We investigated emotional design features that may influence multimedia learning with a self-generated learning (SGL) activity, namely answering elaborative interrogations. We assumed that a positive emotional design would be associated with a higher motivation to accomplish the additional SGL activity. Moreover, an interaction was expected: Learners learning with a positive emotional design should profit from learning with elaborative interrogations whereas learners learning with a negative emotional design would not profit from this strategy to the same extent but would rather benefit through reading. Since no negative emotional design existed yet, we additionally took the challenge to construct one. In a preliminary study, the emotional design features were pre-tested for their influence on emotional state and according to evaluation results, emotional design features were modified for the final versions. For the main study, German students (N = 228) were randomly assigned to one of six conditions that resulted from a 3 × 2 Design with emotional design (intended-positive vs. intended-neutral vs. intended-negative) and SGL activity (elaborative interrogations vs. no elaborative interrogations). Contrary to expectations, the intended-negative design worked not out as intended, but was rather comparable with the positive emotional design with respect to learners' emotional states. Learner motivation was higher when learning with the intended-negative emotional than the neutral design. The quality of the elaborated answers and learner motivation correlated positively with the performance of all learning outcome scores. For transfer questions which addressed the elaborated concepts, an interaction can be reported: learners learning with the positive emotional design benefitted from learning by reading compared to answering the elaborative interrogations. Regarding transfer questions whose concepts were explicitly described in the instructional material, it was better to learn with the intended-negative emotional than the neutral design. According to results of mediation analyses, the influence of motivation on learning outcomes could mostly be explained by the influence of motivation on answering the elaborative interrogations. Implications for creating emotional design as well as its effect on learning are discussed.

In this study, the head-mounted virtual reality (VR) technology is adpoted for computational thinking teaching in the AIoT Maker course teaching. The earthquake relief situation is designed in the VR in the course scenario, because in the context of situational thinking, pre-emptive training in the face of emergency disasters has been conducted through observation meetings or training courses. Through listening to lecturers or experienced personnel to share experiences, students often have a harder time thinking about real scenes and it is harder to think creatively how to design with the emergency disaster response. In view of this, this research will combine the development and evaluation of earthquake relief training courses for head-mounted VR and computational thinking experiments to explore the use of VR and computational thinking experiments to drive students to create ideas for real disaster relief scenarios. Through computational thinking, students think about different script situations and discuss in each scene to find a suitable maker design of the AIoT project. Finally, this study combined with its modular space program training to develop students' programming skills. According to the experiment, this study is able to strength students' practical learning motivation, and follow-up employ ability training for course learning.

Background: A growing body of evidence has demonstrated significant social and emotional benefits of music-making amongst senior citizens. However, several as-yet unresolved age-related barriers to "musicking" have been identified. Positioned within the emergent field of gerontechnology, concerned with the interface between aging and technology research, this review of literature thus explores the potential for music technologies to function as a vehicle for creative musical opportunities in later-life. Methods: ERIC, PsychInfo, and Web of Science databases were searched, focusing on the intersection between music, technology, and aging. The criteria for inclusion were that the paper should: (1) be in English; (2) report empirical research involving the use of music technologies intended to support receptive (listening, interpreting, reflecting) or active (playing, creating, performing) engagement with music amongst older persons, defined as being aged 60 years or above (United Nations, 2017); (3) be published as a peer reviewed journal article. Results: Of 144 papers screened, 18 papers were retained. 10 studies focused on using technology to support musicking in the form of listening, reflecting, and interpreting. Just five studies explored the utility of technology in promoting singing or playing instruments, while a further three were focused on music and movement. Conclusions: Overall, the literature reviewed suggests that older people, even those with complex needs, are capable of, and interested in using music technologies to access and create personally meaningful music. The limited research that does exist points to multiple and significant benefits that may be derived from receptive or active musicking supported by a range of music technologies.

