Motor skill acquisition and retention as a function of average feedback, summary feedback, and performance variability

Summary feedback involves withholding feedback from subjects until the last trial in a block is completed, and then presenting feedback about each trial. A variation of this method, called average feedback (Young & Schmidt, 1992), presents subjects with only the mean of the trial block. We investigated whether these methods have similar effects on acquisition and retention of a simple motor skill. Five groups of subjects (n = 16 per group) performed 60 acquisition trials of an aiming task involving both spatial and temporal accuracy. We presented average and summary feedback based on either 5-trial blocks or 15-trial blocks and compared these schedules with every-trial feedback. During acquisition, all groups improved with practice, with a slight tendency for the every-trial condition to have less absolute error than the longer summary and average conditions. Analysis of delayed no-feedback retention tests, however, revealed a strong advantage for the 5-trial summary and average conditions compared with the every-trial condition. In addition, we found that for long blocks of acquisition trials without augmented feedback, the performance variability of those trials was associated with retention performance. Results are discussed in terms of how these different manipulations may make feedback less useful during acquisition, but foster the use of certain information processing activities that enhance overall learning.     

How (not) to evaluate the comparability of MMPI and MMPI-2 profile configurations: a reply to Humphrey and Dahlstrom

Humphrey and Dahlstrom (1995) presented a study on the comparability of MMPI/MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) profiles in which they concluded that "the bases for clinical interpretation derived from the MMPI and MMPI-2 profiles were sufficiently at variance to require different conclusions" [sic] (p. 2). In this brief critique, we identify procedural and data-analytical deficiencies that invalidate Humphrey and Dahlstrom's argument. Their blanket recommendation based on this argument, namely, that clinicians routinely plot both MMPI and MMPI-2 profiles, is unwarranted.     

RESOLUTION OF LEXICAL AMBIGUITY BY EMOTIONAL STATE

Abstract— The role of emotion in the resolution of lexical ambiguity was investigated. Happy and sad subjects listened to a list of words that included homophones that had happy and neutral meanings (eg., presents-presence ) and homophones that had sad and neutral meanings (eg., mourning-morning ). Words were presented every 3 s, and subjects wrote down the words, as they heard them (Meaning could be identified by spelling in all cases). An interaction between emotional state and homophone category was observed. Sad subjects were more likely to write down sad meanings than were happy subjects. Results are discussed with reference to the literatures on both emotion and lexical access.     

The role of verbal ability in the processing of complex verbal information

Summary This study investigated the relation between psychometric mental-ability test scores and several reaction-time measures; a simple-reaction task, a choice-reaction task, the Posner and Mitchell (1967) letter-identification task, and a variation of the sentence-verification task. Scores on the Raven Advanced Progressive Matrices and the Verbal Subtest of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SATV) were obtained. The less complex information-processing tasks replicate earlier studies in which general intelligence was only marginally related to reaction-time measures. The sentence-verification task systematically varied task complexity. Several direct and derived measures from the task were significantly correlated with psychometric mentalability measures. However, even though a number of precautions were taken to ensure that the sentence-verification task assessed purely verbal-processing efficiency, there was little evidence for an important task-specific relation between verification measures and verbal ability. Moreover, despite its relative verbal complexity, sentence verification did not reflect a greater relationship to verbal ability than other tasks did. Overall, the information-processing efficiency measures used in this study suggested a fairly general, rather than a task-specific, relationship to intellectual ability.The research presented in this paper was conducted while the first author was affiliated with the University of Georgia, U. S. A.     

Adding elder care to women's multiple roles: A critical review of the caregiver stress and multiple roles literatures

Sex Roles - Research on the effect of multiple roles on women's well-being has focused almost exclusively on the employment and child rearing roles of younger women, and has overlooked the...     

Spiritual journeys in aging: A buddhist view

The spiritual journey of a Buddhist devotee is a continual exploration of the truth of interdependence which Siddhartha Gautama realized to become the Buddha, “the Enlightened One.” On the morning of the enlightenment, the Buddha apprehended the truth that all things and all beings are interconnected and mutually dependent in time and space. One measure of the spiritual maturity of the Buddhist devotee is his or her appreciation for the profound responsibilities and gratitude we share for all things. To illustrate the significance of interdependence in our lives, the author turns to the wisdom contained inVital Involvement in Old Age by Erik and Joan Erikson and Helen Q. Kivnick.     

Promotion and employee turnover: Critique,meta-analysis,and implications

Qualitative reviews of the withdrawal literature have reached inconsistent conclusions regarding the strength of the relationship between promotion and turnover. Several issues were addressed in this study which may account for these inconsistencies. First, we differentiate among three distinct operationalizations of promotion: (1) promotion satisfaction; (2) perceptions of promotional opportunity; and (3) actual promotion. We then conduct quantitative reviews using meta-analytic procedures on turnover and the three operationalizations of promotion. We found no significant relationships between promotion satisfaction and turnoveror between perceived promotional opportunities and turnover. However, a significant negative relationship was found between actual promotion and turnover. Theoretical implication of these findings are presented.