An ecological theory of expertise effects in memory recall

Higher order affordances

Affordances are opportunities for action for a given animal (or animals) in a given environment or situation. The concept of affordance has been widely adopted in the behavioral sciences, but important questions remain. We propose a new way of understanding the nature of affordances; in particular, how affordances are related to one another. We claim that many - perhaps most - affordances emerge from non-additive relations among other affordances, such that some affordances are of higher order relative to other affordances. That is, we propose that affordances form a continuous category of perceiveables that differ only in whether and how they relate to other affordances. We argue that: (1) opportunities for behaviors of all kinds can be described as affordances, (2) some affordances emerge from relations between animal and environment, whereas most affordances emerge from relations between other affordances, and (3) all affordances lawfully structure ambient energy arrays and, therefore, can be perceived directly. Our concept of higher order affordances provides a general account of behavioral phenomena that traditionally have been interpreted in terms of cognitive processes (e.g., remembering or imagining) as well as behavioral phenomena that have traditionally been interpreted in terms of cultural rules, such as conventions, or customs.

Mathematical expertise: the role of domain-specific knowledge for memory and creativity

In contrast to traditional expertise domains like chess and music, very little is known about the cognitive mechanisms in broader, more education-oriented domains like mathematics. This is particularly true for the role of mathematical experts' knowledge for domain-specific information processing in memory as well as for domain-specific and domain-general creativity. In the present work, we compared 115 experts in mathematics with 109 gender, age, and educational level matched novices in their performance in (a) a newly developed mathematical memory task requiring encoding and recall of structured and unstructured information and (b) tasks drawing either on mathematical or on domain-general creativity. Consistent with other expertise domains, experts in mathematics (compared to novices) showed superior short-term memory capacity for complex domain-specific material when presented in a structured, meaningful way. Further, experts exhibited higher mathematical creativity than novices, but did not differ from them in their domain-general creativity. Both lines of findings demonstrate the importance of experts' knowledge base in processing domain-specific material and provide new insights into the characteristics of mathematical expertise.

Psychoacoustic Similarity Judgments in Expert Rappers and Laypersons

This study sought to determine whether rap expertise is associated with enhanced knowledge of psychoacoustic similarity. Using a stimulus composed of pseudo-word assonantal half-rhyme triplets (e.g., freet/speet//yeek), expert improvisational rap lyricists were compared to laypersons (non-lyricists) in their judgments of half-rhyme acceptability. According to both a perception-based and a linguistic feature-based measure of psychoacoustic similarity, lyricists were distinct from non-lyricists in the rates at which they found half-rhymes acceptable, and in how group responses were correlated with the similarity measures. Data indicate that, compared to non-lyricists, lyricists' half-rhyme acceptance rates are more highly correlated with linguistic features that have more robust perceptual cues. Evidence suggests that lyricists and non-lyricists employ different strategies for determining the acceptability of half-rhymes, and that lyricists might be more sensitive or attuned to similar aspects of speech sounds.

The relationship between interactive-imagery instructions and association memory

Interactive imagery, one of the most effective strategies for remembering pairs of words, involves asking participants to form mental images during study. We tested the hypothesis that the visual image is, in fact, responsible for its memory benefit. Neither subjectively reported vividness (all experiments) nor objective imagery skill (experiments 1 and 3) could explain the benefit of interactive imagery for cued recall. Aphantasic participants, who self-identified little to no mental imagery, benefited from interactive-imagery instructions as much as controls (experiment 3). Imagery instructions did not improve memory for the constituent order of associations (AB versus BA), even when participants were told how to incorporate order within their images (experiments 1 and 2). Taken together, our results suggest that the visual format of images may not be responsible for the effectiveness of the interactive-imagery instruction and moreover, interactive imagery may not result in qualitatively different associative memories.

Perceiving the inertial properties of actions in anticipation skill

Inertial properties of throwing or striking actions constrain action outcomes, but their role in anticipation skill has not been investigated yet. Therefore, the aim of this study was to systematically investigate the effect of inertial constraints on anticipation skill. Fifteen semi-professional and fifteen novice soccer players were tasked with determining the kick direction of penalty kicks occluded at 160 ms, 80 ms before ball-foot contact, at ball-foot contact, or 80 ms after ball-foot contact. The inertial constraints were manipulated by loading the kicking leg with a 2.25 kg weight around the shank of the kicking leg and were compared with unloaded kicks. Anticipation accuracy of kick direction, response time, and decision confidence were recorded. It was found that loaded kick directions were anticipated more accurately, faster, and at earlier occlusion periods than unloaded kicks. The higher accuracy for the loaded kicks was found in the earlier occlusion conditions in experts compared to novices, as were the positive relationships between accuracy and confidence. It was concluded that the perception of the inertial constraints of the kicking action allowed for earlier anticipation of kick direction. It is proposed that accurate perception of the biomechanical property radius of gyrations in the body segments linking proximal to distal towards the kicking foot may provide this information.

The "Effort Elephant" in the Room: What Is Effort, Anyway?

Despite decades of research in the fields of judgment and decision-making, social psychology, cognitive psychology, human-machine interaction, behavioral economics, and neuroscience, we still do not know what "cognitive effort" is. The definitions in use are often imprecise and sometimes diametrically opposed. Researchers with different assumptions talk past each other, and many aspects of effort conservation remain untested and difficult to measure. In this article, we explain why effort is so difficult to pin down and why it is important that researchers develop consensus on precise definitions. Next, we describe major "hidden" sources of miscommunication: areas in which researchers disagree in their underlying assumptions about the nature of effort without realizing it. We briefly review a number of methods used to both measure and manipulate the effortfulness of thinking and highlight why they often produce contradictory findings. We conclude by reviewing existing perspectives on cognitive effort and integrating them to suggest a common framework for communicating about effort as a limited cognitive resource.

