Matching Items (8)
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- All Subjects: Cognitive Psychology
- Genre: Doctoral Dissertation
- Creators: Amazeen, Eric L
- Creators: Gray, Robert
Description
Auditory scene analysis (ASA) is the process through which listeners parse and organize their acoustic environment into relevant auditory objects. ASA functions by exploiting natural regularities in the structure of auditory information. The current study investigates spectral envelope and its contribution to the perception of changes in pitch and loudness. Experiment 1 constructs a perceptual continuum of twelve f0- and intensity-matched vowel phonemes (i.e. a pure timbre manipulation) and reveals spectral envelope as a primary organizational dimension. The extremes of this dimension are i (as in “bee”) and Ʌ (“bun”). Experiment 2 measures the strength of the relationship between produced f0 and the previously observed phonetic-pitch continuum at three different levels of phonemic constraint. Scat performances and, to a lesser extent, recorded interviews were found to exhibit changes in accordance with the natural regularity; specifically, f0 changes were correlated with the phoneme pitch-height continuum. The more constrained case of lyrical singing did not exhibit the natural regularity. Experiment 3 investigates participant ratings of pitch and loudness as stimuli vary in f0, intensity, and the phonetic-pitch continuum. Psychophysical functions derived from the results reveal that moving from i to Ʌ is equivalent to a .38 semitone decrease in f0 and a .75 dB decrease in intensity. Experiment 4 examines the potentially functional aspect of the pitch, loudness, and spectral envelope relationship. Detection thresholds of stimuli in which all three dimensions change congruently (f0 increase, intensity increase, Ʌ to i) or incongruently (no f0 change, intensity increase, i to Ʌ) are compared using an objective version of the method of limits. Congruent changes did not provide a detection benefit over incongruent changes; however, when the contribution of phoneme change was removed, congruent changes did offer a slight detection benefit, as in previous research. While this relationship does not offer a detection benefit at threshold, there is a natural regularity for humans to produce phonemes at higher f0s according to their relative position on the pitch height continuum. Likewise, humans have a bias to detect pitch and loudness changes in phoneme sweeps in accordance with the natural regularity.
ContributorsPatten, K. Jakob (Author) / Mcbeath, Michael K (Thesis advisor) / Amazeen, Eric L (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur W (Committee member) / Zhou, Yi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
For many years now, researchers have documented evidence of fractal scaling in psychological time series. Explanations of fractal scaling have come from many sources but those that have gained the most traction in the literature are theories that suggest fractal scaling originates from the interactions among the multiple scales that make up behavior. Those theories, originating in the study of dynamical systems, suffer from the limitation that fractal analysis reveals only indirect evidence of multiscale interactions. Multiscale interactions must be demonstrated directly because there are many means to generate fractal properties. In two experiments, participants performed a pursuit tracking task while I recorded multiple behavioral and physiological time series. A new analytical technique, multiscale lagged regression, was introduced to capture how those many psychological time series coordinate across multiple scales and time. The results were surprising in that coordination among psychological time series tends to be oscillatory in nature, even when the series are not oscillatory themselves. Those and other results demonstrate the existence of multiscale interactions in psychological systems.
ContributorsLikens, Aaron D (Author) / Amazeen, Polemnia G (Thesis advisor) / Amazeen, Eric L (Committee member) / Cooke, Nancy L (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Driving a vehicle is a complex task that typically requires several physical interactions and mental tasks. Inattentive driving takes a driver’s attention away from the primary task of driving, which can endanger the safety of driver, passenger(s), as well as pedestrians. According to several traffic safety administration organizations, distracted and inattentive driving are the primary causes of vehicle crashes or near crashes. In this research, a novel approach to detect and mitigate various levels of driving distractions is proposed. This novel approach consists of two main phases: i.) Proposing a system to detect various levels of driver distractions (low, medium, and high) using a machine learning techniques. ii.) Mitigating the effects of driver distractions through the integration of the distracted driving detection algorithm and the existing vehicle safety systems. In phase- 1, vehicle data were collected from an advanced driving simulator and a visual based sensor (webcam) for face monitoring. In addition, data were processed using a machine learning algorithm and a head pose analysis package in MATLAB. Then the model was trained and validated to detect different human operator distraction levels. In phase 2, the detected level of distraction, time to collision (TTC), lane position (LP), and steering entropy (SE) were used as an input to feed the vehicle safety controller that provides an appropriate action to maintain and/or mitigate vehicle safety status. The integrated detection algorithm and vehicle safety controller were then prototyped using MATLAB/SIMULINK for validation. A complete vehicle power train model including the driver’s interaction was replicated, and the outcome from the detection algorithm was fed into the vehicle safety controller. The results show that the vehicle safety system controller reacted and mitigated the vehicle safety status-in closed loop real-time fashion. The simulation results show that the proposed approach is efficient, accurate, and adaptable to dynamic changes resulting from the driver, as well as the vehicle system. This novel approach was applied in order to mitigate the impact of visual and cognitive distractions on the driver performance.
