Explaining social contagion in sport applying Heider's balance theory: First experimental results

A sudden collective collapse of an entire sport team is often described in terms of the social contagion of weak performance. Two experiments studied this phenomenon against the backdrop of balance theory. Experiment 1 examined whether false negative feedback on a partner's performance during a team task would lead to compensatory mechanisms as predicted by balance theory. Results showed that perceived negative performance in the partner was compensated by devaluing the relationship to the partner. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 and investigated the impact of physical self-esteem. Results showed that persons with strong physical self-esteem devalued the situational value of the relationship when they perceived their partner's performance to be negative. Experiment 2 also investigated objective performance. Although failing to attain statistical significance, there was a tendency for the perceived sudden decline in the partner's performance to be contagious. It is concluded that balance theory offers promising insights into the interpersonal dynamics of social contagion.     

Jump performance and augmented feedback: Immediate benefits and long-term training effects

Drop jumps and their adaptations to training have been extensively investigated. However, the influence of augmented feedback (aF) on stretch-shortening cycle (SSC) was not scrutinized so far despite the well-known positive effects of aF on motor performance and motor learning. The aim of the present study was therefore to investigate the effects of aF by evaluating immediate within-session effects and long-term adaptations. 34 participants were assigned to three groups that trained drop jumps with different relative frequencies of aF about their jump height: 100%, 50%, or 0%. A significant within-session effect of aF on jump height was observed before and also after the training period (pre: +4.6%; post: +2.6%). In the long-term (comparing pre- to post-measurement), the 100% group showed the greatest increase in jump height (+14%), followed by the 50% (+10%) and the 0% group (+6%). The importance of aF on drop jumps is therefore twofold: (i) to immediately increase jump performance and (ii) to improve long-term training efficacy. In contrast to the proposition of the guidance hypothesis, high frequency of aF seems to be beneficial when maximizing SSC-performance. As jump height cannot be quantified without objective technical measures it is recommended to include them into daily training.     

Decreasing Adolescent Drug Use and School Failure:

Behavioral analyses of 3 adolescents show that 3 months of targeted family problem-solving training can decrease drug use and school failure by the end of a 1 1/4 year follow-up while control behaviors remain stable. Some findings, however, reflected incomplete understanding of the controlling variables: (a) lengthy delays before behavioral improvement, (b) recurrences of the problem behavior and subsequent recoveries during follow-up, and (c) correlated changes in the home and school environments. It is suggested that systematic study of relevant variables in the intervention could reduce behavioral variability and further increase understanding of adolescent drug use.     

Exploring the effect of testing on forgetting in vocabulary learning: an examination of the bifurcation model

ABSTRACT

Research on the testing effect demonstrated a stronger decrease in performance for repeated studying compared to repeated testing. The bifurcation model attributes this test-delay interaction to different distributions of item memory strength. The present study tested the assumptions of the bifurcation model for learning foreign language vocabulary. We hypothesised an elimination or reduction of the interaction in a test/feedback condition because feedback prevents the bifurcation of item memory strength. Our experiment based on a 3 (Learning Method within: Test, test/feedback, copy)?×?3 (Retention Interval between: Immediate, 1-week, 2-weeks) mixed factorial design with a sample of N = 122. The greatest long-term retention was achieved in the test/feedback condition. The bifurcation model was supported by a reduced test-delay interaction for the test/feedback condition. Further evidence for the bifurcation model is needed as interpretations on the dropout rates of items with different recall success were limited due to a floor effect.     

The effects of patient's frequency of attendance and etiology of symptoms,on the General Practitioners wellbeing

IntroductionThe presence of Medically Unexplained Symptoms and a high Frequency of Attendance negatively affects the General Practitioners’ (GP) wellbeing. Although, overlapping between both phenomena is partial, with a number of frequent attenders reporting medically unexplained symptoms during consultation, there is no evidence on how GP's well-being it is affected by the specific main effects of these factors and their interaction. Evidence is also scant on the psychological processes explaining the negative impact of attendance and the etiology of symptoms on GP's wellbeing.ObjectiveDrawing on the Job Demand-Control and the Conservation of Resource stress models, this paper tests the moderating effects of the GP’ perception of patient's attendance and etiology of symptoms on the relationship between patient's demands and feedback on the GP's wellbeing.MethodA total of 105 volunteer GPs self-reported on the study variables through an experience sampling methodology after 898 patients’ consultation. Patients attendance and etiology of symptoms were categorized according to the physician self-perception and an external criterion (organizational records).ResultsPerception of Patients Frequent Attendance and Medically Unexplained Symptoms were positively related to physician's Emotional Exhaustion. Contrary to expected the test of the moderation effects of patients characteristics on the relation between patient's demands and feedback and the GP's emotional exhaustion were stronger for normal attenders compared with frequent attenders. An ad hoc study shows this unexplained result is related to the GP's expectations on Frequent vs. normal attenders’ behaviors. No significant results were found when the external criterion of classification was used.ConclusionCombined analysis of Frequency of Attendance and Etiology of Symptoms lead to a better understanding of the GP's decreased wellbeing. Also, the perception of the strain level (demands/positive feedback levels) associated to the consultation with different types of patients contribute to explain the consequences for the GP's wellbeing, especially when GP's expectations on patient's behaviors are violated.     

