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I am searching for ideas, examples, research papers, projects etc, etc. regarding possibilities to implement behavior analysis in caring/nursing science/practice.
My best regards, Sabina Dalsborn
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Sabina Dalsborn some studies that might be useful:
Luszczynska, A., Scholz, U., & Schwarzer, R. (2005). The general self-efficacy scale: multicultural validation studies. The Journal of psychology, 139(5), 439–457. https://doi.org/10.3200/JRLP.139.5.439-457
Hennein, R., Nanziri, L. M., Musinguzi, J., Ggita, J. M., Turimumahoro, P., Ochom, E., Gupta, A. J., Halder, A., Katamba, A., White, M. A., Pietrzak, R. H., Armstrong-Hough, M., & Davis, J. L. (2022). Cultural Adaptation and Validation of the General Self-Efficacy Scale in Ugandan Community Health Workers. Global implementation research and applications, 2(4), 371–383. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43477-022-00064-1
Fisher, E., Law, E., Dudeney, J., Eccleston, C., & Palermo, T. M. (2019). Psychological therapies (remotely delivered) for the management of chronic and recurrent pain in children and adolescents. The Cochrane database of systematic reviews, 4(4), CD011118. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD011118.pub3
Prochaska, J. J., Delucchi, K., & Hall, S. M. (2004). A meta-analysis of smoking cessation interventions with individuals in substance abuse treatment or recovery. Journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 72(6), 1144–1156. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.72.6.1144
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I'm looking to quantify frequency and duration of various insects' behaviors from high-res videos. Several people have mentioned JWatcher or SolomonCoder. I'd prefer a program that is compatible with Mac. I've been having trouble installing JWatcher but it seems like the type of program I would need.
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I actually tested all these fancy expensive tools on my termite videos, and it never worked. It is OK for one or two dark insects on filter paper, but in larger groups, each group member must be individually marked, as you can often see in papers on ants or bumblebees... No easy solution, direct movement measurements can be performed with our MouseTracer software (see ). Or ethograms, which are laborious but precise. All depends on species, groups size, aim, testing arena, etc.
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Greetings.
I am looking for books about Motivation and Emotion for undergraduates with these topics.
I am designing a new college course, and the last textbooks that I used were:
Bouton, M. E. & Fanselow, M. S. (Eds.) (1997). Learning, Motivation, and Cognition: The Functional Behaviorism of Robert Bolles.
Petri, H. L. & Govern, J. M. (2013). Motivation: Theory, Research, and Application (6th ed.). Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
I need to update these readings with something more recent. However, I do not know if there are new books on these topics from Behavior Analysis and non-mediational Evolutionary Psychology theories.
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Reeve, J. Motivación y Emoción (5ª ed). México: McGraw-Hill
Palmero, F. y Martínez, F. Motivación y Emoción. Madrid: McGraw-Hill.
Quirós, P. y Cabestrero, R. Funciones activadoras: Principios básicos de la Motivación y la Emoción. Madrid: Editorial Universitaria Ramón Areces.
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The cities that might be influenced can be dispersed into :
1. Street Fashion
2. High End Brand Fashion
3. Street Surfer / Beach Fashion
4. Contemporary Fashion
5. Musical fashion
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High end Brand fashion
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A subfield of philosophy known as "ethics" deals with moral behaviour analysis, conceptualization, and moral judgment. When it comes to thinking and analysing situations and environments, humans are unique. This study aims to examine the psychology of human decision-making and why humans sometimes pick the incorrect course of action despite being able to clearly see the right course of action. I would welcome a list of theories and a few arguments to support such acts.
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At least five possibilities:
  1. Fixed action patterns (being on automatic pilot, metaphorically speaking).
  2. Weakness of will (succumbing to temptation).
  3. Apathy.
  4. Egoism or self-interest.
  5. Benevolence or love (e.g. the mother who hides her criminal child from the police).
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I have recorded behavioural data, such as incidences of aggression and grooming partners, in a troop of lemurs over three conditions.
What tests should I be using to compare the rates of aggression in the three conditions?
For the grooming partner data, I want to compare grooming between sex dyads. For instance, the frequency of male-male grooming compared to male-female grooming within each condition and then compare the average proportion of grooming between sex dyads in the three conditions. How would I do this?
Thank you in advance for your help. Apologies if this question is poorly worded, I am very new to data analysis.
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Your explanation or the dataset sounds that it will be suitable for a two-way ANOVA. Other things being fine
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I need to do simulation and analyses using one or two of the various types of software commonly used, but the problem is that I can't feel sure about advantages and disadvantages of any. Considering types of the analyses I need ( CFD and shadow behaviour) and type of the place (an urban space among various buildings (nearly a neighbourhood in size)), I'd be grateful if you share your knowledge in this field.
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Also, Comsol software can be useful.
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Hello everyone!
I need to analyze the behavior of zebrafish larvae, but I am having some difficulty in finding free software. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Thank you so much! :D
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Hi Carolina, Can I use BORIS to count facial wipe in mice? Thank you!
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I am looking for the literature related to thermal behavior/analysis of carbon-sulfur composite material. If anyone, please suggest thank you.
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Might be helpful
find attachment
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We conduct research on domestic animals and birds behavior is to improve welfare. We study the housing enrichment different of feeding system etc using continuous videos which generate huge data. How do we analyze it by automated software?
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Public health is the art and science of promoting health, preventing diseases, and increasing health and lifespan through the organized efforts of society. It is believed that sport plays an important role in physical and mental health as it incorporates physical activity. Physical activities during sports are associated with risks for injury, such as concussions in contact sports and over-use injuries in sports requiring frequent repetition of the same movement.
Although sports injuries and their aftermath have been well-studied, less attention has been given to public health, especially using technology. The use of AI-enabled IoT devices in sports can reduce the risk of injuries and enhance the efficiency, capabilities, and fitness of athletes, spectators, coaches, and officials. The use of AI-enabled IoT devices in sports and public health has huge implications for research, businesses, and future activities of mankind. This is due to the fact that the IoT devices are required to extract an unprecedented amount of health data that can be filtered, processed, and analyzed using AI and machine learning. As a result, any system based on these technologies can obtain the benefits of collecting, processing, and analyzing highly valuable data of athletes, trainers, spectators, coaches, and officials. These technologies are beneficial for injury prevention, disease transmission, on-time diagnosis, and treatments for various diseases in an easy and cost-effective way.
The aim of this Special Issue is to identify public health concerns associated with sports using AI-enabled IoT devices and machine learning algorithms. Moreover, this Special Issue will address how the brain works during sports and analyze gait techniques and human activities and their effects on health. This Special Issue aims to motivate researchers from both academia and industry to investigate and analyze various aspects of AI-enabled IoT devices and their roles in sports and public health. Any pioneering methods and algorithms detailed in original research and review articles that offer improvements in sports and public health are welcome.
Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:
  • Internet of Medical Things in sports and public health
  • AI and IoT-assisted technology in human activity recognition during sports
  • AI-enabled IoT applications in neurodegenerative health issues
  • Analyzing cognitive abilities during sports
  • Connecting the brain with sports and public health
  • Deep learning-based processing and diagnostic analysis of biomedical sensor data
  • Gait analysis based on group wearable sensors in sports
  • Novel designs in machine learning and statistical applications in health informatics
  • Intelligent monitoring of amputee behavior analysis using wearable technology
  • Digital healthcare system for athletes using sensor-based technology
  • Applications of wireless body area networks in sports
  • Data- and model-driven intelligent and smart healthcare systems
  • Novel designs of smart health services using big data analytics
  • Novel application and evaluation study in sports and public health
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Have read and digest the material i found it really helpful to my research course
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Preferably datasets about learning behavior within learning applications to reach specific learning objectives.
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Dear Colleagues,
Please see the following link and information for more details. If you are thinking about submitting, please feel free to reach out to me directly here or at edjfern@gmail.com.
The modern field of Applied Animal Behavior has brought about two major advances in the behavioral welfare of animals: (1) The use of environmental/behavioral enrichment, and (2) the implementation of voluntary training procedures to improve human-animal interactions. Both these practices have their roots in behavior analysis and learning theory. However, few studies have examined the learning effects observed in the application of these practices. For instance, most implementations of operant conditioning to the training of animals is done without measurement of the learning process. Likewise, the effects of enrichment, while originally proposed as a form of behavioral engineering to modify learned behavior, is almost exclusively measured in terms of its pre- vs. post-enrichment effect. Both modern advances thus miss a significant result of their implementation: How behavior is shaped by these environmental manipulations.
The following special issue looks to address how learning theory has been applied and measured to address the welfare of animals. Original manuscripts that examine any aspect of how learning theory has been applied to improve the lives of animals, from studies of behavioral training procedures to the modification of behavior as a result of some environmental change, are welcome submissions. Specific interest will be given to papers that use within-subject methodology to measure changes in behavior over time, as well as papers that address how behavior analysis has served the welfare of animals and can better contribute to the field.
Dr. Eduardo J. Fernandez Ms. Sabrina Brando Guest Editors
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i cannot add anything personally, but Stevan Harnad at Universite du Quebec a Montreal would be a good person to contact.
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Hello ! im doing a bi-linear Material behaviour analysis ( Steel) . im using Ansys , i did modell a plate with a hole using Plane183 . and i need to draw a 2D Yield surface , is there any Option to plot it in Ansys ? the Material : Steel S355 / kinematic Hardening
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Dear Sir,
Do you use Ansys Workbench or Ansys APDL?
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Is there anyone who uses behavioral analysis in the own daily life to increase self-understanding and coping?
Is it possible to find any research about that?
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beteendeanalys är gammal och har ersatts av KBT.
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Trying to get clearer on the process of acquisition of "reward-based" versus "habit based"
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It's really a bit of both depending on whether a behavior is on the continuum from behavior reward association to habit formation. You can test this by, for instance, reversing the reward contingency. If it's early during learning, behavior can be more easily extinguished, as compared to a later, "habit" phase. -Ray
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Can someone help me in getting a dataset on EEG Signals ? And also help me for applying Machine Learning and Deep Learning in EEG Signal based person behavior analysis or any other application of EEG Signals in Classification
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If you are interested in the classification of EEG data into seizures and seizure-free using a binary classifier, CHB-MIT Scalp EEG database which can be accessed through https://www.physionet.org is a good starting point.
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Magnetic behaviour by analysis of hysteresis loop.
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Diamagnetic contributions may also arise from sample holder and/or substrate materials. mostly it is more accurate to make a good reference measurement of the "same stuff without the magnetic component". Just doing a linear fit, you may loose the "true" approach to saturation which may actually extend to rather strong fields, depending on material and temperature. You may try fitting (best at strong negative and positive fields simultaneously with shared slope) and vary the field range tosee, whether you obtain a stable solution.
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Help in consumer analysis project ?
Hi all
I am an international student doing a project in consumer behaviour analysis  in marketing
I want to do cotenant analysis my project is small 3000 word
but I don't know what kind of data I shoud be looking online such as blogs or facebook
if anyone can help please reply
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Hi Hana,
You have to choose an objective then decide the content you should analyse. Given your focus is on consumer analysis you can analyse how brands on facebook potray consumers. First you can collect a set of pictures(ads) posted by few brands. Then you can analyse how consumers ae depicted in these ads, alone, with family, with friends etc. This may reflect some cultural values a society may have. Hope this helps.
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Hi all
I am an international student doing a project in consumer behaviour analysis  in marketing
I want to do cotenant analysis my project is small 3000 word
but I don't know what kind of data I shoud be looking online such as blogs or facebook
if anyone can help please reply
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What's this wep
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As you are doubtless aware, paper-based survey has been known as one of the most common methods for gathering data relevant to people's behavior (either revealed preferences or stated preferences). I wanna make sure how much can we rely on new methods like Internet (Web)-based survey instead of traditional paper-based survey? In particular, my research's scope is related to travel behavior analysis. My research' sample should cover all socioeconomic groups and almost all geographical areas in a city.
I would be happy if somebody shared with me his/her opinion or the valid references.
Thanks in advance
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Another problem you have to consider is about respondent’s willingness to participate. You have to have a reliable database of lead contacts and be aware that response rate is very low, commonly around 5% to 10% so if you need a sample of 400 subjects, for example, you have to contact at least 8000 people.
Of course, never forget the main characteristics of your sample otherwise your results will be biased.
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Hi all, I am a first year PhD student working with computer animations of fish (mollies). I am looking for others who are using 2D or 3D computer animations during research with various animals to share some expertise and build up a network for users of such methods.
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I'm also looking into animal animation prototyping. I did a little plugin in Maya for robin animations https://vimeo.com/283301239
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I like to create voronoi model of closed cell foams for behaviour analysis purpose.
If anybody knows or already used please suggest me your views
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Hi Anais,
I am thanking you for your suggestion , i hope this would be very helpful for my work.
Thanks again
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I am looking for articles discussing intermittent reinforcement and customer behavior.
-e.g shopping, loyalty programs, token economy, sales, etc.
Open to suggestions.
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What role magnanimity can play in our social upbringing?
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For leaders and politicians it is essential, and has served the best leaders such as Lincoln and Churchill.
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I just finished reading this article on the founder of the neo nazi website stormfront.
This following passage sticks out to me. I thought it might stick out to others who are in the field of behavior analysis.
"After the breakup, Dan Newman, another friend at the time, remembers Anglin once bashing his head into the walls of his bedroom in such a frenzy that his mother had to call the police."
A few semesters ago a assisted a doctoral candidate with  data collection with a severely autistic patient. 
He wanted to design a program to decrease self injurious behavior in a severely autistic child, specifically head slapping and head banging.
I know you cannot diagnose someone as being on the autism spectrum from one select passage.
