The roles of reading motivation and reading strategies in secondary school students’ reading comprehension
reading comprehension; reading inference; reading motivation; expository and narrative texts; secondary school
The aim of the study was to investigate comprehension and inference ability in relation to text genre, reading strategies, intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation, and gender in mainstream secondary school UK students. Data were collected from a sample of 27 participants; retained data of 9 secondary school students (5 males, 4 females) data were used for the study analysis. These responses were used to inform a simulated dataset for the analysis. The participants completed an online study, which measured their intrinsic and extrinsic reading motivation The Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ; Wang & Guthrie, 2004), comprehension and inference ability of narrative and expository texts (Currie et al., 2021), and reading strategies (Denton, Wolters, et al., 2015). Due to sample size limitations the decision was made to simulate individual datasets for reading strategies, intrinsic reading motivation, extrinsic reading motivation, narrative texts, and expository texts by gender, following the simulation methods proposed by Muldoon (2019). The results of the study revealed that female participants scored lower on reading strategies and demonstrated poorer performance for narrative and expository texts. There was no gender difference found for reading motivation. These findings will be discussed in relation to our understanding of gender differences in inferential reading comprehension, reading motivation and practical implications for the classroom.
Participants The intention was to collect original data from UK Year 7, 8, 9, and 10 mainstream secondary school students. This was through schools and word of mouth. Unfortunately, schools who were approached were not able distribute the study information in time for data collection before the summer break. In total 27 students started the study and completed data was collected from 9 (5 males, 4 females; M age = 13.83 years, SD = 2.45). These data were used to inform a simulated dataset to test the study predictions.
Materials Reading Motivation To assess students’ reading motivation 7 out of 8 domains from “The Motivation for Reading Questionnaire” (MRQ): A Revised Version (Wang & Guthrie, 2004) were used (grades domain from extrinsic scale was removed). The forty-one-question scale measured extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation consisted of three domains: curiosity (7 items), involvement (7 items), and preference for challenge (5 items). Seven scales (curiosity, involvement, challenge, recognition, social and competition) reported good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha ˃ .70; Wang and Guthrie, 2004). An example of intrinsic motivation item: “I enjoy a long, involved story or fiction book”. Extrinsic motivation measured the following four domains: recognition (5 items), social (7 items), competition (6 items), and compliance (4 items). An example of extrinsic motivation item: “I like having my friends sometimes tell me I am a good reader”. Each statement had four possible answers, which were assigned values from 0 to 3 (very different from me = 0, a little different from me = 1, a little like me = 2, a lot like me = 3), and participants were asked to select the most appropriate for them. Scoring for negative item 40 was reversed before assigning the values. Text Genre Participants were asked to read 12 narrative, and 12 expository texts. Narrative texts focussed on human characteristics and activities, based on interactions with different social groups, as families, friends, peers at schools and youth clubs. Expository texts, were science-based, underpinned by chemistry, physics, biology, and geology. Each text consisted of 7 sentences, with 2 critical sentences that required an inference in order to integrate their meanings. The distance between two critical sentences was varied – either adjacent or separated by up to 3 sentences of filler text to minimise the detection of any pattern by readers, which might result in a focus on just the critical sentences, rather than reading the text as a whole. Each text was followed by one question, requiring choosing one answer from yes/no options (correct answer was allocated a value = 1; incorrect answer = 0), which assessed participant’s inference ability and comprehension. Participants completed two practice items, one expository and one narrative text, before starting the test. Reading Strategies Reading strategy knowledge was assessed with items from the Contextualized Reading Strategy Survey (CReSS; Denton et al., 2015). In this, participants read situation-based reading scenarios and rate how frequently they use different reading strategies in those situations. The three selected scenarios assessed reader’s construction integration abilities (Kintsch, 1988). An example of a scenario used for the study “As a homework assignment for your English class, you have been asked to read a story from your textbook. Tomorrow your teacher will give you a quiz about the story. Which of these things do you do to help you understand a story while you are reading or after reading?”. The following strategies were displayed for students to choose from “I try to make mental pictures of the information in the story while I read. While I am reading, I think about how the parts of the story go together. I think about what the characters are doing in the story and why they are acting as they are. I predict what I think will happen next. I think about how this story is like other stories I have read”. Each strategy had four response options, with values assigned from 0 to 3 (I almost never do this = 0; I sometimes do this = 1; I usually do this = 2; I almost always do this = 3) for participants to choose the one, which they use the most.
Procedure The study was hosted on Qualtrics platform. First, the parents/ guardians accessed the study via a link, then they provided their consent. The child saw the next screen, where they read the information about the study and provided their assent. Participants were asked to complete the task at home in their own time, outside of their school commitment time. Participants were asked to provide information about their gender, age - month and year only. Task order was: (1) reading strategies, (2) narrative texts with yes/no questions about the texts, (3) expository texts with yes/no questions about the texts, and (4) intrinsic and extrinsic reading questionnaire. For the reading strategies questionnaire, participants were asked to read 3 scenarios, as described above. They read each scenario and then indicated on a 4-point Likert scale how frequently they used each strategy. To assess inference making, participants read 12 short narrative texts, and also 12 short expository texts. Each text was shown on 1 screen with the inference-tapping question on a separate screen. They pressed a button next to YES or NO to provide their answer. The final task required participants to complete a reading motivation questionnaire. They read 19 statements for intrinsic and 22 statements for extrinsic reading motivation, and then indicated on the 4-point Likert scale how likely of them it was, as described above. The whole procedure took approximately 30 minutes. Collected data was stored in password-protected file, on password-protected Master student’s Lancaster University’s Office 360, accessed through password-protected laptop.
Ethical Considerations The research was approved by the University Department Ethics Committee, and conducted in line with the Lancaster University ethics guidelines: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/sci-tech/research/ethics/, and the BPS Code of Ethics and Conduct (2018). Measures were taken to maintain the participants’ anonymity: identifiable information as participant’s name, school name, participant’s full date of birth were not collected; with references to data collection in England. To investigate the study purposes of age and gender related differences, participant’s month and year of birth were obtained, and the student’s gender as reported by participant were collected.
The Shock Impact: An investigation of attitudes towards the use of shock tactics in charity advertisements.
While the use of shock has been praised for increasing attention, it has also been shown to cause distress and negatively affect the perception of the organization or brand. The use of shock advertising is increasingly popular in the non-profit sector, with organizations using shocking visual imagery to encourage viewers to take action against a cause or increase donations. This study aimed to deepen our understanding of attitudes held towards the effectiveness of this, and uncover attributes that contribute to this. Based on previous research into the effects of gender on advertisement preferences, we also analysed the opinions of male and female participants to unearth preferences for shocking or non-shocking advertisements. Three focus groups were conducted to collect attitudes towards charity advertisements. Participants were presented with six advertisements, split into three categories of health, animal, and child-based charities, each with one shocking and one non-shocking campaign. To compare genders, one focus group contained only males, one only female, and one mixed. It was found that the effectiveness of shock was perceived as higher for health related causes, lower for children’s charities, and mixed for animal causes. There was a difference between males and females in attitudes towards the use of shock in animal based charities, with females engaging more with the non-shocking advertisement, and males with the shocking. Results from this research improve our knowledge of when and why shock should be used in charity advertisements, how it can be used to target certain audiences.