Motor Performers Need Task-relevant Information: Proposing an Alternative Mechanism for the Attentional Focus Effect

Research has repeatedly suggested that an external focus of attention is far superior to an internal focus of attention in motor learning and performance. Such findings have been explained through the lens of automaticity, as focusing externally on something outside your body should promote efficient and subconscious execution of any given motor action. In this paper, I critically review evidence and propose an alternative mechanism to explain why various foci are effective. Information, and its relevance to the task at hand, are at the center of this alternative view. The strong conclusions recently put forth in favor of an external focus, and the dismissal of all internal foci, appear unfounded. Researchers and practitioners should keep exploring attentional strategies that promote task-relevant information attunement.

Features of Students’ Experiences in Gaming Activity (Based on Group Board Games)

The problems of the game have long been relevant for many researchers and are considered from the perspective of various disciplines. In the modern era of digitalization, computer games have become widespread; they attract the attention and interest of both users and researchers. At the same time, “ordinary” board games in modern psychology are studied much less frequently and, mainly, on the example of chess. The purpose of this study is to identify changes in emotional states during and as a result of two board games that involve cooperative and competitive actions ( Imaginarium and Monopoly respectively) as well as to describe the nature of experiences of students in gaming activities, in particular, taking into account their personal characteristics. The study involved 62 students of higher educational institutions in Tashkent (Uzbekistan). To diagnose the emotional state of the respondents, we used the Method for Measuring Emotional Experience in Activity by D.A. Leontiev, and the Russian-language version of the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT) by O.V. Mitina et al. To measure personality traits, we used the Russian versions of the six-factor HEXACO-PI-R personality questionnaire by M.S. Egorova et al. and of the Dark Triad personality trait diagnostic technique by T.V. Kornilova et al. The results of the study, in general, demonstrate positive changes in the emotional state after gaming, regardless of the result and process. Both board games, in spite of their specificity, well increased the positive emotional background of the respondents. At the same time, it was found that the nature of the experience is related to the content of the gaming activity: the respondents more often experienced meaningfulness in the cooperative game Imaginarium and emptiness in the competitive game Monopoly .

Is There an "Expert" Stranger Rapist?

The concept of expertise applied to the criminal context assumes that offenders are driven by the abilities to both maximize the payoffs and minimize the risks associated with the crime-commission. This study tested the articulation between these two types of decisions taken by stranger rapists to successfully commit their crime. Specifically, this study aims to identify whether offenders whose modus operandi is indicative of criminal expertise are more likely to use forensic awareness strategies. Multivariate analyses conducted on 1,551 cases showed that stranger rapists who adopted behaviors indicative of expertise were more likely to use forensic awareness strategies to decrease the risk of police detection. Mixed associations were found between the number of forensic awareness strategies and their nature (i.e., protecting identity vs. destroying evidence) and rapists' expertise, thus leading to a four-type theoretical classification of expertise: novice, bold, opportunistic, and expert stranger rapists. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Imagery-based strategies for memory for associations

Cued recall of word pairs is improved by asking participants to combine items in an interactive image. Meanwhile, interactive images facilitate serial-recall (Link Method), but even better when each item is imagined alongside a previously learned peg-word (Peg List Method). We asked if a peg system could support memory for pairs, hypothesising it would outperform interactive imagery. Tested with cued recall, five study strategies were manipulated between-subjects, across two experiments: (1) Both words linked to one peg; (2) Each word linked to a different peg; (3) Peg list method but studying as a serial list; (4) Interactive imagery (within-pairs); (5) Link Method. Participants were able to apply peg-list strategies to pairs, as anticipated by mathematical modelling. Error-patterns spoke to mathematical models; peg lists exhibited distance-based confusability, characteristic of positional-coding models, and errors tended to preserve within-pair position, even for inter-item associative strategies, suggesting models of association should incorporate position. However, the peg list strategies came with a speed-accuracy tradeoff and did not challenge the superiority of the interactive imagery strategy. Without extensive practice with peg list strategies, interactive imagery remains superior for associations. Peg strategies may excel instead in tasks that primarily test serial order or with extensive training.

Representing Route Familiarity Using the Abstraction Hierarchy Framework

Familiarity with a route is influenced by levels of dynamic and static knowledge about the route and the route network such as type of roads, infrastructure, traffic conditions, purpose of travel, weather, departure time, etc. To better understand and develop route choice models that can incorporate more meaningful representations of route familiarity, OBDII devices were installed in the vehicles of 32 drivers, 65 years and older, for a period of three months. Personalized web-based trip diaries were used to provide older drivers with post-trip feedback reports about their risky driving behaviors, and collect feedback about their route familiarity, preferences, and reasons for choosing the route driven vs. an alternate low-risk route. Feedback responses were analyzed and mapped onto an abstraction hierarchy framework, which showed that among older drivers, route familiarity depends not only on higher abstraction levels such as trip goals, purpose, and driving strategies, but also on the lower levels of demand on driving skills, and characteristics of road type. Additionally, gender differences were identified at the lower levels of the familiarity abstraction model, especially for driving challenges and the driving environment. Results from the analyses helped highlight the multi-faceted nature of route familiarity, which can be used to build the necessary levels of granularity for modelling and interpretation of spatial and contextual route choice recommendation systems for specific population groups such as older drivers.