However, if you use his friend's description of the behavior, could it not function as an indirect assessment? And, if so, could it be possible that one of the worst propogandists in our current political climate is on the autism spectrum?
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A functional assessment and a CARS are insufficient information for a diagnosis. Behavioral analysis is insufficient to diagnose psychological disorders. A comprehensive evaluation, ideally conducted by a team consisting of a psychologist, pediatrician/psychiatrist, speech pathologist, and in some cases a school psychologist and occupational therapist would be completed. The evaluation would ideally include the ADOS & ADI-R (the gold standard in the diagnosis of autism), behavioral rating scales, intellectual assessment, genetic screening,developmental history, speech language evaluation, and an assessment of sensory differences so that autism can be ruled in or out. Psychologists and psychiatrists do not attempt to diagnose well known figures due to the lack of sufficient first hand information to complete a diagnosis.
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I need to record 2-3 hours of video of each singly-housed dog interacting with a given enrichment toy. Resolution needs to be sufficient to see if they are chewing on or otherwise interacting with the toy. Angle-of-view needs to be sufficient to see an entire standard-sized dog run so that no matter where the dog moves within the cage I can code the behavior. 
What relatively low-cost make/model video camera works best?
Also, any suggestions on behavior coding software would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks.
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You can use GoPros older generations should be good. Or if you want to go cheap get Raspberry Pi with Cam..
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I planning an experiment and need some feedback. I will test how well a test person react to a moving object. The object will be presented in three different forms. The interaction between the test person and the object will be via a computer “game”. I will not go into details but would just like to get general recommendation about the experimental design.
The object will be presented in 3 different forms each moving across the screen separately. The test person have to detect and respond to the moving objects (3 different forms that varies in detectability). I will score how successful the test person is to respond (success vs. no success).
Response variable, binomial: ‘success vs. no success’
Explanatory variable: ‘form of the object’ (3 object categories w/different difficulty levels)
Co-variable: ‘Age of the test person’, although I consider to have students with approximately the same age to elude this variable.
Co-factor: ‘Gender of the test person’
Random effect: 'Test person ID'
I would like to get recommendations about:
1.      How many survey participants (test persons) do I need?
Each test person will only be tested once (i.e. one trial). In one trial, I will repeat each object category a number of times in a random order.
2.      How many times should each object category be repeated?
The 3 object categories have different difficulty levels, by repeating them I will get a sufficient sample size. Although, the drawback by repeating them is that the test person will also improve his/her search image and become more effective. This could be controlled for by including a “time” or “stage” effect as a co-variable.
I would like to get the right balance between the number of survey participants and number of repeated moving objects per trial. 
Best regards,
Ronny
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Just some thoughts on the design. Given that I have about 50 participants and that each only perform the test once with the 3 different forms presented. To avoid "predator learning", i.e the participant become more efficient on the third compared to the first due to learning, I consider the following:
What wwill be best? 
1. The 3 different forms comes in random order for all participants, with random each combination will not be 100% equally represented in the final data set. 
OR
2. The 3 forms comes in a fixed order, although the order change for each participant (the order is hidden for the participants ). Constructed so that each combination is equally represented in the final data set. 
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DEMOLA
+2347033966347
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 If you are interested in audit or data analysis, we can collaborate in future research
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Great article!
I have interest in explore the role of verbal behavior in the selection of cultural practices. I am working on an experiment on metacontingencies, rules and verbal behavior (Verbal communication was restricted to one group of participants).
Then I plan to do an experiment with non-human animals and the one that you propose seems to me to be right.
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Dear González! 
Thank you for you attention and feedback! We have one paper with pigeons with this procedure that will be published very soon. I can send to you the final version.
Nice to know about your current research!
Keep in touch!
Best, Marcelo
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I want to have a cue/signal for performing a desired action. What kinds of  visual cues should I have to avoid the inundation of any interference in the subject's performance. Words count as lexical cues, I don't regard them as visual cues per se.
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You might consider a small yellow arrow in the direction. In aviation air traffic is indicated  on screens or cockpit displays. Having said that it would be beneficial to know other sensory I puts you have the participant contend with.
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Hi,
Can anyone tell me if there's a specific range for the immobility time/percentage that 'normal' adult C57BL6 display in the Porsolts Forced Swim Test (5 minutes analysis, only one trial of the test performed i.e. no priming 24 hours previously) ? The graphs in papers seem to show widely varying values.
If anyone has performed the experiment in multiple instances, how much variation do you observe in between these experiments wrt the immobility values?
Thanks!
Sourish
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Dear Sourish,
In case of mice, there is only one 6 minutes trial in which the first 2 minutes is not considered for evaluation and the next 4 minutes is considered for behaviors such as immobility, climbing and swimming. 
Another important thing is that you need to do some experiments (both FST and Open-field test, n= 6-8) to assess the average immobility time of your C57BL6 mice. To do this, you need to consider some factor such as the SEX of animals and  AGE of animals. If you are doing FST on female mice, please note that you need to report it in both estrus cycles of animals because the effects of hormone on the immobility time. Please note that adolescent mice have different behavior in comparison with adult animals. Also, there are some other factors that are important such as time of the test. For example, it is important that you are doing the test in the dark cycle or in the light cycle of these animals. 
And finally, there is no normal or accepted immobility time among different mice strains or even for C57BL6 and you need to optimize the test in your LAB. There are some papers that may help. Good Luck
1- Forced swimming test in mice: a review of antidepressant activity. 
DOI: 10.1007/s00213-004-2048-7
2- Assessing antidepressant activity in rodents: recent developments and future needs
DOI: 10.1016/S0165-6147(02)02017-5
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I propose the following hypothesis:
The No Free Lunch Theorem and hypothesis of instinctive animal behavior, according to which they are completely innate.
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WHY are there still constant questions on learned vs innate??  During very important developments (during/with/as ontogeny), behavior change is likely BOTH (in effect) AT THE SAME TIME (I mean literally, not just the effects of each at the same time: BOTH OF EACH operating AT THE SAME TIME).
See "Human Ethology and Development" Project.  Read a lot of the short essays (from my updates, question-and-answers, and comments) and then read the 160 page paper attached below ("A Human Ethogram ...").  And, many might want to read the associated 40 page paper, "Information Processing Theories and ... ".  NO one has contradicted the view of these 2 papers for months, now, and in the years before eye-tracking technology, no one questioned the view for DECADES.
(This Ethogram Theory should be considered NEW, because ONLY recently has there been the eye-tracking technology in existence to test the major hypotheses.)
We have all just been subjects of 2 great myths: (1) 'advanced' organisms have less innate and more learned (just really a presumption, based on nothing) and (2) all innate factors (including, in behavior!!!) are present at birth (VERY unlikely, and again NO REASON to believe this).  I submit that both are FALSE (good evolutionary behavior theory, and ethology argue against those presumptions).
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Does anyone known free software for animal behavior video tracking?
