721 research outputs found

    Impact of Head Injury on Cognitive Functioning and Social Cognition in UK-based Female Rugby Players

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    Introduction: Increasing attention is focused on the potential long-term impact of sports-related mild traumatic brain injuries (SRmTBI). Evidence suggests poorer cognitive and psychosocial outcomes in SRmTBI, including increased risk of developing certain neurodegenerative conditions. Research to date has focused on males neglecting female athletes, despite evidence suggesting sex-specific differences in frequency and recovery of SRmTBI. Aims: To explore the association between SRmTBI and cognitive functioning with a specific focus on social cognition in female rugby players. Method: A quantitative cross-sectional design was employed allowing for thirteen female rugby players with a history of SRmTBI to complete a neuropsychological battery of general cognitive functioning and social cognition. Results: Weaknesses relative to normative data, were found for domains of social cognition including theory of mind and cognitive empathy, despite typical scores on domains of general cognitive functioning relative to normative data. Group level analysis confirmed poorer performance for theory of mind and cognitive empathy measures in contrast to overall performance on domains of general cognitive functioning. Discussion: Findings from this preliminary study indicate that measures of social cognition should be incorporated into routine assessment and management of SRmTBI. Further research is needed to investigate the association between social cognition and SRmTBI

    Running to Your Own Beat:An Embodied Approach to Auditory Display Design

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    Personal fitness trackers represent a multi-billion-dollar industry, predicated on devices for assisting users in achieving their health goals. However, most current products only offer activity tracking and measurement of performance metrics, which do not ultimately address the need for technique related assistive feedback in a cost-effective way. Addressing this gap in the design space for assistive run training interfaces is also crucial in combating the negative effects of Forward Head Position, a condition resulting from mobile device use, with a rapid growth of incidence in the population. As such, Auditory Displays (AD) offer an innovative set of tools for creating such a device for runners. ADs present the opportunity to design interfaces which allow natural unencumbered motion, detached from the mobile or smartwatch screen, thus making them ideal for providing real-time assistive feedback for correcting head posture during running. However, issues with AD design have centred around overall usability and user-experience, therefore, in this thesis an ecological and embodied approach to AD design is presented as a vehicle for designing an assistive auditory interface for runners, which integrates seamlessly into their everyday environments

    Representation in Neural Networks

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    Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are computational systems that were inspired by biological neural networks in the brain. ANNs are trained to transform input into task appropriate output using learning algorithms rather than having all relevant aspects of the task explicitly encoded with symbolic rules. Despite the increasingly impressive performance and wide spread usage of ANNs in artificial intelligence (Krizhevsky et al.,2012., LeCun, et. al., 2015., Senjnowski, 2018., Floridi & Chiriatti, 2020), their operation remains somewhat mysterious. There is no widely accepted and comprehensive explanation of how these systems represent and process information (Bornstein, 2016., Habbis et. al., 2017, Schwartz-Ziv & Tishby, 2017). Approaches to explaining the operation of relatively simple neural network models have been discussed by philosophers since the inception of connectionist cognitive science. However, these discussions often relied on analysing the behaviour of a very small number of actual ANNs and there are important issues that still haven’t been resolved. I address this by using empirical data from my own unique analysis of a broad range of novel ANNs to evaluate some key philosophical approaches to understanding and comparing neural network models. I focus on structural-resemblance approaches and there has been a shift towards using structural approaches in cognitive neuroscience (Williams & Colling 2018., Boone & Piccinini, 2015., Kriegeskorte et al., 2008., Raizada and Conolly, 2012). Structural-resemblance explanations of representation rely on the idea that structural relations between representations might systematically correspond to the structural organisation of relevant aspects of the represented domain. My empirical work begins by extending Laakso and Cottrell’s (2000) method for assessing representation similarity in ANNs to explicitly compare the relevant structural relations between representations across distinct ANNs with diversely configured parameters. I apply this method to evaluate structural approaches to understanding representation in neural networks described by Churchland (1998,1989,1996,2007,2012) and O’Brien and Opie (2004,2006), along with other approaches including clustering (Shea, 2007) and mutual information (Azhar, 2017). My analysis of relatively simple facial recognition ANNs reveals that the structural relations between represented facial categories can vary between different ANNs and may reflect artificial relations rather than intuitive concepts of facial similarity. However, my analysis of a broad range of ANNs categorising various aspects of colour reveals that they develop robust and consistent task-dependent structural representations that do match the relational structure of corresponding human colour judgements. The task relevant structural arrangement of representations that are developed by these networks provides empirical support for the use of structural-resemblance approaches to explaining how ANNs represent and process information.Thesis (MPhil) -- University of Adelaide, School of Humanities, 202

