Intermediate Level Of Performance Research Articles

Intelligibility of Natively and Nonnatively Produced English Speech Presented in Noise to a Large Cohort of United States Service Members.

A corpus of English matrix sentences produced by 60 native and nonnative speakers of English was developed as part of a multinational coalition task group. This corpus was tested on a large cohort of U.S. Service members in order to examine the effects of talker nativeness, listener nativeness, masker type, and hearing sensitivity on speech recognition performance in this population. A total of 1,939 U.S. Service members (ages 18-68 years) completed this closed-set listening task, including 430 women and 110 nonnative English speakers. Stimuli were produced by native and nonnative speakers of English and were presented in speech-shaped noise and multitalker babble. Keyword recognition accuracy and response times were analyzed. General(ized) linear mixed-effects regression models found that, on the whole, speech recognition performance was lower for listeners who identified as nonnative speakers of English and when listening to speech produced by nonnative speakers of English. Talker and listener effects were more pronounced when listening in a babble masker than in a speech-shaped noise masker. Response times varied as a function of recognition score, with longest response times found for intermediate levels of performance. This study found additive effects of talker and listener nonnativeness when listening to speech in background noise. These effects were present in both accuracy and response time measures. No multiplicative effects of talker and listener language background were found. There was little evidence of a negative interaction between talker nonnativeness and hearing impairment, suggesting that these factors may have redundant effects on speech recognition. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.26060191.

고등학생의 설득적 글쓰기에 대한 교사 피드백 양상 분석

Objectives The purpose of this study is to examine the aspects of teachers’ feedback based on high school students’ persuasive writings and their assessment. In particular, it attempts to check the aspects of teachers’ feedback on how teachers give their feedback to students depending on writing level by categorizing types of feedback, which lead to look for effective feedback. Methods For this study, 30 of the third graders in high school wrote the persuasive writings about animal experiment and the papers randomly were distributed into 5 teachers. The papers were divided into level of writing(advanced, intermediate, beginner) and gender. Teachers’ feedback on 150 writings were categorized and frequency and correlation were analyzed throughout the categorization. It is analyzed that there are any differences in the contents of feedback depending on students’ writing level. Results Teachers involved mostly concentrated on the factor of the vocabulary(953 feedback) of all the feedback(2862 feedback), while the least feedback is the factor of critical opinion(2 feedback). In detail, feedback on structure of writing, metacognition occurs most often in the advanced levels of performance, feedback on detail of contents in the intermediate levels of performance and feedback on sentence, comprehension of subject in the beginner levels of performance. Conclusions As a result, it is shown that most of the teachers still tend to give students feedback on form of writing like vocabulary correction and revision and grammar like word spacing, punctuation marks for accuracy in expression. In addtion, teachers’ feedback depending on writing level show obvious differences in the target with the result that writing feedback is classified in this study. The study has significant implications for constructive feedback on writing.

Pilosocereus gounellei in the water supply for finishing sheep in regions of climatic vulnerability

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of diets containing different levels of Pilosocereus gounellei, (xiquexique), (0, 120, 240 and 360 g/kg DM) on intake, performance, ingestive behaviour and water use efficiency in sheep finished in confinement. Twenty non-castrated Santa Inês male lambs with an initial mean body weight of 18.86 ± 1.41 kg and approximately 100 days of age were distributed in a completely randomised design of four diets containing different levels of xiquexique (0, 120, 240 and 360 g/kg DM) with five replications. The inclusion of xiquexique in the diet resulted in a quadratic response (P < 0.05) in the consumption of fresh matter and non-fibrous carbohydrates. The consumption of dry matter and of other nutrients decreased (P < 0.05) with the levels of xiquexique in the diet. Feed conversion, rumination time, idle time, rumination efficiency (g/h DM), total water intake and total water conversion were not influenced (P > 0.05) by the levels of xiquexique. Total weight gain, average daily gain (ADG), feeding time, feeding efficiency (g NDF/h), rumination efficiency, frequency of water intake and voluntary water intake decreased (P < 0.05) linearly. Water intake from the feed increased (P < 0.05) with the levels of xiquexique, and there was a quadratic response for water conversion (WC), with a minimum value of 16.27 g water/g ADG, when the proportion of xiquexique in the diet reached 316 g/kg DM. Xiquexique can be used for intermediate levels of performance, and contributes to the water supply of sheep in regions that are more susceptible to climatic vulnerability.

