Developing and evaluating a theoretically grounded novice driver education program incorporating simulators. Australian young drivers are 13 per cent of the population but account for nearly a quarter of road deaths. This project aims to develop a research informed, theory-driven education intervention that includes a simulator component to improve their driving skills and attitudes. A process and outcome evaluation aims to assess the effectiveness of the training including the impact on how ind ....Developing and evaluating a theoretically grounded novice driver education program incorporating simulators. Australian young drivers are 13 per cent of the population but account for nearly a quarter of road deaths. This project aims to develop a research informed, theory-driven education intervention that includes a simulator component to improve their driving skills and attitudes. A process and outcome evaluation aims to assess the effectiveness of the training including the impact on how individuals learn to drive, changes in skill and attitudes as well as the influence on crashes and offences. It is intended that a second parallel study will adapt the intervention for Indigenous Australians and examine the effectiveness of this adaptation.Read moreRead less
Designing work roles for crew operating multiple unmanned aircraft. The aim of this project is to identify how work roles should be designed for crew operating multiple Unmanned Aircraft (UA). Industry expects that the introduction of higher levels of automation in next-generation UA systems will reduce the operational costs associated with UA by enabling human crews to simultaneously manage multiple aircraft. The current project examines the safety and effectiveness of different types of work d ....Designing work roles for crew operating multiple unmanned aircraft. The aim of this project is to identify how work roles should be designed for crew operating multiple Unmanned Aircraft (UA). Industry expects that the introduction of higher levels of automation in next-generation UA systems will reduce the operational costs associated with UA by enabling human crews to simultaneously manage multiple aircraft. The current project examines the safety and effectiveness of different types of work designs for these systems. The primary outcome will be a set of recommendations regarding the design of work roles for the crew of next-generation UA systems. Expected benefits include improvements in safety and cost-effectiveness of next-generation UA systems.Read moreRead less
How, What and Who in Human Communication: Movement of Face and Voice. The aim of this project is to identify the essential characteristics of tone, affect, and identity from face and voice using a combination of signal processing, biological, and behavioural techniques in order to develop a comprehensive model of auditory-visual speech processing and communication. This research will significantly improve understanding of the basis of auditory-visual perception and production in tonal languages ....How, What and Who in Human Communication: Movement of Face and Voice. The aim of this project is to identify the essential characteristics of tone, affect, and identity from face and voice using a combination of signal processing, biological, and behavioural techniques in order to develop a comprehensive model of auditory-visual speech processing and communication. This research will significantly improve understanding of the basis of auditory-visual perception and production in tonal languages and in affective communication, facilitate links between neurophysiological processes and auditory-visual speech processing; and contribute to applications in automatic person recognition, automatic speech recognition, text-to-speech systems, and talking head aids for the hearing impaired.Read moreRead less
Special Research Initiatives - Grant ID: SR0354596
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$20,000.00
Summary
Perception and Action in Auditory Scenes (PAAS): Neural, Behavioural, Computational and Mechanical Systems. Auditory scenes are temporal and ephemeral yet pervasively influence human life. How humans negotiate such scenes has not been solved, a fact highlighted by attempts to build machines to respond to speech, warnings etc., in real-world situations with room reverberation, different talkers, and background noise. No one discipline can solve such problems. In this network outstanding researche ....Perception and Action in Auditory Scenes (PAAS): Neural, Behavioural, Computational and Mechanical Systems. Auditory scenes are temporal and ephemeral yet pervasively influence human life. How humans negotiate such scenes has not been solved, a fact highlighted by attempts to build machines to respond to speech, warnings etc., in real-world situations with room reverberation, different talkers, and background noise. No one discipline can solve such problems. In this network outstanding researchers from physical, medical, human, and social sciences with interests in speech, music and audition will provide insights into how humans and machines localize, recognize, interpret and produce auditory events, and advance frontier technologies, e.g., automatic speech recognition, hearing prostheses, auditory monitoring/warning systems.Read moreRead less
Filters reveal what flicker conceals: temporal processing in the human visual system. I have recently discovered a new form of camouflage using 10Hz luminance flicker. This project will quantify this effect and examine the extent to which it generalises across colour and spatial dimensions and to video sequences depicting natural scenes. This information is expected to provide foundational information to technologies relating to national security that rely on visual concealment. This research wi ....Filters reveal what flicker conceals: temporal processing in the human visual system. I have recently discovered a new form of camouflage using 10Hz luminance flicker. This project will quantify this effect and examine the extent to which it generalises across colour and spatial dimensions and to video sequences depicting natural scenes. This information is expected to provide foundational information to technologies relating to national security that rely on visual concealment. This research will examine the extent to which filtering out these camouflaging frequencies enhances our sensitivity to low temporal frequency information. This decamouflaging aspect of my research is expected to improve the clarity of digital video-based technologies including ultrasound, educational, info-tainment and defence applicationsRead moreRead less
Reading facial expressions from real and virtual humans. This project aims to advance understanding of human emotional communication and improve human rapport with the virtual humans and avatars that are rapidly infiltrating our social world. Using two unique stimulus sets - naturalistic human expressions and highly realistic virtual faces - together with powerful genetic, experimental, and individual differences designs, the project expects to answer previously intractable questions in emotion ....Reading facial expressions from real and virtual humans. This project aims to advance understanding of human emotional communication and improve human rapport with the virtual humans and avatars that are rapidly infiltrating our social world. Using two unique stimulus sets - naturalistic human expressions and highly realistic virtual faces - together with powerful genetic, experimental, and individual differences designs, the project expects to answer previously intractable questions in emotion science, as well as deliver tangible outcomes, such as new psychological tests to better understand human social connection. This should provide significant benefits, by improving emotion communication and offering a new perspective on how artificial intelligence can best serve human social needs.
