Neurocognitive substrates of naming facilitation in aphasia. This research directly addresses the national research priority goal of ageing well, ageing productively, by providing foundational knowledge for improved outcomes in the growing population of individuals in Australia with language impairments from age-related disease. Outcomes of the proposed research will include (1) development of a new theory of word production which can improve treatment of language impairment, (2) an enhanced und ....Neurocognitive substrates of naming facilitation in aphasia. This research directly addresses the national research priority goal of ageing well, ageing productively, by providing foundational knowledge for improved outcomes in the growing population of individuals in Australia with language impairments from age-related disease. Outcomes of the proposed research will include (1) development of a new theory of word production which can improve treatment of language impairment, (2) an enhanced understanding of the cognitive and brain mechanisms involved in word production and its treatment after stroke, and (3) postgraduate training in state-of-the-art cognitive neuroimaging and language neuroscience research. Read moreRead less
Logic and language: Foundations of cognitive growth. This project investigates children's competence in using language, from a biological perspective. The past twenty years has witnessed innovative developments in behavioral measures (e.g., eye-movement recording) and computational models of language development. I propose to integrate this research with the study of the neural basis of cognitive processes, using a new methodology for functional brain imaging, magnetoencephalography (MEG), The p ....Logic and language: Foundations of cognitive growth. This project investigates children's competence in using language, from a biological perspective. The past twenty years has witnessed innovative developments in behavioral measures (e.g., eye-movement recording) and computational models of language development. I propose to integrate this research with the study of the neural basis of cognitive processes, using a new methodology for functional brain imaging, magnetoencephalography (MEG), The project combines behavioral, computational, and biological methods to better understand (a) the nature of linguistic knowledge, (b) how logical expressions are acquired, and (c) how knowledge of logic and language are put to use by children in production and comprehension.Read moreRead less
Optimal Training Methods for Lexical Tone Perception by Children with Cochlear Implants: Application of Experimental Psychology Techniques. Cochlear implants (CIs) stimulate the auditory nerve via electrodes in the cochlear to provide auditory information to people who would otherwise be functionally deaf. Cochlear site stimulation is at a constant rate so, despite the genius of the CI, it cannot convey pitch information effectively. Such information is essential for perceiving and speaking ton ....Optimal Training Methods for Lexical Tone Perception by Children with Cochlear Implants: Application of Experimental Psychology Techniques. Cochlear implants (CIs) stimulate the auditory nerve via electrodes in the cochlear to provide auditory information to people who would otherwise be functionally deaf. Cochlear site stimulation is at a constant rate so, despite the genius of the CI, it cannot convey pitch information effectively. Such information is essential for perceiving and speaking tone languages, in which word meaning depends on consonants, vowels, and tones (conveyed mainly by pitch). A training method to improve tone perception will be developed with non-tone language non-CI through to tone language CI children drawing on experimental psychology methods, auditory and visual (lip & face) speech information, exaggerated tone cues, and metalinguistic instruction.Read moreRead less
The roles of spectral cues and auditory plasticity in auditory localisation, speech segregation and speech intelligibility. Our recent work shows that high frequency energy in speech is important for the localisation of speech and may also aid in improving speech intelligibility in noisy environments. The work proposed here will systematically explore this somewhat surprising new finding and the results will be incorporated into a predictive model of speech intelligibility under spatial listenin ....The roles of spectral cues and auditory plasticity in auditory localisation, speech segregation and speech intelligibility. Our recent work shows that high frequency energy in speech is important for the localisation of speech and may also aid in improving speech intelligibility in noisy environments. The work proposed here will systematically explore this somewhat surprising new finding and the results will be incorporated into a predictive model of speech intelligibility under spatial listening conditions. This work includes a systematic study of auditory functional plasticity to changes in the spatial cues. Taken together, the outcomes of this work will unlock a range of new approaches to enhancing spatial hearing in multi-channel communication devices and spatial hearing aids.Read moreRead less
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR0354513
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$20,000.00
Summary
The Computational Processing of Human Language. Language is what makes us distinctly human; consequently, language attracts interest from many fields of research, particularly linguistics, psychology, and cognitive science. Moreover, language is the primary medium for the storage and dissemination of knowledge, a fact that has drawn many computer scientists to attempt to process, analyse and understand language. This network will bridge the many disciplines that are concerned with language, ex ....The Computational Processing of Human Language. Language is what makes us distinctly human; consequently, language attracts interest from many fields of research, particularly linguistics, psychology, and cognitive science. Moreover, language is the primary medium for the storage and dissemination of knowledge, a fact that has drawn many computer scientists to attempt to process, analyse and understand language. This network will bridge the many disciplines that are concerned with language, explore new ways in which computational models inform our understanding of human languages, and exploit new opportunities for applying theories of language in the development of human language technologies.Read moreRead less
