Metasearch accuracy for letters and symbols: do our intuitions match empirical reality?

The “familiarity effect” (Shen and Reingold, Perception & Psychophysics 63(3):464–475, 2001) is a phenomenon in which unfamiliar symbols perceptually “pop-out” when placed among familiar symbols (e.g., letters). In contrast, searching for familiar symbols among unfamiliar symbols is more challenging. Failure to account for effects such as these when predicting search performance could lead to overconfidence and error. This study investigated metacognitive awareness of the familiarity effect by asking participants to rate the speed and accuracy of search before they searched for either letter or symbol targets among letter or symbol distractors. Feature overlap between target and distractor and target presence or absence were also manipulated to provide concurrent cues to task difficulty. This study examined metacognitive awareness of the “familiarity effect,” and extended the findings from an earlier metasearch study (Redford et al., Memory and Cognition 39:1534–1545, 2011). Metacognition was accurate with respect to the familiarity effect. However, participants incorrectly predicted that they would detect a target’s absence faster than its presence. These findings suggest that people have metacognitive awareness for some aspects of visual search, even when patterns of search performance are complex and potentially counterintuitive. However, limitations exist in our metacognitive awareness of visual search. The results are discussed in relation to Koriat’s cue utilization framework and heuristic-based metacognition.     

A surprising discovery: five pedagogical skills outdoor and experiential educators might offer more mainstream educators in this time of change

This article draws from the experience of outdoor and experiential educators working in the context of a radical, long-term formal public education research project. One of the accidental findings from the research is that experienced outdoor educators may have particular pedagogical skills, likely honed by the contexts in which they work, that can be of use to mainstream educators trying to expand their pedagogical repertoire, teach outdoors or be more environmentally focused in their practices. The article begins by contextualising the Maple Ridge Environmental School Project, describing the researchers and methods and explaining how the research team came to their insights. A discussion follows of five pedagogical skills identified by the researchers that outdoor and experiential educators may possess which might be offered more clearly to classroom teachers and formal teacher training processes and/or be more clearly enunciated for those involved in formal and informal outdoor and experiential training contexts.     

Optimally Engineering Traditional Introductory Physics Classes

This paper presents a measurement of the time and resources committed to traditional student actions such as reading and working homework. The perception of the educational value of each basic action for both students and faculty is captured. From this information, basic educational efficiencies are computed for a traditional mechanics course and a non-traditional hands-on Electricity and Magnetism course. The calculations show an allocation of resources in the traditional course which uses the most student time in the least educationally valuable activity. The computed efficiencies also show overseen student note-taking as potentially a very valuable general tool. The techniques presented allow any institution to carry out quantitative educational engineering of their course offerings at the highest level.     

Journalism

THE AMERICAN JOURNALIST: A PORTRAIT OF U.S. NEWS PEOPLE AND THEIR WORK by David H. Weaver and G. Cleveland Wilhoit (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986—$25.00)

THE “UNCENSORED WAR:” THE MEDIA AND VIETNAM by Daniel C. Hallin (New York: Oxford, 1986—$22.50)

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SHOW: CAMPAIGN '84 AND BEYOND ON THE NIGHTLY NEWS by Keith Blume (Bergin & Garvey Publishers, 670 South Amherst Rd., South Hadley, MA 01075—$29.95/12.95)

POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN AMERICA by Robert E. Denton, Jr. and Gary C. Woodward (New York: Praeger, 1985—$42.95/15.95)

NEWS MEDIA AND PUBLIC POLICY: AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY edited by Joseph P. McKerns (New York: Garland, 1985—$39.00)

COMMITTED JOURNALISM: AN ETHIC FOR THE PROFESSION by Edmund B. Lambeth (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986—$25.00/8.95)

SUING THE PRESS: LIBEL, THE MEDIA & POWER by Rodney A. Smolla (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986—$18.95)

WORLDLY POWER: THE MAKING OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL by Edward E. Scharff (Beaufort Books, 9 East 40th St., New York 10016—$18.95)

THE ULTIMATE INSIDERS: U.S. SENATORS IN THE NATIONAL MEDIA by Stephen Hess (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1986—price not given, cloth and paper)

THE FLACKS OF WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT INFORMATION AND THE PUBLIC AGENDA by David Morgan (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1986—$29.95)

ISSUES MANAGEMENT: CORPORATE POLICYMAKING IN AN INFORMATION SOCIETY by Robert L. Heath and Richard Alan Nelson (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1986—no price given)

BEHIND THE LINES: CASE STUDIES IN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING by Margaret Jones Patterson and Robert H. Russell (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986—$28.50)

