Gross-motor skill acquisition by preschool dance students under self-instruction procedures

The effects of two training procedures--(a) modeling and praise and (b) self-instruction, modeling, and praise--on complex gross-motor chain acquisition for preschool dance class students were evaluated. Six girls participated in the study. A multiple baseline design across six gross-motor chains with a secondary group comparison for treatment order effects was used. Both procedures were effective in teaching the gross-motor chains. Nevertheless, for 4 of the 6 participants, the self-instruction procedure produced a faster acquisition rate in at least two of the three comparable pairs of gross-motor chains. Furthermore, very early in gross-motor chain acquisition, for five of the six gross-motor chains, the self-instruction condition was associated with faster response acquisition.     

Chronic pain, stress, and the dynamics of affective differentiation

We describe a program of research examining how the relationship between positive and negative affect varies both between individuals and within individuals over time. This Dynamic Model of Affect (DMA) proposes that under conditions that promote maximal information processing, positive and negative affective systems function relatively independently. In contrast, under conditions characterized by uncertainty, including pain and stress, the affects become strongly inversely related. Included in our consideration are potential individual differences in the ability to sustain affective differentiation during pain and other stressors and the implications of this model for perceptions of social relations and for interventions to improve well-being among the chronically ill.     

Endogenous temporal orienting of attention in detection and discrimination tasks

Endogenous temporal-orienting effects were studied using a cuing paradigm in which the cue indicated the time interval during which the target was most likely to appear. Temporal-orienting effects were defined by lower reaction times (RTs) when there was a match between the temporal expectancy for a target (early or late) and the time interval during which the target actually appeared than when they mismatched. Temporal-orienting effects were found for both early and late expectancies with a detection task in Experiment 1. However, catch trials were decisive in whether temporal-orienting effects were observed in the early-expectancy condition. No temporal-orienting effects were found in the discrimination task. In Experiments 2A and 2B, temporal-orienting effects were observed in the discrimination task; however, they were larger when temporal expectancy was manipulated between blocks, rather than within blocks.     

Performance of able-bodied subjects on a text-typing task using a head-operated device and expanded membrane cursor keys

Children and adults with disabilities frequently rely on computers to complete written tasks. Those with significant motor limitations typically use alternative computer-input devices since the traditional keyboard and mouse are insufficient to accommodate their abilities. For persons unable to isolate their fingers, input devices controlled by movements of the head or whole hand or arm movements may be among the options considered. This study investigated the performance of a head-operated device and expanded membrane cursor keys for text entry. Data from 24 young adults indicated the head-operated device performed significantly faster given reduced cognitive demands for device operation, increased stimulus-response compatibility, and simplicity of movement. Use of the expanded membrane cursor keys resulted in significantly lower error rates. No significant differences in comfort or ease of use were reported for the two devices. The relative performance of device options for users sharing similar motor challenges provides rehabilitation specialists with important clinical information.     

The relationship between comorbid personality disorders and treatment received in patients with anxiety disorders

Few studies have addressed the relationship between the presence of a comorbid personality disorder and the amount of psychiatric treatment received by patients with an Axis I disorder. This issue has not been studied in patients with anxiety disorders. In a prospective, naturalistic, longitudinal study of anxiety disorders, 526 subjects were assessed with the Personality Disorder Examination, and types of treatment received in 1991 and 1996 were identified. In 1991, compared to subjects without a personality disorder, subjects with a personality disorder were as likely to receive medication and they received a greater number of medications. Subjects with borderline personality disorder were more likely to receive heterocyclic antidepressants and interventions characteristic of psychodynamic psychotherapy and cognitive therapy; they also reported receiving a greater number of medications and types of psychosocial treatment than other subjects. In 1996, subjects with borderline personality disorder were more likely to receive psychodynamic interventions. These findings suggest that in patients with an anxiety disorder, the presence of a comorbid personality disorder is associated with receiving a greater number of medications but not with a greater likelihood of receiving pharmacologic or psychosocial treatment. However, the presence of borderline personality disorder is associated with a greater likelihood of receiving, and receiving a greater number of, certain types of somatic and psychosocial treatments.     

Reduced attentional focus and the influence on expert anticipatory perception

The anticipatory memory encodings of expert and novice basketball players were examined under conditions of both full (attended condition) and reduced (unattended condition) attention (see also Gorman, Abernethy, & Farrow in Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 75, 835–844, 2013a). Participants completed a typical pattern recall task using dynamic playing sequences from basketball, and their responses were compared to both the original target pattern as well as to the series of patterns that occurred immediately after and immediately before the target image. The latter had not previously been employed in a pattern recall task when examining the anticipatory encoding of pattern information. Results revealed that the overall extent of the forward displacement for both the attended and unattended patterns was generally significantly greater for the experts, with the expert advantage tending to be most prominent for the attacking patterns. The novel addition of both forward and backward scenes may provide a more precise measure of the anticipatory effect, suggesting that future research in this domain should use a similar methodological design.     

Alertness and cognitive control: Toward a spatial grouping hypothesis

A puzzling interaction involving alertness and cognitive control is indicated by the finding of faster performance but larger congruency effects on alert trials (on which alerting cues are presented before the task stimuli) than on no-alert trials in selective attention tasks. In the present study, the author conducted four experiments to test hypotheses about the interaction. Manipulation of stimulus spacing revealed a difference in congruency effects between alert and no-alert trials for narrowly spaced stimuli but not for widely spaced stimuli, inconsistent with the hypothesis that increased alertness is associated with more diffuse attention. Manipulation of color grouping revealed similar differences in congruency effects between alert and no-alert trials for same-color and different-color groupings of targets and distractors, inconsistent with the general hypothesis that increased alertness is associated with more perceptual grouping. To explain the results, the author proposes that increased alertness is associated specifically with more spatial grouping of stimuli, possibly by modulating the threshold for parsing stimulus displays into distinct objects.     

Representing,Running, and Revising Mental Models: A Computational Model

People use commonsense science knowledge to flexibly explain, predict, and manipulate the world around them, yet we lack computational models of how this commonsense science knowledge is represented, acquired, utilized, and revised. This is an important challenge for cognitive science: Building higher order computational models in this area will help characterize one of the hallmarks of human reasoning, and it will allow us to build more robust reasoning systems. This paper presents a novel assembled coherence (AC) theory of human conceptual change, whereby people revise beliefs and mental models by constructing and evaluating explanations using fragmentary, globally inconsistent knowledge. We implement AC theory with Timber , a computational model of conceptual change that revises its beliefs and generates human‐like explanations in commonsense science. Timber represents domain knowledge using predicate calculus and qualitative model fragments, and uses an abductive model formulation algorithm to construct competing explanations for phenomena. Timber then (a) scores competing explanations with respect to previously accepted beliefs, using a cost function based on simplicity and credibility, (b) identifies a low‐cost, preferred explanation and accepts its constituent beliefs, and then (c) greedily alters previous explanation preferences to reduce global cost and thereby revise beliefs. Consistency is a soft constraint in Timber ; it is biased to select explanations that share consistent beliefs, assumptions, and causal structure with its other, preferred explanations. In this paper, we use Timber to simulate the belief changes of students during clinical interviews about how the seasons change. We show that Timber produces and revises a sequence of explanations similar to those of the students, which supports the psychological plausibility of AC theory.