Matching Items (10)
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- All Subjects: Systems science
- All Subjects: working memory
- Creators: Cooke, Nancy J.
- Creators: Liss, Julie
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
Although there are many forms of organization on the Web, one of the most prominent ways to organize web content and websites are tags. Tags are keywords or terms that are assigned to a specific piece of content in order to help users understand the common relationships between pieces of content. Tags can either be assigned by an algorithm, the author, or the community. These tags can also be organized into tag clouds, which are visual representations of the structure and organization contained implicitly within these tags. Importantly, little is known on how we use these different tagging structures to understand the content and structure of a given site. This project examines 2 different characteristics of tagging structures: font size and spatial orientation. In order to examine how these different characteristics might interact with individual differences in attentional control, a measure of working memory capacity (WMC) was included. The results showed that spatial relationships affect how well users understand the structure of a website. WMC was not shown to have any significant effect; neither was varying the font size. These results should better inform how tags and tag clouds are used on the Web, and also provide an estimation of what properties to include when designing and implementing a tag cloud on a website.
ContributorsBanas, Steven (Author) / Sanchez, Christopher A (Thesis advisor) / Branaghan, Russell (Committee member) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Frequency effects favoring high print-frequency words have been observed in frequency judgment memory tasks. Healthy young adults performed frequency judgment tasks; one group performed a single task while another group did the same task while alternating their attention to a secondary task (mathematical equations). Performance was assessed by correct and error responses, reaction times, and accuracy. Accuracy and reaction times were analyzed in terms of memory load (task condition), number of repetitions, effect of high vs. low print-frequency, and correlations with working memory span. Multinomial tree analyses were also completed to investigate source vs. item memory and revealed a mirror effect in episodic memory experiments (source memory), but a frequency advantage in span tasks (item memory). Interestingly enough, we did not observe an advantage for high working memory span individuals in frequency judgments, even when participants split their attention during the dual task (similar to a complex span task). However, we concluded that both the amount of attentional resources allocated and prior experience with an item affect how it is stored in memory.
ContributorsPeterson, Megan Paige (Author) / Azuma, Tamiko (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Shelley (Committee member) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
There have been conflicting accounts of animation's facilitation in learning from instructional media, being at best no different if not hindering performance. Procedural motor learning represents one of the few the areas in which animations have shown to be facilitative. These studies examine the effects of instructional media (animation vs. static), rotation (facing vs. over the shoulder) and spatial abilities (low vs. high spatial abilities) on two procedural motor tasks, knot tying and endoscope reprocessing. Results indicate that for all conditions observed in which participants engaged in procedural motor learning tasks, performance was significantly improved with animations over static images. Further, performance was greater for rotations of instructional media that did not require participants to perform a mental rotation under some circumstances. Interactions between Media x Rotation suggest that media that was animated and did not require a participant to mentally rotate led to improved performance. Individual spatial abilities were found to influence total steps correct and total number of errors made in the knot tying task, but this was not observed in the endoscope task. These findings have implications for the design of instructional media for procedural motor tasks and provide strong support for the usage of animations in this context.
ContributorsGarland, T. B (Author) / Sanchez, Chris A (Thesis advisor) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Committee member) / Branaghan, Russel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Previous studies have found that the detection of near-threshold stimuli is decreased immediately before movement and throughout movement production. This has been suggested to occur through the use of the internal forward model processing an efferent copy of the motor command and creating a prediction that is used to cancel out the resulting sensory feedback. Currently, there are no published accounts of the perception of tactile signals for motor tasks and contexts related to the lips during both speech planning and production. In this study, we measured the responsiveness of the somatosensory system during speech planning using light electrical stimulation below the lower lip by comparing perception during mixed speaking and silent reading conditions. Participants were asked to judge whether a constant near-threshold electrical stimulation (subject-specific intensity, 85% detected at rest) was present during different time points relative to an initial visual cue. In the speaking condition, participants overtly produced target words shown on a computer monitor. In the reading condition, participants read the same target words silently to themselves without any movement or sound. We found that detection of the stimulus was attenuated during speaking conditions while remaining at a constant level close to the perceptual threshold throughout the silent reading condition. Perceptual modulation was most intense during speech production and showed some attenuation just prior to speech production during the planning period of speech. This demonstrates that there is a significant decrease in the responsiveness of the somatosensory system during speech production as well as milliseconds before speech is even produced which has implications for speech disorders such as stuttering and schizophrenia with pronounced deficits in the somatosensory system.
ContributorsMcguffin, Brianna Jean (Author) / Daliri, Ayoub (Thesis director) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Previous research has shown that a loud acoustic stimulus can trigger an individual's prepared movement plan. This movement response is referred to as a startle-evoked movement (SEM). SEM has been observed in the stroke survivor population where results have shown that SEM enhances single joint movements that are usually performed with difficulty. While the presence of SEM in the stroke survivor population advances scientific understanding of movement capabilities following a stroke, published studies using the SEM phenomenon only examined one joint. The ability of SEM to generate multi-jointed movements is understudied and consequently limits SEM as a potential therapy tool. In order to apply SEM as a therapy tool however, the biomechanics of the arm in multi-jointed movement planning and execution must be better understood. Thus, the objective of our study was to evaluate if SEM could elicit multi-joint reaching movements that were accurate in an unrestrained, two-dimensional workspace. Data was collected from ten subjects with no previous neck, arm, or brain injury. Each subject performed a reaching task to five Targets that were equally spaced in a semi-circle to create a two-dimensional workspace. The subject reached to each Target following a sequence of two non-startling acoustic stimuli cues: "Get Ready" and "Go". A loud acoustic stimuli was randomly substituted for the "Go" cue. We hypothesized that SEM is accessible and accurate for unrestricted multi-jointed reaching tasks in a functional workspace and is therefore independent of movement direction. Our results found that SEM is possible in all five Target directions. The probability of evoking SEM and the movement kinematics (i.e. total movement time, linear deviation, average velocity) to each Target are not statistically different. Thus, we conclude that SEM is possible in a functional workspace and is not dependent on where arm stability is maximized. Moreover, coordinated preparation and storage of a multi-jointed movement is indeed possible.
