Lucy J. Troup

Does Anthropogenic Noise in National Parks Impair Memory

Research on noise shows that a variety of effects including stress, annoyance, and performance decrements exist for certain types of sounds. Noise interferes with cognitive ability by overloading the attentional system or simply distracting from efficient encoding or rehearsal, but very little research has extended those findings to recreation or natural environments such as those found in national parks. By exposing participants to one of four soundscape conditions—control, natural, natural with voices, and natural with ground traffic—the current project tested the effect of sound conditions on the recognition and recall of factual information presented whereas viewing scenes of national parks. Both the natural with voices and natural with ground traffic conditions caused significant decreases in memory scores while the natural condition showed no differences from the control condition. Implications for sound management strategies are discussed in the context of current legislation and recent field research. Avenues for future research to clarify the mode of memory interference are discussed.

Chromatic perceptive field sizes change with retinal illuminance

The effect of retinal illuminance (0.3-3.3 log td) on chromatic perceptive field size was investigated at 10 degrees eccentricity along the horizontal meridian of the temporal retina. Using the 4+1 color-naming procedure, observers described the hue and saturation of a series of monochromatic stimuli (440-660 nm, in 10-nm steps) of various test sizes (.098-5 degrees) after 30-min dark adaptation. Perceptive field sizes of the four elemental hues and the saturation component were estimated for each wavelength at each retinal illuminance. Results indicate that perceptive field sizes for blue, green, yellow, and saturation all decrease with increasing retinal illuminance; the perceptive field size for red is the smallest and invariant with intensity. The influence of rods on perceptive field size may account for some of the results; other factors are also considered.

Effect of stimulus intensity on the sizes of chromatic perceptive fields.

The effects of intensity on chromatic perceptive field size were investigated along the horizontal meridian at 10 degrees temporal eccentricity by manipulating stimulus intensity from 0.3 to 3.3 log trolands. Following light adaptation, observers described the hue and saturation of monochromatic stimuli (440-660 nm, in 10 nm steps) for a series of test sizes (0.098-3 degrees) presented along the time period associated with the cone plateau of the dark-adaptation function. Perceptive field sizes of the four elemental hues (red, green, yellow, and blue) and the saturation component were estimated by three observers at each intensity level for each wavelength. In general, perceptive field sizes of blue and red are the smallest, and yellow and green are the largest. Furthermore, perceptive field sizes of all four hues decrease with increasing stimulus intensity, though the absolute change is largest for green and yellow. The decrease in size with increase in intensity cannot be completely explained in terms of saturation or rod signals and is likely, then, attributable to a cone-based mechanism.

Interaction of threat expressions and eye gaze: an event-related potential study

The current study examined the interaction of fearful, angry, happy, and neutral expressions with left, straight, and right eye gaze directions. Human participants viewed faces consisting of various expression and eye gaze combinations while event-related potential (ERP) data were collected. The results showed that angry expressions modulated the mean amplitude of the P1, whereas fearful and happy expressions modulated the mean amplitude of the N170. No influence of eye gaze on mean amplitudes for the P1 and N170 emerged. Fearful, angry, and happy expressions began to interact with eye gaze to influence mean amplitudes in the time window of 200–400 ms. The results suggest early processing of expression influence ERPs independent of eye gaze, whereas expression and gaze interact to influence later ERPs.

Where's Farah?: Knowledge silos and information fusion by distributed collaborating teams

The Cognitively-Based Rapid Assessment Methodology (C-RAM) system manages multiple-user interactions as users work with multiple information sources. Further, it allows users to view, exchange, organize, and combine the information available and it facilitates group decision-making. Three-member teams, randomly assigned in either the (a) view others’ whiteboards or (b) cannot view others’ whiteboards conditions, completed an intelligence analysis and mission planning task. Each team member was given access to a virtual whiteboard populated with decision cards (DCards) containing intelligence information constrained to a specific area of expertise. DCards can be assessed (rated) for decision impact and importance and team members have access to all DCards regardless of experimental condition. Team members who can view their teammates’ whiteboards during collaborative activities achieve significantly higher performance. When compared to teams unable to view others’ whiteboards, they move their own DCards less frequently, add fewer additional DCards to their own whiteboards, and rate others’ DCards less frequently. Additionally, rating one’s own DCards is the only process positively related team performance.

