Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200101130
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$426,770.00
Summary
Beyond Response Time and Choice: Understanding Changes of Mind in Decisions. The project aims to provide novel experimental insight into how people change their minds during decisions, through identifying the cognitive architecture that reflects the behaviour that we observe from people. The project is significant because it provides a substantially deeper understanding of the cognitive decision process and how it changes over time, as opposed to previous research focusing on only the final resp ....Beyond Response Time and Choice: Understanding Changes of Mind in Decisions. The project aims to provide novel experimental insight into how people change their minds during decisions, through identifying the cognitive architecture that reflects the behaviour that we observe from people. The project is significant because it provides a substantially deeper understanding of the cognitive decision process and how it changes over time, as opposed to previous research focusing on only the final response that people make. The expected outcome is a comprehensive understanding of the human decision process through cognitive models that provide an accurate reflection of this mental process. The benefit is an improved understanding of decisions, which are a fundamental part of everyday human life.Read moreRead less
Exploration, Generalisation and the Development of Learning Traps. This project addresses three fundamental questions about human decision-making; 1) how does exploratory choice lead to “learning traps”, persistent patterns of poor decision-making that cause us to miss rewards and experience losses? 2) how does susceptibility to traps change with age? 3) what strategies prevent traps or facilitate escape? The project will advance our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying adult and ....Exploration, Generalisation and the Development of Learning Traps. This project addresses three fundamental questions about human decision-making; 1) how does exploratory choice lead to “learning traps”, persistent patterns of poor decision-making that cause us to miss rewards and experience losses? 2) how does susceptibility to traps change with age? 3) what strategies prevent traps or facilitate escape? The project will advance our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying adult and child decision-making, using innovative experimental paradigms and computational modeling. Expected outcomes include a novel computational model that explains developmental change in trap formation. The results will guide strategies for improved decision-making in educational, financial, and social settings.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100177
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$365,000.00
Summary
Cognitive models of mental architectures in consumer preference. This project aims to characterise the mental architecture of consumer preference, the decision mechanisms and strategies that people use to select products or service options. It uses carefully designed experiments and cognitive modelling of mental architectures that capitalise on the information in the product decisions people make and the time taken to make them. The project provides insight into how people reason with and use in ....Cognitive models of mental architectures in consumer preference. This project aims to characterise the mental architecture of consumer preference, the decision mechanisms and strategies that people use to select products or service options. It uses carefully designed experiments and cognitive modelling of mental architectures that capitalise on the information in the product decisions people make and the time taken to make them. The project provides insight into how people reason with and use information to inform their decisions. This will help organisations to improve products and services and engage with consumers, to create competitive advantage, improve customer service and ultimately stimulate the economy.Read moreRead less
Quantitative psychological theories for a dynamic world. . The dynamic world around us means we need to constantly adjust our decisions in light of ever-changing influences, both external (weather, traffic ...) and internal (fatigue, learning ...). This project aims to understand how these changes affect performance. This will have significance for basic science, and also practical benefits for applied psychology. This project will examine the dynamic nature of psychological processes in a range ....Quantitative psychological theories for a dynamic world. . The dynamic world around us means we need to constantly adjust our decisions in light of ever-changing influences, both external (weather, traffic ...) and internal (fatigue, learning ...). This project aims to understand how these changes affect performance. This will have significance for basic science, and also practical benefits for applied psychology. This project will examine the dynamic nature of psychological processes in a range of settings: simple decisions, consumer decisions, human-machine interactions, and team performance. Theory development will lead to improved understanding of underlying cognitive processes, and transforms the measurement of decisions, which is important for applied psychological investigations. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210100292
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$380,868.00
Summary
From known to unknown: Individual differences in associative generalisation. This project aims to investigate how and why individuals differ in the way that they generalise from past experiences to novel situations. The goal of the project is to develop an innovative and formal model capable of predicting how a given individual will generalise based on their beliefs and personal traits, and to better understand how people behave when there are multiple conflicting ways to generalise. The expecte ....From known to unknown: Individual differences in associative generalisation. This project aims to investigate how and why individuals differ in the way that they generalise from past experiences to novel situations. The goal of the project is to develop an innovative and formal model capable of predicting how a given individual will generalise based on their beliefs and personal traits, and to better understand how people behave when there are multiple conflicting ways to generalise. The expected outcomes of the project are a better understanding and measurement of generalisation, a fundamental psychological process. The outcomes of this project can be used to benefit the development of clinical treatment for anxiety disorders, of which overgeneralisation of fear responses is a defining feature. Read moreRead less
