Auditory Instructions Research Articles

Development of auditory design guidelines for improving learning on mobile phones

Although auditory information in mobile learning (m-learning) can be an important resource for delivering knowledge and information, the importance of guidelines for designing auditory instructions has largely been overlooked. Therefore, this study considered the characteristics of m-learning, mobility and personalization, with the aim of developing and validating auditory design guidelines to improve learning on mobile phones. The present study covers m-learning with cellphones only. Auditory design guidelines were developed and revised using an iterative educational design research process. The auditory design guidelines were developed by analyzing previous studies related to m-learning and auditory interface design, and revised using three validation methods. The expert reviews and usability evaluations were conducted as an internal validation method, and a field evaluation was used as an external validation method to confirm the feasibility and educational effects. The results showed that the auditory design guidelines could be applied effectively to the design of audio instructions delivered on smart phones. Finally, a total of ten guidelines were developed, three for auditory-only design, four for attention design, and three for personalization design. This paper discusses the theoretical, empirical and practical aspects of the design guidelines presented.

Local spatial correlation analysis of hand flexion/extension using intraoperative high-density ECoG.

We recorded motor cortical activity using highdensity electrocorticogram (ECoG) from three patients during awake craniotomy. Subjects repeatedly executed hand flexion/extension tasks according to auditory instructions. Clear event-related desynchronization (ERD) in beta band (8-32) Hz and event-related synchronization (ERS) in gamma band (60-200) Hz were observed. High frequency band (HFB: 60-200 Hz) activation was found to be more localized compared to low frequency band (LFB: 8-32 Hz) activation in all subjects. Local spatial correlation maps in LFB and HFB were constructed by computing the correlation between channels. Local spatial correlation dropped more in the ERD/ERS areas consistently in two subjects. The results indicate that ERD/ERS patterns are more spatially uncorrelated and denser ECoG electrode is necessary within these areas to map uncorrelated `sources'. High resolution electrodes might improve both clinical functional mapping and brain machine interface outcomes in the near future.

Electro-cortical measures during visual and kinesthetic imagery performance following visual- and auditory-guided instructions

Electroencephalography (EEG) measures can provide extensive and detailed knowledge of how the brain works during imagery. Prior to imagery performance, individuals may acquire information on how to imagine the movement through either visual or auditory instructions. The purpose of this study was to determine differences in cerebral cortical activation during kinesthetic and visual imagery performance while following visual- and audio-guided imagery instructions. EEG recordings were collected from 28 participants and guided imagery instructions were given in two versions: audio and visual. The results revealed that lower alpha values (8–10 Hz) were greater when participants were performing kinesthetic imagery following auditory instructions as opposed to following visual instructions. Furthermore, lower alpha values were greater at the right hemisphere than the left hemisphere and greater at the right temporal site than the left temporal site. In the upper alpha band (11–13 Hz), results showed that values were greater at the temporal site in the right hemisphere than the temporal site in the left hemisphere. In addition, upper alpha values were greater at the right hemisphere than the left hemisphere and greater at the right temporal site than the left temporal site. The findings of this study suggest that electro-cortical measures can detect differences of the processes involved during guided imagery performance while following either audio or video instructions. In the applied setting, practitioners can implement neurofeedback techniques to assess the specific mental effort required by individuals following guided instructions to perform imagery.

Vibrotactile Stimulation as an Instructor for Mimicry-Based Physical Exercise

The present aim was to investigate functionality of vibrotactile stimulation in mimicry-based behavioral regulation during physical exercise. Vibrotactile stimuli communicated instructions from an instructor to an exerciser to perform lower extremity movements. A wireless prototype was tested first in controlled laboratory conditions (Study 1) and was followed by a user study (Study 2) that was conducted in a group exercise situation for elderly participants with a new version of the system with improved construction and extended functionality. The results of Study 1 showed that vibrotactile instructions were successful in both supplementing and substituting visual knee lift instructions. Vibrotactile stimuli were accurately recognized, and exercise with the device received affirmative ratings. Interestingly, tactile stimulation appeared to stabilize acceleration magnitude of the knee lifts in comparison to visual instructions. In Study 2 it was found that user experience of the system was mainly positive by both the exercisers and their instructors. For example, exercise with vibrotactile instructions was experienced as more motivating than conventional exercise session. Together the results indicate that tactile instructions could increase possibilities for people having difficulties in following visual and auditory instructions to take part in mimicry-based group training. Both studies also revealed development areas that were primarily related to a slight delay in triggering the vibrotactile stimulation.

