What do children do in the rime-analogy task? An examination of the skills and strategies used by early readers

Despite the intense debate surrounding the use of orthographic analogy in the clue word paradigm, little is known about the skills and strategies children actually use and how these compare with their everyday reading of single words. This study, with 4- and 5-year-olds (N=125), supports previous work which suggests children rely on phonological, rather than orthographic, priming in the clue word task since children most frequently produced rhyming words in response to the clue word. The extent to which phoneme and rhyme-based skills, along with letter-sound knowledge, predicted children's performance in the analogy task and in a test of single word reading was contrasted and compared. Our findings suggested that the balance of skills which children drew upon was determined by the demands of the task. The implications of these findings for the validity of the 'orthographic'-analogy task and for teaching beginning readers is discussed.     

任务难度对基于位置返回抑制时间进程的影响

在返回抑制的实验范式下,采用线索一靶子模式进行了视觉字母觉察实验、实验发现,返回抑制在线索与靶子之间的时间间隔（ＳＯＡ）为７００ｍｓ时出现,且在９００ｍｓ时消退。这与先前许多实验发现的返回抑制在ＳＯＡ为３００ｍｓ左右时出现的结果不一致。作者认为,实验任务的难度是影响返回抑制时间进程的一个重要因素。     

Tracking Substance Abusers in Longitudinal Research: Understanding Follow-Up Contact Difficulty

Studies examining follow-up contact difficulty provide useful information for planning longitudinal studies and for assessing the validity of follow-up data. Contact difficulty was examined among 96 substance abusers following substance abuse treatment. Interview completion rates at the 3-month and 6-month follow-ups were 93 and 97%, respectively. The extent of contact efforts required to complete follow-up interviews varied substantially but tended to be greater at the 3-month follow-up than at the 6-month follow-up. Contact difficulty was related to reuse of substances at the 3-month and at the 6-month follow-ups with reusers requiring greater contact efforts than abstainers. None of the baseline individual and contextual variables examined significantly predicted level of contact effort at follow-ups. Attrition-related validity implications are discussed along with practical suggestions for planning tracking efforts.     

Optimal item difficulty for the three-parameter normal ogive response model

In tailored testing, it is important to determine the optimal difficulty of the next item to present to the examinee. This paper shows that the difference that maximizes information for the three-parameter normal ogive response model is approximately 1.7 times the optimal difference –b for the three-parameter logistic model. Under the normal model, calculation of the optimal difficulty for minimizing the Bayes risk is equivalent to maximizing an associated information function.The views expressed herein, are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of the Navy.     

The impact of task complexity on information use in multi-attribute decision making

This study presents a process analysis of multi-attribute decision making. The decision problems concerned the selection of the most suitable candidate for a job opening. The problems varied in terms of complexity, i.e. the number of candidates and the number of attributes used to describe these alternatives. Results show that with an increasing number of alternatives, subjects (N = 48) used fewer attributes for the evaluation of alternatives, and made, on average, less references to the alternatives. The type of judgment most often used was absolute dimensional (comparison of an attribute to an absolute standard) and was used more often at the beginning than toward the end of the decision process. Overall, judgments were predominantly positive. The percentage of positive judgments decreased with increasing complexity, and toward the end of the decision process. Significantly more judgments, particularly positive ones, concerned the finally chosen alternative as compared to the rest of the alternatives. Finally, analysis of subjects' usage of decision rules revealed that increasing the number of alternatives resulted in an increasing use of elimination strategies. Implications of these findings for the design of decision aids will be discussed.     

Coding infant engagement in the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm using deep neural networks

BackgroundThe Face-to-Face Still-Face (FFSF) task is a validated and commonly used observational measure of mother-infant socio-emotional interactions. With the ascendence of deep learning-based facial emotion recognition, it is possible that common complex tasks, such as the coding of FFSF videos, could be coded with a high degree of accuracy by deep neural networks (DNNs). The primary objective of this study was to test the accuracy of four DNN image classification models against the coding of infant engagement conducted by two trained independent manual raters.Methods68 mother-infant dyads completed the FFSF task at three timepoints. Two trained independent raters undertook second-by-second manual coding of infant engagement into one of four classes: 1) positive affect, 2) neutral affect, 3) object/environment engagement, and 4) negative affect.ResultsTraining four different DNN models on 40,000 images, we achieved a maximum accuracy of 99.5% on image classification of infant frames taken from recordings of the FFSF task with a maximum inter-rater reliability (Cohen's κ-value) of 0.993.LimitationsThis study inherits all sampling and experimental limitations of the original study from which the data was taken, namely a relatively small and primarily White sample.ConclusionsBased on the extremely high classification accuracy, these findings suggest that DNNs could be used to code infant engagement in FFSF recordings. DNN image classification models may also have the potential to improve the efficiency of coding all observational tasks with applications across multiple fields of human behavior research.     

