The Cognitive Chronometric Architecture of Word and Picture Naming: Evidence from Onset Response and Duration

Reading is a fundamental skill for functioning in today’s society. Given the breadth of activities that require reading, it is important to develop a comprehensive model of basic reading processes. Furthermore, considering that many pictures co-appear with words in everyday life, it is imperative to understand the nature of picture identification processes, as well as how they interact with reading processes. As such, the present thesis focuses on developing a model of reading and extending it to include picture processing. In the present research, experiments on word identification (Experiments 1 and 2) examined onset reaction time (RT) in a word naming task using an additive factors method. The pattern of additive and overadditive joint effects on naming RT among Instructions (INST: name all, name words), Word Frequency (WF: log10HAL), Semantic Neighbourhood Density (SND: Inverse Ncount), and Word Type (WT: regular, exception) supported a cognitive chronometric architecture consisting of at least two cascaded stages of processing, with the orthographic lexical system as the locus of the INST x WF and the INST x SND interactions, and the phonological output system as the locus of the WF x WT and the SND x WT interactions. Additivity between INST and WT supports the notion that these variables affect separable systems, and a WF x SND interaction supports a common locus of their effects. These results support a dual-route cascaded model over parallel processing models of basic reading. We also examined response duration (RD) in these data by recording and hand-marking vocal responses, which provides evidence that reading processes are ongoing even after the initiation of a vocal response, and supports the notion that the more lexically a word is read, the shorter the RD. As such, the effects of WT and INST on RD were opposite to their effects on RT. Given the dissociating effects between RT and RD, these results provide new challenges to all models of basic reading processes. Experiments on picture and word identification (Experiments 3 and 4) involved localizing common systems and connections between these processes, and served to extend the dual-route model of reading. These experiments examined naming RT and RD for exception and regular words, and their corresponding pictures. The pattern of joint effects on RT among Format (pictures, words), Picture-Orthography Agreement, WF, and WT (regular, exception) supported a triple-route cascaded model. The results suggest the orthographic lexical system is accessed for both picture and word naming, and demonstrated a dissociation between regular and exception words on RT versus RD, whereas pictures consistently yielded an exception item advantage for both measures. Experiment 4 examined Arabic digits and their corresponding number words, and found that Arabic digits produce shorter RDs than number words. In general, the results suggest that the picture and word identification systems are strongly coupled between the picture memory system and the orthographic lexical system, particularly for items that rely on “whole-word” lexical representations. We argue that RD provides a wider window for exploring cognition, and a converging measure of lexical processing, which must be considered when studying basic identification processes of any stimulus type. The development of a comprehensive model of basic reading processes will help identify behavioural markers of normal reading processes, and will serve to advance research on basic word recognition. In addition, given that a broad definition of ‘literacy’ should include picture processing, the development of a model that includes picture processing will serve to advance research on how reading and picture processing interact with each other, which may be critical for individuals with low literacy skills

Scene Image Classification and Retrieval

Scene image classification and retrieval not only have a great impact on scene image management, but also they can offer immeasurable assistance to other computer vision problems, such as image completion, human activity analysis, object recognition etc. Intuitively scene identification is correlated to recognition of objects or image regions, which prompts the notion to apply local features to scene categorization applications. Even though the adoption of local features in these tasks has yielded promising results, a global perception on scene images is also well-conditioned in cognitive science studies. Since the global description of a scene imposes less computational burden, it is favoured by some scholars despite its less discriminative capacity. Recent studies on global scene descriptors have even yielded classification performance that rivals results obtained by local approaches. The primary objective of this work is to tackle two of the limitations of existing global scene features: representation ineffectiveness and computational complexity. The thesis proposes two global scene features that seek to represent finer scene structures and reduce the dimensionality of feature vectors. Experimental results show that the proposed scene features exceed the performance of existing methods. The thesis is roughly divided into two parts. The first three chapters give an overview on the topic of scene image classification and retrieval methods, with a special attention to the most effective global scene features. In chapter 4, a novel scene descriptor, called ARP-GIST, is proposed and evaluated against the existing methods to show its ability to detect finer scene structures. In chapter 5, a low-dimensional scene feature, GIST-LBP, is proposed. In conjunction with a block ranking approach, the GIST-LBP feature is tested on a standard scene dataset to demonstrate its state-of-the-art performance

