The neurocognitive basis of dual-task co-ordination impairment in Alzheimer’s: defective coordination mechanism or differences in speed of processing? This project explores the effects of age, depression and Alzheimer’s disease on the ability to carry out two tasks at once, to determine whether difficulty doing so is due to slowed mental processing, or to a deficit in a mechanism responsible for task coordination. The project will advance cognitive theory and may help with diagnosis of dementia.
Atypical cognition in autism: preference for nonverbal coding and impaired connectivity? This project will investigate whether individuals with autism prefer to think 'in pictures' rather than use words, and whether their thinking shows evidence of limited connections across brain regions. Establishing either characteristic for autism would provide important direction in improving diagnosis and intervention for affected children.
Resolving multi-sensory conflict as we age: audio-visual integration and the role of normal and abnormal sensory decline. Australia has an ageing population. Even the healthiest older individuals undergo some deterioration of vision and hearing, however, these senses are almost invariably studied in isolation. The real world is multisensory. This project will enhance our knowledge of how ageing impacts on the interpretation of visual and auditory information regarding the timing and location of ....Resolving multi-sensory conflict as we age: audio-visual integration and the role of normal and abnormal sensory decline. Australia has an ageing population. Even the healthiest older individuals undergo some deterioration of vision and hearing, however, these senses are almost invariably studied in isolation. The real world is multisensory. This project will enhance our knowledge of how ageing impacts on the interpretation of visual and auditory information regarding the timing and location of objects; essential precursors to many real world tasks, for example: driving, interpreting speech, and hazard avoidance. This knowledge is essential for the optimisation of audio-visual environments for the elderly, and for the development of tools to improve performance in the presence of sensory decline due to age-related eye disease.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
Single and dual process models of recognition memory: Reconciliation of behavioural, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging data. Advanced brain scanning technologies are increasingly used to study human memory. As well as being important for our basic understanding of memory, they also tell us how memory is affected by normal development, ageing, disease, and injury. Unfortunately, because these technologies are so new, a gap has opened up between our psychological understanding of memory and t ....Single and dual process models of recognition memory: Reconciliation of behavioural, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging data. Advanced brain scanning technologies are increasingly used to study human memory. As well as being important for our basic understanding of memory, they also tell us how memory is affected by normal development, ageing, disease, and injury. Unfortunately, because these technologies are so new, a gap has opened up between our psychological understanding of memory and the physiological events measured by the scanning technologies. This has created a problem for how we should interpret the results that are found. The present project aims to close this gap by applying new research methodologies and theoretical insights based on our previous research.Read moreRead less
Fitting the mind to the world: adaptive processes in face perception. Faces provide many subtle social cues that guide interpersonal interactions. This project will reveal the perceptual mechanisms that allow us to read cues to identity and expression and how those mechanisms may be compromised in individuals with impaired face perception.