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The Oxford Visual Perception Screen: Development and normative data of a standardised assessment for visual perception difficulties.
OBJECTIVE: We aimed to develop and standardise a practical systematic screening tool for visual perception impairments after a stroke to replace current subjective methods. DESIGN: A mixed methods study including a cross-sectional study and a case series. SETTING: In the community and on stroke rehabilitation units. PARTICIPANTS: Older volunteers without a neurological history contributed to normative data. Patients with ocular conditions or a stroke took part in our case series. INSTRUMENT: The Oxford Visual Perception Screen. MAIN MEASURES: For each task of the Oxford Visual Perception Screen, we determined 5th centile cut-off scores. We further explored effects of age, visual acuity and gender on visual perception through generalised linear models. RESULTS: Oxford Visual Perception Screen is a 15-min paper-and-pen assessment comprising 10 tasks including picture naming, star counting and reading. Normative data of 107 participants demonstrated persistent high performance with most cut-offs near ceiling. Apart from the Figure Copy (Z = 6.57, p
Early executive function development: The first three years
Executive functions (EFs) relate to a range of important outcomes across the lifespan, yet relatively little is known about the earliest emergence of these skills in infancy and toddlerhood. This chapter provides an overview of the measurement, development, and neural correlates of Early EFs. First, we review current empirical and theoretical frameworks for understanding Early EFs. Then we review key studies to examine how Early EFs have been measured, and what these findings are beginning to reveal about the developmental trajectories of EFs. We then review the neural correlates of Early EFs, before offering some recommendations for how to continue to expand knowledge in this field, with an emphasis on task development.
Participants' Roles in Bullying Among 7-11 Year Olds: Results from a UK-Wide Randomized Control Trial of the KiVa School-Based Program.
This paper describes the social architecture model of school-based bullying behavior. The model proposes that the behavior of all students affects rates of bullying. Alongside self-reported victims and bullies, the model identified four bystander roles: assistant, reinforcer, outsider, and defender. The level of support for bullies varies based on school policies that address bullying and promote school connectedness. The universal components of the KiVa school-based anti-bullying program designed to teach pupils to stand against bullying are described. The Stand Together trial, a UK-based randomized controlled trial, recruited 11,000+ students from 118 schools across the UK, half of whom received the KiVa program whilst the remainder delivered usual practice to address bullying. The main trial results reported a significant reduction in victimization in favor of KiVa. This paper examines data collected on the pupil-reported Participant Role Questionnaire (PRQ), one of the secondary measures used to explore whether significant reductions in victimization were accompanied by changes in bystander behavior. The results showed reductions in the student response rates of self-identified roles as bullies, assistants, and reinforcers in favor of KiVa, but outsider roles increased, and defender roles reduced. This provides tentative support for the social architecture model as taught in the Stand Together KiVa trial but also suggests that further work needs to be conducted to support the development of defender behaviors and address this important public health challenge.
Methods Used to Assess Early Mathematical Skills in 2-Year-Olds: A Review of the Literature
When children are aged around 2 years, many of the early foundations of mathematical skills are developing. Understanding this is important to shed light on theories of mathematical development. Nevertheless, little research has investigated 2-year-olds' early mathematical abilities, with most research focussing on either infants (aged 0–1 years) or pre-schoolers (aged 3–5 years). One possible reason for this lack of research may be the challenges associated with the methods used with this age group. Here, we review the methods used to assess 2-year-olds' basic mathematical skills and identify the gaps and issues with those methods. Our findings indicate several issues, both with individual methods used to test specific skills but also some common challenges applicable across all measures and skills. We discuss the identified issues and highlight a need for more appropriate approaches and for alternative methods of administration to better evaluate 2-year-olds' mathematical skills.
Assessing the limits on size-pitch mapping reveals the interplay between top-down and bottom-up influences on relative crossmodal correspondences.
