Estudio sobre los efectos de un tratamiento multimodal (audio-vídeo-texto) sobre la competencia de la comprensión oral de los alumnos de ESO y Bachillerato.

Estudiar y analizar los resultados obtenidos con dos grupos de trabajo utilizando metodologías diferentes para la comprensión oral de la lengua inglesa en alumnos de enseñanza secundaria y Bachillerato. La investigación se ha realizado con dos grupos de tercero de enseñanza secundaria obligatoria del Instituto Infanta Elena de Jumilla (Murcia). Estudio semi experimental de análisis tomando un grupo de control y otro experimental que incluye la aplicación de un tratamiento continuado de exposición al componente oral de la lengua inglesa utilizando materiales audiovisuales. Las variables utilizadas han sido la comprensión oral antes y después del tratamiento y la nota global de inglés del curso anterior. El grupo de control está formado por los alumnos que realizan las pruebas de compresión oral tradicionales y el grupo experimental el sometido a pruebas utilizando medios audiovisuales. El estudio duró un trimestre. Se realizaron cuestionarios KET (Key English Test) a ambos grupos para determinar su nivel inicial en cuanto a aprendizaje en comprensión oral. Se realizó tambien un segundo tipo de cuestionario para conocer la homogeneidad en cuanto a sus conocimientos previos, variables de carácter afectivo y socioeconómico. Estos datos, así como sus calificaciones y expediente académico fueron tratadas con el programa SPSS. También se empleó SACODEYL como interfaz para profesores y alumnos en cuanto al acceso de recursos digitales. Los alumnos que forman parte del grupo experimental obtienen mejores resultados que los del grupo de control. La utilización de material audiovisual mejora la compresión oral de la lengua inglesa .

Percepciones del alumnado del grado de educaci??n infantil en torno a la creaci??n de audio y video podcast para la ense??anza y aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras

Resumen tomado de la publicaci??n

El Secuenciador de audio-midi: la "navaja suiza" de la didáctica de la música

El uso de la tecnología musical en el aula es fruto de múltiples investigaciones alrededor del mundo. El objetivo de este taller es mostrar las inmensas posibilidades didácticas de un tipo de software que no está inicialmente diseñado para la educación musical: el Secuenciador de Audio-MIDI. Un Secuenciador2 de Audio-MIDI es un tipo de software musical que puede grabar y gestionar información musical en, generalmente, dos soportes: el MIDI y el audio digital. El uso combinado de estas dos posibilidades más un interface gráfico altamente moldeable, hacen del Secuenciador una potente herramienta musical

Auditory and audio-visual reception of words in noise by observers with normal and impaired hearing

This dissertation examines auditory perception and audio-visual reception in noise for both hearing-impaired and normal hearing persons, with a goal of determining some of the noise conditions under which amplified acoustic cues for speech can be beneficial to hearing-impaired persons.

Evaluation of a feedback equalization algorithm in the CID Wearable Digital Hearing Aid

This paper describes the results of an investigation which examined the efficacy of a feedback equalization algorithm incorporated into the Central Institute for the Deaf Wearable Digital Hearing Aid. The study examined whether the feedback equalization would allow for greater usable gains when subjects listened to soft speech signals, and if so, whether or not this would improve speech intelligibility.

Instructions for an Audio Performance/Scissors Music

‘Instructions for an Audio Performance/Scissors Recording’ is a score for a performance using an amplified scissors that can be downloaded and interpreted by a performer anywhere in the world. The file functions as a manual for the performer with guidance for creating the instrument and preparing the performance space while it also provides a template for the actual sonic pattern to be followed in the live performance. Created originally for ‘Storageroom’ an online platform featuring complete exhibitions that are available for download, the piece was exhibited and interpreted in a live performance by Ayelet Lerman for the File Transfer Protocol, the contemporary section of the Haifa-Jerusalem-Tel Aviv exhibition at the Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel.

Wearable device to assist independent living

Older people increasingly want to remain living independently in their own homes. The aim of the ENABLE project is to develop a wearable device that can be used to support older people in their daily lives and which can monitor their health status, detect potential problems, provide activity reminders and offer communication and alarm services. In order to determine the specifications and functionality required for the development of the device, user surveys and focus groups were undertaken, use case analysis and scenario modeling carried out. The project has resulted in the development of a wrist-worn device and mobile phone combination that can support and assist older and vulnerable wearers with a range of activities and services both inside their home and as they move around their local environment. The device is currently undergoing pilot trials in five European countries. The aim of this paper is to describe the ENABLE device, its features and services, and the infrastructure within which it operates.

