Interactive effects of dispositional mindfulness and PETTLEP imagery training on basketball shooting performance: A randomized controlled trial

The purpose of this study was to examine the interactive effects of dispositional mindfulness and visualized PETTLEP imagery training on basketball mid-range shooting performance and retention. Seventy-three participants (M age = 20.32 ± 1.09) with high/low dispositional mindfulness (high n = 35; low n = 38) selected out of 302 college students were randomly assigned into the following six groups: (a) high mindfulness internal imagery (H-II, n = 13); (b) high mindfulness external imagery (H-EI, n = 11); (c) high mindfulness control (H–CO, n = 11); (d) low mindfulness internal imagery (L-II, n = 13); (e) low mindfulness external imagery (L-EI, n = 12); and (f) low mindfulness control (L-CO, n = 13). Participants engaged in a pretest to measure their basketball shooting performance, then participated in a 6-week (3 times/per-week) intervention, plus a posttest and retention test. A three-way 2 (high/low mindfulness) X 3 (treatments: internal-, external imagery, and control) X 3 (measurement time: pretest, posttest, and retention) mixed ANOVA statistical analysis found dispositional mindfulness interacted with treatments and measurement time. The main effects showed high dispositional mindfulness performed better than low dispositional mindfulness, and internal imagery training performed better than external imagery training on mid-range basketball performance at retention. The 3–way interaction indicated that when using either internal or external imagery, high dispositional mindfulness performed better than low mindfulness on retention but not posttest. For 2-way interaction, high dispositional mindfulness performed better than low dispositional mindfulness on retention but not posttest. Our results extended current knowledge on sport imagery and dispositional mindfulness and gained several theoretical implications for researchers. The limitations, future research directions, and practical implications were also discussed.     

Specific and general transfer of perceptual-motor skills and learning between sports: A systematic review

ObjectivesSport developmental models contend that participating in different sports promotes expertise development, implying positive skill transfer between sports. This study conceptualizes and examines how specific and general transfer occur and interact between sports in the short- (skill transfer) and long-term (learning transfer). Specific transfer is predicated on the perception and utilisation of specifying information in a transfer task, while general transfer relies on non-specifying, "general" information. Furthermore, the study examined how certain conditions (affordance similarity, perceptual-motor exploration and expertise) promote the transfer process.DesignSystematic literature review.MethodsAn electronic search was performed on SPORTDiscuss, Pubmed/MEDLINE, and Scopus. Studies were included if participants performed a transfer task in a sport different to the sport they learned a skill in.ResultsA total of 17 studies of low-to-moderate quality were included. Most studies showed specificity of transfer between sports with overlapping affordances and generality of transfer between sports with no overlapping affordances (for a given skill). Only 2 studies examined how perceptual-motor exploration supported specific transfer, and 2 examined transfer for (subsequent) learning with contrasting results. Six studies indicated an expertise effect, showing higher transfer in skilled vs less-skilled athletes.ConclusionsThis review provides a conceptualization of specificity and generality of transfer, and initial evidence on how transfer emerges between sports in the short-term. It provides little information on the general-specific interaction in the short-term, and does not provide any insights on how transfer emerges in mid- and long-term. As such, no inference regarding sport developmental models can be made. The low-to-moderate quality of the studies requires caution in interpreting these findings. We encourage future research to investigate general and specific transfer longitudinally, recruiting populations with different expertise levels to further advance our current understanding.     

Specificity of Dating Aggression and Its Justification Among High-Risk Adolescents

Ninety-five high-risk adolescents were studied to determine whether their dating aggression and its justification as a response to interpersonal problems were specific to the current partner, general to dating relationships, or part of a global age-mate (same-sex peers and opposite-sex dating partners) aggression problem. Approximately one-third of males and two-thirds of females reported physical aggression against their current dating partner. Males' aggression (and its justification) toward their current dating partner was part of a generalized pattern of dating aggression, whereas for females, physical aggression against a current dating partner (and its justification) was partner-specific and unrelated to aggression in other relationships. Findings are discussed with regard to intervention and future research on adolescent dating aggression.     

风险偏好预测中的性别差异和框架效应

11 8名大学生被试在得益和损失两种任务框架下对自己、其他男性和女性的风险偏好进行了预测。结果发现 ,被试在损失框架下对各类对象风险偏好的预测均高于得益框架 ,且都高估了男性的风险偏好 ,低估了女性的风险偏好。在损失框架下 ,女性被试对各类对象的风险偏好预测高于男性的预测。研究认为 ,性别原型知识、任务框架和即时情绪共同影响被试的风险偏好预测。     

Who drops-out? Do measures of risk to self and to others predict unplanned endings in primary care counselling?

Aims: Unplanned endings, where clients unilaterally end therapy, are of concern for psychological therapy services generally as they raise questions about the appropriateness of the treatment and it's delivery for some clients. Limited available data indicates that those who drop-out often have more severe symptoms at entry, and have poorer clinical outcomes. This raises further questions about risk to self and others for those clients who leave therapy prematurely and how these clients might be identified and kept engaged. Method: This paper uses a large dataset of CORE data collected routinely in a primary care counselling service between 2000 and 2003. Logistic regression was utilised to consider different measures of risk and other client characteristics recorded at assessment to predict drop-out from the service. Results: These indicate that younger age, greater psychological distress at assessment, an addiction problem and greater risk to others, are associated with an unplanned ending. However, no reliable logistic regression model could be produced. This may be partly due to data quality issues or important characteristics not being available in the data. Implications for practice: The paper concludes that counsellors should actively seek to minimise unplanned endings, as amongst them may be represented the more distressed and risky clients referred to primary care counselling.     

