The Construction of Female Sexual Agency in Contemporary Advertising: Empowerment or Objectification?
media, advertising, psychology, sociology, psycho-social, sexualisation, objectification, empowerment, sexual empowerment gender, me too, feminism, post feminism, neoliberalism
Building on the work of Gill (2008) on postfeminist female gender representation in advertising, more specifically the shift from representing women as sexual objects to representing women as active sexual subjects, this work presents an exploration of young adults’ constructions and depictions of contemporary sexualised representations of women; of whether the new construction of female sexual agency is seen as empowering as opposed to objectifying. Furthermore, this analysis is concerned with the susceptibility of young audiences to advertising’s attempts to integrate neoliberal/postfeminist ideas in their communication strategies. A tangent question to this research is an exploration of contemporary audiences’ awareness of recent movements against sexual harassment (MeToo); of potential implications these may have in the construction of the new femininity. The study consisted of both same-sex (male, female) focus groups and mixed-gender focus groups in order to ensure complementarity of insights. Findings suggest thatthere is no simple negotiation between empowerment and objectification. Female sexual agency cannot be denied, nor can women be understood as completely free agents, living independent of any external influence or constraint. Female empowerment in advertising must not limit female gender representation/empowerment to women’s sexuality and should distance itself from its constant rapport with the male as female empowerment, also femininity, must be understood and represented much more broadly.
advertising must not limit female gender representation/empowerment to women’s sexuality and should distance itself from its constant rapport with the male as female empowerment, also femininity, must be understood and represented much more broadly. Methods Section:This study investigates the construction of female sexual agency in advertising. More specifically, it contributes to existing feminist post-structuralist literature, critique and debates around representations of gender in media culture as it explores young adults’ perceptions of female gender representations in advertisements that depict women sexually. Research DesignA phenomenological approach was adopted in this research as participants were invited to express their views on specific advertising stimuli, to discover and ascribe meaning to cultural depictions of female sexuality. Focus groups were conducted with five (male), six (mixed) and seven (female) participants who engaged in a semi-structured discussion. Participants expressed their thoughts in relation to the topic of research as consisting of various pre-established themes. SamplingThe sample consisted of 18 participants of which nine were females and nine were males. All participants identify as undergraduate or postgraduate students at Lancaster University, aged 20-27 years old. Participants were recruited through convenience sampling. Despite being current residents of Lancaster, they originate from different countries (England, Bulgaria, Lithuania, U.S., China, France, Andorra, and Greece). Research ProceduresMaterialsParticipants were provided with an information sheet and consent form before the focus group. The information sheet provided participants with information about the study, the scope of research, their confidentiality and anonymity, and also the opportunityto further enquire about the study. Focus groups discussion were recorded via Iphone Voice Memo recorder. The recordings were removed from the researcher’s Iphone and stored on the researcher’s password protected laptop. Participants were given a debrief sheet as soon as the focus group and recording ended. AdvertisementsA wide range of contemporary advertisements (See Appendix E) were spontaneously selected from targeted advertising in the UK, used as stimuli and shown chronologically to participants during the focus groups so they could discuss their opinions of how female sexual agency has been depicted for the past decade. Specific advertisements were selected based on the way they depict women sexually –as a means of empowerment of women as independent sexual agents. 1.Coco Mademoiselle (2011)was selected for this discussion as it depicts a new form of female sexual agency where the woman is presented as playful and sensual and not overtly sexual. During the focus groups, I sought to understandwhether the protagonist wasperceivedas strong and independent; as playful and sensual as opposed to overtly sexual. Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRV-2_Un-kk2.Dior Poison Girl (2016) was selected as discussion stimuli becauseit received numerous complaints for being misogynist, objectifying and denigrating of women as the protagonist is seen as a sexual object of male gaze and desire. The brand defended themselves by stating that instead of acting promiscuously, the girl rejected the man which can be viewed as empowering to women. In the focus group discussion, I sought to establish whether this ‘midriff’ discourse of sexuality is seen as empowering or objectifying.Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re4icu2NXO83.Dior J’adore (2016) presents Charlize Theron as the ‘absolute femininity icon’ as she is celebrating her union with the water, the earth, the sun, and herself; basking in water and sunlight while posing sensually. This ‘absolute femininity’ is ultimately promised through the divine Dior fragrance which elevates the female to the status of goddess. In my focus groups, I soughtto understand whether this wasperceived as a relevant depiction of the sexually empowered woman; whether the absolute femininity wascaptured by the brand in their advertisement or it takes more than a sparkly dress and shots of an actress caressing herself in anoasis.Advertisement URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaJ-TE1xZVA4.The Calvin Klein Fall campaign (2016)-edgy, sexual, youth and celebrity charged–was also selected. Many expressed their outrage as they considered it offensive, exploitative, objectifying and sexist while highly targeting young audiences. While objectors may look at it as another case of women being sexualised against their will, internet generations could embrace the hashtag language, therawstyleofthe photos and videos, the celebrities featured and their non-conformist styles. In the focus groups, I explored participants’ perceptions of this sexually charged campaign, its construction of female sexuality, and whether it is authentic and empowering. Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMRbSI6QAWs 5.Another short advertisement from the same campaign was shown in order to explore participants’ perceptions of the way model Kate Moss was depicted in the Calvin Klein Campaign (2016) -through highly explicit, vulgar, yet censored, claims she makes aboutmen and romantic love.Advertisement URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C-ea6J9YdY6.After discussing recent international movements against sexual harassment, the last and most recent adverts were shown with the scope of exploring participants’ understanding of ‘the new femininity’ as depicted in advertising. Shimmer in the Dark by Jimmy Choo (2017) was selected as it showed model Cara Delevingne, walking the streets at night, scantily clad, being catcalled. Unlike usual catcalling, consisting of offensive sexual remarks, the protagonist received compliments on her shoes. While this was considered highly idealistic by many, it was primarily considered ‘tone-deaf’ to the uncomfortable reality of sexual harassment experienced by many. I sought to ask participants whether they see this as empowering, whether they consider it idealistic or rather insensitive to the women’s general sentiment; whether a woman can dress herself that way and feel safe and empowered.Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPrRRgagQg87.The focus groups ended with a discussion of the most recent Coco Mademoiselle (2018)advert, another potential example of the new femininity. After previously watching Coco Mademoiselle (2011), it was worth looking at their most recent portrayal of the same female —Kiera Knightley —as playfully seductive but even more youthful, enigmatic and unapologetic. She parties, flirts and despite a lot being left to the imagination, she eventually leaves the man. In focus group discussions, I sought to explore whether this carefree, adventurous persona wasperceived as the new femininity; asempowering or not. Advertisement URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkKROkzYdXsInterview ScheduleA discussion guide (See Appendix D) was created in order to guide and time the focus group discussions. The discussion guide consisted of several pre-established themes and related questions so that the discussion, despite being informal, maintained its intended focus. Additional questions were asked by both the researcher and the participants in order to clarify or lead the discussion. Snacks and refreshments were used as incentives and provided to all groups. There were three focus groups: a male group with five males, a mixed one with four males and two females, and a female group with 7 females. Each focus group, lasting approximately 120-minute-long, was conducted at Lancaster University. Due to the influence of gender composition of a group on the nature of participants'interaction and thequality of the data, this study has incorporated both same-sex (male, female) groups and onemixed-gender group(male and female) in order to obtaincomplementaryinsights (Stewart, Shamdasani & Rook, 2007).Ethical ConsiderationsThis research was designed to align with by the Lancaster University Ethics Committee/departmental ethical standards. Participants gave informed consent and were reassured confidentiality and anonymity. Their data was anonymised by replacing their names with initials representative of their gender and orderly numeration. They were informed of their permanent right to withdraw from the study and provided with all the necessary documents (information sheet, consent form, debrief). Research data and findings were only be accessed by the researcher and the supervisor. Data Analysis ProcedureA six-stage thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) was used to identify, analyse, and report reoccurring patterns (themes) within the data. The analysis can be described as an orderly process consisting of the following stages: familiarisation with the data, generating initial codes, discovering themes within the codes, reviewing and defining them, and the eventual writing of the analysis and study findings (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
The Paradox of Choice in fictitious COVID-19 vaccination scenario: the role of the number of options and the amount of information in decision-making.
Previous research evidence showed that when people face abundance of choices or too much information, they tend to experience the paradox of choice. This study investigates the role of the number of options and amount of information in decision-making, respectively, the paradox of choice in the fictitious COVID-19 vaccination scenario. Participants (N = 128) were randomly allocated to one of four experimental conditions. The conditions differed in the number of options (high – six options; low – two options) and the information (high – six pieces of information per option; low – two pieces of information per option). As a result, the four experimental conditions were: low options, low information; low options, high information; high options, low information; high options, high information. Participants were asked to choose one of the vaccines from a list presented separately from the experimental stimuli. The reaction time of choosing a vaccine was measured. Participants were asked to evaluate how satisfied they were with their choice, how confident they were about their choice and their anticipated regret. Participants were also asked to write the reason why they chose a particular option. The study did not find a significant effect of the number of options and the amount of information on the decision-making. Participants identified five main themes why they chose a particular option: features of the vaccine, scientific evidence, information, lawfulness, and personal preference. The study revealed positive relationships between choice satisfaction, confidence, and anticipated regret.