Mirror neuron activation prior to action observation in a predictable context.

A fundamental capacity of social animals consists in the predictive representation of upcoming events in the outside world, such as the actions of others. Here, we tested the activity of ventral premotor area F5 mirror neurons (MNs) while monkeys observed an experimenter performing (Action condition) or withholding (Inaction condition) a grasping action, which could be predicted on the basis of previously presented auditory instructions. Many of the recorded MNs discharged only during action observation (Action MNs), but one-third also encoded the experimenter's withheld action (Inaction MNs). Interestingly, while most of Action MNs exhibited reactive discharge during action observation, becoming active after the go signal, the majority of Inaction MNs showed predictive discharge. MN population activity as a whole displayed an overall predictive activation pattern, becoming active, on average, 340 ms before the go signal. Furthermore, MNs became active earlier when the observed action was performed in the monkeys' extrapersonal rather than peripersonal space, suggesting that context-based neural prediction of others' actions plays different roles depending on the monkeys' ability to interact with the observed agent.

The Effect of the Global Positioning System on the Driving Performance of People with Mild Alzheimer's Disease

Introduction: The initial symptoms of Alzheimer's disease (AD) include attention deficits, memory loss and deficiencies in topographic and spatial orientation. People with AD may have way-finding difficulties in driving due to the deterioration of their navigation ability. Although the use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) has been proven to be a useful aid for older people in driving, there is no evidence to suggest that the benefit could extend to drivers with AD. Aim: This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of the GPS in assisting drivers with mild AD in finding their destination safely. Method: Twenty-eight drivers with mild to very mild AD, diagnosed by a general practitioner or a psychogeriatrician, completed all clinical and psychometric assessments including the Mini Mental State Examination, Trail Making Test B and Doors and People Test. During the driving assessment, 3 driving trials with different settings (normal, visual-only and audio-only) of the GPS were administered to all participants. The participants were required to follow instructions from the GPS and perform a variety of driving tasks on a driving simulator. The driving performances of participants were assessed by criteria specific to AD drivers. The driving assessment criteria were first combined to form the overall driving performance score: a higher score indicated a better overall driving performance. The other outcome of this study was the success of participants to navigate to a predetermined destination. Results: The driving performance of participants was different among the 3 settings (F = 72.8, p < 0.001) and the pairwise comparison between the 3 settings was significant (p < 0.001). The driving performance score was highest in the audio-only setting (mean: 20.0, SD: 2.2), moderate in the normal setting (mean: 16.7, SD: 2.6) and lowest in the visual-only setting (mean: 14.3, SD: 3.3). When compared with the visual-only setting, drivers using the audio-only setting (OR: 37.2, 95% CI: 9.2-151.2) and normal setting (OR: 37.2, 95% CI: 4.8-286.9) were more likely to successfully find their destination (p < 0.05). Conclusion: This study has found that using single, simple auditory instructions with the absence of the visual output of the GPS could potentially help people with mild AD to improve their driving ability and reach their destination.

Assessing residual reasoning ability in overtly non-communicative patients using fMRI

It is now well established that some patients who are diagnosed as being in a vegetative state or a minimally conscious state show reliable signs of volition that may only be detected by measuring neural responses. A pertinent question is whether these patients are also capable of logical thought. Here, we validate an fMRI paradigm that can detect the neural fingerprint of reasoning processes and moreover, can confirm whether a participant derives logical answers. We demonstrate the efficacy of this approach in a physically non-communicative patient who had been shown to engage in mental imagery in response to simple auditory instructions. Our results demonstrate that this individual retains a remarkable capacity for higher cognition, engaging in the reasoning task and deducing logical answers. We suggest that this approach is suitable for detecting residual reasoning ability using neural responses and could readily be adapted to assess other aspects of cognition.

