Papers by Catherine J Stevens
Journal of health psychology, 2018
Music is frequently used in aged care, being easily accessible and cost-effective. Research indic... more Music is frequently used in aged care, being easily accessible and cost-effective. Research indicates that certain types of musical engagement hold greater benefits than others. However, it is not clear how effectively music is utilized in aged care facilities and what the barriers are to its further use. This study used a mixed-methods paradigm, surveying 46 aged care workers and conducting in-depth interviews with 5, to explore how music is used in aged care facilities in Australia, staff perceptions of the impact of music on residents, and the barriers to more effective implementation of music in aged care settings.
Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD, 2017
The use of pre-recorded music to ease behavioral and psychological symptoms associated with demen... more The use of pre-recorded music to ease behavioral and psychological symptoms associated with dementia is popular in health-care contexts in both formal music therapy settings and in non-therapist led interventions. However, further understanding of how non-therapist led interventions compare to therapist led interventions is needed. This paper reviews 28 studies that used pre-recorded music with people with dementia using a critical interpretive synthesis model. Results revealed that pre-recorded music can be effective in reducing a variety of affective and behavioral symptoms, in particular agitation, even where a trained music therapist is not present. However, the results are not universally positive, suggesting the need for further clarification of protocols for music use and closer investigation of variables that influence individual responseto music.
Memory Studies, 2016
Thinking with the Body," an exhibition at Wellcome Collection in London, 2013, featured a series ... more Thinking with the Body," an exhibition at Wellcome Collection in London, 2013, featured a series of interdisciplinary projects organized by Wayne McGregor | Random Dance investigating creativity and dance through the lens of technology and science. McGregor had been collaborating with researchers in computer, cognitive, and social sciences for more than 10 years to find "new ways of understanding choreographic practice and thinking." The exhibition aimed to "offer visitors the opportunity to deepen their understanding of choreographic practice and to contemplate how mind, brain and body interact in each of us" (http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/2013/WTP053926.htm). Over 6 weeks, 19,000 people visited the exhibition. Public engagement with research has, in many countries, become part of the selection criteria in the assessment of applications for publicly funded research grants (Ferguson, 2014; Hazelkorn, 2015). Knowledge exchange and public engagement, according to this model, are "pathways to impact" (Research Councils UK Review of Pathways to Impact: Summary, n.d.). Impact from research in the humanities, the arts, and social sciences differs from impact from research in medicine, science, engineering, and technology. In both discipline groups, outcomes from research may be conceptual, cumulative, and lead to new ways of understanding phenomena, systems, or processes. However, in the latter group of disciplines, the process of research is assumed to lead to instruments, solutions, and procedures; outcomes or products are tangible. In what ways, if any, might explorations in the field of memory studies demonstrate impact? I will first provide a definition of impact and touch on the challenges impact presents. The centrality of the human and the integrative nature of the field of memory studies are sureties for impact. Rather than quell intellectual curiosity, taking a step along a pathway to impact may fuel new ideas, connections, and collaborations. Impact has been defined as "an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia" (UK Research Excellence Framework, 2011). Ferguson (2014) traces the origins of the "impact agenda" to a 1993 UK White Paper "Reaching our Potential" (Office of Science and Technology, 1993) which recommended that research contribute directly to economic growth and be planned for end users. The ideas are utilitarian, based on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and privileging research that produces commercializable and patentable innovation and service (Ferguson, 2014). An inherent assumption is that "knowledge gains legitimacy and value through its utility" (Hazelkorn, 2015).
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2015
Social cues facilitate engagement between interaction participants, whether they be two (or more)... more Social cues facilitate engagement between interaction participants, whether they be two (or more) humans or a human and an artificial agent such as a robot. Previous work specific to human-agent/robot interaction has demonstrated the efficacy of implemented social behaviours, such as eye-gaze or facial gestures, for demonstrating the illusion of engagement and positively impacting interaction with a human. We describe the implementation of THAMBS, The Thinking Head Attention Model and Behavioural System, which is used to model attention controlling how a virtual agent reacts to external audio and visual stimuli within the context of an interaction with a human user. We evaluate the efficacy of THAMBS for a virtual agent mounted on a robotic platform in a controlled experimental setting, and collect both task-and behavioural-performance variables, along with self-reported ratings of engagement. Our results show that human subjects noticeably engaged more often, and in more interesting ways, with the robotic agent when THAMBS was activated, indicating that even a rudimentary display of attention by the robot elicits significantly increased attention by the human. Back-channelling had less of an effect on user behaviour. THAMBS and back-channelling did not interact and neither had an effect on self-report ratings. Our results concerning THAMBS hold implications for the design of successful human-robot interactive behaviours.