Participants Sixteen participants were used in this study, consisting of students attending Lancaster University, with an age range from 20 to 28 years old. The sample had a majority of native speakers (13), with two Romanian and one Panamanian native speaker (English as second language). Participants were collected through opportunity sampling and took part in the study voluntarily. This study received departmental approval before data collection commenced. Design The study consisted of three focus groups: one containing only females (FGF), and one of only males (FGM) to examine any differences in attitudes between genders, and one of mixed gender (FG1) in order to assess possible conflicting attitudes within the group. Five students participated in the mixed focus group (three males, two females), five students in the female focus group, and six in the male focus group. Focus groups were conducted in a private room and lasted 40-50 minutes. Materials The stimuli presented to participants were of existing advertising campaigns released by non-profit organizations in the United Kingdom and United Sates of America. Three ‘non-shocking’ advertisements and three ‘shocking’ advertisements were chosen, with one centered around health, animal cruelty, and child abuse in both categories (Appendix A). ‘Shocking’ advertising has been defined by Dahl and colleagues (2003) as something that violates the social norm, including content that is seen as disgusting, obscene, vulgar, morally offensive, or containing sexual references. Using this definition as a guide, the ‘non-shocking’ advertisements were chosen dependent on the lack of these traits and did not include, for example, references to blood or death, obscene gestures, or violence. Adverts released by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), the National Health Service (NHS), and Battersea Dogs and Cats Home were chosen. Again, using this definition, we selected ‘shocking’ advertisements for their inclusion of the following shocking traits outlined by Dahl and colleagues (2003). Barnardo’s children’s charity was chosen for it’s obscene image of a distressed newborn baby with a Methylated Spirit bottle in its mouth. The Public Health Service’s Smoke Free advertisement featuring a cigarette that morphs into bloodied guts and tissue was chosen for its disgusting imagery. Lastly, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ (PETA) ad featuring a dead, skinned animal was chosen due to its use of offensive images of harmed animals. These were printed out and presented to the participants on paper so they could have a closer look at the advertisements. A discussion guide was created to direct the conversation in the focus groups (Appendix B). The guide was designed so to ensure continuity between the groups as advised by Malhotra (2008), helping to tailor the discussion to the topics of the research aims, while also giving participants the opportunity to express their thoughts freely. Following Goulding’s (1998) guidelines, this discussion guide was flexible, enabling the facilitator to ask further questions in relation to what was brought up in conversation. Procedure Participants were seated around a table and had access to refreshments throughout the focus group. They were given time at the beginning to get comfortable and talk with fellow participants. Each participant was given an information sheet (Appendix C) that detailed the aims of the research and what they were expected to do. They were informed that they could ask any questions they wish and had the right to withdraw at any point during or after the focus group. Once they had read the information sheet and understood what they were talking part in, participants signed the consent form (Appendix D) to agree to take part in the study. At this point they were informed that the recording would commence. The discussion guide was followed throughout, firstly introducing the topic area that was being covered by the focus group, and encouraging participants to consider advertising in general. Following this they were asked about specifically charity advertisements and any overall feelings they had towards any they have seen. Participants then discussed the advertisements presented to them. Starting with the non-shocking advertisements, participants had time to view and discuss each advert one at a time, where they were asked about its effectiveness and anything they liked or disliked about them. The definition of ‘shocking’ advertisements was then introduced and the procedure was then repeated with presenting one advertisement at a time. Participants were then asked to compare their thoughts on which advertising tactic they thought was more effective and if there was a difference in this between the types of causes that were being advertised and the action that was being asked of the audience, for example a donation or change in behavior. This was done in the same order throughout the groups to ensure consistency across the groups. Lastly any final thoughts from the group were collected and participants were informed that they could email the investigator with any further thoughts they had if they wished. They were thanked for their participation and given a debrief sheet (Appendix E) containing more information of this research into the topic area as well as the contact details of the researcher and supervisor. The recording was then transcribed, and analysed thematically through the use of NVivo qualitative data analysis software, to highlight common themes throughout all three focus groups. This enabled us to compare attitudes held towards the varying types of advertising campaigns, their causes, and any differences between genders. Analysis The transcript for each focus group was entered into NVivo (QSR International Pty Ltd. Version 12, 2017) in preparation for thematic analysis. This was designed to uncover themes throughout the focus groups in a systematic way, identifying patterns found in the opinions of the participants. In order to accurately analyse the data, the thematic guidelines proposed by Braun and Clarke (2006) were followed. The transcripts were firstly read thoroughly to ensure a level of familiarity with the conversations. They were then coded in NVivo according to their content through an inductive approach, forming codes from the data at present as opposed to attempting to fit pre-existing framework by past theories, therefore allowing us to broaden our inclusion of the attitudes recorded. The data collected in these codes were sorted into potential themes, ensuring consistency within and variation between the themes. These themes were then re-analysed, making sure they were reflective of the data collected. The final themes were then decided upon.
The Social Functionality of Language Coordination: Linguistic Alignment in Children with and Without Autism.
Linguistic alignment between conversationalists is a well documented phenomenon; however, the underlying motivational basis for this tendency remains to be established. This study explored the extent to which language convergence in terms of both lexical choice and syntactic structure is mediated by feelings of affiliation toward an interactional partner. In Experiment 1, children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children completed a ‘Snap!’ game in which they alternated turns to name picture cards with a partner. In actuality, the partner was an experimental confederate who utilised non-preferred lexical choices to name the pictures. Results found that all children aligned their word choices with the lexical selections of the experimenter to an equivalent extent. However, evidence to link this tendency toward liking for an interactional partner could not be substantiated. Experiment 2 sought to further investigate evidence for syntactic convergence in children and employed a replication of the paradigm utilised by Allen et al. (2011). Again, there were no differences between the alignment abilities of children with ASD and the performance TD controls. Taken together, the results of this study add more support for the notion of automated low-level priming as one explanation of convergent functioning. Identified implications of these findings and proposals for future research are discussed.
