Elisabeth Moores

Measuring the Benefits of a Psychology Placement Year.

Placement programmes are considered to provide students with an induction into the work environment and a valuable learning experience. Aston University maintains one of the highest success rates of any UK university for graduate employment and it is thought that the placement year plays a large role in this success. However, the benefits of placements in theoretical subjects like Psychology are often less obvious than those for practical subjects like Optometry or Engineering. Here we compared Psychology students on the 3‐year vs. the 4‐year sandwich course on a number of attributes using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Final year students who had taken a placement year achieved significantly higher marks in their final year (F1,407 = 31.52, p<0.001) and were rated more favourably by academic staff on a measure of transferable skills (F1,43 = 11.08, p<0.005). In addition, post‐graduation, students who had taken a placement year reported a better idea of their career direction and could be argued to be further on in terms of their career progression and pay levels. Qualitatively, focus groups of placement and non‐placement students suggested a number of benefits of taking a placement year, including better time management, confidence and responsibility. Whether the benefits of a sandwich placement in a psychology degree outweigh the costs to students and their families, and the need for further research to identify the scope and longevity of possible early career benefits are discussed.

Adults with dyslexia exhibit large effects of crowding, increased dependence on cues, and detrimental effects of distractors in visual search tasks

Difficulties in visual attention are increasingly being linked to dyslexia. To date, the majority of studies have inferred functionality of attention from response times to stimuli presented for an indefinite duration. However, in paradigms that use reaction times to investigate the ability to orient attention, a delayed reaction time could also indicate difficulties in signal enhancement or noise exclusion once oriented. Thus, in order to investigate attention modulation and visual crowding effects in dyslexia, this study measured stimulus discrimination accuracy to rapidly presented displays. Adults with dyslexia (AwD) and controls discriminated the orientation of a target in an array of different numbers of - and differently spaced - vertically orientated distractors. Results showed that AwD: were disproportionately impacted by (i) close spacing and (ii) increased numbers of stimuli, (iii) did use pre-cues to modulate attention, but (iv) used cues less successfully to counter effects of increasing numbers of distractors. A greater dependence on pre-cues, larger effects of crowding and the impact of increased numbers of distractors all correlated significantly with measures of literacy. These findings extend previous studies of visual crowding of letters in dyslexia to non-complex stimuli. Overall, AwD do not use cues less, but they do use cues less successfully. We conclude that visual attention is an important factor to consider in the aetiology of dyslexia. The results challenge existing theoretical accounts of visual attention deficits, which alone are unable to comprehensively explain the pattern of findings demonstrated here.

Placement year academic benefit revisited: effects of demographics, prior achievement and degree programme

Investigations of whether students taking undergraduate work placements show greater academic improvement than those who do not have shown inconsistent results. In most studies, sample sizes have been relatively small and few studies have taken into account pre-existing student differences. Here data from over 6000 students at one university over six cohorts and a range of programmes are analysed. Consistent academic benefit from placement experience, regardless of ethnicity, gender, socio-economic background and subject is shown. However, the impact of demographic factors on both achievement and the probability of taking a placement suggests that future research should take these factors into account. The role of placements in promoting employability is contextualised as a secondary benefit to the primary goal of educating the mind in the Newman tradition. Possible causes of, and further research into, the improved academic performance identified are discussed.

Anger rumination and self‐reported aggression amongst British and Hong Kong Chinese athletes: A cross cultural comparison

Abstract Previous work has determined relationships between provocation, anger rumination, and aggression in British athletes (Maxwell, 2004); however, the reliability of these findings and their generality across diverse cultures have not been examined. Therefore, a comparison of British and Hong Kong (HK) Chinese athletes’ propensity for rumination and aggression was undertaken. Provocation and thoughts of revenge were significantly associated with the self‐reported aggression of both British and HK Chinese athletes. Frequency of aggression was similar across cultures except for a tendency for British male contact sport athletes to report greater frequency of aggressive behavior. HK Chinese athletes tended to report higher frequencies of thoughts relating to understanding the causes of anger and higher incidence of perceived provocation. It was concluded that the pattern of aggressive behavior was similar across the two cultures when opportunities for aggression are infrequent, but that HK Chinese athletes may inhibit aggressive responding even when opportunities are frequent

No regrets? Measuring the career benefits of a psychology placement year

We report an analysis of whether a psychology placement provides significant benefit to graduates’ careers. Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey data six months post‐graduation suggested that placement programme graduates across the university are significantly more likely to be (1) in work and (2) in graduate‐level jobs. For psychology, the association between graduates’ placement status and employment status at the same time was not significant overall. However, when analyses were split by degree classification obtained, it was shown that amongst those graduates with 2.1 degrees reporting themselves as working, more placement vs. non‐placement programme graduates had obtained graduate‐level jobs (63% vs. 33%). In 2.2 classified graduates there was no significant association. This pattern persisted in the data from a survey of psychology alumni (from 18 months to six and a half years post‐graduation). Psychology placement programme alumni were also more satisfied with their careers. Although placement graduates earned marginally more, this difference did not reach statistical significance. This study was therefore able to show some measurable and persistent effects of a psychology placement year, although whether the benefits can be claimed to outweigh the costs is inconclusive. Limitations and implications of the study are discussed.