I’m interesting in rat/mouse maze behavior analysis (open field, Morris water maze and plus maze).
Ethowatcher don’t work properly for our purposes. Open control requires a special camera which we have not. And I don’t know if  Zootracer  is still working
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We have developed a free software for animal tracking, we have tried it with fish, insects and rodents, you can download it at https://toxtrac.sourceforge.io
We would appreciate it if you try it and email me any feedback
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I ran a novel object recognition test on mice that underwent traumatic brain injury (or sham) and were treated with a drug (or vehicle).  My sham controls (both treated and untreated) performed well and showed clear preference for the novel object (>60%), the TBI untreated group exhibited no preference for the novel object.  Curiously, the drug treated TBI group exhibited a pretty strong avoidance of the novel object, only actively investigating it about 25% of the time.  Does anyone with experience in this task have some insight into how to interpret this result?  Is it neophobia? Anxiety?
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Dear Kate, if you want to take into account the initial exploration of the objects as a baseline, you can utilize the recognition index (RI), as described in:
If the RI confirms the result obtained with the discrimination index (DI), then you might really have found a neophobic phenotype. You said you have counterbalaced for both the objects and the sides, but the best way to check for possible biases is to compare the RI and the DI. If you still find a significant aversion for the new object, then it would be interesting to investigate this phenotype with a different test. As Katherine suggested, you could use the novelty-suppressed feeding test, by which you can evaluate the hyponeophagia phenomenon (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3197427/).
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Hello everyone, Does anyone know how to measure the use of screen time by young adults? I'm trying to quantify this (TV, cellphones, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) for finding any relationship with food choices, eating patterns, fitness activities, and overall overweight/obesity, etc. Is there a scale of tool that I can use? Thank you in advance.
Sadguna
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With the exception of the developing world, just about every young adult carries a cell phone. Every cell phone has a stopwatch. You could ask participants to use their stopwatch to monitor screen time and then have them text the length the stopwatch ran at the end of each day.
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I am planning to do 4 or 5 behavior test on my respected groups after drug administration, I have to do test after every two weeks for about 8 weeks. I have eight groups and each group comprised of 30 animals. After behavior experiment i have to kill the animal for other studies. Can we select six or seven animal per group for each week experiment and kill them at the end. I have to do training in all the behavior experiments before trial. So, i need suggestion that is it fine to select 6-7 animals for each 2 weeks or not. Kindly explain if possible if we cant do it. 
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How about the control animals and baseline values for the biochemical markers?
I assume you also have a control group that does not receive the treatment but only vehicle administration. You should include this control group in the 3-6-9 weeks tests. The number of animals should be similar to the treatment groups.
Additionally, you should consider baseline values for the biochemical markers in naive rats without any behavioral testing and drug treatment, because behavioral testing or possible stress from the drug/vehicle administration may also impact your biochemical markers.
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Behavioral Neuroscientists, 
I am currently attempting behavioral testing in the Open Field. After plenty of testing, I have been wondering about what is the optimal size of the "center zone" vs "outer zone" in relationship to the size of the box itself? 
Any input would be appreciated. 
Thanks, 
Danny 
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The center area should be half the size (area) of the arena. Otherwise you'll have to correct for the different sizes.
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I really really need clarity whether we could use RCT in areas such as child development!
Eager to hear from U all!!
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Yes - Here is a very good resource Torgerson, D.J. & Torgerson, C. J. (2008).  Designing Randomised Trials in Health, Education and the Social Sciences: An Introduction.  Palgrave Macmillan, NY
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I am interested in assessing outcomes of a specific organizational change in the public sector. Anyone is aware of how to assess the outcomes using behavioral and affective criteria such as attitudes, behaviors and experiences of change recipients? In other words, I want to investigate the outcomes -be positive or negative- of the changes on employees attitudes, behaviors and experiences rather than focusing on traditional factors such as efficiency, effectiveness ......
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Outcomes are  related to processes.Behavior is changeable concept.For understanding outcomes (Negative-Positive) need to make a check list or questionnaire based on your selected areas.As it is not enough, to prepare interview schedule,observe and check the answer with comparing check list or questionnaire's answer.Observation and discussion are the best way.But it  is controlled by context, time and sample size.Group interview might be possible.
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In sport a widespread belief exists that  "success breeds success and failure breeds failure".
One major example is "hot hand" or "streak shooting" - terms that refer to the belief that the performance during a particular period is significantly better than could be expected on the basis of the player's overall record.
Which theory in Management is supporting this phenomenon? 
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Thanks Pier-Eric, I've submitted my paper. It's still under review! Best of luck for you in future research
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If you have some citations, please include it on your answers.
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According to Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), the major variables affecting behavior are the references that one has (such as goals, principles, homeostatic set points) and one's perceptions related to those references.  When a perception differs from a reference, an error signal is produced.  A neural error signal that is important, including those important to one's survival, results in behavior produced to reduce the error signal.  Such behavior, when it seems to produce desired perceptions (i.e., when error signals are reduced) results in the reorganization of the neural control systems that generated the behavior and tends to occur again in similarly perceived situations.
Variables external to the nervous system influence behavior when they either (a) result in perceptions that produce important error signals or (b) when they may result in important error signals.  An so, we jerk our hand away from a painfully hot object and we don't walk in front of a speeding car. 
Cross-culturally, behavior often differs because our references often differ.  For example, in the USA giving someone something with the left hand is usually OK, but in some other cultures would be considered impolite.  Similarly, in the USA, blowing one's nose in a handkerchief and putting that in your pocket is usually OK, but in some other cultures is disgusting.  Eating dogs is OK in some cultures whereas in others doing so is a revolting idea.  Such differences depend on our references and related perceptions!
For more information about Perceptual Control Theory, a classic but technical textbook is William T. Powers, Behavior: The Control of Perception (1973/2005).  Information online is available at iapct.org (website of the International Association for Perceptual Control Theory).
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The book seems to exist only in paper form. I'm in a remote location though and cannot easily receive packages. Thanks!
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Hi Gerrit, 
Have you found the ebook? I am looking for it too.
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I study open field behaviour in wistar rats, and one of the outcome measures I use is rearing (i.e. standing on rear limbs).
I have noticed that in some instances, rearing can be the most sensitive outcome measuring is, detecting behavioural changes not related to central zone activity (my primary outcome).
There seem to be 2 main types of rearing - free-standing, and against the walls.
I think rearing is related to vigilance and reflects, but haven't had much luck finding any published data looking into this! Of course, it could just be an escape response to being put in a box, but I'm not convinced of this.
Any thoughts on this would be most welcome!
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Hi Rosie,
Our lab studies rat behavioural changes in relation to nociception and behavioural models of depression, anxiety & PTSD. We use a fully-automated Multi-Conditioning System from TSE that includes a 3D video-tracking analysis (therefore reduced recording bias), looking at a number of different behaviours, including rearing.
