Previous studies on the relation between language and social cognition have shown that children’s mastery of embedded sentential complements plays a causal role for the development of a Theory of Mind (ToM). Children start to succeed on complementation tasks in which they are required to report the content of an embedded clause in the second half of the fourth year. Traditional ToM tasks test the child’s ability to predict that a person who is holding a false belief (FB) about a situation will act "falsely". In these task, children do not represent FBs until the age of 4 years. According the linguistic determinism hypothesis, only the unique syntax of complement sentences provides the format for representing FBs. However, experiments measuring children’s looking behavior instead of their explicit predictions provided evidence that already 2-year olds possess an implicit ToM. This dissertation examined the question of whether there is an interrelation also between implicit ToM and the comprehension of complement sentences in typically developing German preschoolers. Two studies were conducted. In a correlational study (Study 1 ), 3-year-old children’s performance on a traditional (explicit) FB task, on an implicit FB task and on language tasks measuring children’s comprehension of tensed sentential complements were collected and tested for their interdependence. Eye-tracking methodology was used to assess implicit ToM by measuring participants’ spontaneous anticipatory eye movements while they were watching FB movies. Two central findings emerged. First, predictive looking (implicit ToM) was not correlated with complement mastery, although both measures were associated with explicit FB task performance. This pattern of results suggests that explicit, but not implicit ToM is language dependent. Second, as a group, 3-year-olds did not display implicit FB understanding. That is, previous findings on a precocious reasoning ability could not be replicated. This indicates that the characteristics of predictive looking tasks play a role for the elicitation of implicit FB understanding as the current task was completely nonverbal and as complex as traditional FB tasks. Study 2 took a methodological approach by investigating whether children display an earlier comprehension of sentential complements when using the same means of measurement as used in experimental tasks tapping implicit ToM, namely anticipatory looking. Two experiments were conducted. 3-year-olds were confronted either with a complement sentence expressing the protagonist’s FB (Exp. 1) or with a complex sentence expressing the protagonist’s belief without giving any information about the truth/ falsity of the belief (Exp. 2). Afterwards, their expectations about the protagonist’s future behavior were measured. Overall, implicit measures reveal no considerably earlier understanding of sentential complementation. Whereas 3-year-olds did not display a comprehension of complex sentences if these embedded a false proposition, children from 3;9 years on were proficient in processing complement sentences if the truth value of the embedded proposition could not be evaluated. This pattern of results suggests that (1) the linguistic expression of a person’s FB does not elicit implicit FB understanding and that (2) the assessment of the purely syntactic understanding of complement sentences is affected by competing reality information. In conclusion, this dissertation found no evidence that the implicit ToM is related to the comprehension of sentential complementation. The findings suggest that implicit ToM might be based on nonlinguistic processes. Results are discussed in the light of recently proposed