Auditory spatial perception during head movements. Orienting to stimuli frequently involves eye and head movements. This improves localisation, yet brings attendant problems (eg, blurring). These problems are well understood in vision, but not in audition, despite evidence for common neural mechanisms. We will examine auditory (and visual) localisation during head movements, showing head movements produce auditory suppression and spatial distortions (analogous to visual saccadic effects). This w ....Auditory spatial perception during head movements. Orienting to stimuli frequently involves eye and head movements. This improves localisation, yet brings attendant problems (eg, blurring). These problems are well understood in vision, but not in audition, despite evidence for common neural mechanisms. We will examine auditory (and visual) localisation during head movements, showing head movements produce auditory suppression and spatial distortions (analogous to visual saccadic effects). This will demonstrate the malleability of auditory spatial perception and the impoverished sensitivity of audition during head and self-motion. Knowledge of these distortions will inform applications such as cockpit design, where orienting to auditory signals is common, and other human/computer interfaces.
Read moreRead less
Lexical retrieval and reading comprehension: Binding perceptual, lexical and conceptual information in on-line reading. Reading is a complex process that involves integrating sensory information extracted from text with stored memories about word meanings, syntactic structures and general knowledge. Most reading research has focused on the processing of isolated words, but normal reading requires integration processes that are not necessary to recognise single words. This research uses tasks req ....Lexical retrieval and reading comprehension: Binding perceptual, lexical and conceptual information in on-line reading. Reading is a complex process that involves integrating sensory information extracted from text with stored memories about word meanings, syntactic structures and general knowledge. Most reading research has focused on the processing of isolated words, but normal reading requires integration processes that are not necessary to recognise single words. This research uses tasks requiring sentence comprehension and measures of eye movements during reading to investigate how readers retrieve and combine information while reading to comprehend text. It will contribute to developing more comprehensive theories of normal reading that can inform methods of teaching reading and contribute to refinement of text recognition systems.Read moreRead less
BREAKING THE JUVENILE CRIME CYCLE: REHABILITATING HIGH RISK YOUNG OFFENDERS. Effective rehabilitation of young offenders is an urgent social need. Using mathematical modelling of longitudinal population data, we will identify predictors of recidivism, desistance, health risk behaviours, and/or progression to injecting drug use. Collaborating with NSW Department of Juvenile Justice and NSW Corrections Health Service, we will develop and trial community-based multisystemic interventions using the ....BREAKING THE JUVENILE CRIME CYCLE: REHABILITATING HIGH RISK YOUNG OFFENDERS. Effective rehabilitation of young offenders is an urgent social need. Using mathematical modelling of longitudinal population data, we will identify predictors of recidivism, desistance, health risk behaviours, and/or progression to injecting drug use. Collaborating with NSW Department of Juvenile Justice and NSW Corrections Health Service, we will develop and trial community-based multisystemic interventions using the transtheoretical model to reduce re-offending. This project will advance theoretical understanding of juvenile crime, its health and substance abuse patterns, and offence trajectories, thereby facilitating effective policies and practices to reduce recidivism, improve health and create prosocial alternatives for young Australians at risk of a criminal career.Read moreRead less
Rekindle sexuality after cancer: development and testing of a novel web-based psychoeducational resource for both survivors and their partners. In collaboration with the Cancer Council New South Wales, this project will develop the first web-based psycho-educational resource, Rekindle, that addresses sexual concerns of both survivors and their partners, across all cancer-types, tailored to the unique concerns of each user.
Emergent cues underlying the perception of shape, colour, and material . This goal of this project is to identify the information the visual system uses to extract the three-dimensional structure and material composition of objects. This project aims to generate an advanced understanding of the information that supports these perceptual abilities and to advance our understanding how this information is learned from exposure to natural scenes. The findings of this work are expected to benefit ou ....Emergent cues underlying the perception of shape, colour, and material . This goal of this project is to identify the information the visual system uses to extract the three-dimensional structure and material composition of objects. This project aims to generate an advanced understanding of the information that supports these perceptual abilities and to advance our understanding how this information is learned from exposure to natural scenes. The findings of this work are expected to benefit our understanding of the human visual system, and to provide insights into the information needed to advance the development of deep neural networks (machine learning) that exploit the same information used by humans to guide our behavior and recognize objects and materials.Read moreRead less
Perceiving and misperceiving the causes of optical structure. This project aims to understand the conditions that cause humans to misperceive the shape and surface properties of real-world materials. Most natural materials are translucent to varying degrees, but little is known about how light is transported through them or how such materials are perceived or misperceived. This project will determine the conditions and causes responsible for the misperception of material properties and shape, an ....Perceiving and misperceiving the causes of optical structure. This project aims to understand the conditions that cause humans to misperceive the shape and surface properties of real-world materials. Most natural materials are translucent to varying degrees, but little is known about how light is transported through them or how such materials are perceived or misperceived. This project will determine the conditions and causes responsible for the misperception of material properties and shape, and will offer practical information about what can be done to minimise such misperceptions. The outcomes of the project are expected to lead to new techniques for depicting and manipulating real-world translucent materials in computer graphics, virtual reality, and gaming industries.Read moreRead less
ARC Research Network for Enabling Human Communication. The Human Communication Network promotes interdisciplinary research in speech, language, and sound by and between humans and machines. The network connects leading and emerging researchers across disciplines, exploits previously unrecognised intersections, supports interdisciplinary graduate training and exchanges, provides database storage infrastructure, and consults with industry and government to set, not follow, research agendas. By ge ....ARC Research Network for Enabling Human Communication. The Human Communication Network promotes interdisciplinary research in speech, language, and sound by and between humans and machines. The network connects leading and emerging researchers across disciplines, exploits previously unrecognised intersections, supports interdisciplinary graduate training and exchanges, provides database storage infrastructure, and consults with industry and government to set, not follow, research agendas. By generating an explosion of new approaches and knowledge, the network will build Australia's reputation as a leader in communication science and technology via advances in automatic speech recognition, distress call monitoring, hearing prostheses, web interfaces, and data retrieval and data mining systems.Read moreRead less
From Talking Heads to Thinking Heads: A Research Platform for Human Communication Science. In this project current Talking Head technology will be taken into the realm of a high-fidelity Thinking Head, with implications and applications for basic and applied research. Outcomes will bear on human-machine communication, telecommunications, e-commerce, and mobile phone technology; personalised aids for disabled users, the hearing impaired, the elderly, and children with learning difficulties, forei ....From Talking Heads to Thinking Heads: A Research Platform for Human Communication Science. In this project current Talking Head technology will be taken into the realm of a high-fidelity Thinking Head, with implications and applications for basic and applied research. Outcomes will bear on human-machine communication, telecommunications, e-commerce, and mobile phone technology; personalised aids for disabled users, the hearing impaired, the elderly, and children with learning difficulties, foreign language learning; and will facilitate the development of animation in new media, film, and games. In addition to output in scholarly journals, beta-versions of the Head will be made available, and public visibility for the project will be facilitated by the incorporation of high-profile installations and exhibitions.Read moreRead less
Neuronal and behavioural correlates of sensory adaptation. Sensory systems adapt to the statistics of their environment, and the consequences of this adaptation are evident in neuronal activity and in animal’s behaviour. This project will employ a novel paradigm to characterise how adaptation changes the response properties of individual sensory neurons to improve efficiency of information transmission.
Captions for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired: Availability versus Accessibility. The availability of educational, informational and recreational services for deaf and hearing-impaired people has been dramatically facilitated by (i) increased television captioning due to the 2001 introduction of the Television Broadcasting Services Act; and (ii) trial introduction of real-time captioning in educational settings. These innovations must be matched by equally innovative ways of increasing the accessib ....Captions for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired: Availability versus Accessibility. The availability of educational, informational and recreational services for deaf and hearing-impaired people has been dramatically facilitated by (i) increased television captioning due to the 2001 introduction of the Television Broadcasting Services Act; and (ii) trial introduction of real-time captioning in educational settings. These innovations must be matched by equally innovative ways of increasing the accessibility of captions, which is currently limited by English literacy, caption speed, and caption reduction techniques. Here, systematic manipulation of these factors in experiments on television captioning with adults and educational captioning with children will determine how resources might best be directed to improving caption accessibility.Read moreRead less