Putting personal growth into an occupational psychology curriculum

This paper outlines an alternative approach to curriculum design in higher education focusing in particular on the introduction of personal growth into the programme, and on facilitating the selection by students of the optimal choice of options. It is argued that models of curriculum design need to take cognizance of at least four interested parties; and that in the resolutions of their divergent interests, curriculum designers must make clear their most potent values, as well as their theories and assumptions about the nature of learning. A brief outline follows of two courses based upon these propositions. Finally, evaluations by both trainers and students involved in these courses are presented.     

Motivated semantic control: Exploring the effects of extrinsic reward and self-reference on semantic retrieval in semantic aphasia

Recent insights show that increased motivation can benefit executive control, but this effect has not been explored in relation to semantic cognition. Patients with deficits of controlled semantic retrieval in the context of semantic aphasia (SA) after stroke may benefit from this approach since ‘semantic control’ is considered an executive process. Deficits in this domain are partially distinct from the domain-general deficits of cognitive control. We assessed the effect of both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in healthy controls and SA patients. Experiment 1 manipulated extrinsic reward using high or low levels of points for correct responses during a semantic association task. Experiment 2 manipulated the intrinsic value of items using self-reference, allocating pictures of items to the participant (‘self’) or researcher (‘other’) in a shopping game before participants retrieved their semantic associations. These experiments revealed that patients, but not controls, showed better performance when given an extrinsic reward, consistent with the view that increased external motivation may help ameliorate patients’ semantic control deficits. However, while self-reference was associated with better episodic memory, there was no effect on semantic retrieval. We conclude that semantic control deficits can be reduced when extrinsic rewards are anticipated; this enhanced motivational state is expected to support proactive control, for example, through the maintenance of task representations. It may be possible to harness this modulatory impact of reward to combat the control demands of semantic tasks in SA patients.     

Social Cognition in Paediatric Traumatic Brain Injury: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Neuropsychology Review - Recent evidence suggests social cognitive deficits may be among the most profound and disabling consequences of childhood traumatic brain injury (TBI); however, it is only...     

The Impact of Right Temporal Lobe Epilepsy On Nonverbal Memory: Meta-regression of Stimulus- and Task-related Moderators

Neuropsychology Review - Nonverbal memory tests have great potential value for detecting the impact of lateralized pathology and predicting the risk of memory loss following right temporal lobe...     

Embodied,Situated, and Co-Constructed: Young Sexual Minority Men’s Experiences of Intersectional Identity and Minority Stress

Intersectionality, minority stress, and social ecological theories have all been important frameworks for understanding mechanisms that create and maintain sexual and gender minority health disparities. In this study, we integrated these frameworks to guide a grounded theory examination of identity-related experiences in specific settings among 33 Black, White, and Latino young sexual minority cisgender men who lived in Chicago. Analyses identified four key categories: Racism Manifests in Context- and Sexual Minority-Specific Ways, Sexual Orientation Can Mean Feeling Safe and Seen or Threatened and Alone, Gender is a Matter of Self-Expression, and Bodies Are Not Always Made to Fit In. Participants reported both identity-based privilege and marginalization as well as unique forms of minority stress at the intersection of specific identities. Across these categories, participants’ experiences of their intersecting identities and associated forms of minority stress were embodied in their physical appearance, situated in specific neighborhoods and contexts, and co-constructed through their interpersonal interactions with others. Further, participants’ narratives provide powerful insights about the nuanced ways in which young sexual minority men understand and negotiate their lived experiences. Findings highlight how experiences of identity and minority stress are both intersectional and located within specific social ecological contexts, which has important implications for research, clinical practice, and advocacy.

     

Conceptualizing Self-determination from a Behavioral Perspective: The Role of Choice,Self-control,and Self-management

The goal of education can be defined in many ways; but in searching the literature, we found that in most cases, people consider the goal of education to be developing a self-determined individual. Self-determination is an abstract term. Behavior analysts may find this term difficult to define. Therefore, it may be difficult to observe and measure whether “self-determined behaviors” have developed. Many other service providers use this term frequently; thus, behavior analysts working with these service providers must come to terms with this concept in order to better collaborate. We argue that self-determination can be operationally defined with the concepts of choice, self-control, and self-management. By using the measurable behaviors included in these concepts, we believe that services can be developed to teach self-determination skills. This paper explores these concepts and how they can contribute to an operational definition of self-determination, and ultimately, help behavior analysts work with other providers to effectively teach self-determination to individuals with developmental disabilities.

     

EARSHOT: A Minimal Neural Network Model of Incremental Human Speech Recognition

Despite the lack of invariance problem (the many-to-many mapping between acoustics and percepts), human listeners experience phonetic constancy and typically perceive what a speaker intends. Most models of human speech recognition (HSR) have side-stepped this problem, working with abstract, idealized inputs and deferring the challenge of working with real speech. In contrast, carefully engineered deep learning networks allow robust, real-world automatic speech recognition (ASR). However, the complexities of deep learning architectures and training regimens make it difficult to use them to provide direct insights into mechanisms that may support HSR. In this brief article, we report preliminary results from a two-layer network that borrows one element from ASR, long short-term memory nodes, which provide dynamic memory for a range of temporal spans. This allows the model to learn to map real speech from multiple talkers to semantic targets with high accuracy, with human-like timecourse of lexical access and phonological competition. Internal representations emerge that resemble phonetically organized responses in human superior temporal gyrus, suggesting that the model develops a distributed phonological code despite no explicit training on phonetic or phonemic targets. The ability to work with real speech is a major advance for cognitive models of HSR.     

Changing counterproductive beliefs about attention,memory, and multitasking: Impacts of a brief,fully online module

Ubiquitous mobile technology is part of contemporary life, bringing with it the potential for distraction and reduction in performance associated with multitasking. The predisposition toward dysfunctional multitasking may be shaped in part by beliefs that individuals hold about memory and attention. The issue is particularly pressing for college students, given established links between distraction, multitasking, and learning. This project assessed the impact of an online learning module on beliefs about attention, memory, and learning in college students. It also contrasted these beliefs in a college and non-college community sample. Significant reductions in counterproductive beliefs were associated with completing the module; counterproductive beliefs were also no more prevalent in the college vs. the non-college sample. Our findings suggest that brief online modules are a practical way to address counterproductive beliefs related to multitasking with technology, and add to the literature on metacognition, attention, and multitasking in college and non-college populations.