Lexical Snap Cards The experimental materials comprised of 16 paired experimental items and 50 filler picture cards. An initial pool of 55 items which could be named by two different lexical choices was compiled by images provided by Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) and experimental items utilised by Branigan et al. (2011). The images were presented in a list alongside two lexical choices to name each picture; one lexical choice was a highly preferred name for the picture which was paired with a second less-preferred but equally appropriate word to name the picture. For example, an image of a mushroom was presented adjacent to the names ‘Mushroom’ and ‘Toadstool’. Ten adult participants were then asked to individually rate the appropriateness of each lexical choice for naming the pictures on a seven point Likert scale, with ‘1’ indicative that the lexical choice was completely inappropriate for naming the picture and ‘7’ indicative that the lexical choice was completely appropriate for naming for the picture. Additionally, using a forced choice paradigm each participant was required to indicate their preferred word choice for naming the picture from the two options provided. From this initial pool, twenty-four items were identified where both lexical choices had acceptability ratings above five and where there appeared a distinct majority preference for one word choice to name the picture (above 80%). Ten typically developing children (mean age: 9.7 years, range 9.2-10.1 years) were then asked to spontaneously provide names for these pictures in the absence of written or verbal prompts in order to further confirm the existence of a distinct lexical preference for each picture in child participants. A final list of 16 experimental items (see Appendix 1) was then selected where over 80% of children spontaneously used the word choices that had been preferentially indicated by adults to name the pictures. The final card set therefore comprised of 82 cards: the 16 paired experimental item picture cards (consisting of an experimenter prime card and subsequent matching participant target card), two sets of six matching filler ‘Snap!’ cards and 38 filler cards which pictured random objects. Each participant received the sixteen experimental items in a different order, split randomly each time between two experimental conditions that were introduced to assess both the presence and strength of language coordination over time and to eliminate the potential of immediate echolalia as an experimental confound in participants with ASD. In accordance with the design utilised by Slocombe et al. (2013), eight of the paired experimental items were split by two filler card interventions between the experimenter’s prime card and the participant’s target card, whilst the other eight paired experimental items were split by four filler card interventions between the prime and target cards (see Figure 1). Cards were also colour coded so that ‘Snap!’ was only possible when both the colour and the pictures on the experimenter’s prime and participant’s target cards matched, in order to avoid distractions in responses to the experimental items. The order of the filler and ‘SNAP!’ cards remained fixed throughout the trials. ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ Task The first fourteen experimental items from the official ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ test (Baron-Cohen, 2001 – child version) were utilised as measures of emotion recognition and social sensitivity; abilities that have been recurrently taken as indicators of Theory of Mind (ToM) functioning in children. ToM Book Additional to the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ task, children were also given a higher -order ToM assessment in order to obtain a more advanced measure of both social understanding and the abilities of participant’s to make inferences about the mental states of others. The story ‘The School Football Team’ developed by Liddle & Nettle (2006, story number 4) to investigate higher-order ToM functioning was presented pictorially to children in a story-book format and contained two scripted memory questions and a ToM question at the end (see Appendix 2). Shopping list game A commercially available child-appropriate board game was selected where it was possible that the experimenter could systematically manipulate the resultant winner of the game. The ‘Shopping List’ game by Orchard Toys is a picture-matching game designed for children with Verbal Mental Ages between three and six years and served as a quick experimental task where the outcomes could be reliably manipulated. Liking Scale In order to assess the resultant outcomes of the positive and neutral conditions on children’s affiliation to the experimenter, a picture sorting task was employed. Ten photographs that varied in content to include food, animals, people and events (e.g. baked beans, Spiderman and a giraffe) were obtained from an online picture database and constituted filler card items. The experimental item in this task was a head and shoulders photograph of the experimenter. Five line-drawing pictures of faces that varied in degrees of emotion from one (very unhappy face) through to five (very happy face) were then utilised as a pictorial adaptation of a Likert scale that was understandable to child participants. All participants received the pictures in same order, with the experimental item being placed at number eight out of the ten picture cards. Procedure Each participant was tested individually in a quiet room, away from distractions. Testing was divided between two sessions that were held approximately twenty-one days apart. During the first session participants completed the BPVS which took approximately ten minutes to administer and required children to select (either verbally or via pointing) a picture from a choice of four that depicted a word spoken by the experimenter. During this session children also completed the two ToM assessment tasks. For the Baron-Cohen ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ task (2001-child version) each participant was firstly shown a practice example sheet depicting a photograph of a pair of eyes with the names of four different emotions surrounding them. Each child was asked to look at the eyes whilst the experimenter read aloud the four names in turn and was then asked to choose the emotion that they thought best described the eyes. After the practice trial had been successfully completed the same procedure was repeated for the fourteen experimental items, taking approximately five minutes in total. For the second higher-order ToM task, children were asked if they would like to read a story about two friends, Johnny and Bob. If the participant agreed then the experimenter and the child looked at the picture book together, with the experimenter reading the story aloud to each child. At the end of the story book children were then asked two scripted memory comprehension questions about the story in order to gain an indication of overall attention and comprehension of the story and a third scripted question that assessed higher-order ToM functioning. This task took less than five minutes to administer. In the second session participants were asked if they would like to play some more fun games with the experimenter. If the child agreed they were informed that the first game they would be playing was a race to find all of the items on their ‘shopping list’ and that the winner of this game would receive a prize. In this board game task both the experimenter and participant received a ‘shopping list’ and alternated attempts to turn over cards from a pile in the middle of the table in order to correctly identify items on their list. The first person to complete their ‘shopping list’ and identify all of their items was determined the winner, however by removing a card either on the experimenter’s shopping list or on the participant’s shopping list meant that the ‘winner’ of the game could be systematically manipulated. Six children in both the ASD and TD groups were allowed to win, whereas the other six children in each group played and lost. When children ‘won’ the game they received positive verbal reinforcement and praise from the experimenter (e.g. “Wow! You were brilliant at that game! You must be very clever”) and were allowed to choose a sticker as a reward (positive affiliation condition). In contrast, when children ‘lost’ the game the experimenter retained a strictly neutral manner towards the child and continued with the next task (e.g. “okay, shall we play the next game?” neutral affiliation condition). Immediately following this game, children were asked to sort some photographs according to how much they liked the things depicted in the pictures. Five images of faces that displayed varying emotional expressions were placed in a line on the table, going from one (a really unhappy face) through to five (a really happy face). Children were then given three examples of picture sorting by the experimenter e.g. “This is a picture of broccoli, I really hate broccoli and so I would give it a number one and put it in this pile”, “This is a picture of a cupcake, I really like cupcakes and so I would give it a number five and put it in this pile” and finally “This is a picture of the Queen, I don’t really like or really dislike the Queen and so I will give her a number three and put her in this pile”. Each child was then asked to sort the ten photographs in turn according to how much they liked the things depicted in the pictures whilst the experimenter busied herself ‘preparing the next task’. Finally, children were asked if they would like to play a fun game of ‘Snap!’ with the experimenter. If the child agreed then the experimenter explained the rules of the game; that ‘Snap!’ in this game occurred when cards were both the same picture and the same colour and that before deciding if it was ‘Snap!’ each player was firstly required to name the picture depicted on their card. In order to further establish these rules each child was then shown four sets of example picture cards; the first pair of cards had the same picture but were not the same colour (a pink penguin and a blue penguin), the second pair of cards were the same colour but did not have the same picture (a blue bell and a blue tie), the third pair had different colours and different pictures (a green carrot and a blue star) and the final pair had the same colour and the same picture (two green shoes) depicting ‘Snap!’. The child and the experimenter then played with these example cards until it became clear that the child understood the conditions that constituted ‘Snap!’ in this game. Following indication that the participant understood how to play the game, the experimenter and child took turns in taking the top card from their pre-ordered card pile, naming the picture on the card, before placing the card on the table and deciding if it was ‘Snap!’ The experimenter always began the game and utilised pre-scripted non-preferred word choices to name the pictures on the sixteen experimental item prime cards. When both the experimenter’s prime card and participant’s target cards both had the same picture and were the same colour it was ‘Snap!’ and the first person to shout this won the cards. At the end of the game the person who had won the most cards was determined the winner (the experimenter let all children win the game). This task took 5-10 minutes dependent upon the participant’s age and concentration and was digitally recorded for later transcription.
