Statistical learning of multiple speech streams: A challenge for monolingual infants

Language acquisition depends on the ability to detect and track the distributional properties of speech. Successful acquisition also necessitates detecting changes in those properties, which can occur when the learner encounters different speakers, topics, dialects, or languages. When encountering multiple speech streams with different underlying statistics but overlapping features, how do infants keep track of the properties of each speech stream separately? In four experiments, we tested whether 8‐month‐old monolingual infants (N = 144) can track the underlying statistics of two artificial speech streams that share a portion of their syllables. We first presented each stream individually. We then presented the two speech streams in sequence, without contextual cues signaling the different speech streams, and subsequently added pitch and accent cues to help learners track each stream separately. The results reveal that monolingual infants experience difficulty tracking the statistical regularities in two speech streams presented sequentially, even when provided with contextual cues intended to facilitate separation of the speech streams. We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding how infants learn and separate the input when confronted with multiple statistical structures.     

Exploring the relationships between pedestrian behaviours and traffic safety attitudes in six countries

The majority of cross-cultural research on traffic safety has investigated driver behaviour, yet in most low- and middle-income countries, where the weight of the road fatality burden is felt, motorisation rates are significantly lower than in higher-income countries. As such, this approach necessarily excludes large parts of the populations in those settings. In order to investigate the link between traffic safety attitudes and road user behaviours, this study used a self-report measure of pedestrian behaviour, applying it in six countries; Bangladesh, China, Kenya, Thailand, the UK, and Vietnam. Focus was on the relationships between a respondent’s attitude towards risky or rule violating on-road behaviours (of other road users, or more generally, not specific to pedestrians), and the extent to which they reported performing three types of risky pedestrian behaviours (i.e., intentional rule violations, errors in judgement or memory, and aggressive behaviours). Data from a sample of 3,423 individuals was subjected to a series of regression models, revealing significant links between attitudes and pedestrian behaviours in all countries, in all three behavioural factors, after controlling for age, gender, and exposure to the road environment. Differences were found between countries in the strength of these relationships, with weaker connections between attitudes and behaviours in Kenya, and stronger connections in China (with other countries in-between the two). Results are discussed in terms of the need to understand the relationships between social cognitive constructs in the specific country in which a road safety intervention is intended to be implemented.     

Effects of speed display signs on driving speed at pedestrian crossings on collector streets

This study was designed to evaluate the short- and long-term effects of speed display signs on driving speed at pedestrian crossings in a low-speed (40 km/h) urban environment. Driving speeds were compared 1 week before installation, after installation (1 week; 1 month; 3 months; 5 months) and 1 week after removal. The main results showed that the speed displays decreased the mean speed by 0.5–2.9 km/h, which translates to a 4–22% drop in pedestrian fatality risk. Furthermore, there was a drop in the proportion of speeding vehicles and approaching speed of individual vehicles. The decrease in speed persisted over time, suggesting that speed displays may reduce speeds in the long term. In conclusion, installing speed displays at pedestrian crossings on collector streets reduces driving speeds and could contribute to the safety of pedestrians.     

Effects of route familiarity on drivers’ psychological conditions: Based on driving behaviour and driving environment

Route familiarity affects a driver’s mental state and indirectly affects traffic safety; however, this important factor is easily overlooked. Previous research on route familiarity has only analysed psychological states in terms of unfamiliarity and familiarity, the influence of driving behaviour and driving environment on psychological states has been ignored. As a result, the mechanisms through which the route familiarity influence driver psychological states, and vice versa, are unclear. This study proposes a quantitative framework for studying driver psychological condition and route familiarity using experimental data from a real driving task and driving environment data. The experimental data included 1022 observations obtained by 23 participants over 7 consecutive trials on 6 unfamiliar experimental routes with large differences in scenarios; environmental data were automatically extracted after segmenting a driving video through the Dilated Residual NetWorks model. The results reveal that (1) the relationship between the driver’s psychological condition and route familiarity is not monotonic and is different for straight and turning sections; (2) the driver’s psychological condition is influenced by the visual scene elements and the type of road section, and the results of the multivariate regression analysis quantified the variability of the influence; and (3) unlike a majority of findings on distracted driving, our study suggest that the driver’s attention to the external environment in the urban distracted driving state will gradually approach a ‘distraction threshold’, and the time and size of the ‘distraction threshold’ are influenced by the driver. This study can further the development of urban traffic safety research and help urban designers plan and improve urban landscapes to ensure drivers maintain stable mental states when they drive.     

ELM-HTM guided bio-inspired unsupervised learning for anomalous trajectory classification

Artificial intelligent systems often model the solutions of typical machine learning problems, inspired by biological processes, because of the biological system is faster and much adaptive than deep learning. The utility of bio-inspired learning methods lie in its ability to discover unknown patterns, and its less dependence on mathematical modeling or exhaustive training. In this paper, we propose a new bio-inspired learning model for a single-class classifier to detect abnormality in video object trajectories. The method uses a simple but dynamic extreme learning machine (ELM) and hierarchical temporal memory (HTM) together referred to as ELM-HTM in an unsupervised way to learn and classify time series patterns. The method has been tested on trajectory sequences in traffic surveillance to find abnormal behaviors such as high-speed, unusual stops, driving in wrong directions, loitering, etc. Experiments have also been performed with 3D air signatures captured using sensors and used for biometric authentication(forged/genuine). The results indicate a significant gain over training time and classification accuracy. The proposed method outperforms in predicting long-time patterns by observing small steps with an average accuracy gain of 15% as compared to the state-of-the-art HTM. The method has applications in detecting abnormal activities in videos by learning the movement patterns as well as in biometric authentication.     

