Affect Response Times Research Articles

Distinct and interacting impacts of trait anxiety and a state anxiety manipulation on attentional switching

ABSTRACT Background and Objectives According to the Attentional Control Theory, individuals with high levels of anxiety often shift their attention inefficiently due to increased effort to meet task demands. However, literature on the effects of anxiety on shifting performance is discrepant. This study examined the impacts of trait and state anxiety on attentional shifting and whether worry or depression explained variance in shifting. Design and Methods One-hundred thirty-eight undergraduate psychology students were randomized to the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) or control TSST. Subjects completed measures of state/trait anxiety, worry, and depression and a computerized attention task. Statistical analyses included linear mixed modelling (LMM), t-tests, and ANOVAs. Results Results revealed significant effects of state and trait anxiety and worry, but not depression. Type (location/direction) and presentation (switch/repeat) of trials also affected response times. Trait anxiety significantly related to trial presentation but did not interact with trial type. State anxiety did not significantly relate to either trial index. State and trait anxiety significantly impacted overall response time. Results revealed variations in cognitive flexibility, but no interactions between state and trait anxiety in predicting task switching. Conclusion These findings are discussed in the context of Attentional Control Theory and relevant empirical research.

Effect of Remote Cardiac Monitoring System Design on Response Time to Critical Arrhythmias.

In many hospitals across the country, electrocardiograms of multiple at-risk patients are monitored remotely by telemetry monitor watchers in a central location. However, there is limited evidence regarding best practices for designing these cardiac monitoring systems to ensure prompt detection and response to life-threatening events. To identify factors that may affect monitoring efficiency, we simulated critical arrhythmias in inpatient units with different monitoring systems and compared their efficiency in communicating the arrhythmias to a first responder. This was a multicenter cross-sectional in situ simulation study. Simulation participants were monitor watchers and first responders (usually nurses) in 2 inpatient units in each of 3 hospitals. Manipulated variables included: (1) number of communication nodes between monitor watchers and first responders; (2) central monitoring station location-on or off the patient care unit; (3) monitor watchers' workload; (4) nurses' workload; and (5) participants' experience. We performed 62 arrhythmia simulations to measure response times of monitor watchers and 128 arrhythmia simulations to measure response times in patient care units. We found that systems in which an intermediary between monitor watchers and nurses communicated critical events had faster response times to simulated arrhythmias than systems in which monitor watchers communicated directly with nurses. Responses were also faster in units colocated with central monitoring stations than in those located remotely. As the perceived workload of nurses increased, response latency also increased. Experience did not affect response times. Although limited in our ability to isolate the effects of these factors from extraneous factors on central monitoring system efficiency, our study provides a roadmap for using in situ arrhythmia simulations to assess and improve monitoring performance.

Letter processing in Russian: Does orthography matter?

Prior research has suggested that the identification and encoding of letter positions within letter strings might be influenced by orthography. Letters in transparent languages (e.g., Greek) with regular grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences are processed sequentially, whereas letters in deep languages (e.g., English) are processed in parallel. In three experiments, we used a visual search paradigm to test this hypothesis on Russian—a relatively transparent language. In Experiment 1, we measured the identification speed of Cyrillic letters at each position in the five-element real words or pronounceable pseudowords. In Experiment 2, the performance was compared to random letter strings, and in Experiment 3, to non-linguistic symbol strings. Our results reveal a search pattern similar to English, excluding strictly serial letter computation, which is inconsistent with the orthography hypothesis. Moreover, we showed that the lexical status and the nature of the string (linguistic/non-linguistic) affect response times for Russian and therefore must be accounted for in models of visual word recognition.

Analysing the Impact of Scaling Out SaaS Software on Response Time

When SaaS software suffers from the problem of response time degradation, scaling deployment resources that support the operation of software can improve the response time, but that also means an increase in the costs due to additional deployment resources. For the purpose of saving costs of deployment resources while improving response time, scaling out the SaaS software is an alternative approach. However, how scaling out software affects response time in the case of saving deployment resources is an important issue for effectively improving response time. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method analysing the impact of scaling out software on response time. Specifically, we define the scaling-out operation of SaaS software and then leverage queueing theory to analyse the impact of the scaling-out operation on response time. According to the conclusions of impact analysis, we further derive an algorithm for improving response time based on scaling out software without using additional deployment resources. Finally, the effectiveness of the analysis’s conclusions and the proposed algorithm is validated by a practical case, which indicates that the conclusions of impact analysis obtained from this paper can play a guiding role in scaling out software and improving response time effectively while saving deployment resources.

