A review of error correction procedures during instruction for children with developmental disabilities

Error correction procedures are remedial strategies presented following an incorrect response that increases the probability that a correct response will occur in the future. Error correction is commonly used during skill acquisition programs for children with developmental disabilities; however, the specific strategy used may differ considerably. Recent comparative studies have examined the effect of numerous error correction procedures on the efficiency of acquisition for children with developmental disabilities. Despite considerable merit, minor procedural differences and unique terms for similar procedures likely affect comparisons across studies. Here, we clarify the procedures and findings of these studies and suggest areas of future research.     

Skin picking in patients with obesity: Associations with impulsiveness and self‐harm

Previous studies suggest elevated prevalence rates of skin picking and self‐harm in patients with obesity compared to individuals in the general population. Hence, further studies should investigate prevalence rates and correlates of skin picking in this population – especially its differentiation to self‐harm. Skin picking and obesity are both associated with specific facets of impulsiveness. This relation should be explored to shed light on potentially shared mechanisms in etiology. Therefore, the present study examined the occurrence of skin picking and its associations with impulsiveness and self‐harm in a sample of pre‐bariatric surgery patients with obesity class II/III. Within the routine preoperative psychiatric evaluation, a total of 139 bariatric surgery candidates (78% female, BMI range 35–69) completed a self‐report questionnaire assessing sociodemographic variables, anxiety, depression, self‐harm, impulsiveness, and skin picking severity (urges: frequency, intensity, controllability; behavior: frequency, intensity, controllability; resistance, emotional distress, impairment, and avoidance). Ten participants (7.2% of the sample) reported recurrent skin picking leading to skin damage, repeated attempts to decrease skin picking, and psychosocial impairment (emotional distress, impairment in functional areas, avoidance) due to skin picking. In line with previous findings, skin picking severity shows a medium correlation with attentional impulsiveness. The majority of self‐harm types were not associated with skin picking severity. The current study reveals a high occurrence of skin picking compared to the general population. The results indicate an association between skin picking severity and attentional impulsiveness. Further research is needed to investigate the differentiation of skin picking and self‐harm in more detail.     

Affective theory of mind inferences contextually influence the recognition of emotional facial expressions

The recognition of emotional facial expressions is often subject to contextual influence, particularly when the face and the context convey similar emotions. We investigated whether spontaneous, incidental affective theory of mind inferences made while reading vignettes describing social situations would produce context effects on the identification of same-valenced emotions (Experiment 1) as well as differently-valenced emotions (Experiment 2) conveyed by subsequently presented faces. Crucially, we found an effect of context on reaction times in both experiments while, in line with previous work, we found evidence for a context effect on accuracy only in Experiment 1. This demonstrates that affective theory of mind inferences made at the pragmatic level of a text can automatically, contextually influence the perceptual processing of emotional facial expressions in a separate task even when those emotions are of a distinctive valence. Thus, our novel findings suggest that language acts as a contextual influence to the recognition of emotional facial expressions for both same and different valences.     

Haptic space processing--allocentric and egocentric reference frames.

In this paper a haptic matching, task is used to analyze haptic spatial processing. In various conditions, blindfolded participants were asked to make a test bar parallel to a reference bar. This always resulted in large but systematic deviations. It will be shown that the results can be described with a model in which an egocentric reference frame biases the participants' settings: What a participant haptically perceives as parallel is a weighted average of parallel in allocentric space and parallel in egocentric space. The basis of the egocentric reference frame is uncertain. There is strong evidence that at least a hand-centred reference frame is involved, but possibly a body-centred reference frame also plays a role.     

