Improving diagnostic performance of coronavirus disease 2019 rapid antigen testing through computer-based feedback training using open-source experimental psychology software.

INTRODUCTION: Rapid antigen testing (RAT) results are visually read as whether colored line is present or absent. The subjective interpretation potentially misses detecting weak lines due to lower analyte concentration in samples tested, requiring training. Although routine test experience has improved the result readout skills, it consumes time and resources. Therefore, we created a computer-based feedback training method using open-source experimental psychology software, wherein participants accumulate RAT result readout experience by repeatedly responding positive/negative to randomly presented pictures showing RAT results; then, they receive feedback on their answers as correct or incorrect and are asked to stare at the pictures again with the knowledge of correct answer. This study aimed to examine the training effects in improving the skills, using coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) RAT. METHODS: Twenty-two medical technologists were randomly divided into two groups: the feedback-training and test-experience groups. Using several pictures showing positive and negative results of COVID-19 RAT, after examination of their initial result readout skills, feedback-training group received the feedback training, whereas test-experience group performed an equal number of tests without feedback to accumulate test experience, and their skills were examined again. The ratio of "positive" answers to the pictures showing positive results (i.e., hit rate) was statistically analyzed. RESULTS: The feedback-training group showed a significantly higher hit rate after their training, whereas the test-experience group did not. The feedback training effects were manifested in weak line detection. CONCLUSIONS: This computer-based feedback training method can be an effective tool for improving RAT result readout skills.

Reception of experimental pedagogy and psychology in Chile. Analysis of the intellectual influences of Wilhelm Mann, 1904-1915.

This article provides a detailed analysis of the intellectual research project of Wilhelm Mann, one of the pioneers of experimental and educational psychology in Chile. Mann's work has been the object of so little analysis that his intellectual influences and networks are not clearly known. We analyzed 338 intratext citations from 22 works by Wilhelm Mann published during the period 1904-1915. As a result, we obtained a mapping of his cooperation networks and used a quantitative approach to study the authors who most influenced his career, among whom were William Stern, Herbert Spencer, Wilhelm Wundt, Alfred Binet, and Ernst Meumann. Mann was closely connected to the international and contemporary advances and discussions of his time, despite the lack of infrastructure and difficulties in communication. Mann was the first psychologist to develop a long-term project in Chile that aimed to measure the individualities of Chilean students and their intellectual development.

Measuring binding effects in event-based episodic representations.

Remembering an experienced event in a coherent manner requires the binding of the event's constituent elements. Such binding effects manifest as a stochastic dependency of the retrieval of event elements. Several approaches for modeling these dependencies have been proposed. We compare the contingency-based approach by Horner & Burgess (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 142(4), 1370-1383, 2013), related approaches using Yule's Q (Yule, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 75(6), 579-652, 1912) or an adjusted Yule's Q (c.f. Horner & Burgess, Current Biology, 24(9), 988-992, 2014), an approach based on item response theory (IRT, Schreiner et al., in press), and a nonparametric variant of the IRT-based approach. We present evidence from a simulation study comparing the five approaches regarding their empirical detection rates and susceptibility to different levels of memory performance, and from an empirical application. We found the IRT-based approach and its nonparametric variant to yield the highest power for detecting dependencies or differences in dependency between conditions. However, the nonparametric variant yielded increasing Type I error rates with increasing dependency in the data when testing for differences in dependency. We found the approaches based on Yule's Q to yield biased estimates and to be strongly affected by memory performance. The other measures were unbiased given no dependency or differences in dependency but were also affected by memory performance if there was dependency in the data or if there were differences in dependency, but to a smaller extent. The results suggest that the IRT-based approach is best suited for measuring binding effects. Further considerations when deciding for a modeling approach are discussed.

A modified procedure for naming 332 pictures and collecting norms: Using tangram pictures in psycholinguistic studies.

