Sleep–Wake Cycle,Daytime Sleepiness,and Attention Components in Children Attending Preschool in the Morning and Afternoon Shifts

Children tend to sleep and wake up early and to exhibit daytime sleep episodes. To evaluate the impact of school start times on sleepiness and attention in preschool children, this study compared the temporal patterns of sleep, daytime sleepiness, and the components of attention between children aged 4–6 years that study in the morning (n = 66) and the afternoon (n = 144) shifts. The former get up 1 hr and 30 min earlier on weekdays and show lower efficiency on the sustained attention task than those who study in the afternoon. Thus, the morning shift was associated with a reduction in nighttime sleep, which might have a negative effect on children's performance in the morning, causing higher levels of daytime sleepiness and a decline in sustained attention. Because only one parameter of one component of attention was negatively affected, further studies are needed to confirm this effect on cognition.     

Acute short-term sleep deprivation does not affect metacognitive monitoring captured by confidence ratings: a systematic literature review

This article presents the results of a systematic review of the literature surrounding the effects that acute sleep deprivation has on metacognitive monitoring. Metacognitive monitoring refers to the ability to accurately assess one’s own performance and state of knowledge. The mechanism behind this assessment is captured by subjective feelings of confidence concerning the accuracy of our judgments or performance. These judgments influence decision behavior. How well these subjective feelings fit with reality is critical for good decision making. For example, a driver who is overconfident in their ability to remain vigilant after a night without sleep is at risk of having an accident. A learner who is overconfident in their ability to perform well on an exam without sleep is at risk of failing. A break down in metacognitive monitoring might be responsible for the increase in poor decision making observed when people are sleep deprived. Using defined search terms and exclusion criteria, electronic database searches identified ten empirical studies suitable for review. Participants in these studies completed performance-based tasks, typically cognitive, while remaining awake for 28–63 hours. In all studies, metacognitive monitoring was assessed via confidence ratings either pre-, on-, or post-task. Extended wakefulness had a significant negative effect on performance in most studies. Evidencing good monitoring, however, the monitoring estimates such as confidence also tended to decline. Moreover, two critical variables that assess the fit of these estimates to actual performance (bias and discrimination) were mostly unaffected by the number of hours awake. Still, some results indicated that these variables may be affected by substances intended to fight sleep deprivation, such as modafinil. Within the limitations of extant literature (e.g., a sampling bias towards young adult male participants), empirical observations to date converge to suggest that metacognitive monitoring remains largely unaffected by the examined quantities of acute sleep deprivation (up to 63 hours).     

Test Anxiety and Working Memory

In the present study, information processing of test anxiety is explained within the framework of the ACT* model. The author used the speed-accuracy tradeoff method to investigate the effect of test anxiety on each subsystem of working memory. The sample was made up of 119 college students enrolled in an educational psychology course. Test anxiety affected performance on the verbal-analogies task but not on the rhyming-judgment and visual-spatial tasks. The participants' subvocalization of the rhyming words may have drawn attention to the task itself and preempted the effect of test anxiety on task performance. Also, the activation processes for the visual-spatial tasks may have occurred in a different dimension or separate from the verbal processes of test anxiety.     

Oscillation and Complexity in Early Infant Behavior

Cyclic fluctuation is a ubiquitous property of spontaneous motor activity in the human fetus and neonate. Oscillation occurs on the scale of minutes, and irregularity is one of its most characteristic properties. To determine whether cyclic motor activity (CM) persists beyound the neonatal period (1 month after birth), and beyound what has been called the period of the fetus ex utero (2–3 months after birth), 30 infants were studied at monthly intervals from 1 to 4 months after birth during active sleep and awake. Spectral analysis was used to quantify the rate, strength, and irregularity of CM. To examine the characteristic irregularity of awake CM more closely, a nonlinear forecasting technique, developed to study chaotic dynamics in other fields, was used to estimate the predictability of spontaneous movement in a state space reconstructed from the time series. The rate and irregularity of CM during active sleep and awake, and its strength during active sleep, did not change across the first 4 postnatal months. However, there was a pronounced drop in the strength of awake CM from 2 months onward, and a concurrent increase in the broad-band power of fluctuations faster than 2 cycles/min. The predictability of awake CM also dropped abruptly between 1 and 2 months, especially for prediction intervals less than 20 sec. The changes at 2 months reflect the introduction of a source of variation with a shorter time constant than fetal-neonatal CM, and which is specific to awake periods. The source of these effects may be moment-to-moment interactions between CM and attention.     