Angle discrimination in raised-line drawings

We investigated the angular resolution subserving the haptic perception of raised-line drawings by measuring how accurately observers could discriminate between two angle sizes under various conditions. We found that, for acute angles, discrimination performance is highly dependent on exploration strategy: mean thresholds of 2.9 degrees and 6.0 degrees were found for two different exploration strategies. For one of the strategies we found that discriminability is not dependent on the bisector orientation of the angle. Furthermore, we found that thresholds almost double when the angular extent is increased from 20 degrees to 135 degrees. We also found that local apex information has a significant influence on discrimination for acute as well as obtuse angles. In the last experiment we investigated the influence of depiction mode but did not find any effect. Overall, the results tell us that the acuity with which angles in raised-line drawings are perceived is determined by the exploration strategy, local apex information, and global angular extent.     

Haptic detection of sine-wave gratings

We studied human haptic perception of sine-wave gratings. In the first experiment we measured the dependence of amplitude detection thresholds on the number of cycles and on the wavelength of the gratings. In haptic perception of sine-wave gratings, the results are in agreement with neural summation. The rate at which detection thresholds decrease with increasing number of cycles is much higher than can be accounted for by probability summation alone. Further, neural summation mechanisms describe the detection thresholds accurately over the whole spatial range probed in the experiment, that is wavelengths from 14 mm up to 225 mm. Earlier, we found a power-law dependence of thresholds on the spatial width of Gaussian profiles (Louw et al, 2000 Experimental Brain Research 132 369-374). The current results extend these findings; the power-law dependence holds not only for Gaussian profiles, but also for a broad range of sine-wave gratings with the number of cycles varying between 1 and 8. Haptic perception involves tactual scanning combined with an active, dynamic exploration of the environment. We measured characteristics of the velocity and force with which stimuli were scanned while performing a psychophysical task. One particularly surprising finding was that, without being instructed, participants maintained an almost constant scanning velocity during each 45-min session. A constant velocity in successive trials of the experiment might facilitate or even be necessary for discrimination. Further, a large systematic dependence of velocity on scanning length was found. An eightfold increase in scanning length resulted in about a fourfold increase in scanning velocity. A second experiment was conducted to study the influence of scanning velocity on psychophysical detection thresholds. This was done by systematically imposing specific scanning velocities to the participants while the thresholds were measured. The main result of the second experiment was that psychophysical detection thresholds are constant over a relatively broad range of scanning velocities.     

Being Called a ‘Streber’: The Roles of Personality and Competition in the Labelling of Academically Oriented Students

The current research investigated a phenomenon that has received little attention so far: the labelling of students who are characterised by a strong academic orientation. We analysed whether personality predicts being labelled a ‘Streber’ (literally a person who strives for success; German origin, similar to the English word ‘nerd’) and labelling others as Strebers. Besides individual characteristics, we examined the impact of the classroom context. In Study 1 (N = 317), eighth‐grade students nominated classmates who were considered to be Strebers and provided self‐ratings on how often they had labelled others as Strebers. In Study 2 (N = 358), using a round robin design, we had students rate each of their classmates on the extent to which the students perceived their classmates to be Strebers. Results showed that being labelled was associated with introversion and conscientiousness. Labelling others was related to extraversion, low conscientiousness and low agreeableness. Furthermore, the labelling and the expected relation between individual characteristics and labelling were stronger in high‐achieving than in low‐achieving classes. Results are discussed with respect to personality traits as potential risk factors in peer stigmatisation and the impact of the classroom context. Copyright © 2012 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Achieving success at work: development and validation of the Motivational Climate at Work Questionnaire (MCWQ)

Although work represents an important achievement setting, research on the perceived motivational climate, as defined by the achievement goal theory (AGT), remains limited. Calls have been made for research on the salience of such situational influences based on traditional AGT. Therefore, the aim of this research was to develop a scale to measure the motivational climate at work. In a pilot study, participants completed a developed questionnaire and the findings supported psychometric properties of the questionnaire. Two further studies were conducted and the findings provided evidence of content validity, criterion‐related validity, construct validity, and internal consistency. The findings suggest the questionnaire might be used to determine the perception of the extant motivational climate in the workplace.