Why study movement variability in autism?

Autism has been defined as a disorder of social cognition, interaction and communication where ritualistic, repetitive behaviors are commonly observed. But how should we understand the behavioral and cognitive differences that have been the main focus of so much autism research? Can high-level cognitive processes and behaviors be identified as the core issues people with autism face, or do these characteristics perhaps often rather reflect individual attempts to cope with underlying physiological issues? Much research presented in this volume will point to the latter possibility, i.e. that people on the autism spectrum cope with issues at much lower physiological levels pertaining not only to Central Nervous Systems (CNS) function, but also to peripheral and autonomic systems (PNS, ANS) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013). The question that we pursue in this chapter is what might be fruitful ways of gaining objective measures of the large-scale systemic and heterogeneous effects of early atypical neurodevelopment; how to track their evolution over time and how to identify critical changes along the continuum of human development and aging. We suggest that the study of movement variability—very broadly conceived as including all minute fluctuations in bodily rhythms and their rates of change over time (coined micro-movements (Figure 1A-B) (Torres, Brincker, et al. 2013))—offers a uniquely valuable and entirely objectively quantifiable lens to better assess, understand and track not only autism but cognitive development and degeneration in general. This chapter presents the rationale firstly behind this focus on micro-movements and secondly behind the choice of specific kinds of data collection and statistical metrics as tools of analysis (Figure 1C). In brief the proposal is that the micro-movements (defined in Part I – Chapter 1), obtained using various time scales applied to different physiological data-types (Figure 1), contain information about layered influences and temporal adaptations, transformations and integrations across anatomically semi-independent subsystems that crosstalk and interact. Further, the notion of sensorimotor re-afference is used to highlight the fact that these layered micro-motions are sensed and that this sensory feedback plays a crucial role in the generation and control of movements in the first place. In other words, the measurements of various motoric and rhythmic variations provide an access point not only to the “motor systems”, but also access to much broader central and peripheral sensorimotor and regulatory systems. Lastly, we posit that this new lens can also be used to capture influences from systems of multiple entry points or collaborative control and regulation, such as those that emerge during dyadic social interactions

Seeing what teachers see: Exploring the use of eye tracking in teacher expertise studies

Wolff, C., Van ’T Zelfde, H., Jarodzka, H., & Boshuizen, H. P. A. (2012, August). Seeing what teachers see: Exploring the use of eye tracking in teacher expertise studies. Poster presented at the EARLI SIG Learning and Professional Development, Antwerp, Belgium.The exploratory study presented in the poster is part of a larger research project investigating teachers’ cognitive processing and knowledge structuring and how these are expressed at varying levels of expertise development. The experiment is guided by an interest in determining which processes underlie expert teachers’ ability to deal with complex classroom settings and which research methods support such inquiries. As questions about cognitive and perceptual processes are difficult to investigate with traditional methods, we propose the use of process-tracing methods to capture and investigate these processes. Verbalization techniques will be employed to uncover teachers’ cognitive processes. However, as teaching is a highly visual task which places demands on teachers’ visual attention, eye-tracking is proposed as a method for capturing the perceptual and attentional processes of teachers. Eye tracking is a method which allows for the measurement and analysis of eye activity. Eye movements are recorded, measured, and analyzed in relation to the environment in which they occur to infer information about where a person’s gaze (and attention) is directed, the gaze duration, and the order in which gaze (and attention) is allocated. Eye tracking technology currently offers a number of options for collecting eye tracking data. This study considers two systems: a mobile, head-mounted system and a stationary, remote system. These systems were compared to determine the extent to which each system is able to capture covert cognitive and perceptual processes as well as overt behaviour of teachers. The mobile eye tracker is employed directly in the classroom while the stationary eye tracker is applied to a video-taped classroom lesson. The study also explores the effectiveness of eye tracking in combination with other methods, namely think aloud and questionnaires, to detect differences in the skills and knowledge expressed by experienced mentor teachers and inexperienced student teachers

Task analysis of discrete and continuous skills: a dual methodology approach to human skills capture for automation

There is a growing requirement within the field of intelligent automation for a formal methodology to capture and classify explicit and tacit skills deployed by operators during complex task performance. This paper describes the development of a dual methodology approach which recognises the inherent differences between continuous tasks and discrete tasks and which proposes separate methodologies for each. Both methodologies emphasise capturing operators’ physical, perceptual, and cognitive skills, however, they fundamentally differ in their approach. The continuous task analysis recognises the non-arbitrary nature of operation ordering and that identifying suitable cues for subtask is a vital component of the skill. Discrete task analysis is a more traditional, chronologically ordered methodology and is intended to increase the resolution of skill classification and be practical for assessing complex tasks involving multiple unique subtasks through the use of taxonomy of generic actions for physical, perceptual, and cognitive actions

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Explaining the relation between management control systems and managers' causal mental models