Relationships between expertise and distinctiveness: Abnormal medical images lead to enhanced memory performance only in experts

Memories are encoded in a manner that depends on our knowledge and expectations ("schemas"). Consistent with this, expertise tends to improve memory: Experts have elaborated schemas in their domains of expertise, allowing them to efficiently represent information in this domain (e.g., chess experts have enhanced memory for realistic chess layouts). On the other hand, in most situations, people tend to remember abnormal or surprising items best-those that are also rare or out-of-the-ordinary occurrences (e.g., surprising-but not random-chess board configurations). This occurs, in part, because such images are distinctive relative to other images. In the current work, we ask how these factors interact in a particularly interesting case-the domain of radiology, where experts actively search for abnormalities. Abnormality in mammograms is typically focal but can be perceived in the global "gist" of the image. We ask whether, relative to novices, expert radiologists show improved memory for mammograms. We also test for any additional advantage for abnormal mammograms that can be thought of as unexpected or rare stimuli in screening. We find that experts have enhanced memory for focally abnormal images relative to normal images. However, radiologists showed no memory benefit for images of the breast that were not focally abnormal, but were only abnormal in their gist. Our results speak to the role of schemas and abnormality in expertise; the necessity for spatially localized abnormalities versus abnormalities in the gist in enhancing memory; and the nature of memory and decision-making in radiologists.

Influences of domain knowledge on segmentation and memory

Much research has shown that experts possess superior memory in their domain of expertise. This memory benefit has been proposed to be the result of various encoding mechanisms, such as chunking and differentiation. Another potential encoding mechanism that is associated with memory is event segmentation, which is the process by which people parse continuous information into meaningful, discrete units. Previous research has found evidence that segmentation, to some extent, is affected by top-down processing. To date, few studies have investigated the influence of expertise on segmentation, and questions about expertise, segmentation ability, and their impact on memory remain. The goal of the current study was to investigate the influence of expertise on segmentation and memory ability for two different domains: basketball and Overwatch. Participants with high and low knowledge for basketball and with low knowledge for Overwatch viewed and segmented videos at coarse and fine grains, then completed memory tests. Differences in segmentation ability and memory were present between experts and control novices, specifically for the basketball videos; however, experts' segmentation only predicted memory for activities for which knowledge was lacking. Overall, this research suggests that experts' superior memory is not due to their segmentation ability and contributes to a growing body of literature showing evidence supporting conceptual effects on segmentation.

The environmental sculpting hypothesis of juvenile and adult hippocampal neurogenesis

We propose that a major contribution of juvenile and adult hippocampal neurogenesis is to allow behavioral experience to sculpt dentate gyrus connectivity such that sensory attributes that are relevant to the animal's environment are more strongly represented. This "specialized" dentate is then able to store a larger number of discriminable memory representations. Our hypothesis builds on accumulating evidence that neurogenesis declines to low levels prior to adulthood in many species. Rather than being necessary for ongoing hippocampal function, as several current theories posit, we argue that neurogenesis has primarily a prospective function, in that it allows experience to shape hippocampal circuits and optimize them for future learning in the particular environment in which the animal lives. Using an anatomically-based simulation of the hippocampus (BACON), we demonstrate that environmental sculpting of this kind would reduce overlap among hippocampal memory representations and provide representation cells with more information about an animal's current situation; consequently, it would allow more memories to be stored and accurately recalled without significant interference. We describe several new, testable predictions generated by the sculpting hypothesis and evaluate the hypothesis with respect to existing evidence. We argue that the sculpting hypothesis provides a strong rationale for why juvenile and adult neurogenesis occurs specifically in the dentate gyrus and why it declines significantly prior to adulthood.

Optimal forgetting: Semantic compression of episodic memories

It has extensively been documented that human memory exhibits a wide range of systematic distortions, which have been associated with resource constraints. Resource constraints on memory can be formalised in the normative framework of lossy compression, however traditional lossy compression algorithms result in qualitatively different distortions to those found in experiments with humans. We argue that the form of distortions is characteristic of relying on a generative model adapted to the environment for compression. We show that this semantic compression framework can provide a unifying explanation of a wide variety of memory phenomena. We harness recent advances in learning deep generative models, that yield powerful tools to approximate generative models of complex data. We use three datasets, chess games, natural text, and hand-drawn sketches, to demonstrate the effects of semantic compression on memory performance. Our model accounts for memory distortions related to domain expertise, gist-based distortions, contextual effects, and delayed recall.

Extended Skill Learning

Within the ecological and enactive approaches in cognitive science, a tension exists in how the process of skill learning is understood. Skill learning can be understood in a narrow sense, as a process of bodily change over time, or in an extended sense, as a change in the structure of the animal-environment system. We propose to resolve this tension by rejecting the first understanding in favor of the second. We thus defend an extended approach to skill learning. An extended understanding of skill learning views bodily changes as being embedded in a larger process of interaction between the organism and specific structures in the environment. Such an extended approach is committed to the claims that (1) the appropriate unit of analysis for understanding skill learning is not the body but the activity and (2) learning consists in the establishment and adaptive organization of enabling constraints on that activity. We focus on two example cases: maintaining upright posture and walking. In both cases, environmental structures play a constitutive role in the activity throughout learning, but the specific environmental structures that are involved in the activity change over time. At an early stage, the child makes use of an environmental "support"-for example, holding onto furniture to maintain upright posture. Later, once further constraints have been established, the child is able to let go of the furniture and remain upright. We argue that adopting an extended understanding of skill learning offers a promising strategy for unifying ecological and enactive approaches and can also potentially ground a radically embodied approach to higher cognition.

