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PubMed2004

A goal activation approach to the study of executive function: an application to antisaccade tasks.

We argue that a general control process, responsible for the activation and maintenance of task goals, is central to the concept of executive function. Failures of this process can become manifest as goal neglect: disregard of a task requirement even though it has been understood (Duncan, 1995). We discuss the results of several published and new experiments using various versions of the antisaccade task in order to investigate the circumstances under which goal neglect is likely to occur. Potentially conflicting results in the literature on adaptive control of saccadic eye movements are argued to be attributable to the extent to which different task versions elicit goal neglect. The results suggest an increased susceptibility to goal neglect of high-functioning older adults (Experiment 1) and of first-episode schizophrenia patients (Experiment 2), but not of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (Experiment 3). However, the degree to which such differences in susceptibility become manifest in task performance, is shown to be strongly influenced by manipulations of the relative saliency of task requirements. Theoretical and methodological implications for the study of executive function are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Infants track action goals within and across agents.

The ability to understand that goals and other intentional relations are attributes of individual people is of fundamental importance to social life. It enables us to predict and interpret actions on-line by relating a person's prior and current behaviors, and distinguishing them from the behaviors of other persons. In this paper, we consider the origins of the ability to mark goals as attributes of individual people. Using a visual habituation paradigm to assess infants' tracking of goals, we tested whether infants represented goals are specific to particular agents. Thirteen-month-old infants restricted reaching goals to particular agents, but generalized a conventional linguistic action, labeling, across agents. Nine-month-old showed the former pattern but not the latter. We discuss these findings in the context of developing understandings of person specific and person general action knowledge.

Cognition↗
PubMed2005

An ontological approach to modelling tasks and goals.

Current approaches to modelling plans and processes in AI are limited by current understanding of "goals" and "intentions". We discuss this question in a medical context, viewing goals as clinical objectives and plans and processes as collections of tasks to achieve those objectives. The specific context for this discussion is the CREDO project, which aims to develop a comprehensive approach to supporting complex treatment plans and care pathways and provides an opportunity to carry out an extensive investigation of the key problem of formalising goals in medical informatics and AI generally. A review of 222 clinical services required in the management of breast cancer has yielded a systematic classification of tasks involved in breast cancer care and a similar classification of the clinical goals associated with these tasks. A six-component model of goal structure is proposed based on these ontological analyses. Although the model has been derived from a corpus of examples from medicine many of the issues encountered, and the solution proposed, appear to be relevant to other domains.

Artificial Intelligence↗
PubMed2004

Mania and dysregulation in goal pursuit: a review.

This paper reviews evidence for deficits in goal regulation in bipolar disorder. A series of authors have described mania as related to higher accomplishment, elevated achievement motivation, and ambitious goal setting. These characteristics appear to be evident outside of episodes, and to some extent, among family members of people with a history of mania. In addition, people with a history of mania demonstrate intense mood reactivity, particularly in response to success and reward. During positive moods, they appear to experience robust increases in confidence. These increases in confidence, coupled with a background of ambitious goals, are believed to promote excessive pursuit of goals. This excessive goal engagement is hypothesized to contribute to manic symptoms after an initial life success.

Achievement↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Improving the quality of residential care using goal attainment scaling.

OBJECTIVE: To illustrate the potential of goal attainment scaling (GAS) as a means to improve the quality of care provided by residential care facilities to frail older adults. DESIGN: A pre-test/post-test single-group design. SETTINGS/PARTICIPANTS: Twenty facilities providing inadequate care to at least one resident. These facilities were identified with a case-finding questionnaire followed by a thorough investigation of the quality of care delivered to a sample of frail older adults. INTERVENTION: The 6-month intervention was conducted by three interdisciplinary teams of health professionals experienced in caring for frail older adults. The intervention was tailored to the main quality problems identified at baseline in the facility. The first task of the intervention team was to set weighted priority goals in conjunction with the facility manager. Subsequent monthly on-site visits, interspersed with frequent telephone calls, were devoted to assisting the manager and staff implement permanent changes in the areas of care targeted for improvement. MEASUREMENTS: Pre- and post-intervention GAS scores. RESULTS: Two facilities were lost to follow-up. A total of 81 facility goals were established at the onset of the study. Goals per facility ranged from 2 to 9 (mean = 4.5, SD = 2.04). GAS scores increased significantly between pre- and post-intervention (P < .001). Goal achievement varied with the manager's own rating of the quality of care provided in the facility (P = .008), his/her education level (P = .037), and the intervention team (P = .049). CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that quality improvement objectives established with the manager following a thorough evaluation of the quality of care provided in the facility can, on average, be attained with the help of experienced health professionals. It also provides some insight into the types of facilities where preset objectives are more likely to be achieved.

