Using goal setting, task clarification, and feedback to increase the use of the hands-free technique by hospital operating room staff

We evaluated the effects of a behavioral treatment on the safe passing of sharp instruments using the hands-free technique among hospital operating room personnel during surgical procedures. Treatment consisted of participative goal setting, task clarification, and feedback. The average percentage of sharp instruments passed safely increased from 32% to 64% and 31% to 70% between baseline and treatment phases in the inpatient and outpatient surgery units, respectively. Five-month follow-up data suggested maintenance of treatment effects. These findings suggest the utility of organizational behavior management strategies in reducing risky behavior in hospital settings.     

A diagnostic approach to increase reusable dinnerware selection in a cafeteria

The current project tested a diagnostic approach to selecting interventions to increase patron selection of reusable dinnerware in a cafeteria. An assessment survey, completed by a sample of 43 patrons, suggested that the primary causes of wasteful behavior were (a) environmental arrangement of dinnerware options and (b) competing motivational variables. A functional relation between environmental arrangement and reusable product selection was demonstrated in a reversal design. However, the largest effect occurred as function of a multicomponent intervention involving environmental arrangement, employee involvement, and personal spoken prompts with motivational signs. The results support the use of informant assessments when designing community interventions.     

他汀类降低心血管危险作用模式的探讨

大量临床实验结果及流行病学资料已证实3-羟基3-甲基戊二酰辅酶A（HMG-CoA）还原酶抑制剂（简称他汀类）,在冠心病防治中能显著降低心血管危险。但他汀类是通过何种模式产生这一作用,至今仍未得出定论。四种模式可用来描述他汀类降低心血管危险可能的作用机制。通过对这四种模式的探讨,能使我们对他汀类的作用机理有更为全面的认识,也为临床工作者进一步研究及确定他汀类降低心血管危险的作用模式奠定基础。     

Measuring cognitive factors in speech comprehension: The value of using the Text Reception Threshold test as a visual equivalent of the SRT test

The ability to comprehend speech in noise is influenced by bottom-up auditory and top-down cognitive capacities. Separate examination of these capacities is relevant for various purposes. Speech-Reception-Threshold (SRT) tests measure an individual's ability to comprehend speech. This paper addresses the value of the Text-Reception-Threshold (TRT) test (a visual parallel of the SRT test) to assess the cognitive capacities allocated during speech comprehension. We conducted a secondary data analysis, including 87 normally-hearing adults (aged 18 to 78 years). Correlation coefficients between age, TRT, working memory (Spatial Span) and SRT were examined. The TRT and SRT correlated significantly ( r  =   0.30), supporting the value of TRT in explaining inter-individual differences in SRTs. The relations between age and TRT and between SSP and TRT were non-significant. The results indicate that the current TRT test does not fully cover the cognitive aspects relevant in speech comprehension. Adaptation of the test is required before clinical implementation can be considered.     

Cognition and hearing aids

The perceptual information transmitted from a damaged cochlea to the brain is more poorly specified than information from an intact cochlea and requires more processing in working memory before language content can be decoded. In addition to making sounds audible, current hearing aids include several technologies that are intended to facilitate language understanding for persons with hearing impairment in challenging listening situations. These include directional microphones, noise reduction, and fast-acting amplitude compression systems. However, the processed signal itself may challenge listening to the extent that with specific types of technology, and in certain listening situations, individual differences in cognitive processing resources may determine listening success. Here, current and developing digital hearing aid signal processing schemes are reviewed in the light of individual working memory (WM) differences. It is argued that signal processing designed to improve speech understanding may have both positive and negative consequences, and that these may depend on individual WM capacity.     

Cognition and aided speech recognition in noise: Specific role for cognitive factors following nine-week experience with adjusted compression settings in hearing aids

The working memory model for Ease of Language Understanding (ELU) proposes that language understanding under taxing conditions is related to explicit cognitive capacity. We refer to this as the mismatch hypothesis, since phonological representations based on the processing of speech under established conditions may not be accessed so readily when input conditions change and a match becomes problematic. Then, cognitive capacity requirements may differ from those used for processing speech hitherto. In the present study, we tested this hypothesis by investigating the relationship between aided speech recognition in noise and cognitive capacity in experienced hearing aid users when there was either a match or mismatch between processed speech input and established phonological representations. The settings in the existing digital hearing aids of the participants were adjusted to one of two different compression settings which processed the speech signal in qualitatively different ways ("fast" or "slow"). Testing took place after a 9-week period of experience with the new setting. Speech recognition was tested under different noise conditions and with match or mismatch (i.e. alternative compression setting) manipulations of the input signal. Individual cognitive capacity was measured using a reading span test and a letter monitoring test. Reading span, a reliable measure of explicit cognitive capacity, predicted speech recognition performance under mismatch conditions when processed input was incongruent with recently established phonological representations, due to the specific hearing aid setting. Cognitive measures were not main predictors of performance under match conditions. These findings are in line with the ELU model.     

Global Model Analysis of Cognitive Variability

Residual fluctuations produced in typical experimental methodologies are examined as correlated noises. The effective range of the correlations was assessed by determining whether the decay over look-back time is better described as a power law or exponential. Both of these decay laws contain free parameters and it is argued that it is not possible to distinguish their models on the basis of simple measures of goodness-of-fit. Global analyses that evaluate models on the basis of how well they generalize are conducted. The models are examined in terms of three constructs that all bear on generalization: cross-validity, flexibility, and representativeness. Quantitative assessment of a large ensemble of data suggests that the correlations decay over time as a power law. The conclusion is that human residual fluctuation is a correlated fractal.     

无关声音效应研究述评

无关声音效应是在对注意与记忆进行研究时所发现的一个现象,有益于探讨噪音等无关声音刺激对个体认知过程、工作绩效及身心健康的影响作用。在简要回顾ISE现象的界定与理论解释争论的基础上,重点从对刺激强度不同的ISE现象之理论分析、应用价值及一些相关的近期研究方面作了介绍,从对ISE现象的理论解释、无关声音刺激的选取、研究方法的综合使用、ISE现象中的个体差异等方面做了展望。     

Stimuli inevitably generated by behavior that avoids electric shock are inherently reinforcing.

A molecular analysis based on the termination of stimuli that are positively correlated with shock and the production of stimuli that are negatively correlated with shock provides a parsimonious count for both traditional discrete-trial avoidance behavior and the data derived from more recent free-operant procedures. The necessary stimuli are provided by the intrinsic feedback generated by the subject's behavior, in addition to those presented by the experimenter. Moreover, all data compatible with the molar principle of shock-frequency reduction as reinforcement are also compatible with a delay-of-shock gradient, but some data compatible with the delay gradient are not compatible with frequency reduction. The delay gradient corresponds to functions relating magnitude of behavioral effect to the time between conditional and unconditional stimuli, the time between conditioned and primary reinforcers, and the time between responses and positive reinforcers.     

Effectiveness of a Comprehensive Worksite Stress Management Program: Combining Organizational and Individual Interventions

A comprehensive worksite stress management program consisting of self-management training and a stressor reduction process was evaluated in a pre-post, treatment-control design in four comparable facilities. Results showed that over a 3-month period those individuals attending self-management training improved on emotional well-being measures. Organizational data suggested that their work-units' productivity increased and absenteeism decreased over the same period. Results support the value of combining self-management training and stressor reduction to produce positive individual and organizational outcomes.