Gut peptides before and following Roux-En-Y gastric bypass: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

A systematic search was conducted in Medline Ovid, Embase, Scopus, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials up until March 2021 following PRISMA guidelines. Studies included evaluated ghrelin, GLP-1, PYY or appetite sensation via visual analogue scales (VASs) before and after Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) in adults. A multilevel model with random effects for study and follow-up time points nested in study was fit to the data. The model included kcal consumption as a covariate and time points as moderators. Among the 2559 articles identified, k = 47 were included, among which k = 19 evaluated ghrelin, k = 40 GLP-1, k = 22 PYY, and k = 8 appetite sensation. Our results indicate that fasting ghrelin levels are decreased 2 weeks post-RYGB (p = 0.005) but do not differ from baseline from 6 weeks to 1-year post-RYGB. Postprandial ghrelin and fasting GLP-1 levels were not different from pre-surgical values. Postprandial levels of GLP-1 increased significantly from 1 week (p < 0.001) to 2 years post-RYGB (p < 0.01) compared with pre-RYGB. Fasting PYY increased at 6 months (p = 0.034) and 1 year (p = 0.029) post-surgery; also, postprandial levels increased up to 1 year (p < 0.01). Insufficient data on appetite sensation were available to be meta-analyzed.

New Frontiers in Health Literacy: Using ChatGPT to Simplify Health Information for People in the Community.

BACKGROUND: Most health information does not meet the health literacy needs of our communities. Writing health information in plain language is time-consuming but the release of tools like ChatGPT may make it easier to produce reliable plain language health information. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the capacity for ChatGPT to produce plain language versions of health texts. DESIGN: Observational study of 26 health texts from reputable websites. METHODS: ChatGPT was prompted to 'rewrite the text for people with low literacy'. Researchers captured three revised versions of each original text. MAIN MEASURES: Objective health literacy assessment, including Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG), proportion of the text that contains complex language (%), number of instances of passive voice and subjective ratings of key messages retained (%). KEY RESULTS: On average, original texts were written at grade 12.8 (SD = 2.2) and revised to grade 11.0 (SD = 1.2), p < 0.001. Original texts were on average 22.8% complex (SD = 7.5%) compared to 14.4% (SD = 5.6%) in revised texts, p < 0.001. Original texts had on average 4.7 instances (SD = 3.2) of passive text compared to 1.7 (SD = 1.2) in revised texts, p < 0.001. On average 80% of key messages were retained (SD = 15.0). The more complex original texts showed more improvements than less complex original texts. For example, when original texts were ≥ grade 13, revised versions improved by an average 3.3 grades (SD = 2.2), p < 0.001. Simpler original texts (< grade 11) improved by an average 0.5 grades (SD = 1.4), p < 0.001. CONCLUSIONS: This study used multiple objective assessments of health literacy to demonstrate that ChatGPT can simplify health information while retaining most key messages. However, the revised texts typically did not meet health literacy targets for grade reading score, and improvements were marginal for texts that were already relatively simple.

Exercising choice over feedback schedules during practice is not advantageous for motor learning.

The idea that there is a self-controlled learning advantage, where individuals demonstrate improved motor learning after exercising choice over an aspect of practice compared to no-choice groups, has different causal explanations according to the OPTIMAL theory or an information-processing perspective. Within OPTIMAL theory, giving learners choice is considered an autonomy-supportive manipulation that enhances expectations for success and intrinsic motivation. In the information-processing view, choice allows learners to engage in performance-dependent strategies that reduce uncertainty about task outcomes. To disentangle these potential explanations, we provided participants in choice and yoked groups with error or graded feedback (Experiment 1) and binary feedback (Experiment 2) while learning a novel motor task with spatial and timing goals. Across both experiments (N = 228 participants), we did not find any evidence to support a self-controlled learning advantage. Exercising choice during practice did not increase perceptions of autonomy, competence, or intrinsic motivation, nor did it lead to more accurate error estimation skills. Both error and graded feedback facilitated skill acquisition and learning, whereas no improvements from pre-test performance were found with binary feedback. Finally, the impact of graded and binary feedback on perceived competence highlights a potential dissociation of motivational and informational roles of feedback. Although our results regarding self-controlled practice conditions are difficult to reconcile with either the OPTIMAL theory or the information-processing perspective, they are consistent with a growing body of evidence that strongly suggests self-controlled conditions are not an effective approach to enhance motor performance and learning.