Background: Brain training products are becoming increasingly popular for children and adolescents. Despite the marketing aimed at their use in the general population, these products may provide more benefits for specific neurologically impaired populations. A review of Brain Training (BT) products analyzing their efficacy while considering the methodological limitations of supporting research is required for practical applications. Method: searches were made of the PubMed database (until March 2017) for studies including: (1) empirical data on the use of brain training for children or adolescents and any effects on near transfer (NT) and/or far transfer (FT) and/or neuroplasticity, (2) use of brain training for cognitive training purposes, (3) commercially available training applications, (4) computer-based programs for children developed since the 1990s, and (5) relevant printed and peer-reviewed material. Results: Database searches yielded a total of 16,402 references, of which 70 met the inclusion criteria for the review. We classified programs in terms of neuroplasticity, near and far transfer, and long-term effects and their applied methodology. Regarding efficacy, only 10 studies (14.2%) have been found that support neuroplasticity, and the majority of brain training platforms claimed to be based on such concepts without providing any supporting scientific data. Thirty-six studies (51.4%) have shown far transfer (7 of them are non-independent) and only 11 (15.7%) maintained far transfer at follow-up. Considering the methodology, 40 studies (68.2%) were not randomized and controlled; for those randomized, only 9 studies (12.9%) were double-blind, and only 13 studies (18.6%) included active controls in their trials. Conclusion: Overall, few independent studies have found far transfer and long-term effects. The majority of independent results found only near transfer. There is a lack of double-blind randomized trials which include an active control group as well as a passive control to properly control for contaminant variables. Based on our results, Brain Training Programs as commercially available products are not as effective as first expected or as they promise in their advertisements.

Visual adaptation has been proposed as a mechanism linking viewing images of thin women's bodies with body size and shape misperception (BSSM). Non-Caucasian populations appear less susceptible to BSSM, possibly because adaptation to thin Caucasian bodies in Western media may not fully transfer to own-race bodies. Experiment 1 used a cross-adaptation paradigm to examine the transfer of body size aftereffects across races. Large aftereffects were found in the predicted directions for all conditions. The strength of aftereffects was statistically equivalent when the race of test stimuli was congruent vs. incongruent with the race of adaptation stimuli, suggesting complete transfer of aftereffects across races. Experiment 2 used a contingent-adaptation paradigm, finding that simultaneous adaptation to wide Asian and narrow Caucasian women's bodies (or vice versa) results in no significant aftereffects for either congruent or incongruent conditions and statistically equivalent results for each. Equal and opposite adaptation effects may therefore transfer completely across races, canceling each other out. This suggests that body size is encoded by a race-general neural mechanism. Unexpectedly, Asian observers showed reduced body size aftereffects compared to Caucasian observers, regardless of the race of stimulus bodies, perhaps helping to explain why Asian populations appear less susceptible to BSSM.

The present study examined differences in modality use during episodes of joint attention between hearing parent-hearing child dyads and hearing parent-deaf child dyads. Hearing children were age-matched to deaf children. Dyads were video recorded in a free play session with analyses focused on uni- and multimodality use during joint attention episodes. Results revealed that adults in hearing parent-deaf child dyads spent a significantly greater proportion of time interacting with their children using multiple communicative modalities than adults in hearing parent-hearing child dyads, who tended to use the auditory modality (e.g., oral language) most often. While these findings demonstrate that hearing parents accommodate their children's hearing status, we observed greater overall time spent in joint attention in hearing parent-hearing child dyads than hearing parent-deaf child dyads. Our results point to important avenues for future research on how parents can better accommodate their child's hearing status through the use of multimodal communication strategies.

In many settings, sports training can be difficult to organize, logistically complicated and very costly. Virtual environments (VE) have garnered interest as a tool to train real-world sports skills due to the realism and flexibility that they can deliver. A key assumption of VE-based training is that the learned skills and experiences transfer to the real world, but do they? Using PRISMA guidelines, this systematic review evaluated the available evidence regarding the transfer of motor skills from VE training to real-world sporting contexts. The initial search identified 448 articles, but only 4 of these articles met basic criteria necessary to assess real-world transfer. Key factors regarding the study design, learner characteristics and training environment of these studies are considered. In a relatively new area of research, the findings from these 4 articles are encouraging and provide initial support for the notion that skills training in a VE can improve real-world performance in sports. However, for a wider uptake of VEs in sports training, it is important that more research demonstrates real-world transfer. Study design recommendations are suggested for researchers, developers or trainers who are considering demonstrating real-world transfers from virtual to real-world environments.