Certain sensory dimensions, such as visual size and auditory pitch, are consistently associated, resulting in performance facilitation or inhibition. The mechanisms underlying these crossmodal correspondences are still the subject of debate: The relative or absolute nature of crossmodal mappings is connected to this debate, as an absolute mapping points to a bottom-up process, whereas a relative one is evidence of stronger top-down influences. Three experiments were conducted (including overall N = 207 participants), based on two different tasks, designed to explore a wide range of size-pitch crossmodal mappings. In Experiment 1, the participants were instructed to freely manipulate stimuli varing along a given dimension to 'match' the other. The results revealed evidence for a quasi-absolute mapping, but the correspondences shifted depending on the participants' auditory or visual attentional focus. In Experiment 2, the participants performed a visual speeded categorization task, involving a wide range of auditory task-irrelevant pitches, including the "preferred" ones, estimated on the basis of the results of Experiment 1. The results revealed a rather relative mapping, corroborating a top-down influence on the correspondence effect. Experiment 3 was designed to determine whether the relative mapping involved has boundary. The results confirmed that the larger the interval between pitches (i.e., more perceptually salient), the stronger the congruence effect, thus highlighting bottom-up facilitation. Taken together, these findings reveal that the size-pitch correspondences are sensitive to task-related top-down factors, as well as to stimulus-related bottom-up influences, ultimately revealing the adaptive nature of this kind of multisensory integration.
Color-taste correspondences influence visual binding errors.
People consistently associate tastes with colors (e.g., sweet-red, sour-yellow, salty-blue). Here, we examined the effect of the congruency of color-taste correspondences on unimodal visual feature binding by studying illusory conjunctions (binding errors). The visual stimuli were typical food words associated with sweet, sour, and salty tastes, and were presented in red, yellow, and blue font. The participants reported the font color of one of the two words with food names presented in pairs briefly under conditions of divided spatial attention. The words were either congruent or incongruent with the color-taste correspondences. The participants made more Illusory conjunctions in the incongruent condition (e.g., sweet-yellow and sour-red) than in the congruent condition (e.g., sweet-red and sour-yellow). These results suggest that the congruency of color-taste correspondences can bias unimodal visual binding errors, likely through a top-down effect.
Systems analysis of clinical incidents: development of a new edition of the London Protocol.
The investigation of incidents and accidents, together with subsequent reflection and action, is an essential component of safety management in every safety-critical industry, including healthcare. A number of formal methods of incident analysis were developed in the early days of risk management and patient safety, including the London Protocol which was published in 2004. In this paper, we describe the development of a new edition of the London Protocol. We explain the need for a revised and expanded version of the London Protocol, addressing both the changes in healthcare in the last two decades and what has been learnt from the experience of incident analysis across the world. We describe a systematic process of development of the new edition drawing on the findings of a narrative review of incident analysis methods. The principal changes in the new edition are as follows: increased emphasis and guidance on the engagement of patients and families as partners in the investigation; giving more attention to the support of patients, families and staff in the aftermath of an incident; emphasising the value of a small number of in-depth analyses combined with thematic reviews of wider problems; including proposals and guidance for the examination of much longer time periods; emphasising the need to highlight good care as well as problems; adding guidance on direct observation of the work environment; providing a more structured and wide-ranging approach to recommendations and including more guidance on how to write safety incident reports. Finally, we offer some proposals to place research on incident analysis on a firmer foundation and make suggestions for the practice and implementation of incident investigation within safety management systems.
An implemented predictive coding model of lexico-semantic processing explains the dynamics of univariate and multivariate activity within the left ventromedial temporal lobe during reading comprehension.