Spread of Risk Information Through Microblogs: Twitter Users with More Mutual Connections Relay News That is More Dreadful1

In elucidating the spread of risk information through microblogging, it is important to understand the behaviors of numerous average users, in addition to the activities of authorities. We followed the transmission pathways of 10 actual widely spread tweets concerning several risk information topics, including natural disasters, nuclear disasters, and infectious diseases, and we identified the types of risk that affected retweeting by classifying each tweet based on Slovic's risk-perception model. Furthermore, we examined the types of users who did and did not retweet the information. Users with few connections in the form of followers (i.e., people who are following a user) or followees (people a user is following), or with a low ratio of mutual followers within their connections, had a tendency to retweet a large amount of risk information, regardless of the type of risk involved. On the other hand, users with a high ratio of mutual followers exhibited a greater tendency to retweet risk information when it was perceived as dreadful, though they did not retweet risk information much on the whole. These results suggest that there are two mechanisms by which risk information is spread within the Twitter network: information exchange and social sharing of personal reactions.     

A time series analysis of the relation between motor skill acquisition and sleep in infancy

To systematically examine the relation between motor milestone onset and disruption of night sleep in infancy, three families kept microgenetic, prospective, daily checklist diaries of their infants’ motor behavior and sleep (197-313 observation days; 19,000 diary entries). Process control and interrupted time series analyses examined whether deviations from the moving average for night wakings and evening sleep duration were temporally linked to motor skill onset and tested for meaningful differences in individual sleep patterns before and after skill onset. Model assumptions defined skill onset as first day of occurrence or as mastery and moving average windows as 3, 7, or 14 days. Changes in infants’ sleep patterns were associated with changing expertise for motor milestones. The temporal relation varied depending on infant and sleep parameter. Intensive longitudinal data collection may increase our understanding of micro-events in infant development.     

Investigating the impact of a novel active gap metering signalization strategy on driver behavior at highway merging sections

A safe headway to the lead vehicle is important to reduce conflicts with merging vehicles from highway on-ramps. Previous research has outlined the advantage of gap metering strategies to yield sufficient space to merging vehicles and improve highway capacity during peak hours. However, prevailing gap metering systems fail to indicate the minimum required gap and leave it to the drivers’ judgment to adjust their headway. This paper proposes a new Active Gap Metering (AGM) signalization that helps outer lane drivers to adjust their headway to the lead vehicle when approaching highway ramps with incoming vehicles. This AGM signalization represents a combination of pavement markings and an innovative Variable Message Sign (VMS). The AGM system was tested alone and in combination with additional variable speed limits (VSL) in distinct environments of the Doha Expressway in the State of Qatar using a driving simulator. The driving behavior of 64 drivers was analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA. The results showed that the AGM effectively influenced the drivers’ behavior on the right stream lane. Drivers did gradually increase the distance to the lead vehicle, which resulted in optimal headways to merging on-ramp vehicles. Most importantly, the minimum time-to-collision (TTC_min) to the merging vehicle was increased by an additional 1–1.5 s as compared to no treatment. The proposed AGM signalization can, therefore, be considered by policymakers to influence drivers’ headways at critical merging sections.     

Support for distracted driving laws: An analysis of adolescent drivers from the Traffic Safety Culture Index from 2011 to 2017

IntroductionAdolescent drivers are often the focus of traffic safety legislation as they are at increased risk for crash-related injury and death. However, the degree to which adolescents support distracted driving laws and factors contributing to their support are relatively unknown. Using a large, nationally weighted sample of adolescent drivers in the United States, we assessed if perceived threat from other road users’ engagement in distracted driving, personal engagement in distracted driving behaviors, and the presence of state distracted driving laws was associated with support for distracted driving laws.MethodsThe sample included 3565 adolescents (aged 16–18) who participated in the Traffic Safety Culture Index survey from 2011 to 2017. A modified Poisson regression model with robust errors was fit to the weighted data to examine support for distracted driving laws. Models included age, gender, year, state distracted driving laws, personal engagement in distracted driving behavior, and perceived threat from other road users’ engaging in distracted driving.ResultsApproximately 87% of adolescents supported a law against texting and emailing compared to 66% who supported a universal handheld cellphone law. Support for distracted driving legislation was associated with greater perceived threat of other road users engaging in distracted driving while accounting for personal engagement in distracted driving, state distracted driving laws, and developmental covariates.DiscussionGreater understanding of the factors behind legislative support is needed. Public health interventions focused on effectively translating the risks of cellphone use while driving and effective policy will further improve the traffic safety culture.     

Evaluating the effectiveness of Didi ride-hailing security measures: An integration model

Security is one of the most critical factors influencing individuals’ mobility. Ensuring security along ride-hailing trips is also a fundamental challenge to service providers. After two cases of rape and homicide, Didi has rectified measures again to meet passengers’ need for security. However, there are few scientific findings concerning the impact of Didi rectified measures on personal perception of security. This study aims to explore critical latent factors that affect individuals’ intentions to use or reuse ride-hailing after the rectification of security measures. This paper examines individuals’ usage intentions by integrating and expanding both the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Research results suggest that perceived security, security risk, and government credibility are correlated with the intentions to use or reuse ride-hailing. Importantly, perceived security and security risk both have a direct impact on behavioral intentions from a different perspective. In contrast, government credibility has an indirect effect. Hence, a mediating effect test is conducted. Government credibility could indirectly influence behavioral intention by affecting trust. Finally, this study verifies that the effectiveness of security measures could be evaluated and improved by studying the influence of latent factors on the intentions to use or reuse ride-hailing.