Effect of practice and span length on the dual-task coordination executive test

The measure "mu", proposed as an index of the ability to coordinate concurrent box-crossing (BC) and digit-span (DS) tasks in the dual task (DT), should reflect the capacity of the executive component of the working memory system. We investigated the effect of practice in BC and of a change in the digit span on mu by adding previous practice trials in BC and diminishing, maintaining or increasing the digit sequence length. The mu behavior was evaluated throughout three trials of the test. Reported strategies in digit tasks were also analyzed. Subjects with diminished span showed the best performance in DT due to a stable performance in DS and BC in the single- and dual-task conditions. These subjects also showed a more stable performance throughout trials. Subjects with diminished span tended to employ effortless strategies, whereas subjects with increased span employed effort-requiring strategies and showed the lowest means of mu. Subjects with initial practice trials showed the best performance in BC and the most differentiated performance between the single- and dual-task conditions in BC. The correlation coefficient between the mu values obtained in the first and second trials was 0.814 for subjects with diminished span and practice trials in BC. It seems that the within-session practice in BC and the performance variability in DS affect the reliability of the index mu. To control these factors we propose the introduction of previous practice trials in BC and a modification of the current method to determine the digit sequence length. This proposal should contribute to the development of a more reliable method to evaluate the executive capacity of coordination in the dual-task paradigm.

Excitotoxic median raphe lesions aggravate working memory storage performance deficits caused by scopolamine infusion into the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus in the inhibitory avoidance task in rats

The interactions between the median raphe nucleus (MRN) serotonergic system and the septohippocampal muscarinic cholinergic system in the modulation of immediate working memory storage performance were investigated. Rats with sham or ibotenic acid lesions of the MRN were bilaterally implanted with cannulae in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus and tested in a light/dark step-through inhibitory avoidance task in which response latency to enter the dark compartment immediately after the shock served as a measure of immediate working memory storage. MRN lesion per se did not alter response latency. Post-training intrahippocampal scopolamine infusion (2 and 4 µg/side) produced a more marked reduction in response latencies in the lesioned animals compared to the sham-lesioned rats. Results suggest that the immediate working memory storage performance is modulated by synergistic interactions between serotonergic projections of the MRN and the muscarinic cholinergic system of the hippocampus.

The control of deliberate waiting strategies in a stop-signal task

To inhibit an ongoing flow of thoughts or actions has been largely considered to be a crucial executive function, and the stop-signal paradigm makes inhibitory control measurable. Stop-signal tasks usually combine two concurrent tasks, i.e., manual responses to a primary task (go-task) are occasionally countermanded by a stimulus which signals participants to inhibit their response in that trial (stop-task). Participants are always instructed not to wait for the stop-signal, since waiting strategies cause the response times to be unstable, invalidating the data. The aim of the present study was to experimentally control the strategies of waiting deliberately for the stop-signal in a stop-task by means of an algorithm that measured the variation in the reaction times to go-stimuli on-line, and displayed a warning legend urging participants to be faster when their reaction times were more than two standard deviations of the mean. Thirty-four university students performed a stop-task with go- and stop-stimuli, both of which were delivered in the visual modality and were lateralized within the visual field. The participants were divided into two groups (group A, without the algorithm, vs group B, with the algorithm). Group B exhibited lower variability of reaction times to go-stimuli, whereas no significant between-group differences were found in any of the measures of inhibitory control, showing that the algorithm succeeded in controlling the deliberate waiting strategies. Differences between deliberate and unintentional waiting strategies, and anxiety as a probable factor responsible for individual differences in deliberate waiting behavior, are discussed.

