On the development and mechanics of delayed matching-to-sample performance

Despite its frequent use to assess effects of environmental and pharmacological variables on short-term memory, little is known about the development of delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) performance. This study was designed to examine the dimensions and dynamics of DMTS performance development over a long period of exposure to provide a more secure foundation for assessing stability in future research. Six pigeons were exposed to a DMTS task with variable delays for 300 sessions (i.e., 18,000 total trials; 3,600 trials per retention interval). Percent-correct and log-d measures used to quantify the development of conditional stimulus control under the procedure generally and at each of five retention intervals (0, 2, 4, 8 and 16-s) individually revealed that high levels of accuracy developed relatively quickly under the shorter retention intervals, but increases in accuracy under the longer retention intervals sometimes were not observed until 100-150 sessions had passed, with some still increasing at Session 300. Analyses of errors suggested that retention intervals induced biases by shifting control from the sample stimulus to control by position, something that was predicted by observed response biases during initial training. These results suggest that although it may require a great deal of exposure to DMTS prior to obtaining asymptotic steady state, quantification of model parameters may help predict trends when extended exposure is not feasible.     

Young infants' eye movements over "natural" scenes and "experimental" scenes

Eye movements of 30 4-month-olds were tracked as infants viewed animals and vehicles in “natural” scenes and, for comparison, in homogeneous “experimental” scenes. Infants showed equivalent looking time preferences for natural and experimental scenes overall, but fixated natural scenes and objects in natural scenes more than experimental scenes and objects in experimental scenes and shifted fixations between objects and contexts more in natural than in experimental scenes. The findings show how infants treat objects and contexts in natural scenes and suggest that they treat more commonly used experimental scenes differently.     

Is there an advantage for recognizing multi-modal emotional stimuli?

Emotions can be recognized whether conveyed by facial expressions, linguistic cues (semantics), or prosody (voice tone). However, few studies have empirically documented the extent to which multi-modal emotion perception differs from uni-modal emotion perception. Here, we tested whether emotion recognition is more accurate for multi-modal stimuli by presenting stimuli with different combinations of facial, semantic, and prosodic cues. Participants judged the emotion conveyed by short utterances in six channel conditions. Results indicated that emotion recognition is significantly better in response to multi-modal versus uni-modal stimuli. When stimuli contained only one emotional channel, recognition tended to be higher in the visual modality (i.e., facial expressions, semantic information conveyed by text) than in the auditory modality (prosody), although this pattern was not uniform across emotion categories. The advantage for multi-modal recognition may reflect the automatic integration of congruent emotional information across channels which enhances the accessibility of emotion-related knowledge in memory.     

Emotional speech processing: disentangling the effects of prosody and semantic cues

To inform how emotions in speech are implicitly processed and registered in memory, we compared how emotional prosody, emotional semantics, and both cues in tandem prime decisions about conjoined emotional faces. Fifty-two participants rendered facial affect decisions (Pell, 2005a), indicating whether a target face represented an emotion (happiness or sadness) or not (a facial grimace), after passively listening to happy, sad, or neutral prime utterances. Emotional information from primes was conveyed by: (1) prosody only; (2) semantic cues only; or (3) combined prosody and semantic cues. Results indicated that prosody, semantics, and combined prosody-semantic cues facilitate emotional decisions about target faces in an emotion-congruent manner. However, the magnitude of priming did not vary across tasks. Our findings highlight that emotional meanings of prosody and semantic cues are systematically registered during speech processing, but with similar effects on associative knowledge about emotions, which is presumably shared by prosody, semantics, and faces.     

An Assessment of Time Involved in Pre-test Case Review and Counseling for a Whole Genome Sequencing Clinical Research Program

Whole genome sequencing (WGS) is being used for evaluation of individuals with undiagnosed disease of suspected genetic origin. Implementing WGS into clinical practice will place an increased burden upon care teams with regard to pre-test patient education and counseling about results. To quantitate the time needed for appropriate pre-test evaluation of participants in WGS testing, we documented the time spent by our clinical research group on various activities related to program preparation, participant screening, and consent prior to WGS. Participants were children or young adults with autism, intellectual or developmental disability, and/or congenital anomalies, who have remained undiagnosed despite previous evaluation, and their biologic parents. Results showed that significant time was spent in securing allocation of clinical research space to counsel participants and families, and in acquisition and review of participant’s medical records. Pre-enrollment chart review identified two individuals with existing diagnoses resulting in savings of $30,000 for the genome sequencing alone, as well as saving hours of personnel time for genome interpretation and communication of WGS results. New WGS programs should plan for costs associated with additional pre-test administrative planning and patient evaluation time that will be required to provide high quality care.     

Impact of a Patient-Facing Enhanced Genomic Results Report to Improve Understanding,Engagement, and Communication

“The objective of this study was to” test the effectiveness of an enhanced genomic report on patient-centered outcome domains including communication, engagement and satisfaction. “Study design utilized” a prospective, randomized, mixed-methods desctiptive study of a whole genome sequencing results report, GenomeCOMPASS?, that was accessed by providers through the electronic health record and by patients through the associated patient portal. “The study was set in” an integrated healthcare delivery system in central Pennsylvania. “Eighty-four” parents of 46 children with undiagnosed Intellectual Disability, Autism Spectrum Disorder and/or multiple congenital anomalies who had participated in a previous study offering whole genome sequencing for their affected child were invited to enroll. Fifty-two parents enrolled. Following a traditional genetics results informing visit, the study coordinator stratified families by diagnostic result and uninformative result and then randomized families within each group to an intervention arm to receive the GenomeCOMPASS? report or to the usual care arm to receive a summary letter from the medical geneticist. A letter inviting enrollment included a baseline survey, which once returned, constituted enrollment. Surveys were administered at 3 months post-genetics visit. At 6 months, the usual care arm crossed over to receive the intervention and were administered an additional survey at 3 months. Qualitative interviews were conducted following survey completion to augment the survey data regarding the patient centered outcomes of interest. Patient reported outcomes including communication, engagement, empowerment and satisfaction. In the intervention arm, GenomeCOMPASS? reports were released to 14 families (N?=?28 parents) and of those 21 (75%) returned 3 month surveys. In the usual care arm, 12 families (N?=?24 parents) received usual care summary letters and of those 20 (83%) returned 3 month surveys. At crossover, GenomeCOMPASS? reports were released to 20 individuals and 15 (75%) returned 3 month surveys. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 5 individuals. Use of the GenomeCOMPASS? report was reported by this small group of parents to improve communication with providers and non-health professionals such as educators and therapists and led to increased engagement and high satisfaction. Providers and others involved in the children’s care also endorsed the report’s effectiveness. Reports that addressed negative findings, i.e. uninformative results, were not found to be useful. Although the number of users was small, this study supports that customizable template reports may provide a useful and durable source of information that can support and enhance the information provided by genetics professionals in traditional face-to-face encounters. Trial registration: Clinicaltrials.gov (Record 2013–0594).