Differences In Types Of Errors Research Articles

Evidence for different types of errors being associated with different types of post-error changes

Errors in simple choice tasks result in systematic changes in the response time and accuracy of subsequent trials. We propose that there are at least two different causes of choice errors - response speed and evidence quality, which result in different types of post-error changes. We explore these differences in types of errors and post-error changes in two recognition memory experiments with speed versus accuracy emphasis conditions that differentially produce response-speed and evidence-quality errors. Under conditions that give rise to more response-speed errors, we find evidence of traditional post-error slowing. Under conditions that give rise to evidence-quality errors, we find evidence of post-error speeding. We propose a broadening of theories of cognitive control to encompass maladaptive as well as adaptive strategies, and discuss implications for the use of post-error changes to measure cognitive control.

Individual Differences in Error Types and Personality Traits

Individual Differences in Error Types and Personality Traits

Restrictions on surgical resident shift length does not impact type of medical errors

BackgroundIn 2011, resident duty hours were restricted in an attempt to improve patient safety and resident education. With the goal of reducing fatigue, shorter shift length leads to more patient handoffs, raising concerns about adverse effects on patient safety. This study seeks to determine whether differences in duty-hour restrictions influence types of errors made by residents. Materials and methodsThis is a nested retrospective cohort study at a surgery department in an academic medical center. During 2013-14, standard 2011 duty hours were in place for residents. In 2014-15, duty-hour restrictions at the study site were relaxed (“flexible”) with no restrictions on shift length. We reviewed all morbidity and mortality submissions from July 1, 2013-June 30, 2015 and compared differences in types of errors between these periods. ResultsA total of 383 patients experienced adverse events, including 59 deaths (15.4%). Comparing standard versus flexible periods, there was no difference in mortality (15.7% versus 12.6%, P = 0.479) or complication rates (2.6% versus 2.5%, P = 0.696). There was no difference in types of errors between periods (P = 0.050-0.808). The most number of errors were due to cognitive failures (229, 59.6%), whereas the fewest number of errors were due to team failure (127, 33.2%). By subset, technical errors resulted in the highest number of errors (169, 44.1%). There were no differences between types of errors of cases that were nonelective, at night, or involving residents. ConclusionsAmong adverse events reported in this departmental surgical morbidity and mortality, there were no differences in types of errors when resident duty hours were less restrictive.

Characterization of Age Differences in Error Types in a Multitrial Spatial Learning Task

Although increased age is associated with greater errors in spatial memory tasks, it is unclear if there are age differences in error types. To investigate this, 334 participants (ages 22–88) completed a task in which they remembered object locations across multiple study-test trials. Far and close error types were categorized based on the spatial proximity of recalled objects to their actual location. Younger adults showed a greater difference in the proportion of close and far errors, and middle-aged adults showed this pattern to a lesser extent. However, older adults committed close and far errors at an equal rate. Results revealed that all age groups reduced their far errors across trials, and task complexity similarly affected older and younger adults' error-type rates. Study time did not appear to predict error types. Overall, these results suggest that increased age is associated with more far errors, but that a reduction in these error types can occur through repeated learning trials.

The influence of right or left handedness on the ability to simulate handwritten signatures and some elements of signatures: A study of Arabic writers

It has been widely assumed since the 1970s that right-handed writers, on average, do not write or simulate handwriting any better than left-handed writers. This study has dug deeper into that question, to find narrow language environments which left-handed and right-handed writers simulate with different degrees of success or making different types of errors. These might provide useful markers of handedness in writers or forgers. The sample of 823 native Arabic-writing adults, 763 right handed and 60 left handed, first attempted to simulate two Arabic signatures. As expected, the accuracy of the simulations of the two groups was not significantly different. Simulation accuracy of a variety of narrower elements was then measured to search for small environments in which the two groups performed differently. Two elements - slant and alignment - were significantly more poorly simulated by left-handed subjects than right-handed subjects, although the differences were not great enough to be useful in suggesting the handedness of a forger. These differences in simulation accuracy were not totally explored or explained. Instead, the differences in types of errors to slant and to alignment were investigated. Left-handed simulators, but not right-handed simulators, showed a strong tendency that had been predicted for both groups: to slant strokes and letters toward the side of the writing hand, when the target strokes and letters slanted in the opposite direction. The difference between the handedness groups was great enough that a strong preference for leftward slant in an Arabic writer or forger might suggest left handedness, but not, of course, rule out right handedness. Right-handed simulators, but not left-handed simulators, showed a strong tendency that had also been predicted for both groups: for the line of writing to be higher on the side where the writing hand was located. Again, the difference between handedness groups was great enough that a strong tendency for the writing line to fall to the left in Arabic writing and simulation might suggest right handedness, but would certainly not rule out left handedness. Thus, suggestive, but not absolute, markers of handedness have been found. In an effort to explain these almost mirror-image patterns, it was noticed that the operation of two more tendencies, in addition to the operation in both groups of the two predicted tendencies, might explain the patterns of the data. If we assume that both handedness groups tended to slant toward the writing hand and tended to make the writing line higher on the side of the writing hand, the two other tendencies operating in both groups would have been a tendency to slant strokes and letters toward the end of the writing line, and a tendency for writing to fall toward the end of the writing line. The operation of these four tendencies would account quite well for the right-handed and left-handed patterns in the two groups.

