The language abilities of young offenders: Missing links in theory and practice.. Young offenders are a complex and challenging population, with high rates of comorbidity between attentional, learning, and behaviour problems. Few workers have, however, considered the underlying language processing and production skills in this population. Available evidence indicates a high level of vulnerability to language disorders in young offenders. These may contribute to poor academic performance and fail ....The language abilities of young offenders: Missing links in theory and practice.. Young offenders are a complex and challenging population, with high rates of comorbidity between attentional, learning, and behaviour problems. Few workers have, however, considered the underlying language processing and production skills in this population. Available evidence indicates a high level of vulnerability to language disorders in young offenders. These may contribute to poor academic performance and failure to develop prosocial skills. This study will explore language competencies and will describe their relationship to social skills, patterns of comorbidity, and type of offence (property Vs violent). Findings will be relevant to theories of juvenile offending and design of prevention/intervention programsRead moreRead less
Determinants of Audio-Visual effects in degraded and non-degraded speech. Seeing a speaker's face can affect the perception of their speech in a number of ways. This project proposes a detailed comparison of factors that affect Audio-Visual (AV) facilitation of degraded speech detection and identification. Detection-based tasks should be more sensitive to signal based correlations whereas identification-based effects more sensitive to complementary information. The significance of the current pr ....Determinants of Audio-Visual effects in degraded and non-degraded speech. Seeing a speaker's face can affect the perception of their speech in a number of ways. This project proposes a detailed comparison of factors that affect Audio-Visual (AV) facilitation of degraded speech detection and identification. Detection-based tasks should be more sensitive to signal based correlations whereas identification-based effects more sensitive to complementary information. The significance of the current proposal is that it offers both a strategy and a connected series of experiments for determining key behavioural constraints on AV speech integration. Understanding AV interactions will build links between neurophysiological processes and coherent perception and have important implications for AV application.Read moreRead less
Language processing in children with high functioning autism: Evidence from eye tracking. The language abilities in people with autism predict their response to intervention and their cognitive outcome. Young children with autism with poor language abilities are severely disadvantaged. Yet we understand little about what impedes their language development and their interpretation of what others say. The research findings will make a significant contribution by enriching our understanding of why ....Language processing in children with high functioning autism: Evidence from eye tracking. The language abilities in people with autism predict their response to intervention and their cognitive outcome. Young children with autism with poor language abilities are severely disadvantaged. Yet we understand little about what impedes their language development and their interpretation of what others say. The research findings will make a significant contribution by enriching our understanding of why and how comprehension may go astray, as well as helping us to identify subgroups within the autism population.Read moreRead less
Using written language to probe speech recognition models. Speech recognition models fall into two principal classes, with fundamentally different processing architectures. Feedback models (e.g. TRACE, McClelland & Elman, 1986) allow lexical knowledge to exert top-down control over phonemic analysis. Feedforward models (e.g. Merge, Norris, McQueen & Cutler, 2000) assume that information flow is entirely bottom-up. Our project adopts an innovative approach to testing between these model classe ....Using written language to probe speech recognition models. Speech recognition models fall into two principal classes, with fundamentally different processing architectures. Feedback models (e.g. TRACE, McClelland & Elman, 1986) allow lexical knowledge to exert top-down control over phonemic analysis. Feedforward models (e.g. Merge, Norris, McQueen & Cutler, 2000) assume that information flow is entirely bottom-up. Our project adopts an innovative approach to testing between these model classes, by examining the influence of written-word knowledge on speech perception. To distinguish the models, contrasts must test different processing levels and examine strategy effects. TRACE favors broad effects with limited strategic influence; Merge favors lexical effects that are necessarily sensitive to strategic factorsRead moreRead less
Reconciling perceptual and cognitive accounts of dyslexia: The neural rate deficit hypothesis. The proposed research will form part of a co-ordinated program to understand the causes of dyslexia, a disorder that affects a large number of children and often persists into adulthood. It complements parallel efforts to elucidate the genetic basis of dyslexia, the heterogeneity and subtypes of dyslexia, and the developmental precursors to the disorder. This research will inform early intervention and ....Reconciling perceptual and cognitive accounts of dyslexia: The neural rate deficit hypothesis. The proposed research will form part of a co-ordinated program to understand the causes of dyslexia, a disorder that affects a large number of children and often persists into adulthood. It complements parallel efforts to elucidate the genetic basis of dyslexia, the heterogeneity and subtypes of dyslexia, and the developmental precursors to the disorder. This research will inform early intervention and remediation efforts and will also assist in the understanding of the normal process of reading acquisition in children.Read moreRead less
Discovering the developmental trajectory of lexical stress production. In English words some syllables are more strongly stressed than others. Most children will learn to emphasise these syllables appropriately but some will not. This project will help to understand the normal development of this vital aspect of speech production and allow more effective assistance to those who experience difficulties.
