El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / In peruvian sign language (PSL), recognition of static gestures has been proposed earlier. However, to state a conversation using sign language, it is also necessary to employ dynamic gestures. We propose a method to extract a feature vector for dynamic gestures of PSL. We collect a dataset with 288 video sequences of words related to dynamic gestures and we state a workflow to process the keypoints of the hands, obtaining a feature vector for each video sequence with the support of a video summarization technique. We employ 9 neural networks to test the method, achieving an average accuracy ranging from 80% and 90%, using 10 fold cross-validation.

The purpose of this thesis is to give a detailed account of gesture and movement phenomena observed in children. The analysis method is multimodal interaction analysis, otherwise known as Ethnomethodological Conversation Analysis (EMCA). The analysis is based on children performing the Picture Naming Game (PiNG), a vocabulary test for young children. During the PiNG, the researcher will place printed pictures in front of the child, and the child is tasked with naming the de- picted object. The central phenomenon discovered and analysed with multimodal interaction analysis in this thesis was that the children would occasionally pick up a picture and turn it around. These children’s turning movements are generally anal- ysed as being fidgets, and possibly related to increased cognitive taxation, or, seen as social, and part of a metaphoric gesture shared with the researcher. Addition- ally, the researcher’s interactions are also examined. The researcher uses additional prompts as interactional tools during the PiNG, and four types of such prompts are identified, each with gestural and verbal counterparts. Some proposals for future research that would complement this current thesis are offered, and finally some ideas for future research inspired by this thesis are discussed.

The inhibitory effects of continuously presented audio signals (/a/, /s/, 1,000 Hz pure-tone) on stuttering were examined. Eleven adults who stutter participated. Participants read four 300-syllable passages (i.e. in the presence and absence of the audio signals). All of the audio signals induced a significant reduction in stuttering frequency relative to the control condition (P = 0.005). A significantly greater reduction in stuttering occurred in the /a/ condition (P < 0.05), while there was no significant difference between the /s/ and 1,000 Hz pure-tone conditions (P > 0.05). These findings are consistent with the notion that the percept of a second signal as speech or non-speech can respectively augment or attenuate the potency for reducing stuttering frequency.

This essay investigates what impact different types of movement and music has on overall academic achievement and language learning, both when connected and unconnected to specific curriculum goals and lesson content. The essay looks at both a macro and a micro perspective of the two subject areas to investigate a wider range of possible language learning benefits to be gained from incorporating more movement and music in school, both in and outside of the English as a Second Language classroom. While researchers in these areas agree that academic achievement and language acquisition are benefitted by different types of movement and music, they vary in how and to what degree these benefits show in their results. The essay, therefore, provides a summary of these results and a discussion about what the sum of the results might mean for the Swedish school system.

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[pt] Investigações, em diferentes línguas, demonstram que crianças em aquisição apresentam dificuldades no estabelecimento de correferência com pronomes dêiticos, refletindo possível atraso na aquisição de princípios da pragmática que regulam referência pronominal (Chien e Wexler, 1990, 2009; Grolla, 2005). Pesquisas recentes sugerem que gestos paralinguísticos (ie., gesto co-fala) podem funcionar como reforço pragmático, realçando aspectos implícitos do significado (Schlenker, 2018). Na presente pesquisa, investiga-se se, na aquisição do português brasileiro, gestos co-fala aliviam dificuldades de correferência pronominal, com violação de Principio B. Foram realizados dois estudos experimentais de julgamento de valor de verdade com crianças em processo de aquisição (grupo alvo – 10 participantes) e adultos(grupo controle – 10 participantes). Os estímulos experimentais foram compostos por sentenças coordenadas, apresentadas oralmente, com pronome (nulo ou pleno) na posição de objeto da segunda oração e dois possíveis antecedentes: um na posição de sujeito da segunda oração (antecedente local) e outro na posição de objeto da primeira oração (antecedente não-local). No primeiro experimento, não houve acoplagem de gesto, tanto pronomes quanto antecedentes foram apresentados sem acompanhamento de gesto. No segundo experimento, manipulou-se acoplagem de gesto, os pronomes e possíveis antecedentes foram acompanhados de apontamento manual para localização-espacial do referente (loci-espacial). Os resultados obtidos indicam que: (a) em contextos estruturais envolvendo pronome nulo, não há diferença significativa entre os grupos alvo e controle, ambos rejeitam correfêrencia local – sem violação do Princípio B; (b) em contextos estruturais envolvendo pronome pleno, há diferença significativa entre os grupos alvo e controle, com maior aceitação de correfêrencia local no grupo alvo - violação do Princípio B. No entanto, no segundo experimento, não houve diferença significativa entre os dois grupos. Concluímos, portanto, que, durante a aquisição, o gesto co-fala de loci-espacial é computado durante a construção da correferência pronominal, neutralizando leitura de correferência com antecedente local. / [en] Researches in different languages show that children in acquisition have difficulties in establishing coreference with deictic pronouns, reflecting a possible delay in the acquisition of pragmatic principles that constraint pronominal reference (Chien and Wexler, 1990, 2009; Grolla, 2006). Recent research suggests that co-speech gestures can function as pragmatic reinforcement, reinforcing implicit aspects of meaning (Schlenker, 2018). In the present research, it is investigated whether, in the acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese, these gestures alleviate difficulties of pronominal coreference, violation of Principle B. Two experimental studies, truth value judgment tasks, were carried out with children (target group – 10 participants) and adults (control group – 10 participants). In both experiments, the experimental stimuli were composed of coordinated sentences, presented orally, with the target pronoun (null or full) in the second clause object position and two possible antecedents: one in the second clause subject position (local antecedent) and the other in the first clause object position (non-local antecedent). In the first experiment, there was no co-speech gesture, both pronouns and antecedents were presented orally only. In the second experiment, co-speech gestures (manual pointing for spatial location of the referent (spatial-loci) were added to pronouns and possible antecedents were accompanie. Obtained results indicate that: (a) in structural contexts involving null pronouns, there is no significant difference between target and control groups, both reject local coreference – without violating Principle B; (b) in structural contexts involving full pronouns, there was a significant difference between the target and control groups, with greater acceptance of local coreference in the target group - violation of Principle B. However, in the second experiment, there was no significant difference between the two groups. We conclude, therefore, that, during acquisition, the co-speech gestures of spatial-loci is computed in pronominal coreference, neutralizing readings with coreference with local antecedents.