Event-related induced frontal alpha as a marker of lateral prefrontal cortex activation during cognitive reappraisal

Electrocortical activity, typically used to track the effects of cognitive reappraisal on the processing of emotional stimuli, has not been used to index the prefrontal-cortex-mediated regulatory mechanisms responsible for these effects. In the present study, we examined the novel possibility that induced frontal alpha (i.e., 8-13 Hz), shown to reflect the inhibition and disengagement of task-relevant cortical regions, may be quantified to explore cortical activation that is specifically enhanced during cognitive reappraisal. For this purpose, 44 participants viewed unpleasant and neutral pictures followed by auditory instructions to either continue viewing the picture or reduce their emotional response to the picture by making the picture seem less emotional (i.e., cognitive reappraisal). In line with previous work, unpleasant pictures elicited a larger late positive potential (LPP) than did neutral pictures. Also corroborating previous work, the mid-latency LPP was reduced when pictures were cognitively reappraised. However, the present study showed for the first time that whereas unpleasant pictures elicited higher frontal alpha power bilaterally than did the neutral pictures, frontal alpha power was reduced (indicative of more activation and cognitive control) during cognitive reappraisal of both picture types over the left hemisphere. Taken together, the LPP and event-related induced frontal-alpha findings contribute unique information about the distinct neural substrates and cognitive processes underlying reappraisal.

Driving with navigational instructions: Investigating user behaviour and performance

This paper reports the results of an inter-disciplinary study investigating user preferences and performance in relation to spoken in-car route guidance. In-car navigation systems are becoming increasingly popular. However, despite large amounts of research assessing the presentation of spatial information, and the usability and interaction issues surrounding the interfaces, there has been much less investigation of the impacts of auditory presentation of route information. We addressed this issue using a multi-disciplinary approach to collect both qualitative and quantitative data through questionnaires and user experiments. Our research identified a user preference for auditory presentation of route information, as well as a memory advantage for auditory over visual presentation. We also found that simple auditory route instructions could be followed without significant interference to a simulated driving task, whereas more complex auditory instructions did cause interference. Taken together, this research highlights the importance of the design of spoken route guidance instructions in minimising the cognitive demands that they impose.

Unimanual and Bimanual Continuous Movements Benefit From Visual Instructions in Persons With Down Syndrome

ABSTRACT The authors’ aim was to understand how persons with Down syndrome (DS) perform different tasks and to assess if there were any differences in performance based on the type of instructions. This is important because of neurological differences in persons with DS and neurological demands for performing different types of tasks. Twenty right-handed participants with DS, 20 chronological age–matched (CA), and 20 mental age–matched (MA) performed unimanual, bimanual, discrete, and continuous drumming following visual, auditory, and verbal instructions. Overall, discrete drumming was performed with shorter movement times than continuous drumming and unimanual drumming was performed with shorter movement amplitude than bimanual drumming. With respect to instructions, persons with DS performed with smaller amplitudes, thus more efficient movements, following the visual instructions than auditory and verbal instructions for all types of tasks, whereas CA performed similarly with all instructions and MA performed with smaller amplitudes with visual instructions than auditory instructions. These results suggest that visual instruction provides the best information for people with DS to aid in performance of many different types of movements.

Bypassing the Bottleneck: The Advantage of Fingertip Shear Feedback for Navigational Cues

Multiple resource models suggest that there will be less interference between tasks that do not share the same processing resources or modalities. Most in-vehicle navigational systems rely on some type of auditory modality, which can be problematic in situations with high levels of background noise or when one is engaged in a secondary auditory task, such as talking on a cell phone. The haptic or tactile sensory modality may be an effective alternative for presenting important navigational information in a vehicle. The current study compared the effectiveness of auditory vs. tactile navigational instructions to the operator of a moving vehicle. Tactile shear cues were provided to the participants' index fingers as they gripped the steering wheel. These tactile cues provided directional information that coincide with the direction of the applied skin displacement. In single task driving, participants made accurate lane changes in response to both auditory and tactile instructions. In dual-task driving, where participants conversed on a cell phone, participants were less accurate with auditory instructions than for tactile instructions. This suggests that in some instances, presenting information via the tactile modality may bypass the bottleneck described by multiple resource theories when there is competition for the same resources.

