The Urban Fox

After slumbering most of the day, the urban fox awoke just as the sun settled down over the distant hinterland. Stretching it's long body, it began to explore it's territory. Perched on a hill, it's den overlooked four lanes of main road and the industrial buildings that lay across from it. Trees surround the foxes den, with moist, soft earth to make new holes and food caches in. The fox knew there were others of his kind about, but few enough that usually just his scent markings were enough to keep them away.

Of course the most important thing in the fox's life was food and the steady supply of it. Each night he would snake through the low dense bush towards the main road. The fox slowed as he got closer to the road. An unpleasant odor always caused him to be wary as he approached. Even more than usual his nose would be busy, sniffing the air for threats. That night as he got closer to the road he saw something just to the side of it. Edging closer to inspect what it was, he saw the corpse of a fellow fox on the side of the road. After sniffing it a few times, the fox then made his way across.

On the other side of the road in the industrial area were two buildings that were of great interest to the fox. A bread factory, and next to it, a food processing plant. The waste product from these two buildings caused rodents to frequent the area. Without much effort the fox would usually come home with three large rats in it's mouth. This night was no different and the fox crossed back over the road. It scurried through the low bush and up the hill to it's destination. Suddenly the fox dropped it's prey, tensing and sniffing the air. An unfamiliar but welcome scent permeated the cool night air. It's head low to the ground, the fox slowly crept his way through the scrub. As the scent got stronger the fox slowed it's pace, knowing that whatever it was lay just beyond the long grass in front of him. Peeking his nose through he saw a vixen pawing at one of his food caches.

The fox made it's way into the clearing. The vixen, reacting immediately, submitted by rolling and exposing it's soft underbelly. The fox looked curiously at the stranger. Usually the smell of another fox is a cause for alarm, to spring into action and defend it's territory, but there was something different about this scent. The sight and smell of this fox caused something to click, a sort of instinctive urge that must be followed. The fox trotted over to the vixen, and after realising a confrontation wasn't forthcoming, both foxes began to smell and inspect each other.

Life went on for the fox much as it did before. After dusk it would make it's way through the low bush, slowing and sniffing the air as it approached the road. After crossing the road it would find and kill it's prey and then make the return trip home. However while in the past it would eat and then bury the remaining food, it would now bring a share back for it's new found companion. The fox felt strange sharing it's food at first but after awhile the attraction it felt to the vixen erased that feeling. Something that ran against the grain of all his survival instincts bubbled to the surface since running into her. In the past he lived a selfish life, finding food, burying food and digging holes just for himself. Now he did these things for two, and even though it was harder and reduced his chances of survival, he knew he had to keep at it. The fox also felt a need for extra vigilance as he patrolled his territory, the vixen was becoming larger and more defenseless to any threats that may be lurking on his borders. The fox returned home that night and dropped the food at the vixen's feet, her appreciative eyes looking back at the fox as she nuzzled him affectionately. Both foxes retired to the corner of their large den, and using each other for warmth, fell asleep.

It was the next night, and as the fox made his way closer to his den, he heard sounds of distress. Dropping the rats from his jaws, he streaked towards his home. Entering, he saw the vixen in obvious pain and discomfort. For a while the fox was scared and confused, not knowing what was happening and also worried about his companion. After a few minutes of confusion, the fox noticed a wet furry bundle down near the abdomen area of the vixen. The scent was completely new to the fox, and he approached the bundle and began licking it clean, wondering what it was. As he licked the first one clean, three more bundles appear, and the vixen licked the others clean herself. When they were done the two foxes stared proudly at the four squirming cubs in front of them. Before all these events in his life, the fox would have seen these blind defenseless infants as nothing but an easy meal. Now when he looked at his cubs he saw not only the survival of himself, but something deeper. A feeling that for him to properly live then these cubs must live as well.

