This paper aims to study the effect of visual aid in listening comprehension tests for Swedish secondary school pupil. The study also looks at the effects visual aid has for pupils who have difficulty concentrating and lastly to study the effect that previous knowledge has on the pupils’ performance. The study was carried out on 45 economy pupils who study engelska 6, the second English course in secondary school. They performed two tests; one listening comprehension test without visual aid and another listening comprehension test with visual aid. The results indicated that a slight majority of pupils performed better with the test with visual aid but that the difference was scattered, with some pupils having lower results on the test with visual aid. The participants with difficulties concentrating were too few in number to draw any definitive conclusions, but as a group they performed better when they had the visual aid.

Additionally, images of animals alone immediately increased attitudes regarding treatment of animals. This difference does not appear to increase further over time. Images of animals alone appear to aid in immediately altering individuals' sense of continuity with animals. The attitude that animals and humans share some commonalities and exist in relation to each other could assist in adoption campaigns by allowing the potential owners to place themselves with the animals they are adopting. However, over time information combined with images of humans and animals significantly increase this sense of commonality. The applications for the results depend on what type of attitude one desires to change and how soon the change has to occur. The present research reveals that images appear to affect attitude change regarding companion animals and the way they are treated more than text information.; Companion animals now serve as more than tools for human use, they have become family. Many individuals now spend increasingly more money on animals than in years past and are more likely to acknowledge the animal as a family member. With this change in roles many humans have become more empathetic to animal cruelty. Studies have been conducted to examine various aspects of animal cruelty and how it relates to humans. However, few have examined attitude change regarding animal abuse. If attitudes can be positively changed in adults, these individuals are in a position to pass the information onto their children. Adults are also currently in the position to make changes in legislature regarding humane treatment of animals. An experiment was conducted which examined adults' attitudes toward animal abuse and whether they can be changed. Text information was examined as a variable for attitude change. Additionally visual aids in the form of photographs were used in conjunction with and separate from the text information as variables. Two types of photographs were used: images of companion animals by themselves or the same animals accompanied by adult humans. The text information used was adapted from an ASPCA presentation obtained, with permission, from the Orange County ASPCA. The power point presentation included information on the connection between animal violence and violence toward humans, how to help stop animal cruelty and how to report it. Six conditions were created using the three variables. It was found that pictures have an immediate effect on attitude change and information affects individuals in certain measures but not others. On all measures, images had more of an effect than information alone. Only when the text was accompanied by a picture, did it produce a significant change. Attitudes regarding the treatment of animals saw an immediate increase in both conditions in which images of humans and animals were present.

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In this project, I have developed and built a new prototype of the ColoroPhone visual aid. This new prototype has sensors to measure the distance to objects in front of the wearer, which then communicates with a mobile application that generates sounds depending on the distance to the object. The user will hear this sound through bone-conducting headphones This addition to the ColoroPhone is intended to further enhance the assistance the device can offer. The current prototype is a functioning version and will be used in further research done by a group of psychologists, which will study how such devices affect users both on a biological and social level. They will also evaluate how to approach user training. The prototype in its current state have several segments that have considerable room for improvement in further development of the platform. Some of these improvements can be in form of better Bluetooth implementation, better or more sensors, or improvements in the current set of sensors regarding noise handling and data processing. This type of device can have large impact on the daily life for a large and growing amount of people across the world, as independence is a large factor in a persons feel of self-worth and long term psychological health.

People have need for different aid supporting them when learning a foreign language and most of us benefit from the use of more than one aid. Teachers offer a variety of techniques when teaching English, to ensure that as many pupils as possible are able to assimilate English education. Digitalization and research have brought the use of visual aid in English education to increase over the years. The aim of this study is to explore lower primary school teachers’ experiences of using visual aid in the English classroom in order to discuss which possible effects visual aid can have for pupils’ language competence.  In primary school year 1-3. The study is a qualitative study in the form of semi structured interviews with seven primary school teachers in the south of Sweden. The interviews provided an insight into the participants' individual actions, opinions and experiences on visual aid in English education. The results from this research confirm a generous use of visual aid, such as pictures, images, body language, film and drama among the teachers in this study. All seven participants experience increased engagement in classroom activities and refer this specifically to the use of visual aid. The teachers use visual aid to enhance and clarify content, to ensure acquirement of English vocabulary and to create a varied and diverse education and they consider the use of visual aid in English education to increase pupils’ language learning. The main purpose is to ensure that as many pupils as possible acquire English communication skills. It appears that the teachers in this study regard the benefits to exceed the challenges. One benefit is a motivating and interesting education with a high level of pupil activity in which pupils’ ability to succeed in English education increases. A challenge is to offer necessary aid to beginners and motivate pupils with highly developed English skills to acquire further knowledge in the same education. In further research it would be interesting to explore pupils’ view on the use of and benefits and challenges from visual aid in English education.         Keywords: English education, Foreign language learning, Primary school, Young language learners, Visual aid, Pictures, Drama, Film.

