<p>  </p> <p>The ability to interpret speech as it unfolds in sentences is a complex skill that is essential to successful spoken communication. However, variability in sentence processing skills, such as predictive processing, can impair not only concurrent communication success but also future language development. Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have known deficits in morphosyntax (Leonard, 2014), lexical representation (Sheng & McGregor, 2010b), and speed of processing (Leonard et al., 2007), but less is known about the impact of these impairments on processing sentences in real time during early stages of language development.  The present study examines individual and group differences in online predictive processing skills in 36-month-old children using eye-tracked simple transitive sentences of the structure Article-Agent-Action-Article-Target (e.g., <em>The pirate chases the ship)</em>. Participants listened to the sentences while viewing pictures that corresponded with the sentential input in four different ways (i.e., Target, Agent-related, Action-related, Unrelated). Core Language Index (CLI) scores from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Preschool 2  (CELF-P2) were used to from two sets of groups: 1) “high language” (n=33) and “low language” (n=22) groups using a median split of CLI scores (median = 102) and 2) “not at risk for DLD” (n=50) and “at risk for DLD” (n=6) group based on a CLI cutoff score of 85 used in clinical practice, which falls one standard deviation below the mean and suggests risk for DLD.</p> <p> Using eye movements as an index of online sentence processing, no individual or group differences were found in terms of prediction of the Target or locally-coherent activations of the Action-related item. These results indicate that three-year-old children at risk for language impairment are predicting highly expected items as well as entertaining alternative sentence representations simultaneously, indicating graded activations. These results contradict previous findings that adolescents with DLD do not make graded predictions (Borovsky et al., 2013). However, we found that children of higher language ability (as quantified by scores on the CELF-P2) completed significantly more fixations to the Agent-related picture. This finding suggests one way (i.e., Agent-related prediction) in which 36-month-olds’ online processing of sentences differs based on overall language skill that is inconsistent with accounts of an over-reliance on global interpretations in DLD later in development.</p>

