Exploring behavioral validity of driving simulator under time pressure driving conditions of professional drivers

Driving simulators have become an important tool in human factors research, given that they are appropriately validated. Therefore, this study aims to explore the behavioral (absolute and relative) validity of a fixed-base driving simulator by analyzing different driving behavior measures such as speed, longitudinal acceleration, lateral acceleration, and brake pedal force. Thirty professional drivers participated in the experiment and the data was collected in real and simulated worlds under No Time Pressure (NTP) and Time Pressure (TP) driving conditions. Initially, comparative analyses were conducted on different driving behavior measures using Wilcoxon-signed rank test to examine absolute validity of the driving simulator. Finally, Generalized Linear Mixed (GLM) models were developed for computing the effective distance between real and simulated worlds by quantifying the parameters and for establishing relative validity. In general, the continuous profiles of driving behavior measures followed similar trends in real and simulated worlds and comparative analyses indicated relative validity of the driving simulator. The GLM models showed significant interaction effect of driving environments (real-world and simulated world) and driving conditions (NTP and TP) where high driving speed, high brake pedal force, and low lateral acceleration were observed in simulated world under TP driving condition than real-world under TP driving condition. Overall, the statistical analyses showed qualitative correspondence (relative validity) of the driving behavior measures in between real and simulated worlds. The findings from the current study showed expediency of the driving simulator and its effectiveness in conducting research on human factors and driver safety.     

Modeling Lifelong Learning: Collaborative Teaching across Disciplinary Lines

Most courses in colleges and universities are taught by only one instructor. This is often necessitated by the financial exigencies of educational institutions, but is also due to an academic tradition in which the ideal is a single expert teaching in a single discipline. The rapidly changing realities of both the higher education and job markets, however, have called the traditional ideal into question. Interdisciplinary collaborative teaching is one way to adapt to the needs of twenty‐first‐century students, by modeling lifelong learning for students and inviting instructors to be more deliberately reflective about disciplinary assumptions, learning styles, and pedagogies.     

Black holes: Some notes on time,symbolization, and perversion in the psychodynamics of addiction

Abstract

The existence of man is distinguished by its split state: man stands in the middle of life yet still has an awareness of his own death. He has to compensate whatever is missing in him naturally at the societal level, created as culture, and at the individual level through creativity. Rank investigated the human ‘creative drive’, the anthropological aspiration to express oneself in creative works, and to overcome the fear of death with its help. Freud admired poets and artists, whose achievements he could not psychoanalytically access, but he considered science superior to the harmless and naïve arts. There are two anthropological radicals: premature birth and the consciousness of death. Freud's massive fear of death made it difficult for him to acknowledge the problem of death appropriately. In Rank's concept, the development of human creativity contributes towards the fear of death being alleviated so that the knowledge of death can be integrated into life; creativity belongs to the fundamental opportunities of man that may enable him to find a way through neurosis. Failure is as much a part of life as is creativity: those who do not experience and accept life in its tragic dimension are denied creativity. Only a creative person who accepts his partial failure finds the strength to continue to be creative without his imperfect work leading to the ritual repetition of the same thing again and again, that is, getting stuck in recidivism.     

The Estimated Impact of Performing Arts on Adolescent Mood Within a Community Sample of Mental Health Professionals

ABSTRACT

In a brief survey, the authors solicited professional opinions regarding the probable impact of performing arts on adolescent mood stability using a hypothetical scenario where 20 moderately depressed 15-year-olds agreed to participate in a high school play, musical, or other singing performance. The results of the survey indicated that clinicians generally believed performing arts could be helpful for depressed adolescents. The authors discuss the potentials for implementing school and community based performing arts as an adjunctive approach to help adolescent clients cope with emotional problems.     

Developmental trajectory of intersubjectivity in the second and third year of life: Study of fixed-population and random-individual effects

Colwyn Trevarthen claimed that babies have an intrinsic motivation to communicate and engage with others that he called intersubjectivity. Around the ninth month of life, this motivation changes and passes from person-to-person dyadic (primary intersubjectivity) to triangulate a person–person–object relationship (secondary intersubjectivity). Despite the scientific consensus on this developmental leap, few empirical studies explore the trajectory of this more complex form of intersubjectivity between the second and third year of life. One hundred and fifteen free play sessions from 27 mother–child dyads (13 girls and 14 boys) between 9 and 37 months were filmed and were categorized based on the Level of Intersubjective Attunement Scale. The data were analysed using a linear mixed-effects model. Results show both a population trajectory of the levels of intersubjective attunement and random individual differences. We discuss these results in relation to the binomial typical developmental route and interindividual variability.     

