Group items tagged

When reading a paper book, one can feel the paper and ink and smooth or fold a page with one's fingers; the pages make a distinctive sound when turned; and underlining or highlighting a sentence with ink permanently alters the paper's chemistry.

discernible size, shape and weight.

Although many old and recent studies conclude that people understand what they read on paper more thoroughly than what they read on screens, the differences are often small. Some experiments, however, suggest that researchers should look not just at immediate reading comprehension, but also at long-term memory.

When taking the quiz, volunteers who had read study material on a monitor relied much more on remembering than on knowing, whereas students who read on paper depended equally on remembering and knowing.

E-ink is easy on the eyes because it reflects ambient light just like a paper book, but computer screens, smartphones and tablets like the iPad shine light directly into people's faces.

the American Optometric Association officially recognizes computer vision syndrome.

People who took the test on a computer scored lower and reported higher levels of stress and tiredness than people who completed it on paper.

Although people in both groups performed equally well on the READ test, those who had to scroll through the continuous text did not do as well on the attention and working-memory tests.

Subconsciously, many people may think of reading on a computer or tablet as a less serious affair than reading on paper. Based on a detailed 2005 survey of 113 people in northern California, Ziming Liu of San Jose State University concluded that people reading on screens take a lot of shortcuts—they spend more time browsing, scanning and hunting for keywords compared with people reading on paper, and are more likely to read a document once, and only once.

When reading on screens, people seem less inclined to engage in what psychologists call metacognitive learning regulation—strategies such as setting specific goals, rereading difficult sections and checking how much one has understood along the way

Perhaps she and her peers will grow up without the subtle bias against screens that seems to lurk in the minds of older generations.

They think of using an e-book, not owning an e-book,"

Participants in her studies say that when they really like an electronic book, they go out and get the paper version.

When it comes to intensively reading long pieces of plain text, paper and ink may still have the advantage. But text is not the only way to read.

The clinical implications of this negative association between MPA and flow suggest that a two-pronged approach focusing on facilitating flow and positive functioning as well as reducing pathological MPA may bring about improvements in the performer’s subjective performing experienc

Seligman’s (2011) most recent model of well-being, from the field of positive psychology, understands well-being as comprising five elements: Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Achievemen

There is a substantial body of Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) research providing evidence that MPA is a debilitating phenomenon (Kenny, 2011) which can affect musicians at any stage of their careers, from highly experienced professional performers (Fishbein, Middlestadt, Ottati, Straus, & Ellis, 1988; Kenny, Driscoll, & Ackerman, 2014) through to child beginners

Anxiety is often described as having an antithetical relationship to the experience of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), and it has been suggested that fostering techniques for facilitating flow may provide a powerful tool for reducing MPA and encouraging optimal performance

“when performance anxiety was highest, flow was lowest and vice versa … the presence of one minimises the magnitude of the other” (Fullager et al., 2013, p. 251), and a recent study found evidence of a strong, significant negative association between flow and MPA amongst 200 professional orchestral musicians (Cohen & Bodner, 2018), supporting Kirchner et al.’s (2008) earlier findings with music students

Investigations of the efficacy of existing methods for treating MPA indicate that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy based interventions are most effective (for an overview, see Burin & Osorio, 2016).

However, evidence suggests that pharmacological methods, particularly beta-blockers, are most commonly used, often in the absence of medical supervision (Cohen & Bodner, 2018; Kenny et al., 2014) and that the subject of MPA is still stigmatised, with many musicians and teachers unwilling to talk openly about it

Csikszentmihalyi’s nine dimensions of flow as follows

Although there was an increase in flow over time, this was not significant, F(1, 20) = 4.27, p > .05, η2 =.18, and there was no evidence of a significant interaction between group and time, F(1, 20) = 0.56, p > .05, η2 = .03, indicating that the hypothesis that there would be an increase in self-reported levels of flow in the intervention group, was not supported.

Figure 4. Judge-rated musical performance quality and signs of performance anxiety in the intervention group.

These results support the fourth hypothesis that there would be an increase in judge-rated PQ and a decrease in judge-rated SPA.

Results showed evidence of a significant negative association between MPA and flow, and three out of the four study hypotheses were supported: the music performance skills intervention was found to be effective in reducing pre-/post-test MPA in the intervention group compared to the wait-list control group; there were significant improvements in positive and negative affect and state anxiety associated with the performance situation in the intervention group; and there were significant improvements in judge-rated PQ and behavioural signs of performance anxiety. However, there was no significant change in pre-/post-test measures of flow. These findings will now be discussed in more detail.

This supports the understanding of MPA as a specific type of anxiety, where the performer suffers from MPA without necessarily being generally anxious or impaired in any other areas of his/her life (Clark & Williamon, 2011; Hoffman & Hanrahan, 2011) and corresponds to Kenny’s (2011) description of the first and most mild of three types of MPA (for full coverage of this issue, see Kenny, 2011).

Thus, the absence in improvement in levels of flow in the current study could also be due to the low average hours of daily practice reported

The increases in participants’ positive affect and decreases in negative affect after the second simulated performance compared to the first indicate that the intervention was effective in facilitating positive emotion, the first component of Seligman’s (2011) PERMA model of well-being

Evidence of improvements in judge-rated performance quality indicate that the intervention was also effective in facilitating the fifth (Achievement) component of the PERMA model.

“Ironically, it may be that the last people to receive some benefit from the therapeutic value of music may be the musicians themselves” (Brodsky, 1996, p. 95).

Hopefully, such an approach will enable developing musicians to acquire the skills necessary to enjoy satisfying, successful and healthy lives as performing musicians, in which the threat of debilitating MPA and the need to recourse to beta-blockers are a thing of the past.

Cohen, S., & Bodner, E. (2019). Music performance skills: A two-pronged approach – facilitating optimal music performance and reducing music performance anxiety. Psychology of Music, 47(4), 521–538. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735618765349