    Keep Your Eyes above the Ball: Investigation of Virtual Reality (VR) Assistive Gaming for Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) Visual Training

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    Humans are beyond all visual beings since most of the outside information is gathered through the visual system. When the aging process starts, visual functional damages become more and more common and the risk of developing visual impairment is higher. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the main afflictions that leads to severe damage to the optical system due to the aging process. The ones affected lose the ability to use the central part of vision, essential for accurate visual information processing. Even if less accurate, peripheral vision remains unaffected, hence medical experts have developed training procedures to train patients to use peripheral vision instead to navigate their environment and continue their daily lives. This type of training is called eccentric viewing. However, there are several shortcomings in current approaches, such as not being engaging or individualizable enough nor cost and time-effective. The main scope of this dissertation was to find out if more engaging and individualizable methods can be used for peripheral training of AMD patients. The current work used virtual reality (VR) gaming to deliver AMD training; the first time such an approach was used for eccentric viewing training. In combination with eye-tracking, real-time individualized assistance was also achieved. Thanks to an integrated eye-tracker in the headset, concentric gaze-contingent stimuli were used to redirect the eyes toward an eccentric location. The concentric feature allowed participants to choose freely and individually their peripheral focus point. One study investigated the feasibility a VR system for individualized visual training of ophthalmic patients, two studies investigated two types of peripheral stimuli (three spatial cues and two optical distortions) and the last study was a case study looking into the feasibility of such an approach for a patient with late AMD. Changes in gaze directionality were observed in all the last three studies for one specific spatial cue, a concentric ring. In accordance with the literature, the gaze was directed spontaneously toward the most effective peripheral position. The last study additionally proved gaming feasible for future testing of the elderly AMD population. The current work opened the road to more individualized and engaging interventions for eccentric viewing training for late AMD

    Brain-based versus external memory stores: influencing factors and underlying neural correlates

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    Technological advancements provide people with more opportunity to rely on external resources to support cognitive processes. These associated processes are defined as cognitive offloading (Risko & Gilbert, 2016). The current thesis aims to explore the psychological processes and neural mechanism of cognitive offloading. In Experiment 1, we developed an ‘optimal reminder’ task by calculating whether people were biased towards using reminders or their own memory, compared with an optimal strategy. If participants were biased, the second purpose of Experiment 1 was to assess whether such bias could be reduced through metacognitive advice. Results revealed people were biased towards setting reminders, and the bias was eliminated by metacognitive advice. Experiment 2 used the optimal reminder task to evaluate the effect of ageing on cognitive offloading. This showed that older people set more reminders than younger adults, but were less biased towards setting reminders when the impaired memory performance of older people was taken into account. Experiment 3 investigated the effects of three factors: delay length, metacognitive judgement, and clock revealability, on cognitive offloading in a time-based task (e.g. remembering to press a specific button after 10 seconds). We found participants’ use of reminders was based on both the characteristics of the task (i.e., delay and clock revealability) and metacognitive judgements. Experiment 4 used fMRI to evaluate whether an instruction to offload information to an external reminder triggered different brain activity to an instruction to forget or remember. Results showed that brain activity associated with an offload cue was similar, but not identical, to brain activity associated with a forget cue. We conclude by suggesting possible applications of the results to finding methods for improving intention offloading and avoiding memory failures