Aged↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Goal attainment scaling as a clinical measurement technique in communication disorders: a critical review.

UNLABELLED: Evaluation of client progress is an important topic in communicative disorders research and clinical literature. Goal attainment scaling (GAS) is a technique for evaluating individual progress toward goals. Despite recognition of GAS as a clinical-outcome assessment technique in other clinical professions, the current debate on measuring client progress and outcome measurement in communication disorders has largely ignored GAS. The purpose of this paper is threefold: (a) to introduce GAS to the field of communication disorders, (b) to offer a critical review, and (c) to explore directions for harnessing the value of GAS for the field. In addition to the ability of GAS to evaluate individualized longitudinal change, it offers the following positive attributes: (a) grading of goal attainment, (b) comparability across goals and clients through aggregation, (c) adaptability to any International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health levels and domains, (d) versatility across populations and interventions, (e) linkage tied to expected outcomes, (f) facilitator of goal attainment, and (g) a focal point for team energies. The unique value of GAS could render this technique as a welcomed addition to the present set of options available to clinicians interested in assessing progress and evaluating change. Reliability and validity of GAS will be discussed. Finally, directions for harnessing the potential of GAS for communication disorders are offered for clinical practice and clinical-outcome research. LEARNING OUTCOMES: (1) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to delineate the steps involved in GAS. (2) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to describe the positive attributes of GAS as a method for assessing client progress. (3) As a result of this activity, the participant will be able to identify issues that enhance the reliability and validity of GAS.

Communication Disorders↗
PubMed1997

Speed of finger tapping and goal attainment after unilateral cerebral vascular accident.

OBJECTIVE: To determine (1) if speed of finger tapping is bilaterally slow after an acute unilateral cerebral vascular accident (CVA) and (2) if speed of finger tapping and grip strength are related to achieving rehabilitation goals during the first few weeks after stroke. DESIGN: Prospective inception cohort study. STUDY SETTING: Medical center and neurological institute. PARTICIPANTS: Fifty-one patients with unilateral CVAs. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Documentation of goal attainment at discharge and bilateral measures of speed of finger tapping and grip strength. RESULTS: Speed of finger tapping and grip strength were often bilaterally below normal limits after an acute unilateral CVA, with the contralateral hand most affected. Speed of finger tapping, but not grip strength, in the ipsilateral hand was associated with achieving rehabilitation goals. Speed of finger tapping in the contralateral hand as well as bilateral grip strength was not related to achievement of rehabilitation goals. CONCLUSIONS: Motor findings suggest that bilateral cerebral dysfunction may be common after an acute unilateral CVA. The speed of finger movement in the hand ipsilateral to the lesion may reflect the degree to which the so-called "unaffected" cerebral hemisphere has in fact maintained its functional integrity. As such, it may be a useful behavioral marker for predicting goal attainment during early stages of neurorehabilitation.

Acute Disease↗
PubMed1991

Mental programming after frontal lobe lesions: results on digit symbol performance with self-selected goals.

The aim of this study was to demonstrate that the inability to set adequate sub-goals in a cognitive task is a sensitive indicator of programming deficit after frontal lobe lesion. Sixty-one patients with focal cerebral lesions and 25 control subjects were studied with a modified Digit Symbol task, in which the score depended on the adequacy of the sub-goals set by the subject. This score was compared to that on the standard condition, in which the subject was requested to work as quickly as possible without self-selected goals. The results confirmed the prediction that patients with anterior lesions set less adequate sub-goals than patients with posterior lesions and, unlike the latter patients, have a more pronounced deficit on the performance with self-selected goals than on the standard condition. In particular patients with left frontal lobe lesions underestimated their capabilities in relation to task requirements.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Clinical and psychosocial factors associated with achievement of treatment goals in adolescents with diabetes mellitus.