Mediehusen fokuserar nästintill uteslutande på dagstidningar online, då den trycktadagstidningen av olika anledningar saknar positiva framtidsutsikter (Svenska mediehus2014/15 2015). I dagens medieklimat finns det större möjligheter att publicerajournalistik och kunna tjäna pengar på det online och när det kommer till formgivningenfinns det många lika men också olika förutsättningar, i jämförelse med dentryckta dagstidningen. En förutsättning oavsett plattform är formgivningens anpassningefter annonser och affärsmodeller, snarare än läsare och journalistik (6.3.1:5 och6.3.3:5) . En skillnad när det gäller förutsättningar är att det i tryckta medier finns enfrihet i layouten, att skapa både ett horisontellt såväl som vertikalt flöde, medan detonline är standard att till exempel enbart använda sig av en (potentiellt) oändlig spalt.2Det bör alltså läggas stor vikt vid hur man sätter brödtexten i den här enda spalten ochaspekter som typsnitt, whitespace och bildsättning spelar in. Den här uppsatsen fokuserapå en fjärde och lika viktig aspekt: teckengrad.En standard finns sedan länge för den tryckta dagstidningen, men vi ser fortfarandeolika förhållningssätt för dagstidningar på Internet. Annonsanpassade affärsmodellertillsammans med äldre skärmars lågupplösning, har skapat en layout där allawebbtidningens element upplevs som små. Fler och fler indicier pekar nu på att brödtextenförväntas öka i storlek. Följer man den modell som designbyrån InformationArchitects arbetat fram kan man enkelt räkna ut vilken teckengrad en brödtext bör ha,på respektive digital skärm, för att denna text skall motsvara upplevelsen av en tryckttext (Information Architects 2006). Sätter man en brödtext på webben i proportion tillen brödtext i en bok, med önskad motsvarande läsupplevelse, ökar den digitala teckengraden, bland annat eftersom vi läser den på längre avstånd än en tryckt bok. Applicerar man teorier om typografi och läsbarhet, från bland andra typografer somHallberg (1992) och Hellmark (2005), samt designers som Peetre (6.3.1), Häggström(6.3.2) och Sigfridsson (6.3.3) framträder en förvisso inte helt tydlig bild, men ändå en där teckengraden i webbdagstidningar beräknas öka. Vare sig den gör det eller inte,går att konstateras att konsensus lär råda över tid: Precis som den tryckta dagstidningensbrödtext har en standard, växer ur relationen mellan producent och användare, enstandard fram även för design av text på Internet. Vi ser idag extremer åt alla håll, textkan se ur precis hur som helst. Men dessa extremer skapar ändå en medelkurva, enuniversell design, som tar brödtextens utveckling framåt. För att fånga den här kollektivtskapade utvecklingen, gynnas uppsatsen av att se problemområdet ur tre aspekter.Genom en kvantitativ studie av alla (125) svenska dagstidningar på Internet skapadesett forskningsintroducerande material, som ger en övergripande bild av teckengradeni brödtext i dagstidningar på Internet. För att närma sig frågeställningen,När det kommer till teckengrad, radavstånd och spaltbredd, hur ser brödtexten ut isamtliga svenska dagstidningar på Internet? Vilka faktorer, med fokus på teckengrad,kan underlätta läsbarheten?, stödjs den kvantitativa undersökningen med professionsintervjuer med representanter från mediebranschen, samt en webbenkät som ger indicier av läsvanor och läsupplevelse bland dagstidningsläsare. Med hjälp av den insamladedatan söker därmed denna uppsats besvara frågor kring hur teckengraden ser ut idag, men också om det är ett problem och i så fall hur webbdesignen på den här punktenbör utvecklas, mot det slutgiltiga syftet att förändra och förbättra den digitaladagstidningen som produkt.Sverige har en av världens högsta andel tidningsläsare per capita (World presstrends 2014) och ligger ofta i framkant när det kommer till webbdesign för dagstidningar.Dagstidningen på Internet är nu i ett vägskäl och en överblick över hur det serut i dag bör vara av största intresse. / Media company put almost all of their financials on online products and the printednewspaper is almost gone thanks to rationalized thinking (Svenska mediehus 2014/152015). In todays media climate there is more opportunities in online journalism andwhen it comes to design, you will find a lot of conditions that are both similar and differentfrom printed journalism. One of the similarities is the adaption to ads, ratherthan to readers and to journalism (6.3.1:5; 6.3.3:5).One of the differences is the layout and when it comes to print, your can lay the bodytext in two or many columns, but the standard online is to lay it in one. This creates,rather than a horizontal, a strictly vertical reading and a (potentially) infinite column.3Although the exceptions exist, focus in online journalism is on the one column andaspects as font, whitespace and image take part. This essay will focus though on afourth and as important aspect: type size.Since long there is a standard for printed newspaper, while online there is anotherset of approaches. Ads and old times low-resolution screens gave birth to a web designwhere design elements where perceived as small. More and more evidence showsthat body text will get larger. If you follow the model set by Information Architectsyou can easily calculate which font size to use online, if you want it to equal the experienceof reading a printed body text (Information Architects 2006). If you follow thismodel to get the digital text match the printed, the font size will naturally get bigger,among other things, because we read it from a bigger distance. If you apply theoriesof typography and readability from among others typographers as Hallberg (1992)and Hellmark (2005), and designers as Peetre (6.3.1), Häggström (6.3.2) and Sigfridsson(6.3.3), a depiction, if not wholly solid but still, will appear that will indicate anincrease in font size.With a quantitative study of all (125) Swedish newspapers on the Internet, a researchintroductory material takes shape, which gives an overview on the state of typesize in body text in newspapers on the Internet. To lead up to the research problem,When it comes to type size, line spacing and column width, how is the body text designed in Swedish newspapers on the Internet? What are the aspects, focusing on typesize, that facilitates readability?, the quantitative study is supported by interviewswith representatives from the industry and a web survey which gives circumstantial ofreading habits and reading experience among readers of newspapers. With this data,this essay strive to answer questions about how the type size appears today but also ifthere is a problem and how, on this particular aspect, web design should develop.Sweden is among the best in the world when it comes to readers of newspapersper capita (World press trends 2014). Right now web design in newspapers is at crossroads and an overview of the situation should be of great interest.