Participants The participants’ pool was collected from the general public. In total, 191 participants took part in the study. However, 62 participants were excluded due to missing values. Another participant was further excluded because of stating being 0 years of age. Thus, the data of 128 participants (36 males, 90 females, 1 non-binary/third gender, and 1 prefer not to say) were used for the analysis. The participants were in the age group between 18 and 51 years of age (M = 23.1, SD = 6.02). Based on power analysis when effect size f = .25 (medium effect), p = .05, power (1 – β error probability) = .80, and the number of groups = 4, it was indicated that the sample size of 128 participants is necessary to ensure the study results have high statistical power. In terms of age, one participant was stated to be 22,5 years old. For the analysis, this was taken as 22 years of age. The participants were invited to the research via Facebook post, Instagram story, and direct messaging friends and family circles. From the overall sample, 103 participants (29 males, 72 females, 1 non-binary/third gender, 1 prefer not to say) also filled an additional qualitative question investigating the reasoning behind the participants’ choice. As drawn from the overall sample, the age of participants responding to the qualitative question ranged from 18 to 47 years of age (M = 22, SD = 5.76). Design Participants were presented with information about fictitious COVID-19 vaccines. The current study applied a 2x2 between-subject design. Participants were randomly split according to the number of options (high – six options; low – two options) and the amount of information they received (high – six pieces of information per option; low – two pieces of information per option). Consequently, the four experimental conditions were: a) Low options, low information b) Low options, high information c) High options, low information d) High options, high information The six vaccines in the high options scenario represented the first six COVID-19 vaccines used in the world in more than two countries (Forbes, 2021). Two vaccines in the low option scenario were chosen as it is the smallest number of options participants can compare and choose from. The amount of information then copied the design of the number of options. The number of options and the amount of information was then counterbalanced, enabling testing the effect of the number of options versus the amount of information and their interaction on decision-making. Materials As mentioned above, the data was collected using an online questionnaire. Participants were randomly allocated to one of the experimental conditions using the Qualtrics.com question randomiser function. Thus, there was no control of the researcher regarding the experimental condition allocation. The experimental stimuli consisted of pictures containing the information about vaccines varying in the number of information and the number of vaccines, as can be seen in Figure 1 to Figure 4. The information about each vaccine in the experimental stimuli was inspired by the real-world COVID-19 vaccines in use. For collecting the information, official sources were reviewed, news articles and videos, and other websites. Although the information was modified, it does not directly correspond with any real-world vaccine. The sources also do not directly match with real-world sources of information. All people, social media accounts, and websites are fictitious. The information was counterbalanced, so each of the fictitious vaccines has a similar amount of information from official sources (CDC, NHS, WHO, Government) and unofficial sources (made up websites and social media profiles). Further, to ensure there is no dominant option, the number of people in fictitious vaccine trials was similar. Likewise, the efficiency levels were kept similar across the options, and positive and negative information was also balanced. Figure 1 Experimental stimulus – Low information, low options Note. This picture represents the low information, low options experimental condition presenting two pieces of information and two vaccines options. Figure 2 Experimental stimulus – Low information, low options Note. In this picture, the low option high information experimental condition can be seen. Two options of vaccines and six pieces of information for each vaccine were presented in this condition. Figure 3 Experimental stimulus – Low information, high options Note. This figure illustrates the high options and low information experimental condition. In this experimental condition, six vaccines and two pieces of information for each vaccine were presented. Figure 4 Experimental stimulus – High information, high options Note. The high options, high information condition stimulus was split into two pictures to assure that the font of the text is sufficiently large for the participants to read the information. Six options of vaccines and six pieces of information to each vaccine were presented in this condition. After viewing the stimuli, participants were asked to select one vaccine from the list on a separate page. The lists of vaccines varied depending on the experimental conditions—the number and type of vaccines corresponded with the experimental stimulus. The page with vaccines options was timed to measure how long participants spend deciding between the vaccines. The time was measured from when the page came up until submitting the page. For the open-ended question about the rationale behind the choice, a larger text box was provided so the participants could type in a short paragraph about why they decided on that vaccine. 5-point Likert scales were used to measure satisfaction (unsatisfied to satisfied), confidence (unconfident to confident), and regret (regret to not regret at all). Procedure In the beginning, participants were informed about the nature of the experimental task; however, they were not told that the study measures the paradox of choice. Participants could continue the study after completing a consent form. Then, participants were informed that they would view lists of information about fictitious COVID-19 vaccines. They were recommended to take notes to maximise their attention to the information. Then participants proceeded to one of the experimental conditions and were asked to read through the information presented. Then they continued to another page and were asked to choose one of the vaccines from the list based on the information from the previous page. The questionnaire continued with the open-ended question. The following page contained the evaluation of the choice satisfaction, confidence, and regret. Participants were disclosed that the paradox of choice was measured in the debriefing, followed by its definition and links to the actual COVID-19 vaccines information. The participants were given the option to withdraw by closing the browser window without saving their data if they no longer wished to participate in the study. The experimental design was reviewed and approved by the Lancaster University Department of Psychology ethical committee. Data analysis methods This study investigates the effect of the number of options and the amount of information on the paradox of choice across the four experimental conditions. The dependent variables measured were the reaction time, satisfaction levels, choice confidence, and anticipated regret measured using a 5-point Likert scale. The data gathered consists of independent observations as everyone went through one experimental condition at the time. Convenient sampling was used to collect data as the participants were mainly the researcher’s family, friends, and acquaintances. However, the participants come from different countries, age categories and educational backgrounds; thus, it can be assumed that the observations are independent of each other. The effect of two factors (information, options) with two levels (low and high) on dependent variables are observed. Hence, a 2x2 analysis of variance (ANOVA) was chosen as an appropriate analysis for testing the research hypotheses. The relationships between choice satisfaction, confidence, and anticipated regret were also investigated. The data were checked for the assumption of linearity. The data on satisfaction seems to be positively skewed similarly to the data on confidence and regret. However, the data appear not to be linear nor homoscedastic. Therefore, Spearman’s correlation was chosen as an adequate analysis for this type of data. The short responses to the qualitative question “Why did you decide on that option?” was analysed using template analysis (King & Brooks, 2017). Template analysis is a flexible type of thematic analysis that can be used to analyse written responses to an open-ended question on a questionnaire (Brooks et al., 2015; King & Brooks, 2017). The question about the participants’ rationale behind their choice used in the current study was open-ended. Participants were asked to give a short written answer. Because the data result from an open-ended question and the flexibility of template analysis, template analysis was chosen to analyse the quantitative data. The final template is presented below in Figure 5 in the results section. In the beginning, all data was put together in one document. Next, the participants’ answers were coded line by line. Then the line coding was used to identify themes. The second level of themes was generated from the first level themes. Because the answers consist of short sentences with a maximum of short paragraphs, two levels of themes were used in the analysis. The template was developed from the two levels of codes. The template checked whether it fits all the recorded answers ensuring the template accuracy. Then the template was reviewed and concluded, referring to the sixth research question.
A review of the PEACE interview model training and implementation in real-life interviews
PEACE model, Interviewing, Investigation, Interrogation, Training, Evaluation, Interviewing techniques, PEACE model training
Police officers in England and Wales are trained to conduct interviews in line with the PEACE model of interviewing, however, the level of implementation of the PEACE procedures can vary between organisations and over time. The present study aimed to review the quality of current PEACE model interviewing training and its implementation into interviewing practice. Initially, in Study One, 62 training feedback forms from the Cumbria police force were analysed using thematic analysis to gain an overview of the training’s strengths and weaknesses. In Study Two, 30 interviews from 10 officers trained on these courses were analysed, to see if reported intention to implement the PEACE model and techniques learnt during training were transferred into real-life interviewing practice. Data from Study One indicated that the course was satisfactorily structured and presented, with data from Study Two showing improvement for most Tier-2 interviewers interviewing abilities after training, though some interviewers failed to implement concepts and techniques covered on the training course. Potential explanations for these findings and ways to improve the transference of skills from interviewing training are discussed.
Study One Method Participants All 62 participants undertook either a Tier-2 or Tier-3 interviewing course with the Cumbria police force. Participants were currently serving officers of constable rank or higher, of which, 34 were female and 28 were male. There was considerable variance in years of service between Tier-2 interviewers and Tier-3 interviewers, though no exact measure of years of service or age was included with the data provided. Materials Data The 62 training evaluation forms were provided to the researcher by the Cumbria police force, and were from either the Tier-2 investigative interviewing or the Tier-3 investigative interviewing course. The forms contained two scales indicating levels of confidence in conducting interviews before and after receiving the training, with a further four scales indicating levels of agreement with questions relevant to the study, and a single “Yes or No” question indicating if the participant was satisfied with the training received overall (see Appendix A for the full list of questions and exact wording). For all six scales, participants rated their strength of agreement with the statement using a scale of one to five (Likert, 1932). Three open questions were included on the form that stated: “If you have any other comments about this training please record them here”, “Are there any elements of the course did you not find useful or feel require further explanation?”, “If you have any other comments to make about this course please record them below.” Ethics Ethical approval was granted by a member of the Lancaster University Psychology department before data collection and analysis began. Data was collected by the Cumbria police force with all participants consenting to complete the feedback forms with the knowledge that their comments would be evaluated to improve the training courses. All course evaluation forms were reviewed by the researcher in a secure location at Cumbria police force headquarters, with findings being stored on the secure Lancaster University OneDrive system. No information that could allow an individual to be personally identified has been included in this report. Study Two Participants Five interviewers who had undertaken the Tier-2 interview training course with the Cumbria police force and five interviewers who had undertaken the Tier-3 interview training course with the Cumbria police force were randomly selected from the sample of 62 officers who had completed the evaluation forms used in Study One. At the time of writing, no officer had undertaken further training than the course ascribed to them. Six officers were female with four being male. As in Study One, no age data was available to record. On average Tier2 trained interviewers had 2.6 years of interviewing experience (SD = 0.8) with a range of two to four years of experience, whilst Tier-3 trained interviewers had 6.4 years of interviewing experience (SD = 3.93), with a considerably wider range of between three and 14 years of experience. Materials Data Thirty interview videos were reviewed by the researcher, three from each interviewer with one interview being before training, one being as close as possible after training and one being the most recent interview that the interviewer had conducted. Of these interviews, only two were conducted with victims and 28 were conducted with suspects, with both victim interviews being conducted by Tier-3 officers. Interviews covered a wide range of offences, with eight counts of assault, three shoplifting, two of burglary, two of possession of illegal drugs, two of criminal damage, one of resisting arrest, seven of sexual assault, six of rape, and one accessory to murder. Tier-2 interviews on average lasted 21 minutes (SD = 12.29) with the shortest being only five minutes and the longest being 52 minutes, whilst Tier-3 interviews lasted on average 56 minutes (SD = 18.82) with the shortest being 18 minutes and the longest being 86 minutes. Tier-2 interviewers’ most recent interview was on average 275.4 days (SD = 182.69) after training, and the closest interview to their training date with on average 52.2 days (SD = 41.33) after completing the training. Tier-3 interviewers’ most recent interview was on average 340.2 days (SD = 64.39) after training, and the closest interview to their training date with on average 36.8 days (SD = 21.07) after completing the training. Procedure The interview footage was provided by the Cumbria police force on a secure internet system only accessible from the Cumbria police station (the researcher took anonymised notes, and no video recordings or other personally identifiable information left the secure system). From the available interview recordings, footage was selected to be as close as possible to before and after the interviewer’s training date, as well as the most recent interview where the interviewer acted as the lead or sole interviewer. These were used to ensure the recordings gave a clear indication of pre-training ability, immediate post-training ability, and to see if training abilities were improved by the interviewing courses—as well as to check if these improvements continued after a long period since the training. Notes were subsequently coded into four categories for adherence to the PEACE model and techniques were tallied whenever used; 1) examples of preparation, 2) establishment of rapport, 3) appropriate use of the account, clarify and challenge phase and 4) the inclusion of a closure phase. The evaluation phase (where interviewers are given feedback on their performance) of the PEACE model wasn’t included in this study, as this process wasn’t included in the footage of the interviews. The development of the categories and the categorisation of behaviours was informed by the PEACE model training research by Hall (1997) and Clarke and Milne (2001). Examples of preparation included behaviours such as highlighting new information that did not refer to notes or inference, preparation of questions and a clear understanding of the interviewee’s circumstances and case. The establishment of rapport was noted when interviewers used jokes or friendly language, open and trusting body language (eye contact, open posture, mirroring of behaviour, Sandler & Lillo-Martin, 2006), or showed concern or interest in the interviewees’ needs, such as asking if they needed refreshments or asking how they felt. Appropriate use of the account, clarify and challenge phase was categorised by interviewers allowing the interviewee time to give an account (following the 80-20 rule of conversation management, Shepherd, 2007), clarifying unclear statements through summarising or re-asking questions, and asking questions which challenged accounts given by the interviewee. The inclusion of a closure phase was noted by the use of summarising accounts at the end of an interview, explaining what will happen after the interview concludes and giving the interviewee time to ask questions or provide further comments. The use of techniques mentioned on the evaluation forms as being taught and as seen on the courses syllabuses were recorded. These techniques were the use of the SER3 notetaking system, the use of silence, the use of a second interviewer, the use of open-ended questions, bad character warnings and special warnings. The counts for both adherence to the PEACE model and techniques utilised were subsequently tallied and compared between Tier2 and Tier-3 interviewers. Obtainment of a confession was not recorded in the data, as interviewees often enter an interview knowing if they intend to confess or not (Milne & Bull, 1999), and interviews repeatedly stifled by “No comment” responses would incorrectly be reported as failures. Ethics Ethical approval was granted by a member of the Lancaster University Psychology Department’s ethical committee and was approved by the Cumbria police force.