ADHD-related symptoms and attention profiles in the unaffected siblings of probands with autism spectrum disorder: focus on the subtypes of autism and Asperger\u2019s disorder

BackgroundThe presence of attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD) symptoms and impaired attention performance are commonly noted in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, little is known about attention performance in their unaffected siblings. This study aimed to investigate the ADHD-related traits and attention performance in unaffected siblings of probands with autism and Asperger syndrome (AS), as well as the clinical correlates of ADHD-related traits.MethodsWe assessed the intention, hyperactivity-impulsivity, and oppositional symptoms, and attention profiles of 199 probands with a diagnosis of ASD (122 autism, 77 AS), their unaffected siblings, and 196 typically developing controls (TD) by their parents’ reports on the ADHD-related symptoms and the Connors' Continuous Performance Test (CCPT), respectively.ResultsCompared to TD, unaffected siblings of ASD probands were more hyperactive/impulsive and oppositional, particularly unaffected siblings of AS probands. In CCPT, unaffected siblings of AS have intermediate levels of performance between probands with AS and TD on focused attention and sustained attention but were not statistically different from AS probands or TD in these attention profiles. In contrast, unaffected siblings of autism probands have significantly better CCPT performance when compared to autism probands but not to TD. In addition, stereotyped behaviors predicted ADHD-related traits in both sibling groups, but distinctive patterns of other correlates for ADHD-related traits were found between the two sibling groups.ConclusionsThis work suggested that unaffected siblings of AS, but not autism, have more hyperactive/impulsive traits and a trend of pervasive attention deficits assessed by CCPT which might serve as potential endophenotypes for genetic studies in AS.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01582256

Valor da tecnologia da informação na firma: estudo com empresas brasileiras

Estudos realizados no início de 2000, a partir de dados objetivos de desempenho, confirmaram o valor da Tecnologia da Informação (TI) diretamente no nível da firma (A. S. Bharadwaj, 2000; Santhanam &amp; Hartono, 2003). Contudo, a literatura recente tem sinalizado para resultados distintos, tendo em vista a padronização na oferta de produtos e serviços de TI. Na perspectiva da Teoria Baseada em Recursos, o artigo testa se o valor da TI continua a ser captado pelas medidas de desempenho da firma, conforme estudos realizados no início de 2000 com firmas americanas. Para isso, reúne dados objetivos e variáveis de 149 empresas líderes em TI no Brasil, no período de 2008 a 2011. Utilizando a Regressão Linear e a análise de dados em painel, testou-se aquela associação e constatou-se que as capacidades de TI estão associadas ao desempenho em apenas quatro dos 32 relacionamentos testados, sendo um negativo. Portanto, no conjunto, confirmou-se o impacto nulo das capacidades de TI diretamente no nível da firma - corroborando as demandas da literatura para análise desse impacto em níveis intermediários de desempenho. Limitações e oportunidades de pesquisa constam nas conclusões.

Sleep‐dependent consolidation of procedural motor memories in children and adults: the pre‐sleep level of performance matters

In striking contrast to adults, in children sleep following training a motor task did not induce the expected (offline) gain in motor skill performance in previous studies. Children normally perform at distinctly lower levels than adults. Moreover, evidence in adults suggests that sleep dependent offline gains in skill essentially depend on the pre-sleep level of performance. Against this background, we asked whether improving children's performance on a motor sequence learning task by extended training to levels approaching those of adults would enable sleep-associated gains in motor skill in this age group also. Children (4-6 years) and adults (18-35 years) performed on the motor sequence learning task (button-box task) before and after ~2-hour retention intervals including either sleep (midday nap) or wakefulness. Whereas one group of children and adults, respectively, received the standard amount of 10 blocks of training before retention intervals of sleep or wakefulness, a further group of children received an extended training on 30 blocks (distributed across 3 days). A further group of adults received a restricted training on only two blocks before the retention intervals. Children after standard training reached lowest performance levels, whereas in adults performance after standard training was highest. Children with extended training and adults after reduced training reached intermediate performance levels. Only at these intermediate performance levels did sleep induce significant gains in motor sequence skill, whereas performance did not benefit from sleep in the low-performing children or in the high-performing adults. Spindle counts in the post-training nap were correlated with performance gains at retrieval only in the adults benefitting from sleep. We conclude that, across age groups, sleep induces the most robust gain in motor skill at an intermediate pre-sleep performance level. In low-performing children sleep-dependent improvements in skill may be revealed only after enhancing the pre-sleep performance level by extended training.

