the surrounding oceans. Using idealised GCM experiments with perturbed SSTs, we show that the land/sea contrast in equilibrium simulations is associated with local feedbacks and the hydrological cycle over land, rather than with externally imposed radiative forcing. This mechanism also explains a large component of the land/sea contrast in transient simulations as well. We propose a conceptual model with three elements: (1) there is a spatially variable level in the lower troposphere at which temperature change is the same over land and sea; (2) the dependence of lapse rate on moisture and temperature causes different changes in lapse rate upon warming over land and sea, and hence a surface land/sea temperature contrast; (3) moisture convergence over land predominantly takes place at levels significantly colder than the surface; wherever moisture supply over land is limited, the increase of evaporation over land upon warming is limited, reducing the relative humidity in the boundary layer over land, and hence also enhancing the land/sea contrast. The non-linearity of the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship of saturation specific humidity to temperature is critical in (2) and (3). We examine the sensitivity of the land/sea contrast to model representations of different physical processes using a large ensemble of climate model integrations with perturbed parameters, and find that it is most sensitive to representation of large-scale cloud and stomatal closure. We discuss our results in the context of high-resolution and Earth-system modelling of climate change.

Understanding land-sea warming contrast in response to increasing greenhouse gases. Part I: Transient adjustment

Climate model simulations consistently show that surface temperature over land increases more rapidly than over sea in response to greenhouse gas forcing. The enhanced warming over land is not simply a transient effect caused by the land–sea contrast in heat capacities, since it is also present in equilibrium conditions. This paper elucidates the transient adjustment processes over time scales of days to weeks of the surface and tropospheric climate in response to a doubling of CO2 and to changes in sea surface temperature (SST), imposed separately and together, using ensembles of experiments with an atmospheric general circulation model. These adjustment processes can be grouped into three stages: immediate response of the troposphere and surface processes (day 1), fast adjustment of surface processes (days 2–5), and adjustment of the whole troposphere (days 6–20). Some land surface warming in response to doubled CO2 (with unchanged SSTs) occurs immediately because of increased downward longwave radiation. Increased CO2 also leads to reduced plant stomatal resistance and hence restricted evaporation, which increases land surface warming in the first day. Rapid reductions in cloud amount lead in the next few days to increased downward shortwave radiation and further warming, which spreads upward from the surface, and by day 5 the surface and tropospheric response is statistically consistent with the equilibrium value. Land surface warming in response to imposed SST change (with unchanged CO2) is slower. Tropospheric warming is advected inland from the sea, and over land it occurs at all levels together rather than spreading upward from the surface. The atmospheric response to prescribed SST change in about 20 days is statistically consistent with the equilibrium value, and the warming is largest in the upper troposphere over both land and sea. The land surface warming involves reduction of cloud cover and increased downward shortwave radiation, as in the experiment with CO2 change, but in this case it is due to the restriction of moisture supply to the land (indicated by reduced soil moisture), whereas in the CO2 forcing experiment it is due to restricted evaporation despite increased moisture supply (indicated by increased soil moisture). The warming over land in response to SST change is greater than over the sea and is the dominant contribution to the land–sea warming contrast under enhanced CO2 forcing.

The basic ingredients of the North Atlantic storm track. Part I: land-sea contrast and orography

Understanding and predicting changes in storm tracks over longer time scales is a challenging problem, particularly in the North Atlantic. This is due in part to the complex range of forcings (land–sea contrast, orography, sea surface temperatures, etc.) that combine to produce the structure of the storm track. The impact of land–sea contrast and midlatitude orography on the North Atlantic storm track is investigated through a hierarchy of GCM simulations using idealized and “semirealistic” boundary conditions in a high-resolution version of the Hadley Centre atmosphere model (HadAM3). This framework captures the large-scale essence of features such as the North and South American continents, Eurasia, and the Rocky Mountains, enabling the results to be applied more directly to realistic modeling situations than was possible with previous idealized studies. The physical processes by which the forcing mechanisms impact the large-scale flow and the midlatitude storm tracks are discussed. The characteristics of the North American continent are found to be very important in generating the structure of the North Atlantic storm track. In particular, the southwest–northeast tilt in the upper tropospheric jet produced by southward deflection of the westerly flow incident on the Rocky Mountains leads to enhanced storm development along an axis close to that of the continent’s eastern coastline. The approximately triangular shape of North America also enables a cold pool of air to develop in the northeast, intensifying the surface temperature contrast across the eastern coastline, consistent with further enhancements of baroclinicity and storm growth along the same axis.