In our lab, rearing behaviour does not decrease after repetitive exposure to the same environment (arena) over time, which suggests a weaker link to an exploratory behaviour (not published yet). We believe that it is more linked to higher cognitive functions that are more likely to relate to vigilance than exploration (as suggested by an increase in rearing under pharmacologically-produced euphoric conditions). Also there is a lot of bibliography that links rearing behaviour to increased dopaminergic and GABAergic activity that is worth reading. 
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I need a theory on behavior change to assess behavior of people before and after get involved in an interfaith dialogue. thanks
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I've heard that at present it is not allowed to submit papers using deprivation regimes lower than 83 % of ad-libitum body weight for rats on most of the major journals of behavior and/or neuroscience research.
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Check the animal welfare laws in your area carefully, and be sure to write your intended food deprivation into the proposal to the ethics commission of your university. If you get the ethics approval for your study, and the level of food deprivation is legal, then journals should accept it. Whether reviewers accept it is a different story...
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Is there any algorithmic or computational representation or modeling, or behavior simulation of alzheimer's disease?
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the following article is very interesting, is there any related links ?
Computer model of spread of dementia can predict future disease patterns years before they occur.
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Hello everyone
The trust game (Berg 1995) is quite well known in experimental economics. Is there game theoretical analysis of user behavior for this repeated game?
The paper of Berg:
[1] Berg, Joyce, John Dickhaut, and Kevin McCabe. "Trust, reciprocity, and social history." Games and economic behavior 10, no. 1 (1995): 122-142.
You can get the PDF from:
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You may try to check this meta-analysis from 2011:
Johnson, N. D., & Mislin, A. A. (2011). Trust games: A meta-analysis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 32(5), 865-889, http://noeldjohnson.net/www.noeldjohnson.net/Research_files/Trust%20Games.pdf
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What are the most effective but easiest parameters for measuring the stress in non-ruminants?
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Hello,
corticosteroid administration triggers some physiological pathways. First, hyperglycemia: you can measure circulating glucose. It responds to corticosteroid administration after a short time but remains elevated even after corticosteroid clearance. Second, immune response: corticosteroid administration suppress immune function, especially when administered chronically. Thus, you can measure  circulating immune protein (complement system), lysozyme, immunoglobulins, and acute phase proteins. Also, leukocyte related immune functions could be assayed.
They are the main effects of corticosteroid administration. But, corticosteroid administration also can reduce bone formation (long term osteoporosis),
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What is the best way to measure attitude ambivalence?
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Hello Yushu,
The article mentioned above has been attached.
Regards
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Hi!
We are conducting an experiment about the impact of physical exercise (running) on neurogenesis in the adult brain. We use a transgenic mice model and so far, we encountered some problems with the mice because they don't want to run...we have tried to attract them towards the running wheel with some food placed on the running wheel. However, this method didn't work so far. Therefore, I want to ask you whether you have any suggestion about what could we do in this situation.
Many thanks and I look forward to your help :)
Regards,
Daniela Ivan
SILS, Center for Neuroscience
University of Amsterdam
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I've seen some strains of mice be resistant to running in a wheel, although generally C57's will start running within minutes. I assume the running wheels you have are specific for mice? The individual rungs of the wheel are spaced closer together for mice than for rats, so getting a mouse to run on a wheel made for rats could be difficult as they'd likely have their feet constantly falling through and in between the rungs. Are these wheels part of a connected system that measures time/speed/distance? If the wheel could be introduced in their homecage, that could facilitate running. If it can't, could the mice be housed in the running wheel cage and thus constantly exposed to the wheel, increasing the chance they may check it out and use it?
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Dear everyone,
I am doing a research about long tail macaques' alarm call profile (duration, frequency, and syllable) . I have 5 groups (Juvenile, Pre-adult, Mother, Adult, and Alpha), but each groups have different sample size (n Juvenile: 10, Pre-adult: 30, Mother: 28, Adult: 260, and Alpha 158). I was told that instead of using one way ANOVA, I should use Kruskal Wallis. Then I used both of them and the results are almost similar. Can I actually use either ANOVA or Kruskal Wallis? Or should i stick with Kruskal Wallis? Or is there any more suitable test? If I am supposed to use Kruskall Wallis, is there any way i do the post hoc test? Thank you very much
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Hi! The dicision of using an ANOVA or Kruskal-Wallis test is the distribution of data.
Normal / gaussian distribution should be analysed with ANOVA while a non-normal / non-gaussian distribution should be analysed with the Kruskal-Wallis. So it depends on your data, not on the number of groups (since you seem to consider to have just one independent variable).
As previously mentioned, you can run a  normality test like the D'Agostino Pearson (do not use Kolgomorov-Smirnov), BUT do not make decisions based on that test alone. Please read the link for more information on why! - great guide for biologists and biochemists by the way.
Note that parametric tests (for normal distributions) have more power than non-parametric tests (for non-normal distributions) - among other advantages and disadvantages. So even if your distribution is not gaussian, and all groups have the same profile of distribution, you can try to transform the data into gaussian. If nothing works, go ahead with the non-parametric test (Kruskal-Wallis). It's also a good idea to look at papers in your field with similar measurements to evaluate what is the standard analyses.
Good luck!
p.s.: Yogyakarta is a great place to visit, by the way!
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I am from Tamilnadu-India. I am doing research on academic performance, behaviour problems and social skills of dyslexic children. I wish to use technological advancement in my research. I have an idea about using eye tracker software. Pleae suggest how can I use it to make my study strong and more effective.
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Ganesh:
Here's  a link to related studies in RG that used Eye-Tracker software:
I express best wishes for every success with your worthy research
Debra
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I am currently experimenting with the elevated plus maze (EPM) and radial arm maze (RAM) to test the functionality of the hippocampus after the injection of neurotoxic chemicals such as kanic acid. I test with the EPM on the first day and start habituating for RAM the next day. I habituate the rats for 3 days then start recording. My professor was concerned that the EPM may have an interference effect on the RAM. I wasn't able to find references on it either. Are there possibilities that the experiences on the EPM prior to the RAM affects the performances of the rats on the RAM?
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I'm sorry. I completely disagree with the above statement. EPM is supposed to be an intrinsic measure of anxiety, it is nothing like, for example, fear conditioning (in which case I would agree). But using a separate group for these measures can be a waste of the experimenter's time, the PIs money, and most importantly, animal lives which we should take pains to consider in our experimental design. Using a battery of behavioral tests is common practice for these reasons (check the literature), and with the right controls can be carried out effectively. 
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I am currently researching within a field called behavior analysis, which is essentially modern behaviorism. Researchers in this field tend to emphasize different methodologies, such as single-case designs, and often avoid statistical methods.
In terms of psychology, behavior analysts are not interested in cognitive phenomena. This is not because they reject the existence of private events, but because they argue that cognitive events cannot be observed; only its behavioral outcomes.
There are several papers that address how behavior analysis sees cognitive psychology. They often refer to the misuse of hypothetical constructs and unnecessary group designs. However, I was wondering if there are papers discussing behavioral analysis from the cognitive psychologists point of view?