Cognitive endophenotypes of psychosis within dimension and diagnosis

This study sought to characterize the psychosis phenotype, contrasting cognitive features within traditional diagnosis and psychosis dimension in a family sample containing both schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar I disorder. Seventy-six probands with psychosis [44 probands with schizophrenia, 32 probands with psychotic bipolar I disorder] and 55 first-degree relatives [30 relatives of schizophrenia probands, 25 relatives of bipolar probands] were recruited. Standardized clinical and neuropsychological measures were administered. No differences in cognitive performance emerged between probands with schizophrenia and probands with psychotic bipolar disorder, or between relatives of probands with schizophrenia and relatives of probands with bipolar disorder in the domains of working and declarative memory, executive function and attention. Relatives overall showed higher cognitive performance compared to probands, as expected. However, when we segmented the probands and relatives along a psychosis dimension, independent of diagnostic groups, results revealed lower cognitive performance in probands compared to relatives without psychosis spectrum disorders, whereas relatives with psychosis spectrum disorders showed an intermediate level of performance across all cognitive domains. In this study, cognitive performance did not distinguish either probands or their first-degree relatives within traditional diagnostic groups (schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder), but distinguished probands and relatives with and without lifetime psychosis manifestations independent of diagnostic categories. These data support the notion that schizophrenia and psychotic bipolar disorder present a clinical continuum with overlapping cognitive features defining the psychosis phenotype.

Calculator use need not undermine direct-access ability: The roles of retrieval, calculation, and calculator use in the acquisition of arithmetic facts.

Why is subsequent recall sometimes better for self-generated answers than for answers obtained from an external source (e.g., calculator)? In this study, we explore the relative contribution of 2 processes, recall attempts and self-computation, to this generation effect (i.e., enhanced answer recall relative to when problems are practiced with a calculator). Adults (N = 36) practiced unfamiliar alphabet arithmetic problems (A + 4 = ?; answer E), in 3 learning conditions: self-generating answers through recall or counting (self-generate learning), obtaining answers with a customized calculator (calculator-only learning), or using a calculator after first attempting answer recall (retrieve-else-calculator learning). Subsequently, participants were tested without a calculator. Retrieve-else-calculator learning was expected to produce an intermediate level of performance because it captures the benefits of recall attempts but excludes any benefits of the other self-generation process (mental computation). However, retrieve-else-calculator learning proved as effective as self-generation learning (latency, accuracy, and recall rates on test), and both led to a test performance that was superior to calculator-only learning. We suggest that mental generation processes that involve the retrieval of intermediate products may introduce retrieval interference that precludes a strong contribution to the generation effect. However, tedious mental computation may contribute to superior access indirectly, by inciting automatic recall attempts. This effect can be mimicked by imposing a delay prior to calculator use. Our results are compatible with the view that learning contexts that promote recall activities produce a customized type of knowledge to support cued-recall (Rickard & Bajic, 2006).

Perceptual adaptation to sinewave-vocoded speech across languages.

Listeners rapidly adapt to many forms of degraded speech. What level of information drives this adaptation, however, remains unresolved. The current study exposed listeners to sinewave-vocoded speech in one of three languages, which manipulated the type of information shared between the training languages (German, Mandarin, or English) and the testing language (English) in an audio-visual (AV) or an audio plus still frames modality (A + Stills). Three control groups were included to assess procedural learning effects. After training, listeners' perception of novel sinewave-vocoded English sentences was tested. Listeners exposed to German-AV materials performed equivalently to listeners exposed to English AV or A + Stills materials and significantly better than two control groups. The Mandarin groups and German-A + Stills group showed an intermediate level of performance. These results suggest that full lexical access is not absolutely necessary for adaptation to degraded speech, but providing AV-training in a language that is similar phonetically to the testing language can facilitate adaptation.