This report has two main purposes. First, we combine well-known analytical approaches to conduct a comprehensive assessment of agreement and correlation of rating-pairs and to dis-entangle these often confused concepts, providing a best-practice example on concrete data and a tutorial for future reference. Second, we explore whether a screening questionnaire developed for use with parents can be reliably employed with daycare teachers when assessing early expressive vocabulary. A total of 53 vocabulary rating pairs (34 parent-teacher and 19 mother-father pairs) collected for two-year-old children (12 bilingual) are evaluated. First, inter-rater reliability both within and across subgroups is assessed using the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). Next, based on this analysis of reliability and on the test-retest reliability of the employed tool, inter-rater agreement is analyzed, magnitude and direction of rating differences are considered. Finally, Pearson correlation coefficients of standardized vocabulary scores are calculated and compared across subgroups. The results underline the necessity to distinguish between reliability measures, agreement and correlation. They also demonstrate the impact of the employed reliability on agreement evaluations. This study provides evidence that parent-teacher ratings of children's early vocabulary can achieve agreement and correlation comparable to those of mother-father ratings on the assessed vocabulary scale. Bilingualism of the evaluated child decreased the likelihood of raters' agreement. We conclude that future reports of agreement, correlation and reliability of ratings will benefit from better definition of terms and stricter methodological approaches. The methodological tutorial provided here holds the potential to increase comparability across empirical reports and can help improve research practices and knowledge transfer to educational and therapeutic settings.

Bayesian networks (BNs) can be employed to cognitive diagnostic assessment (CDA). Most of the existing researches on the BNs for CDA utilized the MCMC algorithm to estimate parameters of BNs. When EM algorithm and gradient descending (GD) learning method are adopted to estimate the parameters of BNs, some challenges may emerge in educational assessment due to the monotonic constraints (greater skill should lead to better item performance) cannot be satisfied in the above two methods. This paper proposed to train the BN first based on the ideal response pattern data contained in every CDA and continue to estimate the parameters of BN based on the EM or the GD algorithm regarding the parameters based on the IRP training method as informative priors. Both the simulation study and realistic data analysis demonstrated the validity and feasibility of the new method. The BN based on the new parameter estimating method exhibits promising statistical classification performance and even outperforms the G-DINA model in some conditions.

In the present meta-analysis, we examined the effect of cognitive training on the Executive Functions (EFs) of preschool children (age range: 3–6 years). We selected a final set of 32 studies from 27 papers with a total sample of 123 effect sizes. We found an overall effect of cognitive training for improving EF (g = 0.352; k = 123; p < 0.001), without significant difference between near and far transfer effects on executive domains. No significant additional outcome effects were found for behavioral- and learning-related outcomes. Cognitive training programs for preschoolers are significantly more effective for developmentally at-risk children (ADHD or low socio-economic status) than for children with typical development and without risks. Other significant moderators were: individual vs. group sessions and length of training. The number of sessions and computerized vs. non-computerized training were not significant moderators. This is the first demonstration of cognitive training for transfer effects among different executive processes. We discuss this result in relationship to the lower level of modularization of EFs in younger children.

This study investigates the hypothesis that tone alternation directionality becomes a basis of structural bias for tone alternation learning, where "structural bias" refers to a tendency to prefer uni-directional tone deletions to bi-directional ones. Two experiments were conducted. In the first, Mandarin speakers learned three artificial languages, with bi-directional tone deletions, uni-directional, left-dominant deletions, and uni-directional, right-dominant deletions, respectively. The results showed a learning bias toward uni-directional, right-dominant patterns. As Mandarin tone sandhi is right-dominant while Cantonese tone change is lexically restricted and does not have directionality asymmetry, a follow-up experiment trained Cantonese speakers either on left- or right-dominant deletions to see whether the right-dominant preference was due to L1 transfer from Mandarin. The results of the experiment also showed a learning bias toward right-dominant patterns. We argue that structural simplicity affects tone deletion learning but the simplicity should be grounded on phonetics factors, such as syllables' contour-tone bearing ability. The experimental results are consistent with the findings of a survey on other types of tone alternation's directionality, i.e., tone sandhi across 17 Chinese varieties. This suggests that the directionality asymmetry found across different tone alternations reflects a phonetically grounded structural learning bias.

