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Changes to domestic divisions of labor have been widely documented, but some tasks seem particularly resistant to change. Using the lens of 'doing gender', this article draws on interviews with 25 heterosexual working parent British couples who produced a 'household portrait' of their division of labor. It examines how they explain men's continuing responsibility for 'man-typed' domestic tasks and why this is so resistant to change. Although men's 'gatekeeping' of these tasks is consequential for the overall household division of labor, there is relatively little opposition from their women partners. This gatekeeping reproduces gendered meanings of 'man-typed' tasks and enables both men and women to 'do gender' while supporting their image of a 'sharing' couple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental factors amplified by climate change contribute significantly to the global burden of disease, disproportionately impacting vulnerable populations, such as individuals with rare diseases. Researchers require innovative, dynamic data linkage methods to enable the development of risk prediction models, particularly for diseases like vasculitis with unknown aetiology but potential environmental triggers. In response, we present the Semantic Environmental and Rare Disease Data Integration Framework (SERDIF). SERDIF was evaluated with researchers studying climate-related health hazards of vasculitis disease activity across European countries (NP1 = 10, NP2 = 17, NP3 = 23). Usability metrics consistently improved, indicating SERDIF's effectiveness in linking complex environmental and health datasets. Furthermore, SERDIF-enabled epidemiologists to study environmental factors in a pregnancy cohort in Lombardy, showcasing its versatility beyond rare diseases. This framework offers for the first time a user-friendly, FAIR-compliant design for environment-health data linkage with export capabilities enabling data analysis to mitigate health risks posed by climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies reported mixed findings on autistic individuals' pitch perception relative to neurotypical (NT) individuals. We investigated whether this may be partly due to individual differences in cognitive abilities by comparing their performance on various pitch perception tasks on a large sample (n = 164) of autistic and NT children and adults. Our findings revealed that: (i) autistic individuals either showed similar or worse performance than NT individuals on the pitch tasks; (ii) cognitive abilities were associated with some pitch task performance; and (iii) cognitive abilities modulated the relationship between autism diagnosis and pitch perception on some tasks. Our findings highlight the importance of taking an individual differences approach to understand the strengths and weaknesses of pitch processing in autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how workplace conflict between multigenerational co‐workers arises and can be reduced. Utilizing social categorization and intergroup contact theories, we hypothesized that good quality contact between older and younger employees decreases task and relationship conflict by reducing perceived age discrimination (PAD), above and beyond trust as a typical social exchange mechanism prevalent in relationships between co‐workers. Furthermore, we predicted that task interdependence would exacerbate the relationships between PAD with task and relationship conflict. We applied structural equation modelling using a sample of 567 older and younger British employees to test our hypotheses while controlling for trust as an alternative mechanism. In line with our predictions, we found that good quality contact between older and younger employees reduced employees' PAD, which in turn reduced task conflict and relationship conflict (above and beyond trust as a control mechanism). The indirect effects of intergroup contact on workplace conflict via PAD were further enhanced when cross‐age co‐workers were highly interdependent in conducting their work tasks. Our findings suggest that organizations should create practices to improve cross‐age contact in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive control is a predictor of later‐life outcomes and may underpin higher order executive processes. The present study examines the development of early cognitive control during the first 24‐month. We evaluated a tablet‐based assessment of cognitive control among infants aged 18‐ and 24‐month. We also examined concurrent and longitudinal associations between attentional disengagement, general cognitive skills and cognitive control. Participants (N = 60, 30 female) completed the tablet‐task at 18‐ and 24‐month of age. Attentional disengagement and general cognitive development were assessed at 5‐, 8‐, 12‐, 18‐ and 24‐month using an eye‐tracking measure and the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL), respectively. The cognitive control task demonstrated good internal consistency, sensitivity to age‐related change in performance and stable individual differences. No associations were found between infant cognitive control and MSEL scores longitudinally or concurrently. The eye‐tracking task revealed that slower attentional disengagement at 8‐month, but faster disengagement at 18‐month, predicted higher cognitive control scores at 24‐month. This task may represent a useful tool for measuring emergent cognitive control. The multifaceted relationship between attention and infant cognitive control suggests that the rapid development of the attentional system in infancy results in distinct attentional skills, at different ages, being relevant for cognitive control development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Assessment of functional status is an integral part of older adult healthcare and research. Therefore, it is essential that tools to capture function are contextually appropriate. Many tools designed to evaluate extended Activities of Daily Living (eADLs) were developed decades ago. Objective Our aim was to explore which eADL tasks are commonly performed by older adults and map these tasks to popular eADL scales, seeking stakeholder perspectives to inform recommendations on scale content. Design Online survey with quantitative questions and free text followed-by semi-structured interviews. Subjects Older adults (≥60-years), carers and health, social care and voluntary/community professionals. Methods We extracted eADL tasks from existing scales to develop a survey on frequency of performance, with space for additional comment. The survey was disseminated via Join Dementia Research and other clinical and professional networks. Online semi-structured interviews were undertaken with thematic analysis of verbatim transcripts. Results From 2244 online survey responses, 87% came from older people and two-thirds of respondents were female. Some eADL tasks were never performed by many participants. Tasks not part of existing tools included online banking and mobile phone use. From fifteen interviews, a recurring theme was that technological and societal changes have altered daily tasks. Conclusions Commonly used eADL scales contain obsolete tasks and omit tasks older people consider part of their everyday lives. There is a need to work collaboratively to update eADL tools to reflect the priorities and activities of older people to ensure these remain valid measures for use in practice and research. To complement this abstract, a video abstract is available online. A more detailed video-based summary of the content is also available as supplemental material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are first-line pharmacological treatments for depression and anxiety. However, little is known about how pharmacological action is related to cognitive and affective processes. Here, we examine whether specific reinforcement learning processes mediate the treatment effects of SSRIs. Methods The PANDA trial was a multicentre, double-blind, randomized clinical trial in UK primary care comparing the SSRI sertraline with placebo for depression and anxiety. Participants (N = 655) performed an affective Go/NoGo task three times during the trial and computational models were used to infer reinforcement learning processes. Results There was poor task performance: only 54% of the task runs were informative, with more informative task runs in the placebo than in the active group. There was no evidence for the preregistered hypothesis that Pavlovian inhibition was affected by sertraline. Exploratory analyses revealed that in the sertraline group, early increases in Pavlovian inhibition were associated with improvements in depression after 12 weeks. Furthermore, sertraline increased how fast participants learned from losses and faster learning from losses was associated with more severe generalized anxiety symptoms. Conclusions The study findings indicate a relationship between aversive reinforcement learning mechanisms and aspects of depression, anxiety, and SSRI treatment, but these relationships did not align with the initial hypotheses. Poor task performance limits the interpretability and likely generalizability of the findings, and highlights the critical importance of developing acceptable and reliable tasks for use in clinical studies. Funding This article presents research supported by NIHR Program Grants for Applied Research (RP-PG-0610-10048), the NIHR BRC, and UCL, with additional support from IMPRS COMP2PSYCH (JM, QH) and a Wellcome Trust grant (QH). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Patient-reported outcomes measures (PROMs) are valuable tools for assessing health-related quality of life and treatment effectiveness in individuals with traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Understanding the experiences of individuals with TBIs in completing PROMs is crucial for improving their utility and relevance in clinical practice. Methods: Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of individuals with TBIs. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using Thematic Analysis (TA) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to identify themes and emotional connotations related to the experiences of completing PROMs. Results: The TA of the data revealed six key themes regarding the experiences of individuals with TBIs in completing PROMs. Participants expressed varying levels of understanding and engagement with PROMs, with factors such as cognitive impairments and communication difficulties influencing their experiences. Additionally, insightful suggestions emerged on the barriers to the completion of PROMs, the factors facilitating it, and the suggestions for improving their contents and delivery methods. The sentiment analyses performed using NLP techniques allowed for the retrieval of the general sentimental and emotional "tones" in the participants' narratives of their experiences with PROMs, which were mainly characterised by low positive sentiment connotations. Although mostly neutral, participants' narratives also revealed the presence of emotions such as fear and, to a lesser extent, anger. The combination of a semantic and sentiment analysis of the experiences of people with TBIs rendered valuable information on the views and emotional responses to different aspects of the PROMs. Discussion: The findings highlighted the complexities involved in administering PROMs to individuals with TBIs and underscored the need for tailored approaches to accommodate their unique challenges. Integrating TA-based and NLP techniques can offer valuable insights into the experiences of individuals with TBIs and enhance the interpretation of qualitative data in this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) are multimodal communicators. However, in classroom interactions involving children and staff, achieving mutual understanding and accomplishing task-oriented goals by attending to the child's unaided AAC can be challenging. This study draws on excerpts of video recordings of interactions in a classroom for 6–9-year-old children who used AAC to explore how three child participants used the range of multimodal resources available to them – vocal, movement-based, and gestural, technological, temporal – to shape (and to some degree, co-control) classroom interactions. Our research was concerned with examining achievements and problems in establishing a sense of common ground and the realization of child agency. Through detailed multimodal analysis, this paper renders visible different types of practices rejecting a request for clarification, drawing new parties into a conversation, disrupting whole-class teacher talk-through which the children in the study voiced themselves in persuasive ways. It concludes by suggesting that multimodal accounts paint a more nuanced picture of children's resourcefulness and conversational asymmetry that highlights children's agency amidst material, semiotic, and institutional constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A compelling organizational mission can contribute to employees' sense of work as worthy and thereby meaningful. Yet realizing this potential depends on whether and how the mission is conveyed to employees and connected to their day-to-day work, with organizational performance measurement practices playing a critical but poorly understood role. To develop empirically grounded insights into how measurement practices shape individuals' perceptions of work as worthy, we leverage a qualitative, inductive study of two U.K. social enterprises. We find that employees' encounters with measurement practices both affirm and challenge perceptions of work as worthy by influencing whether employees can accomplish their work tasks, see the impact of their work, and have a credible and valued voice in their interpersonal interactions. Building on these findings, we develop a model that theorizes practical, existential, and relational pathways through which measurement encounters create ongoing expansions and contractions of work worthiness. Taken together, our findings and model broaden understandings of the sources and processes of meaningful work, develop a dynamic conception of meaningfulness, and point toward a more agentic view of organizational performance measurement processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is some evidence for attentional biases in individuals with chronic pain (CP). Cultural and linguistic differences might affect the manifestation of these processes across populations. However, such attentional biases have not been explored in the Arabic-speaking population. The current study investigated these attentional biases and possible associations with resilience. Two matched groups of Arabic-speaking participants with (58) and without (58) CP were recruited from Jordan and the United Kingdom. They completed emotionally modified versions of the Posner cueing and Stroop tasks, alongside questionnaires. Significant group differences were found for the Posner task, with the CP group exhibiting disengagement revealed by the inhibition of return (IOR) effect for sensory pain-related cues compared to delayed disengagement for the other cue types. The control group showed IOR across cue types. No group differences were found on the Stroop task. The CP group had lower resilience scores than healthy controls, and resilience moderated performance on the Posner task. The study provides preliminary evidence about the attentional processes in the Arabic population; the speed of disengagement is affected in the CP group with early disengagement for sensory pain-related information compared to affect pain and neutral stimuli. Furthermore, resilience levels in the CP and control group moderated the performance on the Posner task, suggesting that it influences attentional allocation. This study can help in understanding how the phenomenon of attention bias intertwines with the cultural and linguistic factors. Future research should further explore attentional dynamics across different time points in this population and the modulatory effect of resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim was to use a robust statistical approach to examine whether physical fitness at entry influences performance changes between men and women undertaking British Army basic training (BT). Performance of 2 km run, seated medicine ball throw (MBT) and isometric mid‐thigh pull (MTP) were assessed at entry and completion of Standard Entry (SE), Junior Entry‐Short (JE‐Short), and Junior Entry‐Long (JE‐Long) training for 2350 (272 women) recruits. Performance change was analyzed with entry performance as a covariate (ANCOVA), with an additional interaction term allowing different slopes for courses and genders (p < 0.05). Overall, BT courses saw average improvements in 2 km run performance (SE: −6.8% [−0.62 min], JE‐Short: −4.6% [−0.43 min], JE‐Long: −7.7% [−0.70 min]; all p < 0.001) and MBT (1.0–8.8% [0.04–0.34 m]; all p < 0.05) and MTP (4.5–26.9% [6.5–28.8 kg]; all p < 0.001). Regression models indicate an expected form of "regression to the mean" whereby test performance change was negatively associated with entry fitness in each course (those with low baseline fitness exhibit larger training improvements; all interaction effects: p < 0.001, ηp2$$ {\eta}_{\mathrm{p}}^2 $$ > 0.006), particularly for women. However, when matched for entry fitness, men displayed considerable improvements in all tests, relative to women. Training courses were effective in developing recruit physical fitness, whereby the level of improvement is, in large part, dependent on entry fitness. Factors including age, physical maturity, course length, and physical training, could also contribute to the variability in training response between genders and should be considered when analyzing and/or developing physical fitness in these cohorts for future success of military job‐task performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Almost 40 years after its development, in this article, we reexamine the relevance and validity of the ubiquitously used Revised Speech Perception in Noise (R-SPiN) sentence corpus. The R-SPiN corpus includes “high-context” and “low-context” sentences and has been widely used in the field of hearing research to examine the benefit derived from semantic context across Englishspeaking listeners, but research investigating age differences has yielded somewhat inconsistent findings. We assess the appropriateness of the corpus for use today in different English-language cultures (i.e., British and American) as well as for older and younger adults. Method: Two hundred forty participants, including older (60–80 years) and younger (19–31 years) adult groups in the the United Kingdom and United States, completed a cloze task consisting of R-SPiN sentences with the final word removed. Cloze, as a measure of predictability, and entropy, as a measure of response uncertainty, were compared between culture and age groups. Results: Most critically, of the 200 “high-context” stimuli, only around half were assessed as highly predictable for older adults (United Kingdom: 109; United States: 107); and fewer still, for younger adults (United Kingdom: 75; United States: 81). We also found dominant responses to these “high-context” stimuli varied between cultures, with U.S. responses being more likely to match the original R-SPiN target. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the issue of incomplete transferability of corpus items across English-language cultures as well as diminished equivalency for older and younger adults. By identifying relevant items for each population, this work could facilitate the interpretation of inconsistent findings in the literature, particularly relating to age effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: The current in-service Royal Naval Fitness Test has two elements to test the aerobic endurance and muscular strength of Service Personnel through generic field-based tests and a short job task simulation. However, in 2017 the Royal Navy (RN) identified a requirement to update their in-service fitness test to align with international best practice. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to conduct an Objective Job Task Analysis on critical, physically demanding tasks that could be undertaken by RN sailors during sea deployments METHODS: Twenty-one training exercises were observed across a range of contexts; Type 23 Frigates, Type 45 Destroyers and at shore-based training facilities. A total of 203 RN personnel (age 27.8±7.1 years) were observed undertaking 36 job related tasks (e.g., 'firefighting', 'damage control', 'abandon ship' and 'casualty handling'). Tasks were evaluated by cardiovascular response, primary functional movements and contextual factors to aid a Military Judgement Panel in task list down-selection. RESULTS: 14 Criterion Tasks (e.g., 'firefighting', 'two-person magazine stowage' and 'casualty handling') were selected to progress to the next stage of the process. Five tasks were selected based on cardiovascular responses and a further nine tasks selected based on task ergonomics and other factors. CONCLUSION: This research has identified and quantified the most physically demanding, critical roles undertaken by RN sailors on sea deployments and will inform the development of the RN Physical Employment Standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Typically, the fitness of UK firefighters is assessed via submaximal estimate methods due to the low demands on time, money, expertise and equipment. However, the firefighter-specific validity of such testing in relation to maximum aerobic capacity (⁠ V ˙ O 2 max ⁠) and particularly muscular strength is not well established. Aims To examine the validity of submaximal methods to estimate V ˙ O 2 max and maximal strength in operational firefighters. Methods Twenty-two full-time operational firefighters (3 female) completed same-day submaximal (Chester Step Test; CST) and maximal (treadmill) assessments of V ˙ O 2 max ⁠ , with a sub-sample of 10 firefighters (1 female) also completing submaximal and maximal back-squat (i.e. one repetition maximum; 1RM) assessments. All participants then completed the Firefighter Simulation Test (FFST) within 2–4 days. Results CST underestimated actual V ˙ O 2 max by 1.4 ml·kg–1·min–1 (~3%), although V ˙ O 2 max values were positively correlated (r  = 0.61, P  < 0.01) and not significantly different. Estimated V ˙ O 2 max values negatively correlated with FFST performance (r  = –0.42). Predicted 1RM underestimated actual 1RM by ~2%, although these values were significantly correlated (r  = 0.99, P  < 0.001) and did not significantly differ. The strongest predictive model of FFST performance included age, body mass index, and direct maximal measures of 1RM and V ˙ O 2 max ⁠. Conclusions Submaximal back-squat testing offers good validity in estimating maximum firefighter strength without exposure to the fatigue associated with maximal methods. The CST provides a reasonably valid and cost-effective V ˙ O 2 max estimate which translates to firefighting task performance, although the error observed means it should be used cautiously when making operational decisions related to V ˙ O 2 max benchmarks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Parkinson's disease (PD) can affect social interaction and communication as well as motor and cognitive processes. Speech is affected in PD, as is the control of voluntary eye movements which are thought to play an important role in 'turn taking' in conversation. Aims: This study aimed to measure eye movements during spoken conversation in PD to assess whether differences in patterns of eye gaze are linked to disrupted turn taking and impaired communication efficiency. Methods & Procedure: Eleven participants with mild PD and 14 controls completed a two‐player guessing game. During each 3 min game turn, one of the players had to guess the names of as many objects as possible based only on the other player's description. Eye movements were recorded simultaneously in both participants using mobile eye trackers along with speech onset and offset times. Outcomes & Results: When people with PD played the role of describer, the other player guessed fewer objects compared to when controls described objects. When guessing objects, people with PD performed just as well as controls. Analysis of eye fixations showed that people with PD made longer periods of fixation on the other player's face relative to controls and a lower number of such 'gaze on face' periods. Conclusions & Implications: A combination of oculomotor, cognitive and speech abnormalities may disrupt communication in PD. Better public awareness of oculomotor, speech and other deficits in the condition could improve social connectedness in people with Parkinson's. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject?: Parkinson's disease is known to affect the control of voluntary eye movements. Direction of eye gaze is important in spoken conversation as a cue to turn‐taking, but no studies have examined whether eye movements are different during communication in people with Parkinson's. What this paper adds to existing knowledge?: People with Parkinson's showed longer periods of eye fixation during conversations compared to controls. Delays and overlaps between speech turns were also affected in patients. What are the clinical implications of this work?: Better knowledge of the effect of the disease on eye gaze control amongst clinicians may help improve communication and social connectedness for patients in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Impaired discourse production is commonly reported for individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Discourse deficits can negatively impact community integration, return to employment and quality of life. COVID‐19 restrictions have reduced in‐person assessment services for people with communication impairments. Advances in telehealth may help speech and language therapists (SLTs) to assess monologic discourse more systematically and improve access to services for patients who may find it difficult to attend in‐person. Aims: To examine the feasibility of telehealth administration of narrative and procedural discourse tasks with individuals with TBI and matched controls. Methods & Procedures: A total of 20 individuals with TBI and 20 healthy controls, aged 18–55 years, were directly recruited from the UK and indirectly recruited from the US. For participants with TBI, time post‐injury was at least 3 months with no diagnosis of aphasia. Control participants were matched for sex and as closely as possible for age. Feasibility of measures was based upon the time to administer both narrative tasks, the report of any technological problems, and participant feed. Discourse samples were transcribed verbatim and analysed using story grammar analysis (for narrative discourse) and identification of propositions (for procedural discourse). Interrater reliability was calculated using percentage agreement for 50% of the data. Non‐parametric analyses were used to analyse the performance of the two groups. Outcomes & Results: Narrative and procedural discourse samples were collected via telehealth in approximately 10 min with no reported technical difficulties or complaints from any participants. For narrative discourse performance, there were significant differences for the TBI and control groups for measures of complete episodes (p < 0.001) and missing episodes (p = 0.005). No significant group differences were noted for any of the procedural discourse measures. Conclusions & Implications: Results support the feasibility of collecting discourse samples via telehealth. Although the participants' discourse performance distinguished the TBI and control groups on the narrative task, no differences between the groups were noted for the procedural task. The narrative discourse task may have been more difficult than the procedural task, or video cue support reduced the cognitive load of the procedural task. This finding suggests the use of more complex procedural tasks without video cue support may be needed. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject: Although little research has explored the feasibility of administering discourse assessments for individuals with TBI via telehealth, some studies have found that discourse interventions can be feasibly administered via telehealth. It is also well established that individuals with TBI struggle with the supra‐structural and macro‐linguistic elements of discourse production. Both procedural and narrative discourse tasks have been found to differentiate individuals with TBI from healthy controls. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: Few studies have investigated the feasibility of, and procedures for, administering discourse tasks via telehealth. Additionally, the inclusion of multiple types of discourse tasks to parse cognitive–communication abilities is lacking in the current literature. Findings from this study support that narrative and procedural discourse can be feasibly sampled via telehealth and that international collaboration for research on this topic can facilitate such studies. Individuals with TBI performed more poorly on three measures of narrative discourse. No differences between groups were identified for the procedural task. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Telehealth assessment for discourse provides flexibility for both the individual with TBI and the speech–language therapist and does not compromise the quality of data collected. The administration of discourse tasks and collection of data was not time‐consuming and was well accepted by the study participants. Additionally, international research collaboration not only expands potential participation in research but increases the opportunity to recruit and study more diverse groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Linking free-text addresses to unique identifiers in a structural address database [the Ordnance Survey unique property reference number (UPRN) in the United Kingdom (UK)] is a necessary step for downstream geospatial analysis in many digital health systems, e.g., for identification of care home residents, understanding housing transitions in later life, and informing decision making on geographical health and social care resource distribution. However, there is a lack of open-source tools for this task with performance validated in a test data set. Methods: In this article, we propose a generalisable solution (A Framework for Linking free-text Addresses to Ordnance Survey UPRN database, FLAP) based on a machine learning–based matching classifier coupled with a fuzzy aligning algorithm for feature generation with better performance than existing tools. The framework is implemented in Python as an Open Source tool (available at Link). We tested the framework in a real-world scenario of linking individual’s (n = 771,588) addresses recorded as free text in the Community Health Index (CHI) of National Health Service (NHS) Tayside and NHS Fife to the Unique Property Reference Number database (UPRN DB). Results: We achieved an adjusted matching accuracy of 0.992 in a test data set randomly sampled (n = 3, 876) from NHS Tayside and NHS Fife CHI addresses. FLAP showed robustness against input variations including typographical errors, alternative formats, and partially incorrect information. It has also improved usability compared to existing solutions allowing the use of a customised threshold of matching confidence and selection of top n candidate records. The use of machine learning also provides better adaptability of the tool to new data and enables continuous improvement. Discussion: In conclusion, we have developed a framework, FLAP, for linking free-text UK addresses to the UPRN DB with good performance and usability in a real-world task. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fast mapping (FM) is a hypothetical, incidental learning process that allows rapid acquisition of new words. Using an implicit reaction time measure in a FM paradigm, Coutanche and Thompson-Schill (Coutanche, M. N., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2014). Fast mapping rapidly integrates information into existing memory networks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(6), 2296–2303. ) showed evidence of lexical competition within 10 min of non-words being learned as names of unknown items, consistent with same-day lexicalisation. Here, Experiment 1 was a methodological replication (N = 28/group) that found no evidence of this RT competition effect. Instead, a post-hoc analysis suggested evidence of semantic priming. Experiment 2 (N = 60/group, online study, pre-registered on OSF) tested whether semantic priming remained when making the stimulus set fully counterbalanced. No evidence for either lexical competition nor semantic priming was detected. Experiment 3 (n = 64, online study, pre-registered on OSF) tested whether referent (a)typicality boosted lexical competition (Coutanche, M. N., & Koch, G. E. (2017). Variation across individuals and items determine learning outcomes from fast mapping. Neuropsychologia, 106, 187–193. ), but again no evidence of lexical competition was observed, and Bayes Factors for the data combined across all three experiments supported the hypothesis that there is no effect of lexical competition under FM conditions. These results, together with our previous work, question whether fast mapping exists in healthy adults, at least using this specific FM paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical activity improves physical and mental well-being and reduces mortality risk. However, only a quarter of adults globally meet recommended physical activity levels for health. Two common initiatives in the UK are Couch-to-5k (an app-assisted 9-week walk/run programme) and parkrun (a free, weekly, timed 5-km walk/run). It is not known how these initiatives are linked, how Couch-to-5k parkrunners compare to parkrunners , and the extent to which this influences their parkrun performance. The aims were to compare the characteristics and motives and to compare physical activity levels, parkrun performance and the impact of parkrun between Couch-to-5k parkrunners and parkrunners. Three thousand two hundred and ninety six Couch-to-5k parkrunners were compared to 55,923 parkrunners to explore age, sex, ethnicity, employment status, neighbourhood deprivation, motives, physical activity levels, parkrun performance and the impact of parkrun. Couch-to-5k parkrunners were slightly older, more likely to be female and work part-time, but similar in ethnicity, and neighbourhood deprivation compared with other parkrunners. Couch-to-5k parkrunners had different motives for participation and reported high levels of physical activity at registration, which remained to the point of survey completion. This group had slower parkrun times but, when registered for a year, completed a similar number of runs (11) per year. Larger proportions of Couch-to-5k parkrunners perceived positive impacts compared with other parkrunners and 65% of Couch-to-5k parkrunners reported improvements to their lifestyle. parkrun appears to be an effective pathway for those on the Couch-to-5k programme, and the promising positive association between the two initiatives may be effective in assisting previously inactive participants to take part in weekly physical activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This pilot study explored effects of hearing loss on deaf children's reading comprehension in an online context. Eighteen deaf secondary students, ages 12–14 years (11 with British Sign Language as their dominant language, seven with English as their dominant language) engaged in an online research comprehension task. Six age-matched hearing spoken language bilingual students served as a comparison group. All participants were identified as confident readers by their teachers. Participants were asked to "think aloud" during an online search task to provide insights into their strategies. Additionally, participants completed a battery of assessments related to reading comprehension, vocabulary, non-verbal IQ, and working memory. Overall results showed similar use of strategies across all students. Strategies applied by the most skilled readers involved drawing on prior knowledge sources, e.g. informational websites or search engines, prior knowledge of the topic, and taking the time to read and evaluate website headings before deciding which one to use as source. Participants also made use of working memory skills. Findings highlight the importance of teaching online search and evaluation skills as part of the reading curriculum in schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study used thematic analysis to consider eight UK child protection social work (CPSW) managers' experience of hybrid working. Adair's Action Centred Leadership (task, individual, team) (1967) was used as a framework to consider how managers lead teams through changes in working arrangements as hybrid working practices have become normalised. The themes identified included (i) Task: ease of moving work online, manager perceptions of the impact on quality of work, the experience of professional and organisational approaches; (ii) Individual: social worker well-being, tension about being available versus capacity to focus, impact on work/home boundaries; and (iii) Team: the importance of connecting, modelling practice and ease of communication. Findings suggest that hybrid arrangements were implemented as a result of organisational and logistic priorities, rather than to benefit children and families or the workforce. Though much of the task of CPSW has returned to being delivered as before COVID-19, and individual worker needs have been somewhat considered, the team as a unit to support and contain the worker has been largely neglected through the advancement of existing neoliberal and managerial policies under the pretext of COVID-19 measures. To counteract the negative impact of hybrid working arrangements, future policy focus must be on building strong teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loneliness describes a negative experience associated with perceived social disconnection. Despite the clear links between loneliness and mental and physical health, relatively little is known about how loneliness affects cognition. In this study, we tested the effect of loneliness on cognitive distance between the self and others, using a task in which participants completed a surprise memory task for adjectives implicitly encoded in relation to the self, a close friend or a celebrity. We assessed item memory sensitivity, metacognitive sensitivity, metacognitive efficiency and source memory for positive and negative words. In addition, participants reported their trait loneliness and depression. Results revealed an overall self‐referential advantage compared with both friend and celebrity encoded items. Likewise, a friend‐referential advantage was identified compared to celebrity‐encoded items. Individuals who experienced more loneliness showed a greater self‐referential bias in comparison to words encoded in relation to a close friend, and a smaller friend‐referential bias in comparison to words encoded in relation to celebrity. These findings suggest that loneliness is reflected in a greater cognitive distance between the self and close friends in relation to memory biases. The results have important implications for understanding the social contextual effects on memory and the cognitive ramifications of loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based upon a multi-species ethnography of companion dog training in the UK, this paper examines the training class as a site of inter-species communication through which dogs and their humans are mutually affected and transformed. We argue that dog training represents an important form of multi-species learning in which participants (human trainer, trainee and canine) shape one another, jointly if asymmetrically, through the performance of particular tasks and challenges. Successful training requires 'attunement' to the haptic and sensory experiences of another species and the creation of shared embodied languages through which relationships of trust and reciprocity are formed. Responding to calls for less human-centred methods we examine the possibilities of visual and ethnographic methods for capturing the 'animal's point of view' and explore how deep ethnographic involvement of the researcher's own body can draw attention to the everyday complexities of embodied inter-species communication. We consider the importance of our own embodied learning in decentring the human in the research process, engendering a corporeal understanding of the multi-sensory nature of inter-species interaction and transforming ourselves in the process. Through the use of ethnographic vignettes, photos and video stills we highlight the importance of body language, sound, touch, smell and training atmospheres in the creation of shared knowledges. In doing so we explore the possibilities of such methods for evoking the affective dimensions of human-canine