Projects
In this page, you can find a summary of the current and recent research and PhD projects.
There is a wide variey of projects covered in our lab, from AI tools, to evaluating students' competence in programming, to designing representations for people with visual impairment, between many others. We have divided them into the following sections:
- Current and recent research grants
- Past research grants
- Staff's projects
- Current PhD research projects
- Past PhD projects
Current and recent research grants
Automating representation choice for AI tools
This is a continuation of the project "How to (re)represent it". This project aims to build an AI system that automatically selects the best representation for a specific user and a specific problem. This project is in collaboration with the University of Cambridge.
Website: rep2rep2's home page.
Research team: Prof. Peter Cheng, Dr Grecia Garcia Garcia, Dr. Aaron Stockdill, and Fiorenzo Colarusso (Sussex team); and Prof. Mateja Jamnik, Dr. Daniel Raggi (Cambridge University).
Previous memebers: Dr. Gem Stapleton, and Holly Sutherland.
Funding: EPSRC Human-Like Computing research programme EP/T019603/1 and EP/T019034/1
Period: 2020-2023
Cognitive learning analytics
In this project, we use cognitive learning analytics methods to evaluate mathematical competence for secondary school students. Students transcribe equations while their handwriting is recorded - allowing analyses of inter-chunk pauses. This project is in association with the Educational Testing Service.
Research team: Dr Gabrielle Cayton-Hodges (ETS), Prof Peter Cheng (Sussex University), Dr. Grecia Garcia Garcia (Sussex University).
Previous members: Dr James H. Fife (ETS)
Period: 2016 to date
Cognitive Science of tactile graphics
It envisions to create tactile graphics appropriate for people with visual impairment, expand the knowledge on how people read with tactile graphics and develop methods and tools to advance research.
Website: Tactile graphics' home page.
Research team: Prof. Peter Cheng, Dr. Frances Aldrich, Dr. Ronald Grau, Dr. Grecia Garcia Garcia. Also, from the Psychology Department at Sussex University: Prof. Jane Oakhill and Dr. Susan Sullivan.
Funding: RM Phillips Endowment.
Period: 2016 to date
Cyber-security visualization: collaborative graphical tools for security policies
Funding: Qatar National Research Fund (NPRP), Lead-PI Dr Noorah Fetais.
Research team: Prof. Peter Cheng, Ben Smith, Rachael Fernandez (Sussex University); Dr Noorah Fetais (Qatar).
Period: 2020-2024
Past research grants
How to (re)represent it?
The objective of this feasiblity study was to demonstrate that it is possible to engineer an AI system that can provide alternative recommendations for representations based on the user, representation, and problem. This project is in collaboration with the University of Cambridge.
Website: rep2rep's home page.
Funding: EPSRC Human-Like Computing research programme EP/R030650/1 and EP/R030642/1.
Period: 2018-2019
Staff's projects
Ronald's projects
- Lead researcher in the CAASBAR project (2009-10) that developed new software technologies for graphics virtualisation, funded by venture capital.
- Senior Researcher, software architect and development team leader in the multi-national EU-FP7-funded project SIAM (2011-14, CORDIS RCN : 97990), which designed new methods and tools for the multi-level assessment of security technologies in the planning of mass transportation infrastructure projects.
- Research fellow at the Cognitive Science of Tactile Graphics project (from 2014), where I have contributed to the development of fundamental research approaches towards micro-behavioural touch interactions, and designed and implemented the software underpinning MIDAS, a related data collection and analysis toolkit for desktop computers and mobile devices.
- I am also the developer of SKeyLog, SMouseLog, STouchLog, and InteractLog, which are HCI data collection tools that have been frequently used in our student projects and some also in published research.
PhD projects
Munirah's PhD project
Dissertation Title: Cognimetric User Authentication Using Temporal Analysis of Touch Interactions.
Overview: Dissertation in understanding and utilizing individual differences, stemming from adopting different micro-strategies in performing tasks, to cognitively profile individuals for authentication.It aims to demonstrate the value of exploiting established theories of human cognition and interactive behaviour to inform the design of authentication methods.
Fiorenzo's PhD project
Dissertation Title: Micro-behaviours measurement of graph comprehension.
Overview: My PhD project "Micro-behaviours measurement of graph comprehension" is part of a bigger project entitled "Automating Representation Choice for AI Tools" (collaboration between University of Sussex and University of Cambridge) which aims to build an AI tutoring system that implements automated and personalized representation choice based on the user's level of expertise and experience. The main research interest behind my PhD project concerns the investigation of people competence with graphical representations (e.g., data graphs and diagrams) through tasks which combine recalling and drawing. Specifically, I investigate the chunks' structures produced during the drawing with millisecond accuracy to derive the participants' level of expertise with the specific representations. Moreover, I study what cognitive skills, in addition to the prior knowledge, contribute to make effective chunking operation during the task. I also use computational cognitive models for task analysis (i.e., GOMS models) to analyse the human performance and the chunks' structures.