Writing Errors and Anosognosia in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis with Dementia

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with dementia (ALS-D) is known to exhibit characteristics of frontotemporal dementia. However, in clinical situations, it is often difficult to evaluate their cognitive functions because of impaired voluntary speech and physical disabilities. In order to identify characteristic and diagnostic cognitive symptoms of relatively advanced ALS-D patients, we retrospectively reviewed the clinical features of seven cases of clinically definitive ALS who had dementia, impaired voluntary speech, and physical disability. Their medical records showed that six out of seven patients made writing errors, and all of the patients demonstrated anosognosia. The writing errors consisted of paragraphia such as substitution, omission, or syntactic errors with individual differences in error types. Dissociation between kana and kanji were also observed. Anosognosia was evaluated by a self-rating scale with which the patients and the medical staff evaluated the patient's physical ability; the results indicated a large discrepancy between the evaluation by the patients and the medical staff. We emphasize that aphasic writing errors have been underestimated, particularly in ALS-D patients with impaired voluntary speech. We also reported that anosognosia was the most important and quantifiable symptom in ALS-D. The relationship between writing errors and anosognosia should be investigated further.

Theory of mind deficits in children with fragile X syndrome

Given the consistent findings of theory of mind deficits in children with autism, it would be extremely beneficial to examine the profile of theory of mind abilities in other clinical groups such as fragile X syndrome (FXS) and Down syndrome (DS). Aim The aim of the present study was to assess whether boys with FXS are impaired in simple social situations that require them to understand their own and others' mental states - in essence: do they have a 'theory of mind'? Well-standardized tasks of theory of mind, the location change false belief task and the appearance-reality tasks were employed to examine whether any impairment might be specific to the FXS or part of a more generalized developmental deficit. The results suggest that children with FXS do have impairment in theory of mind that is comparable to the deficit reported in other groups with learning disabilities such as DS. However, closer inspection of the impairment between these groups revealed qualitative differences in error types (realist vs. phenomenist), suggestive of atypical development that goes beyond general cognitive delay. The findings are discussed in terms of the teasing apart of different components of social cognition in order to identify syndrome-specific deficiencies and proficiencies.

Analysis of age differences in types of errors on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices

This study examined adult age differences on the types of errors made on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM). Data were compiled from three large studies in which participants completed the APM (total sample size=818). To determine the type of errors that participants made, distractors for each problem of the APM were first coded as one of four error types: (a) incomplete correlate (IC), (b) wrong principle (WP), (c) confluence of ideas (CF), or (d) repetition (RP). Scores on each error type were determined for each participant individually and reflected deviation from selecting an error type by chance alone. Analyses compared three age groups (young, middle, and old) and three ability groups (low, medium, and high). Results suggested that adults of all ages made similar types of errors, but that adults of different ability levels made different types of errors. Age and ability differences were also examined on problems by the type of rule(s) required, as classified by Carpenter, Just, and Shell [Psychol. Rev. 97 (1990) 404]. Results suggested that there were some age and ability differences in the number of errors made on problems involving different types of rules.

The quality of abstracting medical information from the medical record: the impact of training programmes.