The Specificity of Inhibitory Impairments in Autism and Their Relation to ADHD-type Symptoms
Findings on inhibitory control in autism have been inconsistent. It is proposed that this may be partly task-related, with different ‘inhibition’ tasks tapping different classes of inhibitory ability. Thus, children with autism (CWA) (N = 31) and typically developing controls (TDC) (N = 28) matched for verbal and non-verbal mental age completed three tasks of inhibitory control, each representing different inhibition subcomponents: a Go/No-Go task (delay inhibition), the Dog-Pig Stroop task (conflict inhibition), and a Flanker task (resistance to distractor inhibition). Behavioural ratings of inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity were also obtained for each child to consider a possible source of heterogeneity in inhibitory ability. It was predicted that the conflict task would be more problematic for CWA, and that higher ADHD-symptom ratings would predict poorer performance. On the Go/No-Go task, CWA showed superior inhibitory function to controls – making fewer false alarm errors and better task sensitivity. On the Dog-Pig Stroop, CWA showed impaired performance compared to controls – making more accuracy and speed related inhibitory errors. On the Flanker task, CWA showed equivalent inhibitory performance to TD children. Inhibitory impairments were predicted by high ratings of inattention in CWA, but only on the Dog-Pig Stroop. It is argued that CWA are perhaps impaired on tasks of conflict, but not delay or resistance to distractor inhibition. This may reflect the additional working memory demands of these tasks, and suggests that inhibitory difficulty is not a core executive deficit in autism. Symptoms of inattention may be an important predictor of inhibitory heterogeneity amongst CWA.
Sessions were completed in a well-lit and quiet room, free of distractions. Participants were tested individually, and completed the three inhibitory control tasks (Go/No-Go task; Dog-Pig Stroop task; Flanker task) and two standardised measures (RCPM; BPVS) in counterbalanced order. Experimental session lasted approximately 40-60 minutes. All three inhibition tasks were written using Psyscript, and run on a computer using an OS X 10.6 operating system. Go/No-Go Task Task Design.On each trial, a shape (O, ∆, ⧠, or ◊) would appear centrally on the computer screen. The shapes were simple black line-drawings, subtending approximately 5° vertically and horizontally. Prior to the task, children were instructed to respond to three of the shapes by pressing a large external “star” button (i.e. “Go” stimuli), but to resist responding to a fourth shape (i.e. the “No-Go” stimulus). The shape designated as the “No-Go” stimulus was counterbalanced between participants. To generate a prepotent response, 75% of trials were “Go” trials requiring a button press, and 25% of trials were “No-Go” trials where the response should be withheld. The maximum inter-stimulus interval (ISI) (i.e. from stimulus onset to stimulus onset) was 2500ms. At the start of each trial, a fixation cross would appear at the centre of the screen for 200ms. This was then replaced by the stimulus, which remained on-screen for 200ms. After the stimulus offset, participants had a further 1000ms to respond, at which point the trial automatically terminated. Stimulus presentation was followed by a 1100ms pause before the next trial commenced. An error tone (“bleep”) was played immediately if the child made an omission error (i.e. failed to respond on a “Go” trial), or a false alarm (i.e. pressed the star button on a “No-Go” trial). A positive feedback-noise (“ping”) was played if the participant made a correct response. Procedure. Before starting the task, each child completed a warm up session to familiarize with the “Go” and “No-Go” stimuli. Training was terminated only when the child could correctly identify the required response for each shape. Children then completed a short practice block of eight trials containing all four stimuli presented in a fixed, but superficially random order. Then followed 144 experimental trials split into three 48-trial blocks, each separated by a short break. Stimulus presentation was randomised throughout each half block to avoid clustering of “No-Go” trials. The task (including training) lasted approximately ten minutes. Four measures of task performance were obtained: 1. Number of false alarms (or commission errors): “No-Go” trials on which the button was pressed. This is the main measure of inhibitory control, with false alarms representing failure to inhibit the prepotent button-press response. 2. Number of hits: “Go” trials on which the child responded. This is not a main measure of inhibitory control performance, but indicates how reliably participants detect targets when present and suggest the strength of the prepotent response generated. Hit-rates are also used for calculations of task sensitivity (see below). 3. Task Sensitivity: Estimates of participants’ task sensitivity can be calculated using signal detection theory (A0) and probability estimates of False Alarms and Hits. This permits differentiation between participants who make fewer false alarms, but also fewer hits (poor task sensitivity), and those who make fewer false alarms despite a good hit rate (good task sensitivity). This is important because a low false alarm rate could be due to a generally low response rate (for both “Go” and “No Go” stimuli). Task sensitivity (A0) is a nonparametric measure which ranges from 0.5 (chance performance) to 1 (perfect sensitivity), and is calculated as follows (Grier, 1971): A = 0.5 (H-FA) (1+H-FA) / [4H (1-FA)] Where, H = probability (Hits), FA = probability (False Alarms). 4. Hit Trial Reaction Time (RT): Although not a measure of inhibitory control per se, this might indicate between-group differences in processing speed and/or task-strategy. Dog-Pig Stroop Task. Task Design. The stimuli used in this task were two simple line drawings of a dog and a pig (see Appendix 4). Stimuli were presented centrally on the computer screen, subtending approximately 6° vertically and 9° horizontally. Two experimental conditions, each containing 32 trials were administered. In the control (baseline) condition, children were simply instructed to say “dog” when they see the dog-image, and “pig” when they see a pig as quickly possible. In the Stroop (i.e. inhibition) condition, children were instructed to say "dog" to pig images, and "pig" to dog-images, as quickly and accurately as possible. Children’s responses were recorded by an assistant during the task, and also audiotaped so that manuscripts could be subsequently checked by the experimenter. If a child made a mistake on a trial and then corrected themselves, their initial response was recorded. To estimate response latency on each trial, the experimenter would press a large external button as soon as the child made their initial response. Although this measure of reaction time is relatively crude, many of the children taking part would not have been testable with throat microphones which measure voice-onset. These technologies are highly sensitive to all sounds including subtle body movements, lip-smacks and vocalizations, reducing their reliability for use with participants who might have difficulty minimizing task-irrelevant movement or vocalizations. It is also notable that the additional error in reaction-time estimates induced by this method would be constant across groups. On each trial, the stimulus remained centrally on-screen until a response had been registered (i.e. the response button had been pressed). If no response had been registered after 3000ms had elapsed, the trial automatically terminated, and the message “Too Slow” was presented for 500ms. Stimulus presentation was followed by a 2000ms pause (inter-trial interval) before the next trial commenced. The maximum ISI was thus 5500ms. Procedure. All children completed the control condition first to provide a measure of baseline picture naming speed and accuracy[2]. After the control condition had been completed, children were presented with training slides to familiarise them with the Stroop naming procedure. After successfully completing the four practice trials, children would commence the 32-trial Stroop condition block. The task (including training) lasted approximately 7 minutes. Flanker Task Task Design. For this computer task, children were presented with two large arrow-shaped buttons – one pointing left and one pointing right. There were three experimental conditions: baseline, congruent, and incongruent. Children were asked to respond by pressing the arrow-button pointing the same way as the white target arrow, which was positioned centrally, subtending approximately 4° vertically and 6° horizontally. On baseline trials, the white target arrow was presented on its own. On congruent trials, the white target arrow was flanked by four red ‘distractor’ arrows pointing the same way as the target (e.g. ààààà). On incongruent trials, the white target arrow was flanked by four red ‘distractor’ arrows facing in the opposite direction to the target arrow (e.g. ßßàßß). It is thus only on incongruent trials that the distractors must be actively inhibited/suppressed for correct target identification. The maximum ISI was 2900ms. A fixation cross would appear centrally on-screen for 200ms. This was then replaced by the stimulus (neutral, congruent or incongruent), which remained on-screen until a button-press had been registered. If no response had been registered after 1200ms had elapsed, the trial automatically terminated. An error-tone (“bleep”) was played if the participant pressed the wrong arrow-button . If the child failed to respond before the trial terminated, an error-tone was played and a “Too-Slow” message was briefly displayed. When the child responded correctly, a positive feedback-noise was given (a “ping”). There was a 1100ms pause (inter-trial interval) between trials. Procedure. Each child first completed a series of familiarisation trials. This was followed by three blocks of 30 trials separated by a short break (90 trials in total). Each block contained ten baseline, ten congruent and ten distractor trials, which were distributed randomly. Error-rates and mean reaction times (RT) for neutral, congruent and incongruent trials were recorded. [1] Although a cut-off of 30-points is typically used with younger children, a slightly lower cut-off score is thought to be more accurate for use with older children/adolescents (Mesibov et al., 1989). This is due to the inclusion of one or two items on which older children with autism tend not to score highly (e.g. imitation). [2]Condition-order was fixed because a pilot study showed that if children completed the experimental (i.e. Stroop) condition first they had difficulty forgetting the ‘opposite’ rule in order to name the pictures normally for the control condition. This was shown by elevated error-rates and poorer naming speeds. Therefore, in order to obtain a realistic measure of ‘automatic’ (i.e. control-condition) picture naming speed and accuracy, and a stronger prepotent response, it was decided appropriate to fix the order of condition presentation (Control, then Stroop). Although this may lead to practice effects, this effect is constant across groups.
