Using Innovative Outliers to Detect Discrete Shifts in Dynamics in Group-Based State-Space Models

Outliers are typically regarded as data anomalies that should be discarded. However, dynamic or “innovative” outliers can be appropriately utilized to capture unusual but substantively meaningful shifts in a system's dynamics. We extend De Jong and Penzer's 1998 approach for representing outliers in single-subject state-space models to a group-based framework. The group-based model enables model predictions concerning the group as a whole while individualized change points are incorporated to capture discrete shifts in each individual's trajectory. An illustrative example using cognitive performance data from N = 38 older adults over 60 days is presented. Results indicated that a subset of older adults showed sudden shifts in learning dynamics in several forms, including sudden jumps in level, slope, and linkage between perceived control and actual performance level. The broader implications of incorporating innovative outliers into studies of intraindividual change are discussed.     

The Contributions of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Reading Motivation to the Development of Reading Competence over Summer Vacation

This study addressed the role of reading motivation as a potential determinant of losses or gains in reading competence over six weeks of summer vacation (SV). Based on a sample of 223 third-grade elementary students, structural equation analyses showed that intrinsic reading motivation before SV contributed positively to both word and sentence comprehension after SV when controlling for comprehension performance before SV. These effects were mediated by reading amount. Extrinsic reading motivation did not show significant associations with end-of-summer comprehension scores. Taken together, the findings suggest that intrinsic reading motivation facilitates students’ development of reading comprehension over SV.     

The impact of error frequency on errorless and errorful learning of object locations using a novel paradigm

ABSTRACT

Errorless learning (EL) is an approach in which errors are eliminated or reduced as much as possible while learning of new information or skills. In contrast, during trial-and-error???or errorful???learning (TEL) errors are not reduced and are often even promoted. There is a complex and conflicting pattern of evidence whether EL or TEL may result in better memory performance. One major confound in the extant literature is that most EL studies have not controlled for the number of errors made during TEL, resulting in a large variability in the amount of errors committed. This variability likely explains why studies on the cognitive underpinnings of EL and TEL have produced mixed findings. In this study, a novel object-location learning task was employed to examine EL and TEL in 30 healthy young adults. The number of errors was systematically manipulated, allowing us to investigate the impact of frequency of errors on learning outcome. The results showed that recall from memory was significantly better during EL. However, the number of errors made during TEL did not influence the performance in young adults. Altogether, our novel paradigm is promising for measuring EL and TEL, allowing for more accurate analyses to understand the impact of error frequency on a person’s learning ability and style.     

Suppression-induced forgetting on a free-association test

The repeated suppression of thoughts in response to cues for their expression leads to forgetting on a subsequent test of cued recall (Anderson & Green, 2001). We extended this effect by using homograph cues and presenting them for free association following suppression practice. Cue–target pairs were first learned under integrating imagery instructions; then in the think/no-think phase students practised suppressing thoughts connected to some homograph cues, with or without the assistance of thought substitutes that changed their meaning. Below-baseline forgetting on the subsequent free-association test was found in the production of suppressed targets. Following aided suppression this effect was also obtained in the production of other responses denoting the target-related meaning of the homograph cues. Discussion emphasises the ecological value of the test; rarely do people deliberately attempt recall of unwanted thoughts.     

Conditional teaching and mindful learning

Abstract:

Most people can draw on vast categories of stored information when explicitly asked to do so. The spontaneous, creative, mindful use of previously learned information, however, tends to be atypical. Three studies were designed to assess whether the manner in which information is initially presented affects how such information will subsequently be used, that is, in a mindful or mindless way. More specifically, two experiments (one with children, the other with college students) were conducted to compare the effects of a conditional versus absolute form of teaching upon creativity. Results revealed that instruction presented in an absolute manner resulted in mindless use of the information for both age groups. In contrast, subjects who were taught in a conditional way were better able to creatively deal with the information. For the college students, this finding was obtained even when the absolute learning condition was concerned with theoretical (i.e., conditional) information. In a third experiment, student teachers were taught conditionally or unconditionally in a confident or unconfident manner. Results indicated that confident but conditional instruction was most effective in provoking subsequent mindfulness.     

Living in Alternative and Inner Worlds: Early Signs of Acting Talent

In an exploratory, qualitative study, 11 professional actors were interviewed about their childhoods to investigate the early predictors of acting talent. To control for verbal talent, scientists-turned-lawyers were selected as a comparison group. Participants were asked about their families, schooling, and training, as well as about their early propensities for play and imagination, their orientation towards fiction, and their emotionality and attunement to others' mental states. Actors' childhood memories differed from those of the lawyers in the following respects. The actors recalled greater engagement in alternative worlds (imaginary and fictional worlds) and in inner worlds (emotional and other mental states). Not surprisingly, then, they were also more likely to recall feeling different from others and unable to engage fully in school. Unlike the lawyers, the actors recalled practicing for their adult roles as early as age 4—by inventing and directing plays in their backyards. Unlike lawyers, actors chose their careers despite parental discouragement: although their parents valued the arts, they discouraged the choice of acting as a career. Taken together, the results suggest that an early interest in alternative and inner worlds and an identification of oneself as different from others are predictive of early and steady involvement in theater—a choice of career in which one can live daily in another world of imagined lives and in the other world of others' mental lives.     

Brief body-scan meditation practice improves somatosensory perceptual decision making

We have previously found that attention to internal somatic sensations (interoceptive attention) during a heart beat perception task increases the misperception of external touch on a somatic signal detection task (SSDT), during which healthy participants erroneously report feeling near-threshold vibrations presented to their fingertip in the absence of a stimulus. However, it has been suggested that mindful interoceptive attention should result in more accurate somatic perception, due to its non-evaluative and controlled nature. To investigate this possibility, 62 participants completed the SSDT before and after a period of brief body-scan mindfulness meditation training, or a control intervention (listening to a recorded story). The meditation intervention reduced tactile misperception and increased sensitivity during the SSDT. This finding suggests that the perceptual effects of interoceptive attention depend on its particular nature, and raises the possibility that body-scan meditation could reduce the misperception of physical symptoms in individuals with medically unexplained symptoms.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to think about the competing factors which shape the nature of university education now. The funders, potential employers and students all approach die university with particular needs and ideologies, and it seems that die actual providers, the university personnel, have the task of managing the conflicts and the anxieties underlying the needs. However, they also have their needs, their beliefs about the purpose of education and their worries. Drawing broadly on psychodynamic concepts and using examples from my experience as a lecturer, counsellor and organizational consultant, I look at the effect of these tensions on the functioning of the university.     

Enhancing Empathy and Theory of Mind

Social cognitive skills such as empathy and theory of mind are crucial for everyday interactions, cooperation, and cultural learning, and deficits in these skills have been implicated in pathologies such as autism spectrum disorder, sociopathy, and nonverbal learning disorders. Little research has examined how these skills develop after early childhood and how they may be trained. We tested the hypothesis that experience in acting, an activity in which one must step into the shoes of others, leads to growth in both empathy and theory of mind. In two studies, we followed children (elementary school aged) and adolescents (high school freshmen) receiving 1 year of either acting or other arts training (visual arts, music) and assessed empathy and theory of mind before and after training. In both studies, those receiving acting (but not other arts) training showed significant gains in empathy scores; in Study 2, adolescents receiving acting training also showed significant gains on a naturalistic measure of theory of mind, the Empathic Accuracy Paradigm. These findings demonstrate plasticity in empathy and theory of mind long past the watershed age of 3 to 4 years and suggest that both capacities are enhanced by role-playing.