Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Florida, 2004. / Typescript. Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 60 pages. Includes Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

<p>Teckenspråket är ett visuellt språk, med möjligheter att uttrycka mycket information simultant. Faktorer som har en avgörande betydelse för språket är handens form, placering och rörelse, i kombination med ögon- och munrörelser. Utvecklingen av videosamtal via 3G har inneburit att döva kan konversera mobilt på sitt modersmål. Tidigare har de i många situationer varit hänvisade till sitt andraspråk, svenska. Denna uppsats undersöker hur döva upplever kvaliteten på kommunikation via videosamtal, samt huruvida de för teckenspråket viktiga faktorerna får tillräckligt med utrymme i dagens 3G-telefoner. Studien är av kvalitativ art och metoden som använts är framför allt intervju. Resultaten visar att kvaliteten upplevs som sämre än vid kommunikation öga mot öga, bland annat till följd av att vissa teckenspråkliga element inte kan kommuniceras med dagens teknik. Språket anpassas på så vis att enklare tecken används, de utförs långsammare och upprepas oftare. Av studien framgår att det finns ett behov av vidare forskning inom området, för att mobil teckenspråkig kommunikation ska fungera på ett för döva tillfredsställande sätt.</p>

<p>För att på ett effektivt sätt kunna konstruera komplexa lösningar för webben krävs det tekniker med stora krav på förändringsbarhet. Det gäller att de tekniker som används ger utrymme till att dynamiskt modifiera sidor, och att alltför statiska lösningar undviks då dessa oftast resulterar i att senare uppdateringar försvåras. Andra krav som ställs är kraven på hastighet. För att en teknik skall accepteras räcker det sällan med att den endast bidrar till en dynamisk lösning. Den skall även öka prestanda hos applikationen. En teknik som stämmer väl in på dessa krav är CSS. CSS är ett språk som kompletterar HTML på de punkter där HTML är som svagast, nämligen designdelen.</p><p>I det här arbetet används en exempelsida helt konstruerad med HTML. Genom arbetet konverteras denna sida till en lösning innehållande en HTML-del och en CSS-del. Syftet är att studera vilka fördelar en sådan konvertering resulterar i. Rapporten visar att CSS fungerar mycket väl som en komplettering av HTML.</p>

<p>Detta examensarbete analyserar huruvida en användare behöver medverka när ett XSLT-skript, med syfte att transformera textfilsdatabaser till XML-dokument, genereras. XSLT-skripten skapas med hjälp av en XSD-fil och en textfilsdatabas samt att användaren mappar dessa värden till XML-dokumentet för att bygga XML-dokumentets struktur. För att utvärdera detta har en prototyp tagits fram som en ”proof-of-concept”. Prototypsystemet visar att en transformering från en textfilsdatabas till ett XML-dokument med hjälp av en XSD-fil inte går att automatgenerera fullt ut. Det medför att en användare måste göra en mappningen mellan textfilsdatabasen till XML-dokumentet. Nyttan av prototypen är att en användare aldrig behöver förstå XSLT-skriptning utan behöver bara mappa värderna i en grafisk miljö som sedan genererar XSLT-skriptet</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007. / Washburn, David, Committee Member ; Spieler, Dan, Committee Member ; Schumacher, Eric, Committee Member ; Engle, Randall, Committee Chair ; Corballis, Paul, Committee Member.

Social-communication impairments in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are often ascribed to deficits in empathy. I argue that social-communicative deficits in ASD stem from impairments in specific aspects of empathy, rather than a general empathy impairment. Empathy is defined as the sharing of another's emotion (affective empathy), understanding others' mental states (cognitive empathy), and regulation of one's own emotional state (self-regulation). Empathy can also lead to muscle mimicry and empathic concern for another's wellbeing. I argue that empathy should be measured on multiple levels: cognitive, subjective and physiological. Particularly, measurement of autonomic regulation can contribute to characterising the empathy profile in ASD. Furthermore, confounding factors such as lack of understanding of one's own emotions, or alexithymia, must be accounted for when measuring empathy. I measured subjective trait empathy ratings in people with varying levels of autism traits (N₁ = 519 & N₂ = 98, ages 14 - 45). I also investigated the association between physiological arousal, trait empathy, and empathic concern for (1) sensory pain and (2) facial pain expressions, controlling for alexithymia (N = 98); and examined the evidence for atypical autonomic arousal at rest and during empathy-induction in individuals with ASD. Autism traits were negatively correlated with cognitive empathy and self-regulation, but were not associated with atypical affective empathy per se. However, individuals with poor self-regulation showed heightened subjective affective states, whereas alexithymic individuals showed reduced affective empathy to facial pain expressions. Regarding the autonomic regulation of empathy, there was a significant association between autonomic arousal and affect regulation: Low sympathetic arousal and concurrent high parasympathetic arousal at rest predicted smaller changes in personal distress during pain observation than did autonomic co-inhibition. However, resting state arousal did not predict absolute affective state levels or dispositional empathy, and was not associated with amount of autism traits. In conclusion, the findings do not support the hypothesis of global empathy deficits in ASD. The results suggest that interventions focusing on own-emotion identification and self-regulation skills are important, but caution against the over-hasty adoption of interventions targeting resting state autonomic arousal, which was not related to either ASD or dispositional empathy.