Computer analysis of EEG data for a normative library Final report, Sep. 24, 1963 - Jan. 31, 1966

Computer analysis of electroencephalographic data for development of normative criteri

The ELFIN mission

The Electron Loss and Fields Investigation with a Spatio-Temporal Ambiguity-Resolving option (ELFIN-STAR, or heretoforth simply: ELFIN) mission comprises two identical 3-Unit (3U) CubeSats on a polar (∼93∘ inclination), nearly circular, low-Earth (∼450 km altitude) orbit. Launched on September 15, 2018, ELFIN is expected to have a >2.5 year lifetime. Its primary science objective is to resolve the mechanism of storm-time relativistic electron precipitation, for which electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves are a prime candidate. From its ionospheric vantage point, ELFIN uses its unique pitch-angle-resolving capability to determine whether measured relativistic electron pitch-angle and energy spectra within the loss cone bear the characteristic signatures of scattering by EMIC waves or whether such scattering may be due to other processes. Pairing identical ELFIN satellites with slowly-variable along-track separation allows disambiguation of spatial and temporal evolution of the precipitation over minutes-to-tens-of-minutes timescales, faster than the orbit period of a single low-altitude satellite (Torbit ∼ 90 min). Each satellite carries an energetic particle detector for electrons (EPDE) that measures 50 keV to 5 MeV electrons with Δ E/E 1 MeV. This broad energy range of precipitation indicates that multiple waves are providing scattering concurrently. Many observed events show significant backscattered fluxes, which in the past were hard to resolve by equatorial spacecraft or non-pitch-angle-resolving ionospheric missions. These observations suggest that the ionosphere plays a significant role in modifying magnetospheric electron fluxes and wave-particle interactions. Routine data captures starting in February 2020 and lasting for at least another year, approximately the remainder of the mission lifetime, are expected to provide a very rich dataset to address questions even beyond the primary mission science objective.Published versio

The Use Of Bioacoustics In Anuran Taxonomy: Theory, Terminology, Methods And Recommendations For Best Practice

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)Vocalizations of anuran amphibians have received much attention in studies of behavioral ecology and physiology, but also provide informative characters for identifying and delimiting species. We here review the terminology and variation of frog calls from a perspective of integrative taxonomy, and provide hands-on protocols for recording, analyzing, comparing, interpreting and describing these sounds. Our focus is on advertisement calls, which serve as premating isolation mechanisms and, therefore, convey important taxonomic information. We provide recommendations for terminology of frog vocalizations, with call, note and pulse being the fundamental subunits to be used in descriptions and comparisons. However, due to the complexity and diversity of these signals, an unequivocal application of the terms call and note can be challenging. We therefore provide two coherent concepts that either follow a note-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units of sound as notes, and their entirety as call) or a call-centered approach (defining uninterrupted units as call whenever they are separated by long silent intervals) in terminology. Based on surveys of literature, we show that numerous call traits can be highly variable within and between individuals of one species. Despite idiosyncrasies of species and higher taxa, the duration of calls or notes, pulse rate within notes, and number of pulses per note appear to be more static within individuals and somewhat less affected by temperature. Therefore, these variables might often be preferable as taxonomic characters over call rate or note rate, which are heavily influenced by various factors. Dominant frequency is also comparatively static and only weakly affected by temperature, but depends strongly on body size. As with other taxonomic characters, strong call divergence is typically indicative of species-level differences, whereas call similarities of two populations are no evidence for them being conspecific. Taxonomic conclusions can especially be drawn when the general advertisement call structure of two candidate species is radically different and qualitative call differences are thus observed. On the other hand, quantitative differences in call traits might substantially vary within and among conspecific populations, and require careful evaluation and analysis. We provide guidelines for the taxonomic interpretation of advertisement call differences in sympatric and allopatric situations, and emphasize the need for an integrative use of multiple datasets (bio-acoustics, morphology, genetics), particularly for allopatric scenarios. We show that small-sized frogs often emit calls with frequency components in the ultrasound spectrum, although it is unlikely that these high frequencies are of biological relevance for the majority of them, and we illustrate that detection of upper harmonics depends also on recording distance because higher frequencies are attenuated more strongly. Bioacoustics remains a prime approach in integrative taxonomy of anurans if uncertainty due to possible intraspecific variation and technical artifacts is adequately considered and acknowledged.425111124Alexander von Humboldt fellowshipFonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen [FWO12A7614N/12A7617N]National Council of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq)Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) [302589/2013-9, 2011/52070-7, 2013/50741-7, 2014/23388-7, 2014/50342-8]CAPESConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES

Intracranial markers of conscious face perception in humans

Investigations of the neural basis of consciousness have greatly benefited from protocols that involve the presentation of stimuli at perceptual threshold, enabling the assessment of the patterns of brain activity that correlate with conscious perception, independently of any changes in sensory input. However, the comparison between perceived and unperceived trials would be expected to reveal not only the core neural substrate of a particular conscious perception, but also aspects of brain activity that facilitate, hinder or tend to follow conscious perception. We take a step towards the resolution of these confounds by combining an analysis of neural responses observed during the presentation of faces partially masked by Continuous Flash Suppression, and those responses observed during the unmasked presentation of faces and other images in the same subjects. We employed multidimensional classifiers to decode physical properties of stimuli or perceptual states from spectrotemporal representations of electrocorticographic signals (1071 channels in 5 subjects). Neural activity in certain face responsive areas located in both the fusiform gyrus and in the lateral-temporal/inferior-parietal cortex discriminated seen vs. unseen faces in the masked paradigm and upright faces vs. other categories in the unmasked paradigm. However, only the former discriminated upright vs. inverted faces in the unmasked paradigm. Our results suggest a prominent role for the fusiform gyrus in the configural perception of faces, and possibly other objects that are holistically processed. More generally, we advocate comparative analysis of neural recordings obtained during different, but related, experimental protocols as a promising direction towards elucidating the functional specificities of the patterns of neural activation that accompany our conscious experiences

Individual contributions to group behaviour in the cooperatively breeding southern ground-hornbill Bucorvus leadbeateri

