Driver fatigue: The importance of identifying causal factors of fatigue when considering detection and countermeasure technologies

Driver fatigue is an ill-defined term in the literature. It has been broadly used to refer to a wide range of driver states, each with different causal mechanisms. Technologies currently exist which enable detection of driver fatigue and interventions that have the potential to dramatically reduce crash probability. The successful implementation of these technologies depends on the cause and type of fatigue experienced. Sleep-related (SR) forms of driver fatigue result from accumulated sleep debt, prolonged wakefulness or troughs in the circadian rhythms. SR fatigue is resistant to most intervention strategies. Conversely, technologies for detecting and countering task-related (TR) fatigue (caused by mental overload or underload) are proving to be effective tools for improving transportation safety. Methods of detecting and counteracting the various forms of driver fatigue are discussed. Emphasis is placed on examining the effectiveness of existing and emerging technologies for combating TR forms of driver fatigue.     

Reactions to Different Types of Forced Distribution Performance Evaluation Systems

Purpose  We isolate and describe four key elements that distinguish different forms of forced distribution systems (FDS). These key elements are the consequences for low performers, differentiation of rewards for top performers, frequency of feedback, and comparison group size. We examine how these elements influence respondents’ attraction to FDS. Design/methodology/approach  Undergraduate students (n = 163) completed a policy capturing study designed to determine how these four FDS elements influence their attraction to FDS. We examine the relative importance of these elements that most influence attraction to different FDS, as well as individual attributes (i.e., cognitive ability, gender, and major) that may affect those preferences. Findings  Respondents were most attracted to systems with less stringent treatment of low performers, high differentiation of rewards, frequent feedback and large comparison groups. Consequences for low performers were nearly twice as influential as any other element. Respondents with higher cognitive ability favored high reward differentiation and males were less affected by stringent consequences for low performers. Implications  Before practitioners implement FDS, it would be prudent to consider all four elements examined in this study—with the treatment of low performers being the most salient issue. Future accounts of FDS should clarify the nature of these elements when reporting on FDS. Such precision will be useful in generating a knowledge base on FDS. Originality/value   We add precision to the discussion of FDS by identifying four key elements. This is one of the first studies to examine perceptions of FDS from a ratee perspective.

Segmenting dynamic human action via statistical structure

Human social, cognitive, and linguistic functioning depends on skills for rapidly processing action. Identifying distinct acts within the dynamic motion flow is one basic component of action processing; for example, skill at segmenting action is foundational to action categorization, verb learning, and comprehension of novel action sequences. Yet little is currently known about mechanisms that may subserve action segmentation. The present research documents that adults can register statistical regularities providing clues to action segmentation. This finding provides new evidence that structural knowledge gained by mechanisms such as statistical learning can play a role in action segmentation, and highlights a striking parallel between processing of action and processing in other domains, such as language.     

Putting feelings into words: affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity in response to affective stimuli

Putting feelings into words (affect labeling) has long been thought to help manage negative emotional experiences; however, the mechanisms by which affect labeling produces this benefit remain largely unknown. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest a possible neurocognitive pathway for this process, but methodological limitations of previous studies have prevented strong inferences from being drawn. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of affect labeling was conducted to remedy these limitations. The results indicated that affect labeling, relative to other forms of encoding, diminished the response of the amygdala and other limbic regions to negative emotional images. Additionally, affect labeling produced increased activity in a single brain region, right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC). Finally, RVLPFC and amygdala activity during affect labeling were inversely correlated, a relationship that was mediated by activity in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). These results suggest that affect labeling may diminish emotional reactivity along a pathway from RVLPFC to MPFC to the amygdala.     

The Effect of Approach and Avoidance Referents on Academic Outcomes: A Test of Competing Predictions

In an academic setting, we tested competing predictions derived from two conceptual models about the effects of approach and avoidance referents (e.g., goals and role models) on student performance. One model suggests a main effect such that focusing on approach referents leads to better outcomes than focusing on avoidance referents, regardless of personality (e.g., A. J. Elliot & K. M. Sheldon, 1997). Another model suggests an interaction such that focusing on either approach or avoidance referents can lead to positive outcomes, but only when people are promotion focused or prevention focused, respectively (e.g., P. Lockwood, C. H. Jordan, & Z. Kunda, 2002). Findings supported the main effect model. The more prevention focused participants were, the more avoidance goals they generated, which led to poorer grades.