Social Robotics, 2014
Between people, eye gaze and other forms of nonverbal communication can influence trust. We hypot... more Between people, eye gaze and other forms of nonverbal communication can influence trust. We hypothesised similar effects would occur during human-robot interaction, predicting a humanoid robot's eye gaze and lifelike bodily movements (eye tracking movements and simulated "breathing") would increase participants' likelihood of seeking and trusting the robot's opinion in a cooperative visual tracking task. However, we instead found significant interactions between robot gaze and task difficulty, indicating that robot gaze had a positive impact upon trust for difficult decisions and a negative impact for easier decisions. Furthermore, a significant effect of robot gaze was found on task performance, with gaze improving participants' performance on easy trials but hindering performance on difficult trials. Participants also responded significantly faster when the robot looked at them. Results suggest that robot gaze exerts "pressure" upon participants, causing audience effects similar to social facilitation and inhibition. Lifelike bodily movements had no significant effect upon participant behaviour.
Technology for Education and Learning, 2013
Robots are becoming an integral component of our society and have great potential in being utiliz... more Robots are becoming an integral component of our society and have great potential in being utilized as an educational technology. To promote a deeper understanding of the area, we present a review of the field of robots in education. Several prior ventures in the area are discussed (post-2000) with the help of classification criteria. The dissecting criteria include domain of the learning activity, location of the activity, the role of the robot, types of robots and types of robotic behaviour. Our overview shows that robots are primarily used to provide language, science or technology education and that a robot can take on the role of a tutor, tool or peer in the learning activity. We also present open questions and challenges in the field that emerged from the overview. The results from our overview are of interest to not only researchers in the field of human-robot interaction but also administration in educational institutes who wish to understand the wider implications of adopting robots in education.
Proceedings of the 2014 International Workshop on Movement and Computing, 2014
Dynamic time warping (DTW) is proposed as a technique to assess the difference between two dance ... more Dynamic time warping (DTW) is proposed as a technique to assess the difference between two dance performances in terms of timing and to provide further insight into dancer cognition. The DTW method is validated for use with dance performance motion tracking data by comparing its results with 'ground truth' results obtained from a comparison between videos of two motion tracked performances. The technique was extended to investigate two hypothesised processes that affect movement timing-scaling (a fixed ratio alteration) and lapsing (caused by insertion or deletion of movement material). As an example of the use of the technique, an ensemble contemporary dance work was performed with the motion of one of three dancers captured in two conditions-with no music (NM) and with music (WM)-with one repeat of the two conditions. The application of the DTW-based algorithm demonstrates that lapses explained much of the timing mismatch (9.6 out of 14 seconds), with a small proportion explained by scaling (a ratio of 0.976) consistent with previous research. However, after again performing the dance under NM and WM conditions the DTW technique demonstrated a non-trivial contribution of scaling in explaining time differences across the various combinations of conditions. In these comparisons, scaling cannot be eliminated as a possible underlying factor of timing error, and it may be that correct scaling (aiming for a ratio of 1) must be learned via practice.
2010 11th International Conference on Control Automation Robotics & Vision, 2010
Thinking Head project is a multidisciplinary approach to building intelligent agents for human ma... more Thinking Head project is a multidisciplinary approach to building intelligent agents for human machine interaction. The Thinking Head Framework evolved out of the Thinking Head Project and it facilitates loose coupling between various components and forms the central nerve system in a multimodal perception-action system. The paper presents the overall architecture, components and the attention system. The paper then concludes with a preliminary behavioral experiment that studies the intelligibility of the audiovisual speech output produced by the Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA) that is part of the system. These results provide the baseline for future evaluations of the system as the project progresses through multiple evaluate and refine cycles.