Assessing negative priming by attended distractors in a paper-and-pencil task

The paper-and-pencil digit-comparison task for assessing negative priming (NP) was introduced, using a referent-size-selection procedure that was demonstrated to enhance the effect. NP is indicated by slower responses to recently ignored items, and proposed within the clinical-experimental framework as a major cognitive index of active suppression of distracting information, critical to executive functioning. The digit-comparison task requires circling digits of a list with digit-asterisk pairs (a baseline measure for digit-selection), and the larger of two digits in each pair of the unrelated (with different digits in successive digit-pairs) and related lists (in which the smaller digit subsequently became a target). A total of 56 students (18-38 years) participated in two experiments that explored practice effects across lists and demonstrated reliable NP, i.e., slowing to complete the related list relative to the unrelated list, (F(2, 44) = 52.42, P < 0.0001). A 3rd experiment examined age-related effects. In the paper-and-pencil digit-comparison task, NP was reliable for the younger (N = 8, 18-24 years) and middle-aged adults (N = 8, 31-54 years), but absent for the older group (N = 8, 68-77 years). NP was also reduced with aging in a computer-implemented digit-comparison task, and preserved in a task typically used to test location-specific NP, accounting for the dissociation between identity- and spatial-based suppression of distractors (Rao R(3, 12) = 16.02, P < 0.0002). Since the paper-and-pencil digit-comparison task can be administered easily, it can be useful for neuropsychologists seeking practical measures of NP that do not require cumbersome technical equipment.

Influence of gender on psychomotor vigilance task performance by adolescents

During adolescence, the sleep phase delay associated with early school times increases daytime sleepiness and reduces psychomotor performance. Some studies have shown an effect of gender on psychomotor performance in adults and children. Males present faster reaction times (RT) compared with females. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of gender on Palm psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) performance in adolescents. Thirty-four adolescents (19 girls, 13 to 16 years old) attending morning school classes of a public school in Curitiba, PR, Brazil, participated in the study. Sleep patterns were measured using actigraphy and sleepiness data were accessed with the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS). KSS and PVT measurements were collected at two times in the morning (8:00 and 11:00 h). The data were compared using one-way ANOVA, considering gender as a factor. ANOVA indicated that gender did not affect sleep patterns and subjective somnolence; however, a statistically significant effect of gender was detected for PVT performance. Boys presented faster RT (RT-PVT1: 345.51 ms, F = 6.08, P < 0.05; RT-PVT2: 343.30 ms, F = 6.35, P < 0.05) and fewer lapses (lapses-PVT1: 8.71, F = 4.45, P < 0.05; lapses-PVT2: 7.82, F = 7.06, P < 0.05) compared with girls (RT-PVT1: 402.96; RT-PVT2: 415.70; lapses-PVT1: 16.33; lapses-PVT2: 17.80). These results showed that this effect of gender, already reported in adults and children, is also observed in adolescents. The influence of gender should be taken into account in studies that use Palm PVT to evaluate psychomotor performance in this age range.

Can course format influence the performance of students in an advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) program?

Advanced cardiac life support (ACLS) is a problem-based course that employs simulation techniques to teach the standard management techniques of cardiovascular emergencies. Its structure is periodically revised according to new versions of the American Heart Association guidelines. Since it was introduced in Brazil in 1996, the ACLS has been through two conceptual and structural changes. Detailed documented reports on the effect of these changes on student performance are limited. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of conceptual and structural changes of the course on student ACLS performance at a Brazilian training center. This was a retrospective study of 3266 students divided into two groups according to the teaching model: Model 1 (N = 1181; 1999-2003) and Model 2 (N = 2085; 2003-2007). Model 2 increased practical skill activities to 75% of the total versus 60% in Model 1. Furthermore, the teaching material provided to the students before the course was more objective than that used for Model 1. Scores greater than 85% in the theoretical evaluation and approval in the evaluation of practice by the instructor were considered to be a positive outcome. Multiple logistic regression was used to adjust for potential confounders (specialty, residency, study time, opportunity to enhance practical skills during the course and location where the course was given). Compared to Model 1, Model 2 presented odds ratios (OR) indicating better performance in the theoretical (OR = 1.34; 95%CI = 1.10-1.64), practical (OR = 1.19; 95%CI = 0.90-1.57), and combined (OR = 1.38; 95%CI = 1.13-1.68) outcomes. Increasing the time devoted to practical skills did not improve the performance of ACLS students.