Tangram pictures are abstract pictures which may be used as stimuli in various fields of experimental psychology and are often used in the field of dialogue psychology. The present study provides the first norms for a set of 332 tangram pictures. These pictures were standardized on a set of variables classically used in the literature on cognitive processes, such as visual perception, language, and memory: name agreement, image agreement, familiarity, visual complexity, image variability, and age of acquisition. Furthermore, norms for concreteness were also provided owing to the influence of this variable on the processes involved in lexical production. Correlational analyses on all variables were performed on the data collected from French native speakers. This new set of standardized pictures constitutes a reliable database for researchers when they select tangram pictures. Given the abstract nature of tangram pictures, this paper also discusses the similarities and differences with the literature on line drawings, and highlights their value for dialogue psychology studies, for psycholinguistics studies, and for cognitive psychology in general.

The influence of journal submission guidelines on authors' reporting of statistics and use of open research practices: Five years later.

Changes in statistical practices and reporting have been documented by Giofrè et al. PLOS ONE 12(4), e0175583 (2017), who investigated ten statistical and open practices in two high-ranking journals (Psychological Science [PS] and Journal of Experimental Psychology-General [JEPG]): null hypothesis significance testing; confidence or credible intervals; meta-analysis of the results of multiple experiments; confidence interval interpretation; effect size interpretation; sample size determination; data exclusion; data availability; materials availability; and preregistered design and analysis plan. The investigation was based on an analysis of all papers published in these journals between 2013 and 2015. The aim of the present study was to follow up changes in both PS and JEPG in subsequent years, from 2016 to 2020, adding code availability as a further open practice. We found improvement in most practices, with some exceptions (i.e., confidence interval interpretation and meta-analysis). Despite these positive changes, our results indicate a need for further improvements in statistical practices and adoption of open practices.

Unconscious inferences in perception in early experimental psychology: From Wundt to Peirce.

What are unconscious inferences in psychology? This article investigates their journey from the early philosophical psychology of Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) to the experimental psychology of the American pragmatist Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914). Peirce's reception of Wundt's early works situates him in an international web of 19th-century experimental psychologists and its reconstruction opens new perspectives on the relation between philosophy, psychology, and epistemology. Moreover, this reception testifies to a heretofore overlooked strand of influence of Wundt on North American experimental psychology. The notion of unconscious inferences, of which Hermann von Helmholtz is usually considered the chief exponent, becomes the backbone of Peirce's theory of perception mostly because of the affinity between Wundt's early philosophy of mind and Peirce's logic-mediated approach to psychology.

Ontogeny of spontaneous recognition memory in rodents.

Spontaneous recognition memory tasks explore thewhat,whereandwhencomponents of recognition memory. These tasks are widely used in rodents to assess cognitive function across the lifespan. While several neurodevelopmental and mental disorders present symptom onset in early life, very little is known about how memories are expressed in early life, and as a consequence how they may be affected in pathological conditions. In this review, we conduct an analysis of the studies examining the expression of spontaneous recognition memory in young rodents. We compiled studies using four different tasks: novel object recognition, object location, temporal order recognition and object place. First, we identify major sources of variability between early life spontaneous recognition studies and classify them for later comparison. Second, we use these classifications to explore the current knowledge on the ontogeny of each of these four spontaneous recognition memory tasks. We conclude by discussing the possible implications of the relative time of onset for each of these tasks and their respective neural correlates. In compiling this research, we hope to advance on establishing a developmental timeline for the emergence of distinct components of recognition memory, while also identifying key areas of focus for future research. Establishing the ontogenetic profile of rodent spontaneous recognition memory tasks will create a necessary blueprint for cognitive assessment in animal models of neurodevelopmental and mental disorders, a first step towards improved and earlier diagnosis as well as novel intervention strategies.

Experimental psychology meets behavioral ecology: what laboratory studies of learning polymorphisms mean for learning under natural conditions, and vice versa.