Going Silent: Redesigning the Activation Process for In-Hospital Cardiopulmonary Arrests.

Reducing environmental noise has become a priority for many health systems. Following a 10-week preparation period, our health system transitioned from an overhead-activated to a silently activated in-hospital code team notification system. The goal of this initiative was to reduce environmental noise and support code team communication and function without adversely affecting response time, provider availability, or key quality metrics. Transitioning from overhead to silently activated events involved a three-step quality improvement approach. Input from key stakeholders and preimplementation education were of key importance. Multiple timed trials and a full in situ simulation were completed before going live with the new process. Evaluation of 6-month pre- and postimplementation quality metrics showed no significant difference in compliance with defibrillating shockable rhythms within two minutes, event survival, or survival to discharge. Provider survey data and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems "quiet at night" scores were not significantly different. By utilizing a multistep implementation approach, transitioning from overhead pages to a silently activated system for in-hospital code team activation was feasible and safe. Abandoning the overhead paging system did not lead to a decrease in key quality metrics nor impair team perception of code function.

Temporal Regularity May Not Improve Memory for Item-Specific Detail.

Regularities in event timing allow for the allocation of attention to critical time-points when an event is most likely to occur, leading to improved visual perception. Results from recent studies indicate that similar benefits may extend to memory for scenes and objects. Here, we investigated whether benefits of temporal regularity are evident when detailed, item-specific representations are necessary for successful recognition memory performance. In Experiments 1 and 2, pictures of objects were presented with either predictable or randomized event timing, in separate encoding blocks. In the test phase, old and new objects were presented, intermixed with perceptually similar exemplars of encoded objects. In Experiment 3 we attempted to replicate previously reported memory enhancements for scenes. In contrast to predictions, temporal regularity did not affect response times (RT) or improve recognition memory accuracy in any of our experiments. These results suggest that any effects of temporal expectation on memory are subtle and may be sensitive to minor changes in task parameters. In sum, indirect upregulation of attention through imposed temporal structure may not be sufficient to have downstream effects on memory performance.

Performance Analysis of Giant Magnetostrictive Actuator and Its Application on Active Suspension of Train

Active suspension is considered to be a good way to improve the ride comfort of high-speed trains. According to the output index requirements of train’s active suspension, a giant magnetostrictive actuator(GMA) is proposed. This is mainly because giant magnetostrictive materials(GMM) has the characteristics of fast response, large output force and high energy conversion rate. It is verified by experiments that the output force is proportional to the excitation current. It is found in the experiment that the excitation frequency should be greater than 120Hz to obtain a stable output force, and it is also found that preload and excitation frequency will affect response time. On the basis of experiments, a 2-DOF physical and mathematical model of the vertical quarter train is built. An MPC algorithm is designed to control GMA active suspension. Through simulation analysis, the proposed control algorithm is compared with passive suspension and active suspension based on PID control algorithm. Both theory and practice show that the proposed control algorithm is effective.

Application of colour combinations on visual search tasks under vibration environments

AbstractColour is widely utilised as a visual coding system in visual search, but its application under vibration conditions (e.g., in various vehicles) has not been fully explored. This study was designed to examine the effect of colour combinations on performance of visual search tasks conducted in vibration conditions. Forty-eight university students participated in an experiment where they were required to identify target type and location under 24 colour combinations (half in negative polarity and half in positive polarity) and three vibration conditions (static, low, and high). The findings showed that vibration did not significantly affect performance, perceptions, or physiological aspects. Colour combination significantly affected response time, and the participants preferred colour combinations that had the potential to produce better performance. Colour combinations with negative polarity (e.g., yellow on black and white on black) are recommended for presenting search interfaces. These findings are of importance in human–computer interface designs for information display under vibration conditions.