Introducing Emotioncy as a Potential Source of Test Bias: A Mixed Rasch Modeling Study

This article attempts to present emotioncy as a potential source of test bias to inform the analysis of test item performance. Emotioncy is defined as a hierarchy, ranging from exvolvement (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic) to involvement (inner and arch), to emphasize the emotions evoked by the senses. This study hypothesizes that when individuals have high levels of emotioncy for specific words, their test performance may systematically change, resulting in test bias. To this end, 355 individuals were asked to take a 40-item vocabulary test along with the emotioncy scale. Mixed Rasch model was employed to flag differential item functioning items. Results illustrated that the test takers with high emotioncy toward specific words outperformed the ones in the low-emotioncy group, characterizing emotioncy as a potential source of test bias.     

Evaluating the Effects of Creative Journal Arts Therapy for Survivors of Domestic Violence

The authors implemented a small series (N = 3) single-case research design to assess the effectiveness of a 9-session creative arts therapy treatment program for adult survivors of domestic violence. Analysis of participants’ scores on the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45.2) and Brief Resilience Scale using the percentage of nonoverlapping data procedure yielded treatment effects indicating that a creative arts therapy treatment program may be effective for reducing mental health symptoms and improving resiliency. It is recommended that this body of research continue for other educational, work, and health settings.     

Analyzing temporal patterns of infant sleep and negative affective behavior: a comparison between different statistical models

Objective

Variability in infant sleep and negative affective behavior (NAB) is a developmental phenomenon that has long been of interest to researchers and clinicians. However, analyses and delineation of such temporal patterns were often limited to basic statistical approaches, which may prevent adequate identification of meaningful variation within these patterns. Modern statistical procedures such as additive models may detect specific patterns of temporal variation in infant behavior more effectively.

Method

Hundred and twenty-one mothers were asked to record different behaviors of their 4–44 weeks old healthy infants by diaries for three days consecutively. Circadian patterns as well as individual trajectories and day-to-day variability of infant sleep and NAB were modeled with generalized linear models (GLMs) including a linear and quadratic polynomial for time, a GLM with a polynomial of the 8th order, a GLM with a harmonic function, a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) with a polynomial of the 8th order, a generalized additive model, and a generalized additive mixed model (GAMM).

Results

The semi-parametric model GAMM was found to fit the data of infant sleep better than any other parametric model used. GLMM with a polynomial of the 8th order and GAMM modeled temporal patterns of infant NAB equally well, although the GLMM exhibited a slightly better model fit while GAMM was easier to interpret. Besides the well-known evening clustering in infant NAB we found a significant second peak in NAB around midday that was not affected by the constant decline in the amounts of NAB across the 3-day study period.

Conclusion

Using advanced statistical procedures (GAMM and GLMM) even small variations and phenomena in infant behavior can be reliably detected. Future studies investigating variability and temporal patterns in infant variables may benefit from these statistical approaches.     

Swedish women's perceptions of and conformity to feminine norms

The relatively high gender equality in the Swedish society is likely to exert an influence on gender role construction. Hence, the present research aimed to investigate Swedish women's perceptions of and conformity to feminine norms. A mixed methods approach with two studies was used. In Study 1, young Swedish women’s gender role conformity, as measured by the Conformity to Feminine Norms Inventory 45 (CFNI‐45), was compared to the results from previously published studies in Canada, the United States, and Slovakia. Overall, Swedish women displayed less conformity than their foreign counterparts, with the largest difference on the subscale Sexual fidelity. In Study 2, focus group interviews with young Swedish women added a more complex picture of feminine norms in the Swedish society. For instance the results indicated that Swedish women, while living in a society with a strong gender equality discourse, are torn between the perceived need to invest in their appearances and the risk of being viewed as non‐equal when doing so. In sum, despite the fact that traditional gender roles are less pronounced in Sweden, gender role conformity is still a pressing issue. Since attending to the potential roles of feminine norms in women’s lives previously has been proposed to be useful in counseling and therapeutic work, the present research also offers valuable information for both researchers and practitioners. [Correction added on 5 May 2017, after first online publication in April 2017: An incorrect Abstract was inadvertently captured in the published article and has been corrected in this current version.]     

Cross‐national examination of the perpetrator–victim account estimation bias as a function of different types of accounts

In two cross‐national studies, we investigated the existence of a perpetrator–victim account estimation bias and how this bias can be reduced or eliminated when estimating the perpetrator's use of a mixed account; that is, an account in which the perpetrator not only apologizes but also explains mitigating and justifiable circumstances. Japanese and American participants took either the perspective of the perpetrator or the victim and estimated the likelihood of the perpetrator's use of each account. The results supported our hypothesis in both national samples. The implications of the bias and the role of the mixed account in reducing it are discussed.