Perceived self-efficacy by Under-10 tennis players when scaling the equipment and play area

The modification of child-sports aims to develop an optimal learning environment that facilitates the emergence of desirable psychological outcomes (e.g., self-efficacy). The aim of the study was to assess the effect of reducing net height and court size on self-efficacy and shot-efficacy of U-10 tennis players in a real-game context. Twenty U-10 tennis players (M = 9.46, SD = 0.66 years of age; M = 3.65, SD = 1.53 years of tennis experience) played two round-robin tournaments one week apart in the same order and schedule. The first tournament was played under the International Tennis Federation’s Tennis 10s regulation at green stage (GT). Afterwards, the modified tournament (MT) was played with the same regulation GT, however, net height (0.91 m–0.80 m) and court size (23.77 m × 8.23 m–18.00 m × 8.23 m) were reduced. Results accomplished using Bayesian and Frequentist inferences showed an increase in players’ self-efficacy when serving in MT than GT (BF₁₀ = 4.796; δ = −0.576; and p = .011). This is increase may be due to a reduction in their serving faults in MT (BF₁₀ = 6.169; δ = −0.591; and p = .010). Therefore, reducing net height and court size enhances the serve performance and self-efficacy and thus promotes positive tennis experiences.     

Association of parent,coach, and peer motivational climate with high school athlete burnout and engagement: Comparing mediation and moderation models

The purpose of this study was to (1) examine the direct association of parent-, coach-, and peer-initiated motivational climate with high school athlete burnout and engagement and (2) evaluate whether peer-initiated motivational climate mediates or moderates the association of coach-initiated motivational climate with burnout and engagement. Athletes (n = 150) completed a survey on their perceptions of parent-, coach-, and peer-initiated motivational climate, burnout, and engagement. Findings supported the mediation model, but not the moderation model. In addition to mastery and performance climate direct effects, significant medium-to-large indirect pathways from coach mastery climate → peer mastery climate → burnout, β = -.15, 95% CI [-.333, −.009], and coach mastery climate → peer mastery climate → engagement, β = .19, 95% CI [.020, .293] were observed. Findings support that a parent, coach, and peer-initiated mastery motivational climate was associated with burnout and engagement while a performance climate was mostly unrelated to these indices of athlete well-being. In addition to direct associations with burnout and engagement, coaches also had an indirect association through peer mastery-initiated motivational climate. Findings advance understanding of how parents, coaches, and peers conjointly shape athlete burnout and engagement.     

平面几何解题过程中加工水平对迁移的影响

通过实验研究,平面几何靶题难度以及解题者对靶题与源题之间存在着共性关系的加工水平对解题迁移的影响得到了验证。结果表明,解题者对具有内在联系的先后问题之间共性关系的加工水平是影响解题迁移的因素之一;靶题的难度太大或太小,将导致解题者对先后问题之间共性关系的加工作用失败而出现地板效应和天花板效应,且靶题难度与加工水平在影响解题迁移时有交互作用。     

How drivers adapt their behaviour to changes in task complexity: The role of secondary task demands and road environment factors

The present study investigates the impact of different sources of task complexity such as driving demands and secondary task demands on driver behaviour. Although much research has been dedicated to understanding the impact of secondary task demands or specific road traffic environments on driving performance, there is little information on how drivers adapt their behaviour to their combined presence. This paper aims to describe driver behaviour while negotiating different sources of task complexity, including mobile phone use while driving (i.e., calling and texting) and different road environments (i.e., straight segments, curves, hills, tunnels, and curves on hills). A driving simulator experiment was conducted to explore the effects of different road scenarios and different types of distraction while driving. The collected data was used to estimate driving behaviour through a Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM) with repeated measures. The analysis was divided into two phases. Phase one aimed to evaluate driver performance under the presence and absence of pedestrians and oncoming traffic, different lanes width and different types of distraction. The second phase analysed driver behaviour when driving through different road geometries and lane widths and under different types of distraction. The results of the experiment indicated that drivers are likely to overcorrect position in the vehicle lane in the presence of pedestrians and oncoming traffic. The effect of road geometry on driver behaviour was found to be greater than the effect of mobile phone distraction. Curved roads and hills were found to influence preferred speeds and lateral position the most. The results of this investigation also show that drivers under visual-manual distraction had a higher standard deviation of speed and lateral position compared to the cognitive distraction and the non-distraction condition.