Investigating A Theoretical Model Of Cognitive Control In Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): Informing Our Approach To Cognitive Training.
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$318,768.00
Summary
ADHD is the most common childhood developmental disorder, characterised by inattentive and/or hyperactive behaviours. Cognitive control has been highlighted as a potential mediator of ADHD symptoms. This program will i) delineate the relationship between cognitive control and ADHD symptoms, ii) develop a cognitive training intervention to target the underlying mechanisms identified as mediators of ADHD symptoms and iii) evaluate the program in a gold-standard clinical trial.
An inability to resist a temptation or repeated failures of self-regulation can lead to 'impulsive' and 'compulsive' behaviours that relate to a host of personal and social problems (eg., excessive eating, gambling, and substance use). Despite this, very little research has studied the neural and psychological underpinnings of these behaviours. My research will take advantage of recent innovations and approaches to fill this void and have implications for diagnosis and treatment.
Improving Interpreting For Dementia Assessments: The MINDSET Study
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$271,586.00
Summary
The MINDSET Study aims to improve the quality of communication in an interpreter mediated cognitive assessment for dementia. Working with interpreters, clinicians, culturally and linguistically diverse people with dementia, and their carers we will co-design, trial, and implement national online training targeted at interpreters. This training will enable interpreters to be prepared and confident in performing their role impartially, effectively, and accurately.
Categorisation, communication and the local environment. Languages around the world incorporate different systems of categories, and understanding this variation can contribute to a better understanding of similarities and differences between cultures. This project examines how linguistic variation is shaped in part by variation in the local physical and social environment. The methods include computational analyses of large electronic data sets including dictionaries and linguistic corpora tha ....Categorisation, communication and the local environment. Languages around the world incorporate different systems of categories, and understanding this variation can contribute to a better understanding of similarities and differences between cultures. This project examines how linguistic variation is shaped in part by variation in the local physical and social environment. The methods include computational analyses of large electronic data sets including dictionaries and linguistic corpora that have become available only recently, and psychological experiments that probe the causal mechanisms that lead to variation across languages. The outcomes include computational tools that pick out key differences between languages and therefore support cross-cultural communication.Read moreRead less
A computational and experimental investigation of reading aloud: Dyslexia, disyllables, and beyond. Australia is a world leader in computational cognitive science, particularly with respect to language processing. This project will help maintain and extend this position. Insights from the project will help us understand the processes that underlie both normal reading and reading disorders, particularly in areas that are comparatively neglected yet extremely important, such as how people read wor ....A computational and experimental investigation of reading aloud: Dyslexia, disyllables, and beyond. Australia is a world leader in computational cognitive science, particularly with respect to language processing. This project will help maintain and extend this position. Insights from the project will help us understand the processes that underlie both normal reading and reading disorders, particularly in areas that are comparatively neglected yet extremely important, such as how people read words of more than one syllable. Given that everyone in Australian needs to learn to read and that acquired and developmental disorders of reading are common, providing the theoretical base on which the processes involved in reading can be understood (and hence learnt and remediated most effectively) is of utmost importance.Read moreRead less
Cultural Dynamics of Narratives: Micro and Macro Implications of Narrative Transmission. Stories circulated in everyday conversations may have global implications by exerting a subtle cultural influence on social actions. Stories about martyrdom and wartime heroics, for instance, describe what goals a protagonist pursues in what way in what context. We propose that in communicating such stories people affirm and re-affirm for each other what they should do under what circumstances. The exchange ....Cultural Dynamics of Narratives: Micro and Macro Implications of Narrative Transmission. Stories circulated in everyday conversations may have global implications by exerting a subtle cultural influence on social actions. Stories about martyrdom and wartime heroics, for instance, describe what goals a protagonist pursues in what way in what context. We propose that in communicating such stories people affirm and re-affirm for each other what they should do under what circumstances. The exchange of these stories can result in the formation and transformation of a large-scale cultural grouping, which may have significant socio-political implications such as extremist terrorism and intercultural clashes. We test these propositions in experiments and computer simulations.Read moreRead less
The Formation and Maintenance of Stereotypes through Communication. Stereotypes are culturally shared beliefs about social groups. Although many stereotypes may be formed on the basis of hearsay, and often maintained through our everyday conversations, little is known about how they are formed, maintained, and transformed through interpersonal communications. This project examines this question with a view to developing a social psychological theory of how culturally shared beliefs may be formed ....The Formation and Maintenance of Stereotypes through Communication. Stereotypes are culturally shared beliefs about social groups. Although many stereotypes may be formed on the basis of hearsay, and often maintained through our everyday conversations, little is known about how they are formed, maintained, and transformed through interpersonal communications. This project examines this question with a view to developing a social psychological theory of how culturally shared beliefs may be formed, maintained, and transformed, especially when they can have undesirable consequences such as prejudice and discrimination.Read moreRead less
Learning from others: Inductive reasoning based on human-generated data. Most of the data we see every day, from politics to gossip, comes from other people. Making inferences about such data is difficult because the people who provided it may have biases or limitations in their knowledge that we do not know about and must figure out. This project uses a series of experiments tied to normative computational models of social reasoning to explore how people solve this problem. This work has the po ....Learning from others: Inductive reasoning based on human-generated data. Most of the data we see every day, from politics to gossip, comes from other people. Making inferences about such data is difficult because the people who provided it may have biases or limitations in their knowledge that we do not know about and must figure out. This project uses a series of experiments tied to normative computational models of social reasoning to explore how people solve this problem. This work has the potential to make a major impact in understanding how information is understood and shared, especially when it is about topics that people lack firsthand knowledge about, like climate change. The computational models also have applications to the development of expert systems upon which our information economy relies.Read moreRead less
Preconception Predictors Of Health, Behaviour And Emotional Adjustment At Seven Years
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$1,170,830.00
Summary
An understanding of the importance of a healthy start to life has underpinned major health policies including Australia’s National Agenda for Early Childhood. The capacity of parents to provide that healthy start has received little study. The present project investigates the extent to which parental lifestyle, social and emotional adjustment prior to conception predictor emotional problems, disruptive behaviour and health in their children at seven years.
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE100100211
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$650,000.00
Summary
The Big Australian Speech Corpus: An audio-visual speech corpus of Australian English. Contemporary speech science and technology are driven by the availability of large speech corpora. While audio databases exist for languages spoken in America, Europe and Japan, there is currently no large auditory-visual database of spoken language, and certainly not one for Australian English. Here we will establish the Big Australian Speech Corpus, which will support a speech science research and developmen ....The Big Australian Speech Corpus: An audio-visual speech corpus of Australian English. Contemporary speech science and technology are driven by the availability of large speech corpora. While audio databases exist for languages spoken in America, Europe and Japan, there is currently no large auditory-visual database of spoken language, and certainly not one for Australian English. Here we will establish the Big Australian Speech Corpus, which will support a speech science research and development using Australian English and facilitate the development of Australian speech technology applications from automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech synthesis used in taxi and other ordering services, to hearing prostheses and talking head aids for learning-impaired children, and a range of security and forensic applications.Read moreRead less