Facilitatory effects of an auditory warning stimulus in a visual location identification task and a visual shape identification task

The occurrence of a weak auditory warning stimulus increases the speed of the response to a subsequent visual target stimulus that must be identified. This facilitatory effect has been attributed to the temporal expectancy automatically induced by the warning stimulus. It has not been determined whether this results from a modulation of the stimulus identification process, the response selection process or both. The present study examined these possibilities. A group of 12 young adults performed a reaction time location identification task and another group of 12 young adults performed a reaction time shape identification task. A visual target stimulus was presented 1850 to 2350 ms plus a fixed interval (50, 100, 200, 400, 800, or 1600 ms, depending on the block) after the appearance of a fixation point, on its left or right side, above or below a virtual horizontal line passing through it. In half of the trials, a weak auditory warning stimulus (S1) appeared 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, or 1600 ms (according to the block) before the target stimulus (S2). Twelve trials were run for each condition. The S1 produced a facilitatory effect for the 200, 400, 800, and 1600 ms stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) in the case of the side stimulus-response (S-R) corresponding condition, and for the 100 and 400 ms SOA in the case of the side S-R non-corresponding condition. Since these two conditions differ mainly by their response selection requirements, it is reasonable to conclude that automatic temporal expectancy influences the response selection process.

Nichesourcing The Uralic Languages For The Benefit Of Linguistic Research And Lingual Societies

