Attention and hazard perception while driving: how experts see the scene. All drivers have 'drifted-off' or failed to see something that was clearly in view, yet trained expert drivers appear to rarely experience this. This project aims to understand in both 'normal' drivers and expert drivers, attentional mechanisms that control distraction and the perception of hazards, which is critical to road safety and young driver training.
Face recognition: Properties and origins of whole-face processing. Humans identify other individuals almost entirely by their faces. Correspondingly, research has demonstrated a "special" style of cognitive processing that is unique to faces (at least in ordinary adults). The present project will address two major theoretical issues: (1) the exact nature of the special processing for faces, and (2) the extent to which it is innate, or learned. New progress in understanding these issues will be m ....Face recognition: Properties and origins of whole-face processing. Humans identify other individuals almost entirely by their faces. Correspondingly, research has demonstrated a "special" style of cognitive processing that is unique to faces (at least in ordinary adults). The present project will address two major theoretical issues: (1) the exact nature of the special processing for faces, and (2) the extent to which it is innate, or learned. New progress in understanding these issues will be made using a series of novel experimental techniques. These techniques isolate the specific contribution of the face recognition system, independent of contributions from object recognition, and from early visual processing.Read moreRead less
Special cognitive processing for faces: Expertise effects, and links to neural mechanisms. Humans identify other individuals primarily by their faces. Evidence from cognitive psychology indicates a special 'whole-face' (as opposed to part-based) style of processing for upright faces. This project will provide new insights into two long-standing issues about the origin of special face processing: (1) whether it derives from generic expert recognition processes or has some face-specific innate co ....Special cognitive processing for faces: Expertise effects, and links to neural mechanisms. Humans identify other individuals primarily by their faces. Evidence from cognitive psychology indicates a special 'whole-face' (as opposed to part-based) style of processing for upright faces. This project will provide new insights into two long-standing issues about the origin of special face processing: (1) whether it derives from generic expert recognition processes or has some face-specific innate component; and (2) the extent to which it can be distinguished from part-based processing at the neural level using both functional brain imaging (fMRI) and adaptation to distorted faces.Read moreRead less
The Misinformation Future—Confronting Emerging Threats. Misinformation presents challenges to public health and democracy. Though psychological research has explored processing mechanisms and countermeasures, new threats are arising that need to be confronted. This project aims to help meet these threats by (a) investigating misinformation impacts on future-oriented cognition and behaviours, with a focus on global long-term issues and (b) addressing the unique challenges posed by visual and synt ....The Misinformation Future—Confronting Emerging Threats. Misinformation presents challenges to public health and democracy. Though psychological research has explored processing mechanisms and countermeasures, new threats are arising that need to be confronted. This project aims to help meet these threats by (a) investigating misinformation impacts on future-oriented cognition and behaviours, with a focus on global long-term issues and (b) addressing the unique challenges posed by visual and synthetic (AI-generated) misinformation. The expected outcome is new knowledge on the processing and impacts of emerging types of misinformation and translation into practical interventions. These promise to benefit consumers, educators and policymakers, contributing to a healthier information environment.Read moreRead less
Dynamic Cooperative Performance Optimizations. This project seeks to improve the reliability, security, and
performance of modern software systems. Security is a problem of such
scale that outbreaks of computer viruses etc. headline in major
financial newspapers. We approach the problem by addressing the key
performance problems that hold back the programming languagues widely
used for secure and reliable systems. By improving the reliability,
security and performance of computer system ....Dynamic Cooperative Performance Optimizations. This project seeks to improve the reliability, security, and
performance of modern software systems. Security is a problem of such
scale that outbreaks of computer viruses etc. headline in major
financial newspapers. We approach the problem by addressing the key
performance problems that hold back the programming languagues widely
used for secure and reliable systems. By improving the reliability,
security and performance of computer systems, this project will help
alleviate the millions of hours and dollars lost to inadvertent errors
and malicious software attacks. The project will give Australia an
international presence in a research area of great academic and
commercial importance.Read moreRead less
Towards a high density silicon phase change memory device. This project builds upon our exciting recent findings that amorphous silicon can be transformed to a conducting crystalline phase following small-scale indentation. Furthermore the process is reversible as re-indentation can induce a transformation back to insulating amorphous silicon. This process appears to occur in extremely small (nanoscale) volumes of silicon. We plan to explore the viability of exploiting this behaviour to develo ....Towards a high density silicon phase change memory device. This project builds upon our exciting recent findings that amorphous silicon can be transformed to a conducting crystalline phase following small-scale indentation. Furthermore the process is reversible as re-indentation can induce a transformation back to insulating amorphous silicon. This process appears to occur in extremely small (nanoscale) volumes of silicon. We plan to explore the viability of exploiting this behaviour to develop an entirely new information storage system: a high-density silicon phase change memory. This project aims to study small-scale transformation behaviour in silicon and to design demonstrator memory devices based on both micro-electromechanical systems and solid state technologies.Read moreRead less