Expert Event Segmentation of Dance Is Genre-Specific and Primes Verbal Memory

By chunking continuous streams of action into ordered, discrete, and meaningful units, event segmentation facilitates motor learning. While expertise in the observed repertoire reduces the frequency of event borders, generalization of this effect to unfamiliar genres of dance and among other sensorimotor experts (musicians, athletes) remains unknown, and was the first aim of this study. Due to significant overlap in visuomotor, language, and memory processing brain networks, the second aim of this study was to investigate whether visually priming expert motor schemas improves memory for words related to one’s expertise. A total of 112 participants in six groups (ballet, Bharatanatyam, and “other” dancers, athletes, musicians, and non-experts) segmented a ballet dance, a Bharatanatyam dance, and a non-dance control sequence. To test verbal memory, participants performed a retrieval-induced forgetting task between segmentation blocks. Dance, instrument, and sport word categories were included to probe the second study aim. Results of the event segmentation paradigm clarify that previously-established expert segmentation effects are specific to familiar genres of dance, and do not transfer between different types of experts or to non-dance sequences. Greater recall of dance category words among ballet and Bharatanatyam dancers provides novel evidence for improved verbal memory primed by activating familiar sensorimotor representations.

Complex Motor Learning and Police Training: Applied, Cognitive, and Clinical Perspectives

The practices surrounding police training of complex motor skills, including the use of force, varies greatly around the world, and even over the course of an officer’s career. As the nature of policing changes with society and the advancement of science and technology, so should the training practices that officers undertake at both central (i.e., police academy basic recruit training) and local (i.e., individual agency or precinct) levels. The following review is intended to bridge the gap between scientific knowledge and applied practice to inform best practices for training complex motor skills that are unique and critical to law enforcement, including the use of lethal force. We begin by providing a basic understanding of the fundamental cognitive processes underlying motor learning, from novel skill acquisition to complex behaviors including situational awareness, and decision-making that precede and inform action. Motor learning, memory, and perception are then discussed within the context of occupationally relevant stress, with a review of evidence-based training practices that promote officer performance and physiological responses to stress during high-stakes encounters. A lack of applied research identifying the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying motor learning in police is inferred from a review of evidence from various clinical populations suffering from disorders of cognitive and motor systems, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and stroke. We conclude this review by identifying practical, organizational, and systemic challenges to implementing evidence-based practices in policing and provide recommendations for best practices that will promote training effectiveness and occupational safety of end-users (i.e., police trainers and officers).

Embodied Cognition With and Without Mental Representations: The Case of Embodied Choices in Sports

In this conceptual analysis contribution to the special issue on radical embodied cognition, we discuss how embodied cognition can exist with and without representations. We explore this concept through the lens of judgment and decision-making in sports (JDMS). Embodied cognition has featured in many investigations of human behavior, but no single approach has emerged. Indeed, the very definitions of the concepts “embodiment” and “cognition” lack consensus, and consequently the degree of “radicalism” is not universally defined, either. In this paper, we address JDMS not from a rigid theoretical perspective but from two embodied cognition approaches: one that assumes there is mediation between the athlete and the environment through mental representation, and another that assumes direct contact between the athlete and the environment and thus no need for mental representation. Importantly, our aim was not to arrive at a theoretical consensus or set up a competition between approaches but rather to provide a legitimate scientific discussion about how to explain empirical results in JDMS from contrasting perspectives within embodied cognition. For this, we first outline the definitions and constructs of embodied cognition in JDMS. Second, we detail the theory underlying the mental representation and direct contact approaches. Third, we comment on two published research papers on JDMS, one selected by each of us: (1) Correia et al. (2012) and (2) Pizzera (2012). Fourth, following the interpretation of the empirical findings of these papers, we present a discussion on the commonalities and divergences of these two perspectives and the consequences of using one or the other approach in the study of JDMS.

Parsing rooms: the role of the PPA and RSC in perceiving object relations and spatial layout

The perception of a scene involves grasping the global space of the scene, usually called the spatial layout, as well as the objects in the scene and the relations between them. The main brain areas involved in scene perception, the parahippocampal place area (PPA) and retrosplenial cortex (RSC), are supposed to mostly support the processing of spatial layout. Here we manipulated the objects and their relations either by arranging objects within rooms in a common way or by scattering them randomly. The rooms were then varied for spatial layout by keeping or removing the walls of the room, a typical layout manipulation. We then combined a visual search paradigm, where participants actively search for an object within the room, with multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA). Both left and right PPA were sensitive to the layout properties, but the right PPA was also sensitive to the object relations even when the information about objects and their relations is used in the cross-categorization procedure on novel stimuli. The left and right RSC were sensitive to both spatial layout and object relations, but could only use the information about object relations for cross-categorization to novel stimuli. These effects were restricted to the PPA and RSC, as other control brain areas did not display the same pattern of results. Our results underline the importance of employing paradigms that require participants to explicitly retrieve domain-specific processes and indicate that objects and their relations are processed in the scene areas to a larger extent than previously assumed.