Socially emotional brain-inspired cognitive architecture framework for artificial intelligence

Artificial Intelligence of the next generation needs to interact with users socially, convincing them in its ability to understand human minds, including emotions. For this to happen, an artificial emotional intelligence is needed, capable of adequate, believable behavior in social emotional interactions. Building on previous developments, the present work extends the general framework of emotional Biologically Inspired Cognitive Architecture (eBICA: Samsonovich, 2013, 2018), endowing it with fluents describing, in addition to appraisals, somatic markers, feelings, emotions, moods, emotional reactions and biases. Key building blocks that integrate them are moral schemas and semantic maps. The model describes interaction of three factors: plans and commitments, moral and ethical values, and somatic comfort. Learning in this framework includes self-organization of semantic maps that in turn may provide guidance for active humanlike learning. Implications for empirical studies and practical applications are discussed together with the expected impact.     

Antécédents et conséquences du comportement proactif au travail des cadres hospitaliers sur leur comportement d’innovation au travail : un modèle de médiation séquentielle-modérée

This article reports the results of the analysis of the antecedents and consequences of nurse managers’ proactive work behaviour. We tested a moderated sequential mediation model in which work engagement and proactivity mediate the relationship between work climate and innovation and analysed the moderating role of feedback in the relationship between proactivity and innovation. This study was conducted among 290 nurse managers and we found that work engagement and proactivity sequentially mediated the relationship between work climate and innovation. Moreover, feedback moderates the relationship between proactivity and innovation. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these results.     

The role of instruction preference in analogy learning: Brain activity and motor performance

This study examined the role of verbal instruction preference when learning motor skills by analogy. During skill learning, analogies are a useful tool for providing knowledge about how to move. It has been argued that analogy instructions reduce reliance on verbal information processes during motor planning, compared to traditional forms of instruction (i.e., explicit rules about how to move). This may be reflected by reduced verbal activity in the brain, measured by EEG alpha power at the temporal region, as well as reduced verbal-motor cross-communication (EEG T7-Fz coherence) during the preparation phase of a movement. Preference for using verbal or visual instructions is likely to influence the efficacy of analogy instructions. This study investigated whether preference for verbal instructions was related to a) changes in performance and b) changes in verbal-cognitive information processing during performance of an adapted basketball task after instruction by analogy. Basketball novices with a high preference for verbal instructions (n = 15) showed significantly decreased activation of verbal brain regions when they used the analogy (high-alpha power), but their performance remained stable. Novices with a low preference for verbal instructions (n = 13) did not show a significant decrease in activation of verbal regions, and their performance deteriorated significantly after introduction of the analogy instruction. It is likely that both cognitive and performance changes after analogy instruction depend on personal aspects of information processing, such as verbal preference.     

Psychometric properties of the Driving Behaviour Scale (DBS) among polish drivers

Anxiety can negatively affect an individual’s psychological wellbeing and lead to mild-to-moderate functional impairment in various areas of their lives. Despite this, the relationship between anxiety and driving performance has received very little empirical attention. The Driving Behaviour Scale (Clapp, Olsen, Beck, et al., 2011, Clapp, Olsen, Danoff-Burg, et al., 2011) was developed as a measure of anxious driving behaviours to support research in this area. The current study details adaptation and validation of the Driving Behaviour Scale (DBS; Clapp, Olsen, Beck, et al., 2011, Clapp, Olsen, Danoff-Burg, et al., 2011) in 310 university students in Poland. The overall internal consistency for the DBS was 0.76, while the two subscales demonstrated acceptable internal consistency (safety/cautious = 0.75 and hostile/aggressive behaviours = 0.85). The reliability estimates for performance deficit returned a lower coefficient of 0.65. Factor analysis produced a three-factor solution that supported the original structure of the DBS. The DBS may be utilised as a measure of driving anxiety in samples drawn from the general population.     

Parents’ moral intentions towards antisocial parent behaviour: An identity approach in youth sport

ObjectivesGrounded in personal and social identity theory, the purpose of this study was to examine whether parents’ personal and social identity perceptions influence their moral intentions towards antisocial parent behaviour in a youth sport setting.DesignParents of competitive youth ice hockey players (N = 437) read a vignette that either described a parent from the participant’s own team (i.e., ingroup), or a parent from an opposing team (i.e., outgroup) acting antisocially towards an athlete from the participant’s own team, an opposing athlete, or their own child. Parents were asked whether they would respond to the antisocial behaviour in the form of direct or indirect criticism or report the behaviour to the coach or to the league.ResultsParents were more likely to directly criticize ingroup parents than outgroup parents and they were more likely to indirectly criticize outgroup parents than ingroup parents. Further, parents with stronger social identities reported higher intentions to indirectly criticize an outgroup parent. There were no main effects for reporting behaviour (to coach or league), and personal identity did not moderate relationships with moral intentions towards antisocial behaviour.ConclusionBy providing parents with a situation that includes antisocial parent behaviour in the immediate youth sport environment, novel insight was gathered with regard to what contextual elements might drive parents’ intention to criticize, but not report antisocial behaviour.