Mental fatigue impairs soccer-specific decision-making skill

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to investigate the impact of mental fatigue on soccer-specific decision-making. Twelve well-trained male soccer players performed a soccer-specific decision-making task on two occasions, separated by at least 72 h. The decision-making task was preceded in a randomised order by 30 min of the Stroop task (mental fatigue) or 30 min of reading from magazines (control). Subjective ratings of mental fatigue were measured before and after treatment, and mental effort (referring to treatment) and motivation (referring to the decision-making task) were measured after treatment. Performance on the soccer-specific decision-making task was assessed using response accuracy and time. Visual search behaviour was also assessed throughout the decision-making task. Subjective ratings of mental fatigue and effort were almost certainly higher following the Stroop task compared to the magazines. Motivation for the upcoming decision-making task was possibly higher following the Stroop task. Decision-making accuracy was very likely lower and response time likely higher in the mental fatigue condition. Mental fatigue had unclear effects on most visual search behaviour variables. The results suggest that mental fatigue impairs accuracy and speed of soccer-specific decision-making. These impairments are not likely related to changes in visual search behaviour.     

A teacher-implemented intervention program to promote finger use in numerical tasks

European Journal of Psychology of Education - What constitutes effective teaching of arithmetical skills in early school years is still uncertain. Finger use could play a crucial role in this...     

Educational goals and motives as possible mediators in the relationship between social support and academic achievement

Perceived social support has been widely recognized as having beneficial effects on a person’s development, and adolescence is no exception. The objective of this article is to go beyond this “stereotypical” vision of friendship by showing that social support does not always have a positive and direct effect on adolescents’ academic achievement. We sought to understand whether this relationship is mediated by the educational goals and motives that student value and pursue. If these values do not coincide with the expectations and values that the academic institution seeks to transmit, the influence of social support can become harmful, especially with regard to the students’ academic achievement. Data were collected by means of questionnaires from 676 junior high school students in 9th grade from contrasting academic institutions. We chose to observe each participant’s subjective point of view of three dimensions: social support, academic achievement, and educational goals and motives. The results showed that the relationship between social support and attention and involvement in class was negative and mediated by students’ goals. The adolescents with a high level of social support mainly pursued social goals and neglected achievement and future goals. Consequently, these students were less attentive and involved in class. The results also showed that social support was predictive of students’ investment and interest in personal work and success, but only when the students pursued achievement and future goals.     

Astrobiology,The Way Forward

Science & Education -     

Contribution of temporal processing skills to reading comprehension in 8-year-olds: evidence for a mediation effect of phonological awareness

This study tested whether the association between temporal processing (TP) and reading is mediated by phonological awareness (PA) in a normative sample of 615 eight-year-olds. TP was measured with auditory and bimodal (visual-auditory) temporal order judgment tasks and PA with a phoneme deletion task. PA partially mediated the association between both auditory and bimodal TP and reading, above nonverbal abilities, vocabulary, and processing speed. PA explained a larger proportion of the association between auditory TP and reading (56% vs. 39% for bimodal TP), and most of the association between bimodal TP and reading was direct. This finding is consistent with a dual-phonological and visual-pathway model of the association between TP and reading in normative reading skills.     

Reliability and Validity of the Flemish Physical Activity Computerized Questionnaire in Adults

