Category Archives: Reading

Reading: Sensorimotor synchronization: A review of the tapping literature

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Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 2005, 12 (6), 969-992
Bruno H. Repp

Repp has conducted many experiments concerning SMS. So a portion of the review is recalling his own work. SMS is unique to the humans, develops slowly in early childhood and remains almost the same for long years. Although SMS is needed in various human actions, most notably dancing and instrument playing, most of the research uses finger tapping. SMS consists of two error correction phases: phase correction and period correction.

Reading: Cognitive Style and the Theory and Practice of Individual and Collective Learning in Organizations

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Human Relations, Vol. 51, No. 7, 1998
Authors: John Hayes and Christopher W. Allinson

Some useful citations for future:

“Cognitive style is a person ’s preferred way of gathering, processing, and
evaluating information. It influences how people scan their environment for
information, how they organize and interpret this information, and how they
integrate their interpretations into the mental model and subjective theories
that guide their actions.”

“Learning style is usually regarded as a subcategory of cognitive style”

Reading: Field dependence-independence (FDI) cognitive style: An analysis of attentional functioning

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Psicothema 2007. Vol. 19, no 4, pp. 572-577
Authors: M. Adelina Guisande, M. Fernanda Páramo, Carolina Tinajero and Leandro S. Almeida

Main point:

Experiment (n=149, boys and girls almost evenly, mean age 9.53 y). With the effect of intelligence controlled, FI  children showed better performance than FD children on the verbal working memory, complex attention and sustained attention/vigilance tasks.

Reading: Correlations among scores on measures of field dependence-independence cognitive style, cognitive ability, and sustained attention

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Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1999, 88, 236-239
Authors:  Juan Antonio Amador-Campos, Teresa Kirchner-Nebot

Main point:

Experiment (n=179 boys, 110 girls, mean age 9.0 y). Authors found significant correlation (0.3, p<0.1) between FD/I and sustained attention (measured by Zazzo task) but no correlation was found in the case of Bourdon task. The latter is also a tool for measuring sustained attention.

My comment: There were other tests that correlated with FD/I but I was mainly interested in attention. Author argue that FD/I is commonly associated with attentional process.

Reading: Field dependence–independence and instructional-design effects on learners’ performance with a computer-modeling tool

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Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 25, Issue 6, November 2009, Pages 1355–1366
Authors: Charoula Angeli, Nicos Valanides, Paul Kirschner

Main point:

Experiment (n=101 teachers). Two groups: information presented in split-format and in integrated-format. Authors found interaction between type of instructional materials and FD/I in terms of students’ problem-solving performance, while the interaction effects between type of instructional materials and students’ FD/I in terms of students’ cognitive load and time spent on task were not. It means that the cognitive load and split-attention effect are equal to everybody, regardless to the FD/I

My thoughts: It seems to be OK to measure cognitive load with self reports since there is no better tool so far. Field independent learners always do better. How about the attention? It may be that although FI and FD use the same time for completing a task, the quality of the time is not the same. FD’s attention may be disturbed.

Reading: Attending to the Execution of a Complex Sensorimotor Skill: Expertise Differences, Choking, and Slumps

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Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 2004, Vol. 10, No. 1, 42–54
Author: Rob Gray

Main point:

Experiments with baseball batters (10 expert players, 10 novice players). Exp 1. Three conditions: dual-task when attention was drawn to an extraneous stimuli (sound signal) while player was hitting the ball, dual-task condition when attention was drawn to the hitting process, and single-task condition, when the sound signal could be ignored. Results: in the first condition, novices showed decrease in performance, but not the experts. In the second condition, it was vice-versa. In the single-task condition the experts outperformed the novices, of course.

The author says: “Clearly, unlike more experienced players, novices do not seem to have sufficient available attentional resources to simultaneously hit and attend to extraneous sensory information.”

Reading: Preliminary evidence for reduced cortial activity in experienced guitarists during performance preparation for simple scale playing

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Music Performance Research, Vol 5, 2012
Authors: Wright, Holmes, Blain, Smith

Main point:

In an experiment electroencephalography (EEG) was used to study cortical activity during preparation for movement in experienced and novice guitarists. In the brains of experienced players less cortial activity occurs. Authors say: “motor preparation of experts is more efficient than that of novices.”

My thoughts: Isn’t it the same experiment that they report here?

Reading: Differences in cortical activity related to motor planning between experienced guitarists and non-musicians during guitar playing

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Human Movement Science, Volume 31, Issue 3, June 2012, Pages 567–577
Authors: David J. Wright, Paul S. Holmes, Francesco Di Russo, Michela Loporto, Dave Smith

Main point:

Experiment (n=10+10) with experienced guitarists and non-musicians (received only 15 min instruction on how to play a G-major scale on the guitar) showed no differences in early motor planning, but negative slope and motor potential components had smaller amplitude in the case of experienced players and negative slope began later.

Authors say: “The data may indicate that, for experienced guitarists, a reduced level of effort is required during the motor preparation phase of the task”

My thoughts: the “experienced” players should be professionals (starting from 10 000 h of practice during lifetime) to have bigger contrasts. To gain more statistical power the sample should be bigger. M/F should be equal in groups, or, if there is evidence that it doesn’t matter, I’d like to see it mentioned.

For the first time I saw the term “ecologically valid motor skill”. Wikipedia helps out: “In research, the ecological validity of a study means that the methods, materials and setting of the study must approximate the real-world that is being examined. Unlike internal and external validity, ecological validity is not necessary to the overall validity of a study.”

 

Reading: A Coherence Effect in Multimedia Learning: The Case for Minimizing Irrelevant Sounds in the Design of Multimedia Instructional Messages

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Journal of Educational Psychology 2000, Vol. 92, No. 1, 117-125
Authors: Roxana Moreno, Richard E. Mayer

Main point:

2 experiments (n=75, collage students) showed that groups learning with background music performed worse than with no music. Adding “bells and whistles” to a multimedia study material does not improve learning.

 

Lecture: Beethoven, Bach, and Billions of Bytes

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New Alliances between Music and Computer Science. Meinard Müller (International Audio Laboratories Erlangen). University of Tartu 12th of Apr 2013

In a two-hour long lecture Mr. Müller ran through most of the problems that someone who wants to detect music from an audio source, has to deal with. He will now continue with a full course here at Tartu but unfortunately I cannot participate. But my colleague will, so hopefully we get some useful information for our project.

As I knew before – most of the difficulties lie in timing. A human adapts to the current situation and finding a robust approach for a machine is not always possible.