Experiential Knowledge Affects the Visual Search Behaviors of Sprint Coaches and Sport Biomechanists.

It is common for applied sport biomechanists and high-performance coaches to work closely together. A feature of this relationship is that both bring unique experiences and knowledge to the common goal of improving an athlete's performance. For sprint running, coaches and biomechanists place importance on different aspects of technique. The purpose of this paper was to determine if these differences in experiential knowledge impact coaches and biomechanists visual perception of sprinting technique. Sport biomechanists (n = 12) and, expert (n = 11) and developing (n = 11) coaches watched video of athletes sprinting at two different speeds while wearing eye tracking glasses and, retrospectively, reported on the technique features observed. Mixed methods ANOVAs were used to determine visual search strategies and efficiency and used to indicate the relationship between visual search and verbal commentary data. The speed of video playback was the main determinant of visual search behavior, significantly impacting the visual search rate and relative fixation duration at a number of areas of interest. The use of a visual pivot indicated all participants' visual search strategies were efficiency driven. Overall, the verbal commentary did not completely align with the eye tracking data and there were varying degrees of agreement with the identified technique related areas of interest for coaches and biomechanists. However, differences in visual search strategy and verbal commentary suggest that experiential knowledge impacts participants' observation and perception of sprinting technique.

Testing the functionality of peripheral vision in a mixed-methods football field study.

In team sports, peripheral vision might be useful to simultaneously monitor movements of opponents and teammates. Until now, however, little is known about the perceptual-cognitive processes underlying peripheral vision in a sporting task. Therefore, we used a mixed-methods approach with in-situ decision making (3 vs. 3 situations) and retrospective verbal reports to identify perceptual strategies used for optimal information pick-up in high- and low-skilled football players. Our results show that the use of peripheral vision by central defenders depends on the position of the ball and the position of the direct opponent. Players were shown to either use a pivot strategy, whereby they frequently look at the direct opponent if he is not in the possession of the ball in addition to making saccades to monitor other players, or they employ a more direct strategy, in which gaze is anchored on this location, avoiding saccades and monitoring the other players with peripheral vision. Based on our findings we make recommendations about how these gaze strategies can be further tested in future research and how sports practice can benefit from these results.

Effect of expertise on diagnosis accuracy, non-technical skills and thought processes during simulated high-fidelity anaesthetist scenarios.

Background: The expert performance approach can be used to examine expertise during representative field-based tasks, while collecting process-tracing measures such as think-aloud verbal reports. Collecting think-aloud verbal reports provides an insight into the cognitive mechanisms that support performance during tasks. Method: We examined the thought processes and performance of anaesthetists during simulated environments. Verbal reports of thinking and the anaesthetists' non-technical skills (ANTS) were recorded to examine cognitive processes, non-technical behaviours and diagnosis accuracy during fully immersive, high-fidelity medical scenarios. Skilled (n=6) and less skilled (n=9) anaesthetists were instructed to respond to medical scenarios experienced in theatre. Results: Skilled participants demonstrated higher diagnosis accuracy and ANTS scores compared to less skilled participants. Furthermore, skilled participants engaged in deeper thinking and verbalised more evaluation, prediction and deep planning statements. Conclusions: The ability to employ an effective cognitive processing strategy, more efficient non-technical behaviours and superior diagnosis is associated with superior performance in skilled participants.

Efficiency of Arithmetic Procedures Modulates the Problem-Size Effect in Subtraction.

The aim of this study was to examine whether differences in strategy selection and/or strategy efficiency can explain the modulation of the problem-size effect by arithmetic skill. More specifically, we wondered whether arithmetic skill increases the use of retrieval strategy in large problems, and/or enhances the efficiency of either retrieval or procedural strategies. The performance of highly-skilled (HS) and less highly-skilled (LS) individuals on a subtraction verification task was analyzed according to problem size and to the strategy reported on a trial-by-trial basis after each problem. The problem size effect was larger for LS individuals than for their HS peers, both in response time and in hit rate. Nevertheless, groups did not differ regarding the strategy reported for each subtraction size. As expected, problems in which retrieval strategy was reported were solved more quickly and more accurately than problems solved by procedural strategies. Responses using retrieval strategy were equally fast in the two groups, but HS individuals performed better than LS when using procedural strategies. The results therefore suggest that the differences in behavioral measures between groups might specifically be due to differences in the efficiency of procedural strategies.

Numerical landmarks are useful--except when they're not.

