Play&tune: user feedback in the development of a serious game for optimizing hearing aid orientation

Many hearing aid (HA) users are dissatisfied with HA performance in social situations. One way to improve HA outcomes is training the users to understand how HAs work. Play&Tune was designed to provide this training and to foster autonomy in hearing rehabilitation. We carried out two prototype evaluations and a prerelease evaluation of Play&Tune with 71 HA users, using an interview or online survey. Users gave detailed feedback on their experiences with the app. Most participants enjoyed learning about HAs and expressed a desire for autonomy over their HA settings. Our case study reinforces the importance of user feedback during app development

Uncharted waters: rare and unclassified cardiomyopathies characterized on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging

Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) has undergone considerable technology advances in recent years, so that it is now entering into mainstream cardiac imaging practice. In particular, CMR is proving to be a valuable imaging tool in the detection, morphological assessment and functional assessment of cardiomyopathies. Although our understanding of this broad group of heart disorders continues to expand, it is an evolving group of entities, with the rarer cardiomyopathies remaining poorly understood or even unclassified. In this review, we describe the clinical and pathophysiological aspects of several of the rare/unclassified cardiomyopathies and their appearance on CMR

When simulated environments make the difference: the effectiveness of different types of training of car service procedures

An empirical analysis was performed to compare the effectiveness of different approaches to training a set of procedural skills to a sample of novice trainees. Sixty-five participants were randomly assigned to one of the following three training groups: (1) learning-by-doing in a 3D desktop virtual environment, (2) learning-by-observing a video (show-and-tell) explanation of the procedures, and (3) trial-and-error. In each group, participants were trained on two car service procedures. Participants were recalled to perform a procedure either 2 or 4 weeks after the training. The results showed that: (1) participants trained through the virtual approach of learning-by-doing performed both procedures significantly better (i.e. p < .05 in terms of errors and time) than people of non-virtual groups, (2) the virtual training group, after a period of non-use, were more effective than non-virtual training (i.e. p < .05) in their ability to recover their skills, (3) after a (simulated) long period from the training—i.e. up to 12 weeks—people who experienced 3D environments consistently performed better than people who received other kinds of training. The results also suggested that independently from the training group, trainees’ visuospatial abilities were a predictor of performance, at least for the complex service procedure, adj R2 = .460, and that post-training performances of people trained through virtual learning-by-doing are not affected by learning styles. Finally, a strong relationship (p < .001, R2 = .441) was identified between usability and trust in the use of the virtual training tool—i.e. the more the system was perceived as usable, the more it was perceived as trustable to acquire the competences