Using physiological measures to measure changes in cognitive load associated with automaticity and transfer

This study investigated the ability of two physiological measures, galvanic skin response and heat flux, to reflect changes in cognitive load using a variation of the dot counting task developed by Lassaline and Logan (1993). Concurrently, the robustness of the dual processing theory of automaticity was evaluated via disruption. The utilised task was designed to create a shift from controlled to automatic processing via practice, followed by a return to controlled processing via the introduction of a 6-digit memory recognition task designed to increase working-memory load and disrupt automaticity. As reaction time has previously been demonstrated to be a reliable performance measure of cognitive load, it was expected that there would be a positive relationship between reaction time, heat flux and galvanic skin response. The results found the expected pattern for reaction time, with an increase seen at the introduction of the memory task. Group results suggested automaticity was disrupted at this point, but analysis of individual data suggested automaticity endured for the majority of participants despite the contextual change in the task. This finding provides support for Instance Theory (Logan, 1988). The expected correlation between reaction time and galvanic skin response was not seen. Reductions in reaction time due to practice were correlated with reductions in heat flux due to practice, however, the expected increase at the introduction of the memory task was not seen. Whilst neither physiological measure was found to demonstrate an increase in cognitive load in this experiment, a task that was more cognitively challenging than the 6-digit memory recognition task may have produced more substantial results

Other Lives

The areas of investigation are the portrait, the gaze, the American filmmaker Errol Morris, representation of reality and subcultures. These are discussed within an historical, technical, cultural and social framework. Colour, the film theorist Bill Nichols, the filmmaker Errol Morris are discussed with reference to the central gaze and what constitutes reality. Taking on another identity, the role of subcultures and my influences as a photographer are explored within this context. Work for Examination Other Lives is a photographic work consisting of portraits including: civil war re-enactors who believe that the war between the northern and southern states of America still exist Elvis Presley impersonators and fans who believe that Elvis Presley still lives people who take on another identity as scarecrows in the context of a local festival people who take on another identity as medieval knights

Strategies For Socialization Of Learning Disabled Students At The Secondary Level

Learning disabled students at the secondary level have inferior socialization skills with peer groups and poor self-perceptual skills. Studies indicate that socialization appears to be the keystone of adolescent development. Evaluative instruments employed to discern interpersonal and socialization skills were the IPAT-Anxiety Scale Questionnaire Test-Self-Analysis Form (Cattell, Krug, Scheier) and the Self-Inventory (Simon-Howe-Kirschenbaum). Peer Counseling, observations, filmstrips and guest speakers were utilized to implement this socialization. skills program. Results indicated improved self-esteem, increased communication with peer groups and more positive attitudes toward self and others. (Appendices include sample instruments and student data.

Extraction and Coordination in Phrase Structure Grammar and Categorial Grammar

A large proportion of computationally-oriented theories of grammar operate within the confines of monostratality (i.e. there is only one level of syntactic analysis), compositionality (i.e. the meaning of an expression is determined by the meanings of its syntactic parts, plus their manner of combination), and adjacency (i.e. the only operation on terminal strings is concatenation). This thesis looks at two major approaches falling within these bounds: that based on phrase structure grammar (e.g. Gazdar), and that based on categorial grammar (e.g. Steedman). The theories are examined with reference to extraction and coordination constructions; crucially a range of 'compound' extraction and coordination phenomena are brought to bear. It is argued that the early phrase structure grammar metarules can characterise operations generating compound phenomena, but in so doing require a categorial-like category system. It is also argued that while categorial grammar contains an adequate category apparatus, Steedman's primitives such as composition do not extend to cover the full range of data. A theory is therefore presented integrating the approaches of Gazdar and Steedman. The central issue as regards processing is derivational equivalence: the grammars under consideration typically generate many semantically equivalent derivations of an expression. This problem is addressed by showing how to axiomatise derivational equivalence, and a parser is presented which employs the axiomatisation to avoid following equivalent paths

Elastically Deformable Side-Edge Link for Trailing-Edge Flap Aeroacoustic Noise Reduction

A system is provided for reducing aeroacoustic noise generated by an aircraft having wings equipped with trailing-edge flaps. The system includes a plurality of elastically deformable structures. Each structure is coupled to and along one of the side edges of one of the trailing-edge flaps, and is coupled to a portion of one of the wings that is adjacent to the one of the side edges. The structures elastically deform when the trailing-edge flaps are deployed away from the wings

Heavy genealogy: mapping the currents, contraflows and conflicts of the emergent field of metal studies, 1978-2010

What is metal studies? How can we define and characterize it? How has it emerged as a body of academic enquiry? What are its dominant disciplinary strands, theoretical concepts and preferred methodologies? Which studies have claimed most attention, defined the goals of scholarship, typical research strategies and values? How has the claim for the legitimacy or symbolic value of metal scholarship been achieved (if it has): over time and through gradual acceptance or through conflict and contestation? How can this process of formation, or strategy of legitimation, be mapped, examined and interrogated and which methods of historical, institutional and cultural analysis are best suited to this task? Working with the most complete bibliography to date of published research on heavy metal, music and culture (the MSBD), this article employs Foucault’s archaeological “method” to examine the institutional, cultural and political contexts and conflicts that inform the genealogy of this scholarship. Such analysis reveals a formative, largely negative account of heavy metal to be found in the “sociology of rock”; a large volume of psychology work, examining heavy metal music preference as an indicator of youth risk, deviance and delinquency; sociological work on youth and deviancy critical of the values of this research and its links to social policy and politics; culminating in the work of Weinstein and Walser, who advocate a perspective sympathetic to the values of heavy metal fans themselves. Following Bourdieu, I interpret such symbolic strategies as claims for expertise within the academic field that are high or low in symbolic capital to the extent they can attain disciplinary autonomy. I then go on to examine the most recent strands of research, within cultural studies and ethnomusicology, concerned with the global metal music diaspora, and consider to what extent such work is constitutive of a coherent subfield of metal studies that can be distinguished from earlier work and what the implications of this might be

And-parallel implementation of Prolog on distributed memory machines

This research develops a scheme for the efficient execution of Prolog programs on a distributed memory parallel machine. Efficient schemes for the sequential execution of Prolog are generally based on the Warren Abstract Machine (WAM) [Warren 1983]; our execution scheme places an extended WAM on each processor which can receive tasks and spawn further tasks to other processors. The extended WAM supports independent and-parallel execution and intelligent backtracking at the clause level. An analysis of binding communication between processors is made to select the most efficient scheme. Additional run-time information can be derived from the communication of bindings at no additional overhead. An extended WAM instruction set is designed where information provided at compile-time is combined with information derived at run-time to dynamically determine the data-dependencies between subgoals. A scheme for intelligent backtracking in parallel clauses is developed which both `intelligently' selects the redo subgoal(s) and allows other execution in the clause to persist unless bindings are directly affected by the redo. Potentially, parallel execution can continue in a clause when backtracking occurs. The dynamic information is also used to prune unnecessary search space and an optimisation, `intelligent cutting' is introduced. A distributed Prolog executor has been implemented for an array of transputer processing elements. A complete analysis of the implementation is made for both sequential and parallel execution. Performance results are comparable with other results in the literature for shared memory architectures.</p