To evaluate the impact of a programme of training, education and awareness on the quality of the data collected through discharge abstracts. Three random samples of hospital discharge abstracts relating to three different periods were studied. Quality control to evaluate the impact of systematic training and education activities was performed by checking the quality of abstracting medical records. The study was carried out at the Istituto Dermopatico dell'Immacolata, a research hospital in Rome, Italy; it has 335 beds specializing in dermatology and vascular surgery. Error rates in discharge abstracts were subdivided into six categories: wrong selection of the principal diagnosis (type A); low specificity of the principal diagnosis (type B); incomplete reporting of secondary diagnoses (type C); wrong selection of the principal procedure (type D); low specificity of the principal procedure (type E); incomplete reporting of procedures (type F). A specific rate of errors modifying classification in diagnosis related groups was then estimated. Error types A, B and F dropped from 8.5% to 1.3%, from 15.8% to 1.6% and from 22% to 2.6% respectively. Error type D and E were zero in the third period of analysis (September-October 1997) compared with a rate of 0.7% and 4.1% in the third quarter of 1994. Error type C showed a slight decrease from 31.8% in 1994 to 27.2% in 1997. All differences in error types except incomplete reporting of secondary diagnoses were statistically significant. Five and a half per cent of cases were assigned to a different diagnoses related group after re-abstracting in 1997 as compared to 24.3% in the third quarter of 1994 and 23.8% in the first quarter of 1995. Training and continuous monitoring, and feedback of information to departments have proved to be successful in improving the quality of abstracting information at patient level from the medical record. The effort to increase administrative data quality at hospital level will facilitate the use of those data sets for internal quality management activities and for population-based quality of care studies.

Frontal pure agraphia for kanji or kana: Dissociation between morphology and phonology

We present two patients with frontal pure agraphia more impaired for either kanji or kana (two separate writing systems for the Japanese language). The lesion of patient 1 (preferentially disturbed for kanji) was restricted to the foot of the middle frontal gyrus and the adjacent anterior precentral gyrus, whereas the lesion of patient 2 (preferentially disturbed for kana) included the posterior two thirds of the middle frontal gyrus. Both patients made agraphic errors (impaired recall) for kanji and agraphic or paragraphic errors (changing into other symbols) for kana. The double dissociation and the difference in types of errors between kanji writing and kana writing suggests that there are two pathways involved in writing, i.e., a morphologic route and a phonologic route. We concluded that damage to the morphologic route may yield agraphia for kanji and that damage to the phonologic route may yield agraphia for kana.

Qualitative Hemispheric Differences for Processing Trigrams

The present study investigated qualitative hemispheric differences for processing trigrams by examining the nature of errors made when trigrams were directed to each visual field-hemisphere. Three types of trigrams, pronounceable letter trigrams, unpronounceable letter trigrams, and non-letter symbol trigrams, were presented. Recognition of each trigram type resulted in significant visual field differences in error types. Pronounceable vs. unpronounceable letter trigrams yielded similar visual field differences in error types, whereas letter vs. non-letter symbol trigrams yielded opposite patterns of visual field differences in error types. These results suggest that hemispheric mode of trigram processing changes as a function of letter vs. non-letter type, but not as a function of pronounceability per se. Moreover, the direction of this change is opposite for the two hemispheres.

English consonant recognition in noise and in reverberation by Japanese and American listeners

English consonant recognition in undegraded and degraded listening conditions was compared for listeners whose primary language was either Japanese or American English. There were ten subjects in each of the two groups, termed the non-native (Japanese) and the native (American) subjects, respectively. The Modified Rhyme Test was degraded either by a babble of voices (S/N = -3 dB) or by a room reverberation (reverberation time, T = 1.2 s). The Japanese subjects performed at a lower level than the American subjects in both noise and reverberation, although the performance difference in the undegraded, quiet condition was relatively small. There was no difference between the scores obtained in noise and in reverberation for either group. A limited-error analysis revealed some differences in type of errors for the groups of listeners. Implications of the results are discussed in terms of the effects of degraded listening conditions on non-native listeners' speech perception.

The premature aging hypothesis: old before its time?

This study tested the hypothesis that alcoholism results in premature aging of memory functioning. It was proposed that support for the premature aging hypothesis must come from qualitative as well as quantitative similarities between younger alcoholics and older controls. The California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT) was administered to young and old alcoholics and to young and old controls. The CVLT provides measures of recall, recognition, learning strategies, and error types. Alcoholism and aging produced similar levels of immediate and delayed free recall. However, poor recognition memory and more frequent intrusion and false positive errors were associated with alcoholism but not with aging. Qualitative differences in error types between alcoholism and aging were also found. Results indicated that alcoholism and aging produce independent verbal learning decrements.