24 research outputs found
What is behind a summary-evaluation decision?
Research in psychology has reported that, among the variety of possibilities for assessment methodologies, summary evaluation offers a particularly adequate context for inferring text comprehension and topic understanding. However, grades obtained in this methodology are hard to quantify objectively. Therefore, we carried out an empirical study to analyze the decisions underlying human summary-grading behavior. The task consisted of expert evaluation of summaries produced in critically relevant contexts of summarization development, and the resulting data were modeled by means of Bayesian networks using an application called Elvira, which allows for graphically observing the predictive power (if any) of the resultant variables. Thus, in this article, we analyzed summary-evaluation decision making in a computational framewor
Appraisal of space words and allocation of emotion words in bodily space
The body-specificity hypothesis (BSH) predicts that right-handers and left-handers allocate positive and negative concepts differently on the horizontal plane, i.e., while left-handers allocate negative concepts on the right-hand side of their bodily space, right-handers allocate such concepts to the left-hand side. Similar research shows that people, in general, tend to allocate positive and negative concepts in upper and lower areas, respectively, in relation to the vertical plane. Further research shows a higher salience of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the performance of sensorimotor tasks. The aim of the paper is to examine whether there should be a dominance of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane, not only at a sensorimotor level but also at a conceptual level. In Experiment 1, various participants from diverse linguistic backgrounds were asked to rate the words âupâ, âdownâ, âleftâ, and ârightâ. In Experiment 2, right-handed participants from two linguistic backgrounds were asked to allocate emotion words into a square grid divided into four boxes of equal areas. Results suggest that the vertical plane is more salient than the horizontal plane regarding the allocation of emotion words and positively-valenced words were placed in upper locations whereas negatively-valenced words were placed in lower locations. Together, the results lend support to the BSH while also suggesting a higher saliency of the vertical plane over the horizontal plane in the allocation of valenced words.Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos, MarĂa Rosa ElosĂșa, Yuki Yamada, Nicholas Francis Hamm and Kimihiro Noguch
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Dietary αâLinolenic Acid, Marine Ïâ3 Fatty Acids, and Mortality in a Population With High Fish Consumption: Findings From the PREvenciĂłn con DIeta MEDiterrĂĄnea (PREDIMED) Study
Background: Epidemiological evidence suggests a cardioprotective role of αâlinolenic acid (ALA), a plantâderived Ïâ3 fatty acid. It is unclear whether ALA is beneficial in a background of high marine Ïâ3 fatty acids (longâchain nâ3 polyunsaturated fatty acids) intake. In persons at high cardiovascular risk from Spain, a country in which fish consumption is customarily high, we investigated whether meeting the International Society for the Study of Fatty Acids and Lipids recommendation for dietary ALA (0.7% of total energy) at baseline was related to allâcause and cardiovascular disease mortality. We also examined the effect of meeting the society's recommendation for longâchain nâ3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (â„500 mg/day). Methods and Results: We longitudinally evaluated 7202 participants in the PREvenciĂłn con DIeta MEDiterrĂĄnea (PREDIMED) trial. Multivariableâadjusted Cox regression models were fitted to estimate hazard ratios. ALA intake correlated to walnut consumption (r=0.94). During a 5.9ây followâup, 431 deaths occurred (104 cardiovascular disease, 55 coronary heart disease, 32 sudden cardiac death, 25 stroke). The hazard ratios for meeting ALA recommendation (n=1615, 22.4%) were 0.72 (95% CI 0.56â0.92) for allâcause mortality and 0.95 (95% CI 0.58â1.57) for fatal cardiovascular disease. The hazard ratios for meeting the recommendation for longâchain nâ3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n=5452, 75.7%) were 0.84 (95% CI 0.67â1.05) for allâcause mortality, 0.61 (95% CI 0.39â0.96) for fatal cardiovascular disease, 0.54 (95% CI 0.29â0.99) for fatal coronary heart disease, and 0.49 (95% CI 0.22â1.01) for sudden cardiac death. The highest reduction in allâcause mortality occurred in participants meeting both recommendations (hazard ratio 0.63 [95% CI 0.45â0.87]). Conclusions: In participants without prior cardiovascular disease and high fish consumption, dietary ALA, supplied mainly by walnuts and olive oil, relates inversely to allâcause mortality, whereas protection from cardiac mortality is limited to fishâderived longâchain nâ3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. Clinical Trial Registration URL: http://www.Controlled-trials.com/. Unique identifier: ISRCTN35739639
Improving reading comprehension: From metacognitive intervention on strategies to the intervention on
Muchos estudiantes pueden leer de forma fluida pero presentan dificultades para construir significados a partir de los textos. Las dificultades de compresiĂłn lectora tienen varias implicaciones en la escuela. En particular, los problemas de comprensiĂłn de textos interfieren con el estudio y el aprendizaje desde el texto. La comprensiĂłn de lectura se ha mejorado en los Ășltimos 30 años enfocĂĄndose en los programas de intervenciĂłn que trabajan con estrategias en las cuales la metacogniciĂłn juega un papel crucial. Sin embargo, en años recientes han sido relevantes los avances en el estudio de las relaciones entre la memoria de trabajo (WM), particularmente el proceso ejecutivo, y la compresniĂłn de lectura. En este artĂculo presentamos la manera como se ha desarrollado nuestra investigaciĂłn en los Ășltimos 20 años, en relaciĂłn con intervenciĂłn metacognitiva desde las estrategias de comprensiĂłn de textos, tales como la idea principal y el resumen en la intervenciĂłn sobre el proceso ejecutivo de WM durante la lectura. AsĂ, nuestros datos empĂricos recientes han mostrado que la comprensiĂłn de textos puede ser mejorada despuĂ©s del tratamiento especĂfico sobre las funciones ejecutivas de memoria de trabajo (e.g., enfocĂĄndose, cambiando, conectando y actualizando las representaciones mentales, y la inhibiciĂłn de informaciĂłn irrelevante) en niños de escuela primaria.Many students may read fluently but have difficulties constructing meaning from texts. Difficulties with reading comprehension have many implications at school. In particular, problems understanding texts interfere with studying and learning from text. Reading comprehension has improved in the last 30 years focusing on intervention programs that work with strategies in which metacognition plays a crucial role. However, recent years have seen relevant advances in the study of the relationship between working memory (WM), particularly executive processes, and reading comprehension. In this paper, we present how the last 20 years of our research has evolved regarding metacognitive intervention from text comprehension strategies, as the main idea and summarization to the intervention on WMâs executive processes during reading. Thus, our more recent empirical data has shown that text comprehension can be improved after specific training on the executive functions of working memory (e.g., focusing, switching, connecting and updating mental representations, and the inhibition of irrelevant information) in Primary school students