Jerad H. Moxley

The role of intuition and deliberative thinking in experts' superior tactical decision-making.

Current theories argue that human decision making is largely based on quick, automatic, and intuitive processes that are occasionally supplemented by slow controlled deliberation. Researchers, therefore, predominantly studied the heuristics of the automatic system in everyday decision making. Our study examines the role of slow deliberation for experts who exhibit superior decision-making outcomes in tactical chess problems with clear best moves. Our study uses advanced computer software to measure the objective value of actions preferred at the start versus the conclusion of decision making. It finds that both experts and less skilled individuals benefit significantly from extra deliberation regardless of whether the problem is easy or difficult. Our findings have important implications for the role of training for increasing decision making accuracy in many domains of expertise.

A longitudinal study of differences in late- and early-onset geriatric depression: depressive symptoms and psychosocial, cognitive, and neurological functioning.

Objectives: Studies suggest early-onset depression (EOD) is associated with a more severe course of the depressive disorder, while late-onset depression (LOD) is associated with more cognitive and neuroimaging changes. This study examined if older adults with EOD, compared with those with LOD, would exhibit more severe symptoms of depression and, consistent with the glucocorticoid cascade hypothesis, have more hippocampal volume loss. A second goal was to determine if LOD, compared with EOD, would demonstrate more cognitive and neuroimaging changes. Method: At regular intervals over a four-year period non-demented, older, depressed adults were assessed on the Mini-Mental Status Examination and the Montgomery–Asberg Depression Rating Scale. They were also assessed on magnetic resonance imaging. Results: Compared with LOD, EOD had more depressive symptoms, more suicidal thoughts, and less social support. Growth curve analyses indicated that EOD demonstrated higher levels of residual depressive symptoms over time. The LOD group exhibited a greater decrement in cognitive scores. Contrary to the glucocorticoid cascade hypothesis, participants with EOD lost right hippocampal volume at a slower rate than did participants with LOD. Right cerebrum gray matter was initially smaller among participants with LOD. Conclusions: EOD is associated with greater severity of depressive illness. LOD is associated with more severe cognitive and neurological changes. These differences are relevant to understanding cognitive impairment in geriatric depression.

Meta-analysis of age and skill effects on recalling chess positions and selecting the best move.

A meta-analysis was conducted of studies that measured the effects of both age and skill in chess on the tasks of selecting the best move for chess positions (the best move task) as well as recalling chess game positions (the recall task). Despite a small sample of studies, we demonstrated that there are age and skill effects on both tasks: age being negatively associated with performance on both tasks and skill being positively associated with performance on both tasks. On the best move task, we found that skill was the dominant effect, while on the recall task, skill and age were approximately equally strong effects. We also found that skill was best measured by the best move task. In the case of the best move task, this result is consistent with the argument that it accurately replicates expert performance (Ericsson & Smith, 1991). Results for the recall task argue that this task captures effects related to skill, but also effects likely due to a general aging process. Implications for our understanding of aging in skilled domains are also discussed.

Melancholia in later life: late and early onset differences in presentation, course, and dementia risk.

Depression is a risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia. This risk may vary with age of onset and depression subtype. Late onset depression (LOD, 60 years and older) is associated with more cognitive decline, whereas early onset depression (EOD, before 60 years) is associated with more residual depressive symptoms. Potential differences may reflect divergent etiologies. These onset differences, however, have not been examined in the melancholic subtype of depression in older adults.

The Expert Performance Approach and Deliberate Practice: Some Potential Implications for Studying Creative Performance in Organizations

Publisher Summary This chapter is an attempt to address the central question of the expert-performance approach for creative performance—namely, how can one identify and examine reproducibly superior performance the expert-performance approach offers a unique framework for studying skill and expert performance. Whereas studies of expertise have traditionally identified highly educated and experienced individuals as experts and compared their performance to less experienced individuals, the expert-performance approach is committed to the objective study of superior performance, which captures the underlying skill in that domain and then designs controlled tasks that reproduce the relevant performance in standardized laboratory settings. The successful research on expert performance has focused on a single individuals performance, such as the surgeon, the soloist or the nurse in charge of post-operational care. The expert-performance approach is strongly committed to objective measures of performance and actively avoids judgments and ratings by supervisors or teachers, unless they can be demonstrated to be a valid shortcut to objective measures.

