Recovery from memory failure when recalling a memorized performance: The role of musical structure and performance cues

To perform reliably and confidently from memory, musicians must able to recover from mistakes and memory failures. We describe how an experienced singer (the second author) recovered from mistakes and gaps in recall as she periodically recalled the score of a piece of vocal music that she had memorized for public performance, writing out the music six times over a five-year period following the performance. Five years after the performance, the singer was still able to recall two-thirds of the piece. When she made mistakes, she recovered and went on, leaving gaps in her written recall that lengthened over time. We determined where in the piece gaps started ( losses) and ended ( gains), and compared them with the locations of structural beats (starts of sections and phrases) and performance cues ( PCs) that the singer reported using as mental landmarks to keep track of her progress through the piece during the sung, public performance. Gains occurred on structural beats where there was a PC; losses occurred on structural beats without a PC. As the singer’s memory faded over time, she increasingly forgot phrases that did not start with a PC and recovered at the starts of phrases that did. Our study shows how PCs enable musicians to recover from memory failures.

Suicide Prevention Public Service Announcements

Background: Suicide prevention public service announcements (PSAs) help to disseminate information about suicide and help-seeking options. However, little is known about how individuals at risk for suicide recall PSAs. Aims: The current project assessed which features of suicide prevention PSAs are recalled by young adult participants and whether there are differences between those who are at low or high risk for suicide. Method: Participants ( N = 140) viewed a simulated suicide prevention billboard that consisted of a main message, help-seeking message, and graphical features. Participants provided written recollections of the billboard features approximately 15 min post-viewing, which were coded and analyzed. Results: High-risk participants were significantly less likely than low-risk participants to include a description of the help-seeking message in their written recall. Few group differences were noted in the recall of the main message or graphical features. Limitations: Recall was limited to short-term recall based on a single exposure. Efforts to enhance internal validity (e.g., measurement of suicide risk) and external validity (e.g., a balanced sample regarding sex and race) are recommended. Conclusions: Results suggest that new tactics may need to be considered when developing suicide prevention messages, including crafting help-seeking messages that are more easily committed to memory for target audiences.

Melting Lizards and Solid Gold Stop Signs: Preferential Recall of Both Counterintuitive and Bizarre Concepts

Research has shown that minimally counterintuitive concepts (MCI) are more memorable than concepts that are simply bizarre. However, this disparity may exist only in studies using cross-cultural samples. To test the impact of bizarreness on culturally homogeneous populations, we read a fictional narrative to 33 college-age students at a Midwestern university. This narrative featured 18 sets of target items – six which were intuitive, six which were counterintuitive, and six which were bizarre. After hearing the story, experimenters administered a written recall task. As hypothesized, students did not differ in their recall of counterintuitive or bizarre target items. Therefore, we propose a minimally distinctive model of memorability, encompassing both counterintuitiveness and bizarreness. This model may help us better understand the memorability of expectation violations, especially those within religious stories.

The Effect of Perceived Interest and Prior Knowledge on L2 Reading Comprehension via Several Assessment Methods in a Higher Education Context

The aim of the present study is to examine the effect of perceived interest and prior knowledge on EFL reading comprehension. Participants were 227 undergraduates with advanced competence in English. With respect to the method, participants had to read a 450-word text entitled Wales. After that, they had to complete a Perceived Interest Questionnaire (PIQ), which consisted of 9 items and two assessment tasks: a written recall and a multiple choice task. The results of our study show the significant effect of perceived interest and prior knowledge on L2 reading comprehension. Thus, comprehension assessed via written recall and multiple choice questions had higher scores when readers read texts related to their interests. Besides, prior knowledge had a positive effect on the reader’s comprehension irrespective of the assessment method used. This study concludes that different assessment tasks may be crucial factors that affect the relationship between factors like interest and prior knowledge, and L2 reading comprehension.

