AN EXAMINATION OF CONCURRENT DISCRIMINATION LEARNING WITHIN INDIVIDUALS WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE

The main focus of this research is to further understand memory formation by examining the role of the basal ganglia in learning. Broadly, this study examines how the basal ganglia may play a role in a task that has been associated with declarative memory mechanisms, in this case the concurrent discrimination task (CDT). Specifically, we examine how performance is affected on the CDT when structures of the basal ganglia are compromised by recruiting individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Past work examining the performance of individuals with PD on a CDT have had contradicting results and have proposed that participants may adopt different strategies that rely variously either on declarative or non-declarative strategy (Moody et. al., 2010). We aimed to reduce strategy differences by making changes in stimuli, increasing the number of stimuli significantly, increasing the number of learning blocks, and making all participants explicitly aware of the task structure and goals. By making the goals explicit, we predicted that we would engage a declarative mechanism in both PD and control individuals. To examine declarative memory formation we used the Remember Know task (RK). However, since used a significantly larger set size of stimuli we hypothesized that individuals with PD would perform significantly worse on the CDT than control individuals. The current study reveals that there are no significant differences in performance between individuals with PD and control participants on both the CDT and RK task. We attribute these results to design of our paradigm and stimuli which may have influenced individuals to engage in declarative strategies to perform the CDT reasonably well

Hermeneutic single-case efficacy design

In this article, I outline hermeneutic single-case efficacy design (HSCED), an interpretive approach to evaluating treatment causality in single therapy cases. This approach uses a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods to create a network of evidence that first identifies direct demonstrations of causal links between therapy process and outcome and then evaluates plausible nontherapy explanations for apparent change in therapy. I illustrate the method with data from a depressed client who presented with unresolved loss and anger issues

Understanding Advice Sharing among Physicians: Towards Trust-Based Clinical Alerts

Safe prescribing of medications relies on drug safety alerts, but up to 96% of such warnings are ignored by physicians. Prior research has proposed improvements to the design of alerts, but with limited increase in adherence. We propose a different perspective: before re-designing alerts, we focus on improving the trust between physicians and computerized advice by examining why physicians trust their medical colleagues. To understand trusted advice among physicians, we conducted three contextual inquiries in a hospital setting (22 participants), and corroborated our findings with a survey (37 participants). Drivers that guide physicians in trusting peer advice include: timeliness of the advice, collaborative language, empathy, level of specialization and medical hierarchy. Based on these findings, we introduce seven design directions for trust-based alerts: endorsement, transparency, team sensing, collaborative, empathic, conflict mitigating and agency laden. Our work contributes to novel alert design strategies to improve the effectiveness of drug safety advice

Automated title and abstract screening for scoping reviews using the GPT-4 Large Language Model

Scoping reviews, a type of literature review, require intensive human effort to screen large numbers of scholarly sources for their relevance to the review objectives. This manuscript introduces GPTscreenR, a package for the R statistical programming language that uses the GPT-4 Large Language Model (LLM) to automatically screen sources. The package makes use of the chain-of-thought technique with the goal of maximising performance on complex screening tasks. In validation against consensus human reviewer decisions, GPTscreenR performed similarly to an alternative zero-shot technique, with a sensitivity of 71%, specificity of 89%, and overall accuracy of 84%. Neither method achieved perfect accuracy nor human levels of intraobserver agreement. GPTscreenR demonstrates the potential for LLMs to support scholarly work and provides a user-friendly software framework that can be integrated into existing review processes.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Analogical Reasoning: A Process for Fostering Learning Transfer from the Classroom to Clinical Practice

In 2001, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a committee of physicians and health policy experts charged to improve the health of the United States by the National Academy of Science, identified a gap in the area of education of health care practitioners as one of the reasons for medical error. However, one of the most common instructional methods in medical education to promote transfer and problem solving is examination of a single patient case (Shine, 2002), a pedagogical practice shown to be ineffective (Gentner, Loewenstein & Thompson, 2003; Norman et al., 2007). Therefore, adult learners in health care may be ill-equipped through traditional classroom instructional strategies to not only transfer what they have learned in the classroom (Norman, et al., 2007; Weeks, Lyne & Torrance, 2001), but may also lack problem solving skills needed to address novel clinical problems (Battles & Shea, 2001; Shine, 2002). To address the transfer gap between the classroom and clinical environment, a literature review was undertaken. A key finding was use of multiple case examples with instructor cueing (prompting or provision of hints) was superior to use of single case examples alone for fostering transfer of learning. Based on empirical evidence and literature review findings, the authors propose a theoretical model, propositions, and implications for clinical practice for use by educators to foster transfer of learning from the classroom to the clinical practice setting

The use of a smartwatch as a prompting device for people with acquired brain injury : a single case experimental design study

Prompting-based memory compensation is a potential application for smartwatches. This study investigated the usability and efficacy of a Moto360 smartwatch as a memory aid. Four community dwelling adults with memory difficulties following acquired brain injury (ABI) were included in an A-B-A single case experimental design study. Performance of everyday memory tasks was tested over six weeks with the smartwatch and software provided during weeks three and four. Participants were asked to use their usual memory aids and strategies during the control phases (weeks 1–2, 5–6). Three participants successfully used the smartwatch throughout the intervention weeks and gave positive usability ratings. A fourth participant experienced a seizure and subsequently left the study before the intervention phase. Three participants showed improved memory performance when using the smartwatch. Nonoverlap of all pairs (NAP) analysis showed a non-significant small increase in memory performance between baseline and intervention phases (mean NAP = 0.1, p = .84). There was a larger, significant decline between the intervention and return to baseline (mean NAP = 0.58, p < .01). The use of an off-the-shelf smartwatch device and software was feasible for people with ABI in the community. It was effective compared to practice as usual, although this was only apparent on withdrawal of the device

Effect of Cueing on Learning Transfer Among Pre-professional Undergraduate Healthcare Students Engaged in a Case-based Analogical Reasoning Exercise

To examine the extent of transfer of cued versus non-cued pre- professional healthcare undergraduates engaged in a case-based analogical reasoning exercise. Independent t-test analysis and effect size was calculated to assess transfer between cued and non-cued participants (N = 192). Cued participants (n = 98, M = 2.30, SD = .89) demonstrated significantly more transfer (t (175.91) = 2.65; p = .009; CI95 = (.10, 0.68); d = .39) than non-cued participants (n = 94, M = 1.9, SD = 1.14). Learning transfer improves among pre- professional undergraduates when cued during a case-based analogical reasoning experience

The use of a smartwatch as a prompting device for people with acquired brain injury: A single case experimental design study

Prompting-based memory compensation is a potential application for smartwatches. This study investigated the usability and efficacy of a Moto360 smartwatch as a memory aid. Four community dwelling adults with memory difficulties following acquired brain injury (ABI) were included in an A-B-A single case experimental design study. Performance of everyday memory tasks was tested over six weeks with the smartwatch and software provided during weeks three and four. Participants were asked to use their usual memory aids and strategies during the control phases (weeks 1-2, 5-6). Three participants successfully used the smartwatch throughout the intervention weeks and gave positive usability ratings. A fourth participant experienced a seizure and subsequently left the study before the intervention phase. Three participants showed improved memory performance when using the smartwatch. Nonoverlap of all pairs (NAP) analysis showed a non-significant small increase in memory performance between baseline and intervention phases (mean NAP = 0.1, p = .84). There was a larger, significant decline between the intervention and return to baseline (mean NAP = 0.58, p < .01). The use of an off-the-shelf smartwatch device and software was feasible for people with ABI in the community. It was effective compared to practice as usual, although this was only apparent on withdrawal of the device