Behavior genetics, and specifically the study of learning and memory, has benefitted immensely from the development of powerful forward- and reverse-genetic methods for investigating the relationships between genes and behavior. Application of these methods in controlled laboratory settings has led to insights into gene-behavior relationships. In this perspective article, we argue that the field is now poised to make significant inroads into understanding the adaptive value of heritable variation in behavior in natural populations. Studies of natural variation with several species, in particular, are now in a position to complement laboratory studies of mechanisms, and sometimes this work can lead to counterintuitive insights into the mechanism of gene action on behavior. We make this case using a recent example from work with the honey bee, Apis mellifera.

Translating experimental paradigms into individual-differences research: Contributions, challenges, and practical recommendations.

Psychological science has long been cleaved by a fundamental divide between researchers who experimentally manipulate variables and those who measure existing individual-differences. Increasingly, however, researchers are appreciating the value of integrating these approaches. Here, we used visual attention research as a case-in-point for how this gap can be bridged. Traditionally, researchers have predominately adopted experimental approaches to investigating visual attention. Increasingly, however, researchers are integrating individual-differences approaches with experimental approaches to answer novel and innovative research questions. However, individual differences research challenges some of the core assumptions and practices of experimental research. The purpose of this review, therefore, is to provide a timely summary and discussion of the key issues. While these are contextualised in the field of visual attention, the discussion of these issues has implications for psychological research more broadly. In doing so, we provide eight practical recommendations for proposed solutions and novel avenues for research moving forward.

Historical evolution of concrete and abstract language revisited.

This paper investigates the historical (1850s-2000s) evolution of semantics in the English language using contemporaneous, decade-specific computational estimates of word concreteness. Study 1 describes the computational method of generating time-locked estimates of concreteness based on the Corpus of Historic American English, and makes available the computed scores for 25,000 English words over 15 decades. We also report several tests of reliability and validity, demonstrating that our historical concreteness scores have high levels of both. Study 2 uses concreteness scores to revisit findings of studies that use a static set of contemporary human concreteness norms to examine historical trends of semantic change. Specifically, we observed (contra Hills & Adelman, (Cognition, 143, 87-92 2015)) that distinct word types of the English language become increasingly more concrete over time and (in line with Hills & Adelman, (Cognition, 143, 87-92 2015) & Hills, Adelman & Noguchi, (The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 70(8), 1603-1619 2016)) that relatively concrete words tend to be used more often than abstract ones. We discuss both contrastive and corroborative claims in light of recent work on semantic evolution and argue for the use of time-locked computed estimates over static human norms when examining diachronic linguistic phenomena.

Confusion about confusion: Édouard Toulouse's dementia test, 1905-20.

Psychiatrist Édouard Toulouse (1865-1947) is known today for his 1896 psychometric study of the novelist Émile Zola, and his contributions to mental hygiene, sexology, eugenics, and labour efficiency in inter-war France. This paper examines research undertaken in Toulouse's Laboratory of Experimental Psychology at the Villejuif asylum near Paris. In 1905, Toulouse created a test that could differentiate between dementia and mental confusion, a test that could aid in the classification of patients at the overcrowded Villejuif facility. By 1920, however, the test's early promise was undercut by unforeseen, 'machinic' resistance that emerged in the experimental process. This case study demonstrates the non-linear nature of scientific practice and limits of even the most innovative asylum reforms in this period.

Merging with the path not taken: Wilhelm Wundt's work as a precursor to the embedded-processes approach to memory, attention, and consciousness.

Early research on memory was dominated by two researchers forging different paths: Hermann Ebbinghaus, interested in principles of learning and recall, and Wilhelm Wundt, founder of the first formal laboratory of experimental psychology, who was interested in empirical evidence to interpret conscious experience. Whereas the work of Ebbinghaus is a much-heralded precursor of modern research on long-term memory, the work of Wundt appears to be a mostly-forgotten precursor to research on working memory. We show how his scientific perspective is germane to more recent investigations, with emphasis on the embedded-processes approaches of Nelson Cowan and Klaus Oberauer, and how it is in contrast with most other recent theoretical approaches. This investigation is important because the embedded-process theorists, apparently like most modern researchers, have recognized few of Wundt's specific contributions. We explore commonalities between the approaches and suggest that an appreciation of these commonalities might enrich the field going forward.

