Investigating infant expectation on object search tasks.
The current study aims to distinguish between Piaget’s (1954) theory of object understanding, highlighting the role of object permanence on A not B task performance, and Diamond’s (1985) theory highlighting the role of motor demands and lack of ability to inhibit habitual behaviours during the task. These two theories differ in their predictions for the expectations of the infants taking part, with Piaget (1954) predicting that infants’ lack of object permanence causes poor performance on the task and Diamond (1985) predicting that infants understand the movement of objects and a lack of inhibition of habitual behaviours cause error in performance. We tested 15 nine-month-old infants on a looking version of the A not B task. The use of impossible and possible outcomes was also incorporated on B trials, with the object being revealed from either the correct or incorrect location (e.g., see Ahmed & Ruffman, 1998). Infant first look direction, accumulated looking time during trials and the number of social looks initiated post-outcome, were used as measures. We found significant evidence of the ‘AB’ error during trials, with an significantly increased number of incorrect first looks on B trials. There was also a descriptive pattern showing surprise at object location reveals with increased number of social looks during B compared to A trials, though this was not significant. Accumulated looking analysis showed that infants looked longer on A than B trials, suggesting that infants expected the object to be in location B on B trials, demonstrating infants’ ability to understand objects and supporting Diamond’s (1985) theory. However, implications for a small sample size and presence of individual differences on interpretation of looking time data are discussed. Implications in theory and future research are suggested and overall, results provide support for the application of Piaget’s (1954) theory and suggest that infants have limited object understanding based on their displayed expectations during testing.
3.1. Participants In this study, 15 participants took part, aged 8 months and 12 days to 9 months and 27 days old (M = 9 months and 3 days, SD= 11.3 days). Six further infants were excluded from data analysis as they became too fussy to complete the study. Participants were recruited from the Lancaster Baby lab database, along with the Lancaster Baby lab Facebook page and were also recruited via word of mouth from guardians taking part in the study. 3.2. Materials The video stimuli were created using Canva software (Canva.com, 2023) and was uploaded onto ‘Habit 2’ software (see Oakes et al., 2019) to display the stimuli during testing and to measure the accumulated looking time of the infant participants. The stimuli involved a novel object obtained from the NOUN database (Horst & Hout, 2016). A camera was used to record the social looks exchanged between the infant and guardian, as well as the direction of the infants’ first looks during testing. 3.3. Design This study had a within-subjects design, with all participants being exposed to the same experimental conditions and the same stimuli. To counterbalance for location effects, half of the participants witnessed A trials being hidden in the box on the left, whilst the other half witnessed the object being hidden in the box on the right during A trials. The presentation of the accurate and inaccurate B trials was further counterbalanced across participants, as half of the participants viewed the inaccurate B trials first, and the other half viewed the accurate B trials first. 3.4. Ethical approval Ethical approval for this study was granted by the departmental ethics committee (DEC) at Lancaster University. Guardians were recruited via their preferred contact method and were sent the participant information sheet to read before agreeing to take part in the study. A date and time of testing was arranged at the Babylab building at Lancaster University, via telephone or email. Upon arrival, guardians were presented with the consent form to sign and initial all points before being allowed to take part. They were also given the opportunity to ask any questions about the study and were informed that they could withdraw at any time. After the study, the guardian received a five-pound contribution to travel costs, along with a free children’s book for the infant, as a reward for taking part in the study. The guardian also received a debrief sheet to read and to take home, providing them with all contact information of the lead researcher, if they wished to ask any questions or to withdraw from the study. 3.5. Procedure The testing took place in a private room within the Whewell building at Lancaster University. The infant and guardian were sat in front of a computer screen with the infant sat in a highchair positioned directly in front of the screen, and the guardian sat in a chair to the side, slightly behind the infant (to allow researchers to see clearly when the infant initiated a social look). The experimenter sat behind a divider at a computer, out of sight of the infant and guardian. A social engagement video of the experimenter saying, “Let’s hide the blap, can you find the blap?” was presented to the infants at the start of the experiment and between each trial, to insert social communication and guide the attention of the infant to the screen before the stimuli were presented. The infant then watched a series of video stimuli in which a novel object appeared on the screen and moved into one of two boxes, both boxes were then covered (the object was hidden), and a there was a delay period of five seconds (see figure 1). After the delay period, both boxes were revealed, and the location of the toy was visible to the infant. Any movement of the object was accompanied by a sound to guide the attention of the infant to the object, but this sound was not present when the object was revealed to avoid any leading factors when measuring infant expectation. Instead, the occluders made a simple “whoosh” sound when they were removed, to ensure the infant was paying attention. After five identical A trials, the object was then hidden in the second location and the process was repeated consisting of six B trials. However, during the B trials, the object was hidden in the second location, but was either revealed to be in the correct (accurate) or incorrect (inaccurate) location (see figure 2). This variation in outcome was presented alternately to the infant, with the object being revealed from the incorrect location for three out of the six B trials. The study lasted for approximately 10 minutes per participant. Figure 1 Example of A not B task stimuli presentation during A trials or accurate B trials. Figure 2 Example of A not B task stimuli presentation during inaccurate B trials. 3.6. Behavioural coding Infant looking time was coded online as trial lengths were infant controlled. Each trial ended when the infant looked away for four seconds. As this controlled the trial length, this was not double coded as this inherently will lead to a high agreement level. For the coding of infant first look and number of social looks, the videos recorded of the participants were saved and uploaded onto Microsoft OneDrive to be offline coded. First look was defined as the direction that the infant first looked towards once the occluder was removed and the object was revealed. On trials where the infant was not looking as the occluder was removed, the first look was defined as the direction in which they looked once their gaze returned to the screen. The first look direction was coded as correct and incorrect. The number of social looks initiated by the infant per trial was also measured during coding, defined by the infant turning towards the guardian during each trial after an outcome was revealed. Twenty percent of the videos were dual coded and there were no discrepancies between researchers during the dual coding process for first looks (r = 1, p<0.01) or social looking (r= 1, p<0.01).
Prospect theory and intermediate audience: the effects of context on behavioural intention
Prospect theory, gain/loss framing, intermediate audience, communication research, health communication, vaccination
Prospect theory predicts how people react to gain or loss-framed outcomes in dilemma situations, where the potential consequence of the choice is framed as a gain (e.g., lives saved) or as a loss (lives lost). This gain-loss framing communication strategy, derived from the theory, has been applied in many contexts, from promoting the use of reusable coffee mugs to vaccination compliance, with loss-framed appeals being found generally to be more persuasive than gain-framed appeals in the context of promoting vaccination. The current study focused on exploring whether these well-established effects persist when an intermediate audience is exposed to gain/loss-framed messaging, using influenza (flu) vaccination intentionality as an outcome. Intermediate audiences refer to those who are evaluating the gains and losses from the message on behalf of someone else (the ultimate audience), while normal audiences are those making decisions on their own behalf. Two hundred participants were recruited for an online, between-subject study, in which participants were split into two audience conditions and within which they were further split to view a gain-framed or a loss-framed message. Their subsequent behavioural intentions were measured as the outcome, with age as a potential moderating factor (and emotional attachment as a potential mediator exclusively for the intermediate audience condition). Results indicate that neither age nor emotional attachment are significant moderators or mediators. Loss-framed appeal enjoyed a persuasive advantage over the gain-framed appeal only in the intermediate audience condition. Possible interpretations of results, along with potential further directions of research, are discussed.
