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- ItemThe safety of Canadian early discharge guidelines: effects of discharge timing on readmission in the first year post-discharge and exclusive breastfeeding to four months(Canadian Public Health Association, 2002) Yanicki, Sharon M.; Paul, Hasselback; Mark, Sandilands; Chris, Jensen-RossBackground: Few studies have examined earlier discharge in relation to Canadian guidelines for earlier discharge and infant feeding. We addressed differences in readmission (1 year post-discharge) and exclusive breastfeeding (4 months) for newborns and mothers discharged within 48 hours compared to those with a longer hospital stay. Method: A cohort of 1,357 vaginally delivered singleton normal newborns and their mothers (births between January 1, 1996 and March 31, 1997) were studied by linking five databases and a chart audit. Results: Overall there were no differences in infant and maternal readmission or rates of exclusive breastfeeding. Conclusion: Canadian guidelines for earlier discharge appear appropriate for vaginally delivered singleton normal newborns and their mothers with timely home visitation.
- ItemPsychological Sketches (7th Edition)(Psyence Ink, 2005) Vokey, John R.; Allen, Scott W.Each of the chapters in this book is a short sketch of a particular topic in psychology. They can be read in any order as each chapter is meant to be a self-contained story. By the end of the book, we hope you will have learned what experimental psychology is about, what experimental psychologists do, and more specifically, what experimental psychologists do in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge.
- ItemBehavioral genetics: The study of differences(Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, 2005) Lalumière, Martin L.Behavioural genetics is about partitioning the sources of individual differences in any trait that can be measured reliably. The fundamental question is how much of the observed variability in a given trait can be explained by the fact that people have different genes, and how much can be explained by the fact that people have been exposed to different environments.
- ItemThe causes of rape: Understanding individual differences in the male propensity for sexual aggression(American Psychological Association, 2005-01) Lalumière, Martin L.; Harris, Grant T.; Quinsey, V. L.; Rice, M. E.The Causes of Rape: Understanding Individual Differences in Male Propensity for Sexual Aggression examines why some men are prone to rape, offers probable causes for this inclination, and provides a comprehensive review of scientific studies of coercive sex.
- ItemBehaviour development: a cephalopod perspective(University of California eScholarship, 2006) Mather, Jennifer A.This paper evaluates the development of behaviour from the viewpoint of the intelligent and learning dependent cephalopod mollusks as a contrast to that of mammals. They have a short lifespan, commonly one to two years, and most are semelparous, reproducing only near the end of their lifespan. In the first two months of life, Sepia officinalis cuttlefish show drastic limitation on learning of prey choice and capture, gradually acquiring first short-term and then long-term learning over 60 days. This is paralleled by development of the vertical lobe of the brain which processes visually learned information. In the long nonreproductive adulthood, Octopus species show major flexibility in prey choice and continued mobility across the sea bottom. This results in large behaviour variability within and between individuals and both exploration and simple play-type behaviour. During the short reproductive period, Sepioteuthis sepioidea squid gather for choice and competition, including flexible strategies in use of their skin display system. At the end of the life cycle, Sepia officinalis cuttlefish have a swift decline in memory capacity and also brain degeneration during their short period of senescence. The emphasis on different behaviour capacities during these four stages is contrasted with those of the mammalian model of behaviour development.
- ItemExploration and habituation in intact free moving Octopus vulgaris(University of California eScholarship, 2006) Kuba, Michael J.; Byrne, Ruth A.; Meisel, Daniela V.; Mather, Jennifer A.Despite the huge numbers of studies published on the learning of cephalopod mollusks, studies on non-associative learning are scarce. We tested non-associative learning (habituation) and exploration in Octopus vulgaris in two different studies using a prey-shaped object (Study A) and inanimate objects and food objects (Study B). Study A consisted of the repeated presentation of a prey-like stimulus, which 23 subjects could only explore visually. In study B, 14 octopuses were presented two Lego blocks (one black and white with a smooth surface, one a blue "snowflake" with a rough surface) and two food items, one preferred (clams) and one non-preferred (mussels) inside their home tanks. As hunger is a motivational factor for exploratory behavior, different levels of food satiation (feeding 2h or 24 h prior to experiments) were tested. Within trial habituation was clearly documented in both experiments. In study A across trials habituation was found for all animals, whereas it was only significant in 5 animals in Study B.