During language comprehension, the larger neural response to unexpected versus expected inputs is often taken as evidence for predictive coding-a specific computational architecture and optimization algorithm proposed to approximate probabilistic inference in the brain. However, other predictive processing frameworks can also account for this effect, leaving the unique claims of predictive coding untested. In this study, we used MEG to examine both univariate and multivariate neural activity in response to expected and unexpected inputs during word-by-word reading comprehension. We further simulated this activity using an implemented predictive coding model that infers the meaning of words from their orthographic form. Consistent with previous findings, the univariate analysis showed that, between 300 and 500 ms, unexpected words produced a larger evoked response than expected words within a left ventromedial temporal region that supports the mapping of orthographic word-forms onto lexical and conceptual representations. Our model explained this larger evoked response as the enhanced lexico-semantic prediction error produced when prior top-down predictions failed to suppress activity within lexical and semantic "error units". Critically, our simulations showed that despite producing minimal prediction error, expected inputs nonetheless reinstated top-down predictions within the model's lexical and semantic "state" units. Two types of multivariate analyses provided evidence for this functional distinction between state and error units within the ventromedial temporal region. First, within each trial, the same individual voxels that produced a larger response to unexpected inputs between 300 and 500 ms produced unique temporal patterns to expected inputs that resembled the patterns produced within a pre-activation time window. Second, across trials, and again within the same 300-500 ms time window and left ventromedial temporal region, pairs of expected words produced spatial patterns that were more similar to one another than the spatial patterns produced by pairs of expected and unexpected words, regardless of specific item. Together, these findings provide compelling evidence that the left ventromedial temporal lobe employs predictive coding to infer the meaning of incoming words from their orthographic form during reading comprehension.
“We are here too”: Experiences and perceived support needs of adolescent siblings of Paediatric oncology inpatients
AbstractBackgroundAdolescent siblings of children and young people (CYP) with cancer are at increased risk of psychosocial difficulties, yet many remain overlooked and unsupported. This project aimed to explore the experiences and perceived needs of adolescent siblings of paediatric oncology inpatients to inform service improvement recommendations for sibling support.MethodsSemi‐structured interviews were conducted with 10 siblings of CYP previously admitted to a paediatric oncology ward. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The findings were reviewed in consultation with staff and used to identify pragmatic/feasible recommendations for improving sibling support, organized using the three‐tier ‘Pediatric Psychosocial Preventative Health Model’ (PPPHM; Families, Systems & Health, 2006, 24, 381).ResultsAn overarching narrative of siblings wanting to feel part of the cancer journey was found, including their family's experience on the ward, with three key themes: (i) “what about me?”: overlooked and unseen, (ii) “always changing, never knowing”: the challenge of uncertainty and (iii) “let me be part of it all”: togetherness, communication and connection. These findings informed sibling support recommendations. Such recommendations included providing psychosocial screening, resources and opportunities for family time/communication and developmentally appropriate information to all siblings (universal support), monitoring psychosocial difficulties, siblings having someone to talk to and fostering family and peer connection for siblings requiring additional support (targeted support) and offering one‐to‐one psychological support and family therapy for persistent and/or escalating distress (clinical/treatment support).ConclusionsBased on the experiences of siblings, a range of sibling support recommendations have been identified. Implementation and evaluation of these recommendations are warranted.
Credit and blame for AI-generated content: Effects of personalization in four countries.
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) raises ethical questions concerning moral and legal responsibility-specifically, the attributions of credit and blame for AI-generated content. For example, if a human invests minimal skill or effort to produce a beneficial output with an AI tool, can the human still take credit? How does the answer change if the AI has been personalized (i.e., fine-tuned) on previous outputs produced without AI assistance by the same human? We conducted a preregistered experiment with representative sampling (N = 1802) repeated in four countries (United States, United Kingdom, China, and Singapore). We investigated laypeople's attributions of credit and blame to human users for producing beneficial or harmful outputs with a standard large language model (LLM), a personalized LLM, or no AI assistance (control condition). Participants generally attributed more credit to human users of personalized versus standard LLMs for beneficial outputs, whereas LLM type did not significantly affect blame attributions for harmful outputs, with a partial exception among Chinese participants. In addition, UK participants attributed more blame for using any type of LLM versus no LLM. Practical, ethical, and policy implications of these findings are discussed.