The impact of developmental dyslexia on workplace cognition: Evidence from a virtual reality environment

The cognitive difficulties associated with dyslexia persist into adulthood but insights into their impact in employment settings are lacking. A virtual office environment was used to assess two areas of cognition frequently called upon in the workplace, executive function and prospective memory. Eight adults with dyslexia and 27 adults without dyslexia were tested on a virtual office task. They read a scenario describing their new role in an office and were given tasks to complete. The group with dyslexia performed worse overall. On the individual performance measures, the group with dyslexia scored lower on the selective-thinking and planning measures of executive function and also performed worse on two of the three prospective memory measures, namely event-based and time-based prospective memory. The findings indicate how dyslexia can affect workplace cognition, identifying areas in which support might be needed and highlighting areas of relative strength which might be harnessed

The impact of developmental dyslexia on workplace cognition: evidence from a virtual reality environment

The cognitive difficulties associated with dyslexia persist into adulthood but insights into their impact in employment settings are lacking. A virtual office environment was used to assess two areas of cognition frequently called upon in the workplace, executive function and prospective memory. Eight adults with dyslexia and 27 adults without dyslexia were tested on a virtual office task. They read a scenario describing their new role in an office and were given tasks to complete. The group with dyslexia performed worse overall. On the individual performance measures, the group with dyslexia scored lower on the selective-thinking and planning measures of executive function and also performed worse on two of the three prospective memory measures, namely event-based and time-based prospective memory. The findings indicate how dyslexia can affect workplace cognition, identifying areas in which support might be needed and highlighting areas of relative strength which might be harnessed

Rapidly Measuring the Speed of Unconscious Learning: Amnesics Learn Quickly and Happy People Slowly

BACKGROUND We introduce a method for quickly determining the rate of implicit learning. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The task involves making a binary prediction for a probabilistic sequence over 10 minutes; from this it is possible to determine the influence of events of a different number of trials in the past on the current decision. This profile directly reflects the learning rate parameter of a large class of learning algorithms including the delta and Rescorla-Wagner rules. To illustrate the use of the method, we compare a person with amnesia with normal controls and we compare people with induced happy and sad moods. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE Learning on the task is likely both associative and implicit. We argue theoretically and demonstrate empirically that both amnesia and also transient negative moods can be associated with an especially large learning rate: People with amnesia can learn quickly and happy people slowl