Cognition and Perception Commons^™

Investigating The Effects Of Depth And Distance On Jumping Decisions, Ean Fisher

Honors Theses

For an actor to accurately perceive if a gap affords crossing, they must consider environmental constraints, particularly spatial dimensions like gap depth and gap width, and their own physical capabilities, as determined by body/action-scaled information, namely body height and jumping ability. Prior research has examined the gap-crossing affordance across various contexts (real-world, augmented reality, and virtual reality). However, no research has investigated the gap-crossing affordance through performing a standing jump estimation within VR. The present study investigated how depth and width influence the perception of gap-crossing, operationalized as the act of performing a standing jump across a gap within a …

Behavioral And Neural Evidence For Perceptual Inference Of Position, Sharif Saleki

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Extensive neuroscientific research has advanced our knowledge of the mechanisms involved in the detection and recognition of visual stimuli. However, to guide flexible behavior in a changing world, the brain must also construct stable and coherent perceptual representations from retinal images that are often ambiguous. To resolve ambiguities and uncertainties, the visual system combines its input with other sources of information such as context and prior knowledge to infer the most likely interpretation of a scene. Thus, perception is inherently an inferential process that goes beyond simple detection or recognition of stimuli. Although inference has been studied in many areas …

Does Optic Flow Provide Information About Actions?, Hannah Masoner

Dissertations

Optic flow, the pattern of light generated in the visual field by motion of objects and the observer’s body, serves as information that underwrites perception of events, actions and affordances. This visual pattern informs the observer about their own actions in relation to their surroundings, as well as those of others. This study explored the limits of action detection for others as well as the role of optic flow. First-person videos were created using camera recordings of the actor’s perspective as they performed various movements (jumping jacks, jumping, squatting, sitting, etc.). In three experiments participants attempted to detect the action …

Does Optic Flow Provide Information About Actions?, Hannah Masoner

Dissertations

Optic flow, the pattern of light generated in the visual field by motion of objects and the observer’s body, serves as information that underwrites perception of events, actions and affordances. This visual pattern informs the observer about their own actions in relation to their surroundings, as well as those of others. This study explored the limits of action detection for others as well as the role of optic flow. First-person videos were created using camera recordings of the actor’s perspective as they performed various movements (jumping jacks, jumping, squatting, sitting, etc.). In three experiments participants attempted to detect the action …

Crossmodal Perception Of Object Shape: A Study On The Effect Of Modal Order On Successful Shape Recognition, Ashlyn Vale

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

Visual and haptic (tactile) modes of perception, while occasionally exercised independently, most often occur concurrently. The degree to which the ordering of the two modes of perception affects successful recognition of three-dimensional shapes varies. Some have found that the cross-modal orders (vision followed by haptics or vice versa) produce equal performance (Caviness, 1964; Lacey, Peters, & Sathian, 2007; Norman et al., 2006), while other researchers found visual-haptic (VH) performance to be superior to haptic-visual (HV) performance (Davidson, Abbott, & Gershenfeld, 1974; Norman, Clayton, Norman, & Crabtree, 2008). The current experiment used an old-new recognition task (with cookie cutter stimuli). In …

The Effect Of Environmental Context Upon Visual Distance Perception, Jessica M. Dukes

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The ability of 16 younger adults to visually perceive distances in depth was evaluated within three environmental contexts (indoors in the dark, indoors in the light, and outdoors). The observers' task was to bisect an 8m distance interval in all contexts using both monocular and binocular vision. In the outdoor environment (a natural grassy field), the observers' judgments indicated perceptual compression of farther distances similar to that obtained in many previous studies. In the indoor lighted environment (a 10.2 x 9.6m laboratory room), the observers' judgments were consistent with perceptual expansion of farther distances. Finally, there was a beneficial effect …

