Speed Versus Accuracy: Implications of Adolescents' Neurocognitive Developments in a Digital Game to Train Executive Functions

Adolescence is a period of rapid cognitive change, including an initial increase in speed of cognitive processing and a more gradual increase in efficiency of cognitive processing. This study examined how neurophysiological changes associated with adolescent development can inform the design of game‐based executive function (EF) training. Two versions of a digital game designed to train the EF subskill of inhibition were given to adolescents (aged 13–17; N = 96): one focusing on speed, the other on accuracy. Consistent with neurocognitive developments, it was hypothesized that younger adolescents would benefit more from the speed version, and older adolescents more from the accuracy version. A significant age by condition interaction was found: Controlling for pretest, younger adolescents had better outcomes in the speed condition, while older adolescents had better outcomes in the accuracy condition. These findings argue for consideration of adolescents' neurocognitive development when designing games for learning and skill improvement.     

Learning how to see and feel: Alfred Lichtwark and his concept of artistic and aesthetic education

Abstract

Focusing on Lichtwark’s concept of museology, this article shows what role he envisaged for art in public life at a time when the rise of mass consumption and popular culture created new lifestyles. Lichtwark’s concept of artistic and aesthetic education did not only extend to museums and classrooms but also to dilettantism as a basis for educating taste and developing an appreciation of the arts that would have a positive economic impact. The article looks at the contemporary entanglements and different contexts of Lichtwark’s ideas and relates them to recent approaches to cultural learning. Generally speaking, it argues that concepts of cultural learning are a bundle of entangled threads that connect and concern not only the sphere of art but also contradictory values and norms, economic production, and the emergence of new important status groups such as consumers.     

Shaping at the point of utterance: an investigation of the composing processes of the deaf student writer

All writers face the challenge of making meaning on a blank page. They struggle to make meaning for themselves and to communicate this meaning to the potential readers of their texts. Although, in this way, the act of writing can be perceived as a solitary endeavor, the activity of writing, as one aspect of literacy development, is embedded in a sociocultural framework and must be considered not only from the perspective of an individual's mental functioning but from the social context in which it exists. What follows is a preliminary report from a larger case study examining the composing processes of four deaf student writers. This broader study aspires to the goal of sociocultural research, which is to understand the relationship between human mental functioning, on one hand and cultural historical and institutional settings, on the other (Wertsch, 1995). From such a perspective, individual mental processes and sociocultural setting are understood in terms of this relationship, and human action is understood in the context of interrelated moments. I focus on one 'moment' of the writing process that I will term, to borrow a phrase from Stephen Krashen (1977) and James Britton (1978), 'shaping at the point of utterance.' In other words, I will explore what deaf writers do as they face the 'challenge of the blank page.'     

Errata

Abstract

One hundred and eighteen national collegiate fencers engaged in the first round competition in the 28th annual NCAA Fencing Championships held at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus. After the first day of competition, the field size was reduced to 72 fencers or 24 fencers per weapon. Through the use of a unique scoring device, response times and accuracy measurements were recorded for each fencer. The fencers then engaged in their respective round robin tournament according to class of weapon; epee, sabre, or foil. Two criterion measures of fencing success were then correlated with response times and accuracies. Correlation coefficients for sabre fencemen were slightly better than 0. Criterion measures for epee fencers showed a low relationship with response time and accuracies while those of foil showed a slight to fair relationship.