Does word similarity across languages help or hinder bilingual speakers? This project aims to understand in more detail how bilinguals can accurately speak in both their languages. Speaking is a complex skill, particularly if you have two languages to choose from, which will be true for over half of Australia’s population by 2025. This project aims to investigate the factors that influence speech production in both monolinguals and bilinguals including those with language impairment, and develop ....Does word similarity across languages help or hinder bilingual speakers? This project aims to understand in more detail how bilinguals can accurately speak in both their languages. Speaking is a complex skill, particularly if you have two languages to choose from, which will be true for over half of Australia’s population by 2025. This project aims to investigate the factors that influence speech production in both monolinguals and bilinguals including those with language impairment, and develop a better bilingual theory. The benefit of this new theory will be to provide a clear basis for diagnosis and treatment for children in bilingual households who have problems learning to speak, and for bilingual people with language problems after a stroke or dementia.Read moreRead less
How the brain produces speech: Neuronal oscillations to neuromodulation. Speech is crucial for facilitating human communication through language, yet there is a lack of clarity about where, when and what type of activity occurs in the brain during key stages of production. This project will use intracranial recordings to characterise neuronal oscillations in combination with direct electrical stimulation, functional neuroimaging and non-invasive brain stimulation to establish critical areas and ....How the brain produces speech: Neuronal oscillations to neuromodulation. Speech is crucial for facilitating human communication through language, yet there is a lack of clarity about where, when and what type of activity occurs in the brain during key stages of production. This project will use intracranial recordings to characterise neuronal oscillations in combination with direct electrical stimulation, functional neuroimaging and non-invasive brain stimulation to establish critical areas and their timecourses with millisecond resolution. The outcome will be a better theoretical account of the brain mechanisms involved in spoken production. The benefit of this new theoretical account will be a better basis for prevention of post-surgical language impairment and neuromodulatory treatments after brain injury.Read moreRead less
A more sound approach to the neurobiology of language. How does the brain attain spoken language? Current neurobiological models assume either implicitly or explicitly that there is no relationship between a word's sound and its meaning. Yet considerable evidence shows this strong assumption about the arbitrariness of language is invalid. This project will use a combination of behavioural, neuroimaging and computational studies to characterise how the brain processes statistical regularities in ....A more sound approach to the neurobiology of language. How does the brain attain spoken language? Current neurobiological models assume either implicitly or explicitly that there is no relationship between a word's sound and its meaning. Yet considerable evidence shows this strong assumption about the arbitrariness of language is invalid. This project will use a combination of behavioural, neuroimaging and computational studies to characterise how the brain processes statistical regularities in sound-to-meaning correspondences as probabilistic cues to attain spoken language. The outcome will be a better neural account of language comprehension and production. The benefit of this new account will be a stronger basis for assessment and treatment of developmental and acquired language impairments.Read moreRead less
Beyond Speech: Towards better communication for children with hearing loss. Despite the benefits of early newborn hearing screening and early intervention programs for children with hearing loss, most still experience academic and social challenges at school. This is partly due to ongoing listening effort, leading to communicative breakdown. This project aims to identify the locus of the communicative challenges these children face during daily discourse interactions. The outcomes will identify ....Beyond Speech: Towards better communication for children with hearing loss. Despite the benefits of early newborn hearing screening and early intervention programs for children with hearing loss, most still experience academic and social challenges at school. This is partly due to ongoing listening effort, leading to communicative breakdown. This project aims to identify the locus of the communicative challenges these children face during daily discourse interactions. The outcomes will identify which levels of language are most compromised and will inform future interventions to reduce children’s listening effort. This will be undertaken by bringing together researchers in basic science with hearing service providers, parents and industry, providing an innovative model for solving multidisciplinary challenges.Read moreRead less
Developmental trajectory of tongue control for speech with real-time MRI. This project aims to evaluate the developmental trajectory of tongue control during speech, relating dynamic 3D vocal tract modelling to the acoustic signal. By optimising real-time MRI technology to capture and model articulatory movements, the project expects to accelerate understanding of how tongue control for speech is developed, mastered, and perturbed by factors such as rapid growth and foreign accent. Expected outc ....Developmental trajectory of tongue control for speech with real-time MRI. This project aims to evaluate the developmental trajectory of tongue control during speech, relating dynamic 3D vocal tract modelling to the acoustic signal. By optimising real-time MRI technology to capture and model articulatory movements, the project expects to accelerate understanding of how tongue control for speech is developed, mastered, and perturbed by factors such as rapid growth and foreign accent. Expected outcome is a new understanding of how different speakers' vocal tracts change and how speech is reshaped, informed by real physiological data. Significant benefits will be realised through refined methods and theory development for diverse fields e.g. linguistics, speech science, and automatic speech recognition/synthesis. Read moreRead less