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.
The validity of traditional readability tests on accurately predicting people’s comprehension of health information
Vocabulary knowledge, health literacy, reading comprehension skill, reading strategy
Tons of evidence indicated that readers benefit from clear and understandable health information in various contexts. Authors have been looking forward to utilizing a wide range of readability formulas so that they can produce comprehensible texts for readers. Both traditional readability formulas and the new Coh-Metrix algorithms have been widely used for decades and the utilities for the new tool were more likely to be supported by theoretical evidence. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of empirical evidence supporting the utilities of the two kinds of readability formulas. In this paper, a secondary data analysis was utilized to give empirical evidence to whether the widely used readability tests can predict participants’ comprehension responses effectively. By using Bayesian generalized linear mixed-effects models, variation in both traditional readability formulas and two of the new Coh-Metrix algorithms were tested having little or no effect on variation in participants’ comprehension accuracy. In this case, it is suggested that researchers in the future should think twice before utilizing the readability tests to analyse text difficulty.
Participants Participants recruited in the original study were through the Prolific online platform. Participants recruited were all UK nationals who were aged eighteen or over and spoke English as their first language. Participants who completed the test battery were awarded £12.50 (equalling £6.25 per hour). All participants who volunteered were tested, with exclusion of participants whose reading times for the health-related information texts were recorded being below 30s. The reading time includes reading the text and answering the questions relating to that text, including the self-rated evaluation-of understanding probe. While participant recruitment was administered through the Prolific platform, response data collection was conducted through a Qualtrics survey for each study. Design Two studies were conducted in the original research. In Study One, participants were presented with a sample of written health information texts on a range of topics. The observation was replicated and extended in Study Two by presenting a sample of texts on a range of health topics, together with a sample of guidance texts on COVID-19. In both studies, participants were asked to complete four multiple-choice questions, each with three answer options, in response to each stimulus health text. After the comprehension test questions, participants were asked to rate how well they thought they understood the information in the guidance. The original dataset also included individual differences, including reading skill and knowledge, and collected information on text attributes. Responses by participants in terms of the comprehension of the four multiple-choice questions for each text and the individual differences, such as reading skills and knowledge, would be utilized in the current study analysis with more kinds of text attributes included. In sum, except the heath-text materials picked to test participants’ comprehension responses and participants chosen, all other variables and procedures were identical in both studies. Since the difference between the two datasets in the two studies was the inclusion of texts on COVID-19 in Study Two, and all variables included in both datasets were identical, both data were renamed as Dataset One and Dataset Two in order to more easily distinguish between the two. Material For Dataset One (Study One in the original data), 25 health-related information texts were collected from those available on NHS trust organization webpages. The texts collected were chosen from 115 candidate texts from those available among the web resources of a quasi-random sampling of 23 NHS England trusts (10% of the 228 total in England). For Dataset Two (Study Two in the original data), 14 texts concerning a range of health matters and 15 texts concerning COVID-19 or guidance relating to the public health response to the pandemic were collected. As in Dataset One, the general health texts were selected as a sub-set of a (fresh) pool of 115 candidate texts extracted from those available among the web resources of a (new) sample of 23 NHS England trusts. The COVID texts were selected from a pool of 115 candidate texts extracted from those available from gov.uk, charity (British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK), NHS UK, and NHS England trust webpages. The selection of texts, for both general health and COVID-19 information, was made so that the sub-set of items varied as widely as possible across the distribution of values (for each pool of candidates) on each critical text feature. For each text chosen, a set of four multiple-choice questions (MCQs) was constructed, each with three answer options, to testify participants’ comprehension levels. Individual differences measured: vocabulary knowledge, health literacy, reading comprehension skill, and reading strategy: Vocabulary knowledge. The Shipley vocabulary sub-test was used to estimate vocabulary knowledge (Kaya et al., 2012). Participants were required to choose the synonymous word from four alternatives to a target stimulus word in The Shipley test (the other three alternatives are semantically related or unrelated distractor words). Participants were associated with a test result corresponding to the total number of correct answers out of 40 multiple-choice items. Health literacy. The Health Literacy Vocabulary Assessment (HLVA) was used to estimate health literacy. Participants were required to choose the synonymous word from four alternatives to a target stimulus word and all the items are under health contexts. Since the vocabularies presented were drawn from the health-care profession, the HLVA is designed to test participants’ background knowledge of health matters and is considered an index of health literacy. Participants were associated with a test result corresponding to the total number of correct answers out of 16 multiple-choice items. Reading skill. The Qualitative Reading Inventory (Leslie & Caldwell, 2017) was used to assess reading skills. Participants were asked to read a short factual text (compromised of 802 words) about the life cycle of stars and then answer two sets of 10 open-class questions related to the text, respectively. The questions not only included information that can be found explicitly in the text but also information that requires inference from background knowledge. Participants were associated with a QRI score corresponding to the total number of correct answers out of 20 open-class questions. Reading strategy. A Reader-based standards of coherence measure published in a doctoral paper by Calloway (2019) was used to assess reading strategy. Participants were asked to complete a 5-point Likert scale based on their reading experience ranging from very untrue to very true. The scale includes 87 items and is supported to measure readers’ reading goals and learning strategies effectively. Participants were associated with a scale score corresponding to their response on the 87-item scale. Text features measures: traditional readability tests scores, coh-metrics scores of the health-related information texts presented to participants: Referential Cohesion. The Coh-Metrix tool was used to calculate the referential cohesion (co-reference) of texts. Referential cohesion emphasises the overlap degree of concepts, words, and pronouns between sentences and paragraphs. With the increase of the similarities of sentences and conceptual ideas within a text, it is easier for readers to make connections between ideas and sentences (Coh-Metrix, 2012). Nevertheless, low referential texts sometimes are necessary when readers are required to be more actively involved in comprehending a text (Coh-Metrix, 2012). Deep cohesion. The Coh-Metrix tool was used to calculate the deep cohesion of texts. Deep cohesion refers to how well a text is tied together by an efficient number of cohesion ties, also called connectives (Coh-Metrix, 2012). The calculation of deep cohesion in a text is determined by the number of the connectives including time, causal, additive, logical and adversative connectives, which connect ideas and propositions and clarify relations in a text (R-Kintsch & Walter Kintsch, 1998). Being able to utilize the connectives effectively helps to tie the information together; thus, it facilitates the readers’ understanding. Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRE). The FRE (Badarudeen & Sabharwal, 2010) is one of the traditional readability tests. The formula for the FRE is 206.835 - (1.015 * ASL) - (84.6 * ASW), where ASL represents the average sentence length and ASW represents the average number of syllables per word. The FRE evaluates texts on a 100-point scale and higher scores means that it is more difficult to comprehend the text. The Gunning Frequency of Gobbledygook (FOG). The FOG (Roberts et al., 1994) is one of the traditional readability tests. The formula for the FOG is 0.4*(ASL + % polysyllabic words), where ASL represents the average sentence length. There is a minimum word count for the passages tested using FOG, more than 100 words, and the results given correspond to the education level that a reader needs to comprehend a text. The Flesch–Kincaid Grade Level (FKG). The FKG (Woodmansey, 2010) is one of the traditional readability tests. The formula for the FKG is (0.39*ASL) + (11.8*ASW) - 15.59, where ASL represents the average sentence length and ASW represents the average number of syllables per word. The results given from the FKG provide a number indicating the specific grade that readers should achieve to comprehend the text, which ranges from grades 3 to 12. Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG). The SMOG (McLaughlin, 1969) is one of the traditional readability tests. The formula provided is 1.043 * square root of (number of polysyllabic words * [30/number of sentences] + 3.1291). The SMOG also provides a school grade as a result, indicating the specific education level a reader should have to understand a text, and it was recommended by the National Cancer Institute as having a better performance than the other tests. Demographic attributes. Participants’ demographic characteristics were recorded, including gender (coded: Male, Female, non-binary, prefer not to say), education (coded: Secondary, Further, Higher), and ethnicity (coded: White, Black, Asian, Mixed, Other).