dual-process models that assume two cognitive mechanisms that account for different levels of ToM task performance. / Zahlreiche Studien legen nahe, dass der Erwerb finiter Komplementsatzstrukturen eine Voraussetzung für die Entwicklung einer Theory of Mind (ToM) ist. Kinder beginnen in circa der zweiten Hälfte ihres 4. Lebensjahres Komplementsatzverständnisaufgaben zu lösen, die eine Wiedergabe des Komplementsatzes erfordern. Die ToM wird klassischerweise als erworben bezeichnet, wenn ein Kind korrekt vorhersagen kann, dass eine Person, die eine falsche Überzeugung hat, entsprechend "falsch" handeln wird. Es ist bekannt, dass sich diese Fähigkeit bei Kindern mit circa 4 Jahren entwickelt. Gemäß der Hypothese des linguistischen Determinismus liefert die syntaktische Komplexität von Komplementsatzstrukturen das Format, um falsche Überzeugungen mental zu repräsentieren. In ToM Aufgaben, die erfassen, wo Kinder eine zukünfige Handlung einer fehlinformierten Person antizipieren, konnte allerdings bereits schon bei 2-Jährigen das Verstehen falscher Überzeugungen nachgewiesen werden. Diese frühe Fähigkeit wird auch implizite ToM genannt, da diese Art der Aufgabe keine bewusste Entscheidung verlangt. Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht erstmalig im Deutschen, ob der Zusammenhang zwischen dem Verstehen von Komplementsatzstrukturen und ToM auch für diese implizite Fähigkeit gilt. Zwei Studien wurden durchgeführt. In Studie 1 wurden die Leistungen von 3-Jährigen in einer klassischen (expliziten) ToM Aufgabe, einer impliziten ToM Aufgabe und in Komplementsatzverständnisaufgaben erhoben und auf korrelative Zusammenhänge hin getestet. Dabei wurde mittels eines Eye-Trackers das antizipative Blickverhalten gemessen und somit auf das Vorhandensein einer impliziten ToM geschlossen. Die Leistungen in den Sprachaufgaben korrelierten nicht mit den Blickdaten, obwohl beide Maße mit den Leistungen in der expliziten ToM Aufgabe in Beziehung standen. Unerwarteterweise konnte jedoch generell kein implizites Verstehen falscher Überzeugungen bei 3-jährigen nachgewiesen werden. Da die implizite ToM Aufgabe nichtsprachlich war, wird der Einfluss von Aufgabeneigenschaften auf die Elizitierung von impliziter ToM diskutiert. Studie 2 untersuchte, ob 3-Jährige ein früheres, implizites Verstehen von Komplementsatzstrukturen in Aufgaben zeigen, in denen antizipatorische Blicke anstelle von expliziten Antworten gemessen werden und damit das gleiche Maß verwendet wird wie in impliziten ToM Aufgaben. Zwei Experimente wurden durchgeführt. Der präsentierte Komplementsatz drückte entweder eine falsche Überzeugung des Protagonisten aus (Exp. 1) oder eine Überzeugung, deren Wahrheitsgehalt nicht bestimmt wurde (Exp. 2). Während bei 3-Jährigen kein Verstehen von Komplementsatzstrukturen, die eine falsche Proposition enthielten, nachgewiesen werden konnte, zeigten Kinder ab einem Alter von 3;9 Jahren, dass sie den komplexen Satz verarbeiten, wenn dieser keine falsche Proposition beinhaltet. Dieses Ergebnismuster spricht dafür, dass (1) der sprachliche Ausdruck einer falschen Überzeugung die implizite ToM nicht elizitieren kann und dass (2) das Erfassen des rein syntaktischen Verstehens durch zusätzliche Realitätsinformation beeinträchtigt wird. Zusammenfassend konnte in der vorliegenden Arbeit kein Hinweis dafür gefunden werden, dass die implizite ToM in gleicher Weise wie die explizite ToM mit dem Verstehen von Komplementsatzstrukturen einhergeht. Die Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass vielmehr nonlinguistische Faktoren bei der Entwicklung einer impliziten ToM eine Rolle spielen könnten. Die Resultate werden mit Blick auf aktuelle Zwei-Prozess-Modelle diskutiert.

