Gassing, braking, and self-regulating: Error self-regulation, well-being, and goal-related processes

Social cognitive models point to a widespread appreciation for the role that self-regulation functions play in mediating social outcomes. The present five studies, involving 527 undergraduate participants, sought to build on such models in the context of individual differences in error self-regulation. In this respect, the studies used a robust cognitive model, namely one that proposes that people seek to interrupt processing routines after making an error in choice reaction time tasks. Studies 1-3 showed that greater tendencies toward error self-regulation predicted higher levels of well-being. Studies 4-5 extended such results by showing that greater tendencies toward error self-regulation predicted superior abilities to recognize motive-relevant stimuli (Study 4) and override a prior task set in favor of a new task set (Study 5). Overall, the findings both point to the functionality of individual differences in error self-regulation and help to elucidate the processing basis of such relations.     

WITHIN‐TRIAL CONTRAST: WHEN IS A FAILURE TO REPLICATE NOT A TYPE I ERROR?

Vasconcelos, Urcuioli, and Lionello-DeNolf (2007) report the results of five experiments that fail to replicate the results of our within-trial contrast study (Clement, Feltus, Kaiser, & Zentall, 2000) and suggest that our results may represent a Type I Error. We believe that this conclusion is not warranted because (a) there is considerable evidence in support of the effect and (b) the amount of training that they gave to their pigeons prior to test may not have been sufficient to observe the effect reliably. We suggest that when sufficient training is provided, reliable contrast can be found.     

试论《医林改错》中的实物观

清代医家王清任的《医林改错》自1830年刊行之时起即引起广泛关注, 究其原因不仅在于该书改正古人所记脏腑之错误, 关键在于其看待人体的视角及实践方法与传统中医不同——采用了实物观看待人体, 并且实施解剖观察实践, 这种革新举动挑战了传统中医的方法论。与西方近代科学相比较, 发现《医林改错》的思想萌芽和实践方法与之有相似处。结合医学史研习该著作, 看到中医学的方法论与历史环境不可分离, 随时代有所改变。《医林改错》的独特思维能够启发人们对中医方法论的认知。     

A kinematic comparison of successful and unsuccessful tennis serves across the elite development pathway

While velocity generation is an obvious prerequisite to proficient tennis serve performance, it is also the only stroke where players are obliged to negotiate a unique target constraint. Therefore, the dearth of research attending to the accuracy component of the serve is surprising. This study compared the body, racquet and ball kinematics characterising successful serves and service faults, missed into the net, in two groups of elite junior female players and one professional female tennis player. Three-dimensional body, racquet and ball kinematics were recorded using a 22-camera VICON motion analysis system. There were no differences in body kinematics between successful serves and service faults, suggesting that service faults cannot be attributed to a single source of biomechanical error. However, service faults missing into the net are characterized by projection angles significantly further below the horizontal, implying that consistency in this end-point parameter is critical to successful performance. Regulation of this parameter appears dependent on compensatory adjustments in the distal elbow and wrist joints immediately prior to impact and also perceptual feedback. Accordingly, coordination of the distal degrees of freedom and a refined perception-action coupling appear more important to success than any isolated mechanical component of the service action.     

From Cognitive Neuroscience to Geriatric Neuropsychology: What Do Current Conceptualizations of the Action Error Handling Process Mean for Older Adults?

The fields of cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology have contributed an extensive corpus of research to the study of error monitoring processes in younger adults; however, less is known about error handling in older adults. This paper highlights current conceptualizations of error detection and correction in healthy and impaired older adult populations. The literature suggests that some error handling processes require fewer processing resources than others and may be performed relatively automatically. Compared with young adults, older adults demonstrate a reduced ability to recognize errors, but exhibit similar rates of correction. Older adults diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease (e.g. Alzheimer’s disease) show a reduced ability to detect and correct their action errors. Thus, neurodegenerative disease processes amplify the impairments in error identification associated with normal aging by disrupting both automatic and controlled error corrections. The clinical implications of our current knowledge are discussed, and directions for future neuropsychological research are offered.

Judgment of line orientation depends on gender, education, and type of error

Visuospatial tasks are particularly proficient at eliciting gender differences during neuropsychological performance. Here we tested the hypothesis that gender and education are related to different types of visuospatial errors on a task of line orientation that allowed the independent scoring of correct responses ("hits", or H) and one type of incorrect responses ("commission errors", or CE). We studied 343 volunteers of roughly comparable ages and with different levels of education. Education and gender were significantly associated with H scores, which were higher in men and in the groups with higher education. In contrast, the differences between men and women on CE depended on education. We concluded that (I) the ability to find the correct responses differs from the ability to avoid the wrong responses amidst an array of possible alternatives, and that (II) education interacts with gender to promote a stable performance on CE earlier in men than in women.     

Gradual increase of perturbation load induces a longer retention of locomotor adaptation in children with cerebral palsy

The goal of this study is to determine whether the size and the variability of error have an impact on the retention of locomotor adaptation in children with cerebral palsy (CP). Eleven children with CP, aged 7–16 years old, were recruited to participate in this study. Three types of force perturbations (i.e., abrupt, gradual and noisy loads) were applied to the right leg above the ankle starting from late stance to mid-swing in three test sessions while the subject walked on a treadmill. Spatial-temporal gait parameters were recorded using a custom designed 3D position sensor during treadmill walking. We observed that children with CP adapted to the resistance force perturbation and showed an aftereffect consisting of increased step length after load release. Further, we observed a longer retention of the aftereffect for the condition with a gradual load than that with an abrupt load. Results from this study suggested that the size of error might have an impact on the retention of motor adaptation in children with CP with a longer retention of motor adaptation for the condition with a small size of error than that with a large error. In addition, enhanced variability of error seems facilitate motor learning during treadmill training. Results from this study may be used for the development of force perturbation based training paradigms for improving walking function in children with CP.     

Hypercorrection of high confidence errors: Prior testing both enhances delayed performance and blocks the return of the errors

How people correct their mistakes and sustain those corrections over time is a problem of central interest to education. It might be thought that the erroneous beliefs that people hold with high confidence would be especially difficult to correct. Interestingly, people correct these high confidence errors more easily than low confidence errors, a phenomenon known as the ‘hypercorrection effect’. Unfortunately, though, with a delay in testing there is a tendency for some of these high confidence errors to reemerge – a finding with serious consequences for education. This study investigated the effect of intervening a test immediately after corrective feedback on preventing the return of the errors. It also investigated processing differences between prevention-focused and promotion-focused people. The most educationally important new finding was that testing immediately after corrective feedback not only greatly enhanced memory for the correct answers but also blocked the return of the errors.