The hippocampus is not necessary for a place response but may be necessary for pliancy.

Rats with kainate-colchicine hippocampal lesions (HL) and controls (C) were initially trained in the Morris water maze with procedures that deterred their prepotent thigmotaxic response. Training began with an escape platform that occupied nearly the entire pool. The area to which the rats could escape was made smaller by substituting smaller platforms as training progressed. In contrast to standard procedures, HL rats and C rats showed comparable performance during acquisition and preferentially searched the goal quadrant on probe trials during which the platform was removed. In a follow-up experiment, the platform was moved to a random position along the wall, which required a switch to a thigmotaxic response for most effective escape. HL rats that were thigmotaxic before place training did not switch to a thigmotaxic response as readily as did controls, behavior consistent with the view that hippocampal damage reduces pliancy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Corrections for range restriction in structured interview ethnic group differences: The values may be larger than researchers thought.

Previous studies of standardized ethnic group differences in the employment interview have shown differences to be relatively small. Unfortunately, many researchers conducting interview studies have not considered the issue of range restriction in research design. This omission is likely to lead to underestimates of standardized ethnic group differences (d) when the interview is considered as an initial screening device or used in combination with other initial screening devices. The authors found that 2 forms of a behavioral interview were associated with standardized ethnic group differences of .36 and .56 when corrected for range restriction. These differences are substantially larger than previously thought and demonstrate the importance of considering a variety of study design characteristics in obtaining the appropriate parameter estimates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)