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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE210101107
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$412,744.00
Summary
Ahead of the Game: Balancing the Gaming Industry and Public Interest. This project battles the risks and embraces the benefits of digital gaming. There is a risk that one loses control of their gaming and prioritises it over other duties. This is offset by the benefits of using digital games for health. It is the first to decode and use the health data embedded in the connection between the gamer and their game persona (avatar). It does this by concurrently assessing important gamer, family, cul ....Ahead of the Game: Balancing the Gaming Industry and Public Interest. This project battles the risks and embraces the benefits of digital gaming. There is a risk that one loses control of their gaming and prioritises it over other duties. This is offset by the benefits of using digital games for health. It is the first to decode and use the health data embedded in the connection between the gamer and their game persona (avatar). It does this by concurrently assessing important gamer, family, cultural and game structure features. Findings will prompt the ethical growth of the Australian Health games industry and inform strategies to combat gaming disorder by tailoring games to users' needs. This will uniquely benefit Australians by re-directing this growing industry to better serve the public interest.Read moreRead less
Protect from harm or lead into danger? The influence of peers in leisure activities on adolescent behaviour. When are peers a bad influence? This project will offer answers about the leisure settings that expose young people to risk and those that protect them from harm during the high school years. This research will also help identify those youth who may be especially vulnerable to negative effects of peer influence.
Pathways to work engagement, wellbeing and positive teaching among mid-career teachers: The role of personal and workplace resources. Teaching is a highly demanding, yet rewarding career for many. It is also a decidedly stressful occupation associated with high burnout. By following a large sample of teachers recruited ten years earlier into their mid-career, this project investigates the coping and motivational resources that keep them engaged, allowing them to thrive personally and professiona ....Pathways to work engagement, wellbeing and positive teaching among mid-career teachers: The role of personal and workplace resources. Teaching is a highly demanding, yet rewarding career for many. It is also a decidedly stressful occupation associated with high burnout. By following a large sample of teachers recruited ten years earlier into their mid-career, this project investigates the coping and motivational resources that keep them engaged, allowing them to thrive personally and professionally in different kinds of school environments, versus pathways that predict to burnout, ill-being and negative teaching behaviours. Selected subgroups who were most at risk and most positively engaged earlier in their career will be the focus of longitudinal case studies to uncover more nuanced processes promoting positive and negative pathways.Read moreRead less
A Scalable Theory of Behavior Composition for Practical Engineering Models of Human Performance. Minimizing human error and maximizing human performance is a major design goal in safety critical systems. The development of methods for affordable human performance modeling has widespread applicability for evaluating user-system interfaces. The compositional method explored here has been shown to make accurate predictions reduce model development time by an order of magnitude. Large safety critica ....A Scalable Theory of Behavior Composition for Practical Engineering Models of Human Performance. Minimizing human error and maximizing human performance is a major design goal in safety critical systems. The development of methods for affordable human performance modeling has widespread applicability for evaluating user-system interfaces. The compositional method explored here has been shown to make accurate predictions reduce model development time by an order of magnitude. Large safety critical applications, such as military or air traffic control systems, would benefit greatly. The proposed work tests whether the compositional methods will scale to more complex domains. The work will be coordinated with Australian industry, academia, and government research efforts.Read moreRead less