Emotion recognition in multiple sclerosis

The effect of multiple sclerosis (MS) on the ability to identify emotional expressions in faces was investigated, and possible associations with patients’ characteristics were explored. 56 non-demented MS patients and 56 healthy subjects (HS) with similar demographic characteristics performed an emotion recognition task (ERT), the Benton Facial Recognition Test (BFRT), and answered the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Additionally, MS patients underwent a neurological examination and a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation. The ERT consisted of 42 pictures of faces (depicting anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise and neutral expressions) from the NimStim set. An iViewX high-speed eye tracker was used to record eye movements during ERT. The fixation times were calculated for two regions of interest (i.e., eyes and rest of the face). No significant differences were found between MS and HC on ERT’s behavioral and oculomotor measures. Bivariate and multiple regression analyses revealed significant associations between ERT’s behavioral performance and demographic, clinical, psychopathological, and cognitive measures.

The development of a phonetically balanced word recognition test in the Ilocano language

Three different phonetically-balanced 50-word recognition lists were constructed in the Ilocano language. Factors that were considered in the construction of these lists were: phonetic balance, syllable structure, and commonness of words.

Auditory, visual, and auditory-visual recognition of vowels by hearing-impaired children

This paper studies the auditory, visual and combined audio-visual recognition of vowels by severely and profoundly hearing impaired children.

Auditory word-recognition by young deaf children

This paper reviews a study of a speech discrimination test for young profoundly deaf children.

A proposed plan for using Dr. Marie Carbo's tape-recorded books to improve word recognition skills in children with cochlear implants

This paper studies the effectiveness of the recorded books and teaching method developed by Dr. Marie Carbo in the aural habilitation of pre-lingual deaf children with cochlear implants.

Recognition of temporarily modified speech stimuli

This paper studies the relationship between consonant duration and recognition of these consanants by listeners with high frequency hearing loss.

Utilizing hearing assistive technology (HAT) to assess speech recognition: Comparison of word recognition scores obtained by hearing instrument users

The ability for individuals with hearing loss to accurately recognize correct versus incorrect verbal responses during traditional word recognition testing across four different listening conditions was assessed.

Visual Object Recognition Using Deformable Models of Vehicles

This workshop paper reports recent developments to a vision system for traffic interpretation which relies extensively on the use of geometrical and scene context. Firstly, a new approach to pose refinement is reported, based on forces derived from prominent image derivatives found close to an initial hypothesis. Secondly, a parameterised vehicle model is reported, able to represent different vehicle classes. This general vehicle model has been fitted to sample data, and subjected to a Principal Component Analysis to create a deformable model of common car types having 6 parameters. We show that the new pose recovery technique is also able to operate on the PCA model, to allow the structure of an initial vehicle hypothesis to be adapted to fit the prevailing context. We report initial experiments with the model, which demonstrate significant improvements to pose recovery.

A Generic Deformable Model for Vehicle Recognition

This paper reports the development of a highly parameterised 3-D model able to adopt the shapes of a wide variety of different classes of vehicles (cars, vans, buses, etc), and its subsequent specialisation to a generic car class which accounts for most commonly encountered types of car (includng saloon, hatchback and estate cars). An interactive tool has been developed to obtain sample data for vehicles from video images. A PCA description of the manually sampled data provides a deformable model in which a single instance is described as a 6 parameter vector. Both the pose and the structure of a car can be recovered by fitting the PCA model to an image. The recovered description is sufficiently accurate to discriminate between vehicle sub-classes.

Host plant recognition by the root feeding clover weevil, Sitona lepidus (Coleoptera : Curculionidae)

This study investigated the ability of neonatal larvae of the root-feeding weevil, Sitona lepidus Gyllenhal, to locate white clover Trifolium repens L. (Fabaceae) roots growing in soil and to distinguish them from the roots of other species of clover and a co-occurring grass species. Choice experiments used a combination of invasive techniques and the novel technique of high resolution X-ray microtomography to non-invasively track larval movement in the soil towards plant roots. Burrowing distances towards roots of different plant species were also examined. Newly hatched S. lepidus recognized T. repens roots and moved preferentially towards them when given a choice of roots of subterranean clover, Trifolium subterraneum L. (Fabaceae), strawberry clover Trifolium fragiferum L. (Fabaceae), or perennial ryegrass Lolium perenne L. (Poaceae). Larvae recognized T. repens roots, whether released in groups of five or singly, when released 25 mm (meso-scale recognition) or 60 mm (macro-scale recognition) away from plant roots. There was no statistically significant difference in movement rates of larvae.

Mediating between hearer's and speaker's views in the generation of adaptive explanations

In this article, we examine the case of a system that cooperates with a “direct” user to plan an activity that some “indirect” user, not interacting with the system, should perform. The specific application we consider is the prescription of drugs. In this case, the direct user is the prescriber and the indirect user is the person who is responsible for performing the therapy. Relevant characteristics of the two users are represented in two user models. Explanation strategies are represented in planning operators whose preconditions encode the cognitive state of the indirect user; this allows tailoring the message to the indirect user's characteristics. Expansion of optional subgoals and selection among candidate operators is made by applying decision criteria represented as metarules, that negotiate between direct and indirect users' views also taking into account the context where explanation is provided. After the message has been generated, the direct user may ask to add or remove some items, or change the message style. The system defends the indirect user's needs as far as possible by mentioning the rationale behind the generated message. If needed, the plan is repaired and the direct user model is revised accordingly, so that the system learns progressively to generate messages suited to the preferences of people with whom it interacts.