How Does Stimulus Difficulty Affect Study Time Allocation in Younger Adults?

Color poster with text and tables.Study time (ST) is defined as the amount of time (in seconds) an individual spends in the pursuit of learning new information. Decisions related to study time allocation reflect a person’s learning goals and perceptions of current performance. These perceptions, in turn, can potentially be influenced by multiple sources of information about one’s current state of learning, which are called metacognitive cues. Prior research has emphasized the powerful role of one cue, memory for past test (MPT), on subsequent learning behaviors. MPT reflects one’s remembrance of prior memory success or failure during a test. Newer research supports the roles of other metacognitive cues on ST in addition to that of MPT,7 such as: (1) assessments of item difficulty made after an initial study opportunity, (2) subjective memory response confidence during the first test, (3) objective response times during the first test, and (4) subjective response time estimates (how fast they think they responded to test questions). Previous research on ST allocation used stimuli of similar difficulty. The current work used both easy- and difficult-to-learn stimuli to clarify the relative importance of different metacognitive cues on ST decisions. We hypothesized that the relative impact of metacognitive cues on ST would differ such that some cues would be more predictive of study time than others (consistent with prior work) and these relative weights would also differ as a function of stimulus difficulty (novel to the current work).University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire Office of Research and Sponsored Program

Using Intel’s Realsense Camera to Detect Emotion in Facial Expressions : A Validity Study

Color poster with text and images.Most researchers recognize six universal, basic human emotions: surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness and sadness (Busso et al., 2004). Researchers typically identify emotions through the coding of facial markers, speech (e.g., Busso et al., 2004), and physiological features (e.g., heart rate, skin resistance, blood pressure; e.g., Leon et al., 2007). However, these techniques require a substantial investment of time and effort. The current work examined the utility of Intel’s (2015) RealSense USB PC camera and accompanying software as a complement or replacement for these more intensive techniques. If the RealSense camera offers valid, reliable, and efficient ratings of participants’ facial expressions, current emotion research may be simplified and new research areas may more easily include emotional data.University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire Office of Research and Sponsored Program