Most psychology textbooks will refer to behaviorism as dead, often with reference to Chomsky's critique of Skinner. According to behavior analysts, Chomsky's critique is flawed, but in mainstream psychology, behavior analysis remain a minority subdiscipline.
So, I was wondering if there are any good articles discussing cognitive/internal/private events, and behavior analysis/behaviorism, that are written from a cognitive psychologist point of view? There are plenty such articles in behavior analysis journals, but I am wondering if the issue of cognition vs. externally observed behavior have been discussed elsewhere, from a cognitive viewpoint?
I guess what I am asking is, what papers from cognitive psychology exist that address why behavior analysis is obsolete, and internal, private events are perfectly acceptable to investigate?
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I wouldn't say that modern behaviorists are uninterested in cognitive phenomena. 
I think there is much conflict between behavior analysis and cognitive psychology because the scientists do not really understand each other's view points. Behaviorism is frequently criticized by cognitive psychologists, but it is still more of Watson's behaviorism that is being criticized thank Skinner's behaviorism. Skinners concept of private events is very much in line with cognitive psychology. I think the main difference between a modern behaviorist and a cognitive psychologist is in the terminology and the focus of investigation. Behaviorists seek to know why something happens at the level of the individual and how this is related to the individual's history. Cognitive psychologists seek to understand how mind of the average individual functions and are not as concerned with individual history. I think they are actually two complementary methods.
Take for example stimulus equivalence, a popular area in current behaviorism that can appear to be a cognitive process. Behaviorists focus on how an individual's history has led to the development of such equivalence. Within-subject designs are very useful for answering these questions. A cognitive psychologist might instead be interested in studying what stimulus equivalence is like for the average organism. If they are not interested in the development of stimulus equivalence, then they can use group designs and ask questions about what equivalence is as a cognitive process.
The Chomsky/Skinner debate is unfortunately misunderstood. To be brief, Chomsky did not understand Skinner's perspective in Verbal Behavior. He heavily criticizes Skinner for being a behaviorist without realizing that Skinner's behaviorism is far, far different from Watson's behaviorism. Much of his critique is irrelevant. It is also worth noting that Skinner describes a functional approach to language. Chomsky pushes for a structural approach. Neither is all encompassing, and both functional and structural approaches can be very useful.
 I do not believe that studying the activity of the brain, in an fMRI for example, is the same as observing the mind. The mind remains unobservable. We can, however, study brain activity and make good inferences about what is happening in the mind. But what we are observing is neuron activity, blood flow, etc, not thoughts, feelings, and emotions. I'm not trying to say that these techniques are bad by any means. I'm only suggesting that we still must infer cognition from these physiological measures in the same way as we must infer cognition from behavioral measures or self reports.
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Dear friends,
I am looking pharmacological evidence to estimate how long drugs (tamapin/apamin) could remain in the cells. I inject (I.P.) tamapin/apamin into adult mouse and want to see their effect in behavior. I know, this drug could be effective after 24 hrs of injection but I don't know how long it could be in the brain cells. I have to check rescue of drug effect after certain time. Please share if any pharmacological papers or book chapters explain such type of study.
Thanks in advance for your help. 
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Thank you Dr. Laveka. Yes, you are right. we have plan to go with biotinated tamapin injection and IHC but it will long time.
Thanks for your suggestions.
Shahid
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Hello,
In behavioral tests I'm doing, my standard deviation is varying in different sets of experiments. When I'm repeating the same experiment with different mice (but of same age) my standard deviation is changing. In one set of experiments the values were much closer than the other group. What could be the possible reason for this? 
And what are the ways to overcome this?
Thanks,
Goutham Kodakandla
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All the above points are well made, except one. Females are not on average more variable than males looking across many traits. Please see the below article on this point. 
It is possible that females are different from males in the particular behavior(s) you are interested in, but you have to show this and not assume it. 
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Specifically, I am wondering if there is any theoretical or conceptual reason to suggest that those who are sole representatives of a professional group on an interdisciplinary team may have different experiences than those who are members of more plentiful groups. e.g. Is there a responsibility to "represent" your profession? Is turnover more disruptive to patient care when there is a single individual providing specific services vs. when there are more than one individuals who provide the service?
Thank you. 
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Hi Sarah,
It's a very interesting question. I think you would need to factor in personality and relationships among team members. There may be issues relating to experience, grade, seniority and power differentials. Context will also be an important consideration. Research and commentary in the field of organisational psychology (roles, etc.), group dynamics, personality might be useful. Best of luck
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I am analysing repeatabilities of behavioural traits. One of the behaviours appeared to be affected by the "repeat number". I need to calculate the adjusted repeatability, but after reading papers I still have no idea how. Is there anybody who could  describe me the procedure in a very simple way.  Thanks a lot!!!
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Hi Simona,
1) Repeatability calculation. Correct! For the CI of the random effects, I forgot to mention that those are calculated on the standard deviation and not the variance by default. So the CI for repeatability becomes: lower CI =  0.13172583^2/(0.13172583^2+0.70764854^2) = 0.03; upper CI = 0.6405711^2/(0.6405711^2+0.9557547^2) = 0.31.
2) Count data. You basically have 2 solutions here.
- If the range of possible values for your behaviors is large (say For varies between 0 and 50) and if this variable looks relatively normally distributed you may not have to change anything (hist(K$For)). Using a square-root transformation may also help. You should also check the normality of your residuals: hist(residuals(LMM)).
- If the your range of values is narrow (say 15-20 possible values or lower), then you should use a GLMM with Poisson distribution. However, the repeatability has to be calculated a little differently because of that (following Nakagawa and Schielzeth 2010 paper). The easiest way to do that in lme4 would be:
obs <- rownames(K)
K$obs <- as.factor(obs)
GLMM=glmer(For ~ repeat. + age + (1 | ID) + (1 | obs),family=poisson(link="sqrt"),data=K)
summary(GLMM)
confint(GLMM)
This corresponds to calculating repeatability on the latent scale, with additive overdispersion and a square-root link (see Nakagaw & Scheilzeth 2010, Table2, p944). The "obs" random effect is just a factor variable containing each row number and allows to capture the residual variance. I prefer to use the square-root link here because the repeatability does not depend on the intercept and allows comparison among studies. Your repeatability would then be:
R = var_Id/(var_Id+var_obs+0.25)
Good luck!
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For example, a higher price on VLT diminish time of play. The relationship seems obvious, but I cannot find any experimental design that explores this link. 
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Dear Béatrice,
Thank you very much
Your response is really appreciated !
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Valued Plateaued Employees: The employees who do not see any growth of their positions in the organization but have in depth  knowledge of organization's processes. 
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Dear M. Rafique, Happy Eid. I've reloaded my paper on career plateaus and career burnouts on the Research Gate (into my archive). Happy reading! All the best! 