Background: Cognitive training (CT) aims to develop a range of skills, like attention and decision-making, through targeted training of core cognitive functions. While CT can target context specific skills, like movement anticipation, much CT is domain general, focusing on core abilities (e.g., selective attention) for transfer to a range of real-world tasks, such as spotting opponents. Commercial CT (CCT) devices are highly appealing for athletes and coaches due to their ease of use and eye-catching marketing claims. The extent to which this training transfers to performance in the sporting arena is, however, unclear. Therefore, this paper sought to provide a systematic review of evidence for beneficial training effects of CCT devices and evaluate their application to sport. Methods: An extensive search of electronic databases (PubMed, PsychInfo, GoogleScholar, and SportDiscus) was conducted to identify peer-reviewed evidence of training interventions with commercially available CT devices. Forty-three studies met the inclusion criteria and were retained for quality assessment and synthesis of results. Seventeen studies assessed transfer effects beyond laboratory cognitive tests, but only 1 directly assessed transfer to a sporting task. Results: The review of evidence showed limited support for far transfer benefits from CCT devices to sporting tasks, mainly because studies did not target the sporting environment. Additionally, a number of methodological issues with the CCT literature were identified, including small sample sizes, lack of retention tests, and limited replication of findings by researchers independent of the commercial product. Therefore, evidence for sporting benefits is currently limited by the paucity of representative transfer tests and a focus on populations with health conditions. Conclusions: Currently there is little direct evidence that the use of CCT devices can transfer to benefits for sporting performance. This conclusion, however, stems more from a lack of experimental studies in the sporting field and a lack of experimental rigor, rather than convincing null effects. Subsequently, there is an opportunity for researchers to develop more reliable findings in this area through systematic assessment in athletic populations and major methodological improvements.

In many social science majors, e.g., psychology, students report high levels of statistics anxiety. However, these majors are often chosen by students who are less prone to mathematics and who might have experienced difficulties and unpleasant feelings in their mathematics courses at school. The present study investigates whether statistics anxiety is a genuine form of anxiety that impairs students' achievements or whether learners mainly transfer previous experiences in mathematics and their anxiety in mathematics to statistics. The relationship between mathematics anxiety and statistics anxiety, their relationship to learning behaviors and to performance in a statistics examination were investigated in a sample of 225 undergraduate psychology students (164 women, 61 men). Data were recorded at three points in time: At the beginning of term students' mathematics anxiety, general proneness to anxiety, school grades, and demographic data were assessed; 2 weeks before the end of term, they completed questionnaires on statistics anxiety and their learning behaviors. At the end of term, examination scores were recorded. Mathematics anxiety and statistics anxiety correlated highly but the comparison of different structural equation models showed that they had genuine and even antagonistic contributions to learning behaviors and performance in the examination. Surprisingly, mathematics anxiety was positively related to performance. It might be that students realized over the course of their first term that knowledge and skills in higher secondary education mathematics are not sufficient to be successful in statistics. Part of mathematics anxiety may then have strengthened positive extrinsic effort motivation by the intention to avoid failure and may have led to higher effort for the exam preparation. However, via statistics anxiety mathematics anxiety also had a negative contribution to performance. Statistics anxiety led to higher procrastination in the structural equation model and, therefore, contributed indirectly and negatively to performance. Furthermore, it had a direct negative impact on performance (probably via increased tension and worry in the exam). The results of the study speak for shared but also unique components of statistics anxiety and mathematics anxiety. They are also important for instruction and give recommendations to learners as well as to instructors.