The perception of a good user experience can be fundamental in an app for users to be willing to engage in it and use it more than one time. An important part of the user experience is the interactions of the used interface. In this study, the goal has been to answer the question 'How can swipe gestures be used in a book recommendation system to introduce users to new content and allow them to sample it'. To answer the question, a user study with 18 participants has been done in which prototypes based on three different swipe gestures, defined by Google, have been tested: edge swipe, overscroll collapse and paging swipe. The study is based on the previous studies 'Clicking, Assessing, Immersing, and Sharing' by Oh et al. and 'Power of the Swipe: Why Mobile Websites Should Add Horizontal Swiping to Tapping, Clicking, and Scrolling Interaction Techniques' by Dou and Sundar. The study shows that it is possible to design swipe gestures in a recommendation tool for books in such a fashion that it engages the users. The study also shows that the participants thought that the prototype with the paging swipe was statistically significantly more easy to browse and that their attention was less diverted while browsing the content of that prototype. How swipe gestures can be used in a book recommendation system for the intended purpose depends on the purpose and the context of the tool. One way to do it would be to create a tool based on the paging swipe gesture with factors such as content, attractiveness and intuitiveness of the interface in mind. / Upplevelsen av god användarvänlighet kan vara fundamental i en app för att användare ska vilja engagera sig i den och använda den fler än en gång. En viktig del av användarupplevelsen är interaktionerna i det använda gränssnittet. Målet i den här studien har varit att besvara frågan 'Hur kan swipegester användas i ett bokrekommendationsverktyg för att introducera användare till nytt material och låta dem sampla det'. För att besvara frågan har en användarstudie med 18 deltagare genomförts i vilken prototyper baserade på tre, av Google definierade, swipegester har testats: edge swipe, overscroll collapse och paging swipe. Studien är primärt baserad på de tidigare studierna 'Clicking, Assessing, Immersing, and Sharing' av Oh et al. och 'Power of the Swipe: Why Mobile Websites Should Add Horizontal Swiping to Tapping, Clicking, and Scrolling Interaction Techniques' av Dou och Sundar. Studien visar att det är möjligt att designa swipegester i ett bokrekommendationsverktyg på ett sådant sätt att det engagerar användare. Studien visar också att deltagarna fann prototypen med paging swipe statistiskt signifikant enklare att utforska och att deras uppmärksamhet var mindre delad när de utforskade innehållet i den prototypen. Studien skulle dock behöva genomföras med fler deltagare. Hur swipegester kan användas i ett bokrekommendationsverktyg beror på verktygets syfte liksom på kontexten det ska användas i. Ett sätt som swipegester skulle kunna användas på är i ett verktyg baserat på paging swipegester i vilket hänsyn tagits till faktorer som innehåll, attraktionskraft och gränssnittets intuitivitet.