Franz Brentano and the beginning of experimental psychology: implications for the study of psychological phenomena today.

The manifestation of psychology as an academic discipline more than a 100 years ago was accompanied by a paradigm shift in our understanding of psychological phenomena-with both its light and shadow sides. On the one hand, this development allowed for a rigorous and experimentation-based approach to psychological phenomena; on the other, it led to an alienation from the experiential-or qualia-facets as the topics under inquiry were researched increasingly through third-person (e.g., behavioral or physiological) measures. At the turning point of this development stood an eminent but little known European scholar, Franz Brentano, who called for a synthesis of both third-person and first-person research methods in the study of psychological phenomena. On the occasion of his death, a hundred years ago on March 17, 1917 we wish to illustrate the historical background, introduce the reader to Brentano's approach and work and discuss its relevance for experimental psychology today.

PredPsych: A toolbox for predictive machine learning-based approach in experimental psychology research.

Recent years have seen an increased interest in machine learning-based predictive methods for analyzing quantitative behavioral data in experimental psychology. While these methods can achieve relatively greater sensitivity compared to conventional univariate techniques, they still lack an established and accessible implementation. The aim of current work was to build an open-source R toolbox - "PredPsych" - that could make these methods readily available to all psychologists. PredPsych is a user-friendly, R toolbox based on machine-learning predictive algorithms. In this paper, we present the framework of PredPsych via the analysis of a recently published multiple-subject motion capture dataset. In addition, we discuss examples of possible research questions that can be addressed with the machine-learning algorithms implemented in PredPsych and cannot be easily addressed with univariate statistical analysis. We anticipate that PredPsych will be of use to researchers with limited programming experience not only in the field of psychology, but also in that of clinical neuroscience, enabling computational assessment of putative bio-behavioral markers for both prognosis and diagnosis.

On making sense. An exploration of Wundt's apperceptionist account of meaningful speech.

In the wake of the critical reorientation in the historiography of psychology, a number of scholars challenged the one-sided structuralist and positivist interpretation of Wilhelm Wundt's work. This paper aims at contributing to these recent efforts, by providing an analysis of the way in which Wundt's apperceptionism conditioned his account of the relation between thought and speech, and by extrapolation, of disorganized thought and speech. While Wundt's pivotal role in the development of the psychology of language is relatively well-known, discussions on this part of his theorizing tend to focus exclusively on his gestural or motor account of language. This obliterates the complex theoretical background of Wundt's theory of language and speech, as well as its systematic place within his psychological system. Highlighting this neglected dimension of Wundt's theorizing, however, could open up a new horizon of pressing research questions in the historiography of psychology.

What's Worth Talking About? Information Theory Reveals How Children Balance Informativeness and Ease of Production.

Of all the things a person could say in a given situation, what determines what is worth saying? Greenfield's principle of informativeness states that right from the onset of language, humans selectively comment on whatever they find unexpected. In this article, we quantify this tendency using information-theoretic measures and report on a study in which we tested the counterintuitive prediction that children will produce words that have a low frequency given the context, because these will be most informative. Using corpora of child-directed speech, we identified adjectives that varied in how informative (i.e., unexpected) they were given the noun they modified. In an initial experiment ( N = 31) and in a replication ( N = 13), 3-year-olds heard an experimenter use these adjectives to describe pictures. The children's task was then to describe the pictures to another person. As the information content of the experimenter's adjective increased, so did children's tendency to comment on the feature that adjective had encoded. Furthermore, our analyses suggest that children balance informativeness with a competing drive to ease production.

Edwin G. Boring: The Historian's Path in the Pages of The American Journal of Psychology.

Although he is best known for his classic textbook, A History of Experimental Psychology, Edwin Garrigues Boring published dozens of articles in The American Journal of Psychology and used its various formats to guide the discipline in the early 20th century. This report reviews a small sample of his publications, including obituaries, notes, and experimental articles, and presents them in historical and biographical context. A central objective is to show how Boring shared the values of his structuralist training with the emerging American schools and how time allowed him to reconsider his approach to history and the legacy of his iconic mentor, Edward Bradford Titchener.