The road was south of his den, and the fox rarely traveled north. Up the hill were only houses, which contained no prey for the fox, and also humans, which gave off a scent the fox was terrified of. That night, one of the residents made a small mistake before going to bed. As she closed one of the gates in her yard a latch failed to click home. All the gate needed to open was a slight push. Belonging to this person were two dogs, who longed for the freedom of the bushland that spread out behind her house.

The fox made his way back to the den after another successful hunt. The fox had learned many lessons over the past few months. Before he was only capable of taking care of himself but the lessons he had learned had made him capable of so much more. During the time with his vixen he had been taught how to look after others, how to make sure that not only he but his offspring's survival are ensured. Suddenly loud noises and an ominous scent caused the fox to again drop his prey and quickly make his way back to the den.

It didn't take long for the two large dogs to find their way through the unlocked gate. Buoyed by their new-found freedom, the dogs bounded their way into the bush to see what trouble they could get up to. Following a scent trail they didn't recognize, they made their way south towards a bunch of tall trees. The dogs approached the clearing and stopped, noticing an enticing looking hole dug into the side of a small hill.

The vixen heard and smelled the dogs coming, and had put herself between the entry and her cubs. Her ears twitched with panic as she heard and smelt the dogs making their way towards her den. The vixen went low to the ground and bore her teeth, trying to make herself look threatening as she saw the two sets of eyes just outside the foxhole. The dogs, startled by the strange animal at first, then began to growl and bare their teeth. They descended upon her, and despite her fight the dogs made short work of her, and even shorter work of the cubs. During the vixen's last moments she thought of her cubs, and also of where her precious fox could be.

The fox's nose was sticking through the grass, much like his first sighting of the vixen, as the two dogs made their way towards his den. Instinctive urges raged in the fox's mind, not knowing exactly what to do. As the dogs began to lay waste to his vixen and cubs, the realisation that he would die if he intervened dawned upon him. Conflict arose in his thinking, as the feeling that the cubs must survive battled with the instincts of his own survival. The sound of the struggle abruptly ended in the foxhole, and the two dogs emerged with bloody jaws. A shrill whistle in the distance caused the dogs to stand to attention, and then make their way back up the hill, and as they did, the fox made his way slowly towards the den.

The owner of the two dogs stood at the top of the hill by the open gate as she watched the two dogs running towards her. She admonished them, and then watched them run back through the gate into the yard. As she was turning to enter the yard herself, a sound startled her. A long, howling human like scream, as the urban fox learned another lesson.

_____

get a life

After slumbering?

I only got that far.

cliffs notes please

I don't want to sound like an internet critic, but, hell, you posted it here. The idea is good, the execution is mediocre. Much of the story is quite irrelevant, which is usually excused by vivid imagery but in this case is not. It just needs something, either humour, mental stimulation or visceral emotions to make it really pop.

I charge $40 per draft.

I reckon it needs shortening.

i see lots of words

I think posting 'tl;dr' will soon be a bannable offense

if you have nothing useful to add, kindly save your comments for a time when you do

Good story, nice writing, a little depressing though

Yeah too early for depressing s*** like that fpot, fox should've owned. Hope this isn't an autobiography

Hope this isn't an autobiography

Nah I need a vixen for that :P

what a depressing story

can someone summarise into 2 lines ;lease

can someone summarise into 2 lines please

Story about a fox who is lonely, finds a vixen, learns how to provide for 2
Dogs get let out from a property one day and f*** up vixen and cubs, fox goes back to fpot mode and lets them die

The fox wasn't lonely !@!@!@

It's ITS!!! Not IT'S!

Didn't do much for me. Needs more characters to be involved in. Personification of the enemy... etc.