Children use whole-part juxtaposition as a pragmatic cue to word meaning

When parents label novel parts of familiar objects, they typically provide familiar whole-object terms before offering novel part terms (e.g., "See this cup? This is the rim."). Such whole-part juxtaposition might help children to accurately interpret the meaning of novel part terms, but it can do so only if they recognize the conjunction as a potential cue to part meaning. Two studies examined (a) whether 3- to 4-year-olds use whole-part juxtaposition to accurately interpret novel part terms and (b) how they might do so. Study 1 confirmed that children indeed use juxtaposition to guide learning of novel part terms. Furthermore, 2 control conditions clarified that children's use of juxtaposition was not simply due to memory effects, such as the facilitation of lexical access, nor to recognition of the grammatical frame that typically accompanies juxtaposition. Study 2 revealed that children readily use juxtaposition in a novel, gestural format. Such flexibility in recognizing and utilizing novel variants of juxtaposition strongly suggests that pragmatic understanding lies at the heart of children's sensitivity to whole-part juxtaposition.     

Discerning intentions in dynamic human action

When we observe others in motion, we usually care little about the surface behaviors they exhibit. What matters are their underlying intentions. Judgments about intentions and intentionality dictate how we understand and remember others' actions, how we respond, and what we predict about their future action. A generative knowledge system underlies our skill at discerning intentions, enabling us to comprehend intentions even when action is novel and unfolds in complex ways over time. Recent work spanning many disciplines illuminates some of the processes involved in intention detection. We review these developments and articulate a set of questions cutting across current theoretical dividing lines.     

The Night the Raving Died: The Social Construction of a Local Drug Panic

Scholars have recently reformulated the moral panic framework (Goode and Ben-Yehuda 1994 Goode , Erich and Nachman Ben-Yehuda . 1994 . Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing Ltd . [Google Scholar], 2009 ——— . 2009 . Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance , 2nd ed . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing Ltd . [Google Scholar]). We employ this new framework in an evaluation of Gainesville, Florida's adoption of the anti-rave law. Our findings suggest that both individuals and groups were vital in the construction of an interest group model moral panic that led to the adoption of this law. Although researchers have utilized the moral panic framework in analyzing many social and legal changes over the past 40 years, it has also garnered much criticism. In an effort to further advance the framework, we provide several modifications to Goode and Ben-Yehuda's (2009 ——— . 2009 . Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance , 2nd ed . Oxford : Blackwell Publishing Ltd . [Google Scholar]) most recent reconceptualization and recommendations for future moral panic research.     

Object Perception,Attention, and Memory 2008 Conference Report 16th Annual Meeting,Chicago, IL,USA

We investigated how processing unfolds across time as adults view novel manual activity. Adults advanced through slideshows of an actor performing sleight-of-hand manoeuvres; dwell times were recorded to each slide. As in past work involving larger-scale intentional action scenarios, adults allocated more attention to slides depicting breakpoints—transitions from one event segment to the next—than slides displaying mid-stream action, indicating that dwell times are sensitive to adults' recovery of segmental structure in intricate manual activity. Adults also allocated increased attention towards slides indicative of causal structure, indicating that dwell times index processing of causally relevant information as well as segmental structure. We were additionally curious if adults' learning outcomes would differ as a function of whether they paced themselves or watched slideshows advance at a computer-controlled pace. Memory did not differ, but adults viewing computer-controlled slideshows displayed an advantage in performing the tricks. A single attentional focus may have helped adults learn to re-enact the actions, relative to a split attentional focus.     

Intraclass correlation associated with therapists: estimates and applications in planning psychotherapy research

It is essential that outcome research permit clear conclusions to be drawn about the efficacy of interventions. The common practice of nesting therapists within conditions can pose important methodological challenges that affect interpretation, particularly if the study is not powered to account for the nested design. An obstacle to the optimal design of these studies is the lack of data about the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), which measures the statistical dependencies introduced by nesting. To begin the development of a public database of ICC estimates, the authors investigated ICCs for a variety outcomes reported in 20 psychotherapy outcome studies. The magnitude of the 495 ICC estimates varied widely across measures and studies. The authors provide recommendations regarding how to select and aggregate ICC estimates for power calculations and show how researchers can use ICC estimates to choose the number of patients and therapists that will optimize power. Attention to these recommendations will strengthen the validity of inferences drawn from psychotherapy studies that nest therapists within conditions.