Coverage of emotion recognition for common wearable biosensors

The present research proposes a novel emotion recognition framework for the computer prediction of human emotions using common wearable biosensors. Emotional perception promotes specific patterns of biological responses in the human body and this can be sensed and used to predict emotions using only biomedical measurements. Based on theoretical and empirical psychophysiological research, the foundation of autonomic specificity facilitates the establishment of a strong background for recognising human emotions using machine learning on physiological patterning. However, a systematic way of choosing the physiological data covering the elicited emotional responses for recognising the target emotions is not obvious. The current study demonstrates through experimental measurements the coverage of emotion recognition using common off-the-shelf wearable biosesnors based on the synchronisation between audiovisual stimuli and the corresponding physiological responses. The work forms the basis of validating the hypothesis for emotional state recognition in the literature, and presents coverage of the use of common wearable biosensors coupled with a novel preprocessing algorithm to demonstrate the practical prediction of the emotional states of wearers

Environmental influences on communication development: Implications for children with neurodevelopmental communication impairments

At the intersection of clinical neuroscience and communication sciences and disorders, this dissertation provides a compilation of studies aimed at examining contextual influences on children's communication development and the implications of this work for children with neurodevelopmental communication impairments. As discussed in Chapter 1, the present work is grounded in dynamic systems theory of development and a distributed model of communication, which together emphasize development as a context-dependent dynamic multilevel system that unfolds over time and is shaped by a multitude of factors. Neurodevelopmental communication impairments such as speech sound disorder, language disorder, and autism spectrum disorder affect approximately 1.5 - 16% of children, and are associated with academic, socioemotional, and behavioral difficulties. The work in Chapter 2 directly examines a common form of environmental support for children with neurodevelopmental communication impairments, speech-language therapy. More specifically, it assesses the effectiveness of a multimodal, integrated speech-language intervention in facilitating multisyllabic productions in six children 2-4 years of age with various neurodevelopmental disabilities. It uses single-case and within-subject experimental designs to understand individual trajectories and shape clinical practice. As a complement to the behavioral intervention, Chapter 3 of this thesis explores the novel use of noninvasive biosensors to measure electrical conductance across the skin during speech-language and occupational therapy as a potential support for communication in eight children, ages 2-11, with neurodevelopmental disabilities. Skin conductance is mediated by sympathetic cholinergic sudomotor nerve fibers and has been used extensively in the study of psychological states and processes. However, traditionally its use has been limited to highly controlled laboratory settings, whereas the use of such technology within the context of daily activities remains a major challenge. Next, as a means to examine a broader range of environmental influences, Chapter 4 uses a longitudinal monozygotic (MZ) twin difference method, a genetically sensitive design, to examine four candidate nonshared environmental influences on children's language development: birthweight, breastfeeding, and home reading exposure and parenting (M age = 7). This study aims to identify nonshared environmental effects on later language development, at mean ages 10 (n = 115 pairs) and 12 years (n = 108 pairs), across two assessment contexts: standardized testing and narrative language sampling. Finally, Chapter 5 concludes this dissertation by highlighting the need to study a broader range of contextual factors influencing communication development and its associated mechanisms, incorporate diverse and complementary methodologies, and develop effective communication supports for children with neurodevelopmental communication impairments

Towards the improvement of sheep welfare: Exploring the use of qualitative behavioural assessment (QBA) for the monitoring and assessment of sheep