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.
Training Transfer Between False-belief, Card Sorting and Counterfactual Reasoning in Children with ASD.
ASD, Training study Domain general Theory of Mind Counterfactual reasoning Executive Functions
Previous training studies for typically developed (TD) children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) show that theory of mind and executive functions are two interrelated domains, and that training in one task could lead to improvement on the other. This training study aimed to examine the developmental relationship between three domains (Theory of Mind (ToM), Executive Functions (EF) and Counterfactual Reasoning (CR)) in children with ASD. A group of 30 children diagnosed with ASD were randomly allocated to one of three training groups, each group received training in one of the three domains stated. After training, the entire sample was tested to measure for improvements. Results indicate that ToM training leads to improvement on the EF and CR tasks, while EF training did not lead to ToM improvement and CR training did not lead to EF improvement. Findings are discussed and a novel cognitive model is proposed to account for the observed outcomes.
Following the design of Kloo and Perner (2003), first children were pretested. The pretest involved measures of verbal and nonverbal ability, two false-belief tasks followed by a card sorting task and two counter-factual reasoning tasks. The pretest was scored to create a baseline for the participants' abilities in each of the areas assigned to the training groups. Children were then randomly assigned to one of three experimental training groups. Each group was given two sessions of training (approximately 1 week apart) on one of the three areas; false belief, counterfactual reasoning or DCCS. A posttest was given a week after the second training session, it was similar to the pretest in design but different materials were used. The posttest was given to the children to measure any improvements in performance after training and examine any crossover effects between the different training groups. Finally, the children were given a follow-up test (approximately 6 weeks after the posttest) to investigate if the effects of training are lasting. All of the sessions took place in a quiet room in the child's school. Procedure and Materials Pretest and posttest. Both sessions that preceded and followed the training sessions involved tasks measuring performance in false belief, counter-factual reasoning and card sorting. False-belief. One of two traditional unexpected transfer tasks was administered on the pretest based on Wimmer and Perner (1983), modeled after Baron-Cohen et al.’s Sally-Anne task (1985). A scene was enacted to the child using wooden toy figures and a kitchen model in which an item is unexpectedly transferred during the protagonist's absence. The stories where altered slightly to be more fitting to the knowledge of a Bahraini child by changing character names and making other alternations where appropriate. However, the main consciences of the stories remained very similar to the original stories. After the story is told, the character returns to the scene and the child is then asked a false-belief test question such as 'where do you think Ahmed will look for his teddy bear now?' followed by two control questions (memory and reality). One of the two stories was administered in the pre-test and the other in the post-test. The false-belief pretest and posttest also included an unexpected content task, another task modeled by Wimmer and Perner (1983) as a measure of false-belief. In this task the child was presented with a closed familiar container (such as a Band-Aid box) and then the child was asked to guess the content of the box. The item in the box was then revealed to the child (a coin, for example). Next the item was placed in the closed box again and the child was asked 'what did you think was in the box before I opened it?' The correct answer should be Band-Aids, but most children with ASD find difficulty in suppressing the reality of what they know to be in the box so the answer they give is ‘a coin’. The child was then asked about another person’s state of mind 'what will (name another child) think is inside the box?’ Finally, the child was asked a memory control question 'what is really in the box?' Card Sorting. Following the false-belief task, the child was presented with a dimensional change card sorting task (DCCS; Frye et al., 1995). One set of cards (5cm x 10cm) was used as well as two target cards (a blue house and an orange car) to be placed on two sorting boxes (12cm x 16cm). The card set had 12 testing cards (6 orange houses and 6 blue cars). The task involved two phases, in the pre-switch phase the participant was asked to sort the cards according to shape. After completing six trails successfully, the examiner explained to the child that now the rules of the game will change and the child was asked to sort the cards according to colour rather than shape in the post-switch phase. Counterfactual Reasoning. Lastly, the pretest and posttest sessions included two counterfactual thinking tasks based on Beck et al. (2011). One of the tasks in each session was enacted using wooden figures and materials such as doll sized bed, cabin, teddy bears or pets. The second task was presented using a picture story consisting of three panels illustrating the events of the story. In these stories, both enacted and illustrated, a series of events lead to a specific end state. For example, the character picks flowers from the garden and places them in a vase on the table. Then the child is asked 'if Zainab had not picked the flowers where would they be’? Two control questions (memory and reality) followed. Similarly to the false-belief task, some alterations where made to the stories where appropriate to accommodate the child's environment and imagination. The use of two different methods of delivery for the counter-factuality task was introduced to create more variation in the understanding of counterfactual reasoning and to distinguish this task from the false-belief task. Training Following the pretest, the participants were assigned to three experimental groups each receiving two training sessions in one of the three areas; false-belief, counterfactual reasoning and DCCS. The aim of the training is to provide the children with explanations and feedback based on performance. False-belief training group. In each of the training sessions, the false belief group received two of four Ernie-says-something-wrong tasks (renamed to Ali-says-something-wrong) (Hale & Tager-Flusberg, 2003), one unexpected transfer task different from the tasks administered during the pre and post-test sessions, and finally one unexpected content task. Ali-says-something-wrong. As in the original Kloo and Perner (2003), the task was presented with the aid of three puppets. In each of the stories Ali carried an action towards one of the puppets but then stated that he did it to another puppet. In each training session the child received two of the four original stories followed by a question about the content of Ali's statement and about the conflicting reality. The other two stories where then administered in the following session. Unexpected transfer. The training sessions also included one story about an item being unexpectedly transferred in the protagonist's absence following Baron-cohen et al. (1985). The stories was enacted using wooden dolls and doll house furniture. This training task aimed to teach children about the main aspects of an unexpected transfer and to gradually guide them towards considering the character's false belief (Kloo and Perner, 2003). Unexpected content. This task is presented using a different box and content for each test and training session. Examples of the materials used are a smarties tube, a pringles box, a crayons card box. The training of this task aimed to help the child understand his own false-belief as well as others’ state of mind. DCCS training group. The card sorting group was given training in two DCCS tasks in each of the training sessions. Both tasks involved sorting according to colour and number, and the switch was always from colour to number. The two tasks administered were the three dimension switch and the transfer sorting task. Three dimension switch. In this card sorting task, the participant was presented with two target cards (one yellow house and two green houses) placed on a sorting box. The test cards were similar to the target cards on one dimension; either colour or number (two yellow houses, one green house). The child had to sort by colour, then number, then by colour again and finally by number one last time. Two sets of cards were used, one for each training session. The experimenter helped the child identify each dimension after each switch was made and the rules of the game were covered again. Each switch