Gaze Aversion During Children's Transient Knowledge and Learning

Looking away from an interlocutor's face during demanding cognitive activity can help adults and children answer challenging mental arithmetic and verbal-reasoning questions (Glenberg, Schroeder, & Robertson, 1998; Phelps, Doherty-Sneddon, & Warnock, 2006). While such “gaze aversion” (GA) is used far less by 5-year-old school children, its use increases dramatically during the first years of primary education, reaching adult levels by 8 years of age (Doherty-Sneddon, Bruce, Bonner, Longbotham, & Doyle, 2002). Furthermore, GA increases with increasing mental demands, with high levels signalling that an individual finds material being discussed challenging but remains engaged with it (Doherty-Sneddon et al., 2002; Doherty-Sneddon & Phelps, 2005). In the current study we investigate whether patterns of gaze and gaze aversion during children's explanations can predict when they are in states of transient knowledge (Karmiloff-Smith 1992; Goldin-Meadow, Kim, & Singer, 1999). In Study 1, thirty-three 6-year-old children completed a balance beam task (Pine & Messer, 2000). Children who improved the representational level of their explanations (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992) of this task with training used more GA than those who did not. Practical implications for teaching and for recognizing transient knowledge states are discussed. In Study 2, fifty-nine 6-year-olds took part and completed a “Time Task” along with periodic teaching intervention to improve their comprehension of telling the time. Some children improved immediately, whereas others did so more gradually. The gradual improvers showed the highest levels of GA, particularly when they were at an intermediate level of performance.

Neuropsychological functions in patients with bipolar I and bipolar II disorder

The literature reports persistent cognitive impairments in patients with bipolar disorder even after prolonged remission. However, a majority of studies have focused only on bipolar I disorder (BP-I), primarily because bipolar II disorder (BP-II) is often underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed. More attention should be paid to the differences between BP-I and BP-II, especially the aspects of neuropsychological functioning. We examined the different neuropsychological functions in BP-I and BP-II patients and compared them with those of healthy controls. The study included 67 patients with interepisode bipolar disorder (BP-I: n = 30; BP-II: n = 37) and 22 healthy controls compared using a battery of neuropsychological tests that assessed memory, psychomotor speed, and certain aspects of frontal executive function. The BP-I group performed poorly on verbal memory, psychomotor speed, and executive function compared to the BP-II and control groups. Both bipolar groups performed significantly less well than the control group on measures of working memory and psychomotor speed, while the BP-II group showed an intermediate level of performance in psychomotor speed compared to the BP-I and control groups. There was no difference between the groups on visual memory. BP-I was characterized by reduced performance in verbal memory, working memory, psychomotor speed, and executive function, while BP-II patients showed a reduction only in working memory and psychomotor speed. Cognitive impairment existed in both subtypes of bipolar disorder, and was greater in BP-I patients. Rehabilitation interventions should take into account potential cognitive differences between these bipolar subtypes.

Perceptual adaptation to sinewave‐vocoded speech across languages.

Listeners rapidly adapt to many forms of degraded speech. What level of information drives this adaptation (e.g., acoustic, phonetic, lexical, syntactic), however, remains an open question. In the present study, three groups of listeners were passively exposed to sinewave‐vocoded speech in one of three languages (English, German, or Mandarin) to manipulate the level(s) of information shared between the training languages and testing language (English). Two additional groups were also included to control for procedural learning effects. One control group received no training, while the other control group was trained with spectrally rotated English materials. After training, all listeners transcribed eight‐channel sinewave‐vocoded English sentences. The results demonstrated that listeners exposed to German materials performed equivalently to listeners exposed to English materials. However, listeners exposed to Mandarin materials showed an intermediate level of performance; their scores were not significant...