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We are going to perform three OF behavioral analysis in 1, 6 and 15 month-old Wistar rats. However, we are in doubt as using the same squared area for different sized animals. Is there any gold-standard for OF test troubleshooting, especially regarding area per animal? If there is, does changing the OF size for larger animals still a valid way to prevent area-dependent influences, or must I keep the very same paradigm for all animals?
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I agree that size of the animal (and considering the answers above, also age of the animal, which particularly in rats has a major effect on their size) does have an influence. Within an experiment all animals should be tested in exactly the same conditions, including OF size. If one of your aims is to compare specific behavioral aspect in animals (e.g. rats of a specific strain) of different age (i.e. size) cage size again should not be different. So you see, it all depends on your question and protocol. Time of day of the test and lighting conditions and the adaptation to the animals to them has an often underestimated effect on behavior of rats and mice.
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So, this is the question. I have recorded the behavior of individuals every 30 seconds and I want to compute the bout duration averages dedicated to each type of activity. I have already included this data in an excel file.
As I said, I prefer to do it in R, but recommendations on any other program will be welcome.
Thanks
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We need more information.  Do you have a 1/0 every 30 sec for each type of behavior? Is each row coding a 1/0 for n behaviors by individual y?  Or, is each row coding individual y on behavior i?  
If it's 1/0, then you can either sum the number for each behavior and do a Poisson regression as a function of behavior classification (glm(count~behavior, family=Poisson) in R) or a multilevel logistic regression.
The issue you'll face is that count/duration data will be heavily skewed so a standard arithmetic mean will be inappropriate.  If you only want descriptive stats and not a test of difference, use geometric means of the counts/durations.  This can be done in R on a column of counts by creating a new column (log.count<-log(count)), averaging these logs and then transforming back (exp(mean(log.count)).
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I am researching the various methods and techniques used by parents and professional with kids of various age groups in specific behavioural situations.    I hope to be able to better describe the common uses for specific behaviours.the effectiveness of the methods used. What is considered age appropriate treatment for specific behaviors as well as age appropriate expectations for specific age groups.
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The survey(s) should be culture specific because the 'Discipline' has different meanings in different cultures. 
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What is used generally? I would like to use it to check emotional state after group works in the end of an experiment. PANAS is an only measure that I know. Is PANAS  fit for it?  Does Anyone know any another measures recommended? 
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Consider using scales to measure state and trait anxiety. 
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It was brought to my attention that some research groups will analyze mice behavioral data in blocks of 5 minutes (i.e. for an Open Field behavioral test that was run for 10 minutes), and then focus on the time block(s) that shows significance.  Is this an appropriate approach for behavioral analysis?
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I do mouse behavior all the time and it is variable over the course of one experiment. For instance when a mouse first encounters a new environment they tend to explore it more, but after 5 mins or so, when they have determined that there are no obvious threats and nothing of particular interest, they calm down and usually hang out in the corner. Conversely, particularly anxious mice will sit in the corner where they feel safe in the beginning and then slowly start to explore the environment, although still less than the normal mouse. However, their reduced exploratory behavior may actually match that normal mouse in the second half of the assay, the normal mouse being no longer interested in the new cage. For this reason it makes sense to analyze those two epochs separately: the exploratory phase and the habituation phase. By analyzing the whole 10 mins together, we may be diluting out the biologically relevant information, and we may miss interesting findings.
That being said, unless there is a biologically relevant reason to perform the analysis that way, it is not acceptable to simply run a million statistical tests and report everything that comes out <0.05. Stats only give us a probability of finding a false positive or negative, not a guarantee. If I see too much data massaging going on, I tend to not believe the claim.
You are right to question the analysis. If when doing the experiment yourself, you don't feel comfortable with setting those arbitrary cutoffs, you can look into other methods of analysis, such as a cumulative density plot, or you could look at other parameters such as grooming (which an anxious mouse do much less).
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Hello,
I have a group of mice that I have tested at different time points before treatment and after treatment and I want to see if their cognitive perfomance becomes better after treamtent across time. Is their anyway that I can transform their performance in every test into a cognitive score and then compare it across time.
Thank you so much.
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Hi Narjes,
In the Morris Water Maze task the latency to find the platform is your indication of spatial cognition, isn't it? So a low latency to find the platform would indicate better cognitive ability, I think. You say you cannot test the animals over different time point and different tests, but why not? Your aim is to see if your treatment impairs their cognitive skills, am I correct? In that case you can compare your latency to find the platform over the changed Morris water task (1). The only thing, if I understand you correctly, you initially started with two groups and within these two groups you made 3 new groups? Then it become difficult in your analysis, as initially you have a different number of animals per treatment. I guess what you can do is, use variation in your data to assess min, max, median and average latencies - hereby you might be able to see who is delayed in fniding the platform. You could roughly make an classification of fast, moderate and slow finders of the platform in your first test - this is quite aribitrary, although it is based on the data. Then you can link this with your continues variables in the other tests. But I don't think you need that, you will have treated and non-treated mice which have a certain latency to reach the platform and then express these effects against your other tests (with the behavioural variables - and do not make a cogntive score, but use the behaviour which indicates cogntive abilites). I could see a figure which shows latency to find the platform expresses by treated and non-treated mice, and all your other "cognitive" variables expressed by treated and non-treated mice. I hope this helps, I wouldn't simplify it but use the most relevant behaviour variables you have to say something about cognition over the different tests and ages. Good luck  
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Behavior setting consists of some standing patterns of behavior and milieu. Behavioral patterns attach to constelation of non behavioral phenomenon or soma, whether natural or man made.
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The Rapid Prompting Method (started and trademarked by Soma Mukhopahdyay) is not supported by any evidence and is considered by some experts to be pseudoscientific. I strongly advise against its use outside of the protective confines of a controlled experiment. Here are some links to papers I suggest reading:
Also see this: http://bit.ly/1F1FIqY
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I am looking to explain Positive Reinforcement and then measure the impact of the intervention along with the impact of the positive reinforcement. Any help or suggestions on how to proceed would be appreciated.
Thank you!
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To clarify, are you going to have a system in place to reinforce the professors for specific behaviors, and then measuring student outcomes?
Are you familiar with applied behavior analysis literature? If not, check out the OBM literature. It seems to be a good theoretical fit for your project.
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What are the main differences between Skinner's Behaviorism and other biological approaches, like Ecological Psychology (J J Gibson) and Knowledge Biology (Maturna and Varela).
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Brandon Thomas's description of Skinner's behaviorism is a caricature.  Skinner is notable for being the one to get away from S-R connectionism and mechanical explanations.  His approach was distinctively functional.  He invented new concepts, such as stimulus control, to explain the relations between behavior and environment, and he adopted response rate, a non-momentary variable, as his measure.  The thrust of his innovations was toward viewing environment and behavior as temporally extended.  Although he never gave up his limited and limiting idea of reinforcement based on contiguity, others coming after like myself, Howard Rachlin, and Philip Hineline have developed a much more plausible behaviorism.  See my book, Understanding Behaviorism, for a more up-to-date presentation.