interactions and attending to the complex and multiple actors and sensibilities which comprise multi-species training relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intersectional invisibility hypothesis (IIH) states that members of multiply marginalized groups experience intersectional invisibility by not being seen as prototypical for either of their constitutive groups due to the influence of heterocentrism and androcentrism. That is, a lesbian woman may not be represented in relation to either the category 'woman' or the category 'homosexual people'. Two online experiments conducted in Sweden and the United Kingdom (N = 1923) tested predictions from the IIH at different intersections of specific genders (woman and man) and sexual orientations (heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality) using an attribute generation task and direct similarity ratings. Results show strong support for the influence of heterocentrism: Only prototypes for heterosexual women/men match general prototypes for women/men. Androcentrism influenced the prototype for 'homosexual people', which had a stronger match with the prototype for gay men compared with lesbian women. In contrast, bisexual women were seen as more prototypical 'bisexual people' than bisexual men were. Psychological research conducted on general gender groups may therefore only be applicable to heterosexual individuals, while research on homosexual people in general may be applicable mainly to gay men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human capacity for technological innovation and creative problem-solving far surpasses that of any species but develops quite late. Prior work has typically presented children with problems requiring a single solution, a limited number of resources, and a limited amount of time. Such tasks do not allow children to utilize one of their strengths: their ability to engage in broad search and exploration. Thus, we hypothesized that a more open-ended innovation task might allow children to demonstrate greater innovative capacity by allowing them to discover and refine a solution over multiple attempts. Children were recruited from a museum and a children's science event in the United Kingdom. We presented 129 children (66 girls, M = 6.91, SD = 2.18) between 4 and 12 years old with a variety of materials and asked children to use those materials to create tools to remove rewards from a box within 10 min. We coded the variety of tools children created each time they attempted to remove the rewards. By comparing successive attempts, we were able to obtain insights about how children built successful tools. Consistent with prior research, we found that older children were more likely than younger children to create successful tools. However, controlling for age, children who engaged in more tinkering—who retained a greater proportion of objects from their failed tools in subsequent attempts and who added more novel objects to their tools following failure—were more likely to build successful tools than children who did not. Public Significance Statement: This study advances how we understand young children's problem-solving skills and capacity for innovation. Prior work has focused on whether children achieve an innovative solution or not; this study captures children's innovative process. Results demonstrate that children who decided to keep more objects from a prior design and who also added more novel objects to their tools following failure were more likely to build successful tools than children who did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the long-standing claim that understanding relational correspondence is a general component of representational understanding. Two experiments with 175 preschool children located in Norwich, United Kingdom, examined the use of a scale model comparing performances on a "copy" task, measuring abstract spatial arrangement ability, and the false belief task. Consistent with previous studies, younger children performed well in scale model trials when objects were unique (e.g., one cupboard) but poorly at distinguishing objects using spatial layout (one of three identical chairs). Performance was specifically associated with Copy task but not False Belief performance. Emphasizing the representational relation between the model and the room was ineffective. We find no evidence for understanding relational correspondence as a general component of representational understanding. Public Significance Statement: This study compares performance on a classic hiding game, using a room and its scale model, with preschool children's abstract spatial ability and understanding of mental representation. We found performance on the classic Model Room task only related to spatial abilities, potentially important in later science and mathematics education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The other race effect (ORE) in part describes how people are poorer at identifying faces of other races compared to own-race faces. While well-established with face memory, more recent studies have begun to demonstrate its presence in face matching tasks, with minimal memory requirements. However, several of these studies failed to compare both races of faces and participants in order to fully test the predictions of the ORE. Here, we utilized images of both Black and White individuals, and Black and White participants, as well as tasks measuring perceptions of face matching and similarity. In addition, human judgements were directly compared with computer algorithms. First, we found only partial support for an ORE in face matching. Second, a deep convolutional neural network (residual network with 29 layers) performed exceptionally well with both races. The DCNN's representations were strongly associated with human perceptions. Taken together, we found that the ORE was not robust or compelling in our human data, and was absent in the computer algorithms we tested. We discuss our results in the context of ORE literature, and the importance of state-of-the-art algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relation between perceptual and conceptual knowledge is a longstanding research question in developmental psychology. Here we tested children's dependence on figurative information with a reaction time/accuracy task. A sample of 151 children from 5 to 10 years were assessed from two multicultural and multiracial schools in the London (UK) boroughs City of London and Harrow. A quarter of children in both schools were eligible for free school meals (national average 18.5%). The same 3 × 3 grid with nine individually colored places and a uniform black star as placeholder was tested in three different retrieval conditions: (a) same array as during presentation, (b) one place at a time with placeholder, and (c) one place at a time without placeholder. In a (d) control condition, individual shapes were of the same color as the colorful places. Bayes Factor analyses showed a more unified response toward figurative placeholders in 5- to 6-year-olds. Independently of age, colorful places without a placeholder were hardest to remember. Places were better remembered when a placeholder was added and still better when the spatial context of the entire array was available. Yet unique shapes with distinctive contours and colors as placeholders optimized place memory the most. While place memory accuracy increased with age, reaction times did not become faster. Instead, latencies were longer, the more visual information was available in the retrieval array. A larger perceptual effect was caused by the dynamic where-delay interference task, the sparser the amount of visual information in the retrieval array. Public Significance Statement: This study reversed the usual set up of asking children to remember where objects were located. Instead, each color of a grid had an individual color. Results revealed that when 5- to 10-year-old children were tested for locations, they needed as much visual information of the grid as possible in order to accurately identify a place. The less visual information they were given, the more interference was possible. Still, an individual colorful shape's place was remembered best. With regards to response times, the more visual information they were given, the longer they needed to make a decision, independently of their age. The youngest children did not make a difference in their response times whether a colorful shape or a black star was a placeholder showing they opted for figures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Much of the knowledge and information needed for enabling high-quality clinical research is stored in free-text format. Natural language processing (NLP) has been used to extract information from these sources at scale for several decades. This paper aims to present a comprehensive review of clinical NLP for the past 15 years in the UK to identify the community, depict its evolution, analyse methodologies and applications, and identify the main barriers. We collect a dataset of clinical NLP projects (n = 94; £ = 41.97 m) funded by UK funders or the European Union's funding programmes. Additionally, we extract details on 9 funders, 137 organisations, 139 persons and 431 research papers. Networks are created from timestamped data interlinking all entities, and network analysis is subsequently applied to generate insights. 