I think posting 'tl;dr' will soon be a bannable offense

I fully support this proposition. Over-use of the semicolon is pretentious; gay.

ohnos

im in trouble then

I think posting 'tl;dr' will soon be a bannable offense

I personally think people should be encouraged to be more concise on the Internet and this is the commonly accepted standard for communicating that concept.

being a dick and then saying you're not going to be while coating it in a very, very thin layer of sugar, doesn't mean you're not being a dick fyi

no

hehe he said moist...

less writing, moar beating to death of patrons with all your buddies plez

I disagree with trying to manually shape the culture of qgl, you get whatever comes out and that's it

break it down over the next 8 on 9 forum subjects you reply to...

it'll avoid the tl;dr comments, and hey - you know this worked for Lost :P


btw - keep it going dude

tl;dr

Transfer: Pigeons Can Do It and So Can We
Transfer is the ability to apply previously learned knowledge and skills to new situations (Detterman, 1993). There is evidence that even pigeons can transfer newly learned abstract concepts to novel settings (Bodily, Katz and Wright, 2008). I will attempt to show that, like our feathered counterparts, research supports the ability of humans to transfer skills learned in one domain to other domains. This evidence suggests that the basic philosophy of our education system is not fundamentally flawed.

The philosophy of our education system is based on the doctrine of formal discipline as described by Anderson (2000): the mind is comprised of different components like observation, attention discrimination and reasoning which can all be exercised, much like a muscle. The specific content learned during these exercises is less important than the principles of the learning, which can lead to transfer at a general level and even span different domains (Anderson, 2000). However, Anderson (2000) also comments that there has been no convincing evidence to support this notion in about one hundred years of research. Edward Thorndike is often referred to as one of the first to empirically show little evidence for transfer (see Anderson, 2000; Detterman, 1993). His early studies led to the development of the theory of identical elements which opposed the notion of the mind consisting of general components (Anderson, 2000). Instead, Thorndike’s theory held that the mind’s functions are made of specific habits and associations, each of which can only be used as responses in specific circumstances. This has implications for the education system as Detterman (1993) plainly states: if you want someone to know something, teach it to them. However, I argue that Thorndike’s studies are problematic in themselves and that his research is certainly not a basis to claim the education system is flawed.

A review of one such study reveals some problems with Thorndike’s criticisms of transfer: participants were trained in estimating shape sizes and were then required to estimate new shape sizes (Thorndike & Woodworth, 1901). Participants did not appear to transfer information learned from one square to another. I refer to this study in particular because it is the first that Detterman (1993) refers to that fails to show evidence of transfer and is one of the earliest studies in the area. I argue, however, that this paradigm used by Thorndike is fundamentally flawed: most students of psychology will have been exposed to visual illusions like the Muller-Lyer illusion (Muller-Lyer, 1886) and the parallel-lines illusion (Wundt, 1898). In these illusions, two lines of the same length appear to be different lengths (Muller-Lyer, 1886) or two straight lines appear to bend (Wundt, 1898). I am not necessarily suggesting that Thorndike’s task involved perceptual illusion, but I am pointing out that often simple tasks requiring perception are much more difficult for humans than first thought. Simply put, I believe neural mechanisms make it difficult to complete such shape comparing tasks as used by Thorndike and Woodworth (1901) regardless of any sort of transfer. Therefore, Thorndike’s failure to show transfer in this task does not exclude skills and knowledge acquired in one domain to be transferred to others. Moreover, Thorndike’s theory of identical elements as discussed by Anderson (2000) does not entirely negate transfer, but suggests that it only happens in similar, specific domains. As I will continue to argue, domain specificity is not always needed for transfer and for these reasons our education system’s operations are not necessarily flawed.