To test the outlined hypotheses, our current study took the form of an online Qualtrics questionnaire (see appendix B for questions) where the questionnaire would introduce participants to one of the audience conditions and view the appropriate version of the manipulated message before moving on to answering some items measuring their behavioural intention and emotional attachment. The study has a 2 (intermediate/normal audience condition) X 2 (gain/loss-framed appeal) design with emotional attachment as a potential mediating variable for the intermediate audience condition and behavioural intention as the outcome variable for all audience conditions. Participants We recruited 200 healthy adults based in the UK on Prolific, an online research participant recruitment platform. Participants have provided consent and completed the study remotely with their personal devices. Their unique Prolific ID was used in this study as the only identifier, which cannot be traced back to them personally. Participants were compensated monetarily for their participation. We randomly assigned our participants to one of the four audience conditions with 50 participants each: the normal gain-framed condition, the normal loss-framed condition, the intermediate gain-framed condition, and the intermediate loss-framed condition. Questionnaire design Consent The participant gave consent to participate in the study with the Qualtrics consent element so that participants can check a box for each item. There were seven items that the participants had to check one by one before commencing the study. Responses which failed to provide a full response in the consent item would be removed from the study. Demographics For demographics, we have recorded the participants' age and gender for the records. As mentioned, age was also analysed as a moderator as part of our analysis. We have also recorded their Prolific IDs to ensure completion and arrange payment. Settings of the study After giving demographic information, participants were introduced to a small piece of information that gave them the context of this study. In normal audience conditions, participants were told that someone had sent them an ad about the flu vaccination, which refers to the manipulated message they will soon view. While for the intermediate audience, on top of the information that is revealed to the normal audience, they were exclusively told that they were a manager in a small town's paper company, which gives them the role of an intermediate audience (manager) who must evaluate the later presented message on behalf of other parties (employees) with themselves irrelevant to the gains and losses. Material We have chosen flu vaccination as our topic malady for the manipulation messages as COVID vaccines, as used in recent studies, are perhaps less relevant in what is generally thought of as the post-COVID era. Flu vaccinations, unlike many other vaccines, remain relevant to the major population and most age groups. To allow a closer resemblance to real-world settings and increase the generalisability of the results, we have made unofficial Facebook posts that claim to be from the NHS as the message format. Participants were informed that the graphics were not an actual Facebook post from the NHS but rather a material used solely for this study. See Figure 2 for an example, and appendix A for the complete set of stimuli presented to the participants in the study. Audience condition. Figure 2 is the gain-framed version of the message from the normal audience condition. In normal audience conditions, the message communicates directly to the participants, stating the potential pros or cons for the participants when the participants decide to vaccinate or not vaccinate. In this condition, it is assumed that the participants evaluated the message on their behalf and nobody else's. While on the contrary, the intermediate audience condition communicates a slightly different message. The "you" in the message is replaced by "your employees". The purpose of this is to highlight that the participants evaluate this message as an intermediate audience (the manager), deciding whether they would recommend the vaccine to somebody else (the ‘ultimate audience’) given the outlined potential gains and losses, while the gains and losses remain irrelevant to the participants personally. Message framing. The figure is a gain-framed message, and as mentioned, it follows the logical flow of "if you vaccinate, good things will happen". As we can see in Figure 2, if the recipient vaccinates, then according to the text, he/she would have a reduced chance of infection and a reduction in the duration and severity of the symptoms. The lost-framed version of the message follows the logical flow of "if you do not vaccinate, bad things will happen." So, in contrast to figure 2, the lost framed messages would say if the recipient does not vaccinate, he/she would have an increased chance of infection and increase in duration and severity of the symptoms. The two messages communicate the same reality and are logically equivalent. Hence, any differences between the groups can be attributed to the message framing. Check questions. After viewing the message, the participants were asked two questions regarding the ads content before moving on to later questions. The check questions were designed to be simple reading comprehension questions that check whether the participants attended to the message in the reading process. We have removed all responses failing to provide a correct answer in either one of the questions. Behavioural intention After viewing the framed messages, we have several Likert scale 7-point agree-disagree items used to measure the behavioural intention of the participants. However, given the audience condition differences and hence the potential differences in the decision-making process, behavioural intention for the two types of audience is defined differently. For the intermediate audience condition, behavioural intention is defined as "the intention to recommend/promote behaviour to the ultimate audience (employees)". While for the normal audience conditions, we measure their intention to get the vaccination for themselves. Both audience conditions responded to six items probing their behavioural intentions. In the normal audience condition, participants were asked how likely they would be to get the flu jab, how urgent they thought it is, and whether they would likely plan to get a flu jab after viewing the message. There are also items with reversed wordings asking whether they think getting a flu jab is NOT urgent. The intermediate audience was asked how likely they are to recommend the flu vaccine to their employees and how urgent and necessary they believe the vaccine is to their employees. (See the appendix for the complete set of questions.) Emotional attachment As mentioned, there are speculations revolving around the involvement of relational dynamics and relevant emotions in the intermediate audience. Therefore, we have arranged a set of questions probing the participant's emotional attachment towards the employee exclusively for the intermediate audience condition. There were four questions in total in this part of the study, which focused solely on the participants' sense of protection towards the employee, asking to what extent the participants thought that the vaccine was necessary for the employee's own good and well-being, and to what extent were the participants eager to protect them; an item with reversed wordings were also included. (See the appendix for the complete set of questions.) Method of analysis We analysed the data using the clm() and clmm() functions from the ordinal package in RStudio using R version 4.1.1. We first confirmed the main effects of message framing and audience conditions using clm(), and then we moved on to analyse the magnitude of random interacting effects of age, question type and individual differences. The reason for choosing cumulative link models (clm) was that the models were designed explicitly for ordinal variables like Likert scales, which predict the probability of each response level, unlike some metric models and prevent type 1 and type 2 errors resulting from forcing ordinal variables onto metric models (Liddell & Kruschke, 2018). As for emotional attachment, given each item was probing quite a different emotion (e.g., sense of responsibility/ sense of protection), we have decided to fit a multivariate ordinal variable using the mvord() function to see if there is a significant difference in the multiple emotional outcomes under different audience condition, after which we investigated if any emotional attachment item was a significant predictor of behavioural intention using another clm model. We have also fitted clm() models including the interaction term between age and conditions predicting behavioural intention to see if age moderates the relationship between message framing and behavioural intention as proposed. Lastly, we have fitted a cumulative link mixed model (clm) to consider the role of potential sources of random effects such as participant differences and question differences in the analyses.
Does Noise Affect How Children Learn Grammar in the Classroom?
In a classroom environment noise can be a significant impediment, obstructing and distorting essential information being taught. Extensive prior research consistently indicates that noise has a detrimental impact on learning, those who learn in noise retain and comprehend far less information than their counterparts who learn in quiet. To date there are no studies that investigate the effect of noise on learning grammar specifically -the primary aim of the current study is the address this research gap. This paper details our recruitment of 16 children aged 7– 12 through the Babylab database at Lancaster university. This study employed a between participants design, where children completed a three-part audio evaluation, engaged in an artificial grammar paradigm, and a undertook a working memory task. The artificial grammar paradigm was employed as our primary assessment tool, participants were exposed to the grammar either in noise or in quiet. Results were analysed using a multiple regression with total grammar score as the dependent variable and age, gender, condition, and working memory as the independent variables. In contrast the prior research, our results revealed that the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variable was statistically nonsignificant, proving our null hypotheses to be true. These findings suggest that background noise does not affect how children learn grammar in the classroom challenging the existing understanding that noise negatively impacts learning. Analysis In order to answer our research questions we will carry out a multiple linear regression using IBM SPSS Statistics (version 28). We will be employing a between participants design where we will examine the effect of background noise (noisy and quiet) on total grammar score. Our additional independent variables will be working memory, gender and age. If we find a statistically significant result with regard to grammar score then we will be conducting a post hoc test on grammar score breaking them down into aX and Yb in order to determine the difference between the two types of grammar.
Participants 16 children aged 7-12 years old participated in this study, unfortunately due to technical issues 5 participants’ data were excluded leaving 11 children’s data to be included in the analysis (M=8.64, SD=1.63, female=7, male=4). Children were recruited through the Lancaster University Babylab database and by flyers posted on social media and local community. A requirement of the current study was that children be English speaking monolinguals, this is because an abundance of research has indicated that those who can speak two or more languages are at a far greater advantage when it comes to new language acquisition (Antoniou et al., 2015). Therefore, in order to control the likelihood of extraneous variables such as this we ensured all participants were English speaking monolinguals only. Furthermore, children were also required to have normal vision or corrected to normal vision. To rule out hearing loss all children had to pass an otoscope inspection, a tympanometry test, and a pure tone hearing screening at 20dB in the standard frequencies (250Hz-8kHZ). The current study employed a between participant design whereby subjects were allocated to a condition based on their age and gender -age was categorised into 7-9 and 10-12 in order to ensure that there were as equal an amount of males and females in each condition over all ages. It is crucial for the validity of the study that children are only exposed to the artificial grammar paradigm once or data will be rendered unreliable as they will have an unfair advantage over the other participants. Ethics for the current study have been obtained from the Departmental Ethics Committee (DEC), Psychology Department at Lancaster University. Materials This study was conducted within a double walled soundproof chamber at Lancaster University’s PELiCAN lab where the participant sat at a desk with a monitor placed in front of them. A secondary researcher was present in the lab for health and safety purposes. Consent and assent forms, a background questionnaire on the child’s hearing, audio evaluation results, and task data were all recorded on REDCap (Harris et al., 2009; Harris et al., 2019): a GDPR compliant application for data capture. Travel compensation was provided: £5 within 40 minutes and £10 for over 40 minutes. Furthermore, children received a certificate and book of their choosing from the PELiCAN lab. The audio evaluation This study was comprised of three sections: an audio evaluation whereby an otoscope examination, tympanometry test, and audiogram using Affinity Suite were conducted. During the audiogram participants wore headphones and had a handheld button that they pressed when they heard the pure tone sounds. The Artificial Grammar Paradigm After passing the hearing evaluation the children completed an artificial grammar paradigm previously used by Torkildsen et al. (2013) consisting of two grammatical forms: aX and Yb. The paradigm was presented in the form of an alien game whereby the children helped an alien learn a new language. We presented the paradigm in this format in order to increase engagement; children are motivated by the colourful and curious nature of a game (Blumberg et al., 2019) and therefore we are far more likely to obtain more data (less drop outs due to fatigue and boredom). This task was created in PsychoPy and hosted by Pavlovia. The background noise In order to imitate the background noise of a classroom speech shaped noise (SSN) (e.g. Leibold et al., 2013) was emitted through a speaker on the back wall of the booth behind the child. The background noise speaker was 180 degrees on the azimuth, and the target speaker was 0 degrees on the azimuth. Background stimuli was calibrated so that for the quiet condition the stimulus was emitted at 35dB and for the noisy condition it was played at 65dB. The n-back Test of Working Memory Lastly, we conducted the 1-back test of working memory (Owen et al., 2005) which was also created on PsychoPy and hosted by Pavlovia Procedure Prior to the commencement of the study guardians gave informed consent (See Appendix C), if the child was 11 or older they gave informed assent in addition to this (See Appendix D). Guardians were then asked to complete a short background questionnaire pertaining to their child’s hearing (See Appendix H). Whilst they completed these forms the researcher began the study inside the booth; using Affinity suite it was ensured that the microphone inside the booth was turned on in order for the guardian to be able to hear what was going on inside the booth by using the headphones places outside the booth. As aforementioned, the audio evaluation consisted of three tests, these were administered in the booth by the researcher and took up to 15 minutes. Firstly, an ear inspection was conducted using an otoscope, participants were required to have clear ears free of perforations and/or any infection. Secondly, a tympanometry test was conducted whereby participants must have passed with type A (normal) results. Lastly a pure tone hearing screening was conducted at 20dB in the standard frequencies (250Hz-8kHZ). The researcher left the booth for the audiogram in order to run the program on the desktop outside the booth while the child remained inside the booth. The task consisted of 11 blocks comprised of 4 exposure items and 2 test items, before the test portion children were exposed to 4 examples of what is expected of them, they had to get these right in order for the software to move onto the test phase. If children did not get these right the researcher explained and promoted them to pick the correct answer. Children were required to press ‘x’ on the keyboard for right and ‘n’ on the keyboard for wrong, answers were saved and recorded automatically on Pavlovia. The software was run by the researcher from outside the booth and was mirrored onto the desktop inside the booth. Lastly, we conducted the 1-back test of working memory (Owen et al., 2005), where children were exposed to a number of animal sounds and were required to record weather the stimuli was a new sound or one they had heard before, ‘x’ represented repeated sound and ‘n’ represented a new sound, participants had to ensure they made a button press after each noise. Once all tasks were completed the researcher collected the child from inside the booth and a short verbal and written debrief was given to the child and guardian. Guardians were given and signed for their travel compensation, and children received a certificate from the PELiCAN lab and were able to choose a book of their liking. Participants were walked back to their car or bus to bring a close to the visit.
