Inserting mastered targets during error correction when teaching skills to children with autism

Research has identified a variety of effective approaches for responding to errors during discrete‐trial training. In one commonly used method, the therapist delivers a prompt contingent on the occurrence of an incorrect response and then re‐presents the trial so that the learner has an opportunity to perform the correct response independently. Some authors recommend inserting trials with previously mastered targets between the prompted response and opportunities to respond independently, but no studies have directly examined the benefits of this approach. In this study, we manipulated the placement of trials with mastered targets during discrete‐trial training to compare the effectiveness of error correction with and without this recommended insertion procedure. Four children with autism participated, and each was taught 18 targets across 3 target sets. Results indicated that embedding trials with mastered targets into error correction may not confer benefits for most children and that doing so may lead to less efficient instruction.     

为什么到手的金牌会“飞走”：竞赛中 “Choking”现象

“Choking”定义为,习惯的运动执行过程发生衰变的现象。其现象主要发生在比赛的关键时刻,或重大的赛事中。本文概述竞赛中的“Choking”现象及有关的定义,并进一步讨论有关的理论和研究中存在的问题。运动心理学家认为,“Choking”机制与运动焦虑有直接的联系。而社会心理学家认为,“Choking”的机制是,由于运动员有意识地控制运动过程,导致运动技术发生改变。理论上的分歧,使心理学家很难为运动员提出一个行之有效地预防“Choking”的方案。文章认为,当前的“Choking”理论过于简单地解释“Choking”现象,导致了实践中出现的矛盾。在综述这些问题的基础上,文章进一步讨论了一个“Choking”理论的“综合模式”。该理论模式强调多因素原则。在压力条件下,分析“Choking”机制应考虑任务特征和技术水平的因素。文章根据这一理论模式,建议运动员在比赛中,应分析具体情况,选择一个适合的应付压力的策略,是可以减少竞赛中“Choking”现象的。最后,文章建议了3个今后研究的方向。     

Relationships among motor skill,perceived self-competence,fitness, and physical activity in young adults

PurposeThis large-scale, exploratory study sought to examine the associations between motor skill proficiency (MSP), perceived self-competence (PC), physical fitness (PF), and self-reported physical activity (PA) to assess the assumption that relationships among these variables found in childhood and adolescence persist into young-adulthood. Specifically, predictors of PF and PA were assessed. Additionally, the contributions body mass index (BMI) and gender made to these relationships, as well as that of process- versus product-oriented motor skills data, were studied. Finally, how these relationships differed by gender was explored.MethodsParticipants’ (n = 448) MSP was assessed using select measures from the TGMD-2 and the BOT-2, while PF was evaluated using the FitnessGram. Participants also completed surveys to assess PC (SPPCS), PA (past-week MAQ), and demographic information. Height and weight were collected to calculate BMI.ResultsModels predicting physical fitness had good fit to the observed data, with perceived athletic competence, locomotor skill, upper-limb coordination, BMI, and gender accounting for about 75% (R² = 0.748) of aerobic PF variance and about 48% (R² = 0.476) of variance in push-up performances. About 18% (R² = 0.178) of variance in curl-up performances was predicted by perceived athletic competence, locomotor skill, upper-limb coordination, and PA. The PA model demonstrated weaker predictive power, with only about 10% (R² = 0.097) of variance explained. When considering male and female models separately, female models demonstrated better fit when predicting all PF and PA outcome variables. BMI and gender operated as significant predictors to differing degrees across the various models.ConclusionsThere is compelling evidence to believe relationships found among MSP, PC, PF, and PA in childhood and adolescence also exist in early adulthood. However, differences in the roles of gender and physical fitness versus physical activity are likely to exist.     

认知加工的自动化现象：从二分法到渐进观

认知自动化是人类学习和进步的必经之路。传统的二分法通过无意识等特征简单地将认知加工过程分为受控加工与自动化加工。但这些特征取决于研究者所采用的研究范式, 不具有普适性。近年来研究者根据注意资源有限理论提出自动化是一个渐进的过程, 而注意资源需求的减少是自动化发展的核心特征。相比二分法, 这种渐进观更加符合实证研究的发现。而且, 渐进观在信息加工自动化理论和技能习得理论的阶段性中都得以体现, 进一步证明了渐进观的普适性。     

Impaired sequential and partially compensated probabilistic skill learning in Parkinson's disease

The striatal dopaminergic dysfunction in Parkinson's disease (PD) has been associated with deficits in skill learning in numerous studies, but some of the findings remain controversial. Our aim was to explore the generality of the learning deficit using two widely reported skill learning tasks in the same group of Parkinson's patients. Thirty-four patients with PD (mean age: 62.83 years, SD: 7.67) were compared to age-matched healthy adults. Two tasks were employed: the Serial Reaction Time Task (SRT), testing the learning of motor sequences, and the Weather Prediction (WP) task, testing non-sequential probabilistic category learning. On the SRT task, patients with PD showed no significant evidence for sequence learning. These results support and also extend previous findings, suggesting that motor skill learning is vulnerable in PD. On the WP task, the PD group showed the same amount of learning as controls, but they exploited qualitatively different strategies in predicting the target categories. While controls typically combined probabilities from multiple predicting cues, patients with PD instead focused on individual cues. We also found moderate to high correlations between the different measures of skill learning. These findings support our hypothesis that skill learning is generally impaired in PD, and can in some cases be compensated by relying on alternative learning strategies.     

Teacher Beliefs and Responses Toward Student Misbehavior: Influence of Cognitive Skill Deficits

This study aimed to examine whether having knowledge of student cognitive skill deficits changes teacher beliefs and responses in regard to classroom misbehavior. Teachers (N = 272) were randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition. Although teachers in both conditions read the same vignette describing a student's misbehavior, the experimental group also reviewed information about the student's cognitive skill deficits. Teachers provided with cognitive skill deficit information were, on average, less likely to believe the student had control over the misbehavior, suggesting perceptions of unintentionality. Furthermore, they were significantly more likely to indicate positive emotional responses. Results suggest that school psychologists may consider sharing cognitive skill deficits information with teachers who are working with students displaying challenging behavior.     

Personality, political skill, and job performance

Based on the socioanalytic perspective of performance prediction [Hogan, R. (1991). Personality and personality assessment. In M. D. Dunnette, L. Hough, (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (2nd ed., pp. 873–919). Chicago: Rand McNally; Hogan, R., & Shelton, D. (1998). A socioanalytic perspective on job performance. Human Performance, 11, 129–144.], the present study tests whether motives to get along and to get ahead produce greater performance when interactively combined with social effectiveness. Specifically, we investigated whether interactions of the Five-Factor Model constructs of agreeableness and conscientiousness with political skill predict job performance. Our results supported our hypothesis for the agreeableness-political skill interaction. Additionally, after correcting for the unreliability and restricted range of conscientiousness, we found that its interaction with political skill also significantly predicted job performance, although not precisely as hypothesized. Implications of the results and directions for future research are provided.     

汉语综合理解能力的测试及其初步分析

采用两个测试,多媒语言理解测试和文章的阅读理解测试,分别测量了大学生的汉语综合理解能力和阅读理解能力.多媒语言理解测试根据Gernsbacher的多媒理解量表编制而成.文章的阅读理解测试是莫雷编制的<语文阅读水平测量>中的一个分测验.测斌结果表明(1)两个测试之间有显著相关和较高的一致性,说明阅读是汉语综合理解的一个重要方面;(2)汉语综合理解能力有两个成分外部语言和内部语言理解能力;(3)书面语言的阅读理解与口头语言的听力理解显著相关,说明外部语言的理解受信息传递方式的影响较小.