Challenges faced by sheep in Australia in terms of disease, injury and management may compromise not only health and productivity but also welfare. These challenges represent a growing concern for both producers and the public. Hence there is an obvious need for the development of measures to allow producers, who may have limited access to stock or are constrained by time and/or resource availability, to monitor their sheep. There is a clear benefit to producers being able to readily identify animals whose welfare might be compromised and thus are in need of further care. However, the assessment of animal welfare is challenging under commercial conditions and to date, few measures are available to help producers recognise animals in compromised welfare states. Qualitative behavioural assessment (QBA) is an approach that captures the expressive behaviour of an animal, through the integration and summary of details of behavioural events, posture, and movement. In this way, QBA represents a valuable tool that offers insight into the physical and physiological aspects of animal welfare, and when used in conjunction with other key measures helps to provide a more complete and comprehensive picture of an animal’s welfare state. Furthermore, QBA should be used together with other welfare measures, where it has been proposed to guide the interpretation of welfare data. As a welfare tool, QBA has been applied to assess the behavioural expression in numerous livestock species including pigs and cattle, however, this methodology is less well studied in sheep and more work is needed to validate QBA for practical application. The aim of the research described in this thesis was to investigate whether the QBA methodology could be applied to assess the welfare of sheep subject to various welfare issues relevant to the Australian sheep industry. To this end, over four experimental chapters, QBA was applied to video footage captured of sheep in various states of compromised welfare, including those suffering from common injury and diseases; lameness, inappetence, flystrike, and gastro-intestinal parasitism, and those experiencing pain caused by routine husbandry procedures (ear tagging, castration, mulesing, and tail docking). Moreover, in two experimental chapters (Chapters 4 & 6), video footage was captured of sheep in positive welfare states (reduced gastro-intestinal parasite burden, and habituation to human presence). This video footage was also analysed quantitatively and other welfare measures including those of health/disease status, physical condition and locomotive activity were collected for validation purposes in each study. Over four experimental chapters, it was demonstrated that observers, blind to experimental procedures and treatments, can reach a significant consensus in their interpretation and assessment of the behavioural expression of sheep, and that these assessments can relate meaningfully to the welfare state of the animal. In Chapter 3, observers were able to distinguish between flystruck and non-flystruck sheep using the QBA methodology, and the behavioural expression scores given to each sheep corresponded to the severity of strike and the condition of the wool. In Chapter 4, observers identified differences in the behavioural expression of sheep that related to the severity of gastro-intestinal parasitism (subclinical v. clinical). Moreover, it was discovered that the treatment of sheep to lessen gastro-intestinal parasite burden altered the behavioural expression of parasitised sheep. A significant consensus was also reached amongst observers in the assessment of lambs subject to routine husbandry procedures (ear tagging, castration, mulesing, and tail docking) in Chapter 5. Observers were able to distinguish lambs that were subject to these painful husbandry procedures and were administered either a placebo or analgesics (Tri-Solfen® and meloxicam), from the control lambs which were only restrained. Hence suggesting that the pain caused by these husbandry procedures alters the behavioural patterns and demeanour of lambs in a way that is identifiable to observers using the QBA methodology. Lastly, when observers viewed video footage of sheep traversing a walk-over-weigh (WoW) apparatus in Chapter 6, they were able to distinguish sheep that were either lame or habituated to the test apparatus and human presence, from the control animals. However, in this Chapter, observers were not able to distinguish between all treatment groups evaluated based on their behavioural expression, specifically differences in the demeanour of inappetent and control sheep was not evident, nor were observers able to distinguish between lame and habituated sheep. In summary, the research presented in this thesis indicates that assessments of behavioural expression can be used under most of those conditions investigated to distinguish sheep in poor welfare states due to injury or disease, from those that are healthy. Furthermore, it appears that observers can reliably identify differences in behavioural expression related to positive welfare states. This work has detailed the behavioural expression of sheep as perceived by observers and has led to a greater understanding of the behavioural expression of sheep in different welfare states. It appears that through the assessment of demeanour or body language, QBA offers both relevant and valid assessments which may help producers gain an insight into the welfare state of their sheep. It is suggested that when used in conjunction with other select behavioural measures, QBA may represent a valuable tool for producers to improve the welfare of sheep in their care

Exploring Personalized Vibrotactile and Thermal Patterns for Affect Regulation

The growing HCI interest in wellbeing has led to the emerging area of haptics for affect regulation. In such technologies, distinct haptic patterns are usually designed by researchers; however, current work provides a limited reflection on the rationale for the implemented patterns or the choice of haptic modality. We also know little about how people may benefit from engagement in designing such patterns and what design principles underpin them. We explored vibrotactile and thermal modalities to address these gaps and report on a study with 23 participants. These created haptic patterns for affect regulation during stress elicitation. Findings indicate that subjective and objective measures of anxiety and stress were lower in participants who received haptic patterns than those who did not, and highlighted key experiential qualities of vibrotactile and thermal patterns, and their potential for affect regulation. These open up new design opportunities for affect regulation technologies, including supporting implicit affect regulation through entrainment of slow bodily rhythms, decoupling it from predominant vibrotactile modality, designing thermal biofeedback patterns, and supporting personalized and adaptive patterns

Adaptive Non-Immersive VR Environment for Eliciting Fear of Cockroaches: A Physiology-Driven Approach Combined with 3D-TV Exposure

Non-immersive VR environments are related to the least interactive application of VR techniques, such that interaction with the VR environment can occur commonly by 3D-TV without full immersion into the environment. This study presents how 3D-TV exposure combined with physiology recording can elicit fear of cockroaches among individuals with different levels of fear. Thirty-six participants, set apart into three fear groups (low vs. moderate vs. high), were exposed to VR environment with cockroaches for 4 minutes while recording and using cardiac activity as input to the VR environment. Results revealed significant effects on self-report measures and heart rate between different fear groups. Moreover, participants with higher levels of fear were more likely to trigger cockroaches into the scenario due to their cardiac acceleration. Overall results suggest that our physiology-driven VR environment is valid for fear elicitation while having potential use in therapeutic domain

Investigation Into the Physical Environmental Correlates of Aggressive Behaviour in Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDDs)