ContributorsOssanna, Meilin Ryan (Author) / Honeycutt, Claire (Thesis director) / Schaefer, Sydney (Committee member) / Harrington Bioengineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
The prospects of commercially available autonomous vehicles are surely tantalizing, however the implementation of these vehicles and their strain on the social dynamics between motorists and pedestrians remains unknown. Questions concerning how autonomous vehicles will communicate safety and intent to pedestrians remain largely unanswered. This study examines the efficacy of various proposed technologies for bridging the communication gap between self-driving cars and pedestrians. Displays utilizing words like “safe” and “danger” seem to be effective in communicating with pedestrians and other road users. Future research should attempt to study different external notification interfaces in real-life settings to more accurately gauge pedestrian responses.
ContributorsMuqolli, Endrit (Author) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Thesis advisor) / Chiou, Erin (Committee member) / Gray, Rob (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Human-agent teams (HATs) are expected to play a larger role in future command and control systems where resilience is critical for team effectiveness. The question of how HATs interact to be effective in both normal and unexpected situations is worthy of further examination. Exploratory behaviors are one that way adaptive systems discover opportunities to expand and refine their performance. In this study, team interaction exploration is examined in a HAT composed of a human navigator, human photographer, and a synthetic pilot while they perform a remotely-piloted aerial reconnaissance task. Failures in automation and the synthetic pilot’s autonomy were injected throughout ten missions as roadblocks. Teams were clustered by performance into high-, middle-, and low-performing groups. It was hypothesized that high-performing teams would exchange more text-messages containing unique content or sender-recipient combinations than middle- and low-performing teams, and that teams would exchange less unique messages over time. The results indicate that high-performing teams had more unique team interactions than middle-performing teams. Additionally, teams generally had more exploratory team interactions in the first session of missions than the second session. Implications and suggestions for future work are discussed.
ContributorsLematta, Glenn Joseph (Author) / Chiou, Erin K. (Thesis advisor) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Committee member) / Roscoe, Rod D. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Intelligence analysts’ work has become progressively complex due to increasing security threats and data availability. In order to study “big” data exploration within the intelligence domain the intelligence analyst task was abstracted and replicated in a laboratory (controlled environment). Participants used a computer interface and movie database to determine the opening weekend gross movie earnings of three pre-selected movies. Data consisted of Twitter tweets and predictive models. These data were displayed in various formats such as graphs, charts, and text. Participants used these data to make their predictions. It was expected that teams (a team is a group with members who have different specialties and who work interdependently) would outperform individuals and groups. That is, teams would be significantly better at predicting “Opening Weekend Gross” than individuals or groups. Results indicated that teams outperformed individuals and groups in the first prediction, under performed in the second prediction, and performed better than individuals in the third prediction (but not better than groups). Insights and future directions are discussed.
ContributorsBuchanan, Verica (Author) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Thesis advisor) / Maciejewski, Ross (Committee member) / Craig, Scotty D. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The goal of this experiment is to observe the relation between synchrony and performance in 3-person teams in a simulated Army medic training environment (i.e., Monitoring Extracting and Decoding Indicators of Cognitive workload: MEDIC). The cardiac measure Interbeat-Interval (IBI) was monitored during a physically oriented, and a cognitively oriented task. IBI was measured using NIRS (Near-Infrared Spectrology), and performance was measured using a team task score during a balance board and puzzle task. Synchrony has not previously been monitored across completely different tasks in the same experiment. I hypothesize that teams with high synchrony will show high performance on both tasks. Although no significant results were discovered by the correlational analysis, a trend was revealed that suggests there is a positive relationship between synchrony and performance. This study has contributed to the literature by monitoring physiological measures in a simulated team training environment, making suggestions for future research.
ContributorsFedele, Michael A (Author) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Thesis advisor) / Gray, Rob (Committee member) / Roscoe, Rod (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Military veterans have a significantly higher incidence of mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), depression, and Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) compared to civilians. Military veterans also represent a rapidly growing subgroup of college students, due in part to the robust and financially incentivizing educational benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The overlapping cognitively impacting symptoms of service-related conditions combined with the underreporting of mTBI and psychiatric-related conditions, make accurate assessment of cognitive performance in military veterans challenging. Recent research findings provide conflicting information on cognitive performance patterns in military veterans. The purpose of this study was to determine whether service-related conditions and self-assessments predict performance on complex working memory and executive function tasks for military veteran college students. Sixty-one military veteran college students attending classes at Arizona State University campuses completed clinical neuropsychological tasks and experimental working memory and executive function tasks. The results revealed that a history of mTBI significantly predicted poorer performance in the areas of verbal working memory and decision-making. Depression significantly predicted poorer performance in executive function related to serial updating. In contrast, the commonly used clinical neuropsychological tasks were not sensitive service-related conditions including mTBI, PTSD, and depression. The differing performance patterns observed between the clinical tasks and the more complex experimental tasks support that researchers and clinicians should use tests that sufficiently tax verbal working memory and executive function when evaluating the subtle, higher-order cognitive deficits associated with mTBI and depression.
ContributorsGallagher, Karen Louise (Author) / Azuma, Tamiko (Thesis advisor) / Liss, Julie (Committee member) / Lavoie, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017