The academic outcomes of working memory and metacognitive strategy training in children: A double‐blind randomized controlled trial

Working memory training has been shown to improve performance on untrained working memory tasks in typically developing children, at least when compared to non‐adaptive training; however, there is little evidence that it improves academic outcomes. The lack of transfer to academic outcomes may be because children are only learning skills and strategies in a very narrow context, which they are unable to apply to other tasks. Metacognitive strategy interventions, which promote metacognitive awareness and teach children general strategies that can be used on a variety of tasks, may be a crucial missing link in this regard. In this double‐blind randomized controlled trial, 95 typically developing children aged 9–14 years were allocated to three cognitive training programmes that were conducted daily after‐school. One group received Cogmed working memory training, another group received concurrent Cogmed and metacognitive strategy training, and the control group received adaptive visual search training, which better controls for expectancy and motivation than non‐adaptive training. Children were assessed on four working memory tasks, reading comprehension, and mathematical reasoning before, immediately after, and 3 months after training. Working memory training improved working memory and mathematical reasoning relative to the control group. The improvements in working memory were maintained 3 months later, and these were significantly greater for the group that received metacognitive strategy training, compared to working memory training alone. Working memory training is a potentially effective educational intervention when provided in addition to school; however, future research will need to investigate ways to maintain academic improvements long term and to optimize metacognitive strategy training to promote far‐transfer. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/-7MML48ZFgw     

The Experience of the Holy: A Relational Psychoanalytic Analysis

The title of this paper, The Experience of the Holy is a direct reference to Rudolf Otto's book Das Heilige. The paper begins with Otto because he lays out many of the important issues involved in a psychological investigation of the experience of the holy, especially the question of whether the sacred is a unique object of experience, or a characteristic of our experience of ordinary objects. The paper then discusses three contemporary relational psychoanalysts (D.W. Winnicott, Hans Loewald, and Christopher Bollas), and the ways in which their theorizing illuminates the psychology of the sacred.     

The length of the retention interval,forgetting, and subjective similarity

A long retention interval tends to result in the poor retention known as forgetting. A high subjective similarity between stimuli frequently produces their poor retention. Thus, a long retention interval may increase the subjective similarity between stimuli (the RIISS hypothesis), and this increase may produce forgetting. To examine this hypothesis, college students made speeded same-different discriminations between two lines or tones of different lengths or frequencies that were 400 ms or 3,300 ms apart, and they rated the similarity of these stimuli. The long interval produced poorer overall performance as expected, but also produced poorer performance on different than same stimuli, implying that it increased the subjective similarity between the initial and subsequent stimuli, and it also increased rated similarity, in support of the RIISS hypothesis. The position that stored stimuli lose less common information than distinctive information explains RIISS evidence better than does perturbation theory.     

Talking facilitates cognitive-emotional processes of adaptation to an acute stressor

The authors examined the influence of talking and the social context of talking on cognitive-emotional processes of adjustment to stressors. Two hundred fifty-six undergraduates viewed a stressful stimulus and were then assigned to a no-talk control condition or 1 of 3 talk conditions: talk alone, talk to a validating confederate, or talk to an invalidating confederate. Two days later, they were reexposed to the stressor. Compared with individuals in the no-talk condition, those in the talk alone and validate conditions had a lower level of intrusive thoughts in the 2-day interim, and they had lower perceived stress when reexposed to the stressor. The effects of talking and validation on perceived stress appeared to be mediated by lowered intrusions. The benefits of talking were diluted when disclosures were invalidated. These findings suggest that talking about acute stressors can facilitate adjustment to stressors through cognitive resolution.     

Comparison of selected perceptual variables for backpacks with internal and external frames

Differences in perceptions of comfort, exertion, balance, and heart rate were investigated with two types of backpack. Subjects were 20 male volunteers (M age = 24.3 yr., SD: 3.6, M height = 180.02 cm, SD: 8.0, and M weight = 86.46 kg, SD: 14.84). Following oral briefing and practice trials, each subject was fitted at random with either an internal- or external-frame backpack containing 18.2 kg. By random, cross-over design, subjects completed a 30-m simulated hiking trial consisting of 16 separate obstacles designed to resemble actual off-trail hiking. Trials were conducted in a controlled environment with the walking intensity regulated by a metronome. Upon completion of each trial, the subjects rated the experience on perceived comfort, balance and stability, and rating of perceived exertion. Heart rate was recorded immediately prior to and following each trial. Analysis yielded a significant difference only on rating of perceived exertion in favor of the internal-frame backpack. Under limited circumstances, these data suggest that both types of backpacks provide similar comfort and balance and stability; however, internal frames in backpacks may reduce perceived exertion during short, demanding hikes.     

Danger expectancies, self-efficacy and insight in spider phobia

In the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, (1994) Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.) Washington, DC: author) phobic adults and adolescents are said to "recognize that the phobia is excessive or unreasonable" given the actual danger posed by the feared situation. The present study examined perceptions of danger in 15 spider phobic subjects and a matched set of controls before, during and after a spider-avoidance test. When detached from the phobic stimulus, phobic subjects: (1) gave higher estimates of the probability of being bitten than controls did; (2) gave higher estimates of the injuries that would result from being bitten and (3) in line with these first two findings, believed their high levels of anticipated anxiety were more reasonable and appropriate to the demands of the situation than controls did. These findings are inconsistent with the prevailing notion that when detached from the phobic situation patients can accurately evaluate the danger of potential phobic encounters. Instead, the findings suggest that phobic individuals, whether detached or in the presence of the feared object, have relatively limited insight into the irrationality of their fears. In examining the mediation of phobic phenomena, both self-efficacy and danger estimates remained significantly related to the anxiety and avoidance experienced in the spider-avoidance task. Further research designed to experimentally establish the likely causal roles of these two constructs is warranted.