Cooperative breeding, in which individuals other than breeders contribute to raising offspring, has been the focus of much scientific research over the past decades. Why do some individuals help to raise offspring that are not their own? In birds, cooperative breeding is found mainly in harsh regions with greater environmental variability, such that individuals might do better to help relatives than attempt to breed themselves. However, in some bird families cooperative breeding is instead associated with stable and benign environments, suggesting that species may form cooperative groups for different reasons. Most studies have focused on the benefits that additional group members bring to offspring, by increasing provisioning rates, nestling survival, and overall reproductive output. These benefits have been suggested to mitigate the effects of harsh climatic conditions and to be particularly important in the face of anthropogenic climate change, during which increases in temperature extremes and interannual rainfall variability are expected to push species' tolerance to the limit. However, other advantages of group living have been less often considered; for example, collective territory defence is common in cooperative breeders and ensures exclusive access to crucial resources such as food, nesting sites, and mates. A better understanding of the diverse factors favouring cooperative behaviour can offer insights as to why, and in what environmental conditions, social behaviour has evolved, and whether and how it might help animal populations to cope with environmental change. Therefore, the aims of this thesis were to investigate how individuals within cooperative groups contribute to reproduction and territory defence in an atypical cooperative breeder, the southern ground-hornbill Bucorvus leadbeateri. The large body size and exceptionally long lifespan of ground-hornbills leads to a “slow” life-history strategy, providing a striking contrast to most wellstudied avian cooperative breeders, which tend to be small, relatively short-lived passerines. Furthermore, while the hornbill family is usually associated with mesic, stable environments, groundhornbills inhabit semi-arid, fluctuating environments. Studying them thus may shed light on why cooperative breeding might be favoured in both harsh, fluctuating environments, as well as benign, stable environments. I use a combination of my own data collected over five years (2017‒2022) and long-term data collected from the APNR Southern Ground-Hornbill Project (2000‒2022) to test the effects of environmental and social factors (climatic conditions, group size and composition, and age structure of group members) on reproductive and territorial cooperative behaviour. The first two data chapters focus on how group members influence provisioning efforts and reproductive outcomes, and whether group members of different ages can mitigate the effects of harsh climatic conditions. My results showed that high temperatures and low rainfall had generally negative effects on reproduction, and that cooperative breeding provided some reproductive benefits, but did not act as a buffer to provisioning rates or reproductive outputs. Specifically, we showed that adult males had the highest provisioning rates and provisioned larger items, but the additive care they provided did not buffer the effects of high temperatures. Additionally, we showed that hot and dry conditions were associated with decreased breeding probability, later laying dates, and decreased nestling body mass, and that group composition did not significantly mitigate these negative effects. Instead, our results suggested that group or territory quality may be a more important factor in determining reproductive success. The second two data chapters focus on territory defence. Specifically, I asked how different group members contributed to the species' characteristic deep booming chorus vocalisations used to advertise territories, and how responses to territorial intrusions were mediated by caller identity and group size. I showed that calls were significantly different between the sexes, and that females produced sequences of calls that formed unique melodies that could be automatically assigned to the correct individual with a 94% success rate. Melodies are an effective way of signalling individual identity in long distance communication, as this acoustic information travels well when composed of low-pitched sounds. Therefore, since each group generally contains only one adult female, groups can be identified by the female's signature. Next, I showed that there were no clear effects of intruder group identity on the responses of territory holders, but found that group size was positively associated with aggressive responses, indicating that group living may provide resource defence benefits. Overall, the findings in this thesis indicated that group living provided benefits for territory defence and to a lesser extent, reproduction, and that individual contributions of different group members varied between different cooperative behaviours. Despite ground-hornbills inhabiting semiarid regions with harsh climatic conditions, the presence of additional group members of different ages during reproduction were insufficient to mitigate the negative effects of high temperature and low rainfall. However, the likely benefits provided by additional helpers to territory defence suggest that the ecology, longevity, and slow-development of ground-hornbills may render the presence of additional helpers less critical for reproduction, but more important for resource defence. Further research into other group behaviours such as predator vigilance, foraging and hunting, and energy conservation would provide additional insights into other benefits that cooperative breeding might provide. This study implies that a species' life-history strategy may be an important mechanism determining the benefits individuals receive from breeding cooperatively, and so help to explain the ecological correlates and diversity of forms taken by cooperative breeding, including the remarkable biology of the southern ground-hornbill

NBS monograph

From Introduction: "This report is the first of a series intended to provide a selective overview of research and development efforts and requirements in the somewhat overlapping fields of the computer and information sciences and technologies. The projected series of reports will attempt to outline the probable range of R & D activities in the computer and information sciences and technologies through selective reviews of the literature and to develop a reasonable consensus with respect to the opinions of workers in these and potentially related fields as to areas of continuing R & D concern for research program planning or review in these areas.

Biometrics

Biometrics uses methods for unique recognition of humans based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits. In computer science, particularly, biometrics is used as a form of identity access management and access control. It is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance. The book consists of 13 chapters, each focusing on a certain aspect of the problem. The book chapters are divided into three sections: physical biometrics, behavioral biometrics and medical biometrics. The key objective of the book is to provide comprehensive reference and text on human authentication and people identity verification from both physiological, behavioural and other points of view. It aims to publish new insights into current innovations in computer systems and technology for biometrics development and its applications. The book was reviewed by the editor Dr. Jucheng Yang, and many of the guest editors, such as Dr. Girija Chetty, Dr. Norman Poh, Dr. Loris Nanni, Dr. Jianjiang Feng, Dr. Dongsun Park, Dr. Sook Yoon and so on, who also made a significant contribution to the book