431 publications are identified as part of a literature review, of which 107 are eligible for final analysis. Results show, not surprisingly, clinical NLP in the UK has increased substantially in the last 15 years: the total budget in the period of 2019–2022 was 80 times that of 2007–2010. However, the effort is required to deepen areas such as disease (sub-)phenotyping and broaden application domains. There is also a need to improve links between academia and industry and enable deployments in real-world settings for the realisation of clinical NLP's great potential in care delivery. The major barriers include research and development access to hospital data, lack of capable computational resources in the right places, the scarcity of labelled data and barriers to sharing of pretrained models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the decision-making processes involved in giving physiotherapy students responsibility on clinical placement and the impact on their developing professional autonomy. The qualitative study, using semi-structured interviews, involved physiotherapy students and clinical educators (CEs) from two higher education institutions, one in Australia, and the other in the United Kingdom (UK). Findings led to the development of a heuristic framework of 'graduated supervision,' a process of progressively less direct observation and monitoring of students as clinical proficiency improved. By focusing on the measured exposure of students to increasing complexity and inverse levels of supervision, the framework captures tacit practices, and consistent, yet varied facilitation strategies adopted across specialties, and evident in clinical education settings in both countries. The framework formalizes, for the first time, assumptions and expectations previously unacknowledged. Factors identified as affecting students' progress toward autonomy include the student/CE relationship, the development of mutual trust through ongoing dialogue, and the importance of formal discussions at the commencement of a clinical placement to establish learning goals, preferred supervision styles and learner responsibilities. Insights have significance for the CE community, and students who at times have to second-guess what is required of them and how they might excel on clinical placement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laughter is a ubiquitous and important social signal, but its nature is yet to be fully explored. One of the open empirical questions is about the role of context in the interpretation of laughter. Can laughs presented on their own convey specific feelings and social motives? How influential is social context when a person tries to understand the meaning of a laugh? Here we test the extent to which the classification of laughs produced in different situations is guided by knowing the context within which these laughs were produced. In the current study, stimuli were spontaneous laughs recorded in social situations engineered to elicit amusement, embarrassment, and schadenfreude. In a between-subjects design, participants classified these laughs being assigned to one of the four experimental conditions: audio only, audio-visual, side-by-side videos of two interactants, and side-by-side videos accompanied by a brief vignette. Participants' task was to label each laugh as an instance of amusement, embarrassment, or schadenfreude laugh, or "other." Laughs produced in situations inducing embarrassment were classified more accurately than laughs produced in other situations. Most importantly, eliminating information about the social settings in which laughs were produced decreased participants' classification accuracy such that accuracy was no better than chance in the experimental conditions providing minimal contextual information. Our findings demonstrate the importance of context in the interpretation of laughter and highlight the complexity of experimental investigations of schadenfreude displays. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans are good at recognizing familiar faces, but are more error-prone at recognizing an unfamiliar person across different images. It has been suggested that familiar and unfamiliar faces are processed qualitatively differently. But are unfamiliar faces at least processed differently from monkey faces? Here we tested 366 volunteers on a face matching test – two images presented side-by-side with participants judging whether the images show the same identity or two different identities – comparing performance with familiar and unfamiliar human faces, and monkey faces. The results showed that performance was most accurate for familiar faces, and was above chance for monkey faces. Although accuracy was higher for unfamiliar humans than monkeys on different identity trials, there was no unfamiliar human advantage over monkeys on same identity trials. The results give new insights into unfamiliar face processing, showing that in some ways unfamiliar faces might as well be another species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: Military rotary-wing operations require sustained levels of cognitive and psychomotor performance from aircrew to ensure safety and operational effectiveness. Significant flight-related neck pain (SFRNP) is common amongst rotary-wing aircrew, potentially affecting their performance. This study aimed to examine the effect of SFRNP on psychomotor and cognitive performance in a cohort of military rotarywing aircrew in the operational flight environment. METHODOLOGY: A field study was conducted using a dual-task paradigm with 40 military operational CH-47 rear crew (39 male, 1 female). The primary outcome variable was the Dual Task Effect (DTE) (% change between single and dual task conditions) for cognitive and psychomotor performance on a novel simulated flight-task test battery. These data were stratified post-hoc for those with or without SFRNP. This study received favourable opinion from the UK Ministry of Defence Research Ethics Committee (MODREC). RESULTS: 65% (n=26) of participants reported SFRNP during the test flights. Mean intensity of SFRNP was 2.5 on the Numerical Pain Rating Scale. Pre-flight, there was a significantly greater deterioration in psychomotor performance under dual task conditions for the SFRNP group (DTE -15.8), compared to the non-neck pain group (DTE 1.5) (p=.01). Deterioration in dual-task performance (DTE) for both the cognitive and psychomotor conditions was slightly worse following the operational flight sortie; however, no significant differences were observed after the operational flight sortie in either the SFRNP or non-neck pain group (p=>.05). DISCUSSION: SFRNP was found to be present amongst this sample of military rotary-wing aircrew. There was a detectable change in the cognitive and psychomotor performance of the aircrew using the dual-task paradigm. Whilst there was evidence that SFRNP was associated with reduced psychomotor dual-task performance, operational flight exposure did not affect aircrew performance in this study. Future research could consider the relationship between the pain intensity and its effect on performance. Learning Objectives 1. Psychomotor dual-task performance was reduced in military rotarywing rear crew with significant flight-related neck pain. 2. Operational flight exposure was not associated with reduced dual-task performance in aircrew with or without significant flight-related neck pain in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Adolescents who participate as peer leaders can benefit and acquire competencies from their peer leadership experience. Objectives: To identify the competencies gained by adolescents who participated as peer leaders in a healthy lifestyle study and to determine whether the training characteristics were related to improvement in competencies. Design: The present study was part of the European Youth Tackling Obesity (EYTO) project, a multicentre social marketing intervention involving four European countries. Setting and Participants: Eighteen peer leaders (aged 13–15 years, three or five leaders per country) from disadvantaged neighbourhoods received training in designing and implementing activities for their peers. Measures: The peer leaders' confidence, experience and interest in 11 tasks related to lifelong learning competencies were assessed with questions rated on a colour scale at baseline and at the end of the study. Results: The peer leaders demonstrated improvements in experience, confidence and interest in different tasks, such as research, website or logo design, oral presentations, social media use and collaboration with people from other countries. They increased their confidence in management tasks (p = 0.03) and their confidence and experience in communication tasks (p = 0.01). The peer leaders from Spain and Portugal had greater improvements than those from the other countries. Conclusion: The peer leaders improved their confidence in management tasks and their confidence and experience in communication tasks. Slight differences were detected in improvement in competencies by country, likely due to the differences in the peer training applied. Recommendations for peer leader training are proposed, although these results should be verified with larger sample size. Patient or Public Contribution: The peer leaders contributed to the design and implementation of the training and intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Combining work and care can be very challenging. If not adequately supported, carers' employment, well‐being and relationships may be at risk. Technologies can be potential solutions. We carried out a scoping review to find out what is already known about technologies used by working carers. The search included academic and grey literature published between January 2000 and June 2020. Sixteen relevant publications were analysed and discussed in the context of the broader discourse on work‐care reconciliation. Technologies discussed can be classified as: (a) web‐based technologies; (b) technologies for direct communication; (c) monitoring technologies; and (d) task‐sharing tools. Technologies can help to make work‐care reconciliation more manageable and alleviate psychosocial and emotional stress. General barriers to using technology include limited digital skills, depending on others to use technologies, privacy and data protection, cost, limited technological capabilities, and limited awareness regarding available technologies. Barriers specific to some technologies include work disruptions, limited perceived usefulness, and lacking time and energy to use technologies. More research into technologies that can address the needs of working carers and how they are able to use them at work is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Being involved in one's care is prioritised within UK healthcare policy to improve care quality and safety. However, research suggests that many older people struggle with this. Design: We present focused ethnographic research exploring older peoples' involvement in healthcare from hospital to home. Results: We propose that being involved in care is a dynamic form of labour, which we call 'involvement work' (IW). In hospital, many patients 