GOVERNING THE PRESS: MEDIA FREEDOM IN THE U.S. AND GREAT BRITAIN by Deborah Holmes (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1986—$16.50, paper)

THE UNTAPPED POWER OF THE PRESS: EXPLAINING GOVERNMENT TO THE PEOPLE by Lewis W. Wolfson (New York: Praeger, 1985—$28.95/9/95)     

Skill Gap: Quantifying Violent Content in Video Game Play Between Variably Skilled Users

This study investigated the effect of individuals’ self-reported skill levels on generated violent content. After playing a violent video game, participants (N = 68) completed a questionnaire determining skill level with measures modified from previous game studies. The resulting 4,023 instances of violence were analyzed using techniques adapted from prior video game content analyses and the National Television Violence Study. Findings indicated a significant difference in the amount and context of violent acts between higher skilled and lower skilled players. Those who reported being higher skilled generated more instances of violence, were more often the perpetrators rather than the targets of violence, experienced greater consequences (graphicness) of violence, and experienced more on-screen and up-close violence.     

Repeatability of three-dimensional thorax and pelvis kinematics in the golf swing measured using a field-based motion capture system

Field-based methods of evaluating three-dimensional (3D) swing kinematics offer coaches and researchers the opportunity to assess golfers in context-specific environments. The purpose of this study was to establish the inter-trial, between-tester, between-location, and between-day repeatability of thorax and pelvis kinematics during the downswing using an electromagnetic motion capture system. Two experienced testers measured swing kinematics in 20 golfers (handicap < or =14 strokes) on consecutive days in an indoor and outdoor location. Participants performed five swings with each of two clubs (five-iron and driver) at each test condition. Repeatability of 3D kinematic data was evaluated by computing the coefficient of multiple determination (CMD) and the systematic error (SE). With the exception of pelvis forward bend for between-day and between-tester conditions, CMDs exceeded 0.854 for all variables, indicating high levels of overall waveform repeatability across conditions. When repeatability was compared across conditions using MANOVA, the lowest CMDs and highest SEs were found for the between-tester and between-day conditions. The highest CMDs were for the inter-trial and between-location conditions. The absence of significant differences in CMDs between these two conditions supports this method of analysing pelvis and thorax kinematics in different environmental settings without unduly affecting repeatability.     

Mechanisms of social capital creation and consumption in a youth baseball league

Abstract

In this paper, I explore social capital creation within a youth baseball league in the American Southwest. Within, I first propose a parent typology that centres on the level of parental social and pragmatic involvement with their child’s team. Second, I examine that the specific facets of league structure facilitate relationship building among parents and volunteers within the league, including team creation, practices and games, all-star participation, volunteering, and player relationships, all of which play both a facilitating and constraining role in the types of relationships parents were prone to forming, and the social capital benefits that were likely to accrue within.     

The “madness” of market logic: mental illness and late capitalism in The Double and Nightcrawler

This paper examines representations of mental illness in popular film, particularly Richard Ayoade’s The Double and Dan Gilroy’s Nightcrawler. As I argue, both films trouble typical Hollywood narratives of mental illness by situating schizophrenia and psychopathy, for instance, within a socioeconomic context, specifically relations of production under late capitalism and the unfettered self-interest of neoliberalism. If mental illness is a product of the postindustrial workplace in The Double, it becomes a prerequisite for success in Nightcrawler, providing a cinematic depiction of mental illness at odds with the “personal pathology” paradigm that dominates the current neoliberal landscape.     

Gender Differences in Introductory Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Exams: Multiple Choice Versus Constructed Response Questions

An analysis of 295 male and 194 female examinations from introductory atmospheric and oceanic science courses is conducted to determine whether or not there exists gender differences in the performance on multiple choice versus constructed response sections of the exams. The difference in the mean performance of males and females on constructed response relative to multiple choice sections of final exams, even in years where the females performed better than or worse than the males on both sections, is on average 5% that is significant at the 0.1% level. Gender differences on time-limited midterm exams are not significant. It is further shown that final exam performance is not significantly related to whether or not the exam starts with a multiple choice versus constructed response set of questions. While our analysis is unable to differentiate between the possibilities that multiple choice questions favor male students and the competing hypothesis that constructed response questions favor female students, existing literature is reviewed to suggest that a combination of both is possible. Nevertheless, from the analysis of our examination results, we can conclude that an exam of introductory atmospheric or oceanic science curricula, which is made up of 60% multiple choice questions and 40% constructed response questions, would not be skewed to favor any particular gender.