Visual recognition memory for scenes in aerial photographs: Exploring the role of expertise

Aerial photographs depict objects from an overhead position, which gives them several unusual visual characteristics that are challenging for viewers to perceive and memorize. However, even for untrained viewers, aerial photographs are still meaningful and rich with contextual information. Such visual stimulus properties are considered appropriate and important when testing for expertise effects in visual recognition memory. The current experiment investigated memory recognition in expert image analysts and untrained viewers using two types of aerial photographs. The experts were better than untrained viewers at recognizing both vertical aerial photographs, which is the domain of their expertise, and oblique aerial photographs. Thus, one notable finding is that the superior memory performance of experts is not limited to a domain of expertise but extends to a broader category of large-scale landscape scenes. Furthermore, the experts' recognition accuracy remained relatively stable throughout the experimental conditions, illustrating the ability to use semantic information over strictly visual information in memory processes.

Survival of the Fittest: Increased Stimulus Competition During Encoding Results in Fewer but More Robust Memory Traces

Forgetting can be accounted for by time-indexed decay as well as competition-based interference processes. Although conventionally seen as competing theories of forgetting processes, Altmann and colleagues argued for a functional interaction between decay and interference. They revealed that, in short-term memory, time-based forgetting occurred at a faster rate under conditions of high proactive interference compared to conditions of low proactive interference. However, it is unknown whether interactive effects between decay-based forgetting and interference-based forgetting also exist in long-term memory. We employed a delayed memory recognition paradigm for visual indoor and outdoor scenes, measuring recognition accuracy at two time-points, immediately after learning and after 1 week, while interference was indexed by the number of images in a semantic category. We found that higher levels of interference during encoding led to a slower subsequent decay rate. In contrast to the findings in working-memory, our results suggest that a “survival of the fittest” principle applies to long-term memory processes, in which stimulus competition during encoding results in fewer, but also more robust memory traces, which decay at a slower rate. Conversely, low levels of interference during encoding allow more memory traces to form initially, which, however, subsequently decay at a faster rate. Our findings provide new insights into the mechanism of forgetting and could inform neurobiological models of forgetting.

Stepovers and Signal Detection: Response Sensitivity and Bias in the Differentiation of Genuine and Deceptive Football Actions

The ability to differentiate genuine and deceptive actions was examined using a combination of spatial and temporal occlusion to examine sensitivity to lower body, upper body, and full body sources of visual information. High-skilled and low-skilled association football players judged whether a player genuinely intended to take the ball to the participant's left or right or intended to step over the ball then take it in the other direction. Signal detection analysis was used to calculate measures of sensitivity (d') in differentiating genuine and deceptive actions and bias (c) toward judging an action to be genuine or deceptive. Analysis revealed that high-skilled players had higher sensitivity than low-skilled players and this was consistent across all spatial occlusion conditions. Low-skilled players were more biased toward judging actions to be genuine. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves revealed that accuracy on deceptive trials in the lower body and full body conditions most accurately classified participants as high-skilled or low-skilled. The results highlight the value of using signal detection analysis in studies of deceptive actions. They suggest that information from the lower body or upper body was sufficient for differentiating genuine and deceptive actions and that global information concurrently derived from these sources was not necessary to support the expert advantage.

Memory at the Sharp End: The Costs of Remembering With Others in Forensic Contexts

In many applied contexts where accurate and reliable information informs operational decision-making, emergency response resource allocation, efficient investigation, judicial process, and, ultimately, the delivery of justice, the costs of unfettered conversational remembering can be high. To date, research has demonstrated that conversations between co-witnesses in the immediate aftermath of witnessed events and co-witness retellings of witnessed events often impair both the quality and quantity of information reported subsequently. Given the largely negative impact of conversational remembering on the recall of both individual witnesses and groups of witnesses in this context, this review explores the reasons why these costs occur, the conditions under which costs are exacerbated, and how, in practical terms, the costs can be reduced in order to maximize the accuracy and completeness of witness accounts.

Experts' memory superiority for domain-specific random material generalizes across fields of expertise: A meta-analysis

Experts’ remarkable ability to recall meaningful domain-specific material is a classic result in cognitive psychology. Influential explanations for this ability have focused on the acquisition of high-level structures (e.g., schemata) or experts’ capability to process information holistically. However, research on chess players suggests that experts maintain some reliable memory advantage over novices when random stimuli (e.g., shuffled chess positions) are presented. This skill effect cannot be explained by theories emphasizing high-level memory structures or holistic processing of stimuli, because random material does not contain large structures nor wholes. By contrast, theories hypothesizing the presence of small memory structures—such as chunks—predict this outcome, because some chunks still occur by chance in the stimuli, even after randomization. The current meta-analysis assessed the correlation between level of expertise and recall of random material in diverse domains. The overall correlation was moderate but statistically significant (\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ \overline{r} = .41,p < .001 $$\end{document}r¯=.41,p<.001), and the effect was observed in nearly every study. This outcome suggests that experts partly base their superiority on a vaster amount of small memory structures, in addition to high-level structures or holistic processing.

Understanding constraints on sport performance from the complexity sciences paradigm: An ecological dynamics framework

Glazier's suggestion for the constraints-led approach as a GUT for sport performance is a worthy proposal. What is missing from these preliminary insights is a principled basis, in the form of pillars, for understanding the cornerstones of the sports medicine profession, and this lack of an overarching theoretical framework is also somewhat of a limitation in Glazier's initial ideas, as we argue later. Here we suggest that his preliminary proposal would benefit from considering a more comprehensive ontological positioning within the complexity sciences paradigm to benefit from conceptualising athletes and sports teams as complex adaptive systems. We argue that ecological dynamics provides a more encompassing rationale than the constraint-led approach because it is a multi-dimensional theoretical framework shaped by many relevant disciplines.