ContributorsAlomari, Jamil (Author) / Mayyas, AbdRaouf (Thesis advisor) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Committee member) / Gray, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
While various collision warning studies in driving have been conducted, only a handful of studies have investigated the effectiveness of warnings with a distracted driver. Across four experiments, the present study aimed to understand the apparent gap in the literature of distracted drivers and warning effectiveness, specifically by studying various warnings presented to drivers while they were operating a smart phone. Experiment One attempted to understand which smart phone tasks, (text vs image) or (self-paced vs other-paced) are the most distracting to a driver. Experiment Two compared the effectiveness of different smartphone based applications (app’s) for mitigating driver distraction. Experiment Three investigated the effects of informative auditory and tactile warnings which were designed to convey directional information to a distracted driver (moving towards or away). Lastly, Experiment Four extended the research into the area of autonomous driving by investigating the effectiveness of different auditory take-over request signals. Novel to both Experiment Three and Four was that the warnings were delivered from the source of the distraction (i.e., by either the sound triggered at the smart phone location or through a vibration given on the wrist of the hand holding the smart phone). This warning placement was an attempt to break the driver’s attentional focus on their smart phone and understand how to best re-orient the driver in order to improve the driver’s situational awareness (SA). The overall goal was to explore these novel methods of improved SA so drivers may more quickly and appropriately respond to a critical event.
ContributorsMcNabb, Jaimie Christine (Author) / Gray, Dr. Rob (Thesis advisor) / Branaghan, Dr. Russell (Committee member) / Becker, Dr. Vaughn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
This increasing role of highly automated and intelligent systems as team members has started a paradigm shift from human-human teaming to Human-Autonomy Teaming (HAT). However, moving from human-human teaming to HAT is challenging. Teamwork requires skills that are often missing in robots and synthetic agents. It is possible that adding a synthetic agent as a team member may lead teams to demonstrate different coordination patterns resulting in differences in team cognition and ultimately team effectiveness. The theory of Interactive Team Cognition (ITC) emphasizes the importance of team interaction behaviors over the collection of individual knowledge. In this dissertation, Nonlinear Dynamical Methods (NDMs) were applied to capture characteristics of overall team coordination and communication behaviors. The findings supported the hypothesis that coordination stability is related to team performance in a nonlinear manner with optimal performance associated with moderate stability coupled with flexibility. Thus, we need to build mechanisms in HATs to demonstrate moderately stable and flexible coordination behavior to achieve team-level goals under routine and novel task conditions.
ContributorsDemir, Mustafa, Ph.D (Author) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Thesis advisor) / Bekki, Jennifer (Committee member) / Amazeen, Polemnia G (Committee member) / Gray, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
A literature search revealed that previous research on the Attentional Blink (AB) has not examined the role of salience in AB results. I examined how salience affects the AB through multiple forms and degrees of salience in target 1 (T1) and target 2 (T2) stimuli. When examining increased size as a form of salience, results showed a more salient T2 increased recall, attenuating the AB. A more salient T1 did not differ from the control, suggesting the salience (increased size) of T2 is an important factor in the AB, while salience (increased size) of T1 does not affect the AB. Additionally, the differences in target size (50% or 100% larger) were not significantly different, showing size differences at these intervals do not affect AB results. To further explore the lack of difference in results when T1 is larger in size, I examined dynamic stimuli used as T1. T1 stimuli were presented as looming or receding. When T1 was presented as looming or receding, the AB was attenuated (T2 recall at lag 2 was significantly greater). Additionally, T2 recall was significantly worse at lags three and four (showing a larger decrease directly following the attenuated AB). When comparing looming and receding against each other, at lag 2 (when recall accuracy at its lowest) looming increased recall significantly more than receding stimuli. This is expected to be due to the immediate attentional needs related to looming stimuli. Overall, the results showed T2 salience in the form of size significantly increases recall accuracy while T1 size salience does not affect the AB results. With that, dynamic T1 stimuli increase recall accuracy at early lags (lag 2) while it decreases recall accuracy at later lags (lags 3 and 4). This result is found when the stimuli are presented at a larger size (stimuli appearing closer), suggesting the more eminent need for attention results in greater effects on the AB.