Comparison of Ethical Decision-Making in Emergency Service Workers and Laypeople
Trolley Problem, ethical dilemmas, time pressure, emergency service workers, decision-making.
The Trolley Problem is a theoretical ethical dilemma in which it is asked whether it is morally acceptable to actively kill one person to save five (Thomson, 1976). Emergency service workers (ESW) are often presented with ethical dilemmas, such as whether to resuscitate someone who does not want to be resuscitated (Guru et al., 1999). The present study investigated the differences in decisions made when faced with variations of the Trolley Problem between laypeople (non-ESW) and ESW. The effect of time pressure on making these decisions was also investigated, measured through response time. 99 participants were tested, 47 laypeople and 52 ESW. Participants were presented with five different Trolley Problem dilemmas wherein they could passively allow five people to die, or to make an active decision to sacrifice one person to save the others. These dilemmas had distinct variations, such as the one person being a co-worker, or where participants had to physically push and kill a large man. Half the participants were placed into a time pressure condition, and were told that they had a time limit in which to respond, when no time limit existed. Results showed that neither occupation nor time pressure significantly affected response time or participant choice. Further analysis suggested some interaction effects between occupation, time pressure, and specific dilemma types. Implications such as suggested training practices for ESW will be discussed. Criticisms of the methodology and recommendations for future research will also be discussed.
Method Sample This project aimed to use a total of 112 participants, with 56 of these being ESW, and 56 being laypeople. This number was calculated using the G*Power software, using an alpha of .05, power of .8, and a medium expected effect size of .35, using five levels of measurement. In total, 99 participants were gathered for the present study. 47 of the sample were laypeople, whilst the other 52 were ESW. Of these, 22 were police officers, and 30 were ambulance crewmembers. Overall, ESW had an average of 7.7 years of experience (SD = 8.29), with ambulance staff having an average of 10.14 years (SD = 9.89), and police having an average of 4.52 years (SD = 4.17). Unfortunately, no other emergency service branches such as coast guard or firefighters completed the study. A gender split of 47 males to 48 females was gathered, along with an average age of 35.65 years old (SD = 12.98). Three participants declined to disclose their gender, and one participant identified as agender. Ethical Approval and Pre-Registration This study gained ethical approval on 13/04/2021, from members of the Psychology department at Lancaster University. This study was also pre-registered on the Open Science Frameworks website on 17/05/2021. This can be found at the following link: https://osf.io/4ecjg/?view_only=95615bd16f2c4a9db88dd77543780ec2 Materials Survey The present study was delivered through a Qualtrics survey file, created fully by the researcher. The survey contains standard psychological research documents, such as an information page, consent form, demographic information page, and debriefing. The survey also contains two sets of five vignettes describing ethical dilemmas for each condition of the experiment. Demographics Participants are asked to provide some demographic information: age, gender, and occupation. Participants are given options for occupation, including police, fire, or ambulance, as well as an option for ‘other’ emergency services, where a free typing box is presented. This is to cover occupations outside of the main three emergency services, such as coastguard or mountain rescue. If participants are not ESW, they have the option to say they are not a member of the emergency services. Ethical Dilemmas The present study tests a set of five ethical dilemma vignettes. To read each dilemma, see Appendix A. Each vignette describes a version of the Trolley Problem, where there is an out-of-control trolley (the word “tram” is used to make it clearer to British participants) speeding down the tracks towards a group of five people. For each dilemma, there is an active choice, or a passive choice, which entails sacrificing one life to save five, or allowing five people to die to avoid killing one person. Each dilemma presents a different single person who could be placed in danger, these are: a non-descript person, an elderly person, a co-worker, a large man, and the “culprit”. Non-Descript Person. This dilemma is a traditional retelling of the Trolley Problem. Participants are told that there is an out-of-control trolley speeding down the tracks, towards five people who are stranded. Participants are told that they have the choice to pull a lever and divert the trolley onto a different track, however there is one person stranded on those tracks. The decision participants are faced with here is whether to make an active choice or a passive choice. The active choice is to pull the lever, diverting the trolley and saving the five, whilst sacrificing the individual. The passive choice is to not pull the lever, allowing the trolley to hit the five people, whilst saving the individual. It is often found that people sacrifice one person to save five in this dilemma (Thomson, 1976; Greene, 2016). Responses to this condition demonstrate how people weigh up lives on a strictly numerical basis, knowing nothing about the traits of the person. By having a condition in which participants know nothing about the person on the tracks, this can be compared to responses when it is an elderly person or a co-worker on the tracks. Elderly Person. This dilemma is the same as the non-descript person dilemma, however participants are told that the person on the tracks is elderly. This condition has been found to affect how people respond to the Trolley Problem, with people being more likely to sacrifice the elderly person over any other ages (Kawai et al., 2014). This is interesting in the study of moral psychology, as it shows how people weigh up the worth of lives based on certain attributes, such as age. This can also be compared to how people respond when they know nothing about the person on the tracks. This is also important to investigate in an ESW context, as elderly people are more likely to be admitted to hospital (Burns, 2001), leading ambulance crews to encounter them more often. Co-Worker. This dilemma is the same as the non-descript person dilemma, however participants are told that the person on the tracks is one of their co-workers. This dilemma was chosen based on past research suggesting that participants are less likely to sacrifice people they perceive to be part of their identity in-group (Swann Jr et al., 2010). This is a relevant factor to investigate as part of a study into ESW, a group who develop strong in-group feelings, including having better self-care and social support (Shakespeare-Finch et al., 2002). This is also interesting when investigating ESW populations such as firefighters or police, who may be placed into situations where a co-worker is in danger whilst trying to save members of the public. This dilemma demonstrates how ESW weigh up the lives of their co-workers compared to strangers. Large Man. In this dilemma, participants are told that there are five people on the tracks, and stood next to them is a large man. Participants are told that if they push the large man into the tracks, that would stop the trolley and the five people would be saved. The decision participants are faced with here is whether to make an active choice and push the large man onto the tracks, stopping the trolley and saving the five, or to make a passive choice and allow the trolley to hit the five people. This is a version of the “Footbridge Dilemma”, in which it is found participants are typically less willing to make the active decision and push the man (Nichols & Mallon, 2006). It is an interesting take on the Trolley Problem dilemma, as it forces participants to make a more physical decision through pushing and directly causing a person’s death, as opposed to pulling a switch which then indirectly leads to someone’s death. This is also relevant in the study of ESW, who tend to work directly and physically with people as opposed to making indirect decisions. Culprit. This dilemma is the same as the Large Man dilemma, however rather than a large man, participants are told that stood next to them is the “culprit”. The “culprit” is explained to participants as the person who stranded the other five people on the tracks. This dilemma was chosen as it tests how people respond to the same physical pushing decision as the Large Man condition, however when the person they can push is not an innocent bystander, and instead is someone who is trying to end the lives of others. This allows for the investigation of how people weigh the lives of criminals compared to innocent people. This is also interesting in the study of ESW, especially when regarding police, since their occupation involves apprehending criminals so they can then be sentenced, not choosing the punishment based on their own moral reasoning. Time Pressure Participants who are assigned to the Time Pressure condition are told both during instructions and above each dilemma that they only have a limited amount of time to make their decision. They are told that after that time has passed, they may not be able to provide a response. This is not true, there are no time limits on any question. This is to attempt to simulate time pressure, by making participants feel they have limited time to react. Overall, 52 participants were assigned to the Time Pressure condition, and 47 were assigned to No Time Pressure. A more equal split was aimed for, however was not possible due to the number of incomplete responses interfering with the equal randomisation of conditions. Response Time The decision-making speed is automatically recorded by Qualtrics, determining how long it took participants to finalise their decision. This is taken as the time from when participants opened a vignette, until they submitted their response. It was decided that the response time would be taken at the point the choice is submitted, as opposed to the last button press participants made. This is as it cannot be certain at what point participants have finished considering their response. They may still be thinking about their answer after selecting the option, but before submitting. Therefore, it cannot be assumed that the final button press was the end of their decision-making. Justification After each decision, participants are asked to briefly explain why they made the decision they did, imagining they are speaking to a close friend. This ensures participants think deeper into the decision they make, as they know they will have to defend it. This is presented to participants as a free entry text box, shown after each dilemma they respond to. Pilot Study The present study was first piloted on an ESW member, in this case a senior paramedic, to test for validity of the ethical dilemmas as well as any other issues with the survey. The only negative feedback received was that some of the dilemmas looked visually similar on the page, and could be mistaken for being the same as the dilemma before. To resolve this, a section reminding participants to read carefully since every dilemma was different was added, as well as formatting changes such as boldening the critical sections of text to make them more obviously different. Procedure Participants were recruited via social media, ESW were gathered via the Our Blue Light ESW charity’s social media pages, as well as being sent around stations via the researcher’s contacts. Laypeople were also gathered through social media, with some being recruited from the Our Blue Light pages, as well as through friends and family of the researcher. Participants had access to the study through a link, which took them to the introduction page of the present study. After reading this and giving consent, the study began. Participants were randomly assigned by the Qualtrics software to either the Time Pressure or No Time Pressure condition. This affected which set of instructions they saw. Participants were all shown each of the five dilemmas, presented one by one on their screen. The dilemmas were presented in a randomised order for each participant, to avoid any order effects. Following each dilemma, participants were presented with the justification question and free entry text box. After repeating this for each dilemma, participants were presented with a debrief page, and the study concluded. Data Analysis To examine the choices ESW made compared to laypeople, a 2x2 chi square test will be conducted. A 2x2 chi square test will also be conducted to examine the choices made by those in the time pressure condition against those who were not. Descriptive statistics will also be presented, including the counts of each choice made separated into groups, along with means and standard deviations of response time. In order to analyse the impact of Occupation, Time Pressure, and Type of Ethical Dilemma on the decisions participants make, a generalised linear mixed-effects model will be used (Baayen et al., 2008). The statistical family used for this model will be binomial. This test was chosen as the dependent variable here, participant choice, is a categorical variable with two options (push or no push). There are also three categorical independent variables, two of which are between-subjects factors (ESW v Layperson, Time Pressure v No Time Pressure), and one within-subjects factor (Type of Ethical Dilemma). The only random effect to be used in the model is individual subjects, as each independent variable is critical to the present study, and so will be treated as fixed effects. To compare the response time between ESW and laypeople, as well as time pressured participants and participants with no time pressure, two one-way ANOVAs will be conducted. This was chosen as the intention here is to compare performance between two independent groups. A 2x2 ANOVA on sum scores was considered, however was not possible due to participants having simultaneous membership of two groups (e.g. ESW + Time Pressure, ESW + No time pressure). To further analyse participant response times to the ethical dilemmas, a 2x2x5 Mixed ANOVA will be conducted. This was chosen as the method of analysis as one aim of the present study is to compare variance between ESW and laypeople, as well as participants being under time pressure or not. There is also the factor of ethical dilemma, which has five levels due to there being five different dilemmas.