Children's Changing Speech Error Patterns: Articulating, Listening, and Thinking. When children are learning to talk, they make many errors of pronunciation. Between speech onset and five years of age, their pronunciations change, gradually approaching adult pronunciations of words. Most children share the same error patterns, although 6% have difficulty acquiring intelligible speech, that affects their academic and social development. The investigation will examine factors that contribute to ....Children's Changing Speech Error Patterns: Articulating, Listening, and Thinking. When children are learning to talk, they make many errors of pronunciation. Between speech onset and five years of age, their pronunciations change, gradually approaching adult pronunciations of words. Most children share the same error patterns, although 6% have difficulty acquiring intelligible speech, that affects their academic and social development. The investigation will examine factors that contribute to the acquisition of speech in normally developing and speech-disordered populations: oro-motor skills, auditory and cognitive processing. Experiments will determine the importance of each domain for speech development. The efficacy of a novel intervention programme for children with speech disorders will be evaluated.Read moreRead less
Cognitive Modelling of Computer Games Pidgins. This project develops a pidgin language for use in computer games and models the way human users exploit such languages. It has implications also for computer assisted collaborative work and other educational or entertainment interactive environments like computer games. By developing mini-languages for games environments we can dramatically simplify the speech recognition problem and make recognition robust across different speech cultures and ba ....Cognitive Modelling of Computer Games Pidgins. This project develops a pidgin language for use in computer games and models the way human users exploit such languages. It has implications also for computer assisted collaborative work and other educational or entertainment interactive environments like computer games. By developing mini-languages for games environments we can dramatically simplify the speech recognition problem and make recognition robust across different speech cultures and backgrounds. We use protocol analysis and markup techniques for modelling dialogues between human player and reactive agents in computer games.Read moreRead less
Behaviour-genetic studies of literacy, language and attention. The primary national benefit will be the unrivalled picture that emerges about how genetic factors interact with aspects of the family and educational environment to determine the course of a child's progress in literacy and language. Policy makers will be able to use the information to guide curriculum refinement, and to develop policies for the identification and instruction of children at developmental risk in these domains. The p ....Behaviour-genetic studies of literacy, language and attention. The primary national benefit will be the unrivalled picture that emerges about how genetic factors interact with aspects of the family and educational environment to determine the course of a child's progress in literacy and language. Policy makers will be able to use the information to guide curriculum refinement, and to develop policies for the identification and instruction of children at developmental risk in these domains. The project will also strengthen Australia's position in the cutting-edge field of behavioural genetics through the postdoctoral support of a young scientist.Read moreRead less
The effects of sentence structure on consonant and vowel articulations. Whilst machine-generated speech is generally of good quality at the level of the single word, it is noticeably less natural-sounding at the level of the sentence. This project examines an important aspect of the naturalness of human speech, namely, the effect that sentence structure has on individual consonants and vowels. A break-down of this naturalness is seen in some speakers who have suffered traumatic brain injury: suc ....The effects of sentence structure on consonant and vowel articulations. Whilst machine-generated speech is generally of good quality at the level of the single word, it is noticeably less natural-sounding at the level of the sentence. This project examines an important aspect of the naturalness of human speech, namely, the effect that sentence structure has on individual consonants and vowels. A break-down of this naturalness is seen in some speakers who have suffered traumatic brain injury: such speakers perform well when asked to utter a short word, but struggle when asked to produce a longer string of sounds. A better understanding of the interaction between speech sounds and sentence structure will lead to improvements in the treatment of speech disorders, and in the quality of human-machine communication.Read moreRead less
Audio-visual Information for Speech-hand Gestures. How does audio-visual information influence human movement and communication? We will investigate whether speech and hand gestures involve shared information about the timing of rhythmic movements. Using dynamical systems theory and brain imaging techniques, we will study rhythms that emerge during simultaneous speaking and finger tapping in both stutterers and non-stutterers, and in left-handers and right-handers. The communicative interaction ....Audio-visual Information for Speech-hand Gestures. How does audio-visual information influence human movement and communication? We will investigate whether speech and hand gestures involve shared information about the timing of rhythmic movements. Using dynamical systems theory and brain imaging techniques, we will study rhythms that emerge during simultaneous speaking and finger tapping in both stutterers and non-stutterers, and in left-handers and right-handers. The communicative interaction of two persons performing speech-hand gestures will be examined. Results will clarify how brain asymmetry affects gestural coordination in stutterers, how stuttering can be treated, and the hypothesis that speech and language evolved from a communication system based on hand gestures.
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