Joint attention-the mutual focus of 2 individuals on an item-speeds detection and discrimination of target information. However, what happens to that information beyond the initial perceptual episode? To fully comprehend and engage with our immediate environment also requires working memory (WM), which integrates information from second to second to create a coherent and fluid picture of our world. Yet, no research exists at present that examines how joint attention directly impacts WM. To investigate this, we created a unique paradigm that combines gaze cues with a traditional visual WM task. A central, direct gaze 'cue' face looked left or right, followed 500 ms later by 4, 6, or 8 colored squares presented on one side of the face for encoding. Crucially, the cue face either looked at the squares (valid cue) or looked away from them (invalid cue). A no shift (direct gaze) condition served as a baseline. After a blank 1,000 ms maintenance interval, participants stated whether a single test square color was present or not in the preceding display. WM accuracy was significantly greater for colors encoded in the valid versus invalid and direct conditions. Further experiments showed that an arrow cue and a low-level motion cue-both shown to reliably orient attention-did not reliably modulate WM, indicating that social cues are more powerful. This study provides the first direct evidence that sharing the focus of another individual establishes a point of reference from which information is advantageously encoded into WM. (PsycINFO Database Record

Despite the growing international innovations for visual arts interventions in dementia care, limited attention has been paid to their theoretical basis. In response, this paper explores how and why visual art interventions in dementia care influence changes in outcomes. The theory building process consists of a realist review of primary research on visual art programmes. This aims to uncover what works, for whom, how, why and in what circumstances. We undertook a qualitative exploration of stakeholder perspectives of art programmes, and then synthesised these two pieces of work alongside broader theory to produce a conceptual framework for intervention development, further research and practice. This suggests effective programmes are realised through essential attributes of two key conditions (provocative and stimulating aesthetic experience; dynamic and responsive artistic practice). These conditions are important for cognitive, social and individual responses, leading to benefits for people with early to more advanced dementia. This work represents a starting point at identifying theories of change for arts interventions, and for further research to critically examine, refine and strengthen the evidence base for the arts in dementia care. Understanding the theoretical basis of interventions is important for service development, evaluation and implementation.

All suspected case PPE ensembles either had post-doffing contamination events or other significant disadvantages to their use. This identified the need to design a unified PPE ensemble and doffing procedure, incorporating the most protective PPE considered for each body area. This work has been presented to, and reviewed by, key stakeholders to decide on a proposed unified ensemble, subject to further evaluation.

Simulation exercises using VIOLET provide evidence-based assessment of PPE ensembles, and are a valuable resource for training of healthcare staff in wearing and safe doffing of PPE.

This study aims to improve understanding of how distracting information and target task demands influence the strength of gaze and non-biological (arrow and moving line) cuing effects. Using known non-predictive central cues, we manipulated the degree of distraction from additional information presented on the other side of the target, and target task difficulty. In Experiment 1, we used the traditional unilateral cuing task, where participants state the location of an asterisk and the non-target location is empty (no distraction). Experiment 2 comprised a harder localisation task (which side contains an embedded oddball item) and presented distracting target-related information on the other side. In Experiment 3, we used a discrimination task (upright or inverted embedded T) with distracter information that was unrelated or related to the target (low vs. high distraction, respectively). We found that the magnitude of cuing scaled with the degree of combined distraction and task demands, increasing up to six-fold from Experiments 1 and 2 to the high-distraction condition in Experiment 3. Thus, depleting attentional resources in this manner appears to weaken the ability to ignore uninformative directional cues. Findings are discussed within the framework of a resource-limited account of cue inhibition.