The Actions and Feelings Questionnaire in Autism and Typically Developed Adults

Open access via Springer Compact Agreement We are grateful to Simon Baron-Cohen and Paula Smith of the Cambridge Autism Centre for the use of the ARC database in distributing the questionnaire, to all participants for completing it, to Eilidh Farquar for special efforts in distributing the link and to Gemma Matthews for advice on using AMOS 23. JHGW is supported by the Northwood Trust.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A Conceptual UX-aware Model of Requirements

User eXperience (UX) is becoming increasingly important for success of software products. Yet, many companies still face various challenges in their work with UX. Part of these challenges relate to inadequate knowledge and awareness of UX and that current UX models are commonly not practical nor well integrated into existing Software Engineering (SE) models and concepts. Therefore, we present a conceptual UX-aware model of requirements for software development practitioners. This layered model shows the interrelation between UX and functional and quality requirements. The model is developed based on current models of UX and software quality characteristics. Through the model we highlight the main differences between various requirement types in particular essentially subjective and accidentally subjective quality requirements. We also present the result of an initial validation of the model through interviews with 12 practitioners and researchers. Our results show that the model can raise practitioners' knowledge and awareness of UX in particular in relation to requirement and testing activities. It can also facilitate UX-related communication among stakeholders with different backgrounds.Comment: 6th International Working Conference on Human-Centred Software Engineerin

Perceiving and expressing feelings through actions in relation to individual differences in empathic traits : the Action and Feelings Questionnaire (AFQ)

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Episodic memory and episodic future thinking in adults with autism.

The ability to remember past experiences (episodic memory) is thought to be related to the ability to imagine possible future experiences (episodic future thinking). Although previous research has established that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have diminished episodic memory, episodic future thinking has not previously been investigated within this population. In the present study, high-functioning adults with ASD were compared to closely matched typical adults on a task requiring participants to report a series of events that happened to them in the past and a series of events that might happen to them in the future. For each event described, participants completed two modified Memory Characteristics Questionnaire items to assess self-reported phenomenal qualities associated with remembering and imagining, including self-perspective and degree of autonoetic awareness. Participants also completed letter, category, and ideational fluency tasks. Results indicated that participants with ASD recalled/imagined significantly fewer specific events than did comparison participants and that participants with ASD demonstrated impaired episodic memory and episodic future thinking. In line with this finding, participants with ASD were less likely than comparison participants to report taking a field (first-person) perspective and were more likely to report taking an observer (third-person) perspective during retrieval of past events (but not during simulation of future events), highlighting that they were less likely to mentally reexperience past events from their own point of view. There were no group differences in self-reported levels of autonoetic awareness or fluency task performance

Using visual analytics to develop situation awareness in astrophysics

We present a novel collaborative visual analytics application for cognitively overloaded users in the astrophysics domain. The system was developed for scientists who need to analyze heterogeneous, complex data under time pressure, and make predictions and time-critical decisions rapidly and correctly under a constant influx of changing data. The Sunfall Data Taking system utilizes several novel visualization and analysis techniques to enable a team of geographically distributed domain specialists to effectively and remotely maneuver a custom-built instrument under challenging operational conditions. Sunfall Data Taking has been in production use for 2 years by a major international astrophysics collaboration (the largest data volume supernova search currently in operation), and has substantially improved the operational efficiency of its users. We describe the system design process by an interdisciplinary team, the system architecture and the results of an informal usability evaluation of the production system by domain experts in the context of Endsley's three levels of situation awareness

Spatial Degrees of Freedom in Everett Quantum Mechanics

Stapp claims that, when spatial degrees of freedom are taken into account, Everett quantum mechanics is ambiguous due to a "core basis problem." To examine an aspect of this claim I generalize the ideal measurement model to include translational degrees of freedom for both the measured system and the measuring apparatus. Analysis of this generalized model using the Everett interpretation in the Heisenberg picture shows that it makes unambiguous predictions for the possible results of measurements and their respective probabilities. The presence of translational degrees of freedom for the measuring apparatus affects the probabilities of measurement outcomes in the same way that a mixed state for the measured system would. Examination of a measurement scenario involving several observers illustrates the consistency of the model with perceived spatial localization of the measuring apparatus.Comment: 34 pp., no figs. Introduction, discussion revised. Material tangential to main point remove

Tone from the Top in Risk Management: A Complementarity Perspective on How Control Systems Influence Risk Awareness

Prompted by the weaknesses of standardized risk management approaches in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, scholars, regulators, and practitioners alike emphasize the importance of creating a risk-aware culture in organizations. Recent insights highlight the special role of tone from the top as crucial driver of risk awareness. In this study, we take a systems-perspective on control system design to investigate the role of tone from the top in creating risk awareness. In particular, we argue that both interactive and diagnostic use of budgets and performance measures interact with tone from the top in managing risk awareness. Our results show that interactive control strengthens the effect of tone from the top on risk awareness, while tone from the top and diagnostic control are, on average, not interrelated with regard to creating risk awareness. To shed light on the boundary conditions of the proposed interdependencies, we further investigate whether the predicted interdependencies are sensitive to the level of perceived environmental uncertainty. We find that the effect of tone from the top and interactive control becomes significantly stronger in a situation of high perceived environmental uncertainty. Most interestingly, tone from the top and diagnostic control are complements with regard to risk awareness in settings of low perceived environmental uncertainty and substitutes at high levels of perceived environmental uncertainty.Series: Department of Strategy and Innovation Working Paper Serie