The role of prior exposure on the capture of attention by items in working memory

The Biased Competition Model (BCM) suggests both top-down and bottom-up biases operate on selective attention (e.g., Desimone & Duncan, 1995). It has been suggested that top-down control signals may arise from working memory. In support, Downing (2000) found faster responses to probes presented in the location of stimuli held vs. not held in working memory. Soto, Heinke, Humphreys, and Blanco (2005) showed the involuntary nature of this effect and that shared features between stimuli were sufficient to attract attention. Here we show that stimuli held in working memory had an influence on the deployment of attentional resources even when: (1) It was detrimental to the task, (2) there was equal prior exposure, and (3) there was no bottom-up priming. These results provide further support for involuntary top-down guidance of attention from working memory and the basic tenets of the BCM, but further discredit the notion that bottom-up priming is necessary for the effect to occur.

Adults with dyslexia demonstrate large effects of crowding and detrimental effects of distractors in a visual tilt discrimination task.

Previous research has shown that adults with dyslexia (AwD) are disproportionately impacted by close spacing of stimuli and increased numbers of distractors in a visual search task compared to controls [1]. Using an orientation discrimination task, the present study extended these findings to show that even in conditions where target search was not required: (i) AwD had detrimental effects of both crowding and increased numbers of distractors; (ii) AwD had more pronounced difficulty with distractor exclusion in the left visual field and (iii) measures of crowding and distractor exclusion correlated significantly with literacy measures. Furthermore, such difficulties were not accounted for by the presence of covarying symptoms of ADHD in the participant groups. These findings provide further evidence to suggest that the ability to exclude distracting stimuli likely contributes to the reported visual attention difficulties in AwD and to the aetiology of literacy difficulties. The pattern of results is consistent with weaker and asymmetric attention in AwD.

Ability of dyslexic and control teenagers to sustain attention and inhibit responses

Dyslexia and attentional difficulty have often been linked, but little is known of the nature of the supposed attentional disorder. The Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART; Robertson, Manly, Andrade, Baddeley, & Yiend, 1997) was designed as a measure of sustained attention and requires the withholding of responses to rare (one in nine) targets. To investigate the nature of the attentional disorder in dyslexia, this paper reports two studies that examined the performance of teenagers with dyslexia and their age-matched controls on the SART, the squiggle SART (a modification of the SART using novel and unlabellable stimuli rather than digits) and the go-gap-stop test of response inhibition (GGST). Teenagers with dyslexia made significantly more errors than controls on the original SART, but not on the squiggle SART. There were no group differences on the GGST. After controlling for speed of reaction time in a sequential multiple regression predicting SART false alarms, false alarms on the GGST accounted for up to 22 per cent extra variance in the control groups (although less on the squiggle SART) but negligible amounts of variance in the dyslexic groups. We interpret the results as reflecting a stimulus recognition automaticity deficit in dyslexia, rather than a sustained attention deficit. Furthermore, results suggest that response inhibition is an important component of performance on the standard SART when stimuli are recognised automatically.

Vergence control across saccades in dyslexic adults

Many aspects of vision have been investigated in developmental dyslexia. Some research suggests deficits in vergence control (e.g. Buzzelli, 1991,Optom. Vision Sci.68, 842–846), although ability to control vergence across saccades has not yet been investigated. We have explored this question indirectly using Enrights (1996Vision Res.36, 307–312.) sequential stereopsis task. The task requires observers to set two adjacent targets (whose textures cannot be resolved simultaneously if either is fixated) to appear equi‐distant. Enright has argued that sequential stereopsis stereoacuity thresholds offer an indication of vergence control across saccades. We report two experiments using a total of 17 dyslexic and 18 control adults. Performance was measured on a sequential stereopsis task and an ordinary ‘simultaneous’ stereopsis task. No significant differences between groups were found. However, whereas practice of the sequential task lowered control group thresholds on the simultaneous task, for the dyslexic group it significantly raised thresholds, suggesting that visual fatigue is especially important in investigations of visual functions in dyslexia. Although the small samples used limit conclusions at this stage, the main sequential stereopsis results suggest that, if Enright is correct, dyslexic adults can show normal vergence control across saccades.

Adults with dyslexia can use cues to orient and constrain attention but have a smaller and weaker attention spotlight

We report results from two experiments assessing distribution of attention and cue use in adults with dyslexia (AwD) and in a group of typically reading controls. Experiment 1 showed normal effects of cueing in AwD, with faster responses when probes were presented within a cued area and normal effects of eccentricity and stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). In addition, AwD showed stronger benefits of a longer SOA when they had to move attention farther, and stronger effects of inclusion on the left, suggesting that cueing is particularly important in more difficult conditions. Experiment 2 tested the use of cues in a texture detection task involving a wider range of eccentricities and a shorter SOA. In this paradigm, focused attention at the central location is actually detrimental and cueing further reduces performance. Thus, if AwD have a more distributed attention, they should show a reduced performance drop at central locations and, if they do not use cues, they should show less negative effects of cueing. In contrast, AwD showed a larger drop and a positive effect of cueing. These results are better accounted for by a smaller and weaker spotlight of attention. Performance does not decrease at central locations because the attentional spotlight is already deployed with maximum intensity, which cannot be further enhanced at central locations. Instead, use of cueing helps to focus limited resources. Cues orient attention to the right area without enhancing it to the point where this is detrimental for texture detection. Implications for reading are discussed.