No / Little has been written about the functional outcome of patients treated with bone transport to reconstruct a distal tibial defect. The aim of this study was to investigate the functional capabilities of patients who had undergone reconstruction with distraction osteogenesis for the treatment of a distal tibial defect in one lower limb. At least eighteen months after completion of treatment, eight patients who had no pain and were able to walk and climb stairs without difficulty performed isometric ankle plantar flexion maximum voluntary contractions while the electromyographic activity of the tibialis anterior and triceps surae muscles was simultaneously recorded. Seven of the patients also underwent gait analysis. Data for the involved limb were compared with those collected for the contralateral limb. During gait, stance time (p = 0.01), the plantar flexion angular displacement and peak moment developed during the second half of stance (p < 0.046), and the amount of ankle power generated (p = 0.02) were significantly decreased in the involved limb compared with the contralateral limb. Similar decreases were observed in the plantar flexion (p = 0.01) and dorsiflexion (p = 0.01) maximum voluntary contractions and the corresponding electromyographic activity (p = 0.01). These results suggest that adaptive changes had occurred at the level of the transported muscles, which affected both routine and maximal effort capabilities. These findings contribute to our understanding of the functional limitations of patients who have undergone bone transport with its obligatory shortening of muscle length.

This study examines an aspect of earnings management that I refer to as audit management. I define audit management as a client's strategic use of techniques (e.g., baiting tactics) to prevent auditors from discovering earnings management during the audit. Specifically, I examine whether two baiting tactics, diversionary statements and distracting errors, affect an auditor's ability to uncover an accounting error used to manage earnings. Auditors performed analytical review on financial statements that contained an earnings management error (i.e., an intentional error that results in the client meeting an earnings target). I manipulated whether management provided a diversionary statement that explicitly identified risk in other areas of the audit, and whether management seeded easier, distracting errors into those other areas, both of which were designed to lure the auditor away from the earnings management error. I found that when auditors were intentionally directed to error free accounts they were unlikely to uncover an earnings management error elsewhere in the financial statements. On the other hand, auditors were most accurate in identifying earnings management when they were directed to audit areas that contained distracting errors. These results suggest that managers can use certain baiting tactics to strategically manage the outcome of the audit, but that, in some circumstances, baiting tactics may actually make auditors more likely to uncover managed earnings.

Les dysfonctions mnémoniques constituent un aspect important de la symptomatologie de la schizophrénie (SZ). Le but de la présente étude consiste à caractériser les déficits en mémoire à court terme (MCT), plus précisément de déterminer la contribution relative de la capacité limitée du traitement de l’information en MCT par opposition à un affaissement de l’attention sélective chez les personnes qui souffrent de SZ. Cette étude comparative comprend 18 patients qui souffrent de SZ et 19 participants témoins. La magnitude de la diminution de la performance par l’interpolation de stimuli non pertinents à l’intérieur d’une séquence à mémoriser- l’effet sandwich (Hitch, 1975; Tremblay, Nicholls, Parmentier & Jones, sous presse) - sera examinée en M C T spatiale. Cette nouvelle procédure est très semblable au Digit Span Distractibility Test utilisé en MCT verbale (Oltmanns & Neale, 1975). Les résultats suggèrent que les performances déficitaires en MCT spatiale chez les patients qui souffrent de SZ s ’expliquent davantage par une capacité limitée du traitement de l’information en MCT. Par conséquent, les patients atteints de SZ ne semblent pas plus sensibles à la distraction que les participants témoins. Ces résultats divergent de ceux obtenus en MCT verbale, démontrant une sensibilité accrue à la distraction.

Information systems provide users with valuable information that is relevant to users’ tasks, as well as irrelevant information that is not helpful to the user. Irrelevant information become a distraction and distract the users from their current task, there by impairing performance. Guided by distraction-conflict theory, processing efficiency theory, attentional control theory, cognitive load theory and memory for goals theory, this study investigated the distraction effect by exploring the research question, “How do task-irrelevant distractions interrupt the users of information systems and influence their performance?”. To investigate how distractions from technology influence users’ performance, this experimental research examined the relationship between the variables of distraction, cognitive load, anxiety and task performance. Data were gathered through lab experiment using imotion eye tracking system. The major findings revealed that task-irrelevant distraction negatively influenced the users by increase anxiety and cognitive load as well as increase the time devoted to primary task. We also found that the cognitive load partially mediates the relationship between distraction and time spending on task.

Previous research suggests that cellular phone conversations or similar auditory/conversational tasks lead to degradations in visual processing. Three contemporary theories make different claims about the nature of the degradation that occurs when we talk on a cellular phone. We are either: (a) disproportionately more likely to miss objects located in the most peripheral areas of the visual environment due to a reduction in the size of the attentional window or functional field of view (Atchley & Dressel, 2004); (b) more likely to miss objects from all areas of the visual environment (even at the center of fixation) because attention is withdrawn from the roadway, leading to inattention blindness or general interference (Strayer & Drews, 2006; Crundall, Underwood, & Chapman, 1999; 2002), or (c) more likely to miss objects that are located on the side of the visual environment contralateral to the cellular phone message due to crossmodal links in spatial attention (Driver & Spence, 2004). These three theories were compared by asking participants to complete central and peripheral visual tasks (i.e., a measure of the functional field of view) in isolation and in combination with an auditory task. During the combined visual/auditory task, peripheral visual targets could appear on the same side as auditory targets or on the opposite side. When the congruency between auditory and visual target locations was not considered (as is typical in previous research), the results were consistent with the general interference/inattention blindness theory, but not the reduced functional field of view theory. Yet, when congruency effects were considered, the results support the theory that crossmodal links affect the spatial allocation of attention: Participants were better at detecting and localizing visual peripheral targets and at generating words for the auditory task if attention was directed to the same location in both modalities.