Online psychophysics: reaction time effects in cognitive experiments.

Using the Internet to acquire behavioral data is currently on the rise. However, very basic questions regarding the feasibility of online psychophysics are still open. Here, we aimed to replicate five well-known paradigms in experimental psychology (Stroop, Flanker, visual search, masked priming, attentional blink) in three settings (classical "lab", "web-in-lab", "web") to account for possible changes in technology and environment. Lab and web-in-lab data were both acquired in an in-lab setting with lab using "Gold Standard" methods, while web-in-lab used web technology. This allowed for a direct comparison of potential differences in acquisition software. To account for additional environmental differences, the web technology experiments were published online to participate from home (setting web), thereby keeping the software and experimental design identical and only changing the environmental setting. Our main results are: First, we found an expected fixed additive timing offset when using web technology (M = 37 ms, SD = 8.14) and recording online (M = 87 ms, SD = 16.04) in comparison to lab data. Second, all task-specific effects were reproduced except for the priming paradigm, which couldn't be replicated in any setting. Third, there were no differences in error rates, which are independent of the timing offset. This finding further supports the assumption of data equality over all settings. Fourth, we found that browser type might be influencing absolute reaction times. Together, these results contribute to the slowly but steadily growing literature that online psychophysics is a suitable complement - or even substitute - to lab data acquisition.

[Emil Kraepelin's time in Dorpat - Did this stay made marks in Russian and Soviet psychiatry?] / Die Dorpater Zeit von Emil Kraepelin ­ Hinterließ dieser Aufenthalt Spuren in der russischen und sowjetischen Psychiatrie?

In Russia, German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856-1926) is regarded as an influential and famous personality in the history of the field. This study discusses whether it was his period in the Russian Empire in the years 1886 to 1891 when he worked at Dorpat University (today Tartu, Estonia) that raised his popularity in Russia. Our research shows that all of his writings which had been translated into Russian language derive from a period much later than Dorpat. Moreover, none of his students has ever reached a scientific position which would have enabled him to become a proponent of Kraepelin's ideas in Russia. Despite his stay at Dorpat was important for Kraepelin's scientific development, it had no major impact on Russian psychiatry.The later perception of Kraepelin in Russia and in the Soviet Union is quite inconsistent. At some point of time, his works on experimental psychology were appreciated, which was probably connected with the rise of reflexology in Russian and, especially, Soviet psychiatry. On the other hand, it was Kraepelin's merits in the classification of psychiatric diseases that have mainly been acknowledged.

An automated Y-maze based on a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microcontroller for the assessment of continuous spontaneous alternation in rats.

Continuous spontaneous alternation behavior (SAB) in a Y-maze is used for evaluating working memory in rodents. Here, the design of an automated Y-maze equipped with three infrared optocouplers per arm, and commanded by a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) microcontroller is described. The software was devised for recording only true entries and exits to the arms. Experimental settings are programmed via a keyboard with three buttons and a display. The sequence of arm entries and the time spent in each arm and the neutral zone (NZ) are saved as a text file in a non-volatile memory for later transfer to a USB flash memory. Data files are analyzed with a program developed under LabVIEW® environment, and the results are exported to an Excel® spreadsheet file. Variables measured are: latency to exit the starting arm, sequence and number of arm entries, number of alternations, alternation percentage, and cumulative times spent in each arm and NZ. The automated Y-maze accurately detected the SAB decrease produced in rats by the muscarinic antagonist trihexyphenidyl, and its reversal by caffeine, having 100 % concordance with the alternation percentages calculated by two trained observers who independently watched videos of the same experiments. Although the values of time spent in the arms and NZ measured by the automated system had small discrepancies with those calculated by the observers, Bland-Altman analysis showed 95 % concordance in three pairs of comparisons, while in one it was 90 %, indicating that this system is a reliable and inexpensive alternative for the study of continuous SAB in rodents.