ContributorsLafko, Stacie (Author) / Becker, Vaughn (Thesis advisor) / Branaghan, Russell (Committee member) / Gray, Robert (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Maintaining upright balance and postural control is a task that most individuals perform everyday with ease and without much thought. Although it may be a relatively easy task to perform, research has shown that changes in cognitive (or “attentional”) processes are reflected in the movements of sway. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand the relationship between attention and posture when attention is directly or indirectly shifted away from posture. Using a dual-task paradigm, attention was shifted directly by instructing participants to prioritize the balance task (minimize sway in a unipedal stance) or prioritize the cognitive task (minimize errors in an auditory n-back task) and indirectly by changing the difficulty level of the cognitive task (0-back vs. 2-back task). Postural sway was assessed using sample entropy (SampEn), standard deviation, (SD) and sway path (SP) of trunk movements to measure the regularity, variability, and overall distance of sway travelled, respectively. Dual-task behavior was examined when participants were in a controlled (i.e., non-fatigued) state (Experiment 1), in a state of physical fatigue (Experiment 2), and in a state of mental fatigue (Experiment 3). Across all three experiments, indirectly shifting attention away from posture in the more difficult 2-back task induced less regularity (higher SampEn) and variability (smaller SD) in postural sway. Directly shifting attention away from posture, by prioritizing the cognitive task, induced less regularity (higher SampEn) and a longer path length (higher SP) in Experiment 1, however this effect was not significant for the fatigued participants in Experiments 2 and 3. Neither physical fatigue (Experiment 2) or mental fatigue (Experiment 3) negatively affected postural sway or cognitive performance. Overall, the findings from this dissertation contribute to the relationship between movement regularity and attention in posture, and that the postural behavior that emerges is sensitive to methods in which attention is manipulated (direct, indirect) and fatigue (physical, mental).
ContributorsGibbons, Cameron Todd (Author) / Amazeen, Polemnia G (Thesis advisor) / Amazeen, Eric L (Committee member) / Gray, Rob (Committee member) / Brewer, Gene A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
In order to perceive the heaviness of an object, one must wield it. This requires muscle activity and its resulting movements. Research has shown that muscle activity and movement combine for this perception in a manner inspired by Newton’s 2nd Law of Motion. Research in this area has relied on specific movement and muscle activity measures that often capture one moment of a lift. The current set of experiments set out to determine which measures best capture the underlying phenomena that lead to heaviness perception during a lift. In the first experiment, participants lifted stimuli with an elbow flexion lift while their muscle activity and movement were recorded. Participants reported their perceived heaviness of the stimuli as soon as they reached it, which resulted in an average decision angle of around 30-degrees. In the second and third experiments, participants the same stimuli with the same elbow flexion lift in four perturbation conditions – they experienced perturbations at 15-degrees of the lift, 30-degrees, 45-degrees, and with no perturbation. In the second experiment, participants experienced a physical perturbation and a cognitive perturbation in the third experiment. Across Experiments 2 and 3, the pattern of results suggested that the more time participants have in a lift, the more proportion correct, muscle activity, and movement measures appears like they do in the no perturbation condition. Additionally, a logistic least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression was used to determine which measures best predicted perception. Results show that the integrated electromyogram of the biceps brachii that occurs after peak acceleration (iEMG BB after pACC) and Average Acceleration, which are both measures that capture more than one point of a lift, predicted heaviness perception. A new model of heaviness perception was then developed, using these new measures. Comparing this New Model to an Original Model from Waddell et al., 2016 resulted in better prediction from the New Model – suggesting that measure that capture more of a lift better predict heaviness perception, meaning that an entire ongoing action event is important for perception.
ContributorsWaddell, Morgan Leigh (Author) / Amazeen, Eric L (Thesis advisor) / Amazeen, Polemnia G (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur M (Committee member) / Gray, Rob (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021