Speech perception precedes, indexes, and is changed by language acquisition. What is exceptional about human infants is not their sophisticated speech perception (for animals perceive human speech similarly) but their use of speech to regulate linguistic attention and bootstrap language. Using a new validated measure, language specific speech perception (discrimination ability for native minus non-native speech sounds), we can ascertain children's distribution of resources in linguistic tasks. T ....Speech perception precedes, indexes, and is changed by language acquisition. What is exceptional about human infants is not their sophisticated speech perception (for animals perceive human speech similarly) but their use of speech to regulate linguistic attention and bootstrap language. Using a new validated measure, language specific speech perception (discrimination ability for native minus non-native speech sounds), we can ascertain children's distribution of resources in linguistic tasks. This measure will be used in conjunction with a raft of experimental psycholinguistic techniques to investigate speech perception bases of phoneme perception, tone perception, word meaning, reading, and their vestiges in adulthood, to arrive at a dynamic new conception of language development. Read moreRead less
A Method for Analysis of Complexity in Cognitive Processes: Applications to Prediction of Industrial Workloads. The project will develop a method for analysis of cognitive complexity in human and animal cognition. It will contribute to basic research because it will enable equivalences and relative complexities of cognitive functions to be determined, independent of content or methodology. It will have applications to education, because it enables complexities of concepts to be recognised and a ....A Method for Analysis of Complexity in Cognitive Processes: Applications to Prediction of Industrial Workloads. The project will develop a method for analysis of cognitive complexity in human and animal cognition. It will contribute to basic research because it will enable equivalences and relative complexities of cognitive functions to be determined, independent of content or methodology. It will have applications to education, because it enables complexities of concepts to be recognised and appropriate pedagogies determined. It also has application to human factors, especially industrial performance and decision making. It will advance on currrent methods because it enables workload to be analysed and predicted, so that it can be factored into job and system design. Read moreRead less
Investigating Wnt signaling during human nephron commitment and patterning. Aims: To use gene edited stem cell lines that display cell location, identity and cell state to map human kidney tissue formation in the laboratory. By monitoring how each cell responds to those around it across time and space, we will for the first time map the formation of kidney tissue in the dish.
Significance: Understanding how stem cells form a tissue will help us to improve and control the process. This is key to ....Investigating Wnt signaling during human nephron commitment and patterning. Aims: To use gene edited stem cell lines that display cell location, identity and cell state to map human kidney tissue formation in the laboratory. By monitoring how each cell responds to those around it across time and space, we will for the first time map the formation of kidney tissue in the dish.
Significance: Understanding how stem cells form a tissue will help us to improve and control the process. This is key to advancing tissue engineering.
Expected outcomes: The proposal will pioneer state-of-the-art imaging, gene editing and machine learning approaches, generating models of human development that are currently unavailable.
Benefits: This understanding will guide the development of novel approaches to tissue engineering.
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