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1. Augmented Reality for Infrastructure Inspection with Semi-autonomous Aerial Systems: An Examination of User Performance, Workload, and System Trust

   https://doi.org/10.1109/VRW50115.2020.00222  

   Dam, Jared Van; Krasner, Alexander; Gabbard, Joseph L. (March 2020, IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW))

   The use of augmented reality (AR) with drones in infrastructure inspection can increase human capabilities by helping workers access hard-to-reach areas and supplementing their field of view with useful information. Still unknown though is how these aids impact performance when they are imperfect. A total of 28 participants flew as an autonomous drone while completing a target detection task around a simulated bridge. Results indicated significant differences between cued and un-cued trials but not between the four cue types: none, bounding box, corner-bound box, and outline. Differences in trust amongst the four cues indicate that participants may trust some cue styles more than others. 

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2. Errors in Visual Search: How can we reduce them?

   Li, Aoqi; Wolfe, J M; Hulleman, J (June 2025, Attention perception psychophysics)

   Observers routinely make errors in almost any visual search task. In previous online experiments, we found that indiscriminately highlighting all item positions in a noisy search display reduces errors. In the present paper, we conducted two eye tracking studies to investigate the mechanics of this error reduction: does cueing direct attention to previously overlooked regions or enhance attention/processing at cued locations? Displays were presented twice. In Experiment 1, for half of the displays, the cue was only presented on the first copy (Cue - noCue) and for the other half, only presented on the second copy (noCue - Cue). Cueing successfully reduced errors but did not significantly affect RTs. This contrasts with the online experiment where the cue increased RTs while reducing errors. In Experiment 2, we replicated the design of the online experiment by splitting the displays into noCue – noCue and noCue – Cue pairs. We now found that the cue reduced errors, but increased RTs on trials with high- contrast targets. The eye tracking data shows that participants fixated closer to items and fixation durations were shorter in cued displays. The smaller fixation-item distance reduced search errors, where observers never fixated the target, for low contrast targets and the remaining low-contrast errors seemed to be recognition errors, where observers looked at the target but quickly looked away. Taken together, these results suggest that errors were reduced because attention was more properly directed to overlooked regions by the cues instead of being enhanced at the cued areas. 

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3. Drone-based Augmented Reality Platform for Bridge Inspection: Effect of AR Cue Design on Visual Search Tasks

   https://doi.org/10.1109/VRW50115.2020.00043  

   Dam, Jared Van; Krasne, Alexander; Gabbard, Joseph L. (March 2020, IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces Abstracts and Workshops (VRW))

   The use of augmented reality (AR) with semi-autonomous aerial systems in civil infrastructure inspection offers an extension of human capabilities by enhancing their ability to access hard-to-reach areas, decreasing the physical requirements needed to complete the task, and augmenting their visual field of view with useful information. Still unknown though is how helpful AR visual aids may be when they are imperfect and provide the user with erroneous data. A total of 28 participants flew as an autonomous drone around a simulated bridge in a virtual reality environment and participated in a target detection task. In this study, we analyze the effect of AR cue type across discrete levels of target saliency by measuring performance in a signal detection task. Results showed significant differences in false alarm rates in the different target salience conditions but no significant differences across AR cue types (none, bounding box, corner-bound box, and outline) in terms of hits and misses. 

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4. Intonational Cues to Segmental Contrasts in the Native Language Facilitate the Processing of Intonational Cues to Lexical Stress in the Second Language

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.845430  

   Kim, Hyoju; Tremblay, Annie (April 2022, Frontiers in Communication)

   This study examines whether second language (L2) learners' processing of an intonationally cued lexical contrast is facilitated when intonational cues signal a segmental contrast in the native language (L1). It does so by investigating Seoul Korean and French listeners' processing of intonationally cued lexical-stress contrasts in English. Neither Seoul Korean nor French has lexical stress; instead, the two languages have similar intonational systems where prominence is realized at the level of the Accentual Phrase. A critical difference between the two systems is that French has only one tonal pattern underlying the realization of the Accentual Phrase, whereas Korean has two underlying tonal patterns that depend on the laryngeal feature of the phrase-initial segment. The L and H tonal cues thus serve to distinguish segments at the lexical level in Korean but not in French; Seoul Korean listeners are thus hypothesized to outperform French listeners when processing English lexical stress realized only with (only) tonal cues (H * on the stressed syllable). Seoul Korean and French listeners completed a sequence-recall task with four-item sequences of English words that differed in intonationally cued lexical stress (experimental condition) or in word-initial segment (control condition). The results showed higher accuracy for Seoul Korean listeners than for French listeners only when processing English lexical stress, suggesting that the processing of an intonationally cued lexical contrast in the L2 is facilitated when intonational cues signal a segmental contrast in the L1. These results are interpreted within the scope of the cue-based transfer approach to L2 prosodic processing. 

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5. Actions speak louder than words: Differences in memory flexibility between monolingual and bilingual 18‐month‐olds

   https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12881  

   Barr, Rachel; Rusnak, Sylvia_N; Brito, Natalie_H; Nugent, Courtney (July 2019, Developmental Science)

   Abstract Bilingual infants from 6‐ to 24‐months of age are more likely to generalize, flexibly reproducing actions on novel objects significantly more often than age‐matched monolingual infants are. In the current study, we examine whether the addition of novel verbal labels enhances memory generalization in a perceptually complex imitation task. We hypothesized that labels would provide an additional retrieval cue and aid memory generalization for bilingual infants. Specifically, we hypothesized that bilinguals might be more likely than monolinguals to map multiple perceptual features onto a novel label and therefore show enhanced generalization. Eighty‐seven 18‐month‐old monolingual and bilingual infants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions or a baseline control condition. In the experimental conditions, either no label or a novel label was added during demonstration and again at the beginning of the test session. After a 24‐hr delay, infants were tested with the same stimulus set to test cued recall and with a perceptually different but functionally equivalent stimulus set to test memory generalization. Bilinguals performed significantly above baseline on both cued recall and memory generalization in both experimental conditions, whereas monolinguals performed significantly above baseline only on cued recall in both experimental conditions. These findings show a difference between monolinguals and bilinguals in memory generalization and suggest that generalization differences between groups may arise from visual perceptual processing rather than linguistic processing. A video abstract of this article can be viewed athttps://youtu.be/yXB4pM3fF2k 

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