Civilian pepper spray for self defense: Understanding user perception and impact of design on user performance

Pepper spray is widely used in the US, and is marketed as an effective self-defense device. While pepper spray can be useful in deterring an attacker, many pepper spray owners do not have any experience using it. There is a dearth of published studies that focus on civilian pepper-spray use, not to mention first time pepper-spray users. A study to analyze pepper-spray designs with first-time users, to see how the design, specifically the safety mechanism, affects response time and overall performance would be helpful. The study was conducted in 2 parts – a survey to understand user perception, and a lab experiment using a 2 × 2 randomized block design with two designs of pepper sprays (side-slide safety and flip-top safety) and the two starting locations for the pepper spray (purse or pocket) as the manipulated factors. Results revealed a significant difference in response times between the flip-top pepper-spray and the side-slide pepper-spray. There was also a significant difference in response times between using the index or thumb as the trigger finger but no significant difference in response times when the pepper-spray for location (purse or pocket). Overall, participants rated the side-slide device as the most effective self-defense device. Relevance to industryBecause there is no other research in the area of first-time pepper-spray users, let alone civilian pepper-spray users, much can be learned about how well people use these devices in a real-world situation, and when there is a highly stressful situation how well does pepper-spray allow an individual to protect him or herself. This study starts the discussion on some of these topics.

Sprint Start Regulation in Athletics: A Critical Review.

The sprint start in athletics is strictly controlled to ensure the fairness of competition. World athletics (WA)-certified start information systems (SIS) record athletes' response times in competition to ensure that no athletes gain an unfair advantage by responding in < 100ms after the start signal. This critical review examines the legitimacy of the 100ms rule, the factors that affect response times and the technologies and rules that support the regulation of the start in competition. The review shows that several SIS use different technologies to deliver the start signal and record response time (RT). The lack of scientific evidence about the definition of the 100ms false start threshold by the WA is criticized in the literature and the 100ms rule is challenged. SIS technologies, expertise and sex appear to affect the RT detected in competition. A lack of standardization in event detection has led to validity and reliability problems in RT determination. The onset of the foot response on the blocks is currently used to assess RT in athletics via block-mounted sensors; however, research shows that the onset of arm force reaction is the first detectable biomechanical event in the start. Further research and development should consider whether the onset of arm force can be used to improve the false start detection in competition. Further research is also needed to develop a precise understanding of the event sequence and motor control of the start to improve the SIS technology and rigorously determine the minimum limit of RT in the sprint start.

Analysis, Deployment and Integration of Platforms for Fog Computing

In IoT applications, data capture in a sensor network can generate a large flow of information between the nodes and the cloud, affecting response times and device complexity but, above all, increasing costs. Fog computing refers to the use of pre-processing tools to improve local data management and communication with the cloud. This work presents an analysis of the features that platforms implementing fog computing solutions should have. Additionally, an experimental work integrating two specific platforms used for controlling devices in a sensor network, processing the generated data, and communicating with the cloud is presented.

Purpose-Dependent Consequences of Temporal Expectations Serving Perception and Action.

Temporal expectations enable anticipatory brain states that prepare us for upcoming perception and action. We investigated the purpose-dependent nature and consequences of cued temporal expectations on brain and behavior in male and female human volunteers, using two matched visual-motor tasks that stressed either response speed or visual accuracy. We show that the consequences of temporal expectations are fundamentally purpose dependent. Temporal expectations predominantly affected response times when visual demands were low and speed was more important, but perceptual accuracy when visual demands were more challenging. Using magnetoencephalography, we further show how temporal expectations latch onto anticipatory neural states associated with concurrent spatial expectations—modulating task-specific anticipatory neural lateralization of oscillatory brain activity in a modality- and frequency-specific manner. By relating these brain states to behavior, we finally reveal how the behavioral relevance of such anticipatory brain states is similarly purpose dependent.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Knowing when events may occur helps to prepare neural activity for upcoming perception and action. It is becoming increasingly clear that distinct sources of temporal expectations may facilitate performance via distinct mechanisms. Another relevant dimension to consider regards the distinct purposes that temporal expectations may serve. Here, we demonstrate that the consequences of temporal expectations on neurophysiological brain activity and behavior are fundamentally purpose dependent, and show how temporal expectations interact with task-relevant neural states in a modality- and frequency-specific manner. This brings the important insight that the ways in which temporal expectations influence brain and behavior, and how brain activity is related to behavior, are not fixed properties but rather depend on the task at hand.