Exploring eye movements of experienced and novice readers of medical texts concerning the cardiovascular system in making a diagnosis

This study used the eye-tracking method to explore how the level of expertise influences reading, and solving, two written patient cases on cardiac failure and pulmonary embolus. Eye-tracking is a fairly commonly used method in medical education research, but it has been primarily applied to studies analyzing the processing of visualizations, such as medical images or patient video cases. Third-year medical students (n = 39) and residents (n = 13) read two patient case texts in an eye-tracking laboratory. The analysis focused on the diagnosis made, the total visit duration per text slide, and eye-movement indicators regarding task-relevant and task-redundant areas of the patient case text. The results showed that almost all participants (48/52) made the correct diagnosis of the first patient case, whereas all the residents, but only 17 students, correctly diagnosed the second case. The residents were efficient patient-case-solvers: they reached the correct diagnoses, and processed the cases faster and with a lower number of fixations than did the students. Further, the students and residents demonstrated different reading patterns with regard to which slides they proportionally paid most attention. The observed differences could be utilized in medical education to model expert reasoning and to teach the manner in which a good medical text is constructed. Eye-tracking methodology appears to have a great deal of potential in evaluating performance and growing diagnostic expertise in reading medical texts. However, further research using medical texts as stimuli is required. Anat Sci Educ 10: 23-33. © 2016 American Association of Anatomists.

An Ecological Approach to Interface Design

Four approaches to interface design are considered: technology centered, user centered, control centered, and use centered (ecological). Each perspective provides unique insights into pieces of the interface design problem. However, it is argued that the ecological or use centered approach provides a more comprehensive framework within which the other three perspectives can play important supporting roles. This approach goes beyond issues of information requirements to address meaning as an emergent property of a dynamic work ecology.

Adaptability of expert visual anticipation in baseball batting

By manipulating stimulus variation in terms of opponent pitcher actions, this study investigated the capability of expert (n = 30) and near-expert (n = 95) professional baseball batters to adapt anticipation skill when using the video simulation temporal occlusion paradigm. Participants watched in-game footage of two pitchers, one after the other, that was temporally occluded at ball release and various points during ball flight. They were required to make a written prediction of pitch types and locations. Per cent accuracy was calculated for pitch type, for pitch location, and for type and location combined. Results indicated that experts and near-experts could adapt their anticipation to predict above guessing level across both pitchers, but adaptation to the left-handed pitcher was poorer than the right-handed pitcher. Small-to-moderate effect sizes were found in terms of superior adaptation by experts over near-experts at the ball release and early ball flight occlusion conditions. The findings of this study extend theoretical and applied knowledge of expertise in striking sports. Practical application of the instruments and findings are discussed in terms of applied researchers, practitioners and high-performance staff in professional sporting organisations.

Reference Production as Search: The Impact of Domain Size on the Production of Distinguishing Descriptions

When producing a description of a target referent in a visual context, speakers need to choose a set of properties that distinguish it from its distractors. Computational models of language production/generation usually model this as a search process and predict that the time taken will increase both with the number of distractors in a scene and with the number of properties required to distinguish the target. These predictions are reminiscent of classic findings in visual search; however, unlike models of reference production, visual search models also predict that search can become very efficient under certain conditions, something that reference production models do not consider. This paper investigates the predictions of these models empirically. In two experiments, we show that the time taken to plan a referring expression-as reflected by speech onset latencies-is influenced by distractor set size and by the number of properties required, but this crucially depends on the discriminability of the properties under consideration. We discuss the implications for current models of reference production and recent work on the role of salience in visual search.

Experience and Diagnostic Anchors in Referral Letters

Abstract. The present study investigated whether diagnostic anchors, that is: diagnoses suggested in referral letters, influence judgments made by clinical psychologists with different levels of experience. Moderately experienced clinicians (N = 98) and very experienced clinicians (n = 126) were randomly assigned to reading a referral letter suggesting either depression or anxiety, or no referral letter. They then read a psychiatric report about a depressed patient, and gave a preliminary and final diagnosis. Results showed that the correctness of the diagnoses by very experienced clinicians was unaffected by the referral diagnosis. Moderately experienced clinicians did use the suggested diagnosis as anchor; when they had read a referral letter suggesting depressive complaints they were more inclined to classify the patient with a depressive disorder. In conclusion, the diagnosis in a referral letter influences the diagnostic decision made by moderately experienced clinicians.

Prescription drug advertising, disease knowledge, and older adults' optimistic bias about the future risk of Alzheimer's disease

This study aims to broaden the scope of knowledge on the role of direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising (DTCA) in the construction of consumers' optimistic bias regarding health issues and their intentions for coping actions. Based on an online survey of U.S. adults aged 65 years or older (N = 622), this study revealed that (a) respondents were optimistically biased in estimating their future risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD); (b) exposure to DTCA for AD medicine related negatively to optimistic bias when respondents had a low level of knowledge about AD, while the relationship disappeared when knowledge was high; (c) optimistic bias was negatively associated with intentions to seek information about AD and professional help to discuss it; and (d) optimistic bias mediated the relationship between the DTCA exposure × AD knowledge interaction and information- and help-seeking intentions. Implications for the theory and practice of DTCA are discussed.

