NSF2026: EAGER: Collaborative Research: Enhancing Employment for Neurodiverse Individuals through Next-Generation, AI-Enabled Assessments of Visuospatial Cognition

NSF2026：EAGER：协作研究：通过下一代人工智能支持的视觉空间认知评估，增强神经多样性个体的就业

• 批准号: 2034013
• 负责人: Maithilee Kunda
• 金额: $ 25.2万
• 依托单位: Vanderbilt University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-15 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2034013&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: NSF2026; EAGER; Collaborative; Research; Enhancing

Each year in the United States, approximately 70,000 new adults on the autism spectrum will seek employment. At the same time, employers in technology, finance, healthcare, and many other critical job sectors seek highly skilled and highly trained individuals to fill specialized positions. With support from the DRK-12 Program in the Division of Research on Learning and the NSF 2026 Fund Program in the Office of Integrated Activities, this research will investigate new tools and methods for matching individual job-seekers on the autism spectrum to employment opportunities that leverage their unique cognitive skills, with a focus on visuospatial cognitive skills. Numerous jobs require strong visuospatial cognitive skills, such as visual inspection and quality control, process monitoring, document review, surveillance, software testing, and data visualization, to name a few. Many people on the autism spectrum show strengths in visuospatial cognitive skills, but these strengths are not fully understood, including how they differ from person to person and how they map onto workplace-relevant capabilities. Understanding visuospatial cognitive skills in individuals on the autism spectrum or other neurodiverse conditions has high potential impact for enhancing the neurodiversity of the workforce by enabling more effective programs for the recruitment, selection, and retention of such candidates in the public and private sectors. This NSF2026 EAGER project enriches the NSF2026 Idea Machine winning entry Harnessing the Human Diversity of Mind. It seeks to develop and evaluate integrated, AI-enabled technologies for measuring a person’s visuospatial cognitive skills in new ways and then using these measurements to predict performance on workplace-relevant tasks. The research conducted during this two-year project will include conducting a large pilot study with individuals on the autism spectrum and neurotypical individuals, in which participants will be given several visuospatial tests, and detailed data about their actions will be recorded using sensors such as eye trackers and cameras. Then, data mining and machine learning techniques will be used to extract meaningful patterns from these rich streams of behavioral data, and analyses will be conducted to examine how these patterns in foundational behaviors map onto individual skills and interests in realistic, workplace-relevant activities. This research will also gather and analyze detailed feedback from industry partners to identify specific job types and sectors that would benefit from recruiting employees who are strong in visuospatial cognitive skills. In addition, this project will involve neurodiverse students and staff in many of its activities, in particular by involving graduate trainees supported by the NSF Research Traineeship in Neurodiversity Inspired Science & Engineering (NISE) and by leveraging the skills of neurodiverse interns at the Frist Center for Autism & Innovation at Vanderbilt University's School of Engineering.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

每年在美国，自闭症谱系中约有70,000名新成年人将寻求就业。同时，技术，金融，医疗保健和许多其他关键工作部门的员工寻求高技能和训练有素的个人来填补专业职位。在综合活动办公室的DRK-12计划和NSF 2026基金计划中的DRK-12计划的支持下，本研究将调查与自闭症谱系中的个人求职者相匹配的新工具和方法，以与利用其独特的认知能力的就业机会，重点关注视觉认知能力。许多工作需要强大的视觉认知技能，例如视觉检查和质量控制，过程监视，文档审查，监视，软件测试和数据可视化，仅举几例。自闭症谱系中的许多人都表现出视觉认知能力的优势，但是这些优势尚未完全理解，包括他们在人之间的差异以及如何映射到与工作场所相关的能力上。了解自闭症谱系或其他神经疾病状况的个体的视觉认知能力，对增强劳动力的神经多样性具有很大的潜在影响，通过为在公共和私营部门中招募，选择和保留此类候选人的更有效计划。这个NSF2026急切的项目丰富了NSF2026 Idea Machine获胜的入门束带人类的思想多样性。它旨在开发和评估综合的，支持AI的技术，以新的方式测量一个人的视觉认知技能，然后使用这些测量值来预测与工作场所相关的任务的绩效。在这个为期两年的项目中进行的研究将包括对自闭症谱系和神经型个体的个体进行一项大型试点研究，其中将对参与者进行几次视觉测试，并使用诸如眼部跟踪器和摄像机等传感器记录有关其动作的详细数据。然后，数据挖掘和机器学习技术将用于从这些丰富的行为数据流中提取有意义的模式，并将进行分析，以研究基础行为中的这些模式如何映射到现实，与工作场所相关的活动中的个人技能和兴趣中。这项研究还将收集和分析行业合作伙伴的详细反馈，以确定特定的工作类型和部门，这些行业将受益于招聘视觉认知技能强大的员工。 In addition, this project will involve neurodiverse students and staff in many of its activities, in particular by involving graduate trainees supported by the NSF Research Traineeship in Neurodiversity Inspired Science & Engineering (NISE) and by leveraging the skills of neurodiverse interns at the Frist Center for Autism & Innovation at Vanderbilt University's School of Engineering.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed precious of通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响评估标准通过评估来支持。

项目成果

Measuring More to Learn More From the Block Design Test: A Literature Review

进行更多测量以从块设计测试中了解更多信息：文献综述

• 发表时间: 2021
• 期刊: Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
• 作者: Dunn, Avery C;Qiao, Alice;Johnson, Maya R;Kunda, Maithilee
• 通讯作者: Kunda, Maithilee