PURPOSE: To examine the following questions with regard to the initiation of a new intensive management program for adolescents with Type 1 diabetes mellitus: (a) What clinical and psychosocial factors are associated with achievement of metabolic control treatment goals after 1 year? and (b) What baseline clinical and psychosocial factors are associated with improvement in the quality of life after 12 months? METHODS: Eighty-one subjects (of 83 who began; aged 14.3 +/- 2.0 years at entry; 48 females, 33 males; 95% white; diabetes duration 8.9 +/- 3.9 years) with Type 1 diabetes completed 12 months of follow-up in a study of intensified treatment of diabetes. Assessments at baseline and at 12 months used the Diabetes Quality of Life for Youth scale, the Self-efficacy for Diabetes Scale, the Children's Depression Inventory, the Issues in Coping with Diabetes Scale, and the Diabetes Family Behavior Scale. Data were analyzed using multiple and logistic regression. RESULTS: From a baseline of >9%, HbA1c levels decreased to a mean of 7.8 +/- 0.7%, with 30% of the subjects achieving our treatment goal of <or=7.2%. Logistic regression demonstrated that achievement of goal levels of HbA1c were associated with better metabolic control at study entry (p = .05), participation in coping skills training (p = .003), and more parental participation in guidance and control (p = .05). Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that participation in coping skills training with lower impact of diabetes on quality of life at baseline and less depression at baseline contributed significantly to the variance (0.57) in quality of life at 12 months. CONCLUSIONS: Providers need to pay particular attention to adolescents with poorer metabolic control and impact of diabetes on quality of life when they intensify their treatment because they are less likely to reach treatment goals. Furthermore, behavioral interventions such as coping skills training may help teens achieve their goals.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2002

Goal specificity and learning with a hypermedia program.

Problem solving research has found that a nonspecific goal (NSG) leads to better learning than a specific goal (SG). This effect can be understood in terms of dual-space search theories of problem solving. To apply the theory, we studied goal specificity effects with a hypermedia program in which participants had to learn about the outbreak of World War 1, either with the goal to find twenty dates (i.e., SG) or with the goal to explain the reasons for the war (i.e., NSG). As expected, compared to the SG-group, the NSG-group correctly answered more factual questions about the text during the task, spent more time on average per page, and more often looked for extra information. In a final questionnaire with factual and inferential questions, the NSG-group still performed better than the SG-group. The NSG-group may also show better transfer of what they had learnt to a new situation.

Goals↗
PubMed2000

Increases in manic symptoms after life events involving goal attainment.

Bipolar disorder has been conceptualized as an outcome of dysregulation in the behavioral activation system (BAS), a brain system that regulates goal-directed activity. On the basis of the BAS model, the authors hypothesized that life events involving goal attainment would promote manic symptoms in bipolar individuals. The authors followed 43 bipolar I individuals monthly with standardized symptom severity assessments (the Modified Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression and the Bech-Rafaelsen Mania Rating Scale). Life events were assessed using the Goal Attainment and Positivity scales of the Life Events and Difficulties Schedule. As hypothesized, manic symptoms increased in the 2 months following goal-attainment events, but depressed symptoms were not changed following goal-attainment events. These results are congruent with a series of recent polarity-specific findings.

Achievement↗
PubMed1998

Are smaller weight losses or more achievable weight loss goals better in the long term for obese patients?

Weight losses and psychological well-being were examined at 30 months in 69 men and 61 women initially treated with behavior therapy as a function of (a) initial weight loss and (b) weight-loss goals. Initial weight losses were positively, not negatively, related to weight loss at 30 months. Weight loss goals did not predict short-term or long-term weight loss. People who reached weight goals had better long-term weight losses than those who did not, but this finding was largely due to differences in initial weight loss. Psychological well-being at 30 months was not related to initial weight losses or goals. Although correlational rather than experimental, these results do not support the hypothesis that obese patients should be encouraged to set lower weight-loss goals.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Goals: an approach to motivation and achievement.

This study tested a framework in which goals are proposed to be central determinants of achievement patterns. Learning goals, in which individuals seek to increase their competence, were predicted to promote challenge-seeking and a mastery-oriented response to failure regardless of perceived ability. Performance goals, in which individuals seek to gain favorable judgments of their competence or avoid negative judgments, were predicted to produce challenge-avoidance and learned helplessness when perceived ability was low and to promote certain forms of risk-avoidance even when perceived ability was high. Manipulations of relative goal value (learning vs. performance) and perceived ability (high vs. low) resulted in the predicted differences on measures of task choice, performance during difficulty, and spontaneous verbalizations during difficulty. Particularly striking was the way in which the performance goal-low perceived ability condition produced the same pattern of strategy deterioration, failure attribution, and negative affect found in naturally occurring learned helplessness. Implications for theories of motivation and achievement are discussed.

