Although most modern, highly-computerized flight decks are known to be robust to small disturbances and failures, humans still play a crucial role in advanced decision making in off-nominal situations, and accidents still occur because of poor human-automation interaction. In addition to the physical state of the environment, operators now have to extend their awareness to the state of the automated flight systems. To guarantee the accuracy of this knowledge, humans need to know the dynamics or approximate versions of the dynamics that rule the automation. The operator's situation awareness can decline because of a deficient mental model of the aircraft and an excessive workload. This work describes the creation of a computational human agent model simulating cognitive constructs such as situation awareness and mental models known to capture the symptoms of poor human-automation interaction and provide insight into more comprehensive metrics supporting the validation of automated systems in aviation.

Students today encounter a vast amount of English in their free time, outside the walls of school. They watch English films, play English computer games, and keep international contacts through the internet. This present study focuses on mapping the so called Extramural English activities of two groups of upper secondary high school students in order to find out how and if the overall English proficiency of those students can be derived from the English they encounter in their free time. One of the groups is living and studying at a Swedish school in the UK, while the other one is living and studying at a regular high school in the south of Sweden. Both groups participated in a survey where they were asked to answer questions about their free time habits, time spent on different English activities and how they feel that their confidence and overall proficiency in the subject has improved. The results of this study show that the students living in the UK engage in more English activities outside of school and that they claim overall better results and higher confidence in their English. This study contains proof that Extramural English is an important factor in achieving targetlike language proficiency.

- / Doctorat en Sciences Psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

<div>Background: Structural priming – a tendency to reuse previously encountered sentence structures – has been shown to facilitate production of sentences in persons with aphasia (PWA). However, the task-specific and person-specific factors that modulate the strength of priming effects in PWA remain largely unknown. This study examined (a) if PWA and healthy older adults (HOA) demonstrate improved production of passive sentences following comprehension of passive (as opposed to active) prime sentences, (b) whether repeated use of a verb between a prime and target sentence boosts priming effects, and (c) whether individual participants’ deficits in syntactic processing modulate degrees of priming effects.</div><div><br></div><div>Method: The participants (16 HOA and 13 PWA) completed a comprehension-to-production structural priming task. For prime sentences, they completed a sentence-to-picture matching comprehension task. Then, they described a target action picture, which could be described in an active or passive sentence structure. For half of the prime-target pairs, the verb was repeated to compare the priming effects in the same vs. different verb prime conditions (i.e., lexical boost). To analyze individual variability, we examined if PWA’s scores on clinical measures of syntactic comprehension and production were associated with a positive priming effect.</div><div><br></div><div>Results: Both HOA and PWA showed increased production of passive sentences following comprehension of passive primes, although the priming effect was reduced for PWA. A significant lexical boost was found in HOA, but not for PWA. Within PWA, individuals with higher scores on clinical measures of syntactic production, but not syntactic comprehension, showed a significant priming effect.</div><div><br></div><div>Conclusion: The findings suggest that implicit comprehension-to-production structural priming is preserved in aphasia and that lexically-mediated structural priming may not be critical to effectiveness of structural priming in aphasia. Preliminary results indicate that individuals’ syntactic skills in the domain of production may need to be considered when comprehension-to-production priming is used to improve sentence production.</div>

