How to systematically assess serious games applied to health care.

The usefulness and effectiveness of specific serious games in the medical domain is often unclear. This is caused by a lack of supporting evidence on validity of individual games, as well as a lack of publicly available information. Moreover, insufficient understanding of design principles among the individuals and institutions that develop or apply a medical serious game compromises their use.

Cognitive task analysis and innovation of training: the case of structured troubleshooting.

Troubleshooting is often a time-consuming and difficult activity. The question of how the training of novice technicians can be improved was the starting point of the research described in this article. A cognitive task analysis was carried out consisting of two preliminary observational studies on troubleshooting in naturalistic settings, combined with an interpretation of the data obtained in the context of the existing literature.

Knowledge and strategies in diagnostic skill.

A theoretical framework for diagnosis in technical environments is presented, consisting of three layers. At the first layer, the task structure, top-level goals of the diagnostic tasks are identified that have to be fulfilled during task execution. This task structure may also be viewed as a global strategy to carry out the diagnostic task.

Speech, "inner speech," and the development of short-term memory: effects of picture labeling on recall.

Three experiments explored the effect of overt speech on children's use of "inner speech' in short-term memory (STM). Experiments 1 and 2 compared recall of a series of pictured objects when 5- and 11-year-olds either labeled stimuli at presentation or remained silent. Use of inner speech was assessed by manipulating word length of the picture names (Experiment 1) or phonemic similarity (Experiment 2).