Which "working memory" are we talking about? Complex span tasks versus N-back.

Psychologists and neuroscientists often use complex span tasks or the n-back to measure working memory capacity. At first glance, both tasks require many cognitive processes attributed to the construct, including the maintenance of information amidst interference. Nevertheless, evidence for their convergent validity is mixed.

Accelerating Visual Anticipation in Sport Through Temporal Occlusion Training: A Meta-Analysis.

Background: The video-based temporal occlusion paradigm has been consistently used in visual anticipation sport research.

Objective: This meta-analysis investigated the magnitude to which video-based temporal occlusion training could improve anticipation skill with transfer to representative laboratory and field tasks.

Methods: As there are considerably fewer anticipation training than performance studies, the meta-analysis included 12 intervention studies with 25 effect sizes where video simulation and/or field-based tests were used.

Individual Responses versus Aggregate Group-Level Results: Examining the Strength of Evidence for Growth Mindset Interventions on Academic Performance.

Mindset theory assumes that students' beliefs about their intelligence-whether these are fixed or can grow-affects students' academic performance. Based on this assumption, mindset theorists have developed growth mindset interventions to teach students that their intelligence or another attribute can be developed, with the goal of improving academic outcomes. Though many papers have reported benefits from growth mindset interventions, others have reported no effects or even detrimental effects.

Participation patterns in talent development in youth sports.

There has been a longstanding debate about the question: What amounts of what types of youth sport activities optimally facilitate later athletic excellence? This article provides a review of relevant research. We first evaluate popular conceptualizations of participation patterns-early specialization, deliberate practice, and deliberate play. Then, we review the available evidence on associations between performance and individual participation variables.

Quantifying the Extent to Which Successful Juniors and Successful Seniors are Two Disparate Populations: A Systematic Review and Synthesis of Findings.

Background: To what extent does the pathway to senior elite success build on junior elite success? Evidence from longitudinal studies investigating athletes' junior-to-senior performance development is mixed; prospective studies have reported percentages of juniors who achieved an equivalent competition level at senior age (e.g., international championships at both times) ranging from 0 to 68%.

Learning and Transfer in Problem Solving Progressions.

Do individuals learn more effectively when given progressive or variable problem-solving experience, relative to consistent problem-solving experience? We investigated this question using a Rubik's Cube paradigm. Participants were randomly assigned to a progression-order condition, where they practiced solving three progressively more difficult Rubik's Cubes (i.e.

Predictors of Junior Versus Senior Elite Performance are Opposite: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Participation Patterns.

Background: Does early specialization facilitate later athletic excellence, or is early diversification better? This is a longstanding theoretical controversy in sports science and medicine. Evidence from studies investigating athletes' starting age, childhood/adolescent progress, and amounts of coach-led practice and peer-led play in their main sport and in other sports has been mixed. Each participation variable was positively correlated with performance in some studies but uncorrelated or negatively correlated with performance in others.

Resilience of adolescents, though weakened during pandemic-related lockdown, serves as a protection against depression and sleep problems.

Adolescents facing adversities are susceptible to depression and sleep problems. Resilience is an important protective mechanism for coping with adversity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, adolescents faced hardships including being pulled from their schools and being unable to socialize with friends during mandated lockdowns.

Reconsidering the Use of the Mindset Assessment Profile in Educational Contexts.

The Mindset Assessment Profile is a popular questionnaire purportedly designed to measure mindset-an individual's belief in whether intelligence is malleable or stable. Despite its widespread use, the questionnaire appears to assess an individual's need for cognition and goal orientation more than mindset. We assessed the reliability, construct validity, and factor structure of the Mindset Assessment Profile in a sample of 992 undergraduates.

Is the Deliberate Practice View Defensible? A Review of Evidence and Discussion of Issues.

The question of what explains individual differences in expertise within complex domains such as music, games, sports, science, and medicine is currently a major topic of interest in a diverse range of fields, including psychology, education, and sports science, to name just a few. Ericsson and colleagues' is a highly influential perspective in the literature on expertise and expert performance-but is it viable as a testable scientific theory? Here, reviewing more than 25 years of Ericsson and colleagues' writings, we document critical inconsistencies in the definition of deliberate practice, along with apparent shifts in the standard for evidence concerning deliberate practice. We also consider the impact of these issues on progress in the field of expertise, focusing on the empirical testability and falsifiability of the deliberate practice view.

How do task characteristics affect learning and performance? The roles of simultaneous, interactive, and continuous tasks.

Why are some tasks more difficult to learn than others? Hoffman et al. (Accelerated expertise: training for high proficiency in a complex world. Psychology Press, New York, 2014) hypothesized that certain task characteristics-termed "dimensions of difficulty"-hindered learning and performance.

Three visual working memory representations simultaneously control attention.

How many items can we store in visual working memory while simultaneously conducting a visual search? Previous research has proposed that during concurrent visual search, only one visual working memory representation can be activated to directly influence attention. This previous research suggests that other visual working memory representations are "accessory items", which have little direct influence on attention. However, recent findings provided evidence that not one, but two visual working memory representations can capture attention and interfere with concurrent visual search.

Toward a cumulative science of expertise: commentary on Moxley, Ericsson, and Tuffiash (2017).

In a recent Psychological Research article, Moxley, Ericsson, and Tuffiash (2017) report two studies of SCRABBLE expertise. The results revealed that the average SCRABBLE rating was higher for males than for females. Moreover, correlational and structural equation analyses revealed that activities that the authors refer to as "purposeful practice" accounted for a substantial amount of the variance in SCRABBLE ratings.

How Firm Are the Foundations of Mind-Set Theory? The Claims Appear Stronger Than the Evidence.

refers to people's beliefs about whether attributes are malleable () or unchangeable ( ). Proponents of mind-set theory have made bold claims about mind-set's importance. For example, one's mind-set is described as having profound effects on one's motivation and achievements, creating different psychological worlds for people, and forming the core of people's meaning systems.

The role of deliberate practice in expert performance: revisiting Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer (1993).

We sought to replicate Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer's (Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer 1993 , 363-406) seminal study on deliberate practice. Ericsson . found that differences in retrospective estimates of accumulated amounts of deliberate practice corresponded to each skill level of student violinists.

Retrieval shifts in spatial skill acquisition are collective rather than item-specific.

How do people improve their ability to intercept moving targets? Prior research and theories of skill acquisition suggest that individuals engage in item-specific retrieval shifts (Anglim & Wynton, 2015; Logan, 1988; Palmeri, 1997; Rickard, 1997, 2004; Touron, 2006; Wilkins & Rawson, 2010). However, this prior research examined performance on nonspatial, nondynamic tasks. In three experiments, we pitted four hypotheses against each other, to test skill acquisition for intercepting repeated trajectories in a spatial and dynamic task: the item-specific algorithmic speedup hypothesis, the item-specific retrieval shift hypothesis, the collective retrieval shift hypothesis, and the combined hypothesis (item-specific algorithmic speedup followed by a collective retrieval shift).

How do task characteristics affect learning and performance? The roles of variably mapped and dynamic tasks.

For well over a century, scientists have investigated individual differences in performance. The majority of studies have focused on either differences in practice, or differences in cognitive resources. However, the predictive ability of either practice or cognitive resources varies considerably across tasks.

To What Extent and Under Which Circumstances Are Growth Mind-Sets Important to Academic Achievement? Two Meta-Analyses.

Mind-sets (aka implicit theories) are beliefs about the nature of human attributes (e.g., intelligence).