- ItemThe crocodile’s tears(University of Lethbridge, 2006) Lalumière, Martin L.People are fascinated by criminals, especially clever criminals who have the ability to con others. The most vicious offenders are often the subjects of movies and true-crime books. Canadian Paul Bernardo, for example, kidnapped, raped, killed, and mutilated two teenage girls, was involved in the rape and death of his sister-in-law, and raped dozens of women in the late 1980's and early 1990's. His story has already been written in several books, and a movie about him and his wife was released in the spring of 2006. During his trial he received numerous love letters and marriage proposals from complete strangers. Famous criminals are often the inspiration for great literature. Robert Louis Stevenson, for example, is said to have based his story of Jekyll and Hyde on William Brodie. Brodie was a well-respected Deacon by day and a gambler, womanizer, and burglar by night. Our ready fascination for these offenders demands an explanation, but in this chapter I will focus on discussing a group of men who are often considered to be the worst criminals, psychopaths. I begin by describing the concept of psychopathy and showing how unique psychopaths are. Then I discuss the question of whether psychopathy is a mental disorder, and describe an alternative view of psychopathy.
- ItemConduct problems and juvenile sexual offending(Guilford, 2006) Seto, M. C.; Lalumière, Martin L.Research and clinical practice in the area of juvenile sexual offending has advanced considerably over the last decade, and the newly revised second edition of this authoritative work brings the field fully up to date. Chapters from leading authorities examine what is known about the nature and development of sexually abusive behavior, the consequences for both victims and perpetrators, and approaches to assessment, intervention, and relapse prevention. Updated throughout with the latest empirical findings, the book includes seven entirely new chapters on such essential topics as sexual offending among girls, family and environmental risk factors, assessment, treatment evaluation research, and restorative justice.
- ItemReview of the book Evolution, gender, and rape by C. Travis Brown (Ed.)(Springer, 2006-02) Lalumière, Martin L.Evolution, Gender, and Rape. Edited By Cheryl Brown Travis. MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2003, 472 pp., $62.00 (cloth); $24.95 (paperback). This book is a collection of 17 critiques of the recent book, A Natural History of Rape, by Thornhill, a biologist, and Palmer, an anthropologist.
- ItemDo people differentially remember cheaters?(Transaction Publishers [Springer as of February 2007], 2006-03) Barclay, Pat; Lalumière, Martin L.The evolution of reciprocal altruism probably involved the evolution of mechanisms to detect cheating and remember cheaters. In a well-known study, Mealey, Daood, and Krage (1996) observed that participants had enhanced memory for faces that had previously been associated with descriptions of acts of cheating. There were, however, problems with the descriptions that were used in that study. We sought to replicate and extend the findings of Mealey and colleagues by using more controlled descriptions and by examining the possibility of enhanced altruist recognition. We also examined whether individual differences in cheating tendencies were related to cheater and altruist recognition. In the first experiment, 164 undergraduates saw 40 faces that were paired with character descriptions representing the categories of cheater, trustworthy, altruist, or neutral, for individuals who had either low or high social status. One week later participants reported which faces they recognized from the previous week (among 80 faces). Overall, the results failed to replicate the findings of Mealey and her colleagues, as there was no enhanced memory for cheaters. In addition, there was no enhanced memory for altruists, and no effect of participants’ cheating tendencies. A second experiment using a slightly different methodology produced similar results, with some evidence for enhanced memory for altruists.
- ItemPsychological Sketches (8th Edition)(Psyence Ink, 2007) Vokey, John R.; Allen, Scott W.Each of the chapters in this book is a short sketch of a particular topic in psychology. They can be read in any order as each chapter is meant to be a self-contained story. By the end of the book, we hope you will have learned what experimental psychology is about, what experimental psychologists do, and more specifically, what experimental psychologists do in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge.
