Motor Variability in Complex Gesture Learning: Effects of Movement Sonification and Musical Background

With the increasing interest in movement sonification and expressive gesture-based interaction, it is important to understand which factors contribute to movement learning and how. We explore the effects of movement sonification and users’ musical background on motor variability in complex gesture learning. We contribute an empirical study in which musicians and non-musicians learn two gesture sequences over three days, with and without movement sonification. Results show the interlaced interaction effects of these factors and how they unfold in the three-day learning process. For gesture 1, which is fast and dynamic with a direct “action-sound” sonification, movement sonification induces higher variability for both musicians and non-musicians on day 1. While musicians reduce this variability to a similar level as no auditory feedback condition on day 2 and day 3, non-musicians remain to have significantly higher variability. Across three days, musicians also have significantly lower variability than non-musicians. For gesture 2, which is slow and smooth with an “action-music” metaphor, there are virtually no effects. Based on these findings, we recommend future studies to take into account participants’ musical background, consider longitudinal study to examine these effects on complex gestures, and use awareness when interpreting the results given a specific design of gesture and sound.

The Mental Health Status and Associated Factors Among Medical Students Engaged in Online Learning at Home During the Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study From China

Background: The purpose of this study was to assess the mental health status of medical students engaged in online learning at home during the pandemic, and explore the potential risk factors of mental health.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted via an online survey among 5,100 medical students from Wannan Medical College in China. The Depression, Anxiety and Stress scale (DASS-21) was used to measure self-reported symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress among medical students during online learning in the pandemic.Results: In total, 4,115 participants were included in the study. The prevalence symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress were 31.9, 32.9, and 14.6%, respectively. Depression was associated with gender, grade, length of schooling, relationship with father, students' daily online learning time, and students' satisfaction with online learning effects. Anxiety was associated with gender, length of schooling, relationship with father, relationship between parents, students' daily online learning time, and students' satisfaction with online learning effects. Stress was associated with grade, relationship with father, relationship between parents, students' daily online learning time, and students' satisfaction with online learning effects.Conclusions: Nearly one-third of medical students survived with varying degrees of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms during online learning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gender, grade, length of schooling, family environment, and online learning environment play vital roles in medical students' mental health. Families and schools should provide targeted psychological counseling to high-risk students (male, second-year and third-year, four-year program). The findings of this study can provide reference for educators to cope with the psychological problems and formulate the mental health curriculum construction among medical students during online learning.

Factors Influencing Nursing Students’ Immersive Virtual Reality Media Technology-Based Learning

Background/objectives: This study aims to identify the effects of cognitive and emotional variables related to immersive virtual reality media technology on learning for nursing students. Methods/Statistical analysis: The subjects of this study were 121 nursing students from a university in area D. After experiential learning with virtual reality from 6–8 June 2019, data was collected through questionnaires. For virtual reality learning, VIVE’s hTC VIVE ECO CE model was used. The collected data was analyzed using the IBM SPSS 26.0 program. Multiple Regression Analysis was used to analyze the factors influencing the subject’s virtual reality learning effects. Findings: The learning effects of the virtual reality medium had a statistically significant positive correlation with the virtual reality technology recognition, sensory immersion, realism, learning satisfaction, learning necessity, and continuous use intention (p < 0.001) scores. In personality traits, only Openness, Extraversion (p < 0.01), and Conscientiousness (p < 0.05) had a statistically significant positive correlation. As a result of regression analysis, the explanatory power of the learning effect of the virtual reality medium was 63.9% (F = 53.61, p < 0.001), with learning satisfaction, sensory immersion, continuous use intention, and Extraversion being significant influencing factors (p < 0.05). Improvements/Applications: This study is meaningful in the sense that it provided strategic implications for the teaching and learning method of virtual reality technology-based learning by considering the insights necessary to develop a learning program using virtual reality technology, according to the characteristics of virtual reality technology, and the learner’s cognitive and psychological variables.

Can the reward associated with gaze leading train faster gaze shifts to a jointly attended target?