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What do you think about the validity of these items on a 4-point scale? Where is the difference?
1. I do sport exercises on a regular basis. (totally agree --- totally disagree)
2. I regulariiy ask my students about their conceptions on the "topic". (totally agree --- totally disagree)
3. I panic very easily. (totally agree --- totally disagree)
4. I go out with my dog every day (totally agree --- totally disagree)
5. I have 7 or more cigarettes per day (totally agree --- totally disagree)
Please, do not refer to any item analyses procedures. I am interested in your opinion on the statements above. They do not correspond to a factor or likewise. And please, do not discuss about sample size, analyses, number of scale options or the like.
It is just face validity! Unusual for the most of you, I guess. But I want to know about expertise and not about your number amorousness :)
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I did a couple a long time ago, but have not been working in that area for a long time so not qualified to give more up-to-date info. I do have a couple of papers that I will attach, but they are old
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In case we need to understand any social behavior in the public.
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If you are looking at social networks maybe this is of interest.
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Dear colleagues,
i’am preparing a (finally commercial) tool to automatically assess behavior using some sophisticated image analysis techniques in conjunction with machine learning.
Have a look at some demo results here: http://oo9.eu (edit 2015/03/01: server UP again)
I am looking for further real world test cases and image/video sequences to qualify animal behavior analysis in particular. Image sequences should be registered from a steady point and shall include time points (best in filename: UTCtime.jpg). If you have some study ongoing and you're willing to give the software a shot, please contact me.
Feedback/discussion on the demo are welcome here, too.
Andreas
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Hi Rosie,
sounds great - please notify me, if you published it.
Greets
Andreas
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In Some sources, animal behavior has been divided into two categories: innate (instinct) and learning behavior.
In innate (instinct) behavior, we have some examples. One of them is the building of nests.
We have some insects that build nests, for example wasps or ants. But some other use nests but do not build of It .I have the insects that start to spin a silk cocoon for entry to other stage of their life. I know spinning of cocoons has a kind of innate behavior but in my situation, I provide some nest for them and the insects, first start to find the nest then start spinning cocoons. Now I want to know if using the nest that I provide for insects shows a kind of innate behavior of them?
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Hi Fatemeh
Definitely Yes!
study this books!
1 - Animal Architecture (originally published as Tiere Als Baumeister.), Karl von Frisch, New York, Helen and Kurt Wolff. (ISBN 0-15-107251-5) (1974 1st edition)
(معماری حیوانات -نوشته پروفسورکارل وان فریش- ترجمه رضا روحانی - انتشارات کانون پرورش فکری کودکان و نوجوانان)
2 - Animal Architecture (Oxford Animal Biology), Mike Hansell
3 - Architecture by Birds and Insects: A Natural Art, Paintings by Peggy Macnamara is published by University of Chicago Press.
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I am trying to define inhibition, planning, set-shifting, and working memory in behavioral terms. Can anyone help with that?
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Hello Danielle,
Here is a perspective from a cognitive neuropsychologist. I think in reality, these terms are not very well operationalised.
Generally speaking, a working memory task is defined one that involves not only temporarily maintaining a small amount of information, but also to acting or operating on it in some immediate way. Tasks that most closely fit this definition are things like number rearrangement tasks, like backwards digit span, or visuospatial rearrangement tasks, like mental rotation, and mental arithmetic (the kind you cannot do from rote-learned information). But in reality, most researchers use tasks that are way more complex than these, and I don’t think they have a clear grasp of what, exactly, the demands of their tasks are. An example is the popular N-back task, which has complex monitoring/updating and inhibitory control components as well. In the measurement of working memory in normal individual, even more complex tasks are used, like complex span, which looks like it has a set-shifting component (see Randy Engle's work on his RG page). The more complex you make your task, the more likely you'll find variation in your population and the more likely it will be predictive of other aspects of performance. But then you're less likely to actually be able to pinpoint what cognitive skill is actually critical to your findings, or whether it is all of them put together.
The Miyake paper mentioned by Muneera above is an attempt to try and sort out the different elements that contribute to these more complex tasks, and its good, except that normal people might not be the best population to do this, since all sorts of diverse cognitive functions tend to intercorrelated in this population. You can find more developed arguments along these lines in Randi Martin’s work, she also as an RG page (see articles co-authored with Hamilton).
Inhibition is perhaps a little cleaner. Its the idea of being able to inhibit or override a potent response in order to make another response that's more consistent with your current internal goal, or no response at all. The classic measure is the Stroop task. You could also use other tasks that have this idea of overriding a prepotent response and produce an alternative, like the Simon task or the antisaccade task. Again, in study normal diversity, more complex tasks are often used.
A slightly different aspect of inhibitory control is measured by tasks where you have to cease form responding at short notice – like the stop signal task (http://psytoolkit.gla.ac.uk/library/stopsignal/) and the go-no-go task (http://www.cognitiveatlas.org/task/go/no-go_task). But I think these tasks might have a strong monitoring component as well, especially stop-signal.
Set shifting is the one I know least about, so I'll only comment briefly. I would define it as the capability to maintain at least two concurrent goals, and switch between then as circumstances require, and in a way that maximses the achievement of some internal goal. If I wanted to examine the ability to switch between tasks or sets in a neuropsyc population, I would start with the trail making test: http://doa.alaska.gov/dmv/akol/pdfs/uiowa_trailmaking.pdf
Of course, many classic neuropsyc tests suffer from similar problems as the ones used int he normal adult population. Tasks like the Wisconsin Card Sorting test are often touted as tests of "executive function", but they seem to have multiple cognitive requirements, including set shifting, monitoring, updating, etc. It is predictive of a lot of things but nobody really knows why. I don't think its very useful, at least as a way of unravelling what is really going wrong cognitively in that person.
Not sure if any of this is of use to you, you might be looking for some “agreed” tests in the developmental domain? That’s probably best answered by a developmental neuropsychologist.
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I am planning to conduct an experimental research on competitive state. I would appreciate if somebody could recommend me any software with flexible cognitive task and features to evaluate the individual and team performance.
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So you seem to be interested in (holistic or analytic) quality of team performance, .e.g. effectiveness, efficiency, cooperativeness, communicativenes, etc.? Seems to me that both task and scoring will be mutually dependent, unless you reduce both to very elementary processes.
Think for instance of the cognitive task "Analyse, design and construct a software prototype supporting the registration of attendants of a seminar". Nice assignment for students of software engineering.
This is a challenging complex cognitive task, appropriate for students in their third or fourth semester. The team performance needs to be analysed in detail, in advance, so that a adequate scoring system can be set up. Not an easy task in itself!
No software will take this burdon from the cognitive task designer (usually the lecturer, tutor) and the performance assessor (same as or different from the lecturer).
The performance criteria will be split into two broad categories: process criteria (team dynamics) and product criteria (team outcomes).  BTW: There are several good books about team performance, see link below.