La musique et le langage sont des matériels structurés à partir de principes combinatoires. Les auditeurs ont acquis des connaissances sur ces régularités structurelles par simple exposition. Ces connaissances permettent le développement d’attentes sur les événements à venir en musique et en langage. Mon travail de thèse étudiait deux aspects de la spécificité versus la généralité des processus de traitement de la musique et du langage: la perception et l’apprentissage statistique.Dans la première partie (perception), les Études 1 à 4 ont montré que le traitement des structures musicales influence le traitement de la parole et du langage présenté en modalité visuelle, reflétant l’influence des mécanismes d’attention dynamique (Jones, 1976). Plus précisément, le traitement des structures musicales interagissait avec le traitement des structures syntaxiques, mais pas avec le traitement des structures sémantiques en langage (Étude 3). Ces résultats sont en accord avec l’hypothèse de ressources d’intégration syntaxique partagées de Patel (2003). Nos résultats et les précédentes études sur les traitements simultanés des structures musicales et linguistiques (syntaxiques et sémantiques), nous ont incités à élargir l’hypothèse de ressources d’intégration partagées au traitement d’autres d’informations structurées qui nécessitent également des ressources d’intégration structurelle et temporelle. Cette hypothèse a été testée et confirmée par l’observation d’une interaction entre les traitements simultanés des structures musicales et arithmétiques (Étude 4). Dans la deuxième partie (apprentissage), l’apprentissage statistique était étudié en comparaison directe pour des matériels verbaux et non-verbaux. Plus particulièrement, nous avons étudié l’influence de l’attention dynamique guidée par des indices temporels non-acoustiques (Études 5 et 6) et acoustiques (Étude 7) sur l’apprentissage statistique. Les indices temporels non-acoustiques influençaient l’apprentissage statistique de matériels verbaux et non-verbaux. En accord avec la théorie de l’attention dynamique (Jones, 1976), une hypothèse est que les indices temporels non-acoustiques guident l’attention dans le temps et influencent l’apprentissage statistique.Les études de ce travail de thèse ont suggéré que les ressources d’attention dynamique influençaient la perception et l’apprentissage de matériels structurés et que les traitements des structures musicales et d’autres informations structurées (e.g., langage, arithmétique) partagent des ressources d’intégration structurelle et temporelle. L’ensemble de ces résultats amène de nouvelles questions sur la possible influence du traitement des structures auditives tonales et temporelles sur les capacités cognitives générales de séquencement notamment requises pour la perception et l’apprentissage d’informations séquentielles structurées.Jones, M. R. (1976). Time, our lost dimension: Toward a new theory of perception, attention, and memory. Psychological Review, 83(5), 323-355. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.83.5.323Patel, A. D. (2003). Language, music, syntax and the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 6(7), 674-681. doi:10.1038/nn1082 / Music and language are structurally organized materials that are based on combinatorial principles. Listeners have acquired knowledge about these structural regularities via mere exposure. This knowledge allows them to develop expectations about future events in music and language perception. My PhD investigated two aspects of domain-specificity versus generality of cognitive functions in music and language processing: perception and statistical learning.In the first part (perception), musical structure processing has been shown to influence spoken and visual language processing (Études 1 & 4), partly due to dynamic attending mechanisms (Jones, 1976). More specifically, musical structure processing has been shown to interact with linguistic-syntactic processing, but not with linguistic-semantic processing (Étude 3), thus supporting the hypothesis of shared syntactic resources for music and language processing (Patel, 2003). Together with previous studies that have investigated simultaneous musical and linguistic (syntactic and semantic) structure processing, we proposed that these shared resources might extend to the processing of other structurally organized information that require structural and temporal integration resources. This hypothesis was tested and supported by interactive influences between simultaneous musical and arithmetic structure processing (Étude 4). In the second part (learning), statistical learning was directly compared for verbal and nonverbal materials. In particular, we aimed to investigate the influence of dynamic attention driven by non-acoustic (Études 5 & 6) and acoustic (Étude 7) cues on statistical learning. Non-acoustic temporal cues have been shown to influence statistical learning of verbal and nonverbal artificial languages. In agreement with the dynamic attending theory (Jones, 1976), we proposed that non-acoustic temporal cues guide attention over time and influence statistical learning.Based on the influence of dynamic attending mechanisms on perception and learning and on evidence of shared structural and temporal integration resources for the processing of musical structures and other structured information, this PhD opens new questions about the potential influence of tonal and temporal auditory structure processing on general cognitive sequencing abilities, notably required in structured sequence perception and learning.Jones, M. R. (1976). Time, our lost dimension: Toward a new theory of perception, attention, and memory. Psychological Review, 83(5), 323-355. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.83.5.323Patel, A. D. (2003). Language, music, syntax and the brain. Nature Neuroscience, 6(7), 674-681. doi:10.1038/nn1082