The use of different sodium/potassium perchlorate regimes could affect response time in the treatment of amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis

Searchable abstracts of presentations at key conferences in endocrinology ISSN 1470-3947 (print) | ISSN 1479-6848 (online)

Screen position effects on task performance in a delayed match to sample task

Studies of working memory have used immediate and delayed recall of lists of items. Serial position effects are the phenomena where items at the beginning and end of a studied list are recalled differentially from items in the middle of the list. In matching versions of the task, study items may be presented serially or simultaneously in a grid. After a delay a single probe item is presented for which the participant determines whether or not it was in the study set. The effects of the position of an item when studied on a screen are currently not well understood and are the focus of the current work. Findings from a delayed match to sample task in 49 healthy young adults with 1 to 9 items presented in a 3 by 3 grid, demonstrate that the column of the studied items affect response time and accuracy. The effects of position on accuracy also significantly interact with task demands. The importance of screen position effects is demonstrated with simulations using the mean accuracies split by task demands and screen locations. Simulations demonstrate the possible range of accuracies based on screen effects when the number of trials presented to an individual is less than 20 for each task demand. This has important implications when a small number of trials are administered using randomly generated stimuli which is often the case in neuroimaging studies where tasks are delivered under constrained time limits.

Preparation for Industrial Careers in Mathematics: Analysis of Newport News Fire Department

In efforts to improve their overall efficiency, Chief Rogers, our community liaison with the Newport News Fire Department, challenged us to help his staff find more efficient ways to analyze the data regarding their response times to structure fires around the city. Through our partnership with the fire department our group was tasked with analyzing structure fire data from 2013-2018 in order to find a possible connection between fire response times and community factors. In particular, our goal was to characterize the efficiency and effectiveness of the Newport News Fire Department as a whole as well as the individual districts or stations; automate the process of compiling and analyzing the data to help the fire department perform calculations more quickly; and analyze how the development of Tech Center has affected response times as well as how new developments in Newport News will potentially impact the Newport News Fire Department.

The importance of vitamin D3 supplementation in orthopedics - literature review

Falls have been recognized by the WHO as one of the most significant problems in aging societies. In the elderly after 65 years of age, they cause 90% of the fractures of the proximal femoral bone (bkk) and 100% of the forearm fractures [5].They usually occur when walking (most often), getting up and sitting down. The consequences of falls, as well as themselves, can be prevented by supplementing vitamin D3 [6] [8] regulating the body's calcium-phosphate homeostasis. It improves neuromuscular function, including the mechanism reduces the frequency of falls. It also affects response time and balance. The concentration of vitamin D3 in the body is variable. Depends on endogenous biosynthesis and food supply. It also shows seasonal fluctuations. Its deficiencies lead to not only orthopedic and dental complications. It has been proven that there is a decreased level of 25 (OH) D3 in serum and such diseases as diabetes, hypertension, depression,neuro-degenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease and increased likelihood of cancer, especially breast, prostate, and colon cancers [15].

The interaction of linguistic and arithmetic factors affects adult performance on arithmetic word problems

Performance on word problems is influenced by linguistic and arithmetic factors, and by their interaction. To study these factors and interactions, we manipulated linguistic and arithmetic factors independently in a within-participant design that included complexity parameters (a) in the domain of arithmetic: carry/borrow (no-carry/borrow vs. carry/borrow), operation (addition vs. subtraction), (b) in the domain of linguistics: nominalization (nominalized vs. verbalized form), and (c) linking the two domains: lexical consistency (linguistic predicate locally consistent vs. inconsistent with mathematical operation). Response times of 25 students solving 320 one-step word problems were measured. All four factors showed a main effect on response times, and interactions between linguistic and arithmetic factors affected response times. These interactions were observed when the linguistic and arithmetic factors were conceptually linked. Our results highlight that not only the linguistic and arithmetic complexities of an item contribute to the difficulty of a word problem, but linguistic and arithmetic factors interact. We discuss the theoretical implications for the numerical and the linguistic domain as well as the possible impact of domain-general characteristics, such as working memory limitations as a potential reason for the observed interactions between numerical and linguistic attributes.