A longitudinal study of the interaction of home and school language in three Aboriginal communities. The importance of language skills cannot be underestimated, and contribute to 'a healthy start to life'. In multilingual Indigenous communities, children must negotiate the complexities of different languages used for different purposes. This project will provide detailed insights into how children manage differences between home and school language, the kinds of problems they encounter when the ....A longitudinal study of the interaction of home and school language in three Aboriginal communities. The importance of language skills cannot be underestimated, and contribute to 'a healthy start to life'. In multilingual Indigenous communities, children must negotiate the complexities of different languages used for different purposes. This project will provide detailed insights into how children manage differences between home and school language, the kinds of problems they encounter when they enter the school system, and how their languages develop over the first four crucial years of school which provide the foundation for the children's future education. Their ability to manage the language of school underpins their ability to lead successful and engaged lives as adults. Read moreRead less
Bridging the meaning gap: A computational approach to semantic variation. This project aims to create and validate a new class of large language models that capture and partially explain semantic variation between people. We will (1) measure nuanced differences in word meaning and linguistic experience across individuals; (2) develop computational models that incorporate this variation; and (3) evaluate the extent to which the models capture behavioural and cognitive differences related to polit ....Bridging the meaning gap: A computational approach to semantic variation. This project aims to create and validate a new class of large language models that capture and partially explain semantic variation between people. We will (1) measure nuanced differences in word meaning and linguistic experience across individuals; (2) develop computational models that incorporate this variation; and (3) evaluate the extent to which the models capture behavioural and cognitive differences related to political affiliation, gender, and culture. This will advance our understanding of the nature and origin of individual differences as well as improve the calibration of AI systems for under-represented groups. These advances will support eventual applied outcomes in health, domestic security, and resilience to misinformation. Read moreRead less
Are super-complex words represented like sentences in speakers' minds? This project aims to examine speakers' knowledge of super-complex words in the remote Australian language Wubuy. The project will provide a crucial test of current theories of language processing and linguistic typology via experimental work on the Indigenous language Wubuy, a language that defies the perceived fundamental distinction between words and phrases. This will have significant benefit to Indigenous language mainten ....Are super-complex words represented like sentences in speakers' minds? This project aims to examine speakers' knowledge of super-complex words in the remote Australian language Wubuy. The project will provide a crucial test of current theories of language processing and linguistic typology via experimental work on the Indigenous language Wubuy, a language that defies the perceived fundamental distinction between words and phrases. This will have significant benefit to Indigenous language maintenance and revitalisation efforts and thus help improve Indigenous education outcomes and reinforce cultural pride.Read moreRead less
Learning from others: Inductive reasoning based on human-generated data. Most of the data we see every day, from politics to gossip, comes from other people. Making inferences about such data is difficult because the people who provided it may have biases or limitations in their knowledge that we do not know about and must figure out. This project uses a series of experiments tied to normative computational models of social reasoning to explore how people solve this problem. This work has the po ....Learning from others: Inductive reasoning based on human-generated data. Most of the data we see every day, from politics to gossip, comes from other people. Making inferences about such data is difficult because the people who provided it may have biases or limitations in their knowledge that we do not know about and must figure out. This project uses a series of experiments tied to normative computational models of social reasoning to explore how people solve this problem. This work has the potential to make a major impact in understanding how information is understood and shared, especially when it is about topics that people lack firsthand knowledge about, like climate change. The computational models also have applications to the development of expert systems upon which our information economy relies.Read moreRead less