Testifying after an Investigation: Shaping the Mental Health of Public Safety Personnel.

In this editorial, we draw on two Canadian cases to interrogate how mass causality events and investigations consume many responders before (e.g., public safety communicators, detachment service assistants), during (e.g., police, fire, paramedics), and after the incident (e.g., coroners, correctional workers, media coverage). Their well-being may suffer from the associated processes and outcomes. In the current article, we focus on the mass causality incident of 2020 in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the investigation following a prisoner death in 2019 in Newfoundland, Canada, to explore how testifying post-incident can be made more palatable for participating public safety personnel (PSP). Specifically, we study how testifying after an adverse event can affect PSP (e.g., recalling, vicarious trauma, triggers) and how best to mitigate the impact of testimony on PSP well-being, with a lens to psychological "recovery" or wellness. We focus here on how to support those who may have to testify in a judicial proceeding or official inquiry, given being investigated for best-intended actions can result in moral injury or a posttraumatic stress injury, both exacerbated by judicial review, charge, accusation, or inquiry.

Autonomy Support via Instructionally Irrelevant Choice Not Beneficial for Motor Performance or Learning.

Purpose: The Optimizing Performance Through Motivation and Attention for Learning (OPTIMAL) theory predicts that providing learners with choices during skill acquisition will enhance their acquisition performance, motor learning, and expectancies. Based on this theory, it is recommended that instructors ask learners to choose which tasks to practice in applied settings. This experiment tested these predictions and recommendation by crossing autonomy support with practice schedule in a 2 × 2 factorial design. Method: Participants (N = 128) practiced a novel non-dominant hand dart-throwing task either with choice over the color of the dart flights (autonomy) or yoked to a counterpart's choices (yoked). Further, participants either practiced throwing darts to three different targets in equal amounts (variable) or throwing to the same target for all practice trials (constant). All participants completed a pretest, acquisition phase, 24-hr delayed retention and transfer tests, as well as baseline and post-acquisition autonomy, and self-efficacy measures. Data were analyzed according to a pre-registered analysis plan that included pretest and gender as covariates. Results: The autonomy groups reported significantly greater perceived autonomy at the end of acquisition. There were no significant effects of autonomy on self-efficacy, or motor performance uniquely during acquisition, or uniquely on the delayed transfer test. The autonomy groups, however, performed with significantly greater error across acquisition and transfer. Practice schedule interacted with the time of testing such that the constant groups performed significantly more accurately during acquisition but non-significantly less accurately during transfer than the variable groups. Conclusions: These results are inconsistent with OPTIMAL theory.

The recommendation for learners to be provided with control over their feedback schedule is questioned in a self-controlled learning paradigm.

Evidence that self-controlled feedback schedules are more effective for motor learning than yoked or predetermined schedules has been used to forward the recommendation that practitioners should provide choice to learners over when they would like to receive feedback. This recommendation can be questioned because the typical comparison groups in such experimentation do not well represent the applied setting. Consequently, comparison groups that better map onto the applied setting are needed. To this end, three groups learned a golf putting task: (1) self-controlled, (2) traditional-yoked, and (3) a group who were led to believe their KR schedule was being controlled by a golf coach. Participants (N = 60) completed a pre-test, acquisition phase, and delayed post-tests (retention/transfer). No group differences during the post-tests for mean radial error, F(2, 54) = 2.71, p = .075, or bivariate variable error, F(2, 56) = 0.11, p = .896, were found. Thus, the typical self-controlled learning advantage was not observed. Given the failure to replicate self-controlled benefits, combined with the fact there is little research that has directly compared self-controlled feedback schedules to coach-controlled schedules, we argue more evidence is needed before advocating that learners be provided choice over their feedback schedule.