Integrating holistic processing and face-space approaches to the perception of facial identity. Recognising faces is a socially crucial task, and humans are remarkably good at it. Scientists investigating the 'software' our brains use to recognise faces have referred to two different theories -- one when explaining why we distinguish faces better than objects, and the other in explaining why we distinguish some people's faces more easily than others. The project aims to integrate these two theor ....Integrating holistic processing and face-space approaches to the perception of facial identity. Recognising faces is a socially crucial task, and humans are remarkably good at it. Scientists investigating the 'software' our brains use to recognise faces have referred to two different theories -- one when explaining why we distinguish faces better than objects, and the other in explaining why we distinguish some people's faces more easily than others. The project aims to integrate these two theories. This has two potential long-term benefits: it will give a stronger basis for understanding what goes wrong in people where face recognition does not develop normally; and, the improved knowledge from a biological system may also lead to improved computer face recognition algorithms (eg. for airport security).Read moreRead less
Programming Paradigms, Tools and Algorithms for Electronic Structure Calculations on Clusters of Non-Uniform Memory Access Parallel Processors. In recent years Australian academia has invested heavily in high performance computing systems. A significant fraction of these resources are devoted to performing computational chemistry studies, such as those used in drug design. This project links Australian researchers with the company responsible for a particularly widely used computational chemistr ....Programming Paradigms, Tools and Algorithms for Electronic Structure Calculations on Clusters of Non-Uniform Memory Access Parallel Processors. In recent years Australian academia has invested heavily in high performance computing systems. A significant fraction of these resources are devoted to performing computational chemistry studies, such as those used in drug design. This project links Australian researchers with the company responsible for a particularly widely used computational chemistry application package, and also with a major international computer company. Our aim is to substantially improve the performance of this code on cluster based compute systems. This, as well as our generic performance evaluation tools, would be of substantial benefit to the Australian research community. The project will forge links with researchers in Singapore, Japan and the USA.Read moreRead less
Next generation garbage collection: discovery, design, and development. This project aims to improve the performance of programming languages used by millions of Australians every day, such as Java, JavaScript and PHP by developing improved memory-management algorithms. These languages use what is referred to as “garbage collection” to ensure memory is managed without data loss, but do so conservatively and consequently cause performance challenges and energy overheads. This project expects to p ....Next generation garbage collection: discovery, design, and development. This project aims to improve the performance of programming languages used by millions of Australians every day, such as Java, JavaScript and PHP by developing improved memory-management algorithms. These languages use what is referred to as “garbage collection” to ensure memory is managed without data loss, but do so conservatively and consequently cause performance challenges and energy overheads. This project expects to provide these languages with improved memory-management algorithms, and provides researchers and industry with a framework for innovation. This project will enable safe software that is more efficient on today's hardware and able to exploit emerging hardware. This project should lead to better performance and energy savings for server applications, phones, watches, and smart appliances, while ensuring memory safety.Read moreRead less
Programming Paradigms, Tools and Algorithms for the Spectral Solution of the Electronic Schroedinger Equation on Non-Uniform Memory Parallel Processors. We propose to develop software tools and methods that are appropriate for current and future generations of large scale shared memory computer systems. Our purpose is to enable a more productive utilization of these architectures for scientific computation. We will focus on algorithms for solving differential equations appropriate to quantum che ....Programming Paradigms, Tools and Algorithms for the Spectral Solution of the Electronic Schroedinger Equation on Non-Uniform Memory Parallel Processors. We propose to develop software tools and methods that are appropriate for current and future generations of large scale shared memory computer systems. Our purpose is to enable a more productive utilization of these architectures for scientific computation. We will focus on algorithms for solving differential equations appropriate to quantum chemistry. In particular an exciting new class of methods whose computational cost scales linearly with system size. Our goal is to develop scalable parallel implementations of these methods. If realized this will revolutionize computation, enabling first principles calculations on truly nanoscale systems, such as enzymes and molecular electronic devices.Read moreRead less