No description available.

No description available.

This study was divided into two parts. Study 1 examined the spoken language production of neurologically healthy adults (NHA) in selective and divided attention conditions during a story retell task. NHA participant groups consisted of 21 younger (26–54), 19 older (55–69), and 20 elderly (70–85) adults. Study 2 investigated how the language production of four people with aphasia (PWA) compared to their respective NHA group. All participants retold stories in a silent baseline condition, three background noise conditions (cocktail party, conversation, phone call), and one dual-task condition (tone discrimination). Language production measures (speech rate, disfluent verbalizations, language efficiency, lexical diversity, lexical-phonological errors), tone-discrimination accuracy and response time, and perceived effort and stress were compared across groups and conditions. Results of Study 1 revealed that the language of elderly adults was significantly less efficient and had more disfluent verbalizations than that of both younger and older adults, and the language of older adults was significantly less efficient and had more disfluent verbalizations than that of younger adults. The tone discrimination accuracy and response time of elderly adults was significantly lower than that of younger adults. Older and elderly adults showed greater levels of perceived stress than younger adults. Across groups, lexical diversity decreased and lexical-phonological errors and disfluent verbalizations increased during the dual-task and phone call conditions. Costs to tone discrimination accuracy, response time, perceived effort, and perceived stress were found in the dual-task condition across groups. These findings suggest that some, but not all, measures of spoken language production are impacted by aging, and that selective and divided attention interferes with spoken language production for NHA. Results of Study 2 show that the four PWA were distinguished from their respective NHA adult group for all dependent variables in at least one condition. Percent lexical-phonological errors, percent disfluent verbalizations, and speech rate were the dependent variables that distinguished PWA from NHA the most. However, the language production, tone-discrimination response, perceived effort, and perceived stress of each PWA were unique to the individual. These findings suggest that lexical-phonological errors, percent disfluent verbalizations, and speech rate may be useful measures for discerning individuals with mild aphasia from NHA speakers in a variety of conditions.

Même si tout le monde sait ce qu'est l'impulsivité, aucune définition explicite n'existe dans les écrits. Certains auteurs proposent donc d'étudier l'impulsivité en fonction de plusieurs composantes comportementales, une de celles-ci impliquerait une susceptibilité à la distraction. Cette distractibilité accrue pourrait possiblement s'expliquer par des difficultés d'application du contrôle cognitif. Ainsi, le présent projet vise à examiner le lien entre l'impulsivité et la distractibilité et de vérifier si une plus grande susceptibilité à la distraction dans l'impulsivité serait liée à une difficulté d'application du contrôle cognitif. Pour ce faire, la distraction auditive est utilisée, puisque certaines formes sont reconnues comme étant affectées par l'application du contrôle cognitif, alors que d'autres ne le sont pas. Deux groupes d'impulsivité sont formés selon les résultats obtenus à l'aide d'un questionnaire. Une première expérience vise à examiner si les individus plus impulsifs sont affectés de la même façon par deux formes de distractions auditives, ou s'ils sont plus affectés par la forme relevant du contrôle cognitif. Les résultats montrent que les individus plus impulsifs ne sont pas plus sensibles à aucune des deux formes de distraction. La seconde expérience a pour but de manipuler directement le contrôle cognitif dans la tâche principale et ainsi vérifier si ce processus est lié à la distractibilité accrue des personnes plus impulsives. Les résultats montrent une absence de différence entre les groupes d'impulsivité, ce qui suggère que les individus plus impulsifs ne sont pas plus sensibles à la distraction. Ces résultats seraient cohérents avec les arguments de certains auteurs mettant de l'avant que le terme d'impulsivité devrait être mis de côté pour plutôt s'intéresser à ses composantes spécifiques. Cela implique qu'il serait davantage pertinent d'étudier les composantes référant aux manifestations décrites comme impulsives, plutôt que de vérifier si ces composantes font partie du construit peu utile que serait l'impulsivité.

In his classic book, Experiencing Architecture, Rasmussen (1959) noted that architects inspired by addressing problems in built environments created buildings with a special spirit: a distinctive stamp. Recent problems in healthcare facilities, specifically those related to reducing stress and anxiety, have inspired designers to create positive, uplifting distractions to redirect a patient's attention from a sterile environment and/or noxious event. In doing so, healthcare facilities have become special environments with a caring spirit. This study examined a specific aspect of creating a caring environment: determining whether or not a positive distraction, a child's art-light mosaic movie developed by the researcher, would lower pain and distress in children 4, 5, and 6 years old during an immunization procedure. The researcher conducted a randomized controlled study in two locations using a child's self-report pain scale, heart rate, parent/guardian report, and nurse report measures. After collecting and analyzing data from 76 well-participants receiving one to five immunizations, the researcher found no statistically significant difference between the conditions for any of the measures. Thus, the null hypothesis, the art-light mosaic image would not assist in lowering pain and distress in pediatric patients, 4 to 6 years old, during an immunization procedure, was not rejected. From these results, the researcher recommended future studies incorporate training the parent and child on how to use the distraction, combine the distraction with a topical analgesic, provide a clear understanding of pain and distress from the child's point of view, and develop more sensitive self-report measures of pain for children. / Ph. D.