The study reported here tests a model that includes several factors thought to contribute to the comprehension of static multimedia learning materials (i.e. background knowledge, working memory, attention to components as measured with eye movement measures). The model examines the effects of working memory capacity, domain specific (biology) and related domain (geoscience) background knowledge on the visual attention to static multimedia text, and their collective influence on reading comprehension. A similar model has been tested with a previous cohort of students, and has been found to have a good fit to the data (Fitzhugh, Cromley, Newcombe, Perez and Wills, 2010). The present study tests the efficacy of visual cues (signaling) on the comprehension of multimedia texts and the effects of signaling on the relationships between cognitive factors and visual attention. Analysis of Covariance indicated that signaling interacts with background knowledge. Signaling also changes the distribution of attention to varying components of the multimedia display. The path model shows that signaling alters the relationship between domain specific background knowledge (biology) and comprehension as well as that of related background knowledge (geoscience) on comprehension. The nature of the relationships indicates that the characteristics of the reading material influence the type of background knowledge that contributes to comprehension. Results are discussed in terms of their application to a classroom setting. / Psychology

In this thesis, I investigate the link between A-movement and online processing in eye-tracking and self-paced reading (SPR). A-movement refers to movement of an element to an argument position, where an element may be base-generated and hold a semantic role of the main predicate of the clause. I analyze six constructions in English, divided into three experimental pairings. Unaccusative constructions argued to involve movement are contrasted with unergatives as control, in a purely intransitive pairing. Transitive verb expectations are controlled by contrasting optional transitive constructions and purported movement in inchoative constructions. Argument alternation is taken into consideration in comparing instrumental constructions and possible movement in middle constructions. The results from the SPR experiment did not show significant differences in reading times or fixation durations between pairings in any regions. In the eye-tracking results, no significant effects were found at the verb region, where the syntactic complexity of movement could lead to greater processing effort. In the subject noun region of the optional transitive and inchoative constructions and instrumental and middle constructions, significant differences in gaze duration, total fixation duration, and go-past time were found. These results are compatible with theories of frequency effects. Differences at the adverb could support lexical or derivational approaches, as controls and experimental conditions had equal length fixations in our first pairing, controls had longer fixations in our second pairing, and experimental items had longer fixations in our third pairing. Ultimately, the results do not offer strong support for the derivational approach, and are not accounted for through a lexical approach. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

The primary goal of this study was to examine how infants' language and emotion development intersect around the end of the first year. Specifically, is learning enhanced when a speaker is happy vs. neutral? Eighteen 12-month-old infants were familiarized and tested on four word-object associations that varied in bimodal emotion (happy vs. neutral), which were presented on a Tobii© T60 eye-tracker. Familiarization trials comprised of actresses looking towards and labeling a target object while ignoring a non-target distractor object on the opposite side of the screen. It was expected that infants would demonstrate better learning of word-object associations during the test trials when the speaker was happy. This hypothesis was partially supported, in that infants demonstrated a novelty preference for the novel non-target object compared to the familiar target object in the happy test trials only. However, no difference in attention was seen in happy test trials with the familiar target object and a familiar non-target object or for either of the neutral test trials. A second goal of this study was to examine infant-parent correspondence in emotion processing. Both infants and parents were presented with a series of emotion pairs on the eye-tracker, and the correlations between their gaze patterns were examined. In general, infants and parents had little to no correspondence in first look tendencies or overall fixation duration to either face in the pair. They also fixated on different areas of the face (infants on mouth region, parents on eye region). Finally, parental sensitivity was examined using a free-play interaction task. Parents' sensitivity was analyzed with respect to measures of infants learning during the language task as well as other infant characteristics (e.g. temperament, vocabulary). Overall, these findings add to the relatively limited research examining the intersection of language and socioemotional development in infancy. / Ph. D.