Effect of Driver Behaviour on Traffic Jams

Driving in a traffic flow implies involvement in difficult traffic situations that adversely affects response time of a driver, which in turn is considered when estimating stopping distance of a vehicle and determines road safety. This relationship shows the effect of driver behaviour in traffic flow on the road traffic situation. The objective of the study was to study behavioural factors that influence driver’s decisions. The study used methods of driver behaviour modelling, mathematical modelling, experimental studies of the mental and psychological functions of drivers. Modelling the driver’s behaviour, considering various combinations of many behavioural and other factors, leads to a large number of options for mathematical description of driver behaviour, which makes it difficult to use this approach to describe behaviour of drivers under the conditions of a real street-road network. The research has analysed several works devoted to the study of control action of drivers, using unknown coefficients, describing a model of movement of vehicles considering accuracy of their control. Driving through an unregulated intersection is considered as the most complex and informative version of driver’s behaviour. It is found that when modelling a traffic flow, it is necessary to take into account the degree of resoluteness of drivers (through determination of a coefficient of resoluteness which is a random variable that takes into account the probability distribution of the coefficient’s value in conjunction with the probability distribution of the function of traffic flow intensity). The distribution of the coefficient of resoluteness of drivers, obtained from experimental data, was subject to analysis. It is determined that the driving style affects formation of traffic congestion. The assessment of the driving style is made through conditional classification of driver behaviour on the road, namely marked by manifestation of aggression and timidity. When studying the behaviour of timid and aggressive drivers, several pairs of trajectories and the dynamics of the corresponding traffic flow density, were considered and calculated based on Edie’s model. It has been confirmed that traffic congestion has the greatest negative effect on choleric drivers and sanguine drivers. Besides, there is a relationship between the response time of a driver and the change in his functional condition. It is concluded that to improve road safety thanks to a more accurate assessment of possible risks of formation of congestion situations, it is necessary to consider behavioural characteristics and temperaments of the drivers.

A rack-aware scalable resource management system for Hadoop YARN

Big data have brought in an era of data exploration and utilisation with MapReduce computational paradigm as its major enabler. Though great efforts through the implementation of Hadoop have made computation scale to tens of thousands of commodity cluster processors, the centralised architecture of resource manager has adversely affected response time in large data centres. The developed model decouples the responsibilities of resource manager by providing another layer where each daemon called rack unit resource manager (RU_RM) carries out the responsibility of allocating resources to compute nodes within its local rack to ensure low latency for large files. The application was developed and tested with Hadoop workload benchmarks used for analysis. Two performance evaluation metrics (efficiency and average task-delay ratio) were used for comparison. Efficiency quantifies average cluster utilisation while average task-delay ratio measures average delay time. Results obtained showed that as file size increases, the developed model outperforms the existing framework.

Taxonomic relations evoke more fear than thematic relations after fear conditioning: An EEG study.

When fear is generalized, knowledge based on concepts is also retrieved. Concepts have two very different relations: thematic relations based on the co-occurrence of events or scenarios, and taxonomic relations based on similarity or shared features. However, it remains unclear whether thematic and taxonomic relationships differentially affect fear generalization. To clarify the underlying cognitive mechanisms of these relations, the current study combined the classical fear conditioning procedure with electroencephalography (EEG). Forty participants were conditioned to a neutral word by pairing the presentation of the word with an unpleasant electrical pulse. A different stimulus was not paired with the electrical pulse. Next, during generalization testing, thematically related or taxonomic-related words were presented. Behavioral responses (shock expectancy and response time) and brain responses (event-related potentials [ERP] and oscillation activity) were recorded. Behavioral results showed that taxonomic relations initiated higher shock expectancy compared with thematic relations, and that conceptual relations did not affect response times. Taxonomic relations induced larger P2 components than thematic relations, and danger generalization stimuli initiated smaller P600 components than safe generalization stimuli. In addition, the magnitudes of alpha and beta oscillations were larger for danger generalization stimuli. These results suggested that taxonomic stimuli generalize broader responses compared with thematic relations after fear conditioning. Therefore, we report a possible new electrophysiological evidence for the presentation of fear generalization. These findings aid our understanding of fear generalization at the concept level and have clinical implications for the cognitive treatment of anxiety disorders.