Evaluation of an informational and behavior change program to increase students' self‐reported energy conservation

A systematic evaluation of a program, consisting of sustainability education, self‐management strategies, and feedback, to decrease college students' energy use was conducted. During treatment, the experimental group showed increased self‐reported energy savings relative to baseline levels and relative to the self‐reported energy use of the comparison group who were shown only an instructional video on conserving energy. Treatment gains were maintained at a 2‐week follow‐up. More participants in the experimental group rated their experience as resulting in learning something new about green issues and influencing their pro‐environmental behavior compared to the comparison group. This study suggests that further research is warranted, specifically using these strategies in real‐life situations.     

The coordination of bimanual aiming movements: Evidence for progressive desynchronization

It is known that when simultaneous bimanual aiming movements are made to targets with different IDs (Index of Difficulty), Fitts' Law is violated. There is massive slowing of the easy target hand, but a debate has arisen over the degree of synchronization between the hands and whether this effect represents a coordinative structure or interference due to neural cross-talk. This issue was investigated in an experiment with 12 subjects who moved styli forward in the sagittal plane to pairs of targets that differed in difficulty (0.77/3.73 ID and 0.77/5.17 ID). Reaction time, movement time, and kinematic measures of resultant velocity and acceleration were analysed. The results showed clear-cut timing differences between the hands that depended on both the ID difference between target pairs and elapsed time of the movement. The violation of Fitts' Law was confined to the easy target hand. Pronounced individual differences in both timing differences and left-right asymmetry were also noted. Neither the coordinative structure nor the neural cross-talk models can fully account for these data, and it is possible that the initial constraints on movement are moderated by visually driven corrective movements.