Research at Lund Humanities Lab

A large number of larger and smaller projects use the Humanities Laboratory as their host environment. This incomplete list will be updated as we gather information from project owners.

• The Linné project CCL (Cognition, Communication and Learning), 2008-2017, 75 MSEK

• The Riksbanken project CCS (Centre for Cognitive Semiotics), 2009-2013, 40 MSEK

Eye-tracking

Attention is, along with memory, the most studied cognitive function today. Eye-tracking exploits the fact that our attention is closely correlated with the position of our eyes. Eye-tracking is now a widely popular method for studies in psycholinguistics, human factors, decision making, neurological diagnosing and vision research, to name just a few areas. Current eye-trackers are robust, non-invasive and permits gaze-tracking on adults, children and even some animals. Although eye-tracking seldom answers where a particular function takes place in the brain, it is very capable at answering how a particular individual goes about in processing the presented information. High temporal resolution and gaze accuracies at ~.5 visual degrees allows us to closely follow the processing from information retrieval to response.

Contact person: Kenneth Holmqvist, Marcus Nyström

Electroencephalograp hy (EEG)

EEG allows us to measure the electrical activity from the cortex as it escapes through the skull. The use typically involves attaching a cap or sensor net of 32-128 electrodes and applying either conductive gel or using electrodes dipped in electrolytic water. This method allows us to either measure the general processing state of the brain, typically reported as wave frequencies, or it allows us to measure particular responses known as components. When used for finding components, it typically involves presenting many systematically varied stimuli and then measuring the exact responses to those stimuli, commonly referred to as event-related potentials (ERP). The use of much stimuli allows us to average out the noise so the actual components can emerge from the data. EEG gives us a rough location of the activity in the brain and has excellent temporal resolution (at the millisecond level).

Contact person: Kristina Borgström

Virtual Reality

V

irtual Reality (VR) allows you to interact with a computer generated environment. It has opened up new, exiting ways to visualize environments and test hypotheses related to, for example, archeology and architecture.

Contact person: Stefan Lindgren

General computer-based tasks

Many variants of this method exists, for example lexical decision tasks, consumer preference tasks, response-time tasks, and more. Basic computer-based tasks are an inexpensive and quick approach for almost all research questions. They are perfect for mapping out our basic intuitions before we move on to more complicated methods. The lab can provide you with computers, button boxes, microphones, headphones, speakers and other equipment.

Motion tracking

Motion tracking is not a typical method for the cognitive sciences. Most commonly used for special effects in movies and rehabilitation diagnostics at hospitals, this equipment has found its way into cognitive science by means of language processing. After attaching small markers to parts of the body, several smart motion tracking cameras can watch the markers and communicate with each other. By synchronizing their information coming from several angles, they build up a 3D-world where the markers move in 3D trajectories. This allows us to quantify movements in real space, for example speech-accompanied gestures and fingers reading braille text. This method is accurate to the centisecond and at millimeter level.

Contact person: Richard Andersson

Articulography

This device works by placing the participant in a magnetic field. Small coils are glued to the articulators and are then located in the magnetic field. This allows us to follow the articulators in 3D at high spatial and temporal resolution. This is useful for research in language processing, but also language in dialogue. A typical research question would be: to what extent do we co-articulate with a speaker to recover lost information and help establish a shared knowledge.

Contact person: Susanne Schötz