Does Use of Text-to-Speech and Related Read-Aloud Tools Improve Reading Comprehension for Students With Reading Disabilities? A Meta-Analysis:

Text-to-speech and related read-aloud tools are being widely implemented in an attempt to assist students’ reading comprehension skills. Read-aloud software, including text-to-speech, is used to translate written text into spoken text, enabling one to listen to written text while reading along. It is not clear how effective text-to-speech is at improving reading comprehension. This study addresses this gap in the research by conducting a meta-analysis on the effects of text-to-speech technology and related read-aloud tools on reading comprehension for students with reading difficulties. Random effects models yielded an average weighted effect size of ( d ¯ = .35, with a 95% confidence interval of .14 to .56, p < .01). Moderator effects of study design were found to explain some of the variance. Taken together, this suggests that text-to-speech technologies may assist students with reading comprehension. However, more studies are needed to further explore the moderating variables of text-to-speech and read-aloud tools’ effectiveness for improving reading comprehension. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

Stress, race, and APOE: understanding the interplay of risk factors for changes in cognitive functioning

Objectives: Biological and environmental factors are thought to contribute to the development of cognitive decline (CD). The Apolipoprotein E (APOE) ϵ4 allele is the greatest known genetic risk factor. The current study focused on the extent to which environmental factors, specifically stress, influence the relationship between the APOE allele and cognitive functioning and whether this relationship is stronger for African-Americans compared to Caucasians.Methods: Participants consisted of community-dwelling older adults from the Duke Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (N = 4,162). Data were drawn from two waves, which were three years apart. Cognitive functioning was assessed at both waves using the Short Portable Mental Status (SPMSQ).Results: Whereas there was no main effect of stress, there was a significant interaction between APOE status and stressful life events, such that increased stress in individuals with an ϵ4 allele lead to more errors on the SPMSQ than individuals with no allele. Inconsistent with predictions, there was a significant interaction between stress and race such that increased stressful events predicted CD in Caucasians but not African-Americans.Conclusions: Recent stressful late-life events have a greater impact on the cognitive status of individuals with an ϵ4 allele. While Caucasians appear to be less vulnerable to cognitive losses at lower levels of stress, as the number of stressful life events increases that advantage disappears for Caucasians.

Recall of Briefly Presented Chess Positions and Its Relation to Chess Skill

Individual differences in memory performance in a domain of expertise have traditionally been accounted for by previously acquired chunks of knowledge and patterns. These accounts have been examined experimentally mainly in chess. The role of chunks (clusters of chess pieces recalled in rapid succession during recall of chess positions) and their relations to chess skill are, however, under debate. By introducing an independent chunk-identification technique, namely repeated-recall technique, this study identified individual chunks for particular chess players. The study not only tested chess players with increasing chess expertise, but also tested non-chess players who should not have previously acquired any chess related chunks in memory. For recall of game positions significant differences between players and non-players were found in virtually all the characteristics of chunks recalled. Size of the largest chunks also correlates with chess skill within the group of rated chess players. Further research will help us understand how these memory encodings can explain large differences in chess skill.

Older Adult Video Game Preferences in Practice: Investigating the Effects of Competing or Cooperating

Recent meta-analyses on video game interventions with the aim to improve cognition have shown promise for both younger and older adults. Most studies suggest that fast-paced action games produce the largest benefits, but previous work has shown that older adults might not necessarily adhere to interventions using action games. To increase intervention adherence, we investigated older adult video game preferences that might bolster adherence by having participants play a competitive game (Mario Kart DS) or a cooperative game (Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga) alone or with a partner. Although hypotheses regarding cooperative and multiplayer gameplay were not supported, converging evidence suggests multiplayer gameplay may lead to greater enjoyment, which has been previously shown to be related to intervention adherence. Insights for gaming intervention studies in older populations are also provided.

Measurement Invariance Across Gender for the Metacognitive Self-Regulation Revised Scale:

The Metacognitive Self-Regulation scale (MSR) was recently improved after subjecting the scale to a comprehensive reanalysis and replacing it with the Metacognitive Self-Regulation Revised scale (MSR-R). However, up to this point, researchers have made no attempts to determine if the MSR or MSR-R performs equivalently for males and females. The first goal of the current study was to examine the MSR-R measurement model for invariance across groups. Second, we examined structural invariance by regressing grade performance on the MSR-R latent factor. The results indicated support for invariance across groups for the MSR-R measurement model, but revealed predictive validity issues when structural invariance was found to be untenable.