The use of shortcuts and abbreviations in everyday communications, both online and through texts, has become increasingly popular over the past decade. Shortcuts like ’lol’ for ’laugh out loud’ aim to provide emotional nuance and context that would otherwise be lost in standard written communication. However, studies have shown that there is a processing cost associated with using these shortcuts (Perea, Acha, & Carreiras, 2009; Ganushchak, Krott, Frisson, & Meyer, 2013). Other studies have found that texting shortcuts are lexically independent units: they are represented and stored in the brain independently of their full, standard form (Ganushchak, Krott, & Meyer, 2010; 2012; Tat & Azuma, 2015). The current study examines the effect of newer, more diverse shortcuts on processing and Working Memory (WM) capacity through two experiments. It was hypothesised that reading shortcuts would lead to an increased processing cost and poorer recall. Furthermore, it was hypothesised that this processing cost and poorer recall would depend on the type of shortcut. Phrasal shortcuts (e.g. ’brb’ for ’be right back’) would be more difficult to read and would lead to poorer recall compared to contractions and clippings (e.g. ‘txt’ for ‘text’). In Experiment 1, the processing cost of reading shortcuts was explored through a self-paced reading task, with results supporting our hypotheses. In Experiment 2, participants read sentences which contained memory words to be remembered for recall at the end of a trial, with the number of correct items recalled used as a gauge of working memory capacity and processing efficiency (Service & Maury, 2014; Daneman & Carpenter, 1980). Results were mixed, with no clear effect of the presence of a shortcut or shortcut type modulating recall. Implications of these results are discussed with regard to reading and the direction of language evolution. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / The use of shortcuts and abbreviations in everyday communications, both online and through texts, has become increasingly popular over the past decade. Shortcuts like 'lol' for 'laugh out loud' aim to provide emotional nuance and context that would otherwise be lost in standard written communication. These shortcuts are more difficult to read than standard English, however (Perea, Acha, & Carreiras, 2009; Ganushchak, Krott, Frisson, & Meyer, 2013). The current study examines the effect of newer, more diverse shortcuts on reading and memory recall through two experiments. We hypothesise that sentences with shortcuts are more difficult to read than sentences without shortcuts, and will result in poorer recall. Results of this study are mixed; Experiment 1 indicates shortcuts to be more difficult to read, whereas Experiment 2 shows a limited effect of shortcuts on recall. This has implications on how the perception of shortcuts in everyday use may be changing.

No description available.

The majority of cognitive scientists today view the mind as a computer, instantiating some function mapping the inputs it gets from the environment to the gross behaviors of the organism. As a result, the emphasis in most ongoing research programmes is on finding that function, or some part of that function. Moreover, the types of functions considered are limited somewhat by the preconception that the mind must be instantiating a function that can be expressed as a computer program. I argue that research done in the last two decades suggests that we should approach cognition with as much consideration to the environment as to the inner workings of the mind. Our cognition is often shaped by the constraints the environment places on us, not just by the &quot;inputs&quot; we receive from it. I argue also that there is a new approach to cognitive science, viewing the mind not as a computer but as a dynamical system, which captures the shift in perspective while eliminating the requirement that cognitive functions be expressable as computer programs. Unfortunately, some advocates of this dynamical perspective have argued that we should replace all of traditional psychology and neuroscience with their new approach. In response to these advocates, I argue that we cannot develop an adequate dynamical picture of the mind without engaging in precisely those sorts of research and hypothesizing that traditional neuroscience and psychology engage in. In short, I argue that we require certain types of explanations in order to get our dynamical (or computational) theories off the ground, and we cannot get those from other dynamical (or computational) theories. / Master of Arts