'entrust' IW to others; indeed, when desired, maintaining control, or being actively involved, was challenging. Patient and professionals' expectations, alongside hospital processes, promoted delegation; staff frequently did IW on patients' behalf. Many people wanted to resume IW postdischarge, but struggled because they were out of practice. Discussion: Preference and capacity for involvement was dynamic, fluctuating over time, according to context and resource accessibility. The challenges of resuming IW were frequently underestimated by patients and care providers, increasing dependence on others post‐discharge and negatively affecting peoples' sense and experience of (in)dependence. Conclusions: A balance needs to be struck between respecting peoples' desire/capacity for non‐involvement in hospital while recognising that 'delegating' IW can be detrimental. Increasing involvement will require patient and staff roles to be reframed, though this must be done acknowledging the limits of patient desire, capability,and resources. Hospital work should be (re)organised to maximise involvement where possible and desired. Patient/Public Contribution: Our Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Panel contributed to research design, especially developing interview guides and patient‐facing documentation. Patients were key participants within the study; it is their experiences represented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Information processing speed (IPS) has been proposed to be a key component in healthy ageing and cognitive functioning. Yet, current studies lack a consistent definition and specific influential characteristics. This study aimed to investigate IPS as a multifaceted concept by differentiating cognitive and motor IPS., Design, Setting and Participants: A retrospective data analysis using data from the Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development (a population-based cohort of UK adults born in 1946) at childhood (ages 8, 11 and 15) and adulthood (ages 60-64 and 68-70). Using structural equation modelling, we constructed two models of IPS with 2124 and 1776 participants, respectively., Outcome Measures: Measures of interest included IPS (ie, letter cancellation, simple and choice reaction time), intelligence (ie, childhood intelligence and National Adult Reading Test), verbal memory, socioeconomic status (SES) and cognitive functions measured by the Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination III, as well as a variety of health indexes., Results: We found distinct predictors for cognitive and motor IPS and how they relate to other cognitive functions in old age. In our first model, SES and antipsychotic medication usage emerged as significant predictors for cognitive IPS, intelligence and smoking as predictors for motor IPS while both share sex, memory and antiepileptic medication usage as common predictors. Notably, all differences between both IPS types ran in the same direction except for sex differences, with women performing better than men in cognitive IPS and vice versa in motor IPS. The second model showed that both IPS measures, as well as intelligence, memory, antipsychotic and sedative medication usage, explain cognitive functions later in life., Conclusion: Taken together, these results shed further light on IPS as a whole by showing there are distinct types and that these measures directly relate to other cognitive functions., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2024. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.)

Background: There is mixed evidence for an association between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and emotion recognition deficits. We sought to assess the bidirectionality of this association using phenotypic and genetic data in a large community sample. Methods: Analyses were conducted in three stages. First, we examined the bidirectional association between social autistic traits at age 8 years and emotion recognition task (ERT) responses at age 24 years (Study 1; N = 3,562); and between Diagnostic Analysis of Non‐Verbal Accuracy (DANVA) emotion recognition responses at age 8 years and social autistic traits at age 10 years (Study 2; N = 9,071). Next, we used genetic analyses (Study 3) to examine the association between polygenic risk scores for ASD and outcomes for the ERT and DANVA. The genetic correlation between ASD and ERT responses at age 24 was also estimated. Analyses were conducted in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Results: Social autistic traits at age 8 years were negatively associated with later total correct responses on ERT in Study 1 (b = −0.18; 95% CI: −0.27 to −0.09). We also found evidence of an association in Study 2 (b = −0.04; 95% CI: −0.05 to −0.03). We found the opposite association, that is positive, between the ASD polygenic risk score and ERT (b = 0.40; 95% CI: 0.10 to 0.70); however, this association varied across different p‐value thresholds and would not survive multiple testing, so should be interpreted with caution. We did not find evidence of a genetic correlation between ASD and ERT. Conclusion: We found an observational association between poorer emotion recognition and increased social autistic traits. Our genetic analyses may suggest a shared genetic aetiology between these or a potential causal pathway; however, future research would benefit from using better powered GWAS to examine this further. Our results may inform interventions targeting emotion recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to efficiently select specific aspects of our semantic representations that are relevant for current goals or the context is supported by semantic control processes (controlled semantic cognition framework). This semantic control component is impaired in patients with semantic aphasia, who have multimodal semantic impairment following left hemisphere stroke and are highly sensitive to the control demands of semantic tasks. However, relatively little is known about how this control deficit interacts with aspects of semantic representation. Here we tested whether the relevance of semantic features can influence the demands of control resources in the selection of information within the semantic store in patients with semantic aphasia. Participants performed a feature selection task, where they were asked to indicate which of three features was semantically related to a given concept. We found that patients with semantic aphasia had a greater impairment on low relevance features, suggesting that the selection of target features with low relevance requires greater semantic control than target features with high relevance. Our results confirm the necessity of control processes for the selection of aspects of conceptual knowledge that are only weakly activated within semantic storage when these are task-relevant. The study therefore highlights that semantic cognition emerges from the interaction of control and representational systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To test the extent to which initial walking speed influences dual-task performance after walking intervention, hypothesising that slow walking speed affects automatic gait control, limiting executive resource availability. Design: A secondary analysis of a trial of dual-task (DT) and single-task (ST) walking interventions comparing those with good (walking speed ⩾0.8 m s−1, n = 21) and limited (walking speed <0.79 m s−1, n = 24) capacity at baseline. Setting: Community. Subjects: Adults six-months post stroke with walking impairment. Interventions: Twenty sessions of 30 minutes treadmill walking over 10 weeks with (DT) or without (ST) cognitive distraction. Good and limited groups were formed regardless of intervention received. Main measures: A two-minute walk with (DT) and without (ST) a cognitive distraction assessed walking. f NIRS measured prefrontal cortex activation during treadmill walking with (DT) and without (ST) Stroop and planning tasks and an f MRI sub-study used ankle-dorsiflexion to simulate walking. Results: ST walking improved in both groups (∆baseline: Good = 8.9 ± 13.4 m, limited = 5.3±8.9 m, Group × time = P < 0.151) but only the good walkers improved DT walking (∆baseline: Good = 10.4 ± 13.9 m, limited = 1.3 ± 7.7 m, Group × time = P < 0.025). f NIRS indicated increased ispilesional prefrontal cortex activation during DT walking following intervention (P = 0.021). f MRI revealed greater DT cost activation for limited walkers, and increased resting state connectivity of contralesional M1 with cortical areas associated with conscious gait control at baseline. After the intervention, resting state connectivity between ipsilesional M1 and bilateral superior parietal lobe, involved in integrating sensory and motor signals, increased in the good walkers compared with limited walkers. Conclusion: In individual who walk slowly it may be difficult to improve dual-task walking ability. Registration: ISRCTN50586966 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prior exertion of self‐control has previously been shown to negatively affect physical performance, yet the effects on complex sporting skill performance have not been examined. Therefore, this study examined whether prior self‐control exertion influences performance on a field hockey task, alongside measuring plasma cortisol concentration and attention as potential mechanisms to explain any effects. Following familiarization, 13 male hockey players (20 ± 1 years) participated in a randomized, order‐balanced, crossover design. For the manipulation of self‐control, participants completed an incongruent (self‐control exertion trial) or a congruent (control trial) Stroop task. Skill performance was assessed using a field hockey skills task. Capillary blood samples, for the determination of plasma cortisol concentration, were taken at baseline, post‐Stroop task, and post‐field hockey skills task. Cognitive tests of attention (RVIP and Flanker tasks) were completed following the field hockey skills task. Participants made more errors in the latter stages of the field hockey skills task following self‐control exertion (trial*time interaction, p = 0.041). Participants also made more errors on the RVIP task following self‐control exertion (p = 0.035); yet the time taken to complete the hockey skills