Suggestions on the applicability of visual instructions with see-through head mounted displays depending on the task

Task instructions have traditionally been communicated orally in many fields. However, recently more and more wearable displays, such as the see-through head mounted displays (HMDs) have been developed, and some studies have provided ideas on applying visual instruction using these new interfaces to particular situations. However, in some cases, where instructions are communicated amongst the workers, the data is not sufficient for field workers to choose the best way of communicating instructions depending on the situation. Thus, this study aims to clarify the cases in which it is effective to apply visual instructions with HMDs, and to provide information that suggests the applicability of such visual instructions instead of or in addition to the traditional auditory instructions in different situations. These suggestions will be a useful reference for workers in safety-critical fields, helping them make better decisions about whether, when, and where to introduce the new method of instructions. It will also address some of the unsolved problems in the field, such as errors, low efficiency, and discomfort in communication.

Taking perspective into account in a communicative task

Previous neuroimaging studies of spatial perspective taking have tended not to activate the brain's mentalising network. We predicted that a task that requires the use of perspective taking in a communicative context would lead to the activation of mentalising regions. In the current task, participants followed auditory instructions to move objects in a set of shelves. A 2×2 factorial design was employed. In the Director factor, two directors (one female and one male) either stood behind or next to the shelves, or were replaced by symbolic cues. In the Object factor, participants needed to use the cues (position of the directors or symbolic cues) to select one of three possible objects, or only one object could be selected. Mere presence of the Directors was associated with activity in the superior dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the superior/middle temporal sulci, extending into the extrastriate body area and the posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), regions previously found to be responsive to human bodies and faces respectively. The interaction between the Director and Object factors, which requires participants to take into account the perspective of the director, led to additional recruitment of the superior dorsal MPFC, a region activated when thinking about dissimilar others' mental states, and the middle temporal gyri, extending into the left temporal pole. Our results show that using perspective taking in a communicative context, which requires participants to think not only about what the other person sees but also about his/her intentions, leads to the recruitment of superior dorsal MPFC and parts of the social brain network.

Lévy-like diffusion in eye movements during spoken-language comprehension

This study explores the diffusive properties of human eye movements during a language comprehension task. In this task, adults are given auditory instructions to locate named objects on a computer screen. Although it has been convention to model visual search as standard Brownian diffusion, we find evidence that eye movements are hyperdiffusive. Specifically, we use comparisons of maximum-likelihood fit as well as standard deviation analysis and diffusion entropy analysis to show that visual search during language comprehension exhibits Lévy-like rather than Gaussian diffusion.

Persons with and without Down syndrome use similar strategies when using visual instructions for bimanual drumming

Previous research suggested that persons with Down syndrome (DS) used a different strategy to drum than typical adults. The present study examined continuous bimanual drumming strategies in response to different instructions in 10 persons with DS, 10 mental age-matched and 10 chronological age-matched groups. The drumming task required participants to hit two drums with the drumsticks at the same time following verbal (e.g. 'up' and 'down'), visual (e.g. video of both drumsticks moving up and down together) or auditory (e.g. sound of both drums being hit, then cymbal being hit) instructions for 10 s. Sensors placed on the wrists of each participant and the end of each drumstick provided data that allowed the assessment of individual drumming strategies. In general, when persons with DS were following the visual instructions their drumming movements were shorter, straighter and less variable as compared with their movements in the auditory and verbal conditions. Whether movement paths were straight or curved, the strategy was to move the drumstick and wrist together as one unit.

Specific instructions are important for continuous bimanual drumming in adults with Down syndrome

The present study examined continuous and discrete bimanual drumming in response to different instructions in 10 adults with Down syndrome, 10 mental age-matched and 10 chronological age-matched groups. For continuous drumming, participants hit two drums with both hands at the same time following verbal (e.g., "up" and "down"), visual (e.g., video of both drumsticks moving up and down together) and auditory (e.g., sound of both drums being hit, then symbol being hit) instructions for 10 s. For discrete drumming participants hit two drums with both hands at the same time once in response to the instructions described above. In general, for all groups spatial measures showed a performance advantage when using the visual metronome in continuous tasks but no advantage with any instructions for discrete tasks.

