Using Selective Redundancy to Eliminate the Seductive Details Effect

The seductive details effect occurs when adding interesting, but extraneous, details to a lesson impairs learning of the lesson's key information. Although instructors could simply remove such interesting details, prior research suggests that interest can be a powerful motivating factor for learning. In the present research, we attempted to recruit the motivational benefits of seductive details without eliciting their detrimental effects by manipulating the redundancy between narrated and on‐screen verbal information within a multimedia lesson. We presented 69 college students with different instructional videos, one in which key facts were presented with on‐screen text slightly different from the narration, while seductive details were presented with on‐screen text that was identical to the narration. We eliminated the seductive details effect for these participants, indicating that partial redundancy can be used as a means by which interesting details can be included in a lesson without detracting from the learning of key facts.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Metacognition and proofreading: the roles of aging,motivation, and interest

The current study examined younger and older adults’ error detection accuracy, prediction calibration, and postdiction calibration on a proofreading task, to determine if age-related differences would be present in this type of common error detection task. Participants were given text passages, and were first asked to predict the percentage of errors they would detect in the passage. They then read the passage and circled errors (which varied in complexity and locality), and made postdictions regarding their performance, before repeating this with another passage and answering a comprehension test of both passages. There were no age-related differences in error detection accuracy, text comprehension, or metacognitive calibration, though participants in both age groups were overconfident overall in their metacognitive judgments. Both groups gave similar ratings of motivation to complete the task. The older adults rated the passages as more interesting than younger adults did, although this level of interest did not appear to influence error-detection performance. The age equivalence in both proofreading ability and calibration suggests that the ability to proofread text passages and the associated metacognitive monitoring used in judging one’s own performance are maintained in aging. These age-related similarities persisted when younger adults completed the proofreading tasks on a computer screen, rather than with paper and pencil. The findings provide novel insights regarding the influence that cognitive aging may have on metacognitive accuracy and text processing in an everyday task.     

Baseline measurement of running away among youth in foster care

The current study evaluated the use of various behavioral measures of running away with regard to (a) the differential utility of interval- versus event-based measures, (b) the differential utility of rate versus duration measures, (c) the utility of correcting for occurrence opportunity, and (d) the influence of unit of analysis (i.e., single-subject vs. grouped data). Seven different baseline measures were calculated for 84 runaways, and a unit-size analysis was conducted by constructing groups of various sizes from the original sample. An expert panel evaluated the suitability of the baseline measures for treatment evaluation. Results demonstrate the utility of evaluating duration-based measures and correcting for occurrence opportunity. Results also indicate that single-subject baselines may often be unacceptable for treatment evaluations, regardless of the type of measure selected for use.     

Youth-Adult Partnerships in Decision Making: Disseminating and Implementing an Innovative Idea into Established Organizations and Communities

The principles and processes for engaging youth-adult partnerships (Y-AP) in organizational and community decision making have often been articulated from developmental and social justice perspectives. A broad empirical foundation for Y-AP has been established. Y-AP remains an innovative idea in the United States, however. The belief that youth and adults can, and should, collaborate on issues of importance runs counter to prevailing policies, institutional structures, and community norms. 4-H Youth Development is one public system that is actively seeking to disseminate and implement Y-AP. 4-H Youth Development seeks to integrate Y-AP into its own governance structures as well as those of local government and community coalitions. Through qualitative analysis of the efforts in one Midwestern state, this study examines the contextual challenges faced by county staff-the providers of program support within 4-H Youth Development-and the ways in which county staff respond to these obstacles. This project identifies the goals, leverage points, and strategies through which county staff seek to integrate Y-AP into established forums of decision making. Implications for the dissemination and implementation of principle and process-based innovation are offered, with special attention to the role of the program support system.     

No pain, no gain: Perceptions of calorie expenditures of exercise and daily activities

Reduction in physical activity is considered a major contributor to weight problems. Increasingly, people are expending less energy in household chores but joining fitness clubs. Do people perceive ordinary daily activities to expend less energy than exercise activities using similar amounts of calories? In the present study college students were asked to evaluate the calorie expenditure of 30 physical activities (i.e., exercises and household tasks). The household tasks were matched (in terms of caloric expenditure) to at least one exercise activity. When participants rated both exercise and daily activities, it appears that they focused on rate of caloric expenditure rather than type of activity (i.e., household task or exercise). In Study 2, college students evaluated the energy expenditure of light/leisure, moderate, and intense exercise. This emphasis concerning the benefit of intense physical activity was observed once again. College students appear to have assimilated the belief that intense physical activity expends more energy than longer sessions of lower intensity physical activity using similar amounts of calories. Perhaps one reason why people are not physically active is that they believe physical activities must be intense to be of benefit. At the same time they are automatizing household chores and, thus, become less active overall.     

Mother's attachment representations of their premature infant at 6 and 18 months after birth

The effects of premature birth on attachment have generally been examined from the infant's perspective. There is a lack of data concerning parental attachment representations toward a premature child. Because of the psychological stress engendered in parents confronted with a premature birth, we hypothesized that their attachment representations would be altered during the first months after the hospital discharge. Fifty families with a premature infant (25–33 gestation weeks) and a control group of 30 families with a full‐term infant participated to the study. Perinatal risks were evaluated during hospitalization. To assess mothers' representations of their infant, the Working Model of the Child Interview (WMCI, Zeanah & Benoit, 1995 & Benoit, Zeanah, Parker, Nicholson, & Coolbear, 1997) were administered when their children were 6 and 18 months old. The severity of the perinatal risks was found to have an impact on the mothers' attachment representations. At six months, only 20% of the mothers of a prematurely born infant (30% at 18 months) had secure attachment representations, vs. 53% for the control group (57% at 18 months). Furthermore, mothers of low‐risk premature infants more often had disengaged representations, whereas distorted representations were more frequent in the high‐risk group of premature children. These findings suggest that the parental response to a premature birth is linked to the severity of postnatal risks. The fact that secure attachment representations are affected in mothers of low‐risk infants just as much as they are in mothers of high‐risk infants points to the need to conduct further studies aimed at evaluating whether preventive intervention for both low‐risk and high‐risk premature will be helpful.