- ItemThinking with data (4th Edition)(Psyence Ink, 2007) Vokey, John R.; Allen, Scott W.This book comprises a collection of lecture notes for the statistics component of the course Psychology 2030: Methods and Statistics from the Department of Psychology at the University of Lethbridge. In addition to basic statistical methods, the book includes discussion of many other useful topics. For example, it has a section on writing in APA format (see Chapter 17), and another on how to read the professional psychological literature (see Chapter 16). We even provide a subsection on the secret to living to be 100 years of age (see section A.2.2)- although the solution may not be fully satisfactory! Despite this volume comprising the fourth edition of the book, it is still very much a work in progress, and is by no means complete. However, despite its current limitations, we expect that students will find it to be a useful adjunct to the lectures. We welcome any suggestions on additions and improvements to the book, and, of course, the report of any typos and other errors. Please email any such errors or corrections to: vokey@uleth.ca or allens@uleth.ca.
- ItemThe validity of phallometric assessment with rapists : Comments on Looman & Marshall(Springer, 2007) Lalumière, Martin L.; Rice, M. E.In a recent article Looman and Marshall (2005) questioned the validity of phallometric assessment of rapists based on the results of a study of incarcerated rapists and child molesters. In this commentary we offer (1) a critique of the methods used and conclusions reached by Looman and Marshall and (2) a discussion of important methodological issues relevant to phallometry. We conclude that the correct inference from Looman and Marshall’s study is that rapists, as a group, show a pattern of sexual arousal to audiotaped scenarios of coercive and non-coercive sex that significantly differs from the pattern of groups of non-sex offenders, in agreement with the general literature on this question.
- ItemCommon HLA alleles associated with health, but not with facial attractiveness(Public Library of Science, 2007) Coetzee, Vinet; Barrett, Louise; Greeff, Jaco M.; Henzi, Peter; Perrett, David I.; Wadee, Ahmed A.Three adaptive hypotheses have been proposed to explain the link between the human leucocyte antigen (HLA) genes, health measures and facial attractiveness: inbreeding avoidance, heterozygote advantage and frequency-dependent selection. This paper reports findings that support a new hypothesis relating HLA to health. We suggest a new method to quantify the level of heterozygosity. HLA heterozygosity did not significantly predict health measures in women, but allele frequency did. Women with more common HLA alleles reported fewer cold and flu bouts per year, fewer illnesses in the previous year and rated themselves healthier than women with rare alleles. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show a positive correlation between HLA allele frequency and general health measures. We propose that certain common HLA alleles confer resistance to prevalent pathogens. Nevertheless, neither HLA heterozygosity nor allele frequency significantly predicted how healthy or attractive men rated the female volunteers. Three non-mutually exclusive explanations are put forward to explain this finding.
- ItemThe view from the cuckold: A review of S. M. Platek and T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Female infidelity and paternal uncertainty: Evolutionary perspectives on male anti-cuckoldry tactics(Evolutionary Psychology, 2007) Suschinsky, Kelly D.; Lalumière, Martin L.A Review of Steven M. Platek and Todd K. Shackelford (Eds.), Female Infidelity and Paternal Uncertainty: Evolutionary Perspectives on Male Anti-Cuckoldry Tactics. Cambridge University Press: New York, 2006. 248 pp. US$ 55.00 ISBN 0-521-60734-5 (paperback)
- ItemEthics and invertebrates: a cephalopod perspective(Inter Research, 2007) Mather, Jennifer A.; Anderson, Roland C.This paper first explores 3 philosophical bases for attitudes to invertebrates, Contractarian/Kantian, Utilitarian, and Rights-based, and what they lead us to conclude about how we use and care for these animals. We next discuss the problems of evaluating pain and suffering in invertebrates, pointing out that physiological responses to stress are widely similar across the animal kingdom and that most animals show behavioral responses to potentially painful stimuli. Since cephalopods are often used as a test group for consideration of pain, distress and proper conditions for captivity and handling, we evaluate their behavioral and cognitive capacities. Given these capacities, we then discuss practical issues: minimization of their pain and suffering during harvesting for food; ensuring that captive cephalopods are properly cared for, stimulated and allowed to live as full a life as possible; and, lastly, working for their conservation.