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 2007
Objective: An experiment investigated the efficacy of auditory icons as warning signals in an avi... more Objective: An experiment investigated the efficacy of auditory icons as warning signals in an aviation context. Background: Iconic signals, such as a cough to signal dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, convey information about the nature of an incident and alert the operator that there is a problem, whereas signals that are arbitrarily associated with a critical incident provide relatively less information. Warning recognition speed and accuracy are likely to be influenced by modality of presentation (visual, auditory, auditory + visual) and task demand (low, high). Methods: The 172 participants completed a computer-based training session and test task that involved responding to abstract or iconic auditory (1 s), visual, or auditory + visual warnings associated with seven critical incidents while performing low- and high-demand concurrent tasks. Results: Significantly fewer training trials were required to learn iconic warnings than abstract warnings. An advantage for iconic warni...
Computer Speech & Language, 2005
Three experiments are reported that use new experimental methods for the evaluation of text-to-sp... more Three experiments are reported that use new experimental methods for the evaluation of text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis from the user's perspective. Experiment 1, using sentence stimuli, and Experiment 2, using discrete ''call centre'' word stimuli, investigated the effect of voice gender and signal quality on the intelligibility of three concatenative TTS synthesis systems. Accuracy and search time were recorded as on-line, implicit indices of intelligibility during phoneme detection tasks. It was found that both voice gender and noise affect intelligibility. Results also indicate interactions of voice gender, signal quality, and TTS synthesis system on accuracy and search time. In Experiment 3 the method of paired comparisons was used to yield ranks of naturalness and preference. As hypothesized, preference and naturalness ranks were influenced by TTS system, signal quality and voice, in isolation and in combination. The pattern of results across the four dependent variables-accuracy, search time, naturalness, preference-was consistent. Natural speech surpassed synthetic speech, and TTS system C elicited relatively high scores across all measures. Intelligibility, judged naturalness and preference are modulated by several factors and there is a need to tailor systems to particular commercial applications and environmental conditions.
Auditory icons-or environmental sounds-have the potential to convey information by non-verbal mea... more Auditory icons-or environmental sounds-have the potential to convey information by non-verbal means quickly and accurately. In addition, human listeners are quick to determine many qualities of an auditory object, such as location, distance, size, and motion, from acoustics of the signal. An experiment tests these two coupled assumptions in a controlled laboratory context. Stimuli consisted of auditory icons "loaded" with information achieved through systematic manipulation of the acoustic parameters pitch, volume ramping, and reverberation. Sixty adult listeners were asked to recognize and describe four auditory icons wherein object size, distance and direction of motion were captured in the parameters of each 1-second sound. Participants were accurate at recognizing and interpreting the icons 70-80% of the time. As hypothesized, recognition rate decreased as the number of parameters needing to be recognized increased. There was a significant effect of icons type and parameter manipulation: dog bark was the most easily recognized icon, and the direction parameter interpreted most accurately. Implications of the findings for applied contexts are discussed.
Waiting in the wings: A study of early career academic researchers in Australia
Background and Purpose Since its inception, increasing pressure of competition for project grants... more Background and Purpose Since its inception, increasing pressure of competition for project grants awarded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) has led to a reduction in the success rate of applicationsto a level below the 3035 per cent generally considered to ...
Australian Transportation …, 2006
This report arose from work funded through a grant under the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's... more This report arose from work funded through a grant under the Australian Transport Safety Bureau's Aviation Safety Research Grants Program. The ATSB is an operationally independent bureau within the Australian Government Department of Transport and Regional Services. The program funds a number of one-off research projects selected on a competitive basis. The program aims to encourage researchers from a broad range of related disciplines to consider or to progress their own ideas in aviation safety research. The work reported and the views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the Australian Government or the ATSB. However, the ATSB publishes and disseminates the grant reports in the interests of information exchange and as part of the overall safety aim of the grants program.
American Journal of Medical Genetics, 2003
Children and adults with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome have specific medical conditions that occur wi... more Children and adults with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome have specific medical conditions that occur with greater frequency than the general population. Based on the available information from the literature and clinical experience, recommendations for specific surveillance and interventions are made to guide those clinicians caring for individuals with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome. This is a first attempt at medical guidelines for individuals with RTS in the United States. Ongoing research is needed in many areas to guide decisions in medical care and allow for refinement of these medical guidelines.