Placing landmarks on number lines, such as marking each tenth on a 0-1 line with a hatch mark and the corresponding decimal, has been recommended as a useful tool for improving children's number sense. Four experiments indicated that some landmarks do have beneficial effects, others have harmful effects, and yet others have no effects on representations of common fractions (N/M). The effects of the landmarks were seen not only on the number line task where they appeared but also on a subsequent magnitude comparison task and on correlations with mathematics achievement tests. Landmarks appeared to exert their effects through the encodings and strategies that they promoted. Theoretical and educational implications are discussed.

The dog that didn't growl: the interactional negotiation of momentary confabulations.

We examine from a discursive perspective momentary confabulations generated by patients in clinical interviews based on confabulation questionnaires. Commonly, neuropsychology treats such confabulations solely as evidence of patients' inabilities or deficits. Here we argue that patients' descriptions indicate the interaction of memory deficits with preserved interactional skills. More than this, however, patients' descriptions can be seen in part to arise out of the interviews themselves, in that the interviewer's turns (a) signal agreement rather than disagreement or challenge, and (b) lead to further development of descriptions instead of marking these out as problematic. These features mark out the clinical interviews as different from (i) everyday conversation, and (ii) other clinical settings such as the administration of verbal memory tests, and as a result the interviews allow scope for patients to develop unchallenged autobiographical narratives. Thus, ironically, interviews that rely on the standard use of confabulation questionnaires can provide settings that are especially conducive to the generation of the momentary confabulations that they aim to study.

Análise comportamental de relatos verbais de mães de crianças com dermatose crônica / Behavioral analysis of verbal reports of mothers of children with chronic skin disease

Objetiva-se apresentar os relatos de mães de crianças com dermatose crônica e discuti-los de acordo com a perspectiva da Análise do Comportamento. Trinta e duas mães de crianças de 6 a 12 anos de idade com dermatose crônica responderam a um roteiro de entrevista. As mães descreveram as crianças como ansiosas, isoladas socialmente, com queixas somáticas, irritabilidade e com dificuldades de adesão ao tratamento. Houve relato de sentimentos de culpa, desamparo e preocupações relacionadas à doença, e cansaço, por não conseguirem fazer com que a criança seguisse o tratamento. A análise comportamental dos relatos, conduzida por meio da descrição de contingências e da formulação de hipóteses funcionais, permitiu identificar situações ou condições aversivas (reação ao diagnóstico, identificação de fatores responsáveis pelo aparecimento e/ou piora dos sintomas, adesão ao tratamento e preconceito) nas quais estes sentimentos foram relatados e suas consequências para as mães e as crianças.(AU)

The study aimed analyzes according to Behavior Analysis view the maternal report about their children' behavior with chronic skin disease. Thirty two mothers of children between 6 and 12 years old with chronic skin diseases were interviewed. Mothers described their children as anxious, socially isolated, showing somatic complains, irritability, easily staying bore and hurt, and difficulty to follow medical treatment. Mothers reported guilt, hopelessness and concerns about their children condition, and tiredness by not being able to manage children' compliance behavior to the treatment. Behavioral analysis of the reports, conducted by describing contingencies and by formulating functional hypotheses, identified situations or aversive conditions (reaction to the diagnosis, identification of factors responsible for the onset and/or worsening symptoms, treatment adherence and prejudice) in which these feelings were reported and its consequences for mothers and their children.(AU)

Análise comportamental de relatos verbais de mães de crianças com dermatose crônica / Behavioral analysis of verbal reports of mothers of children with chronic skin disease

Objetiva-se apresentar os relatos de mães de crianças com dermatose crônica e discuti-los de acordo com a perspectiva da Análise do Comportamento. Trinta e duas mães de crianças de 6 a 12 anos de idade com dermatose crônica responderam a um roteiro de entrevista. As mães descreveram as crianças como ansiosas, isoladas socialmente, com queixas somáticas, irritabilidade e com dificuldades de adesão ao tratamento. Houve relato de sentimentos de culpa, desamparo e preocupações relacionadas à doença, e cansaço, por não conseguirem fazer com que a criança seguisse o tratamento. A análise comportamental dos relatos, conduzida por meio da descrição de contingências e da formulação de hipóteses funcionais, permitiu identificar situações ou condições aversivas (reação ao diagnóstico, identificação de fatores responsáveis pelo aparecimento e/ou piora dos sintomas, adesão ao tratamento e preconceito) nas quais estes sentimentos foram relatados e suas consequências para as mães e as crianças...

The study aimed analyzes according to Behavior Analysis view the maternal report about their children' behavior with chronic skin disease. Thirty two mothers of children between 6 and 12 years old with chronic skin diseases were interviewed. Mothers described their children as anxious, socially isolated, showing somatic complains, irritability, easily staying bore and hurt, and difficulty to follow medical treatment. Mothers reported guilt, hopelessness and concerns about their children condition, and tiredness by not being able to manage children' compliance behavior to the treatment. Behavioral analysis of the reports, conducted by describing contingencies and by formulating functional hypotheses, identified situations or aversive conditions (reaction to the diagnosis, identification of factors responsible for the onset and/or worsening symptoms, treatment adherence and prejudice) in which these feelings were reported and its consequences for mothers and their children...