involved six trials. Transfer sorting task. Here, the target cards remained the same as the previous task (one yellow house and two green houses) but a new test card that is only similar to the target cards on one dimension (two yellow cars) was introduced. The test cards was supposed to be sorted according to the dimension stated by the experimenter, starting with colour then switching to number. Counterfactual reasoning training group. Counter-factual reasoning tasks and false-belief tasks are interchangeable in some studies by asking questions testing both skills following a single story. However, in this study, the training groups had to receive different stories, followed by questions that only tap on counterfactual thinking in order to distinguish it from false-belief training. The purpose of this divide in training is to ensure that each experimental group receives training that does not overlap with the other groups' as the study aims to ultimately measure the crossover effects. The CR group received two tasks in each training session. Like the pretest and posttest, one of the tasks was enacted using figures and the other was presented as a picture story. The stories are based on Beck et al. (2011) and Guajardo and Turley-Ames (2004). Figure stories. Following Guajardo and Turley-Ames' (2004) counterfactual thinking tasks, the children were shown a story, presented using wooden dolls, in which an event occurs (usually as a consequence of an action taken by the protagonist) and the child was asked to generate alternative scenarios that would have prevented the occurrence of that event. For example, the character is drawing a picture using pencil colours when the colour breaks and a result he cannot finish his drawing. The question following this story is 'what could the character have done so that he would have drawn the rest of the picture?' and the child is to give as many responses as he/she can generate. Other scenarios include avoiding breaking a glass, keeping their clothes clean, taking a nap leading them to miss their favorite show, and someone eating the character's last chocolate bar. In the training sessions, the examiner walks the child through the logic of having different actions leading to alternative endings. Picture stories. The second task in the counter-factual training involved a single picture story based on Beck et al (2011). The images were digitally drawen using Adobe Illustrator and the stories showed a sequence of three square panels. However, the question format following the stories differed from the task given using figures. In the picture stories task, the child is presented with a simple story of consequential events followed by a question about where someone or something would have been if a certain event had not occurred. For example, one of the stories showed a cat napping on top of a car, the cat then spies a bird flying by and chases the bird all the way to the traffic light. The question associated with this story is 'if the cat had not spied the bird, where would the cat be?' Similar illustrations include a man receiving a call to meet a friend, a girl picking flowers, a drawing flying out of an open window and a man who gets sand on his shoes. The training aims to allow the child some insight on how an occurrence could alter the course of events resulting in certain outcomes, and thus if the occurrence had not taken place we would be presented with a counterfactual state. Follow-up test. The follow up test was added to the experiment to measure whether children with ASD maintained any effects gained from the training past the posttest. Therefore, this test was similar to the pretest and posttest in design; it included a false belief task, a card sorting task and two counter-factuality tasks. However, the materials and stories used were all different from those used previously in the tests and training. The follow-up test took place 6 weeks after the post-test session.
Typeface and taste: The bittersweet effect of typeface on the perception of taste
This article aims to explore how the visual features of typeface on a product’s packaging, are capable of altering one’s taste experience with the product within through cross-sensory correspondences. A total of ninety-two participants from a selection of university graduates were selected to take part in one of three studies rating yogurts, typefaces and the interaction between the two. While visual features of the typeface like thickness and heaviness did not directly affect the rating of a products perceived thickness and weight, the typefaces were able to trigger different experiences of bitterness. When presented on the yogurt container, the more angular, thin typeface Palatino Italic caused the yogurt to be rated as significantly more bitter than the rounder, thicker font Cooper Black. Secondary tests found that the two typefaces rated alone, without the yogurt, did not possess the same significant differences in bitterness. However, they were rated as significantly different on the other scales measured, thus raising the question of exactly how the fonts were capable of manipulating participant’s taste experience. The study addresses this question and looks further into how typefaces perceptual qualities change once the letters presenting it are capitalised.
Rating Chart A rating chart (found in Appendix 4) was designed to allow participants to select the most neutral yogurt by ordering them in terms of the adjectives rated in the main study. These were thick to thin, heavy to light, dull to sharp, sweet to bitter and slow to quick. The chart contained a three point scale with related variables anchored at each end. Participants were then able to fill in which yogurt (A, B or C) they believed possessed the extremities of each variable pair (i.e. the thickest and the thinnest) leaving the most neutral yogurt being rated as somewhere between the two. Products As natural yogurt appeared to be the plainest yogurt in terms of flavour, colour and texture, three natural yogurts were selected for the pre-test. The first yogurt ‘A’ was the cheapest home-brand yogurt from Morrisons. Yogurt B was slightly more expensive (Yeo Natural), and the third (yogurt C) was the most expensive plain natural yogurt available (Onken). All yogurts were purchased from Morrisons Supermarket and cost between £1.00 and £2.00. Packaging Because all three products contained packaging with commercial labels which used a combination of various typefaces, colours and shapes, the yogurt had to be removed from the containers. The yogurts were then placed in three identical bowls and set on a table. A piece of paper in front of each informed the participant which was yogurt A, B and C. Procedure In turn participants were brought into an empty room and asked to sit at a desk in front of the three yogurts. They were presented with an information sheet, consent form and the rating sheet (Appendix 1, 2 and 4) and asked to sample each yogurt as many times as they felt necessary to rate which of the three was the least extreme in regards to the variables rated. They were each given a plastic spoon to test the yogurt and asked not to touch the bowl in case its weight affected their perception of the product. They then used the pen provided to rate which yogurt (A,B or C) possessed the least extreme qualities. Once the twenty participants had completed the test they were given the opportunity to ask any questions and presented with the debrief sheet in Appendix 3. Their results were then correlated and ‘Yogurt A’ was clearly found to be the most neutral yogurt of the three in terms of the variables rated. Main Study Participants Between June 2014 and July 2014 forty-eight students and recent graduates (Male= 36, Female= 12) aged between eighteen and fifty-four years old (M= 23.25, SD=4.86) from Lancaster University were recruited as part of a volunteer sample to take part in this study. They were informed of the study through a monthly newsletter emailed to their University email address by a University Administrator. The students came from a variety of academic years and subject areas. All participants confirmed that they had no deficits regarding their ability to smell or taste, nor any allergy to dairy. Materials Rating Chart The rating chart was designed to allow participants to quantify their perception of the product. Each quality was presented on a scale with one extreme anchored horizontally to the other (See Appendix 5). So for the adjective pair thick-thin participants would state if the product was ‘Very Thick, Quite Thick, Slightly Thick, Neither Thick nor Thin, Slightly Thin, Quite Thin or Very Thin’. This produced a seven-point scale for each variable rated. Several qualities that had previously been identified as sharing cross-modular correspondences linked to shape, and influencing aspects of flavour were implanted within the rating chart. In addition to being held by one or several modalities, they