Main Data_35645845/Excel.csv , 35645845 Occupation Response Time Sum Scores/Excel.csv , 35645845 Time Pressure Response Time Sum Scores/Excel.csv, 35645845_RStudio Code/RStudio.R
Competence and Warmth: How Gender Impacts Perceptions of Male and Female Speakers.
gender stereotypes competence, warmth stereotype content model
Using the stereotype content model as a theoretical background, this study aimed to investigate the relationship between gender stereotypes and judgements of warmth and competence. Visual appearance has long been used to research these judgements while auditory cues have often been overlooked. This study therefore focused on judgements made about voice and subsequently did not influence participants with predetermined gender labels. 61 participants – aged 19 to 60 – listened to either 2 male or 2 female speakers talk about domestic violence and cancer research. Domestic violence is here defined as a women-centric topic, while cancer research is considered gender neutral. Participants completed person perception inventories of each speaker, rating them on 7-point Likert scales in terms of 10 competence and 10 warmth items. They also completed a sexism inventory to determine whether sexism predicted a more favourable attitude toward male speakers. A 2 between gender (male vs female) by 2 within topic (domestic violence vs cancer research) ANOVA was conducted, and female speakers were judged as more competent than males when speaking on domestic violence but not cancer research. They were considered warmer than men in both cases. This indicates that women are seen as competent when speaking on issues that directly affect them, suggesting that they should be taken more seriously when speaking out about their own rights. However, traditional warmth stereotypes regarding women were upheld. This, along with further implications, are discussed.
Items. 10 competence items and 10 warmth items were selected to compile a 20-item list of characteristics for participants to judge speakers on. Of these items, 11 were taken from Rudman & Glick (1999) and the remaining 9 were considered in the original SCM. Items used in the competence and warmth scales were found to be reliable across speech topics, namely cancer research (CR) and domestic violence (DV) (competenceCR α = .893, competenceDV α = .931). This indicates that the scales used were highly reliable. Similarly, for the warmth dimensions, Cronbach's Alpha was suitably high (WarmthCR α = .918, WarmthDV α = .944). The reliability for the sexism inventory was also acceptable, with an α value of .826. An example of several competence and warmth dimensions can be seen below, while a full list can be found in Appendix A. Competence: confident, ambitious, intelligent.. Warmth: trustworthy, likeable, supportive. Speeches. Two speeches were recorded for the purpose of the experiment, one focused on domestic violence and the other on cancer research. The speeches were written to closely match each other in terms of wording and the information being presented. For instance, the opening and closing sentences of each speech were similarly structured, as seen below. Table 1. Examples of speech text. Domestic Violence Cancer Research Opening sentence Domestic Violence. A topic that is often glossed over as something that effects other people - not me; not you. Cancer. A topic we don't often like to think about – something that effects other people, but not me: not you. Closing sentence By going to our website www.dvrefuges.co.uk you can find out more information about the great work women's refuges around the country do, and help them continue to change women's lives by donating to our cause. By going to our website www.ukcancer.co.uk you can find out more information about the great work that we do, and by donating to our cause, help us continue to help people diagnosed with cancer live a normal life. The details of the speeches differed, and the content was varied enough so as not to be obviously the same to participants, but the speeches were largely similar, as can be seen in Appendix B. Four speakers were responsible for recording the two speeches, a male and female speaker for each topic. This allowed participants to hear both speeches either spoken by two male or two female speakers. All four speakers were from the same region and had northern accents, however, two speakers' accents differed slightly from the remaining two, which may have been particularly noticeable to northern participants. To account for this, one speaker with each accent was assigned to each topic condition and so any accent effects were counterbalanced and can be assumed to not have influenced judgements. Speeches were recorded using an iPhone 6 microphone and edited using Audacity in order to eliminate background noise and static. Recordings were then given a plain video image of a black background with text reading either 'Recording One' or 'Recording Two' respectively. Due to the fact that recordings were counterbalanced across conditions, all four recordings were presented either as first or second in at least one condition, so in total 8 versions of the recordings were made and embedded into Qualtrics, where the body of the survey was hosted. Participants listened to recordings using Sony headphones during the experiment. Procedure Participants were assigned to one of four conditions. In each condition they were asked to listen to the first speech, either domestic violence or cancer research, spoken by either a male or female speaker. After listening to the speech, they proceeded to the next online page and completed the speaker evaluation, rating the speaker on the 20 warmth and competence dimensions. This was indicated by how well they believed each item fit the speaker by choosing a point on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = completely disagree, 7 = completely agree). Following this they listened to the second speech spoken by a different speaker of the same gender. They then completed the same speaker evaluation for the second speaker. Finally, they completed the sexism inventory (The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, Glick & Fiske, 1996) which measured the participants' explicit sexist attitudes on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree). A copy of the items in this inventory can be found in Appendix C. As this was a 2 (gender: female vs. male) x 2 (topic: domestic violence vs. cancer research) experimental design with repeated measures on the second factor, the difference between each condition was purely the order in which the speeches were presented (domestic violence first or second) and the gender of speaker that each participant heard (male or female) for the purpose of counterbalancing. So as not to influence participants to respond in a set way, the experiment was presented as regarding the evaluation of speakers and not as explicitly about gender. Following the main section of the experiment, participants were asked a number of questions regarding how they experienced the recording, the first of which was answered on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly agree, 5 = strongly disagree). The question was: 'how likely are you to visit the website mentioned in this speech.' This was relevant in order to measure whether the competence of the speaker affected the likelihood of the participant to engage with the issue. Importantly, participants were also asked whether they considered each topic to be masculine or feminine, again measured on a 7-point scale (1 = feminine, 4 = neither feminine nor masculine, 7 = masculine). This was included in order to provide validity to the assumption that the domestic violence topic would indeed be judged as more women-centric, and the cancer research topic would be neutral. It is therefore of note that over 50% of participants considered domestic violence to be a feminine topic, others considered it gender neutral, but very few considered it a masculine topic. The majority of participants judged cancer research as gender neutral, as was intended. Finally, participants were asked whether or not they had any experience of the topic at hand, either personally or from a friend or family member, as this may have caused them to make more favourable judgements towards the topic they were more invested in. Participants also gave their gender, nationality and age. Gender and nationality were exploratory variables of particular interest due to the belief that other women may be more likely than men to evaluate women as competent. Nationality was of interest due to the fact that people from other cultures, particularly Eastern cultures, have different gender roles than we do in the UK, and so their responses during the experiment may have reflected this. Once the experiment was complete participants were fully debriefed and had the chance to enter a competition to win a prize in return for their participation.