We investigated whether the reward that has previously been associated with initiated joint attention (the experience of having one’s gaze followed by someone else; Pfeiffer et al., 2014, Schilbach et al., 2010) can influence gaze behaviour and, similarly to monetary rewards (Blaukopf &amp; DiGirolamo, 2005; Manohar et al., 2017; Milstein &amp; Dorris, 2007), elicit learning effects. To this end, we adapted Milstein and Dorris (2007) gaze contingent paradigm, so it required participants to look at an anthropomorphic avatar and then conduct a saccade towards the left or right peripheral target. If participants were fast enough, they could experience social reward in terms of the avatar looking at the same target as they did and thus engaging with them in joint attention. One side had higher reward probability than the other (80 % vs 20 %; on the other fast trials the avatar would simply keep staring ahead). We expected that if participants learned about the reward contingency and if they found the experience of having their gaze followed rewarding, their latency and success rate would improve for saccades to the high rewarded targets. Although our current study did not demonstrate that such social reward has a long lasting effect on gaze behaviour, we found that latencies became shorter over time and that latencies were longer on congruent trials (target location was identical to the previous trial) than on noncongruent trials (target location different than on the previous trial), which could reflect inhibition of return.

Examining failure learning in online lending: Complete failure vs. incomplete failure

We examine the learning effects of borrowers’ failures in online lending. Based on funding ratios of borrowers’ loan listings in online lending, we first explore the role of failure degree in borrowers’ future funding performance. Further, we disaggregate borrowers’ funding failure into complete failure and incomplete failure, and compare theirs learning effects. Using a large sample of 610,000 online loan applications over six years from a Chinese leading online lending platform Renrendai, we use funding ratio to quantifiably measure each loan listing’s failure degree and conduct a series of tests. The results show that: (1) Borrowers’ failure degree of prior loan applications is negatively associated with one’s subsequent funding performance. (2) Borrowers’ complete failure cannot promote learning, while incomplete failure is good for future performance. (3) Both incomplete failure and complete failure interacted to influence the value of each type of experience and generate improved learning. Our results are robust across a variety of settings. The study sheds light for deeply understanding of failure learning phenomenon, and can also provide important implications for online lending managers to support successful financial transactions.

The Beneficial Learning Effects of Combining a Hypothesis-Testing Mindset with a Causal Model

Firms often use causal models to align decision-making with strategic objectives. However, firms often operate in changing environments such that an accurate causal model can become inaccurate. Prior research has not examined the consequences a change in the accuracy of causal models may have for managerial learning. Using an experiment, we predict and find that providing an accurate causal model positively affects managerial learning, and this positive effect is not reduced by encouraging a hypothesis-testing mindset (HTM). However, when the model subsequently becomes inaccurate, we predict and observe that providing a causal model alone negatively affects managerial learning, although this effect is partially mitigated by additionally encouraging a HTM. Our results can inform designers of control systems about the potential implications of providing a causal model when its accuracy changes over time and demonstrate how simple encouragement of a HTM moderates the effects of providing a causal model.

Real-time Online College Writing Teaching Methods to Promote Interaction Between Class Members －Based on the results of analyzing the needs of college students

The purpose of this study is to construct and propose real-time online college writing teaching methods to promote interaction between class members (instructor-learner, learner-learner). Through surveys and interviews with learners who hadn’t experienced real-time, online college writing education, we confirmed that the main perceptions and demands of learners for real-time online classes were as follows: First, the learners’ reluctance to show oneself in such a class and the demand for interaction with minimal online exposure. Second, the burden of writing in an isolated environment and the demand for detailed assistance of instructor’s in the writing process. Third, the reluctance to show the learner’s written text and the demand for receiving sufficient feedback anonymously. Therefore, this study proposed the following three teaching methods: First, a method to ensure learner anonymity to allow learners to participate in classes using a “sub-character” rather than their real names. Second, to conduct a short [lecture-practice-feedback] method, instead of a one-time [lecture-practice] method, was implemented several times in one class. Thirdly, to simultaneously share the learners' practice results through chat windows and to provide multiple types of feedback. This study confirmed that the proposed methods promote interaction between members in an online writing education environment and generate positive teaching and learning effects by reviewing specific class application cases and the learners' responses to these classes.