    The Cognitive and Neural Correlates of Rich and Vivid Memory for Real World Events

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    Episodic memories are composed of rich, perceptual details, and are re-experienced from a specific visual perspective. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the processes which allow us to remember in a rich and vivid way and the neural underpinnings of rich, successful retrieval. The behavioural studies conducted in Chapters 2 and 3 used a newly created video stimulus set, depicting real-world events. In Chapter 2, these stimuli were used to investigate retrieval differences following the encoding of unisensory (audio, visual), compared to multisensory (audio-visual) versions of the videos. Accuracy, vividness and amount of descriptive details retrieved were not positively affected by the presentation of multisensory stimuli. Chapter 3 compared the effects of encoding the videos from a field or an observer perspective on subsequent retrieval performance. No performance differences were observed when comparing the two perspectives, but observer memories contained a greater amount of sensory details, compared to field ones. Chapter 4 reviewed existing literature on the role of the angular gyrus in episodic memory retrieval and proposed that the angular gyrus is sensitive to the richness of recollected information and amount of details retrieved. This hypothesis was tested in an fMRI study in Chapter 5, focusing on the role of the angular gyrus in the retrieval of autobiographical memories. Results indeed demonstrated a positive relationship between angular gyrus activity and amount of details remembered. This association was seen for the retrieval of both episodic (specific) and semantic (categoric) events. This study also illustrated differential involvement of angular gyrus subregions, PGa and PGp in the retrieval of episodic and semantic memories. Taken together, these chapters outline behavioural processes and neural correlates that support our ability to retrieve memories in a rich and vivid manner, giving us a sense of re-living an event

    Imagining & Sensing: Understanding and Extending the Vocalist-Voice Relationship Through Biosignal Feedback

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    The voice is body and instrument. Third-person interpretation of the voice by listeners, vocal teachers, and digital agents is centred largely around audio feedback. For a vocalist, physical feedback from within the body provides an additional interaction. The vocalist’s understanding of their multi-sensory experiences is through tacit knowledge of the body. This knowledge is difficult to articulate, yet awareness and control of the body are innate. In the ever-increasing emergence of technology which quantifies or interprets physiological processes, we must remain conscious also of embodiment and human perception of these processes. Focusing on the vocalist-voice relationship, this thesis expands knowledge of human interaction and how technology influences our perception of our bodies. To unite these different perspectives in the vocal context, I draw on mixed methods from cog- nitive science, psychology, music information retrieval, and interactive system design. Objective methods such as vocal audio analysis provide a third-person observation. Subjective practices such as micro-phenomenology capture the experiential, first-person perspectives of the vocalists them- selves. Quantitative-qualitative blend provides details not only on novel interaction, but also an understanding of how technology influences existing understanding of the body. I worked with vocalists to understand how they use their voice through abstract representations, use mental imagery to adapt to altered auditory feedback, and teach fundamental practice to others. Vocalists use multi-modal imagery, for instance understanding physical sensations through auditory sensations. The understanding of the voice exists in a pre-linguistic representation which draws on embodied knowledge and lived experience from outside contexts. I developed a novel vocal interaction method which uses measurement of laryngeal muscular activations through surface electromyography. Biofeedback was presented to vocalists through soni- fication. Acting as an indicator of vocal activity for both conscious and unconscious gestures, this feedback allowed vocalists to explore their movement through sound. This formed new perceptions but also questioned existing understanding of the body. The thesis also uncovers ways in which vocalists are in control and controlled by, work with and against their bodies, and feel as a single entity at times and totally separate entities at others. I conclude this thesis by demonstrating a nuanced account of human interaction and perception of the body through vocal practice, as an example of how technological intervention enables exploration and influence over embodied understanding. This further highlights the need for understanding of the human experience in embodied interaction, rather than solely on digital interpretation, when introducing technology into these relationships
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