The emerging technologies have recently challenged the libraries to reconsider their role as a mere mediator between the collections, researchers, and wider audiences (Sula, 2013), and libraries, especially the nationwide institutions like national libraries, haven’t always managed to face the challenge (Nygren et al., 2014). In the Digitization Project of Kindred Languages, the National Library of Finland has become a node that connects the partners to interplay and work for shared goals and objectives. In this paper, I will be drawing a picture of the crowdsourcing methods that have been established during the project to support both linguistic research and lingual diversity. The National Library of Finland has been executing the Digitization Project of Kindred Languages since 2012. The project seeks to digitize and publish approximately 1,200 monograph titles and more than 100 newspapers titles in various, and in some cases endangered Uralic languages. Once the digitization has been completed in 2015, the Fenno-Ugrica online collection will consist of 110,000 monograph pages and around 90,000 newspaper pages to which all users will have open access regardless of their place of residence. The majority of the digitized literature was originally published in the 1920s and 1930s in the Soviet Union, and it was the genesis and consolidation period of literary languages. This was the era when many Uralic languages were converted into media of popular education, enlightenment, and dissemination of information pertinent to the developing political agenda of the Soviet state. The ‘deluge’ of popular literature in the 1920s to 1930s suddenly challenged the lexical orthographic norms of the limited ecclesiastical publications from the 1880s onward. Newspapers were now written in orthographies and in word forms that the locals would understand. Textbooks were written to address the separate needs of both adults and children. New concepts were introduced in the language. This was the beginning of a renaissance and period of enlightenment (Rueter, 2013). The linguistically oriented population can also find writings to their delight, especially lexical items specific to a given publication, and orthographically documented specifics of phonetics. The project is financially supported by the Kone Foundation in Helsinki and is part of the Foundation’s Language Programme. One of the key objectives of the Kone Foundation Language Programme is to support a culture of openness and interaction in linguistic research, but also to promote citizen science as a tool for the participation of the language community in research. In addition to sharing this aspiration, our objective within the Language Programme is to make sure that old and new corpora in Uralic languages are made available for the open and interactive use of the academic community as well as the language societies. Wordlists are available in 17 languages, but without tokenization, lemmatization, and so on. This approach was verified with the scholars, and we consider the wordlists as raw data for linguists. Our data is used for creating the morphological analyzers and online dictionaries at the Helsinki and Tromsø Universities, for instance. In order to reach the targets, we will produce not only the digitized materials but also their development tools for supporting linguistic research and citizen science. The Digitization Project of Kindred Languages is thus linked with the research of language technology. The mission is to improve the usage and usability of digitized content. During the project, we have advanced methods that will refine the raw data for further use, especially in the linguistic research. How does the library meet the objectives, which appears to be beyond its traditional playground? The written materials from this period are a gold mine, so how could we retrieve these hidden treasures of languages out of the stack that contains more than 200,000 pages of literature in various Uralic languages? The problem is that the machined-encoded text (OCR) contains often too many mistakes to be used as such in research. The mistakes in OCRed texts must be corrected. For enhancing the OCRed texts, the National Library of Finland developed an open-source code OCR editor that enabled the editing of machine-encoded text for the benefit of linguistic research. This tool was necessary to implement, since these rare and peripheral prints did often include already perished characters, which are sadly neglected by the modern OCR software developers, but belong to the historical context of kindred languages and thus are an essential part of the linguistic heritage (van Hemel, 2014). Our crowdsourcing tool application is essentially an editor of Alto XML format. It consists of a back-end for managing users, permissions, and files, communicating through a REST API with a front-end interface—that is, the actual editor for correcting the OCRed text. The enhanced XML files can be retrieved from the Fenno-Ugrica collection for further purposes. Could the crowd do this work to support the academic research? The challenge in crowdsourcing lies in its nature. The targets in the traditional crowdsourcing have often been split into several microtasks that do not require any special skills from the anonymous people, a faceless crowd. This way of crowdsourcing may produce quantitative results, but from the research’s point of view, there is a danger that the needs of linguists are not necessarily met. Also, the remarkable downside is the lack of shared goal or the social affinity. There is no reward in the traditional methods of crowdsourcing (de Boer et al., 2012). Also, there has been criticism that digital humanities makes the humanities too data-driven and oriented towards quantitative methods, losing the values of critical qualitative methods (Fish, 2012). And on top of that, the downsides of the traditional crowdsourcing become more imminent when you leave the Anglophone world. Our potential crowd is geographically scattered in Russia. This crowd is linguistically heterogeneous, speaking 17 different languages. In many cases languages are close to extinction or longing for language revitalization, and the native speakers do not always have Internet access, so an open call for crowdsourcing would not have produced appeasing results for linguists. Thus, one has to identify carefully the potential niches to complete the needed tasks. When using the help of a crowd in a project that is aiming to support both linguistic research and survival of endangered languages, the approach has to be a different one. In nichesourcing, the tasks are distributed amongst a small crowd of citizen scientists (communities). Although communities provide smaller pools to draw resources, their specific richness in skill is suited for complex tasks with high-quality product expectations found in nichesourcing. Communities have a purpose and identity, and their regular interaction engenders social trust and reputation. These communities can correspond to research more precisely (de Boer et al., 2012). Instead of repetitive and rather trivial tasks, we are trying to utilize the knowledge and skills of citizen scientists to provide qualitative results. In nichesourcing, we hand in such assignments that would precisely fill the gaps in linguistic research. A typical task would be editing and collecting the words in such fields of vocabularies where the researchers do require more information. For instance, there is lack of Hill Mari words and terminology in anatomy. We have digitized the books in medicine, and we could try to track the words related to human organs by assigning the citizen scientists to edit and collect words with the OCR editor. From the nichesourcing’s perspective, it is essential that altruism play a central role when the language communities are involved. In nichesourcing, our goal is to reach a certain level of interplay, where the language communities would benefit from the results. For instance, the corrected words in Ingrian will be added to an online dictionary, which is made freely available for the public, so the society can benefit, too. This objective of interplay can be understood as an aspiration to support the endangered languages and the maintenance of lingual diversity, but also as a servant of ‘two masters’: research and society.