Recall of briefly presented chess positions and its relation to chess skill

Individual differences in memory performance in a domain of expertise have traditionally been accounted for by previously acquired chunks of knowledge and patterns. These accounts have been examined experimentally mainly in chess. The role of chunks (clusters of chess pieces recalled in rapid succession during recall of chess positions) and their relations to chess skill are, however, under debate. By introducing an independent chunk-identification technique, namely repeated-recall technique, this study identified individual chunks for particular chess players. The study not only tested chess players with increasing chess expertise, but also tested non-chess players who should not have previously acquired any chess related chunks in memory. For recall of game positions significant differences between players and non-players were found in virtually all the characteristics of chunks recalled. Size of the largest chunks also correlates with chess skill within the group of rated chess players. Further research will help us understand how these memory encodings can explain large differences in chess skill.

Work domain constraints for modelling surgical performance

PURPOSE

Three main approaches can be identified for modelling surgical performance: a competency-based approach, a task-based approach, both largely explored in the literature, and a less known work domain-based approach. The work domain-based approach first describes the work domain properties that constrain the agent's actions and shape the performance. This paper presents a work domain-based approach for modelling performance during cervical spine surgery, based on the idea that anatomical structures delineate the surgical performance. This model was evaluated through an analysis of junior and senior surgeons' actions.

METHOD

Twenty-four cervical spine surgeries performed by two junior and two senior surgeons were recorded in real time by an expert surgeon. According to a work domain-based model describing an optimal progression through anatomical structures, the degree of adjustment of each surgical procedure to a statistical polynomial function was assessed.

RESULTS

Each surgical procedure showed a significant suitability with the model and regression coefficient values around 0.9. However, the surgeries performed by senior surgeons fitted this model significantly better than those performed by junior surgeons. Analysis of the relative frequencies of actions on anatomical structures showed that some specific anatomical structures discriminate senior from junior performances.

CONCLUSION

The work domain-based modelling approach can provide an overall statistical indicator of surgical performance, but in particular, it can highlight specific points of interest among anatomical structures that the surgeons dwelled on according to their level of expertise.

An fMRI study on the influence of sommeliers' expertise on the integration of flavor

Flavors guide consumers' choice of foodstuffs, preferring those that they like and meet their needs, and dismissing those for which they have a conditioned aversion. Flavor affects the learning and consumption of foods and drinks; what is already well-known is favored and what is new is apprehended. The flavor of foodstuffs is also crucial in explaining some eating behaviors such as overconsumption. The "blind" taste test of wine is a good model for assessing the ability of people to convert mouth feelings into flavor. To determine the relative importance of memory and sensory capabilities, we present the results of an fMRI neuro-imaging study involving 10 experts and 10 matched control subjects using wine as a stimulus in a blind taste test, focusing primarily on the assessment of flavor integration. The results revealed activations in the brain areas involved in sensory integration, both in experts and control subjects (insula, frontal operculum, orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala). However, experts were mainly characterized by a more immediate and targeted sensory reaction to wine stimulation with an economic mechanism reducing effort than control subjects. Wine experts showed brainstem and left-hemispheric activations in the hippocampal and parahippocampal formations and the temporal pole, whereas control subjects showed activations in different associative cortices, predominantly in the right hemisphere. These results also confirm that wine experts work simultaneously on sensory quality assessment and on label recognition of wine.

Perceptual-cognitive skill training and its transfer to expert performance in the field: future research directions

Perceptual-cognitive skills training provides a potentially valuable method for training athletes on key skills, such as anticipation and decision-making. It can be used when athletes are unable to physically train or are unable to experience repeated key situations from their sport. In this article, we review research on perceptual-cognitive skills training and describe future research areas focusing on a number of key theories and principles. The main aim of any training intervention should be the efficacy of retention and transfer of learning from training to field situations, which should be the key consideration when designing the representative tasks used in perceptual-cognitive skills training. We review the principles that seek to create practice tasks that replicate those found in the field, so as to increase the amount of transfer that occurs. These principles are perception-action coupling, the contextual interference effect and contextual information, which suggest there should be a high level of similarity between training and real-life performance when designing perceptual-cognitive skills training. In the final section, we discuss the transfer of retained skill acquisition from perceptual-cognitive skills training to field performance, which we suggest to be the key area for future research in this area.

Shared knowledge or shared affordances? Insights from an ecological dynamics approach to team coordination in sports

Previous research has proposed that team coordination is based on shared knowledge of the performance context, responsible for linking teammates' mental representations for collective, internalized action solutions. However, this representational approach raises many questions including: how do individual schemata of team members become reformulated together? How much time does it take for this collective cognitive process to occur? How do different cues perceived by different individuals sustain a general shared mental representation? This representational approach is challenged by an ecological dynamics perspective of shared knowledge in team coordination. We argue that the traditional shared knowledge assumption is predicated on 'knowledge about' the environment, which can be used to share knowledge and influence intentions of others prior to competition. Rather, during competitive performance, the control of action by perceiving surrounding informational constraints is expressed in 'knowledge of' the environment. This crucial distinction emphasizes perception of shared affordances (for others and of others) as the main communication channel between team members during team coordination tasks. From this perspective, the emergence of coordinated behaviours in sports teams is based on the formation of interpersonal synergies between players resulting from collective actions predicated on shared affordances.