Third Parties and Police Use of Lethal Force: Evidence from the Mapping Police Violence Database
Lethal force, Third Parties, Police Citizen Interactions, Use of Force
Over recent years media coverage has highlighted the use of excessive force by some police officers. The use of lethal force towards black and other ethnic minority citizens has been identified as a cause for significant concern. Research in the bystander literature and in non-fatal force policing contexts has identified that third parties can have positive impacts in reducing the severity of these incidences. The role of third parties in fatal force events, however, has not been investigated. This is something which the current study seeks to address. The Mapping Police Violence database was used to identify a year’s worth of lethal force events in the US. Newspaper articles relating to these incidents have been coded in line with a predefined coding framework to examine the presence of third parties in these incidents, and the nature of any social relationships with third parties in relation to the type of lethal force utilised. The results revealed that third parties were present in just under half of incidences and that the presence of a third-party with a pre-existing social relationship to the citizen was associated with a lower likelihood of officers utilising forms of ‘less lethal’ force to the extent that it results in a citizen fatality. These findings highlight the potential importance of third parties in understanding the nature of lethal police citizen interactions, and also the potential protective role the presence of known others may have in reducing the likelihood of officers excessively utilising forms of less lethal force.
A secondary data analysis was utilised to examine the presence of third parties in incidences of police use of lethal force. The Mapping Police Violence database (Mapping Police Violence, 2020) was the primary dataset utilised for the study. This is a freely available and open public database compiled by researchers in the US which aims to provide a record of all police involved deaths in the US. This database has been recording police involved deaths in the US since 2013, primarily gathering information through news articles published by various American news outlets. The type of force engaged in by officers that resulted in death was utilised as the outcome variable. The predictor variables were the presence of third parties, the presence of any known third parties, or unknown third parties, the number of officers present, the presence of other emergency services, the location of the incident, the race of the citizen, the gender of the citizen, the alleged presence of a weapon, the initial reason for the encounter, the presence of any digital technology capturing the event and the level of threat posed to the officer. The Mapping Police Violence database records multiple variables in relation to these incidences, including individual and situational factors. Several of the predictor variables included in the current study have been gathered from this dataset; specifically, the type of lethal force used, the alleged presence of a weapon, the race of the citizen, the gender of the citizen, the level of threat posed to the officer, the initial encounter reason and the presence of a body worn camera. Within the current study, most of these variables have been used as recorded in the dataset, however, the level of threat posed to the officer has been recategorized. The multiple different levels of threat recorded in the dataset have been regrouped into three categories: attack (indicating the greatest level of threat to the officer), other (referring to any other level of threat), and none (for incidences in which it was clear there was no threat to the officer). In the original data only the presence of a body worn camera is recorded. For the current study this variable has been transformed to include the presence of any digital technology capturing the event, such as CCTV or smartphones, as research has found that the presence of any digital technology and not only a body camera can affect police citizen interactions (Shane et al., 2017). The Mapping Police Violence database records the citizen’s cause of death in relation to the type of force utilised. In incidences where multiple types of force have been identified as contributing to the citizen’s death, the database records a list of all types of force involved. The types of force included in the database include gun, taser, pepper spray, baton and physical restraint. For the current study, these types of force have been grouped, to provide an outcome variable with fewer levels. The grouping of the outcome variable has been done in line with previous research looking at police use of force, which identified a gun as a distinct type of force due to the increased risk of lethal outcomes. The other types of force are grouped into a second category of other types of ‘less lethal’ force, as these types of force have been identified as alternatives to the use of a gun, which would be expected to reduce the likelihood of a citizen fatality (Sheppard & Welsh, 2022). In incidences where multiple types of force were used, the most severe form of force has been recorded; for example, if the cause of death is attributed to a gun and a taser, then this incident would be recorded as a gun as the type of lethal force utilised. The dataset contains links to the news articles which have been used to gather information regarding each of the individual police involved death incidences. The variables included in the current study relating to the presence of others were gathered by coding these news articles which are linked in the database to the individual incidences of police involved deaths between 6th March 2022 – 6th March 2023, providing a sample of 1,257 police involved deaths. News articles are a source of information which have been identified as having certain limitations, particularly relating to potential media bias in the reporting of crime related stories (Lawrence, 2000). Research looking at the reporting of police use of force incidences by newspapers, however, has found that for many factors there was consistency between news reports and police reports of the same incidents (Ready et al., 2008). For the current study, news articles are utilised due to the promise they provide in allowing the events of police involved deaths to be examined in relation to the presence of third parties. To identify the relevant incidences for the current study, three primary exclusion criteria were applied prior to the coding of the news articles. Firstly, to identify incidences with news articles with sufficient information to allow the presence of third parties to be examined, a minimum word count of 150 words was required in at least one of the associated news articles. Secondly, as the study’s primary interest was in the use of lethal force, which involves an on-duty officer using force, only incidences relating to on duty officers were included. Finally, incidences in which the use of force by the officer was accidental, such as car crashes that police officers were involved in, were excluded, as these events have different characteristics to those in which officers intentionally engage in the use of force towards a citizen. The application of these exclusion criteria left a sample of 1052 incidences of police use of lethal force. To investigate the presence of others in these incidences, prior to the analysis a predefined behavioural coding scheme (Philpot et al., 2019) was created and applied to the news articles to capture the presence of third parties. This coding scheme contained 12 individual items capturing the presence of third parties and any social ties between third parties and the citizen involved in the incident (See Appendix A for the full coding scheme). Two additional items were included to capture the presence of multiple officers or other emergency services. One code regarding the location of the incident was also included to capture whether it occurred in a public, semi-public or private location. Each of the items were coded for presence with a 1, their absence recorded with a 0, or if it was not clear whether this item was present a 99 was recorded. In total 15 codes were included in this behavioural coding scheme. Here are some examples of these codes relating to the presence of third parties: “The presence of a third-party with a pre-existing social connection to the primary citizen involved” “The presence of more than one officer” “The presence of a third-party with no pre-existing social connection to the primary citizen involved” To facilitate the process of coding the news articles in line with the coding scheme, a Qualtrics survey (https://www.qualtrics.com) was created. This survey presented the individual items within the coding framework in a questionnaire format, allowing the items to be coded in the format of closed ended responses to questions relating to the presence of third parties. The responses from the survey were then transferred to an Excel document to allow the data to be prepared for analysis. Ethical approval has been obtained for this study. The study has been reviewed and approved by a member of the Lancaster University Psychology Department, the ethics partner of the supervisors. The reliability of the coding scheme and its application to the news articles was assessed through the double coding of 10% of the sample by a second researcher separately to the primary researcher. To assess the level of agreement between the two researchers for each variable, Gwet’s AC1 (Gwets, 2014) coefficient was calculated. In line with the recommendations of Landis and Koch (1977), the resulting coefficients were interpreted in the following way: a value of 0.4 or above indicating moderate agreement, a value of 0.6 or above indicating substantial agreement, and finally a value of 0.8 or above, indicating almost perfect agreement between raters’ scores. For 13 of the variables an agreement level of substantial or almost perfect was reached, as seen in table 1 (appendix B). For the variable relating to the third-party being a friend of the citizen there was no variation in responses (i.e., 100% agreement), and therefore a coefficient could not be calculated. For the location variable, only a moderate level of agreement was found, as a result this variable was excluded for the purpose of analysis. Figure 1 depicts a flowchart of the process undertaken to sample the relevant incidences. The first part of the flowchart shows the initial process that was undertaken to identify all police involved deaths recorded in the Mapping Police Violence database in the prior 12 months. Following the initial data collection procedure descriptive statistics were run which highlighted that in the initial sample of 1052 incidences there was very limited variation in the outcome variable of the type of lethal force utilised by officers, with 990 incidences involving a gun as the primary cause of death, and only 62 incidences involving other forms of force. In this initial sample a citizen’s cause of death not involving a gun would statistically be considered a rare event, which would have presented challenges in utilising this variable as the outcome in any subsequent analyses. In line with the recommendations of research (Shaer et al., 2019), an oversampling approach was chosen to overcome the limitations of having a rare event in the outcome variable, with further incidences in the dataset that did not involve a gun as the cause of death being oversampled so at least 10% of the sample involved a cause of death other than a gun. As can be seen in figure 1, for these incidences to be as similar to the primary sample as possible, they were only sampled for the three preceding years to limit any additional sample variation that may have been introduced by sampling a wider date range. This led to the identification of a further 182 incidences where the citizen’s cause of death did not involve a gun. The same exclusion criteria were then applied to this sample, with a further 65 incidences excluded, leaving a sample of 117 additional incidences which were coded in line with the same procedure as the initial sample. This oversampling procedure led to a final sample of 1169 incidences. The data analysis involved chi square tests of independence, to examine whether the presence of others during fatal police citizen interactions had a statistically significant relationship with the outcome variable of the type of lethal force utilised by officers. Due to the exploratory nature of the study there was not a predicted direction or nature of the relationship between the predictor variables relating to third-party presence and the type of fatal force utilised by officers (McIntosh, 2017). Prior to the main analyses, descriptive statistics were run to investigate distributions within variables and to allow any rare event variables to be identified.