LEARNING ABILITY FOR TWO SPATIAL ORIENTATION SYSTEMS IN ELDERLY NURSING HOME RESIDENTS

Disorientation and confusion have been identified as significant problems for older persons newly admitted to nursing homes and other institutions. The purpose of this study was to determine which of two orientating systems might be best for helping older people become accustomed to a strange environment. Middle‐aged and elderly residents of a nursing home were dichotomized by performance on three memory tests and then were given two paired‐associate learning tasks. In one task colors and a place in the nursing home were to be associated; in the other symbols and a place in the nursing home were to be associated. The results indicated that the symbol‐place paired‐associate task was learned more rapidly than the color‐place task by both high and low memory ability groups, and that the lower memory ability group showed slower learning of the color‐place task compared to the higher memory ability group. In addition, learning was slower on both tasks when the color‐place task was the first presented. These results indicated that symbol‐place codes may be more useful than color‐place codes as orientation markers and suggested that evaluation of learning performance should include examination of order effects.     

Neural Systems for Rapid Automatized Naming in Skilled Readers: Unraveling the RAN-Reading Relationship

The majority of children and adults with reading disabilities exhibit pronounced difficulties on naming-speed measures such as tests of rapid automatized naming (RAN). RAN tasks require speeded naming of serially presented stimuli and share key characteristics with reading, but different versions of the RAN task vary in their sensitivity: The RAN letters task successfully predicts reading ability, whereas the RAN objects task does not reliably predict reading after kindergarten. In this study we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate the neural substrates that may underlie performance on these tasks. In two scans during the same test session, adult, average readers covertly rapidly named objects or letters or passively viewed a fixation matrix of plus signs. For both rapid naming tasks compared with fixation, activation was found in neural areas associated with eye movement control and attention as well as in a network of structures previously implicated in reading tasks. This reading network included inferior frontal cortex, temporo-parietal areas, and the ventral visual stream. Whereas the inferior frontal areas of the network were similarly activated for both letters and objects, activation in the posterior areas varied by task. The letters task caused greater activation in the angular gyrus, superior parietal lobule, and medial extrastriate areas, whereas object naming only preferentially activated an area of the fusiform gyrus. These results confirm that RAN tasks recruit a network of neural structures also involved in more complex reading tasks and suggest that the RAN letters task specifically pinpoints key components of this network.     

Ramadan Fasting and the Propensity for Learning: Is There a Cause for Concern?

The literature indicates that glucose deprivation, dehydration, decreased sleep quality and quantity, and mood changes, independently and adversely can influence cognitive functions and therefore learning. The Ramadan fast is an annual religious act undertaken by Muslims where individuals refrain from consuming food and fluid during daylight hours, daily over 30 days. Alteration in eating times and sleep–wake cycles lead to a disruption in the body's daily circadian rhythm resulting in sleep perturbations and mood swings. Consequently, Ramadan fasting is linked to daytime lower glucose concentration, dehydration, decreased sleep quality and quantity, mood swings and elevated subjective feelings of fatigue and malaise. This review highlights how Ramadan fasting potentially poses learning difficulties as a result of the independent and/or combined effects of these factors.     

