Search results for "Task"

Unusual business or business as usual: An investigation of meeting support requirements in multilateral diplomacy

1993

Abstract The concept of supporting meetings at the same time and at the same place with computers raises the problem of how salient features of group behaviors are understood in meetings. In this paper we critically examine some aspects of meeting behaviors. We point out that the idea of small, cohesive business teams is not necessarily a valid starting point in thinking of all meeting support. In particular, beliefs that relate to user aspects, group features such as composition, structure and protocols, and task characteristics such as nature, importance, and goals in meetings may need deliberation in many group decision support systems (GDSS) interventions. To demonstrate the credibility…

Electrophysiological correlates of the cognitive control processes underpinning mixing and switching costs

2016

Typically, in task-switching contexts individuals are slower and less accurate when repeating a task in mixed blocks compared to single-task blocks (mixing cost) and when switching to a new task compared to repeating a previous one (switch cost). Previous research has shown that distinct electrophysiological correlates underlie these two phenomena. However, this evidence is not a consistent result. The goal of this study was to better characterize differences between the control processes involved in mixing and switch costs. To this aim, we examined event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked during a cued task-switching experiment. In order to minimize the confounding effects of cognitive deman…

Commentary: Long-term Practice with Domain-Specific Task Constraints Influences Perceptual Skills.

2018

Gaming is related to enhanced working memory performance and task-related cortical activity

2017

Gaming experience has been suggested to lead to performance enhancements in a wide variety of working memory tasks. Previous studies have, however, mostly focused on adult expert gamers and have not included measurements of both behavioral performance and brain activity. In the current study, 167 adolescents and young adults (aged 13–24 years) with different amounts of gaming experience performed an n-back working memory task with vowels, with the sensory modality of the vowel stream switching between audition and vision at random intervals. We studied the relationship between self-reported daily gaming activity, working memory (n-back) task performance and related brain activity measured u…

Disentangling the effects of optimism and attributions on feelings of success

2014

Two experiments examined the effects of dispositional optimism and attributions on feelings of success in a performance setting. In Experiment 1, participants successfully solved three cognitive tasks and attributed the success either internally (i.e., to themselves) or externally (i.e., to a teammate). We found no effect of optimism, but a significant effect of the attribution: Internal attribution predicted an increase in feelings of success. In Experiment 2, we replicated the design and adopted an extreme groups approach in order to include the extremes of the optimism dimension. Only optimism affected feelings of success in this sample: Pessimistic participants showed higher increases i…

The integration of content and language in students’ task answer production in the bilingual classroom

2016

The notion of content and language integration has recently become a key topic of inquiry in research on content and language integrated learning and other kinds of bilingual educational programmes. Understanding what integration is and how it happens is of fundamental importance not only for researchers interested in gauging the possibilities and limitations of bilingual programmes, but also for practitioners seeking optimal ways to support student development. This study investigates integration as it takes place in the context of collaborative writing in the classroom. Drawing on conversation analytic methodology, text production is investigated as a social and sequentially evolving phen…

The Interplay Between Gesture and Discourse as Mediating Devices in Collaborative Mathematical Reasoning:A Multimodal Approach

2008

This article aims to identify the mathematical reasoning strategies expressed through gestures and speech used by two groups of sixth-grade pupils when solving a task related to the transition between two semiotic representations: figure and Cartesian diagram. The article also identifies the difficulties the pupils meet in the solution process. The analyses of the group dialogues focus particularly on the gesture dimension of deixis. The pupils in both groups have used the following deictic gestures: pointing, held-point, linear point-slide, and circular point-slide in their solution process, while repeated pointing has been identified only in one of the groups. These pointing gestures are …

Strategic Decisions in Task-Oriented Reading.

2015

AbstractAnswering questions from texts are assessment and instructional activities that are frequently used in schools. Nevertheless, little is known about the strategic processes that students take while performing these tasks. We explored the amount and frequency that students initially read of a text before they answered questions pertaining to the material. In a procedure similar to the one used in the PISA (Program for International Students Assessment), one-hundred-seventy students between 7thand 9thgrade read and answered several questions designed to assess task-oriented reading in three specific texts. We recorded on-line indexes that evaluated student behavior (e.g., the amount of…

Does order and timing in performance of imagined and actual movements affect the motor imagery process? The duration of walking and writing task.

2002

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects on the duration of imagined movements of changes in timing and order of performance of actual and imagined movement. Two groups of subjects had to actually execute and imagine a walking and a writing task. The first group first executed 10 trials of the actual movements (block A) and then imagined the same movements at different intervals: immediately after actual movements (block I-1) and after 25 min (I-2), 50 min (I-3) and 75 min (I-4) interval. The second group first imagined and then actually executed the tasks. The duration of actual and imagined movements, recorded by means of an electronic stopwatch operated by the subj…

Effects of low-gamma tACS on primary motor cortex in implicit motor learning

2019

Abstract In the primary motor cortex (M1), rhythmic activity in the gamma frequency band has been found during movement planning, onset and execution. Although the role of high-gamma oscillatory activity in M1 is well established, the contribution of low-gamma activity is still unexplored. In this study, transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) was used with the aim to specifically modulate low-gamma frequency band in M1, during an implicit motor learning task. A 40 Hz-tACS was applied over the left M1 while participants performed a serial reaction time task (SRTT) using their right hand. The task required the repetitive execution of sequential movements in response to sequences …