Enhancing Language Learning in Ageing With Exercise. This project aims to determine if exercise improves language learning and consolidation in ageing. There is now compelling evidence for the benefits of exercise on cognition in older adults, however, it is unclear whether exercise improves age-related language problems. The project plans to examine exercise-induced changes in brain activity and biomarkers in an innovative set of studies that seeks to identify the brain mechanisms involved. The ....Enhancing Language Learning in Ageing With Exercise. This project aims to determine if exercise improves language learning and consolidation in ageing. There is now compelling evidence for the benefits of exercise on cognition in older adults, however, it is unclear whether exercise improves age-related language problems. The project plans to examine exercise-induced changes in brain activity and biomarkers in an innovative set of studies that seeks to identify the brain mechanisms involved. The findings are expected to contribute to theories of word learning and cognitive ageing and should advance our understanding of how exercise may be harnessed to optimise language and cognition. This would have practical applications in a range of populations with language and learning difficulties.Read moreRead less
Fundamental neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning creative thought. The project aims to understand the neural and cognitive bases of creative thought by using a novel approach and recent framework that has emerged from the study of semantic cognition and executive control functions. Creative thought is fundamental to human advances throughout history and it is the foundation to all arts and sciences. Expected outcomes are a framework that can explain the source of knowledge and the evaluative ....Fundamental neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning creative thought. The project aims to understand the neural and cognitive bases of creative thought by using a novel approach and recent framework that has emerged from the study of semantic cognition and executive control functions. Creative thought is fundamental to human advances throughout history and it is the foundation to all arts and sciences. Expected outcomes are a framework that can explain the source of knowledge and the evaluative mechanisms needed to generate new and useful ideas. Significant benefits will be to advance our understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms of creative thought, which can enhance Australia’s scientific capability through training and collaboration and broader society by enhancing capacity for innovative thinking. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120101119
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
The critical executive processes involved in translating ideas into spoken language for conversational speech. This project will investigate the critical cognitive pathways, and supporting brain areas, involved in speaking for meaning. This will enable better diagnosis of communication disorders in neurological conditions, such as stroke, and identification of methods for delaying dementia by maintaining and enhancing conversational skills in older adults.
The Australian naturalistic driving study: innovation in road safety research and policy. A revolutionary new approach, the naturalistic driving study, will investigate what people actually do when they drive, in normal and safety-critical situations. It will provide Australia with answers to some intractable, high priority, road safety problems that cannot be answered using current methods, thereby saving hundreds of lives.
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE130100050
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$570,000.00
Summary
Integrated facility for recording driver and road user behaviour. The integrated facility will be used to record and analyse data on driver and road user behaviour, in normal and safety-critical situations, for thousands of Australian drivers. The data yielded will be used to develop new and improved countermeasures for reducing road deaths and serious injuries on Australian roads.
Dynamic social systems and adolescent alcohol/tobacco use: A new cusp catastrophe model. This research will substantially improve our understanding of the development of adolescent high-risk behaviours. It will directly inform multimodal prevention strategies by demonstrating how substance use, peer factors, and parent relationships unfold over time. This is much needed because most prevention strategies are too simplistic to address complex precursors to alcohol/tobacco use. The research wil ....Dynamic social systems and adolescent alcohol/tobacco use: A new cusp catastrophe model. This research will substantially improve our understanding of the development of adolescent high-risk behaviours. It will directly inform multimodal prevention strategies by demonstrating how substance use, peer factors, and parent relationships unfold over time. This is much needed because most prevention strategies are too simplistic to address complex precursors to alcohol/tobacco use. The research will benefit health researchers in and beyond Australia who seek to understand behaviours that do not adhere to conventional assumptions. Collaboration with researchers from leading national and international centres will enhance Australia's research reputation and will attract postgraduates and researchers to Australia.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101340
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$362,103.00
Summary
A new state of the art for understanding dynamic self-regulation. This project aims to develop and test a novel mathematical model that explains how people manage competing demands on their time and effort in a dynamic and uncertain environment. The project will use an integrative approach, bringing recent advances in mathematical psychology to bear on a problem of widespread interest within industrial and organisational psychology. The expected outcome is a quantitative theory that achieves a l ....A new state of the art for understanding dynamic self-regulation. This project aims to develop and test a novel mathematical model that explains how people manage competing demands on their time and effort in a dynamic and uncertain environment. The project will use an integrative approach, bringing recent advances in mathematical psychology to bear on a problem of widespread interest within industrial and organisational psychology. The expected outcome is a quantitative theory that achieves a level of precision, generality, and testability that is unmatched in the field. The project will provide the basic research that is needed to extend mathematical models of self-regulation to complex tasks involving rapid decision making.Read moreRead less
Emotions and Employee Turnover: New Methods for Complex Dynamic Systems. This project aims to vastly improve the data-analytic capabilities of social and health researchers, while increasing knowledge about emotion dynamics and their link to employee turnover. By drawing on and advancing methods from ecology and applied physics, this project plans to investigate the role that individual emotions play in employee turnover with new quantitative methods for characterising and testing causality in c ....Emotions and Employee Turnover: New Methods for Complex Dynamic Systems. This project aims to vastly improve the data-analytic capabilities of social and health researchers, while increasing knowledge about emotion dynamics and their link to employee turnover. By drawing on and advancing methods from ecology and applied physics, this project plans to investigate the role that individual emotions play in employee turnover with new quantitative methods for characterising and testing causality in complex dynamic systems. The expected outcomes include an improved capacity for researchers, managers, and policy makers to understand complex organisational, economic, and health systems. This will provide immediate societal benefits by informing the development and deployment of targeted interventions in such systems.Read moreRead less
Drivers' Behavioural Responses to Traffic Signs. Traffic signs are ubiquitous in the road environment; research to improve their effectiveness can be very cost-effective in terms of safety improvements. Conducting traffic sign research on real roads has many difficulties, such as ethical considerations and lack of control. To overcome this, the research will be conducted in a driving simulator, in which the interaction between drivers and their equipment/environment will be studied. The aim of ....Drivers' Behavioural Responses to Traffic Signs. Traffic signs are ubiquitous in the road environment; research to improve their effectiveness can be very cost-effective in terms of safety improvements. Conducting traffic sign research on real roads has many difficulties, such as ethical considerations and lack of control. To overcome this, the research will be conducted in a driving simulator, in which the interaction between drivers and their equipment/environment will be studied. The aim of this project is to further understand drivers? behavioural responses to traffic signs, the expected outcome being to make the exchange of information between the driver and traffic sign as smooth and efficient as possible.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