Development of multitasking abilities in middle childhood

The development of multitasking abilities was investigated in relation to working memory capacity, sustained attention, inhibition, and task switching. Using a new touch-screen task, 90 children aged 7–10 years were asked to monitor several timers running at different paces, and to press a button whenever a timer had completed its cycle. Results showed that a significant part of the variance in children's multitasking performance was explained by age, and performance increased significantly until about 8–9 years. Multitasking performance was generally affected by the number of tasks, but even more so in younger children. Sustained attention explained a significant part of the variance in triple-, but not dual-task performance; visuospatial working memory capacity explained variance in dual- and triple-task performance, even after controlling for age. In conclusion, multitasking develops considerably in middle childhood and may involve different processes than dualtasking.     

Separating genuine cases of reading disability from reading deficits caused by predominantly inattentive ADHD behavior

Conventional methods of differentiating reading disability (RD) caused by deficits in decoding skills or comprehension from poor reading performance caused by inconsistent attention associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have produced equivocal results. This study presents a model of differential diagnosis of attentional problems and RD that differs from these conventional approaches. The new diagnostic procedure uses intraindividual differences seen in the performance of at-risk learners on tasks related to reading that vary in their sensitivity to the sustained attention required for successful performance. The hypothesis is that children with inconsistent attention would perform more poorly on tests that require sustained attention, such as listening comprehension, than on tests that are more tolerant of inattention, such as reading comprehension. Such differences would not be seen in the test scores of children who have only RD, because their performance is determined more by the difficulty level of the reading tests than by the degree of sensitivity of the task to attention. The validity of this new model was evaluated by determining the capability of the differences seen in the scores of tests that differ in their sensitivity to sustained attention to predict the degree of inconsistency in sustained attention as measured by a continuous performance test. The data obtained from 39 children who are at risk for RD suggest that this is a viable model.     

The Utility of Multiple Raters and Tasks in Science Performance Assessments

Concern about the education system has increasingly focused on achievement outcomes and the role of assessment in school performance. Our research with fifth and eighth graders in California explored several issues regarding student performance and rater reliability on hands-on tasks that were administered as part of a field test of a statewide assessment program in science. This research found that raters can produce reliable scores for hands-on tests of science performance. However, the reliability of performance test scores per hour of testing time is quite low relative to multiple-choice tests. Reliability can be improved substantially by adding more tasks (and testing time). Using more than one rater per task produces only a very small improvement in the reliability of a student's total score across tasks. These results were consistent across both grade levels, and they echo the findings of past research.     

Neurocognitive function and joint attention ability in young children with autism spectrum disorder versus developmental delay

Studies have shown that young children with autism are not impaired on prefrontal tasks relative to what would be expected for their mental age, raising questions about the executive dysfunction hypothesis of autism. These studies did not include ventromedial prefrontal tasks, however. The present study examined whether young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are impaired on ventromedial prefrontal tasks, and whether performance on such tasks is correlated with a core autism symptom, joint attention ability. Seventy-two 3- to 4-year-old children with ASD, 34 3- to 4-year-old developmentally delayed children, and 39 12- to 46-month-old typically developing children, matched on mental age, were administered ventromedial and dorsolateral prefrontal tasks and joint attention tasks. Children with ASD performed similarly to comparison groups on all executive function tasks, indicating that at this early age, there is no autism-specific pattern of executive dysfunction. Ventromedial, but not dorsolateral, prefrontal task performance was strongly correlated with joint attention ability, however. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is hypothesized to play a role in the development of joint attention and possibly some aspects of the autistic syndrome.     

当代大学生心理咨询理论探析

大学生在紧张的学习和生活中，心理问题日趋增多，且对其个体发展产生着消极影响，因此，对大学生的心理咨询显得极为紧要。开展对大学生心理咨询的理论研究，尤其是就心理咨询的人性基础、目标取向、方法选择等方面进行深入研究，有利于提高大学生心理咨询的自觉性和实效性。     

Individual Differences in Infant Visual Attention: Are Short Lookers Faster Processors or Feature Processors?