Autonomy support and reduced feedback frequency have trivial effects on learning and performance of a golf putting task.

Optimizing Performance Through Intrinsic Motivation and Attention for Learning (OPTIMAL) Theory proposes that choices of any kind support an individual's need for autonomy, motivating them to learn and perform motor skills more effectively. Notably, the authors suggest asking learners to choose when to receive feedback in order to increase autonomy. Conversely, the guidance hypothesis predicts an impact of feedback schedule independent of motivational influences. The purpose of this experiment was to compare the relative and combined effects of autonomy and feedback schedule for the acquisition of a golf putting task without vision of results. Autonomy support (autonomy support vs. yoked) and knowledge of results (KR) schedule (100%-KR vs. 50%-faded-KR) were combined in a 2 × 2 factorial design. Participants (N = 56) in the autonomy support groups were asked to choose from three colours of golf balls for each putt during 10 acquisition blocks. Yoked groups were yoked to the golf ball colour choices of their autonomy support group counterparts. Participants in the 100%-feedback schedule groups were provided x- and y-coordinate KR following every putt during acquisition, while participants in the 50%-faded groups received KR after half of their putts, with feedback frequency decreasing over acquisition blocks. All participants completed a 24-h delayed retention and transfer test without KR. The results were somewhat consistent with OPTIMAL Theory yet the effects were not statistically significant and trivially small. The results were inconsistent with the guidance hypothesis.

The self: Your own worst enemy? A test of the self-invoking trigger hypothesis.

The self-invoking trigger hypothesis was proposed by Wulf and Lewthwaite [Wulf, G., & Lewthwaite, R. (2010). Effortless motor learning? An external focus of attention enhances movement effectiveness and efficiency. In B. Bruya (Ed.), Effortless attention: A new perspective in attention and action (pp. 75-101). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press] as a mechanism underlying the robust effect of attentional focus on motor learning and performance. One component of this hypothesis, relevant beyond the attentional focus effect, suggests that causing individuals to access their self-schema will negatively impact their learning and performance of a motor skill. The purpose of the present two studies was to provide an initial test of the performance and learning aspects of the self-invoking trigger hypothesis by asking participants in one group to think about themselves between trial blocks-presumably activating their self-schema-to compare their performance and learning to that of a control group. In Experiment 1, participants performed 2 blocks of 10 trials on a throwing task. In one condition, participants were asked between blocks to think about their past throwing experience. While a control group maintained their performance across blocks, the self group's performance was degraded on the second block. In Experiment 2, participants were asked to practice a wiffleball hitting task on two separate days. Participants returned on a third day to perform retention and transfer tests without the self-activating manipulation. Results indicated that the self group learned the hitting task less effectively than the control group. The findings reported here provide initial support for the self-invoking trigger hypothesis.

Enhanced expectancies improve performance under pressure.

Beyond skill, beliefs in requisite abilities and expectations can affect performance. This experiment examined effects of induced perceptions of ability to perform well under generic situations of challenge. Participants (N = 31) first completed one block of 20 trials on a throwing accuracy task. They then completed questionnaires ostensibly measuring individual differences in the ability to perform under pressure. Enhanced-expectancy group participants were told that they were well-suited to perform under pressure, while the control group received neutral information. Subsequently, all participants completed another block of 20 trials on the throwing task, with their performance videotaped and under the assumption that they could secure a prize for themselves and a paired participant with successful performance. Both groups had similar accuracy scores on the first trial block. The enhanced-expectancy group significantly increased their throwing accuracy in the higher-pressure situation (second block), whereas the control group showed no change in performance. Furthermore, beliefs regarding performance under challenge predicted throwing accuracy on the second block. The present findings provide evidence that enhancing individuals' generic expectancies regarding performance under pressure can affect their motor performance.