The effect of augmented reality on preoperative anxiety in children and adolescents: A randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Virtual reality has been shown to be an effective non-pharmacological intervention for reducing anxiety of pediatric patients. A newer immersive technology, that of augmented reality, offers some practical advantages over virtual reality, and also seems to show beneficial effects on anxiety. The main objective of this study was to determine whether augmented reality could reduce preoperative anxiety in pediatric patients undergoing elective day surgeries. A secondary outcome was to document the level of satisfaction from pediatric patients toward augmented reality intervention. METHODS: Children and adolescents aged between 5 and 17 years old scheduled for elective day surgery under general anesthesia were randomly divided into two groups. Patients in the control group received standard care, whereas patients in the augmented reality group were accompanied by two virtual characters who taught them relaxation techniques and provided emotional and informational support. Anxiety was measured at the time of admission and at the time of induction using the short version of the modified Yale Preoperative Anxiety Scale. RESULTS: The analysis included 37 pediatric patients in the augmented reality group and 64 in the control group. Anxiety scores were statistically significantly lower in the augmented reality group than those in the control group at the time of admission (median difference [95% CI]: 6.3 [0-10.4], p = .01), while no difference was observed between groups at the time of induction (median difference [95% CI]: -4.2 [-5.2-4.2], p = .58). Most patients in the augmented reality group wished to wear the glasses again and reported to be very satisfied with the intervention. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this study is the first large randomized controlled trial to provide empirical evidence of reduction in anxiety for children and adolescents using augmented reality prior to induction of general anesthesia.

Delineating the contribution of long-term associations to immediate recall.

In the present study we examined the contribution of semantic associative links to short-term recall performance by using the separation effect first introduced in free recall studies (Glanzer, 1969). Pairs of associated words were inserted in the to-be-remembered lists. In two experiments associated words were better recalled than non-associated words, and were better recalled when they were adjacent in the list than when they were separated by one non-associated item. In addition results showed that forward associative links among pair members were as beneficial to immediate serial recall as backward associative links. Finally the benefit of associative links among pair members was observed with both forward and backward recall.

The impact of text repetition on content and function words during reading: further evidence from eye movements.

There is ample evidence that reading speed increases when participants read the same text more than once. However, less is known about the impact of text repetition as a function of word class. Some authors suggested that text repetition would mostly benefit content words with little or no effect on function words. In the present study, we examined the effect of multiple readings on the processing of content and function words. Participants were asked to read a short text two times in direct succession. Eye movement analyses revealed the typical multiple readings effect: Repetition decreased the time readers spent fixating words and the probability of fixating critical words. Most importantly, we found that the effect of multiple readings was of the same magnitude for content and function words, and for low- and high-frequency words. Such findings suggest that lexical variables have additive effects on eye movement measures in reading.

Revisiting backward recall and benchmark memory effects: a reply to Bireta et al. (2010).

When participants are asked to recall lists of items in the reverse order, known as backward recall, several benchmark memory phenomena, such as the word length effect, are abolished (Bireta et al. Memory & Cognition 38:279-291, 2010). Bireta et al. (Memory & Cognition 38:279-291, 2010) suggested that in backward recall, reliance on order retention is increased at the expense of item retention, leading to the abolition of item-based phenomena. In a subsequent study, however, Guérard and Saint-Aubin (in press) showed that four lexical factors known to modulate item retention were unaffected by recall direction. In a series of five experiments, we examined the source of the discrepancy between the two studies. We revisited the effects of phonological similarity, word length, articulatory suppression, and irrelevant speech, using open and closed pools of words in backward and forward recall. The results are unequivocal in showing that none of these effects are influenced by recall direction, suggesting that Bireta et al.'s (Memory & Cognition 38:279-291, 2010) results are the consequence of their particular stimuli.

Task switching and serial memory: looking into the nature of switches and tasks.

Task switching research has so far focused on the impact of switching task-sets between two-choice classification tasks that require little or no memory load. Empirical work is lacking however to determine whether the switching cost can be extended to other cognitive activities and to different types of switches. In the present study, switching between the content - verbal to spatial - of the tasks was contrasted with switching cognitive processes - categorization to serial memory. Our pattern of results revealed the absence of local and general switch costs on serial memory tasks, while substantial costs were observed with two-choice judgement tasks. Such a finding challenges the widely accepted assumption that task alternation comes with a considerable cost in performance regardless of the cognitive tasks undertaken. Our results are discussed in context of the predominant models of task switching.