The purpose of this study was to investigate the test-retest reliability and concurrent validity of the Flemish Physical Activity Computerized Questionnaire (FPACQ) in employed/unemployed and retired people. The FPACQ was developed to assess detailed information on several dimensions of physical activity and sedentary behavior over a usual week. A triaxial accelerometer, the RT3 Triaxial Research Tracker (RT3), in combination with a written 7-day activity record, was used as the objective criterion measure. In employed/unemployed people, 2-week test-retest reliability for several activity variables calculated from the FPACQ was good to excellent with intraclass correlations (ICCs) ranging from .67 to .99. In retired people ICCs were lower but, except for time spent eating, still fair to excellent, ranging from .57 to .96. Except for time spent in leisure time activities for men and the average energy expenditure related to sports participation in women, correlations between the RT3 and the FPACQ generally supported the relative validity of the FPACQ for employed/unemployed people (r ranging from .37 to .88). Values for retired people were somewhat lower (r ranging from .15 to .85), but most variables still reached at least moderate correlations. Concerning absolute validity, the FPACQ generally overestimated physical activity and underestimated sedentary behavior compared to the RT3. From this study, it can be concluded that the FPACQ is a reliable and reasonably valid questionnaire for assessing different dimensions of physical activity and sedentary behavior.     

Students’ Perception of Risk About Nanotechnology After an SAQ Teaching Strategy

We experimented with teaching nanotechnology in high school within the perspective of citizenship education in science by involving experts in nanotechnology, education, ethics and philosophy. After training, the students debated a Socially Acute Question (SAQ) that they elaborated during the various phases of instruction. The field of SAQs represents a French orientation for the teaching of SocioScientific Issues. We analyzed the interactions of students in the debate to determine their risk perception on nanotechnology. We compared and put their arguments into perspective using various analytical frameworks. We observed two contrasting argumentative tendencies: one reflecting a positivist view that involved an individualistic use of nanotechnology and science and one carrying a critical and humanistic vision of the use of nanotechnology and science.     

El retraso de origen afectivo: nueva orientación en el enfoque de las deficiencias intelectuales y revisión crítica de la literatura sobre la carencia de cuidados maternos

RESUMEN

Se puede hablar de retraso mental de origen afectivo cuando no se encuentran determinantes biológicos y hay una evidente situación de privación afectiva precoz. La carencia de cuidados maternos provocada por la situación de separación definitiva de la madre podría determinar su desarrollo cognitivo, al incidir en el aprendizaje en curso y en la organización emocional del niño. Se analiza la naturaleza del vínculo madre-hijo desde las diferentes escuelas. Quedan planteadas algunas cuestiones: la posibilidad de que la separación definitiva madre-hijo conlleve en determinados niños una insuficiencia intelectual; a través de qué mecanismos ésto se produce; y la reversibilidad de este proceso. Las contradicciones entre los resultados obtenidos y las divergencias de opinión entre los especialistas nos muestran la complejidad del tema.     

Preschool children’s conversational skills for explaining game rules: communicative guidance strategies as a function of type of relationship and gender

Ten trios of children from 4 to 6 years old were observed in a situation where one child (the expert) who had learned the rules of a game explained these rules to two other children at the same time (the novices): one with whom s/he had a positive relationship and the other with whom her/his relationship was negative. Within this asymmetrical situation created artificially, the children functioned on the basis of a complex tutorial contract. The results indicated that, at these young ages, children are capable to strongly manage three dimensions of the explanatory goal: interactional, ideational (management of the object), and linguistic. However, the errors made by the novices were regulated differently, depending on the type of relationship and gender: the experts in boy trios intervened less frequently when errors were made by the novice with whom the relationship was negative (i.e., the not-friend novice) than with the other novice; conversely, the experts in girl trios intervened less frequently when errors were produced by the novice with whom the relationship was positive (i.e., the friend novice) than with the other novice. An analysis of the communicative strategies observed here highlights early sophisticated pragmatic skills in this interactive assigned design.     

Objective Vitality as Moderator of Ethnolinguistic Identity Gratifications

This article examines the role of subjective and objective determinants of ethnolinguistic identity gratifications among Swedish speakers in Finland (N = 703) and French speakers in Canada (N = 4969). As expected, in both settings, the results demonstrated that ethnolinguistic identity as well as ethnolinguistic vitality significantly predicted the linguistic patterns of TV use; furthermore, a significant interaction between identity and vitality indicated that the effect of identity on TV is greater in areas where objective vitality is higher and the TV access in the given ethnic language is greater. Findings and implications are discussed.