Hävittäjäohjaajan kognitiivisen kuormituksen tason mittaaminen NASA-Task Load Index ja Modified Cooper-Harper -mittareilla F/A-18 virtuaalisimulaattorissa

F/A-18-monitoimihävittäjän ohjaajan tehtävän kognitiiviset vaatimukset ovat korkeat. Kognitiivisen kuormituksen taso vaikuttaa hävittäjäohjaajan suoritustasoon ja subjektiivisiin tun-temuksiin. Yerkesin ja Dodsonin periaatteen mukaisesti erittäin matala tai erittäin korkea kuormituksen taso laskee suoritustasoa. Optimaalinen kuormituksen taso ja suoritustaso saa-vutetaan jossain ääripäiden välillä. Hävittäjäohjaajan kognitiivisen kuormituksen tasoon vaikuttaa lentotehtävän suorittamiseen vaadittava henkinen ponnistelu. Vaadittavan ponnistelun taso riippuu tehtävien vaatimustasosta ja määrästä, tehtäviin käytettävissä olevasta ajasta sekä yksilöllisistä ominaisuuksista. Tutkimuksessa mitattiin kognitiivisen kuormituksen tasoa subjektiivisen arvioinnin menetelmällä NASA-TLX (National Aeronautics and Space Administration - Task Load Index) ja MCH (Modified Cooper-Harper) -mittareilla. Tutkimuksessa selvitettiin mittareiden havaintoarvojen muutosta, sensitiivisyyttä ja yhdenmukaisuutta kognitiivisen kuormituksen tason muuttuessa. Tutkimuksen mittauksiin osallistui 35 Suomen ilmavoimien aktiivisessa palveluksessa olevaa F/A-18-monitoimihävittäjäohjaajaa. Koehenkilöiden lentotuntien keskiarvo F/A-18-monitoimihävittäjällä oli 598 tuntia ja keskihajonta 445 tuntia. Koehenkilöiden tehtävänä oli lentää F/A-18-virtuaalisimulaattorilla 11 ILS (Instrument Landing System) -mittarilähestymistä eri aloitusetäisyyksiltä kiitotien kynnyksestä. Kognitiivisesti kuormitta-van mittarilähestymistehtävän aikana kuormituksen tasoa nostettiin lisätehtävillä ja vähentä-mällä tehtäviin käytettävissä olevaa aikaa. Koehenkilöitä pyydettiin ponnistelemaan mahdollisimman paljon tehtävien suorittamisen aikana hyvän suoritustason ylläpitämiseksi. Tulosten perusteella mittareiden havaintoarvot muuttuivat kognitiivisen kuormituksen tason muuttuessa. Käytettävissä olevan ajan vaikutus kognitiivisen kuormituksen tasoon oli tilastollisesti erittäin merkitsevä. Mittarit olivat sensitiivisiä kognitiivisen kuormituksen tason muutokselle ja antoivat yhdenmukaisia havaintoarvoja.

Power and Performance Management Strategies on NoC-Based Multicore Platforms, Using DVFS, Adaptive Algorithm and Task Parallelism

This work presents synopsis of efficient strategies used in power managements for achieving the most economical power and energy consumption in multicore systems, FPGA and NoC Platforms. In this work, a practical approach was taken, in an effort to validate the significance of the proposed Adaptive Power Management Algorithm (APMA), proposed for system developed, for this thesis project. This system comprise arithmetic and logic unit, up and down counters, adder, state machine and multiplexer. The essence of carrying this project firstly, is to develop a system that will be used for this power management project. Secondly, to perform area and power synopsis of the system on these various scalable technology platforms, UMC 90nm nanotechnology 1.2v, UMC 90nm nanotechnology 1.32v and UMC 0.18 μmNanotechnology 1.80v, in order to examine the difference in area and power consumption of the system on the platforms. Thirdly, to explore various strategies that can be used to reducing system’s power consumption and to propose an adaptive power management algorithm that can be used to reduce the power consumption of the system. The strategies introduced in this work comprise Dynamic Voltage Frequency Scaling (DVFS) and task parallelism. After the system development, it was run on FPGA board, basically NoC Platforms and on these various technology platforms UMC 90nm nanotechnology1.2v, UMC 90nm nanotechnology 1.32v and UMC180 nm nanotechnology 1.80v, the system synthesis was successfully accomplished, the simulated result analysis shows that the system meets all functional requirements, the power consumption and the area utilization were recorded and analyzed in chapter 7 of this work. This work extensively reviewed various strategies for managing power consumption which were quantitative research works by many researchers and companies, it's a mixture of study analysis and experimented lab works, it condensed and presents the whole basic concepts of power management strategy from quality technical papers.