Recalling Memories of Childhood Bullying: Links Between Early Victimisation and Anxiety in Adulthood
Objectives: This study investigated the relationship between retrospective reports of bullying (primary school, secondary school and general experiences of bullying) with social anxiety (SAD), generalised anxiety (GAD) and grit (perseverance). Method: Demographic information was obtained from participants (n=147) as well as measures from primary school bullying, secondary school bullying and general bullying experiences utilising the Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire (RBQ; Schafer et al., 2004). The Social Phobia Inventory (Connor et al., 2000) measured social anxiety in participants, the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer et al., 1990) assessed general anxiety and the Grit Test (Duckwoth et al., 2007) evaluated participant’s determination. Results: There was evidence that primary school bullying was associated with higher levels of GAD whilst higher levels of SAD were associated with general bullying experiences. There was no evidence to suggest that the individual difference measure of grit impacted upon anxiety for participants. The results support previous studies which have linked anxiety disorders in adulthood to earlier experiences of bullying
In the Retrospective Bullying Questionnaire (RBQ) (Schafer et al., 2004), there are a number of sections, three of which were used in this study. The first looks at bullying in primary school, the second at bullying in secondary school and the third section at general bullying behaviour. The general bullying behaviour section concentrated on the long-term effects of any bullying the participants had experiences of in primary or secondary school. This section asked such questions as “Do you ever have dreams or nightmares about the bullying events?” and “Do you ever feel distressed in situations which remind you of the bullying event(s)?” (appendix A). This questionnaire was subject to intensive pilot studies by Schafer et al. (2004) and insight was gained from the success of Rivers (2001) study which also utilised a retrospective measure. Reliability of the RBQ was assessed in the Schafer et al. study, which found a good level of test-retest reliability (Spearman correlation coefficients, primary school r=.88, secondary school r=.87). The Social Phobia Inventory is a 17-item self-report questionnaire (Connor et al., 2000) that screens for social anxiety disorder and assesses the acuteness of such a disorder. The measure has three subsections which evaluate key symptoms of SAD: fear of social situations, avoidance of social situations and physiological discomfort within social situation. Each item is rated on a scale from zero to four. Scores ranged from 0 to 68, and a cut off score of 19 or above distinguishes between healthy controls and SAD sufferers. The SPIN has previously demonstrated good internal consistency as well as suitable test-retest reliability. The Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer, Miller, Metzger & Borkovec, 1990) is a 16-item questionnaire which has been considerably utilised in existing studies to measure generalised anxiety disorder in participants. This questionnaire has been shown to differentiate between different anxiety disorders, e.g. General anxiety sufferers score higher than phobics (Meyer et al., 1990). The scoring for questions 1, 3, 8, 10 and 11 were reverse scored for the analysis. Each answer is scored on a five point likert-type scale ranging from 1= not at all typical to 5= very typical. The scores could range from 16 to 80 where the average score in a “normal” student population was 49. The average score in a GAD population was 68 for men and women (Hawkins, 2008). The Grit Test (Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, D.R. (2007) is 12-item questionnaire which considers how ‘gritty’ a person you are. It looks at how you face challenges as a person and what your reaction to them is. The scores are added up and divided by 12. The maximum score on this scale is 5 (extremely gritty), and the lowest scale on this scale is 1 (not at all gritty). This measure was included as a personality measure to explore if there are any links between what type of person you are, and whether this affects if you are bullied or not. Procedure Following the briefing sheet, participants received a consent form to inform them of the nature of the study, their participation requirements, and their right to withdraw should they so wish. Once consent was gained, participants were asked to provide some demographic information on the following: gender, age, educational achievement, relationship status, ethnicity and employment status. For the purposes of analysis, females were coded as 1, whilst males were coded as 2. Questionnaires made up the materials for this research project. Once participants had completed these they were informed of the end of the study and given more insight into the nature of the study. Participants were also given helplines and details of advisory websites, where they could go if they felt they had been affected by the nature of the research. The information for two journal articles whose research has facets of the current research were given, so that participants could gather more information if they so wished
Could eye movements provide a window into early signs of dementia? Investigating the relationship between eye movements and cognitive decline.
Past research has indicated a relationship between eye movement abilities and cognitive decline. Specifically, performances on the anti-saccade task and pro-saccade task have demonstrated a correlation with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) severity, suggesting that impairments in visual ability may be a potential biomarker for dementia. However, little research has investigated whether the same deficiency is present in more ecologically valid tasks. The current study therefore aimed to extend the dementia literature by examining eye movement abilities in individuals with AD when completing a task that required the visual exploration of videos. In order to investigate a disease effect, patients with AD were compared to healthy older controls. To explore age effects, the older controls were additionally compared to healthy younger controls. To attempt to replicate previous findings, all groups first completed both the pro-saccade and anti-saccade task, before subsequently completing a video task designed to require similar abilities as those necessitated by the anti-saccade task. The findings revealed clear qualitative differences between the age effect and the disease effect on the anti-saccade task, suggesting that AD is not purely an accelerated form of ageing. Furthermore, the results supported the contemporary literature, in that, patients with AD made more errors, and less corrected errors, on the anti-saccade task. In turn, these results advocate for the utilisation of the task as a biomarker of AD. However, this impairment did not translate to the videos task. These results suggest that certain conditions may be conducive to normal viewing behaviour in patients with AD, and thus may potentially indicate that the natural exploration of videos is not a reliable biomarker for AD.
For all saccade tasks, a repeated measures design was used, with group as the independent variable (AD, OC, and YC). For the PST there were 2 dependent variables: latency and amplitude (see appendix A for definitions). For the AST there were 5 dependent variables latency, amplitude, number of errors, corrected errors percentage, and corrected errors start time (see appendix B for definitions). For the videos a 3(Group: AD, OC, YC) x 2(Instructions: free view, instructed view) mixed design was used, with group as a between-subjects factor and instructions as a within-subjects factor. For each of the videos, dwell time was calculated as the dependent variable. A total of 25 AD, 17 OC and 37 YC completed the video task. Materials Eye tracking apparatus. An EyeLink Desktop 1000 eye-tracker was used at 1000Hz to record eye movements. Participants sat approximately 55cm away from the screen with their head on a chin rest to minimise movement. A 3x3 grid of sequentially appearing dots was used to calibrate participant’s dominant eye with the machine. Pro-saccade task. The PST provides a measure of involuntary responses to visual stimulus. The methods utilised in this study followed previously established procedures (Crawford et al., 2005). In order to centre the participant’s gaze, the trial commenced displaying a central fixation target for 1000 milliseconds. This target then disappeared for 200 milliseconds, before a peripheral target appeared for 2000 milliseconds either to the left or right of the initial central fixation target (at ± 4°). The direction was randomised in order to avoid predictive saccades. The inter-trial interval then took place for 1200 milliseconds. The next trial began when the central fixation point reappeared. The participant’s task was to look at the peripheral target as quickly and accurately as possible (see appendix C). There were 36 trials in total. Anti-saccade task. The AST provides a measure of inhibition. The task format was identical to the PST except here the participants were instructed to look as quickly as possible to the area, equidistant, but in the opposite direction to the peripheral target (mirror image) (see appendix D). There were 24 test trials in total and 4 practice trials. Video task. The video task required participants to watch four, 40 seconds long videos. Three of the videos were viewed three times by participants and consisted of clips from past events in history: the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, and Gordon Brown and his family leaving Downing Street after losing the general election. Prior to each viewing of the video, participants were given different instructions relating to the video. On first viewing participants were instructed to freely watch the video, this was in order to elicit a bottom-up control of eye gaze to highly salient objects. On second viewing participants were asked questions relating to non-salient objects in order to elicit a top-down control of eye gaze. The fourth video, an advertisement for Hovis bread, was viewed only once by participants. Participants were asked to follow with their eyes one object for the entirety of the video. Full details of the questions are given in Appendix E. Procedure The experiment took place in a well-lit room with no distractions that may have garnered attention. Participants firstly received an information sheet that briefly explained the study (see appendix F). All participants then signed a consent form (see appendix G) to formally provide their consent to take part. Before each of the saccade tasks, participants were given time to ask any questions they had. Once they confirmed they understood the experiment, the test trials began. All groups completed the eye-tracking tasks in a pre-defined order. The PST was completed first to avoid carry-over effects previously reported by Roberts et al. (1994), followed by the AST, and lastly the videos task. Participants were offered breaks in-between each task to ensure they did not become distracted or bored. It took no longer than 45 minutes to complete all tasks. Once the experiment had finished, participants were handed a debrief sheet explaining the aims of the study (see appendix H). Analyses To analyse the videos, total dwell times to the question relevant interest areas were compared to total dwell times to these interest areas when the participants viewed the same video freely. For example, to analyse the trial were participants were asked to count the windows when viewing the Gordon Brown video, a number of interest areas were created around the windows (see appendix I). The total dwell times inside these areas were then compared to the total dwell times inside these areas when participants viewed the same video freely.
This is part of an on-going EPSRC funded MoDEM study approved by the NHS to Dr Crawford
The Effect of Repetitive Headers on Acute Vestibular, Neural, Cognitive and Auditory Function in Football Players
Repetitive Sub-concussion, Football Heading, Neurocognitive Performance
The potential long-term consequences of repetitive sub-concussive head impacts, particularly from heading in football, have raised concerns about their association with neurodegenerative diseases in ex-professional football players. Recent research suggests that the accumulative nature of heading in football may lead to subtle brain changes, ultimately contributing to Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. This study aimed to investigate the immediate short-term effects of repeated headers in football on brain function. Seventeen football players completed a total of five high-force linear headers, one header every 2-minutes, imitating corner clearance headers, positioned 32 meters away from a ball launching machine. Four neurophysiological assessments were reported pre- and post-heading exercise: 1) vestibular evaluation for balance and sway changes, 2) neural assessment for resting brain activity changes, 3) cognitive tests measuring memory, attention and reaction time, 4) auditory assessment to assess any auditory processing changes. Paired-samples t-tests and Wilcoxon’s signed rank tests found no significant changes in pre-to-post heading exercise scores in any measurements. These findings warrant further investigation to determine whether the measures used were sensitive enough to detect subtle sub-concussive changes. Or, whether findings indicate a safe maximum number, specific to this type of header, has been established and this frequency does not pose any additional risks to footballers’ brain function. This study contributes to the ongoing research surrounding player safety in football and the immediate short-term effects of repetitive sub-concussive head impacts.
