Watch and Learn: Seeing Is Better than Doing when Acquiring Consecutive Motor Tasks

During motor adaptation learning, consecutive physical practice of two different tasks compromises the retention of the first. However, there is evidence that observational practice, while still effectively aiding acquisition, will not lead to interference and hence prove to be a better practice method. Observers and Actors practised in a clockwise (Task A) followed by a counterclockwise (Task B) visually rotated environment, and retention was immediately assessed. An Observe-all and Act-all group were compared to two groups who both physically practised Task A, but then only observed (ObsB) or did not see or practice Task B (NoB). The two observer groups and the NoB control group better retained Task A than Actors, although importantly only the observer groups learnt Task B. RT data and explicit awareness of the rotation suggested that the observers had acquired their respective tasks in a more strategic manner than Actor and Control groups. We conclude that observational practice benefits learning of multiple tasks more than physical practice due to the lack of updating of implicit, internal models for aiming in the former

Diagnostic aids in the screening of oral cancer

The World Health Organization has clearly indentified prevention and early detection as major objectives in the control of the oral cancer burden worldwide. At the present time, screening of oral cancer and its pre-invasive intra-epithelial stages, as well as its early detection, is still largely based on visual examination of the mouth. There is strong available evidence to suggest that visual inspection of the oral mucosa is effective in reducing mortality from oral cancer in individuals exposed to risk factors. Simple visual examination, however, is well known to be limited by subjective interpretation and by the potential, albeit rare, occurrence of dysplasia and early OSCC within areas of normal-looking oral mucosa. As a consequence, adjunctive techniques have been suggested to increase our ability to differentiate between benign abnormalities and dysplastic/malignant changes as well as to identify areas of dysplasia/early OSCC that are not visible to naked eye. These include the use of toluidine blue, brush biopsy, chemiluminescence and tissue autofluorescence. The present paper reviews the evidence supporting the efficacy of the aforementioned techniques in improving the identification of dysplastic/malignant changes of the oral mucosa. We conclude that available studies have shown promising results, but strong evidence to support the use of oral cancer diagnostic aids is still lacking. Further research with clear objectives, well-defined population cohorts, and sound methodology is strongly required

Traditional knowledge and cultural importance of Borassus aethiopum Mart. in Benin: interacting effects of socio-demographic attributes and multi-scale abundance

ResearchBackground: Eliciting factors affecting distribution of traditional knowledge (TK) and cultural importance of plant resources is central in ethnobiology. Socio-demographic attributes and ecological apparency hypothesis (EAH) have been widely documented as drivers of TK distribution, but their synergistic effect is poorly documented. Here, we focused on Borassus aethiopum, a socio-economic important agroforestry palm in Africa, analyzing relationships between the number of use-reports and cultural importance on one hand, and informant socio-demographic attributes (age category and gender) on the other hand, considering the EAH at multi-scale contexts. Our hypothesis is that effects of socio-demographic attributes on use-reports and cultural importance are shaped by both local (village level) and regional (chorological region level) apparency of study species. We expected so because distribution of knowledge on a resource in a community correlates to the versatility in the resource utilization but also connections among communities within a region. Methods: Nine hundred ninety-two face-to-face individual semi-structured interviews were conducted in six villages of low versus high local abundance of B. aethiopum spanning three chorological regions (humid, sub-humid and semiarid) also underlying a gradient of increasing distribution and abundance of B. aethiopum. Number of use-reports and score of importance of uses of B. aethiopum were recorded in six use-categories including medicine, food, handcraft, construction, firewood, and ceremonies and rituals. Data were analyzed using Poisson and ordered logistic modelsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio