Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-65). Print copy also available.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship among the number of toys in an infant’s play environment, infant’s distractibility, and how often a mother teaches her infant during a play session. This study takes samples from videotapes of 12-month old children playing with their mothers during a 5 minute free-play situation. Twenty-two mother and infant pairs were selected for this study based on their previous participation in a language study. The measures used in this study were: (1) the number of maternal teaching utterances to her infant; (2) the total number of utterances that mother used during the play session with the child; (3) the number of toys that were visible in the room; (4) the factors that distracted the infant during the play session; and (5) the type of toy the infant choses to engage with.

Many models of reading include cognitive components such as memory and attention in addition to the linguistic processing aspects; however, the particular effects of these other resources have yet to be clearly defined. The current study seeks to look at the effects of attentional resource manipulation on the reading process through the use of comic viewing, auditory distraction and dual-task paradigms. The study uses both behavioral measures (comprehension question performance) and eye-tracking measures (fixation time, revisits) to investigate the effects of increased cognitive load on the reading process in healthy, literate adults. The study found that healthy adults used the presence of comics to attenuate the effects of distraction and increased cognitive load on the comprehension process. Without the additional visual information of the comics, the participants showed a significant increase in the number of attempts to reread material (i.e. revisits) due to the distractor/dual-task presentation while still exhibiting notable decreases in comprehension. Furthermore, additional correlations were found between several cognitive testing measures and the participants’ performances in both the comprehension and eye-tracking measures across conditions. The results of this study provide valuable insight into future stages of this study, informing further research with both healthy adults and clinical populations such as people with aphasia or traumatic brain injuries.

Thesis (M. S.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Smith, Anderson; Committee Member: Hertzog, Christopher; Committee Member: Rogers, Wendy.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2006. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 20-22). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2007. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-40). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Kan, Ka Lai Carrie. / "May 2008." / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-125). / Abstracts in English and Chinese, some text in appendix also in Chinese. / Chapter CHAPTER 1: --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter CHAPTER 2: --- LITERATURE REVIEW / Introduction --- p.3 / Medication error --- p.4 / Definition of medication error --- p.4 / Incidents of medication error --- p.6 / The issues of defining medication error --- p.7 / The issue of medication error reporting --- p.8 / Near miss --- p.9 / Factors associated with medication error --- p.10 / System factors --- p.10 / Environmental factors --- p.12 / Human factors --- p.13 / Slips and lapses and medication error --- p.14 / "Distraction, slips and lapses and medication error" --- p.15 / Distraction --- p.15 / Definition of distraction --- p.15 / Consequences of distraction --- p.16 / Factors associated with distraction --- p.16 / Cognitive factors --- p.17 / Personality factors --- p.18 / Environmental factors --- p.18 / Studies on distraction during medication administration --- p.19 / Distraction and medication error --- p.21 / Strategies to reduce distraction --- p.22 / Visual Sign --- p.23 / Definition of visual sign --- p.23 / Nature of visual sign --- p.24 / Studies on visual sign to reduce distraction --- p.25 / Summary of literature review --- p.25 / Chapter CHAPTER 3: --- METHODOLOGY / Introduction --- p.27 / Aims and objectives --- p.27 / Operational definitions --- p.28 / Research design --- p.28 / Setting --- p.31 / Stage one --- p.32 / Setting --- p.32 / Sampling --- p.33 / Instrument --- p.35 / Data collection method --- p.36 / Data analysis --- p.37 / Stage two --- p.38 / Stage three --- p.40 / Pilot study --- p.40 / Validity and reliability of methodology --- p.41 / Interview --- p.41 / Observation --- p.42 / Ethical considerations --- p.43 / Chapter CHAPTER 4: --- FINDINGS / Introduction --- p.44 / Stage one --- p.44 / Baseline interview --- p.44 / Informants' characteristics --- p.44 / Categories and sub-categories --- p.45 / Feelings of medication error --- p.46 / Causes of medication error --- p.47 / Causes of distraction --- p.49 / Perception of distraction --- p.50 / Feelings about distraction --- p.52 / Strategies to reduce distraction --- p.53 / Strategies to reduce medication error --- p.54 / Baseline observation --- p.56 / Findings of stage one --- p.59 / Stage two --- p.60 / One week after implementation observation --- p.60 / Findings of stage two --- p.63 / Stage three / Three months after implementation observation --- p.63 / Follow-up interview --- p.66 / Informants' characteristics --- p.66 / Categories and sub-categories --- p.67 / Conflicting feelings --- p.68 / Different effects on nursing service --- p.69 / Feelings about wearing the red vest --- p.70 / Enhanced a non-distractive culture --- p.72 / Improved cognitive process --- p.73 / Improved performance --- p.75 / Findings of stage three --- p.76 / Comparison of the three stages of quantitative observational data --- p.77 / "Lapse time, items given, and number of patients" --- p.77 / Comparison of lapse time and total distraction --- p.78 / Comparison of the ten items on distraction --- p.78 / Comparison of total distraction --- p.79 / Comparison of near misses --- p.80 / Overall Summary of the findings --- p.80 / Chapter CHAPTER 5: --- DISCUSSION / Introduction --- p.82 / Characteristics of informants and observational data --- p.82 / Nurseśة perception of distraction as a cause of medication administration error --- p.83 / Causes of distraction during medication administration --- p.87 / Evaluation outcome --- p.91 / Evaluation process --- p.98 / Chapter CHAPTER 6: --- "LIMITATIONS, IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMEDATIONS" / Limitations --- p.111 / Setting --- p.111 / Population and sampling --- p.111 / Observer's influence --- p.112 / Interviewer's influence --- p.112 / Implications for nursing practice --- p.113 / Recommendations for future studies --- p.114 / Conclusion --- p.116 / REFERENCES --- p.118 / APPENDICES / Chapter 1: --- Literature search --- p.126 / Chapter 2: --- Medication Administration Distraction Observation Sheet (MADOS) --- p.127 / Chapter 3: --- Adapted MADOS --- p.128 / Chapter 4: --- Baseline interview guide --- p.129 / Chapter 5: --- Interview consent form --- p.130 / Chapter 6: --- Observation consent form --- p.136 / Chapter 7: --- Informal letter to nursing staff --- p.142 / Chapter 8: --- Follow-up interview guide --- p.144 / Chapter 9: --- Rationale for pilot study --- p.145 / Chapter 10: --- Ethical approval (CUHK) --- p.147 / Chapter 11: --- Ethical approval ( Hospital Administrative Council) --- p.148 / Chapter 12: --- Baseline interview (1) --- p.149 / Chapter 13: --- Baseline observation (MAC 4) --- p.154 / Chapter 14: --- One week after observation (MAC 01) --- p.155 / Chapter 15: --- Three months after observation (MAC 005) --- p.156 / Chapter 16: --- Follow-up interview (08) --- p.157 / TABLES / Chapter 1: --- Different units and the approximate numbers of nurses --- p.30 / Chapter 2: --- Proposed sample size for baseline interview --- p.33 / Chapter 3. --- Medication administration at different scheduled time --- p.35 / Chapter 4. --- Informantśة characteristics at baseline interview --- p.45 / Chapter 5: --- Categories and subcategories: baseline interview --- p.46 / Chapter 6: --- "Elapse time, items given, number of patients, distractions and near misses at baseline observation" --- p.57 / Chapter 7: --- Frequency of the ten items of distraction at baseline observation --- p.57 / Chapter 8: --- Ranking of the ten items on distraction at baseline observation --- p.58

Cell phone ownership among student populations is approaching ubiquity and many cell phone owners interact with their devices frequently throughout the day. Since cell phones often hold the power to connect and entertain their owners at any given moment, it is possible that students' increased proximity to cell phones during a classroom lecture may lead to increased distraction from academic tasks. This study investigated whether the mere presence of a cell phone, self-reported general frequency of cell phone use, and anxiety related to being separated from one’s cell phone were related to classroom lecture outcomes. Undergraduate participants (N=72) unknowingly signed up for one of three groups: phone-on-desk, phone-under-desk, or phone-at-front-of-room. In each condition, participants were asked to take notes during a video lecture; their protocols were subsequently scored for lecture note quantity, lecture note quality, and performance on a lecture content quiz. After controlling for self-reported general cell phone use frequency and cell phone separation anxiety, results indicated participants who had their phones on their desks during the lecture wrote more complete ideas in their notes than participants who had their phones under their desks or at the front of the room. Additional analyses indicated the phone-on-desk group wrote significantly more propositions and complete ideas in their notes than the other two groups. These outcomes fall in the direction opposite to the stated hypothesis. Future investigations should consider students’ habituation to having their cell phones present and the possibility that the absence of one’s cell phone could be distracting enough to suppress academic performance.

We investigated the concurrent effects of arousal and encoding specificity as related to background music on associative memory accuracy. Extant literature suggested these factors affect memory, but their combined effect in musical stimuli was not clear and may affect memory differentially for young and older adults. Specifically, we sought to determine if music can be used as a mnemonic device to overcome the associative memory deficits typically experienced by healthy older adults. We used a paired-associates memory task in which young and older adults listened to either highly or lowly arousing music or to silence while simultaneously studying same gender face-name pairs. Participants' memory was then tested for these pairs while listening to either the same or different music selections. We found that young adults' memory performance was not affected by any of the music listening conditions. Music listening, however, was detrimental for older adults. Specifically, their memory performance was worse for all music conditions, particularly if the music was highly arousing. Young adults' pattern of results was not reflected in their subjective ratings of helpfulness; they felt that all music was helpful to their performance yet there was no indication of this in the results. Older adults were more aware of the detriment of music on their performance, rating some highly arousing music as less helpful than silence. We discuss possible reasons for this pattern and conclude that these results are most consistent with the theory that older adults' failure to inhibit processing of distracting task-irrelevant information, in this case background music, contributes to their elevated memory failures.

Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed February 23, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 53-60).