Individual differences in the duration of infants' visual fixations are reliable and stable and have been linked to differential cognitive performance; short-looking infants typically perform better than long-looking infants. 4 experiments tested the possibility of whether short lookers' superiority on perceptual-cognitive tasks is attributable to attention to the featural details of visual stimuli, or simply to differences in the speed or efficiency of visual processing. To do this, the performance of long- and short-looking 4-month-olds was examined on separate discrimination tasks that could be solved only by processing either featural or global information. The global task was easier than the featural task, but as the amount of time allotted for infants to solve either type of task was decreased, short lookers' performance was superior to that of long lookers. These results thus lend support to a speed or efficiency of stimulus processing interpretation of infant fixation duration.     

Working memory updating as a predictor of academic attainment

There is growing evidence supporting the importance of executive functions, and specifically working memory updating (WMU), for children’s academic achievement. This study aimed to assess the specific contribution of updating to the prediction of academic performance. Two updating tasks, which included different updating components, were administered to 97 fourth-grade children. The keeping track task involves retrieval and substitution of information, while the numerical updating task also includes a transformation component. Academic attainment was assessed through standardised tests of verbal comprehension, arithmetic operations, mathematical problems and an assessment made by the teacher. The relative contribution to academic attainment, of the updating measures and measures related to intelligence, was compared. Results showed that both updating tasks are predictive measures of academic attainment, although the numerical updating task appeared to be a more consistent predictor of children’s performance. The relationship between updating and academic attainment is discussed, and possible educational implications are considered. The role of the transformation component of WMU is highlighted. This component could make a distinct and independent contribution to performance and, by extension, could be particularly relevant to the prediction of academic achievement.     

Are males always better than females in mental rotation? Exploring a gender belief explanation

Males outperform females in the Mental Rotation Test (MRT) for biological, strategic and cultural reasons. The present research tested a motivational explanation with the hypothesis that females could do better when induced to have positive beliefs and expectations. All-female and all-male samples were divided into six groups, each having listened to different instructions: 1. men are better than women at this task; 2. women are better than men; 3. control instructions with no gender reference. Each group was further allocated to either the easy or the difficult task expectations condition. Experimental manipulation affected performance differently in relation to gender. Women's performance was affected by positive instructions about gender. Men were affected by instructions about the task difficulty. Women improved performance and reached men's scores in the MRT when they were led to believe they were better than men.     

Children's sleep and cognitive functioning: race and socioeconomic status as moderators of effects

Race and socioeconomic status (SES) moderated the link between children's sleep and cognitive functioning. One hundred and sixty-six 8- to 9-year-old African and European American children varying in SES participated. Sleep measures were actigraphy, sleep diaries, and self-report; cognitive measures were from the Woodcock-Johnson III and reaction time tasks. Children had similar performance when sleep was more optimal, but after controlling for SES, African American children had lower performance with sleep disruptions. Children from lower and higher SES had similar performance with better sleep quality and less variability in sleep schedules, but when sleep was more disrupted, higher SES children had better performance. Examination of environmental variables associated with race and SES that may underlie these effects may lead to directions for interventions to improve cognitive performance.     

Effects of stimulus dimension and of trial and intertrial illumination on acquisition of a match/mismatch task by pigeons

Birds were trained on a higher order conditional discrimination task, one that required birds to match samples and comparisons on some trials and to mismatch on other trials. Which task component was in effect was indicated by the level of chamber illumination (houselight-on and houselight-off instructions). Acquisition of the components of a color (red and green) match/mismatch task in the first half of the experiment was not differentially affected by the level of illumination associated with each task component, by houselight changes per se, or by the level of illumination during the intertriai interval (ITI). However, when shapes (plus and circle) were used to train the task in the second half of the experiment, performance on the houselight-cued task component exceeded performance on the dark-cued task component, and ITI illumination facilitated performance on both task components. These results suggest that attention to shape stimuli, but not to colors, may vary systematically as a function of chamber illumination level.     