Method Participants A power analysis for Analysis of Variance was conducted to determine the sample size needed for this study with an 80% power level, which identified a minimum of 40 participants to achieve a medium effect size of f=0.25, α=.001. This study did not collect a full sample and therefore is underpowered, as there are only a total of 17 participants (mean age=20.35). Participants were either academy players from Burnley Football Club or Lancaster University’s football team and were required to be male aged between 18 and 30- years with no history of concussion within the last month. This ensured variability between participants was minimal and excluding individuals with a recent history of concussion will mitigate potential confounding effects and isolate acute sub-concussive effects of heading, meaning this study will better attribute any observed effects to the specific act of heading rather than to prior injuries. Prior to volunteering, participants gave full consent and completed a modified version of the Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire (PAR-Q), which is designed to measure participants readiness to participate in exercise or physical activity. See Appendix A for questionnaire. The purpose of the PAR-Q was to identify any potential underlying health concerns that may become an issue when participating. Additionally, participants completed a demographic questionnaire which was used to collect information about characteristics of the sample and highlighted whether participants had recently been concussed. See Appendix B for questionnaire. If any health concerns emerged during the completion of either questionnaire, participants were unable to continue with participation. Materials Participants were tested using a test battery comprised from four elements detailed below. PROTXX. Vestibular sway was measured using a wearable inertial measurement unit (IMU), called PROTXX. IMU is an electronic device designed to measures and report an individual’s orientation, velocity and gravitational forces (Powell et al., 2022). The IMU includes an accelerometer with three axis, X, Y and Z. The X-axis measures front-back acceleration, Y- axis measures vertical acceleration, and Z-axis measures left-right acceleration. For each of the three axes (x, y and z), during each 60 second test, data is recorded at a sampling rate of 100Hz and generates a total of 12,000 samples. Samples are filtered, meaning PROTXX eliminates gravitational bias and drift by using a high pass filter with a .04Hz cut-off frequency. An overall average is taken for each axis to compute one score for each of the four measures, 1) eyes open, 2) eyes closed 3) a ratio of the first two scores and 4) average power. It is also thought that the average power, calculated by adding the eyes closed and eyes open scores together, and divided by 2, can support a more objective way to clinically diagnose concussion, rather than the single tests alone (Ralston et al., 2020). EEG Acquisition and Pre-Processing Neural function was measured using EEG, Enobio 8 5G wireless device (Neuroelectrics, Cambridge, MA, USA). Participants wore a Neoprene headband to collect data from the frontal part of the head only, as this is where participants will later be instructed to header the ball. The Neoprene headband offers predefined positions for seven channels (F7, AF8. Fp1, Fpz, Fp2, AF8. F8) used to record EEG data and is based on the 10-10 international system (Jurcak et al., 2007). Figure 1 is a schematic of electrode location sites on the forehead. Participants wore an ear clip on their right ear with reference DRL/CMS electrodes. EEG data was initially visualised at a sampling rate of 500Hz and the line noise filter at 50Hz. Sticktrode pre-gelled self-adhesive electrodes were used and placed under the gaps of the Neoprene headband.The Necbox, is the core of the Enobio system, and is wirelessly connected to a laptop using NIC software (Neuroelectrics, Barcelona, Spain). Before any analysis, recorded EEG signals were coded and pre-processed in EEGLAB, a MATLAB toolbox (See Appendix C for EEGLAB Script) (Mathworks, Natick, MA, USA) (Delorme & Makeig, 2004). This is to ensure that data is in a suitable format and quality for analysis is reliable. Signals were downsampled to 256Hz, re-referenced to the average of all channels, and two types of filtering were applied to EEG data, high-pass (0.1Hz) and low-pass (40Hz) filtering. Independent Component Analysis was then applied to the pre-processed EEG data using a threshold of 0.8. This step was added to identify and remove any eye blinks, heart and muscle artifacts with 80% certainty (Chang et al., 2020). Components that have a score between 0.8 and 1 for artifacts are flagged for potential rejection and removed from EEG data. Neural activity pre-and post-heading exercise were analysed using power spectral density analysis (PSD). PSD analysis is a method used to analyse frequency components present in a signal. To conduct a PSD analysis, this study used the code spectopo() function within EEGLAB. The average power of EEG frequency bands was calculated for each of the seven electrodes used in this study. The frequency bands were separated in the following way: theta (4-8Hz), alpha (8-12Hz), beta (12-30Hz) and gamma (30-40Hz) (Harris & Myers, 2023; Munia et al., 2017). ImPACT Quick Test ImPACT Quick Test measures different areas of cognitive function using five subtests that contribute to three overall composite scores used within this study’s analysis: Motor Speed, Memory, and Attention Tracker. The five subtests used to measure the participants cognitive abilities are: 1. Symbol Match – Reaction Time Subtest. The first subtest was a symbol match test which measured reaction time. Participants had to match a series of shapes with a specific number and the average time taken to complete all trials was recorded. (Figure 2a) 2. Symbol Match – Memory Subtest. This symbol match test also measured memory and asked participants to recall the number-symbol pairs and remember which symbol was matched up with which number. The resulting score is the percentage of correctly recalled number-symbol pairs across the trials. (Figure 2b) 3. Three Letter Memory – Speed Subtest. The participant is initially given three consonants. Participants are then given a computer-randomised 5x5 number grid and asked to count backwards from 25. The result is how long it takes the participant to count backwards from 25 to 1. This subtest provides a measure of speed, but also serves as an interference task for the next subtest. (Figure 2c) 4. Three Letter Memory – Memory Subtest. This subtest measures the participants memory and recall. It provided a measure of memory and tested how well the participants could recall the three consonants after completing the computer-randomised 5x5 number grid interference task. (Figure 2d) 5. Attention Tracker – Reaction Time and Attention Subtest. This subtest is comprised of three separate tasks and involves a circle that moves in the shape of a square, figure 8 and a sporadic/random pattern across the screen. The participant is asked to tap the circle when it changes from red to green at various points during its movement. This subtest provides results for reaction time and how fast the participant can react to the colour change and how well the participant can keep their attention sustained on the moving circle. (Figure 2e) Digits in Noise Test (DiN) The final testing measure used within this study was an online DiN test to measure participant’s auditory function. The DiN task is written in Javascript and hosted as a web- application on a Google Cloud Platform. Participants remained seated for this measure and listened to a British female voice who said three digits in a random order that are embedded into speech-shaped background noise (Smits et al., 2004). Stimuli was presented diotically in a quiet environment through supplied wired overhead SteelSeries 5Hv2 headphones. Signal- to-noise ratio (SNR) is a measure used to quantify strength of a desired signal relative to background noise level. A flexible approach called an adaptive 1-up, 1-down psychophysical method was employed. When a participant recalled the three digits correctly, SNR decreased, and when participants recalled the digits incorrectly, SNR increased. The DiN test began with a SNR of 0dB. As the test progressed, the changes in difficulty, known as step sizes, decreased from 5 to 2 dB after 3 reversals. Then after 3 more reversals, step sizes reduced even more to 0.5dB. A reversal refers to a change in direction, therefore the difficulty level is adjusted in the opposite direction. The test concluded after a total of 10 reversals and the final five SNR were recorded and an average was created, to calculate the participant’s speech in noise threshold. This threshold represents the level of background noise at which participants correctly identify the digits spoken to them. Football Heading Within this study, participants received headers by a ball launching machine (Ball Launcher Pro Trainer, Ball Launcher). Participants completed five high-force linear headers at 35 yards from the ball launching machine at a ball speed of 50mph, the speed of the ball is regarded as below the average corner kick for collegiate-level players, which helps reduce the likelihood of injury and discomfort to players (Elbin et al., 2015; Tierney et al., 2021). This exercise is designed to mimic heading during football matches, specifically a clearance header from a corner (Figure 3). This ball launcher allowed for each of the headers to be consistent when measuring the effects of heading in football. The football used in this study was size 5, inflated to the FA standards of 8.6-15.6 PSI (The Football Association, 2023). Procedure A chronological schematic representation of the experimental procedure has been provided below (Figure 4). Players at Burnley Football Club were contacted via their club’s representative and Lancaster University players were emailed directly. Upon arrival, participants were informed that the study will take around one hour to complete and asked to read the participant information sheet to ensure they fully understood the requirements before completing the consent, PAR-Q and demographic form. Participants height and weight was taken on the day, meaning that the demographic questionnaire will be filled in accurately. These forms were screened by the researcher(s) to ensure eligibility. Once completed, participants were first tested using PROTXX sensor. Participants were asked whether they experience any skin irritation or sensitivities due to prolonged adhesive contact, for example when using plasters. If there were no known adhesive-related reactions, PROTXX sensor was attached to the right mastoid using a disposable medical adhesive patch (figure 5). However, if participants did have adhesive-related reactions, PROTXX sensor was placed into a headband, and positioned in the same location (figure 6). Participants were instructed to stand still, in an upright relaxed position with feet hips width apart and arms by their side whilst maintaining a straight, fixed gaze, three meters away from a specific target. Participants were instructed not to talk, chew gum, turn their head, fidget or move while the test is in progress. A smartphone app (protxxclinic; Version 1.0 build 13), connects to PROTXX via Bluetooth to run the tests and collect data. Participants completed two 60 second trials; eyes open and eyes closed. The app is used to start the test and participants are made aware of an audible countdown. One researcher stood by the participant to ensure no apprehension of falling during the eyes closed trial. The app sounded a tone signifying the test was 10-seconds away from finishing. Participants were instructed not to move until tests are completed and researchers had informed them, they can relax. If any anomalous participant movement was observed during the testing, said test data was excluded from analysis. The second testing measure completed was EEG. Participants were seated for this measure and prior to setting up EEG, they were asked to wipe their foreheads with an alcohol wipe to reduce the impedance. Participants wore a Neoprene headband across their forehead with seven pre-gelled adhesive electrodes placed on bare skin located at each channel site and the reference channels were linked to their right ear (figure 7). Electrode placement was completed, then connected via Bluetooth to a desktop app. The researcher(s) instructed participants to blink rapidly several times to create distinct electrical patterns on EEG recordings. This procedure is known as artifact-inducing task and is used to verify the quality of EEG readings (Grosselin et al., 2019). Participants were asked to sit in a comfortable position with eyes closed and 5-minutes of resting state EEG activity was recorded. A quiet environment was used, with minimal foot traffic, to reduce background noise and lessened potential of any auditory artifacts. The third testing measure completed was ImPACT Quick Test. Participants remained seated for this measure and completed the assessment tool on an iPad in a quiet environment to remove distractions. The iPad was placed on a table in front of the participant who was instructed not to hold the iPad in their hands (Figure 8). The test was taken in one sitting and took participants between 5-7 minutes to complete. The final testing measure participants completed was DiN. This measure required participants to remain seated in the quiet environment and wear provided overhead- headphones, that were plugged into the iPad (Figure 9). Before the test began, some music played through the headphones and participants were asked to find a volume level that was comfortable for them and were instructed to not change once selected. Participants were informed that this measure will vary in difficulty, and to guess the digits if they were unable to identify them. There was an opportunity to have a practice trial at this measure, so participants were familiar with the task and response procedure before the measure began. Participants would input three digits that they heard or guessed on the iPad’s keypad displayed. Again, this test was to be completed in one sitting and took no more than 3- minutes to complete. After all baseline assessments were complete, participants moved on to the heading exercise, which was conducted in an indoor open space. The primary objective of this exercise was to execute five consecutive linear high-force headers within a timeframe of 10- minutes, giving participants 2-minutes rest between each header. Before commencing the heading exercise, participants received a briefing to prepare them. They were informed about their designated position, situated 35 yards away from the ball launching machine, replicating the distance of a typical corner kick in real-game scenarios. The ball would be launched at a velocity of 50mph from a ball launching machine, ensuring consistency. To optimise their heading technique, participants were encouraged to aim for frontal contact and direct the ball back in a linear trajectory towards the ball launching machine and were allowed to take a single step and execute a jump into the header (to replicate real-life situations). Additionally, a secondary researcher positioned further back from the participant was responsible for retrieving any missed headers, thereby sparing participants unnecessary energy expenditure. To familiarise participants with the dynamics and to help maximise their performance during this heading task, participants were acclimatised to the ball’s trajectory, observing several ball launches from the side-line and standing in their designed position before initiating any heading attempts. This also ensured that participants were comfortable with the ball speed. Participants immediately completed the test battery again to obtain their post-heading scores, which were compared to evaluate the effect of headers on various test battery components. To close the study, participants were given a debrief sheet, and given a further opportunity to ask questions or raise concerns. Statistical Analysis Data pre- and post-heading were evaluated using paired-samples t-tests. The specific data used to input into the analyses was the independent variable, the point at which participants completed the test battery, pre-post heading exercise. The dependent variables consisted of data collected from the different measures: PROTXX; using individual eyes open and closed condition sway power scores, in addition to ratio and average power of these conditions, EEG; PSD for the four frequency bands, (alpha, beta, theta and gamma) were averaged across each seven electrodes for each participant, ImPACT; overall composite scores for each cognitive domain (motor speed, memory and attention) and DIN; SNR thresholds. The paired-samples t-test is specifically designed to compare the means or averages of two related groups. These analyses test for immediate short-term effects that may occur after RSHI. Data was tested for normality using Shapiro-Wilks’ test (Shapiro & Wilk, 1965). This step is crucial to verify whether the data meets parametric assumption of a normal distribution before proceeding with further analyses. Analyses were performed using statistical software R Studio. See Appendix D for R Studio Script.