This dissertation examines the emerging practice of consumer neuroscience and neuromarketing, combined called CNNM. CNNM utilizes tools and technologies to measure brain activity and human behavior coupled with scientific theories for explaining behavior and cognition. Consumer neuroscience is one of the newest areas of application of neuroscience and related techniques, and is of significant social consequence for its possible deployment in the market place to both study and shape consumer behavior. Concerns arise in terms of consumer influence and manipulation, but there are also concerns regarding the actual efficacy and utility of the technologies and the application of behavioral theories. The dissertation's three essays each examine a facet of CNNM. Using historical sources, conference participation, and ethical analyses, the dissertation forms a multi-prong effort at a better understanding of CNNM through the use of science and technology studies (STS) methods. The first essay is an historical review of the usage of technologies to measure brain activity and behavior, parallel to the development of psychological theories created to account for human decisionmaking. This essay presents a new conception of "closure" and "momentum" as envisioned by social construction of technology and technological momentum theories, arriving at a new concept for inclusion called "convergence" which offers a multi-factor explanation for the acceptance and technical implementation of unsettled science. The second essay analyzes four discourses discovered during the review of approximately seventy presentations and interviews given by experts in the field of CNNM. Using and adapting actor-network theory, the essay seeks to describe the creation of expertise and group formation in the field of CNNM researchers. The third essay draws on a variety of ethical analyses to expand understanding of the ethical concerns regarding CNNM. It raises questions that go beyond the actual efficacy of CNNM by applying some of the theories of Michel Foucault relating to the accumulation of power via expertise. This essay also points in the direction for actionable steps at ameliorating some of the ethical concerns involving CNNM. CNNM is a useful technique for understanding consumer behavior and, by extension, human behavior and neuroscience more generally. At the same time, it has been routinely misunderstood and occasionally vilified (for concerns about both efficacy and non-efficacy). This dissertation develops some of the specific historical movements that created the field, surveys and analyzes some of the foremost experts and how they maneuvered in their social network to achieve that status, and identifies novel ethical issues and some solutions to those ethical issues. / Ph. D.

With the growing adoption of laparoscopic surgery practices, high quality training and qualification of laparoscopic skills through objective assessment has become critical. While eye-gaze and instrument motion analyses have demonstrated promise in producing objective metrics for skill assessment in laparoscopic surgery, three areas deserve further research attention. First, most eye-gaze metrics do not account for trainee behaviors that change the visual scene or context that can be addressed by computer vision. Second, feedforward control metrics leveraging on the relationship between eye-gaze and hand movements has not been investigated in laparoscopic surgery. Finally, eye-gaze metrics have not demonstrated sensitivity to skill progressions of trainees as the literature has focused on differences between experts and novices although feedback on skill acquisition is most useful for trainees or educators. To advance eye-gaze assessment in laparoscopic surgery, this research presents a three-stage gaze based assessment methodology to provide a standardized process for generating context-dependent gaze metrics and estimating the proficiency levels of medical trainees on surgery. The three stages are: (1) contextual scene analysis for segmenting surgical scenes into areas of interest, (2) compute context dependent gaze metrics based on eye fixation on areas of interest, and (3) defining and estimating skill proficiency levels with unsupervised and supervised learning, respectively. This methodology was applied to analyze 499 practice trials by nine medical trainees practicing the peg transfer task in the Fundamental of Laparoscopic Surgery program. The application of this methodology generated five context dependent gaze and one tool movement metrics, defined three proficiency levels of the trainees, and developed a model predicting proficiency level of a participant for a given trial with 99% accuracy. Further, two of six metrics are completely novel, capturing feed-forward behaviors in the surgical domain. The results also demonstrated that gaze metrics could reveal skill levels more precisely than between experts and novices as suggested in the literature. Thus, the metrics derived from the gaze based assessment methodology also shows high sensitive to trainee skill levels. The implication of this research includes providing automated feedback to trainees on where they have looked during practice trial and what skill proficiency level attained after each practice trial. / Master of Science / Laparoscopic surgery is type of minimally invasive surgery which is being widely adopted. Skills required for performing laparoscopic surgeries are different than open surgeries. Hence, it is critical to ensure that adequate training and assessment is provided to surgeons. Eye-gaze tracking technology has made it possible to compute metrics that could be employed for skill assessment. These metrics are based on involuntary gaze behaviors and are independent of the nature of the surgical training task being performed. Hence, they may not be suitable for feedback during training. Metrics suitable for feedback are context dependent metrics which take into account the task based information. Experts tend to show look-ahead behavior while performing a task which can be quantified using context dependent metrics. This research presents a three stage methodology which facilitates computation of context dependent metrics and feed-forward metrics enabling identification of different skill levels in trainees. Applying this methodology to dataset of nine trainees with 499 practice trials, a total of six metrics were computed and a classification model was built to predict three identified skill level with 99% accuracy. This research is directly applicable to developing an automated system for laparoscopic training and assessment.

