Ciencias Exactas y Ciencias de la Salud
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/11285/551014
Pertenecen a esta colección Tesis y Trabajos de grado de los Doctorados correspondientes a las Escuelas de Ingeniería y Ciencias así como a Medicina y Ciencias de la Salud.
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- Psychophysiological evaluation of an online method for learning aimed at children with reading and mathematical difficulties(Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, 2025-07-04) Corona González, César Emmanuel; Alonso Valerdi, Luz María; emipsanchez; Gómez Velázquez, Fabiola Reveca; Ramírez Moreno, Mauricio Adolfo; Ericka Janet Rechy Ramírez; School of Engineering and Sciences; Campus Monterrey; Ibarra Zárate, David IsaacThe present research aims to evaluate the effectiveness of Smartick, a serious game that includes an online method for learning, aimed at improving educational outcomes among children with reading or math difficulties. Although serious games are increasingly used in academic settings, many lack a strong pedagogical foundation, making it difficult to identify truly effective tools. To address this gap, 76 children aged 7 to 13 were recruited for this study (𝐱̅=𝟗.𝟖𝟖,𝐒𝐃=𝟏.𝟒𝟒) who come from unfavorable socioeconomic conditions and family environments. The methodology was structured in four stages. In stage 1, a screening evaluation for reading and math skills, where two groups were formed, reading difficulties and math difficulties. This assessment addressed (1) reading ability, (2) mathematical fluency, (3) calculation, (4) orthographic errors, (5) phonological errors, and (6) selective attention. Then, stage 2 consisted of a first psychometric and electrophysiological evaluation. The reading difficulties group underwent psychometric assessments focused on reading speed and reading comprehension, whereas the math difficulties group were assessed in math knowledge. Moreover, IQ was estimated for both groups. After that, EEG recordings were collected for each child in baseline state and while performing either a reading or math activity. Additionally, EEG task performance was considered in the process regarding correct answers and response time. During stage 3, each child was reallocated into the experimental subgroup (reading group, n = 19; math group, n = 19), where Smartick must be used, or the control subgroup (reading group, n = 16; math group, n = 22), who did not receive any intervention. Both groups were followed up for 3 months. Finally, stage 4 comprised a second psychometric and EEG assessment. Power Spectral Density was calculated across 15 regions, within theta (4-8 Hz), alpha (8-13 Hz), low beta (13-20 Hz), and high beta (20-30 Hz) bands. Psychometric results suggest that the experimental subgroups improved in reading comprehension (𝒑=𝟎.𝟎𝟑𝟔𝟑) and mathematical knowledge (𝒑=𝟎.𝟎𝟐𝟔𝟏), respectively, compared to control groups. Statistical analysis revealed that children in the RDG experimental group showed significant changes in all bands in left parietal, centroparietal, and temporal areas. However, only small effect size was found in the left temporal area. In contrast, the control group showed no significant difference across any frequency band. On the other hand, no notable EEG synchronization or desynchronization patterns were observed in either the experimental or control groups in the MDG. Effect size revealed that negligible significant differences were found across the bands. On the other hand, the experimental group in the MDG exhibited small effect sizes in the left centroparietal region, known for its role in working memory during mental arithmetic, and the right frontocentral, temporal, and centroparietal regions, which are linked to visuospatial numerical processing. While no patterns indicative of improved learning was identified, this work shows a trend between EEG power values and language-related regions that would be worth investigating in depth. It is suggested that the low IQ levels and adverse conditions of the participants may have limited the children's performance, so a more homogeneous sample in terms of intellectual capacity and socioeconomic status could reveal more significant changes.
- Improved emotion recognition in speech by autistics: design, validation, and implementation of acoustically modulated prosodies(Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, 2023-12-04) Duville, Mathilde Marie; Alonso Valerdi, Luz María; emipsanchez; González Garrido, Andrés Antonio; Martínez Méndez, Rigoberto; Montesinos Silva, Luis Arturo; Escuela de Ingeniería y Ciencias; Campus Monterrey; Ibarra Zarate, David IsaacThe prosodic structure of speech carries emotional information within uncertain acoustic environments where speaker, lexical, phonological, and affective dependencies for perception may exist. Socio-emotional disturbances are among the diagnostic criteria for the autism spectrum disorder, but autistics have been characterized with either impaired or typical emotional prosodies recognition, both at behavioral and neuronal scales. From a Bayesian framework we hypothesize that the oversampling of sensory evidence relative to the confidence ascribed towards internal representations would impair perception within highly variable environments. However, more reliable hierarchical structures of spectral and temporal cues would foster emotion recognition by autistics. Here, pitch, formants’ frequency, lexical stress, harmonics’ intensity, and speech rate have been edited from human voices to create stable acoustic environments. Electroencephalographic data have emphasized impaired emotion recognition while listening to human voices, that was improved when the acoustic volatility and variability of voices was reduced. Observations have been extended to the visual domain by behavioral measurements on a concomitant non-social task consistent with the over-precision ascribed to the environmental variability (sensory processing) that impaired the performance of autistics. To ensure the cultural validity of prosodies, a database adapted to the Mexican shaping of emotional expressions has been firstly developed. The recognition and induction of emotions by human and acoustically modulated voices have been validated by supervised learning and both neuronal and behavioral markers of human perception. This work offers insights into the definition of emotions by acoustic features, the neuronal processing of affective prosodies, its modulation by the acoustic variability of inputs, and the potential of certain environments to foster emotion recognition by autistics.