Scaffolding peer-assessment skills: Risk of interference with learning domain-specific skills?

Giving students complex learning tasks combined with peer-assessment tasks can impose a high cognitive load. Scaffolding has proven to reduce cognitive load during learning and improve accuracy on domain-specific tasks. This study investigated whether scaffolding has a similar, positive effect on the learning of peer-assessment tasks. We hypothesised that: (1) domain-specific scaffolding improves domain-specific accuracy and reduces time on task and perceived mental effort, and (2) peer-assessment scaffolding improves peer-assessment accuracy and reduces time on task and perceived mental effort. Additionally, we explored whether there was an interaction between domain-specific and peer-assessment scaffolding. In a 2x2 experiment with the factors domain-specific scaffolding (present, absent) and peer-assessment scaffolding (present, absent), 236 secondary school students assessed the performance of fictitious peers in an electronic learning environment. We found that domain-specific accuracy indeed improved with domain-specific scaffolding, confirming our first hypothesis. Our tests of the second hypothesis, however, revealed surprising results: peer-assessment scaffolding significantly increased accuracy and mental effort during learning, it had no effect on peer-assessment accuracy at the test and led to reduced domain-specific accuracy, even when combined with domain-specific scaffolding. These results suggest that scaffolding students' peer assessment before they have mastered the task at hand can have disturbing effects on students’ ability to learn from the task.     

Grammaticality judgments and reading skill in grade 2

Do the language problems associated with reading disability extend to sentence-level knowledge? If so, how should these problems be characterized? In this study, second graders were presented with two different oral syntactic tasks, equivalent in grammatical complexity, but varying in the actual task demands placed upon the reader. In theJudgment task, subjects were asked to distinguish between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences; in theCorrection task, subjects were asked to remedy violations of grammaticality. Performance on these sentence-level tasks was, in turn, examined in relation to reading scores, memory span, and metaphonological skill. The Judgment task revealed a wide range of ability among second-graders, and scores were systematically affected by the syntactic nature of the violation. However, performance on Judgment was not associated with reading ability or metaphonological skill, and scores were minimally affected by short-term memory factors. Mean scores on the Correction task were comparable to those achieved in the Judgment task and were also systematically affected by syntactic factors. However, performance on Correction was strongly associated with reading ability and metaphonological skill, and was greatly affected by short-term memory factors. These results suggest that reading disability does not reflect problems in basic syntactic knowledge. Instead, sentence-level problems that have been observed in less-skilled readers may be caused by the nonlinguistic processing demands of the syntactic measures typically employed.     

Diagrammatic Literacy in Secondary Science Education

Students in secondary science education seem to have difficulties with understanding diagrams. The present study focused on explanatory factors that predict students’ difficulties with process diagrams, i.e., diagrams that describe a process consisting of components that are related by arrows. From 18 compulsory national Biology exams of secondary school pre-university students, all process diagram tasks (n?=?64) were included in corpus. Features of the task, student, and diagram were related to the difficulty of that particular task, indicated by the cohort mean exam score. A hierarchical regression analysis showed main effects for (1) the cognitive task demand, (2) the familiarity of the components, and (3) the number of components in a diagram. All these main effects were in the expected direction. We also observed interactions. Within the category of tasks with a high cognitive demand, tasks about a diagram of which students have low prior content knowledge were more difficult than tasks about a diagram of which students have high prior content knowledge. Tasks with a high cognitive demand about a diagram with familiar arrows were, surprisingly, more difficult than tasks with a high cognitive demand about a diagram with unfamiliar arrows. This latter finding might be attributed to compensation for task difficulty by the large number of components in the diagrams involved. The final model explained 46 % of the variance in exam scores. These results suggest that students have difficulties (1) with tasks that require a deeper understanding when the content is new, (2) with diagrams that use unfamiliar component conventions, and (3) with diagrams that have a small number of components and are therefore probably more abstract.