Pairing is the process of establishing an association between two personal devices. Although such a process is intuitively very simple, achieving a straightforward and secure association is challenging due to several possible attacks and usability-related issues. Indeed, malicious attackers might want to spoof the communication between devices in order to gather sensitive information or harm them. Moreover, offering users simple and usable schemes which attain a high level of security remains a major issue. In addition, due to the great diversity of pairing scenarios and equipment, achieving a single, usable, secure association for all possible devices and use cases is simply not possible.In this thesis, we study the feasibility of a novel pairing scheme based on multi-modal gestures, namely, gestures involving drawing supported by accelerometer data. In particular, a user can pair a smart-watch on his wrist and a mobile device (e.g., a smart-phone) by simply drawing with a finger on the screen at the device.To this purpose, we developed mobile applications for smart-watch and smart-phone to sample and process sensed data in support of a secure commitment-based protocol. Furthermore, we performed experiments to verify whether encoded matching-movements have a clear similarity compared to non-matching movements.The results proved that it is feasible to implement such a scheme which also offers users a natural way to perform secure pairing. This innovative scheme may be adopted by a large number of mobile devices (e.g., smart-watches, smart-phones, tablets, etc.) in different scenarios. / Parkoppling är processen för att etablera en anslutning mellan två personliga enheter. Även om den processen rent intuitivt verkar väldigt enkel så är det en utmaning att göra det säkert på grund av en uppsjö olika attackvektorer och användbarhets-relaterade problem. Faktum är att angripare kanske vill spionera på kommunikationen mellan enheterna för att samla information, eller skada enheten. Dessutom kvarstår problemet att erbjuda användaren ett simpelt och användarvänligt sätt att parkoppla enheter som håller en hög nivå av säkerhet. På grund av mängden av olika enheter och parkopplingsscenarier är det helt enkelt inte möjligt att skapa ett enskilt säkert sätt att parkoppla enheter på.I den här uppsatsen studerar vi genomförbarheten av ett nytt parkopplingsschema baserat på kombinerade rörelser, nämligen en målande rörelse supportat av data från accelerometern. I synnerhet kan en användare parkoppla en smart klocka på sin handled med en mobiltelefon genom att måla med sitt finger på mobiltelefonens skärm. För ändamålet utvecklar vi en mobilapplikation för smarta klocka och mobiltelefoner för att testa och processa inhämtad data som support för ett säkert engagemangsbaserat protokoll. Utöver det genomförde vi ett antal experiment för att verifiera om synkroniserade rörelser har tydliga liknelser i jämförelse med icke synkroniserade rörelser.Resultatet visade att det är genomförbart att implementera ett sådant system vilket också erbjuder användaren ett naturligt sätt att genomföra en säker parkoppling. Detta innovativa system kan komma att användas av ett stort antal mobila enheter (t.ex. smarta klockor, mobiltelefoner, surfplattor etc) i olika scenarion.

With a rapid growth in smartwatch and smartwatch audio technologies, there is a lack of knowledge regarding user needs for smartwatch audio experiences and how those needs can be satisfied through user-centered design. Previous smartwatch user behavior studies suggest that audio app usage is not a primary use case for the smartwatch. However, audio applications are increasingly incorporated into smartwatches, which leads to the question of the apps’ purpose, validity, overlooked contexts and use cases. This thesis aims to understand what kind of audio experience(s) a user-centered design process might generate for the smartwatch. The design process generated insights from smartwatch users of audio applications, that were used as design guidelines for Context Awareness, Micro-interactions, and Device Ecosystem. The resulting prototype HeartBeats considers Context Awareness with heart rate music recommendations, Micro-interactions with one-handed song skipping and Quickplay music, and Device Ecosystem with speaker access and phone battery support. / Med en snabb teknisk utveckling av smartklockor och tillhörande ljudteknik finns det en kunskapsbrist om användarbehov och hur dessa kan tillfredsställas genom användarcentrerad design. Tidigare forskning om smartklocksanvändares beteenden tyder på att ljudapplikationer inte är ett huvudsakligt användningsområde för smartklockor. Ljudapplikationer implementeras dock allt mer i smartklockor, vilket leder till frågan om vilket värde de ger och om användningsområden möjligen har förbisetts. Den här uppsatsen syftar till att förstå vilka sorts ljudupplevelser en användarcentrerad designprocess skulle resultera i för smartklockor. Designprocessen resulterade i insikter om smartklocksanvändares beteenden med ljudapplikationer, vilket användes som designriktlinjer för kontextmedvetenhet, mikrointeraktioner och ekosystem av enheter. Den resulterande prototypen HeartBeats nyttjar kontextmedvetenhetgenom att rekommendera musik med användarens hjärtrytm i åtanke, mikrointeraktioner med en gest för att byta låt och snabbstart av musik, samt ekosystem av enheter genom snabb åtkomst till klockhögtalare och stöd för att spara telefonbatteri.

Gestures and speech have been intertwined since the beginning of human communication. Recently the role of gestures in cognition and learning has become a topic of interest in both cognitive and educational psychology. Some researchers have speculated that gestures inherently communicate information that is not provided in purely verbal communication, and that this supplemental information can lead to more thorough mental models in the receiver by acting on a physical/motor modality in addition to the two modalities proposed in the dual code hypothesis. To further understand this issue, in this study, we examined the effects of watching a gesturing or a non-gesturing lecturer on the learner*s cognitive load and mental model development. The results have implications for cognitive psychology as well as educational psychology, particularly in multimedia learning.