task, performance on the flanker task, and plasma cortisol concentrations were unaffected (all p > 0.05). Overall, these findings suggest that prior self‐control exertion has detrimental effects on subsequent sporting skill performance (more errors made on the field hockey task), which may be explained by poorer sustained attention (lower accuracy on the RVIP task). This suggests that athletes should aim to avoid self‐control exertion before a competitive match to optimize performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Implementing task specific training is a commonly reported challenge for less experienced therapists. A potential method to improve the ability of recent graduate and student therapists is to upskill regarding task specific training via an online education resource. Purpose: To evaluate the use and acceptability of the TRAIN program as an online learning resource for physiotherapists. Methods: Data from Google Analytics was sourced to determine use of the program and details about the users. Users of the TRAIN program were also invited to complete two surveys; prior to beginning and upon completion of the program. The surveys collected information about the demographics of the users, perceptions of usefulness of the online resource and overall sentiment. Results: Almost 6000 new users interacted with the TRAIN modules during the 15‐months study period. The surveys indicated a high level of usability (mean score 9/10, SD 1.5) and clinical utility (mean score 8.8/10, SD 1.6) of the TRAIN program. Perceived knowledge and user confidence in implementing task‐specific training was higher for those users completing the post compared to those completing the pre‐module survey (knowledge 1.9 and confidence 1.7 out of 10 points higher). Recurring comments in the open‐ended feedback pertained to the usefulness, clarity, and ease of use of the TRAIN program. Discussion and Conclusion: This study provides preliminary evidence supporting the use and acceptability of the TRAIN program as an online learning resource for physiotherapists. This further contributes to the growing body of literature indicating online learning is generally a well‐received teaching tool for physiotherapists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in sentence processing has increasingly examined the role of individual differences in language comprehension. In work on native and nonnative sentence processing, examining individual differences can contribute crucial insight into theoretical debates about the extent to which nativelike processing is possible in a nonnative language. Despite this increased interest in individual differences, whether commonly used psycholinguistic tasks can reliably measure individual differences between participants has not been systematically examined. As a preliminary examination of this issue in nonnative processing, we report a self-paced reading experiment on garden-path sentences in native and nonnative comprehension. At the group level we replicated previously observed findings in native and nonnative speakers. However, while we found that our self-paced reading experiment was a reliable way of assessing individual differences in overall reading speed and comprehension accuracy, it did not consistently measure individual differences in the size of garden-path effects in our sample (N = 64 native and 64 nonnative participants, and 24 experimental items). These results suggest that before individual differences in sentence processing can be meaningfully assessed, the question of whether commonly used tasks can consistently measure individual differences requires systematic examination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen a rise in the popularity of eye-tracking methods to evaluate infant and toddler interpretation of visual stimuli. The application of these methods makes it increasingly important to understand the development of infant sensitivity to the perceptual properties implicated in such methods. In light of recent studies that demonstrate the use of pseudoisochromatic plates in testing infants for color vision. We investigated the perceptual contouring abilities required to pass a color-vision test of this type. A total of 115(51 female) 16- and 19-month-old U.K.-based participants from the Oxfordshire region participated in this study. The evidence collected in this study indicated their ability to systematically fixate a contoured target, but the speed at which they did so was much slower in the younger age group. These findings suggest that the perceptual contouring abilities implicated in this study are still under development in the second year of life, and as such, the results suggest a lower age limit for color-vision tests displayed in this format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Ordinal tasks are increasingly used to explore preferences for health states. This study aimed to determine the suitability of two ordinal preference elicitation tasks (discrete choice experiments (DCE) and best-worst scaling (BWS)) for use with children and young people to generate health state utility values. The study explored children's understanding, the relationship between their age and level of understanding, and how many tasks they felt they could complete. Methods: Children aged 11–16 years were recruited from a secondary school in South Yorkshire, UK. Participants were asked to 'think aloud' as they completed a computer-based survey that contained both DCE and BWS tasks relating to dental caries (tooth decay) health states. Health states involved descriptions of the impact of tooth decay on children's daily lives. One-to-one semi-structured interviews were then held with participants, with use of a topic guide. Qualitative data were transcribed verbatim and analysed thematically. Results: A total of 33 children (12 male, 21 female) participated, comprising 5–6 children from each school year group. Children expressed a preference for BWS and demonstrated a better understanding of these tasks than DCE. There was no clear relationship between children's level of understanding and age. Children felt they could manage between 8 and 10 BWS tasks comfortably. Conclusion: This study suggests that BWS tasks are the most appropriate type of preference elicitation task to value health states for children and young people aged 11–16 years to complete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: More and more organizations have resorted to the employment of monitoring software to keep track of employees' everyday performance and task completion. The current paper aims to outline the capabilities, pros and cons of monitoring for employees. Several recommendations for Human Resources (HR) professionals are outlined to inform best practice. Design/methodology/approach: This paper summarizes recent literature and trends on electronic monitoring aimed at remote workers, focusing specifically on trends observed in the UK and the USA. Findings: The number of pros and cons, as well as the resulting recommendations for HR professionals, outline how technology may aid – but also undermine – performance. Originality/value: The summary of capabilities, pros and cons represents a snapshot of current monitoring practices. The recommendations will give readers an overview of all the aspects and factors that ought to be considered when monitoring software and related tools are selected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To report the fidelity of the enhanced upper limb therapy programme within the Robot-Assisted Training for the Upper Limb after stroke (RATULS) randomized controlled trial, the types of goals selected and the proportion of goals achieved. Design: Descriptive analysis of data on fidelity, goal selection and achievement from an intervention group within a randomized controlled trial. Setting: Out-patient stroke rehabilitation within four UK NHS centres. Subjects: 259 participants with moderate-severe upper limb activity limitation (Action Research Arm Test 0–39) between one week and five years post first stroke. Intervention: The enhanced upper limb therapy programme aimed to provide 36 one-hour sessions, including 45 minutes of face-to-face therapy focusing on personal goals, over 12 weeks. Results: 7877/9324 (84%) sessions were attended; a median of 34 [IQR 29–36] per participant. A median of 127 [IQR 70–190] repetitions were achieved per participant per session attended. Based upon the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure, goal categories were: self-care 1449/2664 (54%); productivity 374/2664 (14%); leisure 180/2664 (7%) and 'other' 661/2664 (25%). For the 2051/2664 goals for which data were available, 1287 (51%) were achieved, ranging between 27% by participants more than 12 months post stroke with baseline Action Research Arm Test scores 0–7, and 88% by those less than three months after stroke with scores 8–19. Conclusions: Intervention fidelity was high. Goals relating to self-care were most commonly selected. The proportion of goals achieved varied, depending on time post stroke and baseline arm activity limitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role played by line managers in the link between HRM practices and individual performance outcomes. Drawing on social exchange theory, the authors test a mediated model linking perceived line manager behavior and perceived human resource management practices with employee engagement and individual performance. The study focuses on two self-report measures of individual performance; task performance and innovative work behavior. Two studies with a total of 1,796 participants were conducted in service-sector organizations in the United Kingdom and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The data reveal that perceived line manager behavior and perceived HRM practices are linked with employee engagement. In turn, employee engagement is strongly linked to individual performance and fully mediates the link between both perceived HRM practices and perceived line manager behavior and self-report task performance (study 1), as well as self-report innovative work behavior (study 2). The findings show the significance of the line manager in the HRM-performance link, and the mediating role played by employee engagement. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]