STAR: Speech Therapy with Augmented Reality for children with autism spectrum disorders

Graphics based systems of Augmented and Alternative Communication are widely used to promote communication in people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. This study discusses an integration of Augmented Reality in communication interventions, by relating elements of Augmented and Alternative Communication and Applied Behaviour Analysis strategies. An architecture for an Augmented Reality based interactive system to assist interventions is proposed. STAR provides an Augmented Reality tool to assist interventions performed by therapists and support for parents to join in and participate in the child’s intervention. Finally we report on the usage of the Augmented Reality tool in interventions with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Contribution of portuguese vernacular building strategies to indoor thermal comfort and occupants’ perception

Solar passive strategies that have been developed in vernacular architecture from different regions are a response to specific climate effects. These strategies are usually simple, low-tech and have low potential environmental impact. For this reason, several studies highlight them as having potential to reduce the demands of non-renewable energy for buildings operation. In this paper, the climatic contrast between northern and southern parts of mainland Portugal is presented, namely the regions of Beira Alta and Alentejo. Additionally, it discusses the contribution of different climate-responsive strategies developed in vernacular architecture from both regions to assure thermal comfort conditions. In Beira Alta, the use of glazed balconies as a strategy to capture solar gains is usual, while in Alentejo the focus is on passive cooling strategies. To understand the effectiveness of these strategies, thermal performances and comfort conditions of two case studies were evaluated based on the adaptive comfort model. Field tests included measurement of hygrothermal parameters and surveys on occupants’ thermal sensation. From the results, it has been found that the case studies have shown a good thermal performance by passive means alone and that the occupants feel comfortable, except during winter where there is the need to use simple heating systems.

Tax compliance and tax complexity in Portugal: essays on the perception of tax professionals

Tese de Doutoramento em Contabilidade.

Distance perception in immersive environments: the role of photorealism

Immersive environments (IE) are being increasingly used in order to perform psychophysical experiments. The versatility in terms of stimuli presentation and control and the less time-consuming procedures are their greatest strengths. However, to ensure that IE results can be generalized to real world scenarios we must first provide evidence that performance in IE is quantitatively indistinguishable from performance in real-world. Our goal was to perceptually validate distance perception for CAVE-like IEs. Participants performed a Frontal Matching Distance Task (Durgin & Li, 2011) in three different conditions: real-world scenario (RWS); photorealistic IE (IEPH) and non-photorealistic IE (IENPH). Underestimation of distance was found across all the conditions, with a significant difference between the three conditions (Wilks’ Lambda = .38, F(2,134)= 110.8, p<.01, significant pairwise differences with p<.01). We found a mean error of 2.3 meters for the RWS, 5 meters for the IEPH, and of 6 meters for the IENPH in a pooled data set of 5 participants. Results indicate that while having a photorealistic IE with perspective and stereoscopic depth cues might not be enough to elicit a real-world performance in distance judgment tasks, nevertheless this type of environment minimizes the discrepancy between simulation and real-world when compared with non-photorealistic IEs.

Women’s perception of separation/divorce in Portugal: A sociodemographic profile

This article focuses on the personal experiences of Portuguese women regarding separation and divorce. The sample included 96 women, with at least 1 child, who responded to an inventory that addressed conflict, dysfunctional conjugality, emotional experiences, social support, and adaptation to divorce. Higher levels of conflict and marital dysfunction in litigious divorces were found, as well as more conflict when different lawyers were employed. Those women who were satisfied with alimony and visiting rights reported less conflict, fewer negative emotional experiences, and greater social support. Level of education and duration of separation influenced women’s perceptions. Implications for intervention are addressed.

The music of language: an ERP investigation of the effects of musical training on emotional prosody processing

Recent studies have demonstrated the positive effects of musical training on the perception of vocally expressed emotion. This study investigated the effects of musical training on event-related potential (ERP) correlates of emotional prosody processing. Fourteen musicians and fourteen control subjects listened to 228 sentences with neutral semantic content, differing in prosody (one third with neutral, one third with happy and one third with angry intonation), with intelligible semantic content (semantic content condition--SCC) and unintelligible semantic content (pure prosody condition--PPC). Reduced P50 amplitude was found in musicians. A difference between SCC and PPC conditions was found in P50 and N100 amplitude in non-musicians only, and in P200 amplitude in musicians only. Furthermore, musicians were more accurate in recognizing angry prosody in PPC sentences. These findings suggest that auditory expertise characterizing extensive musical training may impact different stages of vocal emotional processing.

Investigations on relational control of time perception

Tese de Doutoramento em Psicologia Básica

La carte postale et la représentation des espaces public et intime

La carte postale est un kaléidoscope de vues, d’ornements et de couleurs, qui consacre un tout petit espace au message. C’est à la photographie et aux procédés de reproduction photomécaniques que revient le mérite d’avoir industrialisé la production de la carte postale. Et ce sont les clichés de villes, avec leurs monuments et leurs paysages, qui confèrent à la carte postale son statut de moyen de communication de masse et qui lui concèdent une affinité avec l’industrie du tourisme. La carte postale s’est ainsi emparée de l’ambition photographique de reproduire le monde, s’alliant aux « besoins de l’exploration, des expéditions et des relevés topographiques » du médium photographique à ses débuts. Ayant comme point de départ la carte postale, notre objectif est de montrer les conséquences culturelles de la révolution optique, commencée au milieu du XIXe siècle, avec l’invention de l’appareil photo, et consumée dans la seconde moitié du XXe siècle, avec l’apparition de l’ordinateur. En effet, depuis l’apparition de l’appareil photographique et des cartes postales jusqu’au flux de pixels de Google Images et aux images satellite de Google Earth, un entrelacement de territoire, puissance et technique a été mis en oeuvre, la terre devenant, en conséquence, de plus en plus auscultée par les appareils de vision, ce qui impacte sur la perception de l’espace. Nous espérons pouvoir montrer avec cette étude que la lettre traditionnelle est à l’email ce que la carte postale est au post que l’on publie dans un blog ou dans des réseaux comme Facebook et Twitter. À notre sens, les cartes postales correspondent à l’ouverture maximale du système postal moderne, qui d’universel devient dépendant et partie intégrante des réseaux télématiques d’envoi. Par elles sont annoncés, en effet, la vitesse de transmission de l’information, la brièveté de la parole et l’hégémonie de la dimension imagétique du message, et pour finir, l’embarras provoqué par la fusion de l’espace public avec l’espace privé.

O papel e a participação do terapeuta da fala nas equipas locais de intervenção precoce

Dissertação de mestrado em Educação Especial (área de especialização em Intervenção Precoce)

Perceção e produção de sons consonânticos do português europeu por aprendentes chineses

Dissertação de mestrado em Português Língua Não Materna (PLNM): Português Língua Estrangeira (PLE) Português Língua Segunda (PL2)