How Do Different Keyword Captioning Strategies Impact Students’ Performance in Oral and Written Production Tasks? A Pilot Study

<p dir="ltr"><span>As an increasingly popular format of input, the affordances of audio-visual materials have been widely studied. Past research has provided evidence that audio-visual input combined with different captioning strategies could benefit learners in terms of vocabulary learning, listening comprehension, and the development of grammatical knowledge. However, there is a lack of research on how manipulating captioning conditions could help learners use their own linguistic resources to produce L2. This study compares the effects of three captioning techniques, L1 glossed keyword captioning, keyword captioning, and no captioning on English learners’ oral and written recall of a short video. The results show that L1 glossed keyword captioning worked better in facilitating students’ oral and written production of the keywords than keyword captioning and no captioning. L1 glossed keyword captioning was also found to be more useful than keyword captioning and no captioning in helping students comprehend and reproduce the content of the video. Suggestions for further research on this topic are presented in the final part of this paper. </span></p>

Tailoring Multicomponent Writing Interventions: Effects of Coupling Self-Regulation and Transcription Training

Writing proficiency is heavily based on acquisition and development of self-regulation and transcription skills. The present study examined the effects of combining transcription training with a self-regulation intervention (self-regulated strategy development [SRSD]) in Grade 2 (ages 7–8). Forty-three students receiving self-regulation plus transcription (SRSD+TR) intervention were compared with 37 students receiving a self-regulation only (SRSD only) intervention and 39 students receiving the standard language arts curriculum. Compared with control instruction, SRSD instruction—with or without transcription training—resulted in more complex plans; longer, better, and more complete stories; and the effects transferred to story written recall. Transcription training produced an incremental effect on students’ composing skills. In particular, the SRSD+TR intervention increased handwriting fluency, spelling accuracy for inconsistent words, planning and story completeness, writing fluency, clause length, and burst length. Compared with the SRSD-only intervention, the SRSD+TR intervention was particularly effective in raising the writing quality of poorer writers. This pattern of findings suggests that students benefit from writing instruction coupling self-regulation and transcription training from very early on. This seems to be a promising instructional approach not only to ameliorate all students’ writing ability and prevent future writing problems but also to minimize struggling writers’ difficulties and support them in mastering writing.

Applying Multimedia Learning Principles to Design Effective Mobile Training

In the training literature, little empirical research has been devoted to the design of effective mobile-based instruction for training transfer. In this experiment, we tested the applicability of a multimedia learning design principle, the redundancy principle, in the context of a highly interactive tablet-based simulation for training m4 rifle disassembly procedures. In the narration condition, the simulation included oral instructions describing each disassembly step, while the narration and text condition included onscreen text in addition to the simulation and oral instructions. While we found no significant differences on a written recall test or a training transfer test of disassembling a physical rifle, the narration condition reported higher satisfaction and usability ratings than the narration and text condition. These results indicate that multimedia design principles apply to more complex platforms and procedural tasks.

Análisis de la familiaridad y del interés en la comprensión lectora de estudiantes españoles de inglés como lengua extranjera

Este artículo es un estudio cuantitativo que compara el grado de influencia de la familiaridad con el contenido del texto y el interés en el tema del pasaje sobre la comprensión lectora de 245 estudiantes españoles de inglés como lengua extranjera de 2º y 4º ESO. La comparación se establece de forma general y en función del género del lector, del nivel de competencia en L2 y del método de evaluación (written recall y multiple choice). La recogida de datos se llevó a cabo durante la 2ª y 3ª semana del 2º trimestre del curso 2013–2014 en sendos colegios concertados de una ciudad del norte de España. Las muestras se analizaron empleando pruebas t de Student y ANOVA mediante el programa R. Los resultados muestran que (a) la familiaridad influye significativamente más que el interés; (b) según aumenta el nivel de competencia, la influencia de ambas variables decrece; (c) el género no parece influir a la comprensión lectora de textos que carecen de sesgo de género; y (d) el método de evaluación multiple choice parece facilitar en gran medida la comprensión.

Writing Assignments with a Metacognitive Component Enhance Learning in a Large Introductory Biology Course

Writing assignments, including note taking and written recall, should enhance retention of knowledge, whereas analytical writing tasks with metacognitive aspects should enhance higher-order thinking. In this study, we assessed how certain writing-intensive “interventions,” such as written exam corrections and peer-reviewed writing assignments using Calibrated Peer Review and including a metacognitive component, improve student learning. We designed and tested the possible benefits of these approaches using control and experimental variables across and between our three-section introductory biology course. Based on assessment, students who corrected exam questions showed significant improvement on postexam assessment compared with their nonparticipating peers. Differences were also observed between students participating in written and discussion-based exercises. Students with low ACT scores benefited equally from written and discussion-based exam corrections, whereas students with midrange to high ACT scores benefited more from written than discussion-based exam corrections. Students scored higher on topics learned via peer-reviewed writing assignments relative to learning in an active classroom discussion or traditional lecture. However, students with low ACT scores (17–23) did not show the same benefit from peer-reviewed written essays as the other students. These changes offer significant student learning benefits with minimal additional effort by the instructors.