Probability-Based Seismic Assessment of Buildings, considering Post-Earthquake Safety

Advanced Seismic Assessment Guidelines, developed by researchers at Stanford University and tested by the authors, offer improvement over previous methods for seismic evaluation of buildings where post-earthquake safety is a concern. This probability-based method allows engineers to quantify expected structural performance in terms that are meaningful to building owners. Performance levels quantified in the Guidelines range from “No Damage” to “Collapse” and include intermediate performance levels based on the post-earthquake occupancy classifications “Green Tag,” “Yellow Tag,” and “Red Tag.” Other features of the Guidelines include an emphasis on correctly identifying the governing mechanism of nonlinear behavior, practical methods for addressing the effects of strength degradation and residual drift, and a probability-based approach that incorporates uncertainty. Based on their studies of example buildings, the authors present recommendations for performing seismic assessments: quantifying post-earthquake occupancy classifications, identifying mechanisms of nonlinear behavior, estimating residual drift, and modeling strength degradation in structures.

Neurocognitive endophenotypes for bipolar disorder

Neurocognitive deficits have been proposed as vulnerability markers or endophenotypes for the development of bipolar I disorder (BD I). However, few research studies have examined whether neurocognitive deficits also exist in first-degree relatives of individuals with BD I. This prospective study examined neurocognitive function in individuals with BD I, their first-degree relatives and a normal control group using a comprehensive battery of neurocognitive tests. Results indicated that individuals with bipolar disorder and their unaffected relatives demonstrated neuropsychological deficits in comparison to the normal control group in the domains of visuospatial/constructional abilities, executive function, visual learning and memory, and motor speed. In general, the unaffected relatives demonstrated an intermediate level of performance in comparison to the normal control and bipolar group. After adjustment for mood symptoms, significant differences were present for the visuospatial/constructional, executive function, and motor domains. Individuals with bipolar disorder also demonstrated a differential right versus left hemisphere deficit with respect to neurocognitive tasks. Results suggest that deficits on specific neuropsychological tests, most notably Digit Symbol, Block Design and Judgment of Line Orientation, may be indicative of cognitive endophenotypes for bipolar disorder. Replication studies are needed to further identify these deficits as endophenotypes for BD I.

The Representation of Spatial Attention in Human Parietal Cortex Dynamically Modulates with Performance

The control and allocation of attention is an essential, ubiquitous neural process that gates our awareness of objects and events in the environment. Neural representations of the locus of spatial attention have been previously demonstrated in parietal cortex. However, the behavioral relevance of these neural representations is not known. While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, subjects performed a covert spatial attention task that yielded a wide range of performance values. Voxels in parietal cortex selective for attended target location also dynamically modulated, becoming more or less responsive as performance levels changed. Surprisingly, this relationship was not linear. Responses peaked at intermediate performance levels and dropped both when performance was very high and when it was very low. Such dynamic modulation may represent a mechanism for organizing neural control signals according to behavioral task demands.

Judgment in older adults: Development and psychometric evaluation of the Test of Practical Judgment (TOP-J)

This article reports on the development and validation of a novel, objective test of judgment for use with older adults. The Test of Practical Judgment (TOP-J) is an open-ended measure that evaluates judgment related to safety, medical, social/ethical, and financial issues. Psychometric features were examined in a sample of 134 euthymic individuals with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD), amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI), or cognitive complaints but intact neuropsychological performance (CC), and demographically-matched healthy controls (HC). Measures of reliability were adequate to high, and TOP-J scores correlated with select measures of executive functioning, language, and memory. AD participants obtained impaired TOP-J scores relative to HCs, while MCI and CC participants showed an intermediate level of performance. Confirmatory factor analyses were consistent with a unidimensional structure. Results encourage further development of the TOP-J as an indicator of practical judgment skills in clinical and research settings. Longitudinal assessments are being performed to examine predictive validity of the TOP-J for cognitive progression in our clinical groups.

Probability analysis of RC member deformation limits for different performance levels and reliability of their deterministic calculations

The quantified definition of performance levels of RC members, in terms of limit sectional curvature and member drift, is necessary for the implementation of the performance-based design of building structures. Because of various uncertainties involved, the curvature and drift limits satisfying prescribed performance criteria are probabilistic in nature; therefore, it is necessary to understand their probability distributions before any reliable deterministic values can be decided. In this paper, the probability distributions of RC member behavioural parameters, namely the strength and deformation capacities at yield and ultimate stages, and the deformation limits at two intermediate performance levels (“ Functional” and “ Damage Control”), are established by means of Monte Carlo simulation in conjunction with the RC section analysis. Subsequently, the reliability of employing the deterministic predictions for the deformation limits is assessed. Results show that the limit curvature and drifts at different performance levels generally follow the normal distribution, with a coefficient of variation on the order of 10%, 15%, 35%, and 40% for the yield, Functional, Damage Control, and Ultimate performance levels, respectively. In most cases, the probability of actual curvature and drift capacities exceeding the respective limit values predicted by deterministic calculations ranges from 50% to 70%. However, for heavily confined members and under a relatively low axial force, the above probability could reduce to only about 30%.