A review of the PEACE interview model training and implementation in real-life interviews
PEACE model, Interviewing, Investigation, Interrogation, Training, Evaluation, Interviewing techniques, PEACE model training
Police officers in England and Wales are trained to conduct interviews in line with the PEACE model of interviewing, however, the level of implementation of the PEACE procedures can vary between organisations and over time. The present study aimed to review the quality of current PEACE model interviewing training and its implementation into interviewing practice. Initially, in Study One, 62 training feedback forms from the Cumbria police force were analysed using thematic analysis to gain an overview of the training’s strengths and weaknesses. In Study Two, 30 interviews from 10 officers trained on these courses were analysed, to see if reported intention to implement the PEACE model and techniques learnt during training were transferred into real-life interviewing practice. Data from Study One indicated that the course was satisfactorily structured and presented, with data from Study Two showing improvement for most Tier-2 interviewers interviewing abilities after training, though some interviewers failed to implement concepts and techniques covered on the training course. Potential explanations for these findings and ways to improve the transference of skills from interviewing training are discussed.
Study One Method Participants All 62 participants undertook either a Tier-2 or Tier-3 interviewing course with the Cumbria police force. Participants were currently serving officers of constable rank or higher, of which, 34 were female and 28 were male. There was considerable variance in years of service between Tier-2 interviewers and Tier-3 interviewers, though no exact measure of years of service or age was included with the data provided. Materials Data The 62 training evaluation forms were provided to the researcher by the Cumbria police force, and were from either the Tier-2 investigative interviewing or the Tier-3 investigative interviewing course. The forms contained two scales indicating levels of confidence in conducting interviews before and after receiving the training, with a further four scales indicating levels of agreement with questions relevant to the study, and a single “Yes or No” question indicating if the participant was satisfied with the training received overall (see Appendix A for the full list of questions and exact wording). For all six scales, participants rated their strength of agreement with the statement using a scale of one to five (Likert, 1932). Three open questions were included on the form that stated: “If you have any other comments about this training please record them here”, “Are there any elements of the course did you not find useful or feel require further explanation?”, “If you have any other comments to make about this course please record them below.” Ethics Ethical approval was granted by a member of the Lancaster University Psychology department before data collection and analysis began. Data was collected by the Cumbria police force with all participants consenting to complete the feedback forms with the knowledge that their comments would be evaluated to improve the training courses. All course evaluation forms were reviewed by the researcher in a secure location at Cumbria police force headquarters, with findings being stored on the secure Lancaster University OneDrive system. No information that could allow an individual to be personally identified has been included in this report. Study Two Participants Five interviewers who had undertaken the Tier-2 interview training course with the Cumbria police force and five interviewers who had undertaken the Tier-3 interview training course with the Cumbria police force were randomly selected from the sample of 62 officers who had completed the evaluation forms used in Study One. At the time of writing, no officer had undertaken further training than the course ascribed to them. Six officers were female with four being male. As in Study One, no age data was available to record. On average Tier2 trained interviewers had 2.6 years of interviewing experience (SD = 0.8) with a range of two to four years of experience, whilst Tier-3 trained interviewers had 6.4 years of interviewing experience (SD = 3.93), with a considerably wider range of between three and 14 years of experience. Materials Data Thirty interview videos were reviewed by the researcher, three from each interviewer with one interview being before training, one being as close as possible after training and one being the most recent interview that the interviewer had conducted. Of these interviews, only two were conducted with victims and 28 were conducted with suspects, with both victim interviews being conducted by Tier-3 officers. Interviews covered a wide range of offences, with eight counts of assault, three shoplifting, two of burglary, two of possession of illegal drugs, two of criminal damage, one of resisting arrest, seven of sexual assault, six of rape, and one accessory to murder. Tier-2 interviews on average lasted 21 minutes (SD = 12.29) with the shortest being only five minutes and the longest being 52 minutes, whilst Tier-3 interviews lasted on average 56 minutes (SD = 18.82) with the shortest being 18 minutes and the longest being 86 minutes. Tier-2 interviewers’ most recent interview was on average 275.4 days (SD = 182.69) after training, and the closest interview to their training date with on average 52.2 days (SD = 41.33) after completing the training. Tier-3 interviewers’ most recent interview was on average 340.2 days (SD = 64.39) after training, and the closest interview to their training date with on average 36.8 days (SD = 21.07) after completing the training. Procedure The interview footage was provided by the Cumbria police force on a secure internet system only accessible from the Cumbria police station (the researcher took anonymised notes, and no video recordings or other personally identifiable information left the secure system). From the available interview recordings, footage was selected to be as close as possible to before and after the interviewer’s training date, as well as the most recent interview where the interviewer acted as the lead or sole interviewer. These were used to ensure the recordings gave a clear indication of pre-training ability, immediate post-training ability, and to see if training abilities were improved by the interviewing courses—as well as to check if these improvements continued after a long period since the training. Notes were subsequently coded into four categories for adherence to the PEACE model and techniques were tallied whenever used; 1) examples of preparation, 2) establishment of rapport, 3) appropriate use of the account, clarify and challenge phase and 4) the inclusion of a closure phase. The evaluation phase (where interviewers are given feedback on their performance) of the PEACE model wasn’t included in this study, as this process wasn’t included in the footage of the interviews. The development of the categories and the categorisation of behaviours was informed by the PEACE model training research by Hall (1997) and Clarke and Milne (2001). Examples of preparation included behaviours such as highlighting new information that did not refer to notes or inference, preparation of questions and a clear understanding of the interviewee’s circumstances and case. The establishment of rapport was noted when interviewers used jokes or friendly language, open and trusting body language (eye contact, open posture, mirroring of behaviour, Sandler & Lillo-Martin, 2006), or showed concern or interest in the interviewees’ needs, such as asking if they needed refreshments or asking how they felt. Appropriate use of the account, clarify and challenge phase was categorised by interviewers allowing the interviewee time to give an account (following the 80-20 rule of conversation management, Shepherd, 2007), clarifying unclear statements through summarising or re-asking questions, and asking questions which challenged accounts given by the interviewee. The inclusion of a closure phase was noted by the use of summarising accounts at the end of an interview, explaining what will happen after the interview concludes and giving the interviewee time to ask questions or provide further comments. The use of techniques mentioned on the evaluation forms as being taught and as seen on the courses syllabuses were recorded. These techniques were the use of the SER3 notetaking system, the use of silence, the use of a second interviewer, the use of open-ended questions, bad character warnings and special warnings. The counts for both adherence to the PEACE model and techniques utilised were subsequently tallied and compared between Tier2 and Tier-3 interviewers. Obtainment of a confession was not recorded in the data, as interviewees often enter an interview knowing if they intend to confess or not (Milne & Bull, 1999), and interviews repeatedly stifled by “No comment” responses would incorrectly be reported as failures. Ethics Ethical approval was granted by a member of the Lancaster University Psychology Department’s ethical committee and was approved by the Cumbria police force.