3D movement and muscle activity patterns in a violin bowing task

Objective: Overuse injuries in violinists are a problem that has been primarily analyzed through the use of questionnaires. Simultaneous 3D motion analysis and EMG to measure muscle activity has been suggested as a quantitative technique to explore this problem by identifying movement patterns and muscular demands which may predispose violinists to overuse injuries. This multi-disciplinary analysis technique has, so far, had limited use in the music world. The purpose of this study was to use it to characterize the demands of a violin bowing task. Subjects: Twelve injury-free violinists volunteered for the study. The subjects were assigned to a novice or expert group based on playing experience, as determined by questionnaire. Design and Settings: Muscle activity and movement patterns were assessed while violinists played five bowing cycles (one bowing cycle = one down-bow + one up-bow) on each string (G, D, A, E), at a pulse of 4 beats per bow and 100 beats per minute. Measurements: An upper extremity model created using coordinate data from markers placed on the right acromion process, lateral epicondyle of the humerus and ulnar styloid was used to determine minimum and maximum joint angles, ranges of motion (ROM) and angular velocities at the shoulder and elbow of the bowing arm. Muscle activity in right anterior deltoid, biceps brachii and triceps brachii was assessed during maximal voluntary contractions (MVC) and during the playing task. Data were analysed for significant differences across the strings and between experience groups. Results: Elbow flexion/extension ROM was similar across strings for both groups. Shoulder flexion/extension ROM increaslarger for the experts. Angular velocity changes mirrored changes in ROM. Deltoid was the most active of the muscles assessed (20% MVC) and displayed a pattern of constant activation to maintain shoulder abduction. Biceps and triceps were less active (4 - 12% MVC) and showed a more periodic 'on and off pattern. Novices' muscle activity was higher in all cases. Experts' muscle activity showed a consistent pattern across strings, whereas the novices were more irregular. The agonist-antagonist roles of biceps and triceps during the bowing motion were clearly defined in the expert group, but not as apparent in the novice group. Conclusions: Bowing movement appears to be controlled by the shoulder rather than the elbow as shoulder ROM changed across strings while elbow ROM remained the same. Shoulder injuries are probably due to repetition as the muscle activity required for the movement is small. Experts require a smaller amount of muscle activity to perform the movement, possibly due to more efficient muscle activation patterns as a result of practice. This quantitative multidisciplinary approach to analysing violinists' movements can contribute to fuller understanding of both playing demands and injury mechanisms .

Verbal ability, previous practice and load on short-term memory as determiners of differences in a complex learning task: an experimental study

