Effects of colour-coded compartmentalised syringe trays on anaesthetic drug error detection under cognitive load.

Background: Anaesthetic drug administration is complex, and typical clinical environments can entail significant cognitive load. Colour-coded anaesthetic drug trays have shown promising results for error identification and reducing cognitive load.

Methods: We used experimental psychology methods to test the potential benefits of colour-coded compartmentalised trays compared with conventional trays in a simulated visual search task.

Explaining normative-deliberative gaps is essential to dual-process theorizing.

We discuss significant challenges to assumptions of exclusivity and highlight methodological and conceptual pitfalls in inferring deliberative processes from reasoning responses. Causes of normative-deliberative gaps are considered (e.g.

Standardised colour-coded compartmentalised syringe trays improve anaesthetic medication visual search and mitigate cognitive load.

Background: Anaesthetic procedures are complex and subject to human error. Interventions to alleviate medication errors include organised syringe storage trays, but no standardised methods for drug storage have yet been widely implemented.

Methods: We used experimental psychology methods to explore the potential benefits of colour-coded compartmentalised trays compared with conventional trays in a visual search task.

An International Validation of a Clinical Tool to Assess Carers' Quality of Life in Huntington's Disease.

Family carers of individuals living with Huntington's disease (HD) manage a distinct and unique series of difficulties arising from the complex nature of HD. This paper presents the validation of the definitive measure of quality of life (QoL) for this group. The Huntington's Disease Quality of Life Battery for Carers (HDQoL-C) was expanded ( = 47) and then administered to an international sample of 1716 partners and family carers from 13 countries.

Using Eye Tracking to Explore Facebook Use and Associations with Facebook Addiction, Mental Well-being, and Personality.

Social networking sites (SNSs) have become ubiquitous in our everyday lives, and for all its communicative benefits, excessive SNS use has been associated with a range of negative health implications. In the present study, the authors use eye-tracking methodology to explore the relationship between individual differences in personality, mental well-being, SNS usage, and the focus of Facebook users' visual attention. Participants ( = 69, mean age = 23.

Event-related potentials support a dual process account of the Embedded Chinese Character Task.

Tests of the principles of dual process theory are typically conducted in the reasoning and judgement/decision-making literature. The present study explores dual process explanations with a new paradigm - the Embedded Chinese Character Task (ECCT). The beauty of this task is that it allows the contrast of automatic and deliberate processes without the potential for conflict.

Performance Under Stress: An Eye-Tracking Investigation of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT).

Stress pervades everyday life and impedes risky decision making. The following experiment is the first to examine effects of stress on risky decision making in the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), while measuring inspection time and conscious awareness of deck contingencies. This was original as it allowed a fine grained rigorous analysis of the way that stress impedes awareness of, and attention to maladaptive financial choices.

Exploring the Experience of Novelty When Viewing Creative Adverts: An ERP Study.

The electrophysiological correlates of experiencing novelty in creative advertising were studied in 28 healthy subjects using event-related potentials. Participants viewed images that were difficult to interpret until a description was presented providing either a creative description (CD) featuring an unexpected description of the image based on the original advertisement, or a normal description (ND), which was a literal description of the image (and served as a baseline condition). Participants evaluated the level of creativity of the description.

The Monty Hall problem revisited: Autonomic arousal in an inverted version of the game.

The asymmetry of autonomic arousal for potential losses and gains was assessed by the galvanic skin response (GSR) of participants playing classic and inverted versions of the Monty Hall problem (MHP). In both versions, the prize remained the same (a pen valued at £10 for the right answer), but in the modified version, prizes were received prior to choosing the door. Both experimental groups showed increased levels of GSR while completing the task, demonstrating increased autonomic arousal during the game.

Slower is not always better: Response-time evidence clarifies the limited role of miserly information processing in the Cognitive Reflection Test.