were a sample of adjectives both able and unable to be conveyed directly by visual qualities of the typeface to the yogurt (for example a thick font may lead to the yogurt being rated as thick but a typeface is unable to directly convey bitterness through its visual features). The adjectives rated were thick-thin, heavy-light, sharp-dull, bitter-sweet, quick-slow. The order by which these variables were rated was swapped between participants in order to reduce order effects. It was predicted that the adjectives thick, heavy, dull, sweet and slow would be aligned, while thin, light, sharp, bitter and fast would share conative meaning. Products Following the preliminary test yogurt A (Morrison’s own Natural Yogurt) was selected as the most neutral yogurt in terms of the variables rated and yogurt tested. In effect the yogurt was most frequently rated as neither the thickest, nor thinnest yogurt of the three tested, as so on across the variables rated. As a result yogurt A was chosen for the study. Regardless of the label on the pot, the contents within were always yogurt A, leading to participants rating the same yogurt twice without their knowledge. Packaging There were four parts to the packaging: the typeface used; the brand name in which the typeface was printed; the label displaying the brand name; and the pot containing the yogurt. Each element of the packaging aimed to trigger as few cross-sensory perceptions as possible, with the exception of the typeface being tested. After a great deal of consideration, the two typefaces chosen were Cooper Black and Palatino Italic. Walker et al had noted that these typefaces possessed a variety of qualities capable of triggering cross-modular correspondences strong enough to induce a congruency effect between word meaning and typeface characteristic (Lewis and Walker, 1989). As a result they seemed the most likely typefaces to induce cross-modular correspondences relating to taste. Additionally they were particularly representative of typefaces as a whole possessing characteristics such as italics, roman and bold. Visually Cooper Black is much thicker and rounder than Palatino Italic. Palatino Italic also appears to convey speed and sharpness, pointing forward at an angle. Existing brand names and real words could not be used to display the typeface due to the potential confounding connotations they may carry. Additionally if both typefaces were presented in the same brand name participants would be more likely to realise that both yogurts were indeed the same. Therefore two non-words had to be selected as product brand names. Sound symbolism is known to have an effect on the perceptions activated by a word, in particular Klink noted that brand names containing front vowels were associated with more angular brand marks than back vowels (Klink, 2003). To avoid this effect confounding the ratings, a combination of front and back vowels were present in each brand name. Moreover, because the positioning of back and front vowels has been highlighted as a factor influencing perception, the order of the front and back vowels were changed between the two non-words. This process was inspired by a similar method by Klink and Wu, where brand names were built using vowels and letters conveying different meanings (Klink and Wu, 2013). The two non-words generated from this procedure were ‘Bemdom’ (front/closed vowel ‘bem’, back/open vowel ‘dom’) and ‘Nordin’ (back/open vowel ‘nor’, front/closed vowel ‘din’). As seen in Figure 1, these names were printed in black on white rectangular sticker paper creating the label. Printed in font size 14, their first letters were capitalised to appear more like a product name. Four versions of the label were created: one with the curved typeface (Cooper Black) stating Bemdom; one with the curved typeface stating Nordin; one with the angular typeface (Palatino Italic) stating Bemdom and one with the angular typeface presenting Nordin. Figure 1: Examples of the four yogurt pots presented to participants. Presented first is Bemdom in Palatino Italic, followed by Nordin the same type, Nordin in Cooper Black and Bemdom in Cooper Black. The labels were attached to the circular lids of ninety-six clear 60ml plastic sample pots displayed in Figure 2. In an attempt to counter-balance the effect of a circular shaped lid on the rating of the yogurt, the sticker containing the brand name was cut into the more angular shape of a rectangle. The pot was also clear allowing visibility of the white yogurt contained within it, rather than being coloured packaging that may have its own connotations. Figure 2: The pots used to present participants with the yogurt and the typeface. With the type of spoon used to consume yogurt being found to affect one’s perception of yogurt, all participants consumed the yogurt with the same type of white plastic spoon displayed in Figure 3 (Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence, 2011). As the testing pot was already plastic and the yogurt white, a plastic white spoon seemed the best option for reducing the number of new extraneous variables introduced into the study. Figure 3: The plastic spoon used for sampling the yogurt. Research Design The study involved a 2 (type of typeface) x 2 (non-word used) x2 (order in which the font was presented) design. It was conducted using a repeated measures design with each participant rating each typeface and non-word although in different combinations. The order of both the typeface and non-word used was counterbalanced throughout the study leading to the creation of four participant groups. Procedure Participants were randomly split into four conditions; two of whom rated ‘Bemdom’ in Cooper Black and ‘Nordin’ in Palatino Italic but in contrasting orders, and two of whom rated ‘Bemdom’ in Palatino Italic and ‘Nordin’ in Cooper Black, again in contrasting orders. All groups received exactly the same experimental procedure and exactly the same yogurt in each pot. The only differences were the order each typeface and non-word were presented, and which non-word was allocated which type. Participants were not informed that the samples of yogurts were identical, and were encouraged to believe they were two different yogurts through use of different brand names. Once the participant was seated they were randomly assigned to a research group, then asked to read the participant information sheet (Appendix 1) and complete the consent form shown in Appendix 2. Once they had had the opportunity to ask any questions that came to mind, two boxes were placed on the table in front of the participant. Each had ‘Nordin’ or ‘Bemdom’ printed on it in either Cooper Black or Palatino Italic depending on the group they were assigned to. In order to provide a contrast effect highlighting the package’s typeface, the two pots of yogurt were taken from larger boxes sharing their name and label, which were present on the table throughout the study. This again aimed to reduce participant’s likelihood of identifying the yogurts as the same. The participant was then presented with a yogurt pot from one of the boxes and asked to write the product’s name on the rating sheet (Appendix 5) ensuring that they had paid some attention to the name and in doing so, the typeface. To ensure that the weight of the yogurt didn’t confound participant’s perception of the product, the pot of yogurt was placed in a tube securing it in place on the table while the participant sampled it. Participants were given a plastic spoon to consume it with and still water was provided for the participants to cleanse their mouth with between tastings. The participant was welcome to eat as much or as little of the produce as required to rate it on the several variables. Once they had finished rating the first yogurt it was removed from the tube and replaced by the second. The original pot was left on the table in order to allow contrast between the names and more importantly typeface. When the rating was complete participants were given the debrief sheet (Appendix 3) and the opportunity to ask any questions before being thanked for their time. Ethics An ethics review rated the study as low risk to participants. As the main risk was that of an allergy to the yogurt, all participants were asked twice if they were allergic to dairy products- once through the consent form and once verbally. Informed consent was collected from all participants. Participants were also asked if they were happy to participate in the experiment and told they had the right to withdraw at any point without facing any negative consequences. The participants were debriefed after, being informed of the reasoning behind the study. All interviews followed the BPA code of conduct. While a small amount of deception was used to imply that the two pots of yogurt were different, participants were never explicitly lied to. During debriefing, not one participant stated that they had had a problem with the small lack of full disclosure.