A meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials of social skills training for schizophrenia was conducted. Outcome measures from 22 studies including 1,521 clients were categorized according to a proximal-distal continuum in relation to the presumed site of action of skills training interventions, with content mastery tests and performance-based measures of skills assumed to be most proximal, ...

Sleep benefits memory across a range of tasks for young adults. However, remarkably little is known of the role of sleep on memory for healthy older adults. We used 2 tasks, 1 assaying motor skill learning and the other assaying nonmotor/declarative learning, to examine off-line changes in performance in young (20-34 years), middle-aged (35-50 years), and older (51-70 years) adults without diso...

Stringed instrument bowing is a complex coordinative motor skill acquired though years of intense practice. We apply a novel "freezing" analysis to investigate how movement at different joints contributes to bow transport (movement amplitude), stabilization of bow parameters (angle, velocity) during bow movements, and quick reversals of bow direction (acceleration amplitude). Participants were ...

Implicit motives like the need for power (nPower) scale affective responses to need-specific rewards or punishments and thereby influence activity in motivational-brain structures. In this paper, we review evidence specifically supporting a role of the striatum in nPower. Individual differences in nPower predict (1) enhanced implicit learning accuracy, but not speed, on serial-response tasks th...

This paper presents an experiment to determine the underlying learning mechanism by which shared control with error reduction improves training effectiveness for dynamic manual control tasks in virtual environments. Specifically, the authors test the hypothesis that the learning mechanism of shared control with error reduction is through demonstration of the preferred strategy in the early phas...

This paper proposes an extension of Rosen’s (1986) theory of equalizing differences model by incorporating the role of different types of noncognitive skills in worker’s job preference function to explain the U.S. labor market sorting mechanism. This study also tests the implication of the proposed labor market sorting model by using the current population survey and Occupational Information Ne...

The aim of the current study was to investigate verbal communication skills in children with typical language development and ages between 6 and 8 years. Participants were 10 children of both genders in this age range without language alterations. A 30-minute video of each child's interaction with an adult (father and/or mother) was recorded, fully transcribed, and analyzed by two trained resea...

Are you one of a growing number of medical educators uncomfortable using the term “noncognitive” to describe a cluster of behavioural characteristics, personal attributes and interpersonal skills used for admissions? We are. Do you believe that ethical reasoning, situational judgments, complex communication skills, critical thinking, and even empathy and respect for all people are learned skill...

The main purpose of this study was to examine whether the use of internal imagery would affect high jumping performance for active high jumping athletes. Over a period of six weeks, a group of active high jumpers were trained with an internal imagery program for a total of 72 minutes. This group was compared to a control group consisting of active high jumpers that only maintained their regular...