The effect of interstimulus interval on sequential effects in absolute identification

In absolute identification experiments, the participant is asked to identify stimuli drawn from a small set of items which differ on a single physical dimension (e.g., 10 tones which vary in frequency). Responses in these tasks show a striking pattern of sequential dependencies: The current response assimilates towards the immediately preceding stimulus but contrasts with the stimuli further back in the sequence. This pattern has been variously interpreted as resulting from confusion of items in memory, shifts in response criteria, or the action of selective attention, and these interpretations have been incorporated into competing formal models of absolute identification performance. In two experiments, we demonstrate that lengthening the time between trials increases contrast to both the previous stimulus and the stimulus two trials back. This surprising pattern of results is difficult to reconcile with the idea that sequential dependencies result from memory confusion or from criterion shifts, but is consistent with an account that emphasizes selective attention. </jats:p

The effect of stimulus range on two-interval frequency discrimination

It has traditionally been thought that performance in two-interval frequency discrimination tasks decreases as the range over which the standard tone varies is increased. Recent empirical evidence and a reexamination of previous results suggest that this may not be the case. The present experiment found that performance was significantly better when the standard roved over a wide range (1500 Hz) than a narrow range (30 Hz). This pattern cannot readily be accommodated by traditional models of frequency discrimination based on memory or attention, but may be explicable in terms of neural plasticity and the formation of perceptual anchors

Psychophysics and the judgment of price: judging complex objects on a non-physical dimension elicits sequential effects like those in perceptual tasks

When participants in psychophysical experiments are asked to estimate or identify stimuli which differ on a single physical dimension, their judgments are influenced by the local experimental context — the item presented and judgment made on the previous trial. It has been suggested that similar sequential effects occur in more naturalistic, real-world judgments. In three experiments we asked participants to judge the prices of a sequence of items. In Experiment 1, judgments were biased towards the previous response (assimilation) but away from the true value of the previous item (contrast), a pattern which matches that found in psychophysical research. In Experiments 2A and 2B, we manipulated the provision of feedback and the expertise of the participants, and found that feedback reduced the effect of the previous judgment and shifted the effect of the previous item’s true price from contrast to assimilation. Finally, in all three experiments we found that judgments were biased towards the centre of the range, a phenomenon known as the “regression effect” in psychophysics. These results suggest that the most recently-presented item is a point of reference for the current judgment. The findings inform our understanding of the judgment process, constrain the explanations for local context effects put forward by psychophysicists, and carry practical importance for real-world situations in which contextual bias may degrade the accuracy of judgments

The Lone Ranger in Rural Education: The Small Rural School Principal and Professional Development

A pressing need on principals and their demands for personal professional development is improving their performance based on evaluation policy standards. State policy standards dictate how principals evaluate teachers and how they are evaluated. Surveying rural principals we investigated the current understanding of state standards and needs for professional development. Rural districts in Utah are remote and isolated. This research highlighted that within Utah rural schools, small school principals have different needs and practices when compared to medium sized rural school principals. Small school principals reported having spent two hours less in collaborating with and mentoring their teachers than did medium school principals. Small school principals also spent less time collaborating with other principals. Based on these results, we recommend that district and state administrators and policy makers target small school principals to provide the needed professional development to assist them in an already isolated and overloaded position

Objective Assessment Method for RNAV STAR Adherence

Flight crews and air traffic controllers have reported many safety concerns regarding area navigation standard terminal arrival routes (RNAV STARs). Specifically, optimized profile descents (OPDs). However, our information sources to quantify these issues are limited to subjective reporting and time consuming case-by-case investigations. This work is a preliminary study into the objective performance of instrument procedures and provides a framework to track procedural concepts and assess design specifications. We created a tool and analysis methods for gauging aircraft adherence as it relates to RNAV STARs. This information is vital for comprehensive understanding of how our air traffic behaves. In this study, we mined the performance of 24 major US airports over the preceding three years. Overlaying 4D radar track data onto RNAV STAR routes provided a comparison between aircraft flight paths and the waypoint positions and altitude restrictions. NASA Ames Supercomputing resources were utilized to perform the data mining and processing. We assessed STARs by lateral transition path (full-lateral), vertical restrictions (full-lateral/full-vertical), and skipped waypoints (skips). In addition, we graphed frequencies of aircraft altitudes relative to the altitude restrictions. Full-lateral adherence was always greater than Full-lateral/ full- vertical, as it is a subset, but the difference between the rates was not consistent. Full-lateral/full-vertical adherence medians of the 2016 procedures ranged from 0% in KDEN (Denver) to 21% in KMEM (Memphis). Waypoint skips ranged from 0% to nearly 100% for specific waypoints. Altitudes restrictions were sometimes missed by systematic amounts in 1,000 ft. increments from the restriction, creating multi-modal distributions. Other times, altitude misses looked to be more normally distributed around the restriction. This tool may aid in providing acceptability metrics as well as risk assessment information