Background: Physical environmental influences on childhood aggression in children with neurodevelopmental disabilities is a severely under-researched research locus. The aim of this doctorate was to elucidate specific associations between children’s developmental environment and aggressive behaviours, using this evidence to reciprocally inform an experimental psychology project to investigate underlying mechanisms. To explore these effects, the programme of study was broadly divided into three reflexive workstreams using diverse research methodologies. Methods: In the first workstream, I conducted a systematic review of the current literature examining physical environmental influences on childhood aggressive behaviours in both typically developing children (aged 0 – 18) and those diagnosed with NDDs. The literature on children with NDDs was substantially limited in comparison to peers without NDDs. The second workstream was comprised of a large-scale secondary data analysis (multiply imputed growth curve modelling) to investigate environmental influences on conduct problems across early development. I used data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) to assess how physical environmental metrics, such as neighbourhood greenspace, air pollution, household crowding, and presence of home damp influenced the development and severity of conduct problems in children with (n=8013) and without NDDs (n=155) between the ages of 3 – 11 years. Finally, building upon evidence from the previous two workstreams, I designed a proof-of-principle psychological experiment to examine the influence of urban nature exposure on children with NDDs. Specifically, simulating a real-world urban greenspace using a Person-Environment-Activity Research Laboratory (PEARL). This facilitated the ability to manipulate and isolate individual environmental aspects of urban nature exposure (light, sound, and projection). Following ethical review and approval, I recruited 3 children (100% male) with mild and moderate intellectual disability aged between 12 – 15 years (Mean age = 14) attending a local school for children with special educational needs. We examined their physiological reactions to four simulated urban green space aspects (light, sound, landscape projections, and vegetation) against a baseline control condition. I also collected demographic information on parent reported aggressive behaviours, exposure to local greenspace(s), physical and mental health history, medication, and adaptive behaviours (ABAS-3). This research lays the foundation for future large scale experimental paradigms that can disentangle the effects of nature exposure in these children, with the aim of translating these findings into real world therapeutic design interventions and relevant policy changes to improve the quality of the built environment for these children. Findings: From articles retrieved from my systematic review I found evidence for the beneficial influences of nature in both populations, and simultaneously negative effects of both noise and air pollution in typically developing children only. Evidence for other environmental aspects such as crowding, music, urbanicity, meteorology, and interior design had either insufficient or inconsistent evidence to extrapolate concreate conclusions. More evidence on the effect of these exposures on child aggression outcomes is recommended. From the analysis of the MCS cohort I found various sociodemographic factors (ethnicity, sex, poverty, family structure, maternal distress) and internal residential conditions were associated with increased childhood conduct problem trajectories in both groups of children. I also discovered potential evidence of a moderating influence effect of intellectual disability on the relationship between spatial density and conduct problems. From the final experimental project, I report preliminary evidence for the influence of urban greenspaces to reduce physiological arousal in children with complex neurodisability profiles. Initial evidence for the hierarchical nature of urban greenspace sensorial aspects was reported, for example: that urban nature soundscapes maybe a more influential environmental stimuli than lighting or landscape projections. Conclusion: Drawing together multi-disciplinary research methodologies facilitated the ability to identify disparities in research examining physical environmental determinants of aggression in neurodiverse child populations. Reciprocally, the systematic review and secondary data analysis contributed incrementally to filling this lacuna of research. Using findings from these two work streams, I identified that exploring the potentially therapeutic influences of urban nature exposure on children with neurodevelopmental disorders may provide novel indicators of its aetiological mechanisms. I reported original findings supporting these research aims, elucidating the potential hierarchical nature of urban greenspace elements. This was also the first study of its kind reporting the potential for simulated urban park spaces to reduce physiological arousal in neurodivergent children with aggressive behavioural difficulties

Design of a Multimodal Mixed Reality Work Environment with Wearable Technology

Issues relating to health and well-being at work have risen in prominence, exerting negative effects upon both individuals and organizations. Two main contributing factors are a lack of awareness of one's bodily status and a lack of accessible and effective adjustment mechanisms. Through a comprehensive literature review in the fields of Physiology and Biosensors, Mixed Reality, and Environmental Psychology, this study examines the impacts of environmental attributes and investigates how technology can be leveraged to provide solutions for coping with changes in bodily status caused by internal or external stressors. To address the problem, this study proposes and develops a hybrid wearable and Mixed Reality system prototype that enhances awareness of bodily status and provides mediation. This prototype can adapt to the individual's real-time biometric data through a wearable glove, and provide personalized feedback in a Multimodal Mixed Reality working environment. A small-scale user testing was conducted and has yielded positive feedback. Ultimately, this study highlights that the implementation of a wearable and Mixed Reality system has the potential to contribute to a healthier and more productive workplace for individuals and organizations alike

2018 Annual Research Symposium Abstract Book

2018 annual volume of abstracts for science research projects conducted by students at Trinity College