Healthcare is an important part of life in most societies that attract a significant amount of public investment. Primary healthcare is a fundamental branch of the healthcare system where patients and doctors initially meet. Family Medicine Information Systems are developed in an effort to ease the daily work of family doctors with the help of information technology. Such systems are generally used for handling critical tasks such as managing health records of patients, monitoring pregnancy and keeping track of children&rsquo / s vaccination. Like any medical information technology, the usability of such systems is a vital concern for enabling efficient and effective primary healthcare operations. Family Medicine is a recently established practice in Turkey and there are a number of systems in service to aid the daily work of family doctors. However, none of these systems have been subjected to a systematic usability analysis. In this study, a usability analysis of a popular Family Medicine Information System used in Turkey is conducted. By combining several usability evaluation techniques, the study identified several important usability issues and provided recommendations for further improving the system. The main usability issue observed in the system was the overall complexity of the information presented at the main interface that often confused and misled the users. In order to address this problem, it is suggested that features related to the most frequent family medicine operations should be placed on the main screen, whereas remaining features should be organized under auxiliary pages with clear navigation aids.

本文主要探討中文聲調在口語字彙觸接過程中所扮演的角色。實驗一藉由眼動實驗中的Visual World Paradigm作業，觀察中文聲調影響口語字彙辨識的時序歷程。受試者在聽到指導語和目標字之後，用滑鼠在螢幕上點選聽到的目標字，例如，螢幕上出現的字包含一個目標字：「摸」、一個競爭字(與目標字只有聲調相同：「挖」或是與目標字只有音段相同：「抹」)，以及兩個聲調與音段和目標字完全不同的無關字：「怒」、「菊」。為了觀察目標字、競爭字及無關字在口語字彙處理時的競爭，我們會計算各個字彙的凝視比例。實驗一中由於聲調與目標字相同的競爭字與目標字的第一個音段就開始產生差異，因此未觀察到聲調早期介入的影響。實驗二透過與實驗一相同的實驗程序及方法，操弄目標字和競爭字中聲調和前兩個音段(Cohort)的異同以探測更早期的聲調影響。螢幕呈現包含一個目標字「湯」、一個競爭字(前兩個音段和聲調皆與目標字相同：「胎」，或是只有前兩個音段相同但聲調與目標字不同：「泰」)，以及兩個聲調與音段和目標字完全不同的無關字「剖」、「痕」。結果顯示，聲調在語音訊息前兩個音段時就會產生影響，也就是聲調的影響在語音結束前即有作用。再者，本文發現聲調無法單獨且獨立地對於語音辨識產生影響，此看法與聲調表徵需以“toneme” node獨立地存在於the modified TRACE model的看法不盡相同 (Malins & Joanisse, 2010; Ye & Connine, 1999; Zhao, Guo, Zhou, & Shu, 2011)。 / The present study aims to examine the role of tonal information during Mandarin Chinese spoken character recognition. Two eye-tracking experiments were conducted with the visual world paradigm, which participants heard a Chinese monosyllabic character and used a mouse to click on the corresponding character in a visual array of 4 characters on the screen. Experiment 1 manipulated the relationship between the spoken target characters and written characters on the screen, including a target (e.g., /mɔ1/‘touch’), a tonal competitor (the tone was the same as target except segment: e.g., /wa1/‘dig’) or a segmental competitor (the segmental structure was the same with the target except tone: e.g., /mɔ3/ ‘wipe’), and two unrelated distractors (the segments and tone were different from target: e.g., /nu4/ ‘anger’, and /tɕy2/ ‘chrysanthemum’). The fixation proportions on target, competitors and the unrelated distractors were computed during the unfolding of the auditory target stimuli. The results showed tonal difference was detected before the end of auditory stream. However, no early involvement of tonal information was found, which may due to the tonal competitor and target shared no segment from the first phoneme. In order to examine the earlier tonal processing, Experiment 2 manipulated two types of cohort competitors sharing the initial two segments with the target (e.g., /tʰɑŋ1/ “soup”), a cohort-tone competitor, e.g., /tʰaj1/ “fetus” (both tone and initial two segments are the same with target) and a cohort-only competitor e.g., /tʰaj4/ “peaceful” (initial two segments is the same with the target but with different tone). Result showed that tone affected spoken character recognition while processing the two initial segments. In addition, tone could not affect spoken character processing independently, which might be inconsistent with the assumption that tone is a separate level of representation, called “toneme” node, in the modified TRACE model (Malins & Joanisse, 2010; Ye & Connine, 1999; Zhao et al., 2011).

In this study, factors affecting eye tracking measures and achievement in multimedia learning were explored. Familiarity, redundancy, and control are three important factors, which affect the levels of achievement in multimedia learning. In this study, three experiments were conducted in which the main effects and interactions of familiarity, redundancy, and pace investigated. In Experiment 1, a chemistry lesson with narration were studied twice as multimedia lesson. In Experiment 2, different group of participants studied two versions of chemistry lessons. Both versions had subtitles / however, in one version in Experiment 2, narration was removed from background during the experiment. In Experiment 3, different group of participants studied two versions of mechanism lessons. One of the mechanism lessons was system-paced. The other one was also self-paced / however, in this one, the learner decided to proceed to next slide as his or her own choice. After studying lessons, participants completed an achievement test, which consisted of recognition, recall, and transfer questions. The results showed that fixation count, fixation duration, total fixation duration, and total visit duration showed significant differences as well as interactions as per fragments, familiarity, areas of interest, and type of images, varying in accordance with the lesson type. The correlations among scores of achievement tests and eye tracking metrics were also reported. The results are discussed within the scope of cognitive theory of multimedia learning design principles and cognitive load theory in the conclusion chapter.

