17 research outputs found
The Nature of Working Memory for Braille
Blind individuals have been shown on multiple occasions to compensate for their loss of sight by developing exceptional abilities in their remaining senses. While most research has been focused on perceptual abilities per se in the auditory and tactile modalities, recent work has also investigated higher-order processes involving memory and language functions. Here we examined tactile working memory for Braille in two groups of visually challenged individuals (completely blind subjects, CBS; blind with residual vision, BRV). In a first experimental procedure both groups were given a Braille tactile memory span task with and without articulatory suppression, while the BRV and a sighted group performed a visual version of the task. It was shown that the Braille tactile working memory (BrWM) of CBS individuals under articulatory suppression is as efficient as that of sighted individuals' visual working memory in the same condition. Moreover, the results suggest that BrWM may be more robust in the CBS than in the BRV subjects, thus pointing to the potential role of visual experience in shaping tactile working memory. A second experiment designed to assess the nature (spatial vs. verbal) of this working memory was then carried out with two new CBS and BRV groups having to perform the Braille task concurrently with a mental arithmetic task or a mental displacement of blocks task. We show that the disruption of memory was greatest when concurrently carrying out the mental displacement of blocks, indicating that the Braille tactile subsystem of working memory is likely spatial in nature in CBS. The results also point to the multimodal nature of working memory and show how experience can shape the development of its subcomponents
Numerical analyses of novel prefabricated structural wall panels in residential buildings based on laboratory tests in scale 1:1
A thermodynamic approach to non-local damage modelling of concrete
This paper focuses on the development of a thermodynamic approach to constitutive modelling of concrete materials, with emphasis on the use of non-local damage models. Effort is put on the construction of a consistent and rigorous thermodynamic framework, which readily allows the incorporation of non-local features into the constitutive modelling. This is an important feature in developing non-local constitutive models based on thermodynamics. Examples of non-local constitutive models derived from this framework and numerical examples are given to demonstrate the promising features of the proposed approach. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Giang D. Nguye