Niko Liu ,Anusha Sandeep, David Racovita
Excel.csv("Linear Heading Study Data.xlsx") r_file.R("Dissertation_Masters.R")
Age-related Changes to the Attentional Modulation of Temporal Binding
Ageing, attention, TBW, multisensory integration, stream-bounce illusion
In multisensory integration, the time range within which visual and auditory information can be perceived as synchronous and bound together is known as the temporal binding window (TBW). With increasing age, the TBW becomes wider, such that older adults erroneously, and often dangerously, integrate sensory inputs that are asynchronous. Recent research suggests that attentional cues can narrow the width of the TBW in younger adults, sharpening temporal perception and increasing the accuracy of integration. However, due to their age-related declines in attentional control, it is not yet known whether older adults can deploy attentional resources to narrow the TBW in the same way as younger adults. This study investigated the age-related changes to the attentional modulation of the TBW. 30 younger and 30 older adults completed a cued-spatial-attention version of the stream-bounce illusion, assessing the extent to which the visual and auditory stimuli were integrated when presented at three different stimulus onset asynchronies, and when attending to a validly-cued or invalidly-cued location. A 2x2x3 mixed ANOVA revealed that when participants attended to the validly-cued location (i.e. when attention was present), susceptibility to the stream-bounce illusion decreased. However, crucially, this attentional manipulation affected audiovisual integration in younger adults but not in older adults. Whilst no definitive conclusions could be drawn about the width of the TBW, the findings suggest that older adults have multisensory integration-related attentional deficits. Directions for future research and practical applications surrounding treatments to improve the safety of older adults’ perception and navigation through the environment are discussed.
Pre-screening tools Participants were asked to complete two pre-screening questionnaires using Qualtrics survey software (www.qualtrics.com), to assess their eligibility for the study. Speech, Spatial and Quality of Hearing Questionnaire (SSQ; Appendix A; Gatehouse & Noble, 2004). Participants rated their hearing ability in different acoustic scenarios using a sliding scale from 0-10 (0=“Not at all”, 10=“Perfectly”). Whilst, at present, no defined cut-off score on the SSQ is available as a parameter to inform decision-making, previous studies have indicated that a mean score of 5.5 is indicative of moderate hearing loss (Gatehouse & Noble, 2004). As a result, people whose average score on the SSQ was lower than 5.5 were not eligible to participate in the experiment. Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQ-CODE; Appendix B; Jorm, 2004). Participants rated how their performance in certain tasks now has changed compared to 10 years ago, answering on a 5-point Likert scale (1=“Much Improved”, 5=“Much worse”). An average score of approximately 3.3 is the usual cut-off point when evaluating cognitive impairment and dementia (Jorm, 2004), therefore people whose average score was higher than 3.3 were not eligible to participate in the experiment. The mean scores of each pre-screening questionnaire are displayed in Table 1. An independent t-test revealed that there was no significant difference between age groups on the SSQ questionnaire [t(58) = -1.15, p=.253]; however, there was a significant difference between age groups on the IQ-CODE questionnaire [t(58) = -13.29, p<.001]. Experimental Design This research implemented a 2(Age: Younger vs Older) x 2(Cue: Valid vs Invalid) x 4(Stimulus Onset Asynchrony [SOA]: Visual Only [VO] vs 0 milliseconds vs 150 milliseconds vs 300 milliseconds) mixed design, with Age as a between-subjects factor and Cue and SOA as within-subjects factors. The experiment consisted of 16 different trial conditions (Table 2), randomised across all participants. Replicating the paradigm used by Donohue et al. (2015), the experimental block contained 72 validly-cued trials and 24 invalidly-cued trials, which were equally distributed between each side of the screen (left/right) and SOA conditions; this means that each participant completed 144 valid trials and 48 invalid trials for each SOA. Stimuli and Materials Participants completed the experiment remotely, in a quiet room on a desktop or laptop computer with a standard keyboard. All participants were asked to wear headphones/earphones. A volume check was conducted at the beginning of the experiment; participants were presented with a constant tone and asked to adjust the volume of this tone to a clear and comfortable level. The stimuli used in the task were replicated from Donohue et al. (2015). Each trial started with an attentional cue in the centre of the screen – a letter “L” or a letter “R” instructing participants to focus on the left or the right side of the screen. In addition to this, 2 pairs of circles were positioned at the top of the screen, one pair in the left hemifield and one pair in the right hemifield. The attentional cue lasted for 1 second, and 650 milliseconds after this cue disappeared, the circles in each pair started to move towards each other downwards diagonally (i.e. the two left circles moving towards each other and the two right circles moving towards each other). In the trials, one pair of circles moved towards each other, intersected, and continued on the same trajectory (fully overlapping and moving away from each other). This full motion of the circles formed an “X” shape, with the circles appearing to “stream” or “pass through” each other. On the opposite side of the screen, the other pair of circles stopped moving before they intersected, forming half of this “X” motion. On 75% of the trials, the full “X”-shaped motion appeared on the side of the screen that the cue directed participants towards (validly-cued trials); on the other 25% of trials, the full motion occurred on opposite side of the screen to where the cue indicated, and the stopped motion occurred at the cued location (invalidly-cued trials). In addition to these visual stimuli, on 75% of the trials, an auditory stimulus was played binaurally (500Hz, 17 milliseconds), either at the same time as the circles intersected (0ms delay), 150ms after the intersection or 300ms after the intersection. The remaining 25% of the trials were visual-only (i.e. no sound was played). Participants were told that regardless of whether a sound was played, they must make their pass/bounce judgements based on the full motion of the circles (the “X” shape), even if the full motion occurred at the opposite side of the screen that they were attending to. The experiment ended after all 768 trials – participation lasted approximately 1 hour. The experiment was built in PsychoPy2 (Pierce et al., 2019) and hosted by Pavlovia (www.pavlovia.org). Procedure Prior to the experiment, a brief meeting was organised between the participant and the researcher via Microsoft Teams, to explain the task and answer any questions. Participants were emailed a link to a Qualtrics survey, which included the participant information sheet, consent form, demographic questions and pre-screening questionnaires. If the person was deemed eligible to take part in the experiment, Qualtrics redirected participants to the experiment in Pavlovia. Participants were then presented with instructions detailing the attentional cue elements of the task and asking them to base their judgements on the full X-shaped motion of the stimuli. Participants were asked to press M on the keyboard if they perceived the circles to “pass through” each other or press Z if they perceived the circles to “bounce off” each other, answering as quickly and as accurately as possible. Participants completed a practice block of 10 trials, then the test session commenced. After each set of 10 random trials, participants had the opportunity to take a break. Participants were provided with a full debrief upon completion of the experiment, and all participants could enter a prize draw to win one of two £50 Amazon vouchers. Statistical Analyses This study required two separate mixed ANOVAs to analyse main effects and interactions, investigating significant differences between groups and conditions. Reaction Times. For the first dependent variable of reaction times (RT), mean RTs were calculated for each participant in each Cue x SOA condition, representing the time taken, in milliseconds, for each participant to press M or Z on the keyboard at the end of each trial. A 2(Age: Younger vs Older) x 2(Cue: Valid vs Invalid) x 4(SOA: 0ms vs 150ms vs 300ms x Visual-Only) mixed ANOVA was then conducted on these mean RTs. Bounce/Pass Judgements. For the second dependent variable of the bounce/pass judgements, the percentage of “Bounce” responses provided in each Cue x SOA condition was calculated for each participant. A 2(Age: Younger vs Older) x 2(Cue: Valid vs Invalid) x 3(SOA: 0ms vs 150ms vs 300ms) mixed ANOVA was then conducted on these percentage data. Visual-Only (VO) trials were compared separately for valid and invalid conditions using a paired samples t-test. Post-hoc paired samples t-tests were also used to investigate significant differences between the 0ms, 150ms and 300ms SOA conditions. Bounce/Pass Judgements: Pairwise comparisons. To analyse pairwise comparisons in the significant interaction of Age and Cue, responses in each SOA condition were collapsed – that is, a grand mean percentage of “Bounce” responses was calculated by averaging the percentage of “Bounce” responses in the 0ms, 150ms and 300ms trials in the Valid condition and in the Invalid condition. This produced an overall Valid and an overall Invalid mean percentage of “Bounce” responses for each participant. A 2(Age: Younger vs Older) x 2(Collapsed Cue: Valid vs Invalid) mixed ANOVA was conducted on this collapsed data to investigate differences between the proportion of “Bounce” responses in the Valid and Invalid condition for younger adults, and in the Valid and Invalid condition for older adults. In addition, 2 separate one-way ANOVAs were conducted on this collapsed data (Age as the between-subjects factor, and Valid or Invalid as the within-subjects factor) to investigate differences between younger and older adults in the Valid condition, and differences between younger and older adults in the Invalid condition (Laerd, 2015). Significance. An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests. Any responses (judgements or RTs) that were ±3 standard deviations from the mean were considered anomalous and were removed from the analyses. Mauchly’s test of sphericity was violated for the main effect of SOA, therefore Greenhouse Geisser adjusted p-values were used where appropriate. As an a-priori power analysis determined the desired sample size for this study, and this sample size was achieved, non-significant results will not be due to the study being underpowered. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS (version 25, IBM).