University of Technology Sydney. Faculty of Business.Research into the cognitive effects of management accounting and control systems is largely oriented toward understanding how decision makers use accounting information to inform their judgement and decision making activity. However, the effect of these systems on decision making is not limited to the provision of information; instead, management accounting and control systems may influence decision makers’ underlying mental representations, which in turn form a critical input to judgement and decision making in an organisational context. As such, the objective of this thesis is to explore and then explain how the use of management control systems relates to the development of a type of mental representation: managers’ causal mental models. In order to answer this question, I undertake a qualitative embedded case study of a medium-sized residential aged care service provider in Australia, incorporating specific Cognitive Task Analysis (CTA) techniques to elicit the causal mental models of individual study participants. First, I draw on theory and concepts from cognitive psychology to develop the construct of causal mental models for application in an accounting context. I then develop a general theoretical model which identifies the conditions under which the use of management control systems is likely to lead to changes in the causal mental models of either senior and/or operational managers, and provides an explanation of the mediating relationship between management control systems and managerial judgement and decision making activity. This conceptual and methodological development allows for the direct observation of the content and composition of causal mental models, and the development and testing of more nuanced hypotheses relating the use of management accounting and control systems to judgement and decision making outcomes, and ultimately, to managerial and organisational performance. Second, I apply and extend the general theoretical model in order to develop an explanation of the underlying socio-cognitive dynamics of Simons’ (1987) concept of interactive control. Specifically, I explain why the interactive use of control systems would facilitate learning and contribute to improved managerial cognition and performance, and use the theoretical explanations that I generate to evaluate the conflicting conceptualisations of the interactive control construct present in the literature. I find that all five dimensions of interactive control identified by Bisbe, Batista-Foguet and Chenhall (2007) are required for interactive control to have the hypothesised effects on managerial learning and organisational performance, and provide support for their position that interactive control should be treated as a multidimensional, emergent construct. Third, I apply my general theoretical model to the phenomenon of budget participation, in order to develop a cognitive explanation of the effects of participation on managerial cognition and capacity for judgement and decision making. Application of the theoretical model to the phenomenon of budget participation generated a set of three specific explanations: first, it suggests an expanded definition of participation is necessary to completely capture the potential of budgeting for information sharing and coordination; second, it explains the theoretical value of conceptualising job-relevant information in terms of the components of managers’ causal mental models; and third, it explains both how and why budget participation can facilitate the transfer of causal knowledge and beliefs between levels of management

Principles in Patterns (PiP) : User Acceptance Testing of Course and Class Approval Online Pilot (C-CAP)

The PiP Evaluation Plan documents four distinct evaluative strands, the first of which entails an evaluation of the PiP system pilot (WP7:37 – Systems & tool evaluation). Phase 1 of this evaluative strand focused on the heuristic evaluation of the PiP Course and Class Approval Online Pilot system (C-CAP) and was completed in December 2011. Phase 2 of the evaluation is broadly concerned with "user acceptance testing". This entails exploring the extent to which C-CAP functionality meets users' expectations within specific curriculum design tasks, as well as eliciting data on C-CAP's overall usability and its ability to support academics in improving the quality of curricula. The general evaluative approach adopted therefore employs a combination of standard Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) approaches and specially designed data collection instruments, including protocol analysis, stimulated recall and pre- and post-test questionnaire instruments. This brief report summarises the methodology deployed, presents the results of the evaluation and discusses their implications for the further development of C-CAP

Automating human skills : preliminary development of a human factors methodology to capture tacit cognitive skills

Despite technological advances in intelligent automation, it remains difficult for engineers to discern which manual tasks, or task components, would be most suitable for transfer to automated alternatives. This research aimed to develop an accurate methodology for the measurement of both observable and unobservable physical and cognitive activities used in manual tasks for the capture of tacit skill. Experienced operators were observed and interviewed in detail, following which, hierarchical task analysis and task decomposition methods were used to systematically explore and classify the qualitative data. Results showed that a task analysis / decomposition methodology identified different types of skill (e.g. procedural or declarative) and knowledge (explicit or tacit) indicating this methodology could be used for further human skill capture studies. The benefit of this research will be to provide a methodology to capture human skill so that complex manual tasks can be more efficiently transferred into automated processes

Information scraps: how and why information eludes our personal information management tools

In this paper we describe information scraps -- a class of personal information whose content is scribbled on Post-it notes, scrawled on corners of random sheets of paper, buried inside the bodies of e-mail messages sent to ourselves, or typed haphazardly into text files. Information scraps hold our great ideas, sketches, notes, reminders, driving directions, and even our poetry. We define information scraps to be the body of personal information that is held outside of its natural or We have much still to learn about these loose forms of information capture. Why are they so often held outside of our traditional PIM locations and instead on Post-its or in text files? Why must we sometimes go around our traditional PIM applications to hold on to our scraps, such as by e-mailing ourselves? What are information scraps' role in the larger space of personal information management, and what do they uniquely offer that we find so appealing? If these unorganized bits truly indicate the failure of our PIM tools, how might we begin to build better tools? We have pursued these questions by undertaking a study of 27 knowledge workers. In our findings we describe information scraps from several angles: their content, their location, and the factors that lead to their use, which we identify as ease of capture, flexibility of content and organization, and avilability at the time of need. We also consider the personal emotive responses around scrap management. We present a set of design considerations that we have derived from the analysis of our study results. We present our work on an application platform, jourknow, to test some of these design and usability findings