- ItemCoercive and precocious sexuality as a fundamental aspect of psychopathy(Guilford Press, 2007-02) Harris, Grant T.; Rice, M. E.; Hilton, N. Z.; Lalumière, Martin L.; Quinsey, V. L.Sexual behavior is closely associated with delinquency and crime. Although psychopaths, by definition, have many short-term sexual relationships, it has not been shown that sexuality is a core aspect of psychopathy. A Darwinian view of psychopathy led to the hypothesis that psychopaths have a unique sexuality involving early, frequent, and coercive sex. Our subjects were 512 sex offenders assessed on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R). Five variables reflecting early, frequent, and coercive sex loaded on the same principal component in exploratory factor analysis on a subset of the sample, whereas PCL-R items pertaining to adult sexual behavior did not. Confirmatory factor analysis of the remaining subjects yielded a measurement model containing three inter-correlated factors – the traditional two PCL-R factors, and coercive and precocious sexuality. Taxometric analyses gave evidence of a natural discontinuity underlying coercive and precocious sexuality. Coercive and precocious sexuality yielded statistically significant associations with other study variables predicted by the Darwinian hypothesis. The present findings are consistent with prior empirical findings and support the hypothesis that psychopathy has been a nonpathological, reproductively viable, alternate life history strategy.
- ItemReflection: teaching a non-course(Kwantlen Polytechnic University, 2008) Mather, Jennifer A.A year ago (Spring, 2007), I was on sabbatical. Being on sabbatical means focusing on my intellectual development rather than that of my students. That also means not teaching courses, but I had been teaching...a non-course. This small paper is a reflection on the experience
- ItemOctopus vulgaris in the Caribbean is a specializing generalist(Inter Research, 2008) Anderson, Roland C.; Wood, James B.; Mather, Jennifer A.The diet of Octopus vulgaris was determined from the remains of 649 prey items gathered from the middens of 38 dens in a small area off the Caribbean island of Bonaire. Remains of 35 species of gastropod (19% of the total), 19 bivalves (51%) and 21 crustaceans (30%) were identified and examined for mode of entry into hard-shelled prey. Although 60% of the gastropods were drilled, neither the size/weight ratio nor the presence of an operculum determined whether drilling occurred. There were strong differences in prey preference among individual octopuses, and the Cardona niche breadth index (B’) of the midden items was 0.08, indicative of specialization. Examples include the exclusive preference for Pinna carnea by one den occupant. This study, by focusing on assessment of preference at specific den locations, is the first to show that while the population had a wide choice of prey items, the individual choices were much narrower, indicating that octopuses were specializing generalists.
- ItemFacial-based ethnic recognition: insights from two closely related by ethnically distinct groups(Academy of Science of South Africa, 2009) Coetzee, Vinet; Greeff, Jaco M.; Barrett, Louise; Henzi, PeterPrevious studies on facial recognition have considered widely separated populations, both geographically and culturally, making it hard to disentangle effects of familiarity with an ability to identify ethnic groups per se.We used data from a highly intermixed population of African peoples from South Africa to test whether individuals from nine different ethnic groups could correctly differentiate between facial images of two of these, the Tswana and Pedi. Individuals could not assign ethnicity better than expected by chance, and there was no significant difference between genders in accuracy of assignment. Interestingly, we observed a trend that individuals of mixed ethnic origin were better at assigning ethnicity to Pedi and Tswanas, than individuals from less mixed backgrounds. This result supports the hypothesis that ethnic recognition is based on the visual expertise gained with exposure to different ethnic groups.