Surface electromyography-based biofeedback and knee rehabilitation: A review of the literature

The number of total knee arthroplasties (TKA) performed yearly is rapidly increasing. Additionally, upwards of 50% of patients who receive TKA never achieve a full functional recovery. This suggests considerable room for improvement. This need for improvement expands beyond TKA as similar effects are noted across knee injuries. Electromyography-based biofeedback (EMGBF) involves the delivery of feedback based on the activity of targeted muscle. By providing feedback contingent on changes in muscle amplitude, EMGBF may be an effective tool for strengthening quadricep muscles. This review aims to evaluate the utility of sEMGBF during physical therapy for various knee injuries. All studies were evaluated for the effectiveness of sEMGBF at improving muscle strength, range of motion, and reducing pain. Most studies reviewed found that including sEMGBF in physical therapy produced greater clinical benefits for patients than exercise alone. Further research is necessary to determine the best practice for including EMGBF in physical therapy.     

Prenatal daily musical exposure is associated with enhanced neural representation of speech fundamental frequency: Evidence from neonatal frequency-following responses

Fetal hearing experiences shape the linguistic and musical preferences of neonates. From the very first moment after birth, newborns prefer their native language, recognize their mother's voice, and show a greater responsiveness to lullabies presented during pregnancy. Yet, the neural underpinnings of this experience inducing plasticity have remained elusive. Here we recorded the frequency-following response (FFR), an auditory evoked potential elicited to periodic complex sounds, to show that prenatal music exposure is associated to enhanced neural encoding of speech stimuli periodicity, which relates to the perceptual experience of pitch. FFRs were recorded in a sample of 60 healthy neonates born at term and aged 12–72 hours. The sample was divided into two groups according to their prenatal musical exposure (29 daily musically exposed; 31 not-daily musically exposed). Prenatal exposure was assessed retrospectively by a questionnaire in which mothers reported how often they sang or listened to music through loudspeakers during the last trimester of pregnancy. The FFR was recorded to either a /da/ or an /oa/ speech-syllable stimulus. Analyses were centered on stimuli sections of identical duration (113 ms) and fundamental frequency (F₀ = 113 Hz). Neural encoding of stimuli periodicity was quantified as the FFR spectral amplitude at the stimulus F₀. Data revealed that newborns exposed daily to music exhibit larger spectral amplitudes at F₀ as compared to not-daily musically-exposed newborns, regardless of the eliciting stimulus. Our results suggest that prenatal music exposure facilitates the tuning to human speech fundamental frequency, which may support early language processing and acquisition.

Research Highlights

• Frequency-following responses to speech were collected from a sample of neonates prenatally exposed to music daily and compared to neonates not-daily exposed to music.
• Neonates who experienced daily prenatal music exposure exhibit enhanced frequency-following responses to the periodicity of speech sounds.
• Prenatal music exposure is associated with a fine-tuned encoding of human speech fundamental frequency, which may facilitate early language processing and acquisition.

     

Preliminary evidence for selective cortical responses to music in one-month-old infants

Prior studies have observed selective neural responses in the adult human auditory cortex to music and speech that cannot be explained by the differing lower-level acoustic properties of these stimuli. Does infant cortex exhibit similarly selective responses to music and speech shortly after birth? To answer this question, we attempted to collect functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 45 sleeping infants (2.0- to 11.9-weeks-old) while they listened to monophonic instrumental lullabies and infant-directed speech produced by a mother. To match acoustic variation between music and speech sounds we (1) recorded music from instruments that had a similar spectral range as female infant-directed speech, (2) used a novel excitation-matching algorithm to match the cochleagrams of music and speech stimuli, and (3) synthesized “model-matched” stimuli that were matched in spectrotemporal modulation statistics to (yet perceptually distinct from) music or speech. Of the 36 infants we collected usable data from, 19 had significant activations to sounds overall compared to scanner noise. From these infants, we observed a set of voxels in non-primary auditory cortex (NPAC) but not in Heschl's Gyrus that responded significantly more to music than to each of the other three stimulus types (but not significantly more strongly than to the background scanner noise). In contrast, our planned analyses did not reveal voxels in NPAC that responded more to speech than to model-matched speech, although other unplanned analyses did. These preliminary findings suggest that music selectivity arises within the first month of life. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/c8IGFvzxudk .

Research Highlights

• Responses to music, speech, and control sounds matched for the spectrotemporal modulation-statistics of each sound were measured from 2- to 11-week-old sleeping infants using fMRI.
• Auditory cortex was significantly activated by these stimuli in 19 out of 36 sleeping infants.
• Selective responses to music compared to the three other stimulus classes were found in non-primary auditory cortex but not in nearby Heschl's Gyrus.
• Selective responses to speech were not observed in planned analyses but were observed in unplanned, exploratory analyses.