Rachael's PhD project
Dissertation title: Multiple-Intersecting Hierarchical Visualizations.
Overview: Visualizing hierarchical data is one of the core areas of Information Visualization. However, most of these techniques focus only on single-hierarchies (i.e.) hierarchies with elements that belong to one hierarchy. Hardly any research has been done on the visualization of elements that belong to multiple hierarchies (also known as Polyarchies). Consider the example of Professor Bob who teaches in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering departments. Professor Bob in this case possesses the membership of both the departments and will naturally be a part of the hierarchy of both departments. Current visualization techniques visualize Bob’s membership by constructing multiple visualizations to show his position in the hierarchy. My thesis aims to fill this gap by visualizing elements that intersect multiple hierarchies in a single compact visualization.
Hadeel's PhD project
Dissertation title: Measuring Language Competence by Assessing Chunk Hierarchy in the Memory of Experts and Novices.
Overview: My research involves integrating theories from cognitive science with methods from the field of human-computer interaction to develop a novel approach in assessing language competence. The project is carried out in a series of experiments to test out the effectiveness of the technique. Basically, it involves developing simple mouse-based tasks that log interaction behaviours captured in milliseconds.
Felix's PhD project
Dissertation title: Cognitive Modelling of Drawing Diagram from Memory.
Overview: My PhD topic is Cognitive Modelling of Drawing Diagram from Memory. In this project I will analyze participant’s response data of drawing diagrams of different levels of complexity to explore in what circumstances chunks are used or not. I will also build cognitive models to understand the mechanisms of how chunking is involved in each stage of drawing from memory process, because cognitive models can not only give the chunking strategies found in analyses a psychologically plausible verification, but also understand the detailed mechanisms of how perceptual chunks involved in drawing processes.
Kinda's PhD project
Dissertation title: Knowledge-based reasoning and metacognition in architectural design.
Overview: During design, architects are thought to navigate their way through a hierarchy of perceptual and cognitive actions, occasionally visiting higher order metacognition as to regulate their cognition and self-assess their strategies. The precise role of metacognition in design needs yet to be explained and measured. This PhD thesis contributes to the domain of design studies by introducing methods that enable understanding the impact of creativity on cognitive and metacognitive activity, and the regulation of constraint relaxation in architectural design. The hypothesis is that there is a pattern that characterises the association between episodes of metacognition and the structure of problem spaces and their sub-ordinate tasks. The structure of tasks could be externalised from semantic data. In a design experiment, a group of architects were required to think aloud whilst designing a design task. Their drawing activity was video recorded. Both design solutions and verbal comments were analysed and modelled. A separate group of expert architects assigned creativity and efficiency scores to design solutions. The solutions were evaluated spatially. Linkography and macroscopic analysis were used to discern distinct patterns in cognitive and metacognition activity. Entropy models of linkographs were computed to assess how changes on entropy correspond to metacognition. Knowledge graphs were further introduced to assess the structure of knowledge applied in the form of design constraints. We assessed how creativity and efficiency correlate to experiment variables, cognitive activity, metacognitive activity, functional distribution of spaces in design solutions, and the type of design constraints applied. This research provides insights on the relationship between creativity, cognition, metacognition, and the structure of knowledge reasoning in design.
Past PhD projects
Noorah's PhD project
Dissertation title: Applying Temporal Chunk Signals Analysis to Measure Programming Competence by the Transcription of Java Program Code.
Overview: This thesis investigates the basis for a novel method of quickly and efficiently assessing programming comprehension. It investigates the feasibility of assessing learners’ mental chunk structures, and their temporal chunk signals, as a way of measuring their competence. The focus is on the Java programming language. Chunking theory is utilised to define three chunking measures of competence and to anticipate how they would vary across participants with different degrees of Java competence. The measures are as follows: (1) the number of characters transcribed per view (or the number of views) of the Java program code; (2) the time spent writing between the views; and (3) the duration of pauses before writing each written character. Significant relationships were discovered between the chunking measures of competence and independent measures of Java competence.
Daniel Hajas' PhD project
Dissertation Title: Ultrasonic mid-air haptic technology in context of science communication.
Overview: This dissertation charts opportunities and challenges of engaging people with learning about science through the use of mid-air haptic technology. To that end, research has been carried out at the intersection of three multidisciplinary fields: Science Communication, Haptics, and Human-Computer Interaction. For science communication to be effective, different tools are required for different audiences. For example, when a child pours cold milk into hot tea and sips a warm beverage, we can raise awareness of the haptic experience; triggering interest and facilitating learning about thermal equilibrium. Not every scientific concept may be explained through changing temperature, and not everybody likes tea, but the principle of haptic experience facilitated public engagement with science remains a valid basis to examine. Science communicators seek new technological solutions and innovative modalities of communication, some of which include haptic technology and touch interaction. Ultrasonic mid-air haptic technology is a novel tool, which enables the creation of programable, invisible, cutaneous tactile sensations on an airborne interface between humans and the digital world. Mid-air haptic sensations may bring many benefits when used in science communication, but these have not yet been systematically studied.