Effects of differential reinforcement and rules with feedback on preference for choice and verbal reports.

We evaluated the effects of differential reinforcement and accurate verbal rules with feedback on the preference for choice and the verbal reports of 6 adults. Participants earned points on a probabilistic schedule by completing the terminal links of a concurrent-chains arrangement in a computer-based game of chance. In free-choice terminal links, participants selected 3 numbers from an 8-number array; in restricted-choice terminal links participants selected the order of 3 numbers preselected by a computer program. A pop-up box then informed the participants if the numbers they selected or ordered matched or did not match numbers generated by the computer but not displayed; matching in a trial resulted in one point earned. In baseline sessions, schedules of reinforcement were equal across free- and restricted-choice arrangements and a running tally of points earned was shown each trial. The effects of differentially reinforcing restricted-choice selections were evaluated using a reversal design. For 4 participants, the effects of providing a running tally of points won by arrangement and verbal rules regarding the schedule of reinforcement were also evaluated using a nonconcurrent multiple-baseline-across-participants design. Results varied across participants but generally demonstrated that (a) preference for choice corresponded more closely to verbal reports of the odds of winning than to reinforcement schedules, (b) rules and feedback were correlated with more accurate verbal reports, and (c) preference for choice corresponded more highly to the relative number of reinforcements obtained across free- and restricted-choice arrangements in a session than to the obtained probability of reinforcement or to verbal reports of the odds of winning.

Consistencia entre el reporte verbal y los efectos psicofisiológicos registrados en el tratamiento de una fobia específica empleando la técnica de la Desensibilización Sistemática (DS) / Consistency between verbal report and psychophysiological effects registered in the treatment of a specific phobia using Systematic Desensitization

En la presente investigación se empleó un diseño cuasi-experimental de caso único AB para evaluar la consistencia del reporte verbal basado en Unidades Subjetivas de Ansiedad (USAS) y los efectos psicofisiológicos registrados en la aplicación de la técnica de la Desensibilización Sistemática, empleando el componente imaginario de ésta en un caso de fobia específica a las aves. Los resultados no mostraron una consistencia entre el informe verbal del sujeto, en el cual reportó, tanto cero USAS para 10 escenas ansiógenas, como una disminución en la activación fisiológica, y las medidas obtenidas en los equipos que registraban el pulso y la RGP. El pulso mostró una tendencia al aumento mientras que la RGP una tendencia a mantener los mismos niveles.

In the present research a quasi- experimental AB single case research design was used to assess the consistency of a verbal report based on Subjective Units of Discomfort (SUDS) and the psycho-physiological measures of pulse and galvanic skin response (GSR) when applying the systematic desensitization technique and using only its imaginary component in the treatment of a specific phobia to birds. The results found didn’t show a consistency between the participant’s verbal report, in which both cero SUDS were reported for 10 ansiogenic scenes and a decrease in the physiological arousal, and the measurements obtained by the equipment that registered pulse and GSR. In contrast, the pulse showed an increasing tendency and the GSR registered a tendency to maintain the same levels.

Sobre Análise do Relato Verbal / About Verbal Report Analysis

Neste artigo caracterizamos descritivamente aspectos básicos de um trabalho coordenado pela Professora Carolina Bori, junto ao Ciclo Básico da Universidade Federal de São Carlos, em 1977, trabalho este que desencadeou duas vertentes de pesquisa no Brasil: uma no âmbito do ensino de Química e a outra no âmbito da pesquisa com relatos verbais em Psicologia. Descrevemos, em seguida, as principais características de cada uma dessas vertentes, em termos das questões que as originaram e dos primeiros trabalhos que daí resultaram. Finalmente, contextualizamos a contribuição da abordagem ao relato verbal assim construída para a pesquisa em psicologia, especialmente à luz de colocações de Vygotsky sobre o papel dos relatos verbais na pesquisa experimental.

This paper describes the basic aspects of the work developed under the supervision of Professor Carolina Bori at the Preparatory Course in the Universidade Federal de São Carlos in 1977, which brought about two new lines of research in Brazil. The first line of research had to do with the teaching of Chemistry at the university level, and the second line dealt with a new procedure in Psychology to collect and analyse verbal reports. The main characteristics of each line are described, as well as the questions that led to them and their preliminary results. The contributions of this new approach to verbal reports are analysed within the realm of research in Psychology, particularly under the light of Vygotsky’s propositions about the role of verbal reports in experimental research.