Vertikala strukturer i byggnader har blivit väldigt vanligt och mer komplexa, därmed ökar vikten av wayfinding. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om en tredimensionell modell av en spiraltrappa ökar spatiala orienteringen när man rör sig vertikalt via den motsvarande existerande trappan. Ett experiment utfördes med 25 deltagare, 13 män and 12 kvinnor, mellan åldrarna 18-29 (M= 23.12, SD= 2.93). Hälften blev fördelade till testgrupp och andra hälften till kontrollgrupp. Båda grupper studerade en karta i 30 sekunder och blev instruerade att gå till ett mål på översta våningen. Testgruppen presenterades med ett visuellt hjälpmedel innan de gick in i trappan, kontrollgruppen såg inte detta hjälpmedel. När deltagarna nått översta våningen var deras uppgift att peka till tre olika platser, målet, starten och till Universum byggnaden med en kompassapplikation. Graderna av fel vid pekandet räknades ut och analyserades. Deltagarna fyllde även i Santa Barbara Sense of Direction skalan för att undersöka deras spatiala förmåga. Andra aspekter som togs i aktsamhet var huruvida de var familjära med byggnaden sedan tidigare och skillnader i utförandet mellan kvinnor och män. Resultatet visade något mindre fel vid pekuppgifterna av testgruppen än kontrollgruppen, dock visades ingen signifikant skillnad i datan. Alternativa tolkningar av resultatet och begränsningar tas upp i diskussionen. / Vertical structures in buildings have become very common and more complex, and thereby the importance of wayfinding increases. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether a three-dimensional model of a spiral staircase will improve spatial orientation when travelling in vertical motion via the corresponding real-world staircase. An experiment was conducted with 25 participants, 13 males and 12 females, between the ages of 18-29 (M= 23.12, SD= 2.93). They were divided into a test-group and a control-group. Both groups studied a map for 30 seconds and were instructed to walk to a goal on the top floor. The test-group was presented with a three-dimensional representation of the staircase as a visual aid before entering the stairs, the control-group was not presented with the aid. When the participants reached the top floor, they were instructed to point to the goal, the start and to the Universum building using a compass application. The pointing error was calculated and analyzed. The participants also filled in the Santa Barbara Sense of Direction scale to assess their spatial ability. Other aspects that was taken into consideration was to what extent the participants were familiar with the building the experiment took place in and differences in performance between men and women. Results show an indication of a smaller pointing error for the test-group than the control-group in all pointing tasks, however there were no statistically significant differences in the data. Alternative interpretations of the results and limitations of the study are discussed.

This study seeks insight into the use of visual aids in contemporary post-compulsory teaching. The importance of the study is linked to the large number of students who enter Higher Education; many of whom regularly receive lectures supported by visual displays which comprise textual summaries of a lecturer’s speech. This thesis comprises a two-part study and employs a mixed methods approach. The first part inquires into teachers’ and lecturers’ practice with regard to their visual aids, and the second compares the effectiveness of text, images and imagery displayed in support of a lecture. The investigation into lecturers’ practice found many post-compulsory teachers and lecturers had received no training in the design and use of visual aids during their initial teacher training. It is suggested this privation may underpin a de facto choice of projected text as a visual aid, the use of which is not clearly supported by contemporary models of memory and mental processing. In a comparison of visual modalities, an increase in learner engagement was recorded for the display of carefully designed images, and also for directed imagery. No positive impact was recorded for text summaries of 50-64 words displayed concurrently with speech, although recall was improved when text was restricted to five words or fewer. The conclusion is drawn that the display of this modality without temporal pauses may offer limited educational advantage to students, and a method of planned apportionment of speech and text is proposed in which contemporary theories of memory and processing are taken into account. These observations have significant implications for a lecture environment in which such text summaries are often relied upon for visual support. The findings of the thesis are combined to propose a principle of Visual Working Memory Utilisation (VWMU), upon which future research into visual aid design and use in post compulsory education might be based.

Manual assembly workers have nowadays a much higher workload than before. Not only do they have to deal with many more product variants, but as aconsequence they also receive many more information signals that they have to act upon. This study focuses on the information assembly workers receive through visual instructions. By conducting a literature review in the domains of product development with focus on design for assembly, cognition related to informationin instructions and different instruction formats like paper, tablet, and augmented reality (AR), commonalities and differences could be identified. Assembly operations are generally divided in handling a part and joining a part, and instructions should inform the assembly worker about when what should be assembled where and how. Each of these aspects has an impact on the overall complexity of the assembly process. To realise which of these aspects is most critical for an assembly worker can be of help in creating and delivering effective, tailor made instructions. The main finding is that there is not a one size fits all solution when it comes to the effectiveness of instructions, but that the type of instructions and the way they are delivered should in the first place be adjusted to the complexity of the assembly operations and secondly - if possible - also adjusted to the experience of the worker. The outcomes mentioned in this document should help laying the foundation for rules and guidelines when it comes to manual assembly instructions and its factors to consider.