Functional Decline in Older Adults: Expanding Methods of Ascertainment

There is substantial interest in the prevention of physical disability associated with aging. However, little is known about how to screen for declining function at sufficiently early stages to prevent frank disability. This work provides an initial description and assessment of a new self-report method for measuring function in older adults which complements standard methods and may be sensitive to subtler degrees of disablement than currently employed methods. We operationalize the method and demonstrate that it identifies a meaningful number of people as potentially disabled who are not identified by standard methods; also, we evaluate the method's reliability and validity for identifying subtle functional decline relative to existing methods. This is a cross-sectional, observational study of a volunteer population of 231 adults 59 years and older, evaluated in a multidisciplinary laboratory. Self-reported difficulty and dependency in each of 27 tasks of daily life were assessed as the measure of disability. Those without difficulty were evaluated for other functional change, by self-report, defined as either: (a) modification of method, or (b) decreased frequency of task performance, when due to health rather than change in social circumstances. Prevalence, test-retest reliability, construct, and criterion validity were evaluated. In a study population in which from 1% to 50% of participants reported difficulty with each of 27 tasks, from 2% to 33% reported modification of task performance while not having difficulty. Few participants reported decreased frequency without modification. Persons with task modifications, particularly in mobility tasks, showed intermediate levels of performance on objectively measured tests and an intermediate number of chronic diseases, compared to those reporting difficulty and those reporting neither difficulty nor modification. Cross-sectional evidence supports the ability of the proposed method to identify meaningful numbers of people with functional decline who were not identified by standard self-report methods. In some cases, these were individuals with functional losses comparable to those who did report difficulty. In other cases, these may have been individuals with earlier functional loss, perhaps representing a preclinical stage of disability. Prospective evaluation will identify whether this method predicts the onset of difficulty or disability, and whether it predicts decline with sufficient precision to identify at-risk individuals in a clinical setting.

A simulated "cocktail party" with up to three sound sources.

Listeners identified spoken words, letters, and numbers and the spatial location of these utterances in three listening conditions as a function of the number of simultaneously presented utterances. The three listening conditions were a normal listening condition, in which the sounds were presented over seven possible loudspeakers to a listener seated in a sound-deadened listening room; a one-headphone listening condition, in which a single microphone that was placed in the listening room delivered the sounds to a single headphone worn by the listener in a remote room; and a stationary KEMAR listening condition, in which binaural recordings from an acoustic manikin placed in the listening room were delivered to a listener in the remote room. The listeners were presented one, two, or three simultaneous utterances. The results show that utterance identification was better in the normal listening condition than in the one-headphone condition, with the KEMAR listening condition yielding intermediate levels of performance. However, the differences between listening in the normal and in the one-headphone conditions were much smaller when two, rather than three, utterances were presented at a time. Localization performance was good for both the normal and the KEMAR listening conditions and at chance for the one-headphone condition. The results suggest that binaural processing is probably more important for solving the "cocktail party" problem when there are more than two concurrent sound sources.

Practical issues in temporal difference learning

This paper examines whether temporal difference methods for training connectionist networks, such as Sutton's TD(λ) algorithm, can be successfully applied to complex real-world problems. A number of important practical issues are identified and discussed from a general theoretical perspective. These practical issues are then examined in the context of a case study in which TD(λ) is applied to learning the game of backgammon from the outcome of self-play. This is apparently the first application of this algorithm to a complex non-trivial task. It is found that, with zero knowledge built in, the network is able to learn from scratch to play the entire game at a fairly strong intermediate level of performance, which is clearly better than conventional commercial programs, and which in fact surpasses comparable networks trained on a massive human expert data set. This indicates that TD learning may work better in practice than one would expect based on current theory, and it suggests that further analysis of TD methods, as well as applications in other complex domains, may be worth investigating.