Lehman, Lempert and Nisbett (1988) conducted a study arguing against transfer only occurring under conditions of domain specificity as proposed by Thorndike (1906, cited in Lehman et al., 1988). This study investigated whether or not skills learned by first and third year psychology, medicine, law and chemistry students are transferable to everyday-life events (Lehman et al., 1988). Results showed that students of psychology, medicine and law used in this study can apply specialised reasoning to everyday-life problems while students of chemistry cannot (Lehman et al., 1988). These results contradict those of Thorndike and Woodworth (1901) and Detterman’s (1993) arguments and are explained not only by the subject matter like statistical and methodological reasoning taught in psychology, medicine and law (as opposed to chemistry) but also in the ways that these issues are presented: teachings of these areas were often referred to within in real-world contexts (Lehman et al., 1988). Lehman et al. (1988) propose that these fields teach pragmatic reasoning schemas which capture the consistencies among problems and events encountered in everyday life. This clearly shows that although transfer may not occur in certain circumstances, learned skills (particularly in reasoning in this example) can transfer from one domain to other domains. Therefore, the education system’s basic philosophy appears sound. The implications of this research would suggest that it is important to research the precise types of skills and practices being taught during education and how they are being taught to ensure they readily transfer.

Anderson (2000) describes one interesting study that he uses as an example of failure to transfer involving children street vendors, which again is fraught with problems. Carraher, Carraher and Schliemann (1985) informally tested children’s mathematical abilities by posing as customers and asking the cost of different orders. These simple orders were then converted into maths problems and were again given to the children in a more formal setting. The children showed a massive decrease in performance from 98% solved in the streets to only 37% solved in the laboratory. However, greatly contrasted against Anderson’s submission, Carraher et al. (1985), that is, the authors of this very study, are the first to point out that this result does not imply humans are unable to transfer skills from one domain to another. Instead, the authors conclude similar implications to those I drew from the study by Lehman et al. (1988), in that the ways in which educators teach systems like mathematics needs to be in contexts that are readily related to daily problems and events (Carraher et al., (1985). I believe that the results from this study were cited out of context by Anderson (2000). Perhaps a more astute observation would have been that in one condition the children are trying to make a livelihood to survive, while in the other they are not. This touches on motivation as a factor in transfer, a variable that has been previously researched but not mentioned by Anderson (2000).

In an early study by Hall (1936) a meta-analysis of nine previous studies was conducted to investigate the effect of motivation on transfer of skills from learning tasks like mazes and rational learning problems. He found a positive correlation, showing that higher motivated participants showed higher levels of transference. A study showing a similar finding involved seven and eleven year old children who where motivationally primed either prior to learning a skill or prior to transferring the skill (Bereby-Myer and Kaplan, 2005). This study showed that for transfer to occur optimally, motivation was necessary prior to learning a new skill regardless of age. Motivation as a factor in transfer was not mentioned during either Anderson’s (2000) or Detterman’s (1993) criticisms of transfer but is clearly an important issue. Motivation might also help to explain why there is failure of transfer, like in the case of children not being able to use their real-life knowledge of mathematics in a school setting (Carraher et al., 1985). This would also suggest that it is important to keep students in the education system motivated (how to do that is an entirely new question in its own right) but again, transfer from one domain to other domains does occur.

To further show the existence of transfer and the effects of individual differences on transfer, Osman (2008) conducted an experiment involving a simulated water tank control task. Participants were required to balance levels of minerals in a water tank and were able to monitor their performance after a training phase. They were then asked to apply their new skills to new tasks, some of which were identical and some of which were dissimilar to the training task. The level of feedback given to the participants varied to manipulate how easily participants could monitor themselves. This research supported the theory of formal discipline in that participants were able to transfer newly learned skills into new scenarios, regardless of how dissimilar the new scenario was (Osman, 2008). Furthermore, the results showed that monitoring was essential to the success of transfer. Because this study used a conceptually different task to that used by the likes of Carraher et al. (1985), further investigation needs to be conducted to examine the relationship of monitoring on transfer. Osman’s (2008) study suggests it is possible that self-monitoring needs to exist for participants to be able to successfully transfer skills from one domain to another and I believe that it should therefore be a focus of future research. Again, this implies that the philosophy of our education system is not flawed, but that adequate feedback is another necessary aspect of learning.

