Self-efficacy assessment hinders improvement on a deliberate cricket bowling practice task

Self-related thoughts such as performance worries or attention to one’s own body movements during sport have been known to impact performance negatively. However, self-assessment is often encouraged during learning tasks, especially when being coached on sporting tasks. In this study we examined how attention directed towards an internal psychological aspect, self-efficacy, affected performance in a cricket bowling task. We hypothesised that cricketers who are asked to assess their own ability on a bowling task would show a deterioration in performance compared to control subjects who are asked to assess the ability of another. Participants were asked to rate their self- efficacy levels in the middle of a deliberate practice task. In the pre-test phase, participants attempted to bowl in a game-standard designated “good length” zone across twelve trials. Following this, experimental group members rated their own general and task-specific self-efficacy using Bandura’s self-efficacy questionnaire, while the control group rated someone else’s ability. They each then bowled for twelve more trials, and their performance was measured before and after the self-assessment based on the number of trials that were bowled within the standard “good length” zone. Paired t-tests showed that while the performance of the control group improved significantly from pre-test to post-test, t = 2.613, p = 0.008; the experimental group did not show a significant improvement, t = 1.156, p = 0.131. Results indicate that asking people to rate their confidence level may hinder their improvement on a deliberate practice task. This has implications for sport performance where athletes or coaches might be tempted to self-evaluate before performance, as well as for researchers who consider administering self-efficacy questionnaires prior to performance.

The effect of odor enrichment on olfactory acuity: Olfactometric testing in mice using two mirror-molecular pairs

Intelligent systems in nature like the mammalian nervous system benefit from adaptable inputs that can tailor response profiles to their environment that varies in time and space. Study of such plasticity, in all its manifestations, forms a pillar of classical and modern neuroscience. This study is concerned with a novel form of plasticity in the olfactory system referred to as induction. In this process, subjects unable to smell a particular odor, or unable to differentiate similar odors, gain these abilities through mere exposure to the odor(s) over time without the need for attention or feedback (reward or punishment). However, few studies of induction have rigorously documented changes in olfactory threshold for the odor(s) used for “enrichment.” We trained 36 CD-1 mice in an operant-olfactometer (go/no go task) to discriminate a mixture of stereoisomers from a lone stereoisomer using two enantiomeric pairs: limonene and carvone. We also measured each subject’s ability to detect one of the stereoisomers of each odor. In order to assess the effect of odor enrichment on enantiomer discrimination and detection, mice were exposed to both stereoisomers of limonene or carvone for 2 to 12 weeks. Enrichment was effected by adulterating the subject’s food (passive enrichment) with one pair of enantiomers or by exposing them to the enantiomers in daily operant discrimination testing (active enrichment). We found that neither form of enrichment altered discrimination nor detection. And this result pertained using either within-subject or between-subject experimental designs. Unexpectedly, our threshold measurements were among the lowest ever recorded for any species, which we attributed to the relatively greater amount of practice (task replication) we allowed our mice compared to other reports. Interestingly, discrimination thresholds were no greater (limonene) or only modestly greater (carvone) from detection thresholds suggesting chiral-specific olfactory receptors determine thresholds for these compounds. The super-sensitivity of mice, shown in this study, to the limonene and carvone enantiomers, compared to the much lesser acuity of humans for these compounds, reported elsewhere, may resolve the mystery of why the former group with four-fold more olfactory receptors have tended, in previous studies, to have similar thresholds to the latter group. Finally, our results are consistent with the conclusion that supervised-perceptual learning i.e. that involving repeated feedback for correct and incorrect decisions, rather than induction, is the form of plasticity that allows animals to fully realize the capabilities of their olfactory system.

Needs Analysis of Arabic Guided Writing Material Using Task-Based Learning

Writing is not only as academic skills but also it as as important skills to facilitate the career and life needs. Writing material must be designed to realize the skills that are directly implemented in daily life. Therefore, the needs analysis process is a necessity to find out those needs. The aim of study was to get the students’ needs of Arabic guided writing material through task-based learning. Writing has to create as task learning because it needs more practice. This study needs to design guided material. The research used qualitative research using descriptive qualitative method. The process of collecting data used documentation, interview and questionnaire. Data analysis used descriptive qualitative technique and judgment experts. The result of finding show that teacher and students need authentic material refers to practice. Task-based learning has offered the variation of task. Almost the participant answered that the types of task is available with the Arabic guided writing learning. This study is not oriented to the writing material content but also combined with the variation task activity. It can be implemented in guided writing subject. The consortium is able to develop in the material arranging.

The Independent Perceptual Calibration of Action-Neutral and -Referential Environmental Properties

Two experiments were conducted to explore how the calibration of perception of environmental properties taken with reference to an animal and their action capabilities (e.g., affordances) and those that are independent of action capabilities (e.g., metric properties) relate. In both experiments, participants provided reports of the maximum height they could reach above their head with a number of different stick(s) (reach-with-stick height) and the length of those stick(s), a property that is a constituent of reach-with-stick height. In Experiment 1 reach-with-stick height reports improved over trials whereas stick length reports remained constant. In Experiment 2, feedback about maximum reach-with-stick height improved perception of this affordance, but such improvements did not transfer to perception of stick length in a pretest/practice task/posttest design. The results suggest that the perceptual calibration with practice perceiving or feedback about actual dimensions of action-referential and action-neutral properties do not necessarily depend on one another.