No / In this paper, we investigate how controlled changes to image properties and orientation affect eye movements for repeated viewings of images of natural scenes. We make changes to images by manipulating low-level image content (such as luminance or chromaticity) and/or inverting the image. We measure the effects of these manipulations on human scanpaths (the spatial and chronological path of fixations), additionally comparing these effects to those predicted by a widely used saliency model (L. Itti & C. Koch, 2000). Firstly we find that repeated viewing of a natural image does not significantly modify the previously known repeatability (S. A. Brandt & L. W. Stark, 1997; D. Noton & L. Stark, 1971) of scanpaths. Secondly we find that manipulating image features does not necessarily change the repeatability of scanpaths, but the removal of luminance information has a measurable effect. We also find that image inversion appears to affect scene perception and recognition and may alter fixation selection (although we only find an effect on scanpaths with the additional removal of luminance information). Additionally we confirm that visual saliency as defined by L. Itti and C. Koch's (2000) model is a poor predictor of real observer scanpaths and does not predict the small effects of our image manipulations on scanpaths.

The expansion of second hand clothing markets has developed through the recent years and the phenomenon has turned into a trend and normalization among fashion companies and consumers, rather than its historical label of being connected to low status. As digitalization has become important for how people consume fashion products, previous research suggests several perceived risks with shopping online. However, the Swedish second hand clothing market in the menswear segment is presented as a rather underdeveloped research area, which allows this study to investigate potential risks and possibilities in an online environment. In addition, we apply a combination of two theories (1) The perceived risk theory and (2) The servicescape theory. The chosen theories have been interpreted and tweaked in order to adapt to this research approach and to further analyze University students at Swedish School of Textiles and their online behavior, but also attitude towards second hand clothing. By applying these theories, a contribution on a deeper understanding was achieved and thereby allowed us to fulfill the purpose of the study, which is to identify how online companies can improve their presentation of product assortment with focus on second hand clothing menswear, using eye tracking technology. Hence, the results provide an increased knowledge from a business perspective and a consumer perspective. The chosen methodology for this study is based on a qualitative approach, primarily a laboratory experiment (eye tracking experiment), followed by a semi-structured interview. The experiment and the interviews took place at Handelslabbet located in Borås and the participants were students from Textile Management Bachelor program year 1. The most prominent perceived possibility was shown to be “Second hand - an increasing assortment” and the most prominent risk was “A hidden assortment”. The perceived risks and possibilities are presented in an online environment based on The servicescape theory. Ultimately, the findings indicate that an attitude- and behavioral gap is still a challenge in regards to sustainable consumption. Thus, companies must increase and develop strategies for their customers that facilitates how to consume more sustainably in an e-commerce environment.

Increasing automation in aviation is impacting the role of the air traffic controller (ATCO). New support tools and changing work environments require the monitoring of multiple display systems and the detection of potential system failures. When training these requirements, eye tracking holds great promise for gaining a deeper insight into trainees’ perceptual and cognitive processes. Because there are hardly any studies on the effects of training on gaze behavior in air traffic control (ATC), the aim of the present work was to evaluate the applicability of the method in this domain. Three experimental studies were conducted with novices with no ATC experience. These investigated whether training effects are reflected not only in common performance measures such as accuracy and speed, but also in gaze parameters such as relative fixation count, time to first fixation, and normalized entropy. They further examined to what extent future monitoring tasks can be trained and what kind of additional factors play a role in this. An adapted version of the abstract monitoring test (MonT) was used to investigate the research questions. Each study consisted of three test blocks in which air traffic had to be monitored in up to three automatically controlled airspaces. In the first study (N = 60), the adapted simulation environment was evaluated, and initial results on the effect of practice were collected. Improvements, which occurred primarily at the beginning of the test, were reflected in a more accurate failure detection performance and a more strategic gaze behavior. The traffic load, and therefore the amount of information to be monitored, played a decisive role in the results. The second study (N = 139) investigated the influence of different interventions for directing attention. Highlighting relevant information (bottom-up approach) moderated the effect of practice significantly more than an attention strategy (top-down approach) or no intervention (control). Relevant information was viewed more frequently and failures were anticipated more easily—even when a manual control task was added. Repeating the test after an average of four months showed little to no significant changes in performance and gaze behavior (N = 19). Overall, with an average detection rate of 83%, the results indicate that future monitoring can be trained to a high level. However, the design of the system, the difficulty of the task, and the prior knowledge of the individual must always be considered. Because it was shown that gaze behavior predicted performance, the recording of eye movements in future ATC training is encouraged. In this context, current developments in the use of artificial intelligence promise to facilitate the classification of individual scan patterns and promote adaptive training.