Over the past 20 years, researchers have used various methodologies to assess different forms of repetitive negative thinking (RNT) and their influence on alcohol consumption. Contrasting results between clinical and general populations were observed. To summarize the current literature on RNT and alcohol use, a systematic review was conducted according to the Preferred Reporting for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines (Moher et al., 2009). Among the 27 included studies, the seven conducted among patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and the three focusing on other adult samples demonstrated a strong positive association between RNT and alcohol use or alcohol-related problems, regardless of the form of RNT. The results were more heterogeneous in the 17 studies conducted among adolescents and students, leading the authors to conclude that the results varied as a function of the severity of alcohol use. The results of this study suggest to focus on RNT from a transdiagnostic perspective in AUD. This processual approach may improve AUD treatment and relapse prevention. Finally, some gaps in the literature must be addressed: (1) the gender differences in the link between RNT and alcohol use and (2) the specific influence of RNT on alcohol use among young adults.

Computer-based training has attracted increasing attention from researchers in recent years. Several studies have found that computer-based training resulted in improved executive functions (EFs) in adults. However, it remains controversial whether children can benefit from computer-based training and what moderator could influence the training effects. The focus of the present meta-analysis was to examine the effects of computer-based training on EFs in children: working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. A thorough search of published work yielded a sample of 36 studies with 216 effect sizes. The results indicated that computer-based training showed moderate training effects on improving EFs in children (g = 0.35, k = 36, p < 0.001), while training effects of working memory were significantly higher. Furthermore, we found near-transfer effects were marginally significantly higher than far-transfer effects. The standard training method was significantly more effective than training with game elements. In computer-based training, typically developing children had significantly better training effects than atypically developing children. Some additional factors, such as the number of training sessions and age, also modulated the training effects. In conclusion, the present study investigated the effects and moderators of computer-based training for children's EFs. The results provided evidence that computer-based training (especially standard training) may serve as an efficient way to improve EFs in children (especially typically developing individuals). We also discussed some directions for future computer-based training studies.

Pairing high-intensity interval training (HIIT) with motor skill acquisition may improve learning of some implicit motor sequences (albeit with some variability), but it is unclear if HIIT enhances explicit learning of motor sequences. We asked whether a single bout of HIIT after non-musicians learned to play a piano melody promoted better retention of the melody than low-intensity interval training (LIIT). Further, we investigated whether HIIT facilitated transfer of learning to a new melody. We generated individualized exercise protocols by having participants (n = 25) with little musical training undergo a graded maximal exercise test (GXT) to determine their cardiorespiratory fitness (VO2 peak) and maximum power output (Wmax). In a subsequent session, participants practiced a piano melody (skill acquisition) and were randomly assigned to a single bout of HIIT or LIIT. Retention of the piano melody was tested 1 hour, 1 day, and 1 week after skill acquisition. We also evaluated transfer to learning a new melody 1 week after acquisition. Pitch and rhythm accuracy were analyzed with linear mixed-effects modeling. HIIT did not enhance sequence-specific retention of pitch or rhythmic elements of the piano melody, but there was modest evidence that HIIT facilitated transfer to learning a new melody. We tentatively conclude that HIIT enhances explicit, task-general motor consolidation.

Researchers in the domain of haptic training are now entering the long-standing debate regarding whether or not it is best to learn a skill by experiencing errors. Haptic training paradigms provide fertile ground for exploring how various theories about feedback, errors and physical guidance intersect during motor learning. Our objective was to determine how error minimizing, error augmenting and no haptic feedback while learning a self-paced curve-tracing task impact performance on delayed (1 day) retention and transfer tests, which indicate learning. We assessed performance using movement time and tracing error to calculate a measure of overall performance - the speed accuracy cost function. Our results showed that despite exhibiting the worst performance during skill acquisition, the error augmentation group had significantly better accuracy (but not overall performance) than the error minimization group on delayed retention and transfer tests. The control group's performance fell between that of the two experimental groups but was not significantly different from either on the delayed retention test. We propose that the nature of the task (requiring online feedback to guide performance) coupled with the error augmentation group's frequent off-target experience and rich experience of error-correction promoted information processing related to error-detection and error-correction that are essential for motor learning.