An Investigation into the Effects of Temporary Visual Deprivation on Cortical Hyperexcitability, and Links with Multisensory Integration
Cortical hyperexcitability, pattern glare, sensory hallucinations, temporary visual deprivation, migraine with aura
Cortical hyperexcitability is a state of highly increased neuronal activity in the brain. The current research is a novel investigation into the effects of short term temporary visual deprivation on cortical hyperexcitability and resultant aberrant visual experiences in non-migraineurs, migraine with aura, and migraine only participants. This research also assesses the link between cortical hyperexcitability and its effects on aberrant experiences across all senses; vision, audition, gustation, olfaction, and bodily sensations. Forty-three participants, including three migraine aura sufferers and three migraine only sufferers, completed the pattern glare test to induce and measure state-based cortical hyperexcitability under normal and temporary visual deprivation conditions, along with two questionnaire measures; the Cortical Hyperexcitability Index (version II; CHi-II), measuring trait-based cortical hyperexcitability; and the Multi-Modality Unusual Sensory Experiences Questionnaire, assessing aberrant experiences across senses. Results indicated no effect of temporary visual deprivation on cortical hyperexcitability, although migraine aura participants reported higher cortical hyperexcitability levels overall compared to migraine only and non-migraineurs. State-based pattern glare was not associated with unusual experiences in senses aside from olfactory, however the trait-based CHi-II was strongly correlated with unusual auditory, gustatory, and bodily sensations. Potential methodological and theoretical reasons for these results are discussed, alongside improvements and new directions for future research.
Participants Forty-three participants took part in this study, consisting of 28 females and 15 males. All participants were students at Lancaster University with a mean age of 22.5 years, ranging from 19 to 36 years (SD=2.92, SE=0.45). Twenty-two participants were native English speakers, and 21 spoke English as their second language. Of these participants, three self-reported suffering with migraine only (MO) and three with migraine with aura (MA). Participants were recruited using opportunity sampling, and all gave fully informed consent before completing the experiment. Prior to participation, all participants were screened to ensure they did not suffer with any form of epilepsy, seizures of an unknown origin, and that they had not recently undergone brain or eye surgery. As no subjects reported these experiences, no participants were excluded on this basis. One participant reported suffering with micropsia; a visual impairment causing distortion of object size, so was removed from future analyses. All remaining participants reported normal or corrected to normal vision (i.e. through aid of glasses or contact lenses). Two participants were later removed from analysis for unusual scores on the baseline pattern glare task measure, explained in the results section. As such, the final sample size was 40 (age: M=22.53, SD=3.02, SE=0.48). Materials and Procedure Pattern glare task. Participants completed the pattern glare task under two conditions; blindfold or non-blindfold, creating a within-subjects design. Half completed the blindfold condition first, followed by the non-blindfold condition, with the other half completing the non-blindfold condition followed by the blindfold condition. The pattern glare task utilised three black and white striped grating patterns. The low frequency grating, calculated to have a spatial frequency of 0.5 cycles per degree (cpd; Figure 1), and the high frequency grating of 5.8cpd (Figure 2) acted as baseline measures. The medium frequency was the critical triggering stimuli, with a grating of 2.5cpd (Figure 3). Stimuli measured 17.5cm by 13.5cm each and were presented on paper. They were placed on the wall at eye level 50cm from the participant, resulting in a visual angle of 15.4°. Participants completed two trials; blindfold and non-blindfold. In the non-blindfold trial, participants were presented the three striped gratings, one at a time. Participants were asked to look at the grating for fifteen seconds, focusing on a central fixation point. If they found stimuli too aversive to view for the full time, they could inform the researcher, who would promptly remove the stimuli. There were 10 second intervals between presentations of gratings to allow the researcher to prepare the next stimulus. All stimuli were presented in a randomised order, to avoid order and carryover effects confounding results. After viewing each grating, participants completed a questionnaire consisting of seventeen items (Appendix A) asking about any visual distortions and discomforts experienced whilst viewing the stimuli, such as “shadowy shapes”, “colour distortions”, and “illusory stripes”. These are termed Associated Visual Distortions (AVDs). Each question was answered using a 7-point Likert scale assessing the intensity of each AVD experienced (0 = “not at all”, 6 = “extremely”). Responses were used to calculate a pattern glare score; a measure of state-based cortical hyperexcitability triggered by the stimuli. The blindfold condition followed a similar procedure, the only difference being that participants were required to wear a blackout blindfold for five minutes at the start of the trial before viewing only the medium and high frequency stimuli and answering the questionnaire as in the non-blindfold condition. Whilst conducting the experiment, laboratory light conditions were controlled with blackout blinds covering all windows and relying on internal lighting controlled by the researcher. This prevented differences in intensity of light affecting how participants responded to the stimuli, particularly after removing the blindfold. Each pattern glare trial took approximately 10-15 minutes to complete. Additional questionnaire measures were carried out between the two pattern glare task trials, allowing a washout period for participants’ eyes to recover between viewings of uncomfortable stimuli, and excitability levels to return to normal. The full experiment took approximately 40 minutes to complete. Figure 1. Stimuli with low frequency grating (0.5 cycles per degree) for pattern glare task. Figure 2. Stimuli with high frequency grating (5.8 cycles per degree) for pattern glare task. Figure 3. Stimuli with medium frequency grating (2.5 cycles per degree) for pattern glare task. Questionnaire measures. Participants were asked to complete two different questionnaire measures; the Cortical Hyperexcitability Index version II (CHi-II; Fong et al., under review), and the Multi-Modality Unusual Sensory Experiences Questionnaire (MUSEQ; Mitchell et al., 2017). Cortical Hyperexcitability Index version II (CHi-II). The CHi-II (Appendix B) is a trait-based proxy measure for assessing experiences thought to reflect cortical hyperexcitability. Measurements from the original CHi questionnaire (Braithwaite, Marchant, Takahashi, Dewe, & Watson, 2015) correlate with neurological measures of cortical hyperexcitability (Braithwaite, Mevorach, & Takahashi, 2015), suggesting CHi accurately and reliably measures cortical hyperexcitability. The updated version (CHi-II) consists of 30 questions. Each item used a seven-point Likert response scale to rate participants’ unusual visual experiences in terms of frequency (0 = “never”, 6 = “all the time”) and intensity (0 = “not at all”, 6 = “extremely intense”). Experiences examined fall under three factors; Heightened Visual Sensitivity and Discomfort (HVSD), for example “irritation from indoor lights”; Aura-Like Hallucinatory Experiences (AHE), such as “flashes of moving shapes”; and Distorted Visual Perception, including “everyday objects look different”. Frequency and intensity scores for each question were added, making a maximum of twelve. The totals for each of the 30 items were summed to give a score of cortical hyperexcitability for each participant, with a maximum score of 360. Multi-Modality Unusual Sensory Experiences Questionnaire (MUSEQ). The recently devised MUSEQ (Appendix C) measures unusual sensory experiences across six human senses: auditory, visual, olfactory, gustatory, bodily sensations, and sensed presence of others. Within each factor, questions range from broad sensory tricks (i.e. “my eyes have played tricks on me”) to hallucinatory experiences (i.e. “I have heard a person’s voice and found that no-one was there”), encompassing a range of more common to more unusual perceptual experiences. Questions used five-point Likert scales (0 = “never; never happened”, 4 = “frequently; at least monthly”). As one item in the original MUSEQ was highly similar to an item in CHi-II, this was removed from the present version of MUSEQ used in the current study, in order to avoid conflation of results when comparing the two questionnaires. Ethics statement This research was ethically approved by the Departmental Ethics Committee at Lancaster University’s Department of Psychology on 11/05/2018.
The Effect of Systematic Variance in Action Capabilities on Grasp Ability Perception.
Embodied perception Grasp ability Affordance perception Virtual Reality
The ecological approach to visual perception asserts that individuals perceive environments relative to the possibility of action within their environment. Hence, to successfully interact with one’s environment, individuals must be able to accurately perceive the extent over which actions can be performed, widely referred to as action boundaries. Furthermore, as the world in which we inhabit is continually changing and subsequently placing various constraints upon ones action boundaries, it is necessary for individuals to be able to update their perceived action boundaries to accommodate for such variance. While research has displayed that individuals can update their perceptions to accommodate for variance, what is unclear in these circumstances is which action boundary does the perceptual system calibrate to. This study investigated this by analysing the effect of systematic variance on perceived grasp ability in virtual reality. Participants provided estimates of grasp ability following motor experience grasping with either a small, normal, large or a varied size hand. In the variance condition, participants experienced the small hand 25% of the time, the normal hand 25% of the time, and the large hand 50% of the time. The results indicated that participants’ perception of grasp ability reflected the artificial manipulation such that grasp ability was largest in the large hand condition. In addition, regarding the variable condition participants took all visual information into consideration however erred on the side of caution. However, it may be that factors such as age and personality influenced the results.