We report a study examining the role of 'cognitive miserliness' as a determinant of poor performance on the standard three-item Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT). The cognitive miserliness hypothesis proposes that people often respond incorrectly on CRT items because of an unwillingness to go beyond default, heuristic processing and invest time and effort in analytic, reflective processing. Our analysis (N = 391) focused on people's response times to CRT items to determine whether predicted associations are evident between miserly thinking and the generation of incorrect, intuitive answers.

Do graduate entry nursing student's experience 'Imposter Phenomenon'?: An issue for debate.

The recruitment of Graduates into the nursing profession is seen as advantageous in the academic literature. Conversely educated nurses are often portrayed in the media as "too posh to wash". We would argue these conflicting discourses have a negative effect on graduate entry nurse education.

The vulnerability of rules in complex work environments: dynamism and uncertainty pose problems for cognition.

Many complex work environments rely heavily on cognitive operators using rules. Operators sometimes fail to implement rules, with catastrophic human, social and economic costs. Rule-based error is widely reported, yet the mechanisms of rule vulnerability have received less attention.

The intersection between Descriptivism and Meliorism in reasoning research: further proposals in support of 'soft normativism'.

The rationality paradox centers on the observation that people are highly intelligent, yet show evidence of errors and biases in their thinking when measured against normative standards. Elqayam and Evans' (2011) reject normative standards in the psychological study of thinking, reasoning and deciding in favor of a 'value-free' descriptive approach to studying high-level cognition. In reviewing Elqayam and Evans' (2011) position, we defend an alternative to descriptivism in the form of 'soft normativism,' which allows for normative evaluations alongside the pursuit of descriptive research goals.

The neural correlates of belief-bias inhibition: the impact of logic training.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the brain activity associated with response change in a belief bias paradigm before and after logic training. Participants completed two sets of belief biased reasoning tasks. In the first set they were instructed to respond based on their empirical beliefs, and in the second - following logic training - they were instructed to respond logically.

Further evidence of reliability and validity of the Huntington's disease quality of life battery for carers: Italian and French translations.

Background: Existing research suggests that family caregivers of persons with Huntington's disease (HD) face a distinct series of problems, linked to the complex nature of the disease. Aubeeluck and Buchanan (Clin Genet, 71(5):434-445, 2007) developed and validated a disease-specific measure used to explore caregivers quality of life and assess the efficacy of therapeutic interventions. This current study builds on this research through the validation of French and Italian translations of the Huntington's disease quality of life battery for carers (HDQoL-C).

Cognitive control in belief-laden reasoning during conclusion processing: an ERP study.

Belief bias is the tendency to accept conclusions that are compatible with existing beliefs more frequently than those that contradict beliefs. It is one of the most replicated behavioral findings in the reasoning literature. Recently, neuroimaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potentials (ERPs) have provided a new perspective and have demonstrated neural correlates of belief bias that have been viewed as supportive of dual-process theories of belief bias.

'All the burden on all the carers': exploring quality of life with family caregivers of Huntington's disease patients.

Background: Existing research suggests that family caregivers of persons with Huntington's disease face a unique series of problems, linked to the complex nature of the disease. There is little research that explicitly investigates the impact of HD on the quality of life (QoL) of the family caregiver. The purpose of this study was to explore the quality of life issues for family carers of Huntington's disease patients in a focus group setting.

Negations in syllogistic reasoning: evidence for a heuristic-analytic conflict.

An experiment utilizing response time measures was conducted to test dominant processing strategies in syllogistic reasoning with the expanded quantifier set proposed by Roberts (2005). Through adding negations to existing quantifiers it is possible to change problem surface features without altering logical validity. Biases based on surface features such as atmosphere, matching, and the probability heuristics model (PHM; Chater & Oaksford, 1999; Wetherick & Gilhooly, 1995) would not be expected to show variance in response latencies, but participant responses should be highly sensitive to changes in the surface features of the quantifiers.

Figural effects in a syllogistic evaluation paradigm: an inspection-time analysis.

Robust biases have been found in syllogistic reasoning that relate to the figure of premises and to the directionality of terms in given conclusions. Mental models theorists (e.g.