Executive function involves the efficient and adaptive engagement of the control processes of updating, shifting, and inhibition (Miyake, 2000) to guide behavior toward a goal. It is associated with decrements in many other cognitive functions due to aging (West, 1996; Raz, 2000) with itself particularly vulnerable to the effect of aging (Treitz et al., 2007). Cognitive training in the form of structural experience with executive coordination demands exhibited effective enhancement in the elderly (Hertzog et al., 2008). The current study was thus aimed at the development and evaluation of a training regime for executive function in the elderly. The breakfast cooking task of Craik and Bialystok (2006) was adapted into a multitasking training task in a session (pre-test vs. post-test) by group (control vs. training). In the training condition, participants constantly switched, updated, and planned in order to control the cooking of several foods and concurrently performed a table setting secondary task. Training gains were exhibited on task related measures. Transfer effect was selectively observed on the letter-number sequencing and digit symbol coding test. The cooking training produced short term increase in the efficiency of executive control processing. These effects were interpreted in terms of the process overlap between the training and the transfer tasks.

The learning advantages of self-controlled feedback schedules compared to yoked schedules have been attributed to motivational influences and/or information processing activities with many researchers adopting the motivational perspective in recent years. Chiviacowsky and Wulf (2005) found that feedback decisions made before (Self-Before) or after a trial (Self-After) resulted in similar retention performance, but superior transfer performance resulted when the decision to receive feedback occurred after a trial. They suggested that the superior skill transfer of the Self-After group likely emerged from information processing activities such as error estimation. However, the lack of yoked groups and a measure of error estimation in their experimental design prevents conclusions being made regarding the underlying mechanisms of why self-controlled feedback schedules optimize learning. Here, we revisited Chiviacowsky and Wulf's (2005) design to investigate the learning benefits of self-controlled feedback schedules. We replicated their Self-Before and Self-After groups, but added a Self-Both group that was able to request feedback before a trial, but could then change or stay with their original choice after the trial. Importantly, yoked groups were included for the three self-controlled groups to address the previously stated methodological limitation and error estimations were included to examine whether self-controlling feedback facilitates a more accurate error detection and correction mechanism. The Self-After and Self-Before groups demonstrated similar accuracy in physical performance and error estimation scores in retention and transfer, and both groups were significantly more accurate than the Self-Before group and their respective Yoked groups (p's < 0.05). Further, the Self-Before group was not significantly different from their yoked counterparts (p's > 0.05). We suggest these findings further indicate that informational factors associated with the processing of feedback for the development of one's error detection and correction mechanism, rather than motivational processes are more critical for why self-controlled feedback schedules optimize motor learning.

Several canonical experimental paradigms (e.g., serial reaction time task, discrete sequence production task, m × n task) have been proposed to study the typical behavioral phenomenon and the nature of learning in sequential keypress tasks. A characteristic feature of most paradigms is that they are representative of externally-specified sequencing-motor tasks where the environment or task paradigm extrinsically provides the sequence of stimuli, i.e., the responses are stimulus-driven. Previous studies utilizing such canonical paradigms have largely overlooked the learning behaviors in a more realistic class of motor tasks that involve internally-guided sequencing-where the sequence of motor actions is self-generated or internally-specified. In this work, we use the grid-navigation task as an instance of internally-guided sequencing to investigate the nature of learning in such paradigms. The participants performed Grid-Sailing Task (GST), which required navigating (by executing sequential keypresses) a 5 × 5 grid from start to goal (SG) position while using a particular key-mapping (KM) among the three cursor-movement directions and the three keyboard buttons. The participants performed two behavioral experiments-Single-SG and Mixed-SG condition. The Single-SG condition required performing GST on a single SG position repeatedly, whereas the Mixed-SG condition involved performing GST using the same KM on two novel SG positions presented in a random, inter-mixed manner. In the Single-SG condition, we show that motor learning contributes to the sequence-specific learning in GST with the repeated execution of the same trajectories. In the Mixed-SG condition, since the participants utilize the previously learned KM, we anticipate a transfer of learning from the Single-SG condition. The acquisition and transfer of a KM-specific internal model facilitates efficient trajectory planning on novel SG conditions. The acquisition of such a KM-specific internal model amounts to trajectory-independent cognitive learning in GST. We show that cognitive learning contributes to the learning in GST by showing transfer-related performance improvements in the Mixed-SG condition. In sum, we show the role of cognitive and motor learning processes in internally-guided sequencing and further make a case for using GST-like grid-navigation paradigms in investigating internally guided skill learning.