Open Science Framework (OSF) This study has been pre-registered with the OSF; See https://osf.io/zkjdt/ for the main OSF project page. The following study deviated from the pre-registration in that data collection occurred for 12 days longer than initially intended as participant uptake was not as high as initially assumed it would be. Participants 30 Lancaster University Students (5 males and 25 females) aged between 18-26 (Mage = 21.07, SDage = 1.17), naïve to the purpose of this study, participated. All participants were recruited via opportunity sampling, utilising the Lancaster University Sona research participation system, advertisements and the researcher’s social network, and were paid £5 for their participation. Of these participants 29 were right-handed, and one was mixed-handed. The one mixed-handed participant elected to complete the study with their right hand, therefore, the following conclusions and data should be treated as all right-handed participants. In addition, all participants had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and had no known medical history of visual atypicalties, beyond being long or short-sighted, motoric or rheumatologic difficulties. All participants provided informed consent. Lancaster University Research Ethics Committee granted ethical approval for this study. Stimuli and apparatus A virtual environment was developed in Unity 3D© Gaming Engine with the Leap Motion plugin. The 3D VR colour display comprised a 3D model of a room in which a table was located in the centre. Upon this table were either two grey dots (in the calibration trials; See Panel A of Figure 2) or a grey block (block size manipulation trials; See Panel B Figure 2). The participant’s viewed the VR from a first-person perspective reflecting their natural eye-height. The environment was presented to participants through an Oculus Rift CV1 HMD, which displayed the stereoscopic reality at 2160×1200 at 90Hz split over both displays (Binstock, 2015). The movement of the head was tracked by the head mounted display (HMD) and updated in real-time as the participant looked around the environment. Furthermore, the location of the hand was tracked in real-time, using the Leap Motion hand-tracking sensor mounted on to the Oculus Rift CV1 HMD, and was mapped onto the virtual hand thereby causing the virtual hand to move in correspondence with the natural hand. Procedure Each participant was required to attend one testing session, which lasted approximately 30 minutes in duration. Prior to the commencement of the study, full information regarding the requirements of the study was provided by means of a written information sheet. This information sheet was supplemented with a verbal explanation and an opportunity to ask questions. Once full understanding of the study requirements was established, participants provided informed consent and were reminded of their right to withdraw. Following the attainment of consent, participants were required to complete a simple demographic questionnaire notably detailing the participant’s age, sex, hand dominance, and the presence of ocular atypicalities and motoric or rheumatologic difficulties. Critically, at this time the grasp that the participants are required to visualise employing during the perceptual task was defined and demonstrated. This grasp was defined as the ability to place their thumb on one edge of the block and extend their hand over the surface of the block and place one of their fingers on the parallel edge of the block. Following this participants were required to don the oculus rift HMD with attached Leap Motion Sensor and complete four experimental conditions, the order of completion was randomly counterbalanced across participants. The four experimental conditions were the constricted grasp condition, the normal grasp condition, the extended grasp condition and the systematically varied grasp condition. In the constricted grasp condition participants gained motor experience with a virtual hand that was 50% of the size of their actual hand, therefore constricting the grasp to 50% of the normal grasp ability. In the normal grasp condition participants gained motor experience with a virtual hand reflecting the true size of their actual hand, therefore grasp ability was 100% of their normal grasp ability. In the extended grasp condition participants gained motor experience with a hand that was 150 % of the size of their actual hand thereby extending their grasp ability 50% beyond normal grasp ability. Whilst in the systematically varied grasp ability condition the participants experienced the constricted hand size 25% of the time, the normal hand size 25% of the time and the extended hand size 50% of the time. Each experiential condition consisted of two phases: the calibration phase and the block size manipulation phase. The calibration phase consisted of 30 trials in which participants viewed the virtual display comprising of a table upon which two grey dots, one to the left and one to the right, were located (See Panel A Figure 2). The inclusion of a calibration phase occurred to provide the participants with the necessary amount of synchronous visual motor information to subsequently induce the illusion that the virtual hand is the participant’s hand (Kilteni et al., 2012). The engagement of this illusion is critical because if the participants do not employ this illusion, the subsequent results will not accurately reflect the study manipulations. In addition, the calibration phase provided participants with visual and motor experience regarding the action boundary associated with the virtual hand. Completion of the calibration phase required participants to touch the leftmost dot with the leftmost digit of their dominant hand and the rightmost dot with the rightmost digit again of their dominant hand. Participants were informed that it was ok if they could not reach the dot so long as they performed the action. After the participants had performed the action touching both dots, the two dots disappeared and reappeared in a different location on the table. The location of the dots and the distance between the dots was randomly varied across all 30 trials. However, the distance away from the participants that the dots appeared was maintained throughout as dictated by the Z coordinate in the study script. On completion of the calibration phase participants were instructed to place both their hands on their lap, this occurred so that the hand was out of range of the Leap Motion Sensor and hence the virtual hand was not visible in the virtual reality. At this time the virtual reality display was altered so that that the participant viewed the display of the table upon which there was a white block located (See Panel B Figure 2). Once the new display was presented the researcher placed the participant’s hand, they had just completed the calibration phase with on the right and left arrow keys of a standardised QWERTY keyboard. Participants were then instructed to imagine that they were going to grasp the block, employing the previously demonstrated grasp, and manipulate the size of the block to reflect the maximum size they believe they would be able to grasp with their dominant hand using the right and left keys. Each button press altered the size of the block by 1cm. Once the participant was happy that the block reflected the maximum size they could grasp with their dominant hand the researcher saved the final size and presented another block. This phase consisted of eight trials, in four of which the block started small at 3cm and the remaining four the block started large at 20cm. This occurred in order to control for the potential influence previous perception has on later judgements, a phenomenon commonly known as hysteresis (Poltoratski & Tong, 2014) On completion of both the calibration and block size manipulation phases for each four conditions participants were given a short verbal debrief regarding the true aims and theoretical underpinning of the study and an opportunity to ask any questions. To supplement this verbal debrief participants were also provided with a written debrief again documenting the aims and theory of the study and contact details for the lead researcher. The subsequent raw data obtained included eight maximum grasp block size estimates, four relating to the block that started at 3cm and four relating to the block that started at 20cm, for each experimental condition; small hand size, normal hand size, large hand size and variable hand size. Therefore 32 estimates were obtained from each participant.
The use of iPad technology in comparison to picture books as an aid to symbolic understanding of word – picture-object relations in typically developing preschool children, with iconicity as a mediating factor.
This study investigated how the Apple iPad in comparison to a traditional picture book may facilitate symbolic understanding of word –picture-object relations in both preschool children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In addition the iconicity of the pictures presented was manipulated, with both highly iconic colour photographs and line drawings presented to children within a word learning sequence on the Apple iPad and within a picture book. Children were repeatedly taught a novel label paired with a novel image and in a series of tasks which followed, asked to both map this novel label to a previously unseen 3 dimensional target object and to generalise this label to a novel exemplar of the target object. It was found that the majority of typically developing children were able to respond symbolically across the conditions, that is select the target object at the mapping stage and novel object at the generalisation stage. However, iconicity was found to be a mediating factor within the picture book modality, with more children responding symbolically within the Colour Book condition than in the Line Book condition. Robust symbolic responses in both the iPad conditions were at a level comparable with the Line Book condition. Therefore, the picture book appears to be of more benefit in terms of facilitating symbolic understanding of pictures in typically developing preschool children than the Apple iPad. Implications of these findings are considered with regards to the educational use of the iPad within preschool settings.