Perceptions of a wearable ubiquitous monitoring device

A world of ubiquitous computing, full of networked mobile and embedded technologies, is approaching. The benefits of this technology are numerous, and act as the major driving force behind its development. These benefits are brought about, in part, by ubiquitous monitoring (UM): the continuous and wide spread collection of ?significant amounts of data about users

Televised Whorf: cognitive restructuring in advanced foreign language learners as a function of audio-visual media exposure

The encoding of goal-oriented motion events varies across different languages. Speakers of languages without grammatical aspect (e.g., Swedish) tend to mention motion endpoints when describing events, e.g., “two nuns walk to a house,”, and attach importance to event endpoints when matching scenes from memory. Speakers of aspect languages (e.g., English), on the other hand, are more prone to direct attention to the ongoingness of motion events, which is reflected both in their event descriptions, e.g., “two nuns are walking.”, and in their non-verbal similarity judgements. This study examines to what extent native speakers of Swedish (n = 82) with English as a foreign language (FL) restructure their categorisation of goal-oriented motion as a function of their English proficiency and experience with the English language (e.g., exposure, learning). Seventeen monolingual native English speakers from the United Kingdom (UK) were engaged for comparison purposes. Data on motion event cognition were collected through a memory-based triads matching task, in which a target scene with an intermediate degree of endpoint orientation was matched with two alternative scenes with low and high degrees of endpoint orientation, respectively. Results showed that the preference among the Swedish speakers of L2 English to base their similarity judgements on ongoingness rather than event endpoints was correlated with their use of English in their everyday lives, such that those who often watched television in English approximated the ongoingness preference of the English native speakers. These findings suggest that event cognition patterns may be restructured through the exposure to FL audio-visual media. The results thus add to the emerging picture that learning a new language entails learning new ways of observing and reasoning about reality.

N1 enhancement in synesthesia during visual and audio-visual perception in semantic cross-modal conflict situations: an ERP study

Synesthesia entails a special kind of sensory perception, where stimulation in one sensory modality leads to an internally generated perceptual experience of another, not stimulated sensory modality. This phenomenon can be viewed as an abnormal multisensory integration process as here the synesthetic percept is aberrantly fused with the stimulated modality. Indeed, recent synesthesia research has focused on multimodal processing even outside of the specific synesthesia-inducing context and has revealed changed multimodal integration, thus suggesting perceptual alterations at a global level. Here, we focused on audio-visual processing in synesthesia using a semantic classification task in combination with visually or auditory-visually presented animated and in animated objects in an audio-visual congruent and incongruent manner. Fourteen subjects with auditory-visual and/or grapheme-color synesthesia and 14 control subjects participated in the experiment. During presentation of the stimuli, event-related potentials were recorded from 32 electrodes. The analysis of reaction times and error rates revealed no group differences with best performance for audio-visually congruent stimulation indicating the well-known multimodal facilitation effect. We found enhanced amplitude of the N1 component over occipital electrode sites for synesthetes compared to controls. The differences occurred irrespective of the experimental condition and therefore suggest a global influence on early sensory processing in synesthetes.

Development of a wearable assistive soft robotic device for elbow rehabilitation

The loss of motor function at the elbow joint can result as a consequence of stroke. Stroke is a clinical illness resulting in long lasting neurological deficits often affecting somatosensory and motor cortices. More than half of those that recover from a stroke survive with disability in their upper arm and need rehabilitation therapy to help in regaining functions of daily living. In this paper, we demonstrated a prototype of a low-cost, ultra-light and wearable soft robotic assistive device that could aid administration of elbow motion therapies to stroke patients. In order to assist the rotation of the elbow joint, the soft modules which consist of soft wedge-like cellular units was inflated by air to produce torque at the elbow joint. Highly compliant rotation can be naturally realised by the elastic property of soft silicone and pneumatic control of air. Based on the direct visual-actuation control, a higher control loop utilised visual processing to apply positional control, the lower control loop was implemented by an electronic circuit to achieve the desired pressure of the soft modules by Pulse Width Modulation. To examine the functionality of the proposed soft modular system, we used an anatomical model of the upper limb and performed the experiments with healthy participants.