Context specificity of post-error and post-conflict cognitive control adjustments

There has been accumulating evidence that cognitive control can be adaptively regulated by monitoring for processing conflict as an index of online control demands. However, it is not yet known whether top-down control mechanisms respond to processing conflict in a manner specific to the operative task context or confer a more generalized benefit. While previous studies have examined the taskset-specificity of conflict adaptation effects, yielding inconsistent results, controlrelated performance adjustments following errors have been largely overlooked. This gap in the literature underscores recent debate as to whether post-error performance represents a strategic, control-mediated mechanism or a nonstrategic consequence of attentional orienting. In the present study, evidence of generalized control following both high conflict correct trials and errors was explored in a task-switching paradigm. Conflict adaptation effects were not found to generalize across tasksets, despite a shared response set. In contrast, post-error slowing effects were found to extend to the inactive taskset and were predictive of enhanced post-error accuracy. In addition, post-error performance adjustments were found to persist for several trials and across multiple task switches, a finding inconsistent with attentional orienting accounts of post-error slowing. These findings indicate that error-related control adjustments confer a generalized performance benefit and suggest dissociable mechanisms of post-conflict and post-error control. © 2014 Forster, Cho

Your error in my hand: An investigation of observational posterror slowing

For human beings, monitoring others' errors is essential for efficient goal-directed behavior. Indeed, the mere observation of other individuals' errors provides a rich source of information that can be used to avoid potential errors and improve our performance without direct experience. Recent studies have outlined that vicarious experience of errors influences the observer's overt behavior. This observational posterror slowing (oPES) is supposed to reflect a strategic increase in control aimed at reducing the probability of an error. Because the consequences of error observation have been exclusively investigated by means of arbitrary button-press responses, which limit the investigation to premovement processes, it is unclear whether the observation of an error also influences the online control of goal-directed actions. In the present study, for the first time, we investigated the effect of error observation on the reach-to-grasp movement by means of kinematical analysis. The results revealed that error-observation effects are not confined to premovement processes-they also strategically affect spatial movement trajectories. Our findings add substantially to previous literature, showing that the oPES spreads to movement execution when a more realistic, ecologically valid task is employed

Digital games in the early childhood classroom: theoretical and practical considerations

Digital games like other forms of play can be scary or fun, challenging or boring, risky or riskless, individual or collective. In every case, they can provide diverse opportunities for learning, exploring, experimenting under the principles of digital game-based learning (DGBL). The current chapter explores the main theoretical implications of the pedagogical value and use of digital games in early childhood classrooms. The aim is to highlight why and how digital games can be used and embedded effectively within early childhood practice, drawing upon examples of research. Three factors are discussed in detail; aspects related to children’s health and children’s participation, aspects related to the design and content of digital games and aspects related to the role of the practitioner while integrating them in preschool practice. Overall, it is argued that digital games can extent children’s learning experiences through the combination of embodiment, active learning, entertainment and gaming