When viewing ambiguous figures, individuals can exert selective attentional control over their perceptual reversibility behaviour (e.g., Strüber & Stadler, 1999). In the current study, we replicated this finding but we also found that ambiguous figures containing faces are processed quite differently from those containing objects. Furthermore, inverting an ambiguous figure containing faces (i.e., Rubin’s vase-face) resulted in an “inversion effect”. These findings highlight the importance of considering how we attend to faces in addition to how we perceive and process faces. Describing the perceptual reversal patterns of individuals in the general population allowed us to draw comparisons to behaviours exhibited by individuals with Asperger Syndrome (AS). The group data suggested that these individuals were less affected by figure type or stimulus inversion. Examination of individual scores, moreover, revealed that the majority of participants with AS showed an atypical reversal pattern, particularly with ambiguous figures containing faces, and an atypical inversion effect. Together, our results show that ambiguous figures can be a very valuable tool for examining face processing mechanisms in the general population and other distinct groups of individuals, particularly those diagnosed with AS. / October 2008

This work explores the possibilities of robust, noise adaptive and automatic segmentation of driver eye movements into comparable quantities as defined in the ISO 15007 and SAE J2396 standards for in-vehicle visual demand measurements. Driver eye movements have many potential applications, from the detection of driver distraction, drowsiness and mental workload, to the optimization of in-vehicle HMIs. This work focuses on SeeingMachines head and eye-tracking system SleepyHead (or FaceLAB), but is applicable to data from other similar eye-tracking systems. A robust and noise adaptive hybrid algorithm, based on two different change detection protocols and facts about eye-physiology, has been developed. The algorithm has been validated against data, video transcribed according to the ISO/SAE standards. This approach was highly successful, revealing correlations in the region of 0.999 between analysis types i.e. video transcription and the analysis developed in this work. Also, a real-time segmentation algorithm, with a unique initialization fefature, has been developed and validated based on the same approach. This work enables real-time in-vehicle systems, based on driver eye-movements, to be developed and tested in real driving conditions. Furthermore, it has augmented FaceLAB by providing a tool that can easily be used when analysis of eye movements are of interest e.g. HMI and ergonomics studies, analysis of warnings, driver workload estimation etc.

<p>Reaching is an important and early emerging motor skill that allows infants to interact with the physical and social world (e.g., when sharing objects). Despite the importance of motor experiences in early infancy, few studies have considered the influence of reaching behavior on cognitive, social, and motor development. In this dissertation, reaching behavior was selectively manipulated in 73 non-reaching three-month-old infants using four different training interventions. Infants' reaching and social cognition skills were assessed and compared, and the long-term effects of one particular training intervention were explored.</p> <p>Of the four training interventions used here, one procedure--referred to as active training--facilitated domain-specific development (reaching and grasping behavior) and increased infants' preferential orienting towards faces in a visual-preference task (face preference). None of the remaining three training interventions facilitated motor development and only one increased face-preference behavior. However, a relation between face-preference behavior and motor experience was present in all trained infants as well as in three- to 11-month-old untrained infants. In untrained infants, face-preference behavior was the earliest social-cognition skill to emerge and was related to later emerging skills such as gaze following. Therefore, a preference for faces may be an important basic social-cognition skill that influences future social development.</p> <p>Additionally, the long-term effects of the active-training procedure were assessed in 14 infants who were tested one year after they had participated in the active-training intervention. Even after one year, converging evidence showed advanced manual exploration and object-engagement skills in trained compared to untrained infants. </p> <p>The studies described in this dissertation attempt to systematically investigate the role of early reaching experiences on subsequent development of motor and social cognition behaviors. The present findings demonstrate the importance of self-produced motor experiences on the development of social cognition and have implications for our understanding of typical development and the etiology of developmental disorders in social cognition.</p> / Dissertation