Just as motivation is a factor, mood is another factor that has been demonstrated to have an effect on level of transfer. Isen, Daubman and Gorgoglione (1987) observed that positive mood can increase cognitive performance. In a study that extended this finding to transfer, Brand and Opwis (2007) induced different states of mood by having participants recall either happy or sad events before undergoing a learning task. During learning, participants were either alone or in pairs, and then the transfer task was performed either individually or in pairs. Put simply, positive mood was the main factor for good performance in the transfer task and it was independent of whether the learning or transfer task was performed individually or in dyads (Brand & Opwis, 2007). Inducing positive mood in a teaching setting is yet another challenge for educators but is important in facilitating transfer from one domain to another.

As I have shown in this essay, studies that have shown failure of transfer do not conclusively prove that it never occurs. I have presented evidence of research showing that transfer across domains is possible and therefore the basic philosophy of our education system which is founded on this premise is not fundamentally flawed. Motivation, self-monitoring and mood are some of the factors that need further exploration in the context of education as they appear to be essential components of the ability to transfer skills and knowledge from one domain to other domains.

References
Anderson, J. R. (2000). Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications (5th Ed). New York:
Worth.
Bereby-Meyer, Y. & Kaplan, A. (2005). Motivational influences on transfer of problem-
solving strategies. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 30, 1-22.
Bodily, K.D., Katz, J.S. & Wright, A.A. (2008). Matching-to-Sample Abstract-Concept
Learning by Pigeons. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 34, 178-184.
Brand, S. & Opwis, K. (2007). Effects of mood and problem solving in dyads on transfer.
Swiss Journal of Psychology, 66, 51-65.
Carraher, T.N., Carraher, D.W. & Schliemann, A.D. (1985). Mathematics in the streets
and in schools. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 3, 21-29.
Detterman, D. K. (1993). The case for the prosecution: Transfer as an epiphenomenon.
In D.K. Detterman & R.J. Sternberg (Eds.), Transfer on Trial: Intelligence,
Cognition, and Instruction (pp.1-24). Norwood: Ablex.
Hall, C.S. (1936). Intercorrelations of measures of human learning. Psychology Review,
43, 179-196.
Isen, A. M., Daubman, K. A., & Gorgoglione, J. M. (1987). The influence of positive
affect on cognitive organization: Implications for education. In R. Snow & M.
Farr (Eds.), Aptitude, Learning and Instruction. Volume 3: Conative and Affective
Process Analyses (pp. 143–167). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lehman, D. R., Lempert, R. O., Nisbett, R. E. (1988). The effects of graduate training on
reasoning. American Psychologist, 43, 431-442.
Miiller-Lyer, F. C. (1889). Optische Urteilstauschungen [Deception of visual judgment].
Dubois-Reymonds Archive pir Anatomie und Physiologie, Supplement, 263-270.
Osman, M. (2008). Positive Transfer and Negative Transfer/Antilearning of Problem-
Solving Skills. Journal of Educational Psychology, 137, 97-115.
Thorndike, E.L. & Woodworth, R.S. (1901). The influence of improvement in one mental
function upon the efficiency of other fuctions. II. The estimation of magnitudes.
Psychological Review, 8, 384-395.
Wundt, W. (1898). Die geometrisch-optischen Tauschungen [Geometrical and optical
illusions]. Akademie der sa'chsischen Wissenschaften Leipzig, 24, 53-178.

WTF?

I think what Billy was trying to say was:


the lowest common denominator will always win out.


*meh*

last edited by koopz at 21:34:54 23/May/08

Funny, you once told me that my writing was atrocious and that you had to reread it continually because it could not be understood (or something to that effect).

I never said anything like that! Are you talking about that eugenics thread? I think that went more like you saying 'you don't understand what I am saying' or something.

Thanks for the critque though.

if anyone else is bored i have 2 x 3000 word papers due next friday that i should be writing instead of reading this thread!

whats tl;dr mean anyway?

Too long; didn't read. Definitely up there as one of the lamest abbreviations on the internet unless used in a highly comical fashion.

ahh...thx Will