Showing papers by "Nicholls State University published in 1978"

Duration of Tonic Immobility In Lizards (Anolis Carolinensis) as a Function of Repeated Immobilization, Frequent Handling, and Laboratory Maintenance

Abstract: Research has shown that chickens given repeated elicitations of the tonic immobility reaction, an habituation procedure, show larger decrements in duration of tonic immobility on a subsequent test trial than do either birds given simple handling or naive animals. The present study attempted to replicate this finding with another animal commonly used in studies of tonic immobility, the anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis). Experiment 1 employed the between-groups design used in previous studies and failed to detect differences among the three treatments (habituated, handled, and naive) in duration of immobility. A second experiment used a within-subjects measure of immobility duration to demonstrate that the habituation procedure and simple handling produce similar decrements in duration of immobility. The final experiment demonstrated that anoles maintained in a group-living situation, with some daily exposure to humans, also show reliable decrements in duration of immobility. These results are congruent with those obtained by Boice and Williams (1971) with frogs (Rana pipiens).

A goodness of fit algorithm for empirical data

Abstract: This paper describes a computer program that fits empirical data to any of 10 theoretical distributions. Tests include the Chi-square, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Moments Test. Of particular interest is an interface language which has been appended in order to ease the burden of input. This program has been used successfully in stochastic simulation and modeling courses for the past four years at the University of Southern Mississippi.