Traditional psychometric theory and practice classify people according to broad ability dimensions but do not examine how these mental processes occur. Hunt and Lansman (1975) proposed a 'distributed memory' model of cognitive processes with emphasis on how to describe individual differences based on the assumption that each individual possesses the same components. It is in the quality of these components ~hat individual differences arise. Carroll (1974) expands Hunt's model to include a production system (after Newell and Simon, 1973) and a response system. He developed a framework of factor analytic (FA) factors for : the purpose of describing how individual differences may arise from them. This scheme is to be used in the analysis of psychometric tes ts . Recent advances in the field of information processing are examined and include. 1) Hunt's development of differences between subjects designated as high or low verbal , 2) Miller's pursuit of the magic number seven, plus or minus two, 3) Ferguson's examination of transfer and abilities and, 4) Brown's discoveries concerning strategy teaching and retardates . In order to examine possible sources of individual differences arising from cognitive tasks, traditional psychometric tests were searched for a suitable perceptual task which could be varied slightly and administered to gauge learning effects produced by controlling independent variables. It also had to be suitable for analysis using Carroll's f ramework . The Coding Task (a symbol substitution test) found i n the Performance Scale of the WISe was chosen. Two experiments were devised to test the following hypotheses. 1) High verbals should be able to complete significantly more items on the Symbol Substitution Task than low verbals (Hunt, Lansman, 1975). 2) Having previous practice on a task, where strategies involved in the task may be identified, increases the amount of output on a similar task (Carroll, 1974). J) There should be a sUbstantial decrease in the amount of output as the load on STM is increased (Miller, 1956) . 4) Repeated measures should produce an increase in output over trials and where individual differences in previously acquired abilities are involved, these should differentiate individuals over trials (Ferguson, 1956). S) Teaching slow learners a rehearsal strategy would improve their learning such that their learning would resemble that of normals on the ,:same task. (Brown, 1974). In the first experiment 60 subjects were d.ivided·into high and low verbal, further divided randomly into a practice group and nonpractice group. Five subjects in each group were assigned randomly to work on a five, seven and nine digit code throughout the experiment. The practice group was given three trials of two minutes each on the practice code (designed to eliminate transfer effects due to symbol similarity) and then three trials of two minutes each on the actual SST task . The nonpractice group was given three trials of two minutes each on the same actual SST task . Results were analyzed using a four-way analysis of variance . In the second experiment 18 slow learners were divided randomly into two groups. one group receiving a planned strategy practioe, the other receiving random practice. Both groups worked on the actual code to be used later in the actual task. Within each group subjects were randomly assigned to work on a five, seven or nine digit code throughout. Both practice and actual tests consisted on three trials of two minutes each. Results were analyzed using a three-way analysis of variance . It was found in t he first experiment that 1) high or low verbal ability by itself did not produce significantly different results. However, when in interaction with the other independent variables, a difference in performance was noted . 2) The previous practice variable was significant over all segments of the experiment. Those who received previo.us practice were able to score significantly higher than those without it. J) Increasing the size of the load on STM severely restricts performance. 4) The effect of repeated trials proved to be beneficial. Generally, gains were made on each successive trial within each group. S) In the second experiment, slow learners who were allowed to practice randomly performed better on the actual task than subjeots who were taught the code by means of a planned strategy. Upon analysis using the Carroll scheme, individual differences were noted in the ability to develop strategies of storing, searching and retrieving items from STM, and in adopting necessary rehearsals for retention in STM. While these strategies may benef it some it was found that for others they may be harmful . Temporal aspects and perceptual speed were also found to be sources of variance within individuals . Generally it was found that the largest single factor i nfluencing learning on this task was the repeated measures . What e~ables gains to be made, varies with individuals . There are environmental factors, specific abilities, strategy development, previous learning, amount of load on STM , perceptual and temporal parameters which influence learning and these have serious implications for educational programs .

Effects of age on learning a spatial motor task in younger and older adults individualizing their knowledge of results schedule

Self-controlled KR practice has revealed that providing participants the opportunity to control their KR is superior for motor learning compared to participants replicating the KR schedule of a self-control participant, without the choice (e.g., yoked). The purpose of the present experiment was two-fold. First, to examine the utility of a self-controlled KR schedule for learning a spatial motor task in younger and older adults and second, to determine whether a self-controlled KR schedule facilitates an increased ability to estimate one’s performance in retention and transfer. Twenty younger adults and 20 older adults practiced in either the self-control or yoked condition and were required to push and release a slide along a confined pathway using their non-dominant hand to a target distance. The retention data revealed that as a function of age, a self-controlled KR schedule facilitated superior retention performance and performance estimations in younger adults compared to their yoked counterparts.