Age-Related Changes in the Attentional Modulation of Temporal Binding
Participants This study used a total of 60 participants; 30 younger adults (15 males, 15 females) between 18-35 years old (M = 21.37, SD = 1.30) and 30 older adults (11 males, 19 females) between 60-80 years old (M = 67.91, SD = 4.71). This sample size was determined via an a-priori power analysis using the data of Donohue et al. (2015) and Chen et al. (2021), who conducted similar experiments (see pre-registration on www.aspredicted.com, project ID #65513). All participants were fluent English speakers. Participants were required to have normal or corrected-to-normal vision. Participants were ineligible to proceed with the experiment if they had a history or current diagnosis of neurological conditions (e.g. epilepsy, mild cognitive impairment, dementia, Parkinson’s Disease) or learning impairments (e.g. dyslexia), or had severe hearing loss resulting in the wearing of hearing aids. Participants were recruited via opportunity sampling; the majority of younger participants were students at Lancaster University and were known to the researcher, whilst the majority of older participants were members of the Centre for Ageing Research at Lancaster University. All participants were able to provide informed consent. Pre-screening tools Participants were asked to complete two pre-screening questionnaires using Qualtrics survey software (www.qualtrics.com), to assess their eligibility for the study. Speech, Spatial and Quality of Hearing Questionnaire (SSQ; Appendix A; Gatehouse & Noble, 2004). Participants rated their hearing ability in different acoustic scenarios using a sliding scale from 0-10 (0=“Not at all”, 10=“Perfectly”). Whilst, at present, no defined cut-off score on the SSQ is available as a parameter to inform decision-making, previous studies have indicated that a mean score of 5.5 is indicative of moderate hearing loss (Gatehouse & Noble, 2004). As a result, people whose average score on the SSQ was lower than 5.5 were not eligible to participate in the experiment. Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQ-CODE; Appendix B; Jorm, 2004). Participants rated how their performance in certain tasks now has changed compared to 10 years ago, answering on a 5-point Likert scale (1=“Much Improved”, 5=“Much worse”). An average score of approximately 3.3 is the usual cut-off point when evaluating cognitive impairment and dementia (Jorm, 2004), therefore people whose average score was higher than 3.3 were not eligible to participate in the experiment. The mean scores of each pre-screening questionnaire are displayed in Table 1. An independent t-test revealed that there was no significant difference between age groups on the SSQ questionnaire [t(58) = -1.15, p=.253]; however, there was a significant difference between age groups on the IQ-CODE questionnaire [t(58) = -13.29, p<.001]. Table 1 Mean scores on the SSQ and IQ-CODE pre-screening questionnaires, for both younger and older adults. Standard deviations displayed in parentheses. Age group SSQ IQ-CODE Younger 8.34 (1.10) 1.74 (0.51) Older 8.67 (1.13) 3.03 (0.09) Experimental Design This research implemented a 2(Age: Younger vs Older) x 2(Cue: Valid vs Invalid) x 4(Stimulus Onset Asynchrony [SOA]: Visual Only [VO] vs 0 milliseconds vs 150 milliseconds vs 300 milliseconds) mixed design, with Age as a between-subjects factor and Cue and SOA as within-subjects factors. The experiment consisted of 16 different trial conditions (Table 2), randomised across all participants. Replicating the paradigm used by Donohue et al. (2015), the experimental block contained 72 validly-cued trials and 24 invalidly-cued trials, which were equally distributed between each side of the screen (left/right) and SOA conditions; this means that each participant completed 144 valid trials and 48 invalid trials for each SOA. Table 2 Number of trials within each Cue and SOA condition. All participants completed a total of 768 trials. SOA (ms) Cue Valid (Left) N Valid (Right) N Invalid (Left) N Invalid (Right) N 0 72 72 24 24 150 72 72 24 24 300 72 72 24 24 VO 72 72 24 24 Stimuli and Materials Participants completed the experiment remotely, in a quiet room on a desktop or laptop computer with a standard keyboard. All participants were asked to wear headphones/earphones. A volume check was conducted at the beginning of the experiment; participants were presented with a constant tone and asked to adjust the volume of this tone to a clear and comfortable level. The stimuli used in the task were replicated from Donohue et al. (2015). Each trial started with an attentional cue in the centre of the screen – a letter “L” or a letter “R” instructing participants to focus on the left or the right side of the screen. In addition to this, 2 pairs of circles were positioned at the top of the screen, one pair in the left hemifield and one pair in the right hemifield. The attentional cue lasted for 1 second, and 650 milliseconds after this cue disappeared, the circles in each pair started to move towards each other downwards diagonally (i.e. the two left circles moving towards each other and the two right circles moving towards each other). In the trials, one pair of circles moved towards each other, intersected, and continued on the same trajectory (fully overlapping and moving away from each other). This full motion of the circles formed an “X” shape, with the circles appearing to “stream” or “pass through” each other. On the opposite side of the screen, the other pair of circles stopped moving before they intersected, forming half of this “X” motion. On 75% of the trials, the full “X”-shaped motion appeared on the side of the screen that the cue directed participants towards (validly-cued trials); on the other 25% of trials, the full motion occurred on opposite side of the screen to where the cue indicated, and the stopped motion occurred at the cued location (invalidly-cued trials). In addition to these visual stimuli, on 75% of the trials, an auditory stimulus was played binaurally (500Hz, 17 milliseconds), either at the same time as the circles intersected (0ms delay), 150ms after the intersection or 300ms after the intersection. The remaining 25% of the trials were visual-only (i.e. no sound was played). Participants were told that regardless of whether a sound was played, they must make their pass/bounce judgements based on the full motion of the circles (the “X” shape), even if the full motion occurred at the opposite side of the screen that they were attending to. The experiment ended after all 768 trials – participation lasted approximately 1 hour. The experiment was built in PsychoPy2 (Pierce et al., 2019) and hosted by Pavlovia (www.pavlovia.org). Procedure Prior to the experiment, a brief meeting was organised between the participant and the researcher via Microsoft Teams, to explain the task and answer any questions. Participants were emailed a link to a Qualtrics survey, which included the participant information sheet, consent form, demographic questions and pre-screening questionnaires. If the person was deemed eligible to take part in the experiment, Qualtrics redirected participants to the experiment in Pavlovia. Participants were then presented with instructions detailing the attentional cue elements of the task and asking them to base their judgements on the full X-shaped motion of the stimuli. Participants were asked to press M on the keyboard if they perceived the circles to “pass through” each other or press Z if they perceived the circles to “bounce off” each other, answering as quickly and as accurately as possible. Participants completed a practice block of 10 trials, then the test session commenced. After each set of 10 random trials, participants had the opportunity to take a break. Participants were provided with a full debrief upon completion of the experiment, and all participants could enter a prize draw to win one of two £50 Amazon vouchers. Statistical Analyses This study required two separate mixed ANOVAs to analyse main effects and interactions, investigating significant differences between groups and conditions. Reaction Times. For the first dependent variable of reaction times (RT), mean RTs were calculated for each participant in each Cue x SOA condition, representing the time taken, in milliseconds, for each participant to press M or Z on the keyboard at the end of each trial. A 2(Age: Younger vs Older) x 2(Cue: Valid vs Invalid) x 4(SOA: 0ms vs 150ms vs 300ms x Visual-Only) mixed ANOVA was then conducted on these mean RTs. Bounce/Pass Judgements. For the second dependent variable of the bounce/pass judgements, the percentage of “Bounce” responses provided in each Cue x SOA condition was calculated for each participant. A 2(Age: Younger vs Older) x 2(Cue: Valid vs Invalid) x 3(SOA: 0ms vs 150ms vs 300ms) mixed ANOVA was then conducted on these percentage data. Visual-Only (VO) trials were compared separately for valid and invalid conditions using a paired samples t-test. Post-hoc paired samples t-tests were also used to investigate significant differences between the 0ms, 150ms and 300ms SOA conditions. Bounce/Pass Judgements: Pairwise comparisons. To analyse pairwise comparisons in the significant interaction of Age and Cue, responses in each SOA condition were collapsed – that is, a grand mean percentage of “Bounce” responses was calculated by averaging the percentage of “Bounce” responses in the 0ms, 150ms and 300ms trials in the Valid condition and in the Invalid condition. This produced an overall Valid and an overall Invalid mean percentage of “Bounce” responses for each participant. A 2(Age: Younger vs Older) x 2(Collapsed Cue: Valid vs Invalid) mixed ANOVA was conducted on this collapsed data to investigate differences between the proportion of “Bounce” responses in the Valid and Invalid condition for younger adults, and in the Valid and Invalid condition for older adults. In addition, 2 separate one-way ANOVAs were conducted on this collapsed data (Age as the between-subjects factor, and Valid or Invalid as the within-subjects factor) to investigate differences between younger and older adults in the Valid condition, and differences between younger and older adults in the Invalid condition (Laerd, 2015). Significance. An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests. Any responses (judgements or RTs) that were ±3 standard deviations from the mean were considered anomalous and were removed from the analyses. Mauchly’s test of sphericity was violated for the main effect of SOA, therefore Greenhouse Geisser adjusted p-values were used where appropriate. As an a-priori power analysis determined the desired sample size for this study, and this sample size was achieved, non-significant results will not be due to the study being underpowered. Statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS (version 25, IBM).