Synergy between Activity Theory and goal/scenario modeling for requirements elicitation, analysis, and evolution

ContextIt is challenging to develop comprehensive, consistent, analyzable requirements models for evolving requirements. This is particularly critical for certain highly interactive types of socio-technical systems that involve a wide range of stakeholders with disparate backgrounds; system success is often dependent on how well local social constraints are addressed in system design. ObjectiveThis paper describes feasibility research, combining a holistic social system perspective provided by Activity Theory (AT), a psychological paradigm, with existing system development methodologies and tools, specifically goal and scenario modeling. MethodAT is used to understand the relationships between a system, its stakeholders, and the systems evolving context. The User Requirements Notation (URN) is used to produce rigorous, analyzable specifications combining goal and scenario models. First, an AT language was developed constraining the framework for automation, second consistency heuristics were developed for constructing and analyzing combined AT/URN models, third a combined AT/URN methodology was developed, and consequently applied to a proof-of-concept system. ResultsAn AT language with limited tool support was developed, as was a combined AT/URN methodology. This methodology was applied to an evolving disease management system to demonstrate the feasibility of adapting AT for use in system development with existing methodologies and tools. Bi-directional transformations between the languages allow proposed changes in system design to be propagated to AT models for use in stakeholder discussions regarding system evolution. ConclusionsThe AT framework can be constrained for use in requirements elicitation and combined with URN tools to provide system designs that include social system perspectives. The developed AT/URN methodology can help engineers to track the impact on system design due to requirement changes triggered by changes in the systems social context. The methodology also allows engineers to assess the impact of proposed system design changes on the social elements of the system context.

An Event-Related Potential Study on the Effects of Cannabis on Emotion Processing

The effect of cannabis on emotional processing was investigated using event-related potential paradigms (ERPs). ERPs associated with emotional processing of cannabis users, and non-using controls, were recorded and compared during an implicit and explicit emotional expression recognition and empathy task. Comparisons in P3 component mean amplitudes were made between cannabis users and controls. Results showed a significant decrease in the P3 amplitude in cannabis users compared to controls. Specifically, cannabis users showed reduced P3 amplitudes for implicit compared to explicit processing over centro-parietal sites which reversed, and was enhanced, at fronto-central sites. Cannabis users also showed a decreased P3 to happy faces, with an increase to angry faces, compared to controls. These effects appear to increase with those participants that self-reported the highest levels of cannabis consumption. Those cannabis users with the greatest consumption rates showed the largest P3 deficits for explicit processing and negative emotions. These data suggest that there is a complex relationship between cannabis consumption and emotion processing that appears to be modulated by attention.

Assessing composition in modeling approaches

Modeling approaches are based on various paradigms, e.g., aspect-oriented, feature-oriented, object-oriented, and logic-based. Modeling approaches may cover requirements models to low-level design models, are developed for various purposes, use various means of composition, and thus are difficult to compare. However, such comparisons are critical to help practitioners know under which conditions approaches are most applicable, and how they might be successfully generalized and combined to achieve end-to-end methods. This paper reports on work done at the 2nd International Comparing Modeling Approaches (CMA) workshop towards the goal of identifying potential comprehensive modeling methodologies with a particular emphasis on composition: (i) an improved set of comparison criteria; (ii) 19 assessments of modeling approaches based on the comparison criteria and a common, focused case study.

Comparing six modeling approaches

While there are many aspect-oriented modeling (AOM) approaches, from requirements to low-level design, it is still difficult to compare them and know under which conditions different approaches are most applicable. This comparison, however, is crucially important to unify existing AOM and more traditional object-oriented modeling (OOM) approaches and to generalize individual approaches into a comprehensive end-to-end method. Such a method does not yet exist. This paper reports on work done at the inaugural Comparing Modeling Approaches (CMA) workshop towards the goal of identifying potential comprehensive methodologies: (i) a common, focused case study for six modeling approaches, (ii) a set of criteria applied to each of the six approaches, and (iii) the assessment results.

Event-related potentials of attentional bias toward faces in the dot-probe task: A systematic review

The dot-probe task is a common task to assess attentional bias toward different stimuli and how groups differ (e.g., attentional bias in anxiety disorders). However, measuring reaction time has been suggested to be unreliable. Neuroimaging methods such as fMRI were shown to be more reliable in assessing attentional bias, but fMRI has poor temporal resolution and therefore cannot assess timing of attention. ERPs have been used to examine the time course of attentional bias. Although ERP research may be more reliable than reaction time, there have been inconsistencies in the literature. This review systematically searched for articles that used the dot-probe task with facial expressions and measured neural correlates with ERP. We found that some of the inconsistencies might be the cause of methodological differences (e.g., timing of stimuli), differences in emotional expression, and/or sample differences (e.g., sex, age, etc.). Suggestions on how future research could address the issues presented in this review were discussed.