Achievement↗
PubMed1991

Goal setting and the differential influence of self-regulatory processes on complex decision-making performance.

The effects of goal setting and cognitive self-regulatory processes were examined on a highly complex task, a managerial decision-making simulation. It was hypothesized that the presence vs. absence of a specific performance goal would moderate the strength of relations between performance and 2 self-regulatory processes: self-efficacy judgments and self-evaluative reactions. Ss received either a moderately or extremely difficult task goal, or no specific goal. Self-regulatory processes were assessed after an initial trial block. Regression analyses revealed that, as predicted, both self-regulatory processes more strongly affected performance when Ss received a specific goal. Contrary to earlier findings obtained with simple activities, dissatisfaction with prior outcomes impaired performance. Ss who were dissatisfied with past attainments exerted much decision effort but adopted inferior task strategies that produced poorer results.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1993

Perceiver self-presentational goals as moderators of expectancy influences: ingratiation and the disconfirmation of negative expectancies.

Self-fulfilling prophecy processes enable people to confirm their negative expectancies for others. The perceiver goal of ingratiation was hypothesized to alter this behavioral dynamic and thus lead perceivers to disconfirm their negative expectancies. In an interview setting, we manipulated interviewer Ss' expectancies and interaction goals. As anticipated, "no goal" interviewers were relatively cold and challenging toward their negative-expectancy applicants; as a result, these applicants performed somewhat less favorably, consistent with interviewer expectancies. In contrast, "liking goal" interviewers were relatively warm and unthreatening toward their negative-expectancy applicants; as a result, these applicants performed favorably, disconfirming interviewer expectancies. These data support a framework in which perceiver self-presentation goals are conceptualized to moderate the expectancy-confirmation process.

Bias↗
PubMed1998

Fibromyalgia and women's pursuit of personal goals: a daily process analysis.

For 30 days, 50 women with primary fibromyalgia syndrome reported daily progress and effort toward a health-fitness and a social-interpersonal goal and the extent to which their pain and fatigue hindered their accomplishment. They also carried palmtop computers to assess their sleep and their pain, fatigue, and positive and negative mood throughout the day. Analyses of the person-day data set showed that on days during which pain or fatigue increased from morning to evening, participants perceived their goal progress to be more attenuated by pain and fatigue. Unrestorative sleep the night before predicted the following day's effort and progress toward accomplishing health-fitness goals, but not social-interpersonal goals. Finally, participants who reported more progress toward social-interpersonal goals on a given day were more likely to evidence improvements in positive mood across the day, regardless of any changes in pain or fatigue that day.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1988

Relation of life goals at age 70 to activity participation and health and psychological well-being among Terman's gifted men and women.

In this study I investigated the relation of life goals to activity participation and health and psychological well-being for men and women in Terman's Study of the Gifted. The subjects were between the ages of 65 and 75 years (M = 70.2 years) when they responded to a mail-out survey in 1982. The study included three goals scales-Autonomy, Involvement, and Achievement Motivation-as well as measures of activity participation and health and psychological well-being. Multiple regression analyses in which the three goals scales were used to predict health and psychological well-being were both significant. Path analyses demonstrated both a direct and an indirect contribution, through activity participation, of life goals to health and well-being. In most cases, the indirect effect of life goals on health and well-being accounted for more than one half of the total effect. Implications of the results for life satisfaction in aging are discussed.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

Goal instability and later life adjustment.

A series of analyses on the goal instability personality construct, as measured by the Goal Instability Scale (GIS), was conducted to establish the construct validity of goal instability as it relates to older adults. This construct was derived from Heinz Kohut's psychology of the self. The sample consisted of a total of 157 voluntary early retirees representing a cross section of worker types from a manufacturing industry. In the first analysis, a series of confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesis that the 10-item GIS measures a unitary construct. In the second analysis, GIS was found to be similar across age groups. These findings enhance the conceptual clarity of the goal instability construct and its relevance with regard to older adults. Goal instability may represent 1 negative aspect of a quest for self-continuity.

Adaptation, Psychological↗