This study aims to test the effects of different way finding affordances on the usability of METU virtual campus built in Second Life virtual world in terms of users&rsquo / satisfaction, performance and mental workload. This study was conducted with 36 participants who are students at the Middle East Technical University. Participants were randomly put on of the five groups namely map, signboard, voice and agent groups and a control group. The participants were given navigational tasks in METU virtual campus within Second Life. In the experiment, the eye movements of the participants were examined with eye tracking tool in order to determine the areas which participants paid attention most. Also mental work load in their prefrontal cortex was examined with fNIR device. There was no significant difference among groups in terms of satisfaction, however / there were significant difference among groups in terms of task completion accuracy, time, length, navigation cue gaze duration and mental workload. Agent group has the highest accuracy score, map group has the highest time, length and navigation cue gaze duration score. Moreover, agent group has the highest mental workload but control group has the lowest mental workload. The results of the tests were used to provide guidance for the design of way finding affordances in METU virtual campus.

本研究使用眼動儀器與神經科學的分析方式，探討網站設計時運用虛擬替身與個人化推薦而設計出不同的個人化購物網站，是否會影響使用者對網站親密度與產品購買意願上有不同感受。研究問題共有三個：1.網站個人化設計對網站親密度的影響程度。2.網站個人化設計對於產品購買意願的影響程度。3.使用者是否會注意到網站的個人化設計。研究結果發現個人化推薦會對網站親密度及購買意願產生正向影響，而虛擬替身則只會對親密感產生正面的影響。虛擬替身及個人化推薦都會提高消費者的對該區域的首次瀏覽時間。 / The purpose of this study is to use eye tracking analysis to investigate whether different designs of shopping websites using personalization and avatar will influence users’ website intimacy and product buying attention. First, we want to know the relationship between personalized design and website intimacy. Second, we want to know the relationship between personalized design and product buying attention. The last one is whether users pay attention to personalized designs on websites. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of personalized recommendation and avatar. The results indicate that personalization had positive impacts on users’ perceived intimacy, and users’ total gaze duration has positive effects on both website intimacy and product buying attention.

Background Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been reported to show socio-communicative impairments which are associated with impaired face perception and atypical gaze behaviour. Attending to faces and interpreting the important socio-communicative cues presented allows us to understand other’s cognitive states, emotions, wants and desires. This information enables successful social encounters and interactions to take place. Children with ASD not attending to these important social cues on the face may cause some of the socio-communicative impairments observed within this population. Examining how children with ASD attend to faces will enhance our understanding of their communicative impairments. Aim The present thesis therefore aimed to use eye-tracking methodology to examine attention allocation to faces for communicative cues in children with ASD. Method The first line of enquiry examined how children with ASD (n = 21; age = 13y7m) attended to faces presented within their picture communication systems compared to typically developing children matched on chronological age, verbal ability age and visuo-spatial ability age. The next investigation was conducted on the same group of children and examined how children with ASD attended to faces of different familiarity including, familiar, unfamiliar and the child’s own face. These faces were also presented with direct gaze or averted gaze to investigate how this would impact on the children’s allocation of attention. The final exploration highlighted how children with ASD (n = 20; age = 12y3m) attended to socially salient information (faces) and non-socially salient information (objects) presented within social scenes of varying complexity, compared to typically developing controls. Again groups were matched based on chronological age, verbal ability age, and visuo-spatial ability age. Results Children with ASD were shown to allocate attention to faces presented within their picture communication symbols similarly compared to their typically developing counterparts. All children were shown to fixate significantly longer on the face images compared to the object images. The children with ASD fixated for similar amounts of time to the eye and mouth regions regardless of familiarity and gaze direction compared to their controlled matches. All groups looked significantly longer at the eye areas compared to the mouth areas of the faces across all familiarity types. The children also fixated longer on the eye and mouth regions of direct gazing faces compared to the regions presented on the averted gazing faces. The children with ASD fixated on the faces and objects presented within social scenes similar to their typically developing counterparts across all complexity conditions. The children were shown to fixate significantly longer on the objects compared to the faces. Conclusions Children with ASD showed typical allocation of attention to faces. This suggests that faces are not aversive to them and they are able to attend to the relevant areas such as eye and mouth regions. This may have been influenced by the inclusion of high functioning children with ASD. However these results may also suggest that attention allocation and gaze behaviour are not the only factors which contribute to the socio-communicative impairments observed in ASD.