The impact of expertise in olfaction

Olfactory expertise remains poorly understood, most likely because experts in odor, such as perfumers, sommeliers, and oenologists, are much rarer than experts in other modalities, such as musicians or sportsmen. In this review, we address the specificities of odor expertise in both odor experts and in a priori untrained individuals who have undergone specific olfactory training in the frame of an experiment, such as repeated exposure to odors or associative learning. Until the 21st century, only the behavioral effects of olfactory training of untrained control individuals had been reported, revealing an improvement of olfactory performance in terms of sensitivity, discrimination, memory, and identification. Behavioral studies of odor experts have been scarce, with inconsistent or inconclusive results. Recently, the development of cerebral imaging techniques has enabled the identification of brain areas and neural networks involved in odor processing, revealing functional and structural modifications as a function of experience. The behavioral approach to odor expertise has also evolved. Researchers have particularly focused on odor mental imagery, which is characteristic of odor experts, because this ability is absent in the average person but is part of a perfumer’s professional practice. This review summarizes behavioral, functional, and structural findings on odor expertise. These data are compared with those obtained using animals subjected to prolonged olfactory exposure or to olfactory-enriched environments and are discussed in the context of functional and structural plasticity.

Coaching Shared Mental Models in Soccer: A Longitudinal Case Study

This study was aimed at capturing the components comprising shared mental models (SMM) and the training methods used to address SMM in one athletic program context. To meet this aim, two soccer coaches from the same collegiate program were interviewed and observed extensively during practices and games throughout the 2009–2010 season. In addition, documents (e.g., players’ positioning on free kicks sheet) from the soccer program were reviewed. The data were analyzed inductively through a thematic analysis to develop models that operationalize SMM through its components, and training. Game intelligence and game philosophy were the two main operational themes defining SMM. Moreover, four themes emerged for SMM training: (a) the setting, (b) compensatory communication, (c) reinforcement, and (d) instruction. SMM was embedded within a more comprehensive conceptual framework of team chemistry, including emotional, social, and cognitive dimensions. Implications of these conceptual frameworks are considered for sport psychologists and coaches.

The roles of deliberate practice and innate ability in developing expertise: evidence and implications

CONTEXT

Medical education research focuses extensively on experience and deliberate practice (DP) as key factors in the development of expert performance. The research on DP minimises the role of individual ability in expert performance. This claim ignores a large body of research supporting the importance of innate individual cognitive differences. We review the relationship between DP and an innate individual ability, working memory (WM) capacity, to illustrate how both DP and individual ability predict expert performance.

METHODS

This narrative review examines the relationship between DP and WM in accounting for expert performance. Studies examining DP, WM and individual differences were identified through a targeted search.

RESULTS

Although all studies support extensive DP as a factor in explaining expertise, much research suggests individual cognitive differences, such as WM capacity, predict expert performance after controlling for DP. The extent to which this occurs may be influenced by the nature of the task under study and the cognitive processes used by experts. The importance of WM capacity is greater for tasks that are non-routine or functionally complex. Clinical reasoning displays evidence of this task-dependent importance of individual ability.

CONCLUSIONS

No single factor is both necessary and sufficient in explaining expertise, and individual abilities such as WM can be important. These individual abilities are likely to contribute to expert performance in clinical settings. Medical education research and practice should identify the individual differences in novices and experts that are important to clinical performance.

The temporo-parietal junction contributes to global gestalt perception-evidence from studies in chess experts

In a recent neuroimaging study the comparison of intact vs. disturbed perception of global gestalt indicated a significant role of the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) in the intact perception of global gestalt (Huberle and Karnath, 2012). This location corresponded well with the areas known to be damaged or impaired in patients with simultanagnosia after stroke or due to neurodegenerative diseases. It was concluded that the TPJ plays an important role in the integration of individual items to a holistic percept. Thus, increased BOLD signals should be found in this region whenever a task calls for the integration of multiple visual items. Behavioral experiments in chess experts suggested that their superior skills in comparison to chess novices are partly based on fast holistic processing of chess positions with multiple pieces. We thus analyzed BOLD data from four fMRI studies that compared chess experts with chess novices during the presentation of complex chess-related visual stimuli (Bilalić et al., 2010, 2011a,b, 2012). Three regions of interests were defined by significant TPJ clusters in the abovementioned study of global gestalt perception (Huberle and Karnath, 2012) and BOLD signal amplitudes in these regions were compared between chess experts and novices. These cross-paradigm ROI analyses revealed higher signals at the TPJ in chess experts in comparison to novices during presentations of complex chess positions. This difference was consistent across the different tasks in five independent experiments. Our results confirm the assumption that the TPJ region identified in previous work on global gestalt perception plays an important role in the processing of complex visual stimulus configurations.

Effects of visual information on adults' and infants' auditory statistical learning

Infant and adult learners are able to identify word boundaries in fluent speech using statistical information. Similarly, learners are able to use statistical information to identify word-object associations. Successful language learning requires both feats. In this series of experiments, we presented adults and infants with audio-visual input from which it was possible to identify both word boundaries and word-object relations. Adult learners were able to identify both kinds of statistical relations from the same input. Moreover, their learning was actually facilitated by the presence of two simultaneously present relations. Eight-month-old infants, however, do not appear to benefit from the presence of regular relations between words and objects. Adults, like 8-month-olds, did not benefit from regular audio-visual correspondences when they were tested with tones, rather than linguistic input. These differences in learning outcomes across age and input suggest that both developmental and stimulus-based constraints affect statistical learning.