A human computer interactions framework for biometric user identification

Computer assisted functionalities and services have saturated our world becoming such an integral part of our daily activities that we hardly notice them. In this study we are focusing on enhancements in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) that can be achieved by natural user recognition embedded in the employed interaction models. Natural identification among humans is mostly based on biometric characteristics representing what-we-are (face, body outlook, voice, etc.) and how-we-behave (gait, gestures, posture, etc.) Following this observation, we investigate different approaches and methods for adapting existing biometric identification methods and technologies to the needs of evolving natural human computer interfaces

Learner-Friendly Kanji Learning System with Radical Analysis

This paper presents a novel friendly Kanji learning system using Radical Analysis to enable foreign people and elementary school students to learn Kanji by an interesting and efficient way. This way is for characters to analyze for each radical, to divide into some parts, and to correct strokes for each divided part. Here, the Radical Analysis Database (RAD) is used for dividing characters. RAD is a database to analyze characters for each radical and divide into some parts. On the other hand, characters are corrected by using a threshold. The threshold is a judgment value in the correction and learners can set it freely by handling threshold bars put on the interface. Then, the novel system is improved so that learners can set thresholds for each divided part. Since each bar corresponds to each part, the system judges whether each part is corrected or not according to set thresholds. Hence, since learners can freely determine radicals or parts in which they want to be instructed intensively, they can practice only their radicals not good or part of the character and easily master difficult characters, too. In addition, an animation helps learners understand the order of strokes virtually. Since each stroke used in this animation is displayed with different colors, learners can also understand virtually where the same strokes are from and to at once.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijere.v1i1.47

Sustaining motivation for Japanese kanji learning: Can digital games help?

Made available with permission from the publisher.Educational digital games are often presented at Technology in Language Education conferences. The games are entertaining and are backed by research detailing how games can improve the learning experience through active critical learning, learner interaction, competition, challenge, and high learner motivation. The authors, inspired by such presentations, were interested in creating digital games to mitigate problems of demotivation in a beginner Japanese kanji (non-alphabetic script) class at Auckland University of Technology but found there was no body of research on digi-tal games for learning non-alphabetic scripts. This paper contributes to filling this gap by describing the creation of three digital games for kanji learning. Difficulties were experienced during the development of the games and these are described with reference to the divide, discussed in gaming literature, between the type of digital games being showcased at conferences and the reality for teachers wishing to emulate the practice by developing their own digital games. Questionnaire responses and the game-related journal entries of three cohorts of learners were analysed, and teacher reflections on the action research project were used to answer the questions “Should we be leaving this field to the experts?” and “Other than high-end multi-level curriculum-centred digital games, are there different gaming scenarios worth exploring?

Beyond writing: The development of literacy in the Ancient Near East

Previous discussions of the origins of writing in the Ancient Near East have not incorporated the neuroscience of literacy, which suggests that when southern Mesopotamians wrote marks on clay in the late-fourth millennium, they inadvertently reorganized their neural activity, a factor in manipulating the writing system to reflect language, yielding literacy through a combination of neurofunctional change and increased script fidelity to language. Such a development appears to take place only with a sufficient demand for writing and reading, such as that posed by a state-level bureaucracy; the use of a material with suitable characteristics; and the production of marks that are conventionalized, handwritten, simple, and non-numerical. From the perspective of Material Engagement Theory, writing and reading represent the interactivity of bodies, materiality, and brains: movements of hands, arms, and eyes; clay and the implements used to mark it and form characters; and vision, motor planning, object recognition, and language. Literacy is a cognitive change that emerges from and depends upon the nexus of interactivity of the components

Detection of deviance in Japanese kanji compound words

Reading fluency is based on the automatic visual recognition of words. As a manifestation of the automatic processing of words, an automatic deviance detection of visual word stimuli can be observed in the early stages of visual recognition. To clarify whether this phenomenon occurs with Japanese kanji compounds-since their lexicality is related to semantic association-we investigated the brain response by utilizing three types of deviants: differences in font type, lexically correct or incorrect Japanese kanji compound words and pseudo-kanji characters modified from correct and incorrect compounds. We employed magnetoencephalography (MEG) to evaluate the spatiotemporal profiles of the related brain regions. The study included 22 adult native Japanese speakers (16 females). The abovementioned three kinds of stimuli containing 20% deviants were presented during the MEG measurement. Activity in the occipital pole region of the brain was observed upon the detection of font-type deviance within 250 ms of stimulus onset. Although no significant activity upon detecting lexically correct/incorrect kanji compounds or pseudo-kanji character deviations was observed, the activity in the posterior transverse region of the collateral sulcus (pCoS)-which is a fusiform neighboring area-was larger when detecting lexically correct kanji compounds than when detecting pseudo-kanji characters. Taken together, these results support the notion that the automatic detection of deviance in kanji compounds may be limited to a low-level feature, such as the stimulus stroke thickness.Peer reviewe

Distance maps between Japanese kanji characters based on hierarchical optimal transport

We introduce a general framework for assigning distances between kanji based on their dissimilarity. What we mean by this term may depend on the concrete application. The only assumption we make is that the dissimilarity between two kanji is adequately expressed as a weighted mean of penalties obtained from matching nested structures of components in an optimal way. For the cost of matching, we suggest a number of modules that can be freely combined or replaced with other modules, including the relative unbalanced ink transport between registered components, the distance between the transformations required for registration, and the difference in prespecified labels. We give a concrete example of a kanji distance function obtained in this way as a proof of concept. Based on this function, we produce 2D kanji maps by multidimensional scaling and a table of 100 randomly selected J\=oj\=o kanji with their 16 nearest neighbors. Our kanji distance functions can be used to help Japanese learners from non-CJK backgrounds acquire kanji literacy. In addition, they may assist editors of kanji dictionaries in presenting their materials and may serve in text processing and optical character recognition systems for assessing the likelihood of errors.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figure

How form and structure of Chinese characters affect eye movement control

This study investigated the correlations between the form features and legibility of Chinese characters by employing the eye tracking method in two experiments: Experiment 1 examined factors affecting Chinese character legibility with character modules and identified the correlations between character form and legibility of crossing strokes; and Experiment 2 examined the effect of crossing strokes on subjective complicacy perception in both Chinese characters and English letters. This study determined that enclosed Chinese characters affect subjective complicacy perception and reduce saccadic amplitude. In addition, greater number of stroke crossings produced higher subjective complicacy perceived for both Chinese characters and English letters. The results of this study serve as a reference for predicting Chinese character legibility and assessing type design superiority