Picture book. The picture book stimuli were pictures of both familiar and unfamiliar objects presented within a picture book format, each presented singularly on a separate page, opposite a blank page. Pictures were either colour photographs or line drawings of objects. Colour photographs were high resolution images 15cm by 20cm in size. Line drawings were the same size and created by using an application on the iPad called ‘Camera FX’ which transformed the colour photographs into line drawings (Appendix B). Within each book, there were eight pictures of two unfamiliar objects (Appendix C and D) and there were five pictures of familiar objects (Appendix E) and. Each unfamiliar object was depicted four times. The test pictures used in the word learning task were presented within each book at the end of the sequence of pictures described (Appendix F). The test pictures were presented together on opposite pages and were smaller in size (15cm by 10 cm). There were four picture books created each containing different stimuli; two containing colour images and two containing line drawings. IPad. For each of the iPad conditions, an Apple iPad 2 covered by a protective case was used. Using an application called “SeeTouchLearn” on the iPad, four lessons were created (Appendix G). This application was chosen in order to replicate the picture sequences presented within the book format. Each lesson was identical to the picture book sequences in that it used the same images presented singularly in the same order of both familiar and unfamiliar objects. The pictures presented were 15cm by 11cm. The word learning task, as in the picture book stimuli was presented at the end of the training sequence. This consisted of pictures of both the unfamiliar objects presented side by side, 9cm by 7cm in size. Using the iPad’ built in microphone audio stimuli was integrated into the lesson. This was different from the book conditions in which images were named or highlighted by the researcher. Tasks. The stimuli for the subsequent tasks consisted of four laminated pictures of the target objects (either colour or line drawing dependent upon the condition), 18cm by 13cm in size and sixteen 3 dimensional objects. Of these 3 dimensional objects, four were the target objects that had been depicted in the training picture sequences, four were previously unseen familiar objects (cup, horse, book, phone), four were the distractor objects that had been depicted in the picture sequences and four were novel exemplars of the target objects (different colour). For each condition different stimuli were used in the tasks that followed the training sequence and word learning task. These consisted of one target object, one familiar object, one distractor object and one novel object alongside the target picture for that condition. Each session for which additional consent had been obtained by parents was video and audio recorded using a video camera and tripod. Procedure Participants were tested individually and took part in all four conditions within one session, counterbalanced for order. Two of the children shown signs of not wishing to continue at that time and so completed the remaining condition/s at a different time. Each participant was asked if they would like to “look at some pictures” with the researcher. Upon agreeing to this request, the child was shown to a quiet room within the setting where a small table was placed in the middle of the room with two chairs at right angles to one another. The camera and tripod was set up in the corner of the room to record those children for whom additional consent had been obtained. The participant was informed that they would were going to look at some pictures and if they still wished to take part then the testing session began. Each condition was presented to the child within the same session due to time constraints. If the child began to lose interest or appeared not to want to take part then the session was stopped immediately and the child went back into the setting to play. Training stage. The child was shown a series of pictures within the picture book iPad consisting of five familiar items as well as two unfamiliar items (distractor/ target picture). The familiar items were named once (“look it’s a dog”). The unfamiliar target object was named twice (“look it’s a dax/ged/yat/wug. See the dax/ged/yat/wug!”). The unfamiliar distractor object was highlighted to the participant but not named (“Look at this!”). At the end of the series of pictures, the participant was presented with two pictures (target/distractor) within the book /application and asked to identify the target picture (“show me a Dax/Ged/Yat/Wug”) in order to confirm the child’s ability to map the novel label to the novel picture. If the child had successfully mapped the novel label to the target picture and pointed to the target picture then the researcher moved onto the subsequent tasks. If the child pointed to the distracter picture and therefore had not successfully mapped the novel label to the target picture, then the researcher highlighted the correct picture to the child (“actually this is dax/ged/yat/wug. Can you touch the dax/ged/yat/wug? Let’s play again”) and the sequence was repeated again until the child was successful in identifying the target picture. The number of training stage repetitions was recorded. The procedure was identical for the iPad conditions except that the labelling of the target and familiar objects and the question asked at the word learning task had been previously recorded onto the lessons within the application. Mapping task. The child was presented with the target picture and the target object (3D object) and asked “show me a dax/ged/yat/wug.” The task sought to establish if the child was able to extend the novel label they had learned through the previous associative pairing of the picture and a novel label to a real world exemplar of the picture. If the child selected the target picture then this should be taken as indicative of associative learning. However, if the child selected either the target object alone or the picture and object then this would indicate a symbolic understanding of the word – picture – object relationship. Perservation Control Task. The child was presented with the target picture and a familiar object (book/horse/phone/cup) and asked to show the researcher the familiar object. The task sought to establish if the child was able to switch task demands and identify a different object to the one that had previously been reinforced. Object bias Control Task. The child was presented with the target picture and the distractor object (3D) and asked to identify the dax/ged/yat/wug. This control task sought to establish if the child was able to override the salience of the 3 dimensional object and successfully choose the target picture. A response which included the distractor object in this task as well as the 3D objects in the three other tasks would be indicative that the child had a bias for selecting objects rather than fully comprehending the word –picture – object relationship. Generalisation task. The child was presented with the target picture and a different coloured exemplar of the target object and asked to identify the dax/ged/yat/wug. The task sought to establish if the child was able to extend the novel label they had previously learnt and generalise it to a different coloured exemplar of the target object. Selecting the novel object in this task would be indicative of a robust understanding that pictures serve as referents for categories of real world objects. Coding Only intentional responses were coded. This were categorised as such if the child intentionally pointed to or handed or slid the picture / object to the researcher. If a child merely played with the object then their attention was redirected to both objects and the question was asked again. If the child continued to play with the object without intending to respond to the question asked, then this was recorded as a non-response and not included in the final analyses. Responses were coded as picture only, object only or both picture and objects. Audio and video recordings for those children who gave additional consent were used to clarify any ambiguous responses.
Pitch-Brightness Correspondence in Four-month-old Infants
Adults, children, and infants as young as 10-months have been shown to appreciate a correspondence between auditory pitch and visual brightness, with most participants associating high-pitch with brighter stimuli and low-pitch with darker stimuli. Research across ages is vital for understanding more about the developmental trajectory of crossmodal correspondences. The present study used preferential looking to examine the sensitivity of 4-month-old infants to the pitch-brightness correspondence. Following Mondloch and Maurer (2004), infants were presented with a display of two balls bouncing simultaneously. One ball had a dark surface-brightness, whilst the other had a brighter surface. A single, high or low-pitch sound accompanied the bounce of both balls onto the surface. The research examined whether infants looked differentially to the ball which adults would generally classify as matching. Infants did not look significantly longer to the ball with the congruent pitch-brightness matching. Infants did however look preferentially towards the black ball across trials. It is proposed that this could be the result of the brightness-weight correspondence, whereby darker objects are thought of as heavier than brighter objects. It is therefore possible that infants look longer towards the black ball as it is the heavier ball which should produce the sound, regardless of pitch.
Animations were displayed on a 49cm x 39cm screen, surrounded by black card and screens to block-out excess light and other distractions. Initially, infants were seated (legs stretched forwards) on their caregiver’s lap for the experiment. In this position infants tended to lean forwards, looking towards the floor, meaning that the amount of codeable looking-time was very limited; this procedure was therefore abandoned after four infants had been tested and these infants were excluded from the sample. To increase looking towards the display new approaches were taken. Nine infants were seated 80cm from the screen in a supportive, from-birth highchair. Fourteen infants were seated in an alternative position on the caregiver/researcher’s lap. Infants were now held in a relatively upright position to reduce the likelihood that infants would look towards the floor or their feet. How infants were seated was decided by considering: infants’ head-support, familiarity with high-chair, and infant reactions. It was not thought that being in the high-chair or on the lap would significantly affect looking behaviour. All animations involved variants of balls bouncing on a horizontal surface. All balls had a diameter of 4cm and were identical to one another aside from their surface brightness. The brightness of balls was measured in candela per square meter (cd/m²) using a lux-meter. A higher cd/m² reading equates to a higher degree of luminosity/brightness. The balls appeared to bounce on a medium brightness (39.52cd/m²), green surface, which had a 49cm diameter. The background of displays was a diffused cloud image which was also medium brightness (57.06cd/m²). The image was blurred slightly to reduce contrast and make the background less visually interesting. It was important that the surface and background had a medium brightness and were not distracting, so as not to alter the effect of ball brightness. Previously, white dots on a black background have been used to portray depth; alternatively this experiment used the clouds and converging-line surface to depict 3-Dimensions. In the familiarization phase there was one ball of standard-brightness (53.86cd/m²) with a diameter of 4cm. This ball moved up and down along a 25cm vertical axis, stopping for 0.05s at the bottom and 0.1s at the top. The up-down motion of the ball gave the impression that it was bouncing on the surface. The bounce was accompanied by a sound of standard-pitch (782Hz) which lasted for 0.25s. The familiarization trial was presented to indicate to infants that a single ball produces a single noise when it hits a surface. This was important for the test trials as we did not want infants to perceive that the balls in unity were producing the sound. The standard-brightness and standard-pitch of this ball could also be used as reference-points for the brightness and pitch in test trials. The test animations consisted of three balls, each with a diameter of 4cm. The standard-brightness ball (53.86cd/m²) from the familiarization phase remained stationary at the centre of the surface as a reference point. Alongside the standard ball there were two test balls. Both balls differed only in terms of their surface-brightness. One of the balls had a duller, black surface-brightness (6.3cd/m²) and the other had a brighter, white surface-brightness (144.25cd/m²). Two, independent, vertical trajectories of 25cm formed the path of movement for each ball. Similar to the standard animation, the balls bounced on the surface in synchrony, to either side of the stationary ball (see Figure 1); stopping for 0.05s at the bottom and 0.1s at the top. As the balls hit the surface, a higher-pitch (2096Hz) or a lower-pitch (228Hz) sound was produced which lasted for 0.25s. Figure 1. These figures are screenshots of the animations seen by infants. The two shots display how the two balls moved in synchrony along vertical trajectories. The pitch of a sound can affect its perceived loudness. Controlling for sound loudness was crucial because of the correspondence between loudness and brightness (Marks, 1989). To ensure that loudness was not responsible for the effect, the perceived loudness of sounds were equalized. dBA (A-weighted decibels) is a measure of relative intensity perceived by the human ear, weighted for frequency (Plack, 2013). To ensure that perceived loudness did not vary, it was important that sound dBA was approximately the same. A sound-level meter (placed where the infant would sit) was used to measure the dBA of each sound. When sounds were created in Audacity, they were produced with equivalent amplitude. However when the sounds were played, the medium-pitch (782Hz) sound produced a higher 77.2dBA , compared to 72dBA and 71.3dBA for the high (2096Hz) and low-pitch (228Hz) sounds respectively. This meant that the medium-pitch sound would be perceived louder. To compensate for this, a 6dB gain was added to the high and low-pitch sounds. Therefore the relative loudness of the sounds had a much smaller range of values: 76dBA (high-pitch), 76.6dBA (low-pitch), and 77.2dBA (medium-pitch). Although the dB of two sounds needed to be increased, the frequencies of all sounds are within the normal hearing range of 20Hz to 20kHz (Plack, 2013). To confirm that these tones sounded psychologically equivalent, four adults listened to the sounds and were asked ‘Does any tone sound louder than any other tone?’ All participants reported that sounds had equivalent volumes. Design The dependent variables in this study were looking-time and number of fixations to the white and black balls. These variables were measured to examine whether infants look preferentially to congruent/incongruent pitch-brightness displays to determine whether they appreciate the pitch-brightness correspondence. To examine this, a 4 (trial) x 2 (pitch: low vs. high) x 2 (brightness: black vs. white) x 4 (condition) mixed ANOVA design was used with 3 within factors (trial, pitch, brightness) and 1 between factor (condition). There were four distinct trials that were all seen twice by each infant, producing eight test trials. In one trial the black ball was on the left of the screen and a high-pitch sound was heard. In another high-pitch trial, the black ball was on the right. In one trial the black ball was on the left and a low-pitch sound was heard. In another low-pitch trial, the black ball was on the right. It was important that infants saw an equal number of trials with each ball on each side as this ensured that preference for looking towards one side did not affect the results. Each infant was randomly allocated to one of four conditions. All conditions contained the same displays, the conditions varied only in terms of order. Procedure The parent and infant were greeted by the experimenter, told the aims of the study and given the opportunity to ask any questions. Parents were instructed not to point towards the screen to avoid influencing looking. Informed consent was then obtained from all parents. Once the introduction was complete, the infant was seated and the study began. Firstly, infants were shown the standard animation which consisted of a single, standard-brightness ball bouncing with a standard-pitch tone. This display lasted for a maximum duration of 120s, however the trial ended once 20s of looking towards the screen had been accumulated. This time was pre-defined to ensure that all infants saw the initial display for the same duration. Once the accumulated looking-time was reached, an attention getter (auditory and visual rattle) was presented to re-direct the infants’ attention towards the screen. The test trials begun when the observer used a computer key-press to indicate that the infants attention had been retrieved. The two balls of the test trials were accompanied by a high or low-pitch sound upon bounce. Each display was presented for a maximum duration of 60s, however the trial ended if the infant looked away from the screen for 2s or longer. After each test trial, an attention getter was presented until the infant looked again. The next test trial was presented when the observer indicated that the infant regained attention. Eight test trials were presented meaning the test trials lasted a maximum of 8 minutes. Looking-times were coded live using the updated version of Habit2000 software (Cohen, Atkinson & Chaput, 2000). Each session was recorded on camera so that a proportion of infant data could be re-coded by a second observer. This allowed measurement of inter-rater reliability. Once the infant had completed the experiment, the parent was thanked for their time and given a book for their infant. They were also given a debrief and reminded of their right to withdraw their infant’s data.
The Complexity of Language Used by Parents of Children with Down Syndrome in Shared Reading Tasks
Down Syndrome shared reading cognitive complexity prompts
Shared reading is a vital part of language development for children, and this is no less true for the development of language in children with Down Syndrome. Previous research has been concerned that parents use less complicated language when a child has Down Syndrome, and that parents should encourage their child to contribute more to the reading experience. This experiment attempted to evaluate the cognitive complexity of the language used by parents of children with Down Syndrome compared to the parents with typically developing children when reading aloud with their child, and whether including prompts inside a book could alter the complexity of the language used by parents. It was found that including prompts in a book appeared to make the experience more of a shared reading experience with turn-taking between parents and children increasing in the prompted condition. This means that prompted books should be considered as a tool to train parents to use dialogic reading techniques.
Mothers of typically developing children and mothers of children with Down Syndrome were recorded whilst reading aloud with their child in both a business as usual condition where they would read together as they usually would at home, and a prompted condition where pre-determined questions were inserted into the book which the mothers were required to ask their child when the book indicated that they should. The recordings were then written into transcripts of speech and behaviour during the task. Two books were used in this experiment ‘Mooncake’ and ‘Skyfire’. The prompted condition and the business as usual condition were counterbalanced so that half of the participants read the unprompted book first, and half read the prompted book first, and half of the participants received ‘Mooncake’ as the prompted book, and the other half received ‘Skyfire’ as the prompted book. This was done to eliminate the chance that more was said during read due to a preference for one book over the other. However, both of the books were written by the same author, so the chance of a participant having a preference should have been minimal, and the books were similarly matched on difficulty and length to ensure that language would not be affected due to any differences in these criteria. The prompted book included 12 questions to scaffold the mothers into asking questions related to the book. The parent would read the text in black ink, which was the actual story, and then ask the question in blue ink inserted into the bottom of the page. These questions related to picture labelling (e.g. ‘What is that object’), vocabulary questions (e.g. ‘What does terrible mean?’), making inferences about the text (e.g. ‘Why did that character fall asleep?’), and questions which required general knowledge (e.g. ‘What else could be used in this situation?’). The language skills required to answer these questions ranged from a simpler understanding which asked a child to label objects and about simple vocabulary, both of which require a concrete, definite answer, as well as requiring a more in depth understanding of the story and a higher level of general knowledge and language skills to answer questions which require inference. Measures To compare the level of complexity between the prompted condition and the business as usual condition, certain aspects of a reading session were measured. These measures included the total word count of the session, the total amount of words spoken by the parent during the session, the total amount of words spoken by the child, the length of the session in seconds, the number of questions asked by the parent, the mean amount of turn-taking in each session, and the totalled score based on a coding system by Tompkins et al. (2013) which measures the syntactic complexity of the parent’s language throughout the session. A breakdown of the word count of the session, and the length of the reading session are able to demonstrate how prompting a parent with pre-determined questions influences the language of a parent compared to when the parent is reading as they usually would because using more words, and reading the book over a longer period of time is exposing a child to more language, and therefore may be an important factor to consider during shared reading. Furthermore, the number of questions asked by a parent is an important consideration because of previous research highlighting the need for children to be able to answer literal and inferential questions (van Kleeck, Vander Woude & Baue 2003). Turn-taking was measured by adding up the amount of utterances that included a back and forth conversation between a parent and their child and taking the mean of this amount. The word counts, the questions asked, the turn-taking episodes, and the score provided by the coding system did not include when the parent spoke the prompt aloud, any non-words such as ‘ummm’ or ‘ermmm’, or when the parent read aloud from the book itself. This ensured that language during shared reading was what was being measured or coded, and not irrelevant discussions such as the language used by a parent when managing the behaviour of their child during the task. However, sign language used by parents and children in the Down Syndrome group was included as a word or a question due to the fact that sign language is a vital method of language production for those with a language impairment. Coding System The coding system adapted from Tompkins et al. (2013) examines the clausal structure of a sentence to highlight the syntactic complexity used by the speaker. Originally this coding system was used as a measure of children’s language when they are reading aloud with a teacher, but it has been adapted for the use of parent’s language for this experiment. Syntactic complexity of the language was measured by having each utterance spoken by a parent examined and coded as either having no verb code with no clauses or sentence structure (e.g. bear there), a simple code with one clause and verb in the utterance (e.g. the bear walked quickly), or as having a complex code with two or more verb structures in the utterance (e.g. he ate the cake and fired the rocket). An utterance with no verb code was given 0 points, a sentence with simple code was given one point, and an utterance labelled as complex code was awarded two points. The points were added up for each parent and divided by the number of utterances by the parent to provide each individual with a ‘complexity score’ for each condition based on the syntactic complexity of the language used during shared reading. The points total was divided by the number of utterances to ensure that a high complexity score was due to a genuine higher complexity of language rather than the fact that the parent had spoken more and could therefore potentially be awarded more points. The coding was completed by one person, and therefore inter-rater reliability is not a concern for this experiment. Research Design A 2(condition: typically developing vs. Down Syndrome) x 2(book type: business as usual vs. prompted) mixed groups ANOVA was used in this experiment with the condition being the between subjects group with half of the participants being in the typically developing group and half of the participants being in the Down Syndrome group, and the book type being the within subjects group with all participants reading one business as usual book, and one prompted book. This was used to observe the effect of group type and the effect of book type on complexity score, the number of questions asked, the total number of words spoken by parents and children and the length of session in both the typically developing group and the Down Syndrome group to examine whether these shared reading factors changed within each group between the prompted and business as usual books. This design allowed for the study of whether parents with typically children or parents of children with Down Syndrome use more complex language, and whether a prompted book or business as usual reading can influence the use of language by a parent during the experience of shared reading.