Mental rotation of objects retrieved from memory: a functional MRI study of spatial processing.

This functional MRI study examined how people mentally rotate a 3-dimensional object (an alarm clock) that is retrieved from memory and rotated according to a sequence of auditory instructions. We manipulated the geometric properties of the rotation, such as having successive rotation steps around a single axis versus alternating between 2 axes. The latter condition produced much more activation in several areas. Also, the activation in several areas increased with the number of rotation steps. During successive rotations around a single axis, the activation was similar for rotations in the picture plane and rotations in depth. The parietal (but not extrastriate) activation was similar to mental rotation of a visually presented object. The findings indicate that a large-scale cortical network computes different types of spatial information by dynamically drawing on each of its components to a differential, situation-specific degree.

Effect of computerized instructions on measurement of lift capacity: Safety, reliability, and validity

The evaluation of lift capacity is an important part of most functional capacity evaluations. Several different methods have been developed to evaluate lift capacity in a safe, reliable, and valid manner. Isometric strength testing is one approach which has been demonstrated to be highly reliable. However, questions have been raised about the safety and validity of isometric strength testing as a predictor of "real world" lift capacity. One method to improve safety is to provide real time performance feedback so that the evaluee is able to increase psychophysical input to appropriately gauge his or her effort level. One method to improve reliability is to provide standardized instructions that are well understood by the evaluee. Both of these approaches have been utilized in the ERGOS Work Simulator, a computer-controlled multiple-task evaluation instrument that presents visual and auditory instructions to the evaluee along with "real-time" performance feedback. The safety, reliability, and validity of this computer-automated approach in comparison to an experienced human evaluator was evaluated in this research project. The results of this study demonstrate the efficacy of computerized instructions in an isometric strength testing system to achieve safe, reliable, and valid results. Intra-task variability may be improved by providing pre-test practice trials.

The Effectiveness of Traditional versus Computer-Based Training Techniques

The primary goal of this research was to examine the relative effectiveness of traditional versus computer-based training techniques. Additional goals were to assess how presentation modality and dynamic versus static presentation of material affects learning. Four training techniques were evaluated: paper instructions, computer simulations with on-screen text instructions, computer simulations with auditory instructions, and computer simulations with on-screen text and auditory instructions. Sixty subjects performed four tasks using a computer-based on-screen simulation of a display telephone. Before executing each task, subjects in each of the four treatment groups received a brief training session. Dependent measures consisted of time to complete the tasks, error rate, and subjective measures of how well the various training techniques were liked. An analysis of variance indicated that computer simulations with auditory instructions and simulations with combined modality instructions resulted in task performance times that were significantly less than those obtained following paper instructions. Tasks performed following computer-based training had a significantly lower error rate than did tasks performed without instructions. No significant differences were found among the training techniques for subjective measures of how well the training techniques were liked.

Flooding therapy: Effectiveness, stimulus characteristics, and the value of brief in vivo exposure

Three analogue experiments examined flooding therapy. Experiment 1 showed that flooding was more effective than standardized desensitization in reducing snake phobia. Experiment 2 examined three different modes of presenting the feared stimuli in flooding: taped auditory presentation, pictorial presentation, and a combination of these two. An additional combination group were given a brief in vivo exposure to the feared object immediately after each of three treatment sessions. Both a behavioral test and subjective estimates of fear showed advantages for the combined group that had the in vivo exposure, although it appeared that auditory instructions to imagine interaction with the snake was the best method for presenting the feared stimuli. Experiment 3 compared the auditory imagined method with and without ‘aversive’ or ‘implosive’ scenes, and with either an immediate or a delayed in vivo exposure. The only procedure to produce marked effects was the one that omitted ‘aversive’ scenes and provided immediate post-treatment in vivo exposure.