International Journal of Audiology, 2007
The effect of chronic, severe tinnitus on two visual tasks was investigated. A general depletion ... more The effect of chronic, severe tinnitus on two visual tasks was investigated. A general depletion of resources hypothesis states that overall performance would be impaired in a tinnitus group relative to a control group whereas a controlled processing hypothesis states that only tasks that are demanding, requiring strategic processes, are affected. Eleven participants who had experienced severe tinnitus for more than two years comprised the tinnitus group. A control group was matched for age and verbal IQ. Levels of anxiety, depression, and high frequency average hearing level were treated as covariates. Tasks consisted of the sayword (easy) and say-color (demanding) conditions of the Stroop task, a single (baseline) reaction time (RT) task, and dual tasks involving word reading or category naming while performing a concurrent RT task. Results supported the general depletion of resources hypothesis: RT of the tinnitus group was slower in both conditions of the Stroop task, and in the word reading and category naming conditions of the dual task. Differences were not attributable to high frequency average hearing level, anxiety, or depression.
Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts, 2009
C ontemporary dance is most often created through bodily explorations in the medium of movement. ... more C ontemporary dance is most often created through bodily explorations in the medium of movement. It is expressive, ephemeral and unspoken. Dance epitomises the challenge for the temporal arts in documenting, describing, quantifying and explaining unspoken knowledge. In this chapter, we argue that the qualities of dance that challenge traditional research methods and documentation are informative in disciplines such as cognitive science. We will describe the way dance encapsulates embodied cognition and the potency of that unspoken knowledge. Drawing on our own experiences in multidisciplinary research in, about and for contemporary dance we discuss the application of extant qualitative and quantitative methods to creative, perceptual and cognitive processes in choreographers, dancers and observers. Our industry-funded collaborative research began with observation and documentation of choreographers and dancers who were working collaboratively in the studio to create new works of art. These choreographers and dancers were immersed in practice-led research defined by Haseman (006) as intrinsically experiential, coming to the fore when the researcher creates new artistic forms for performance and exhibition. The artwork constituted the outcome and knowledge for the artists. Subsequent analysis of documentation of the dynamic studio process drew on both qualitative and quantitative methods. Later still, we conducted basic research about dance with multiple live performances of dance works serving as stimuli for the investigation of observer response. From this and other basic and applied research we draw implications for the artform. While our own studies are only now beginning to complete the practice-research-practice cycle, we foreshadow new
this paper, we describe a comparison between parameters drawn from 3-dimensional measurement of a... more this paper, we describe a comparison between parameters drawn from 3-dimensional measurement of a dance performance, and continuous emotional response data recorded from an audience present during this performance. A continuous time series representing the mean movement as the dance unfolds is extracted from the 3-dimensional data. The audiences' continuous emotional response data are also represented as a time series, and the series are compared. We concluded that movement in the dance performance directly influences the emotional arousal response of the audience. KeywordsEmotion, Motion Capture, Continuous Response.
American journal of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, Jan 21, 2018
Personalized music playlists are increasingly being utilized in aged care settings. This study ai... more Personalized music playlists are increasingly being utilized in aged care settings. This study aims to investigate how musical features influence the affective response to music of people with probable dementia. A factorial experiment (2 × 2 × 3) was conducted to investigate the influence of tempo (fast, slow), mode (major, minor), and lyrics (none, negative, positive). Ninety-nine people with probable dementia were randomly assigned to 3 conditions, listening to 3 personalized playlists. Galvanic skin response and activation of facial action units were measured. Music with fast tempos increased arousal and reduced enjoyment. Music in minor keys increased activation of the depressor anguli oris, suggesting increased sadness. Lyrics had no significant effect on response. The findings demonstrate that both tempo and mode influenced the response of the listener. As well as accounting for personal preferences, music for people with dementia should be carefully targeted toward the affect...
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2017
PurposeEvidence suggests that extensive experience with lexical tones or musical training provide... more PurposeEvidence suggests that extensive experience with lexical tones or musical training provides an advantage in perceiving nonnative lexical tones. This investigation concerns whether such an advantage is evident in learning nonnative lexical tones based on the distributional structure of the input.MethodUsing an established protocol, distributional learning of lexical tones was investigated with tone language (Mandarin) listeners with no musical training (Experiment 1) and nontone language (Australian English) listeners with musical training (Experiment 2). Within each experiment, participants were trained on a bimodal (2-peak) or a unimodal (single peak) distribution along a continuum spanning a Thai lexical tone minimal pair. Discrimination performance on the target minimal pair was assessed before and after training.ResultsMandarin nonmusicians exhibited clear distributional learning (listeners in the bimodal, but not those in the unimodal condition, improved significantly as...
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Papers by Catherine J Stevens