Il progetto di ricerca muove dall’interesse per l’emergere di nuove epistemologie della formazione professionale che riconoscono la pratica condivisa come contesto epistemologico di produzione e sviluppo di competenze. Recenti ricerche collegano le possibilità di crescita professionale del singolo allo sviluppo complessivo delle organizzazioni, interpretate come sistemi di comunità che apprendono. Il tema di fondo su cui si confronta la ricerca attiene alla trasformazione delle conoscenze dell’insegnante, all’interno dei vincoli e delle possibilità connesse all’attuale fase di transizione, in favore dell’apprendimento organizzativo. Più in dettaglio, la ricerca indaga il ruolo che assumono le conoscenze tacite nella trasformazione di conoscenza dal livello individuale a quello collettivo. / The research project originates from the interest in emerging new epistemologies of professional formation which identify shared practice as the epistemological context of competence creation and development. Recent research relates the opportunities of individual professional growth to the overall development of the organizations, considered as learning community systems. Given the limits and possibilities connected to the present moment of transition, the main point the research deals with is the transformation of the teacher's knowledge in favour of organizational learning. To be more precise, the research investigates the role of tacit knowledge in the transformation of knowledge from individual to collective level.

The present study examines possible effects of extramural English (EE) on oral proficiency (OP) and vocabulary (VOC). The study is based on data collected from Swedish learners of ESL in grade 9 (aged 15-16; N=80; 36 boys, 44 girls) over a period of one year. EE was defined as linguistic activities that learners engage in outside the classroom in their spare time. EE was measured with the help of a questionnaire and two language diaries, each covering one week. In the diaries, the learners recorded how much time they had spent on seven given EE activities (reading books, reading newspapers/magazines, watch­ing TV, watching films, surfing the Internet, playing video games, listening to music). There was also an open category. Speech data were collected with the help of five interactional speaking tests; learners were in random dyads on each occasion. Each student performance was assessed by three raters with the help of a profile scheme, resulting in an overall grade. Based on these grades from the tests, a mean grade for OP (the OP grade) was calculated for each student. OP was defined as the learner’s ability to speak and use the target language in actual communication with an interlocutor. Learners’ VOC was measured with an index variable based on the scores on two written vocabulary tests. For a selection of ten learners, additional analyses were made of oral fluency and the use of advanced vocabulary in speech. A mixed methods research design was used, but the lion’s share of data was analyzed using inferential statistics. Results showed that the total amount of time spent on EE correlated positively and significantly (p &lt; .01) both with learners’ level of OP and size of VOC, but that the correlation between EE and VOC was stronger and more straightforward than the one between EE and OP. The conclusion drawn was that although EE impacts both OP and VOC, the causal relationship is more salient in the case of VOC. Results also showed that some activities were more important than others for OP and VOC respectively; i.e., the type of EE activity mattered. EE activities that required learners to be more productive and rely on their language skills (video games, the Internet, reading) had a greater impact on OP and VOC than activities where learners could remain fairly passive (music, TV, films). An important gender difference was identified. Boys spent significantly more time on productive EE activities than girls; therefore, EE had a greater impact on OP and VOC for boys than for girls. Four background variables were also studied. The conclusion was that EE is an independent variable and a possible path to progress in English for any learner, regard­less of his or her socioeconomic background.

Body movement, hands-on activity, embodiment, social interaction, emotions, and self-reflection allow teaching artists of Barter’s Theatre’s Project REAL to conduct a lesson with an implicit learning experience as the focus. Barter Theatre’s Project REAL exists as a theatre for education program that collaborates with regular classroom teachers on delivering the curriculum through specific theatre exercises in order to connect the material personally to the students’ lives. Theatre tools provide a human experience that enhances learning for the student by use of kinesthetic movement, social learning, emotions and interpersonal skills. To understand the effects of Barter Theatre’s Project REAL, the director and teaching artists collected interviews with teachers, administrators, and students. Teaching artists also conducted pre and post assessments and end of the semester surveys with classes. This study aims to give insight to the results of Project REAL’s pedagogy as well as the strengths and weaknesses of the program.