RNAV Adherence Data Integration System Using Aviation and Environmental Sources

The RADI system described in this technical memorandum outlines a framework that can be used to fuse a variety of data including surveillance recordings, environmental observations, and procedural information to produce features that would otherwise not be observable by any single data source. The process is designed with scalability in mind so that large scale batch processing can be executed on a typical distributed cluster environment. This process was initially developed as a prototype to quickly assess adherence and iterate and engineer relevant features of interest that can assist in determining factors for non-adherence to procedural requirements

Australia

The contemporary mass mobilisation of school students in Australia is unprecedented but also reflects the growing numbers of young people participating in the past 15 years in Australian youth-led organisations for climate and social justice (Collin, 2015). Among these, the youth-led Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) has been particularly significant: running high profile participatory campaigns, delivering climate campaigning workshops, training for school-age students and developing an extensive and decentralised model of community organising and action. With more than 150,000 members, the AYCC enables personalisable collective action: AYCC followers choose their own level of engagement and organise localised and networked actions, online and offline - hallmarks of the current climate protests

Education Differences in Life Expectancy With Cognitive Impairment

Background. Low education has an impact on life expectancy and level of cognition, but little is known on its effect on life expectancy with cognitive impairment. Methods. The Medical Research Council Cognitive Function and Ageing Study (MRC CFAS) collected population-based longitudinal data on people aged 65 years and older including measures of education and cognitive impairment, using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), for five geographically diverse areas around England and Wales interviewed between 1991 and 2003. Transitions between health states were calculated using Markov chain methods. Life expectancy in different states of cognitive function as measured by MMSE were further explored for different education groups. The effect of fixed and educationally based cut points for cognitive impairment are investigated. Results. Life expectancy spent with cognitive impairment is fairly constant with increasing age at around 1.4 years in men and 2.5 years in women, though this reflects a large increase in the proportion of life spent with cognitive impairment. The differences seen between education groups for the proportion of total life with cognitive impairment (men 13% and women 22% of life lived for low education vs men 7% and women 12% in high education group) disappear when education-adjusted cut points are used (10% in men and 17% in women at age 65 for all education groups). Conclusions. The results show that there is a substantial amount of life expectancy with cognitive impairment in both men and women. The impairment burden is just as great for those with high education as the lowest educated group. © 2009 The Author(s)

Lower limb vascular assessment techniques of podiatrists in the United Kingdom : a national survey

Background: Podiatric vascular assessment practices in the United Kingdom (UK) are currently unknown. This study aimed to describe the current practices for performing lower limb vascular assessments by podiatrists in the UK, and, to investigate the effect of practitioner characteristics, including education level and practice setting, on the choice of tests used for these assessments. Methods: A cross-sectional observational online survey of registered podiatrists in the UK was conducted using SurveyMonkey® between 1st of July and 5th of October 2018. Item content related to: practitioner characteristics, vascular testing methods, barriers to completing vascular assessment, interpretation of vascular assessment techniques, education provision and ongoing management and referral pathways. Descriptive statistics were performed, and multinomial logistic regression analyses were used to determine whether practitioner characteristics could predict the choice of vascular tests used. Results: Five hundred and eighty five participants accessed the online survey. After drop-outs and exclusions, 307 participants were included in the analyses. Comprehensive vascular assessments had most commonly been performed once (15.8%) or twice (10.4%) in the past week. The most common indicators for performing vascular assessment were symptoms of suspected claudication (89.3%), suspected rest pain (86.0%) and history of diabetes (85.3%). The most common barrier to performing vascular assessment was time constraints (52.4%). Doppler examination (72.3%) was the most frequently reported assessment type, with ankle-brachial index (31.9%) and toe brachial index (5.9%) less frequently performed. There were variable interpretations of vascular test results. The most common topic for education was smoking cessation (69.5%). Most participants (72.2%) were confident in determining ongoing management, with the majority referring to the patient's general practitioner (67.6%). Practitioner characteristics did not predict the types of vascular tests performed. Conclusion: The majority of vascular assessments currently performed by podiatrists in the UK are inconsistent with UK or international vascular guidelines and recommendations. Despite this, most podiatrists felt confident in diagnosing, referring and managing patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD), however many felt they needed more education to feel confident to assist patients with PAD to manage their cardiovascular risk factors