Increment And Decrement Effects In Motion Induced Blindness, Sofia C. Lombardo

Honors Theses and Capstones

Motion induced blindness (MIB) refers to the perceptual disappearance of a stationary stimulus in the presence of a motion mask. The current study investigated the degree to which afterimages affect MIB inhibition when measured as a contrast detection threshold in a modified replication of White et al. (2020). Adult participants (N = 3) with normal or corrected-to-normal eyesight completed a series of target detection tasks while viewing a standard MIB stimulus with the motion mask removed that consisted of increment versus decrement inducer and target components. A univariate ANOVA data analysis procedure revealed a significant afterimage effect (Scheffé p < 0.0253) on contrast detection threshold was found for targets presented at an interstimulus interval of 500 ms. This effect was stronger for decrement targets compared to increment targets in the decrement inducer conditions. Based on a comparison with previous research in which the MIB effect was found to endure across interstimulus intervals up to 15500 ms, the current findings indicate that afterimages do not significantly influence contrast detection thresholds for MIB. Further research is necessary for determining the strength and duration of afterimage effects on contrast detection thresholds in MIB that may be caused by interaction with the motion mask.

The Temporal Dynamics Of Ensemble Perception, Michael L. Epstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The striking disparity between the subjective richness of experience and the considerable limitations of perceptual processing has emerged as an essential, enduring question in both vision science and philosophy of mind. A potential solution to this issue is ensemble perception: the ability for the visual system to compute the statistical summaries of object groups, effectively compressing an otherwise overwhelming amount of information. Previous work has supported that ensemble statistics can be perceived quickly and accurately for a wide range of object features. This has motivated models of ensemble perception as an early process in vision, providing an initial sense of …

Mapping The Spatial And Temporal Dynamics Of Visual Percepts Elicited By A Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Technique, Kelly Webster

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While many of us rely on vision to interact with and experience the world, for people with damage or disease to the eye or visual cortex, experience through this modality is extremely limited. Brain and retinal stimulation devices show exciting promise for restoring vision, but little is understood about where and when vision percepts can be induced through stimulation. Using a non-invasive brain stimulation technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), we characterized the spatial and temporal dynamics of perception induced through brain stimulation. In the first set of experiments, we explore the importance of higher visual and non-visual areas vs. …

Visual Estimates Of Blood Loss By Medical Laypeople: Effects Of Blood Loss Volume, Victim Gender, And Perspective, Rachel Phillips, Marc Friberg, Mattias Lantz Cronqvist, Carl-Oscar Jonson, Erik Prytz

Psychology Faculty Publications

A severe hemorrhage can result in death within minutes, before professional first responders have time to arrive. Thus, intervention by bystanders, who may lack medical training, may be necessary to save a victim's life in situations with bleeding injuries. Proper intervention requires that bystanders accurately assess the severity of the injury and respond appropriately. As many bystanders lack tools and training, they are limited in terms of the information they can use in their evaluative process. In hemorrhage situations, visible blood loss may serve as a dominant cue to action. Therefore, understanding how medically untrained bystanders (i.e., laypeople) perceive hemorrhage …

Is The Selective Tuning Model Of Visual Attention Still Relevant?, John K. Tsotsos

MODVIS Workshop

No abstract provided.

Electrophysiological Correlates Of Visual Object Category Formation In A Prototype-Distortion Task, Stephanie Marie Long

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In perceptual learning studies, participants engage in extensive training in the discrimination of visual stimuli in order to modulate perceptual performance. Much of the literature in perceptual learning has looked at the induction of the reorganization of low-level representations in V1. However, much remains to be understood about the mechanisms behind how the adult brain (an expert in visual object categorization) extracts high-level visual objects from the environment and categorically represents them in the cortical visual hierarchy. Here, I used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neural mechanisms involved in object representation formation during a hybrid visual search and prototype …

Object Permanence In Asian Elephants (Elephas Maximus), Dalia Miller

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated object permanence in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) using visible and invisible test paradigms with single and multiple object displacements. Elephants were predicted to succeed, demonstrating a capacity for object permanence and for using vision in a cognitive task. Study outcomes supported these predictions.

Aging And Visual Spatial Integration, Alexia J. Higginbotham

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The current study evaluated the ability of 20 younger and 20 older adults to discriminate shapes depicted by Glass patterns. On any given trial, observers identified a particular pattern as either possessing a radial or concentric organization. Detecting a shape defined by a Glass pattern requires the successful detection of the orientations of its constituent local dipoles. In addition, long-range processes are needed to integrate the spatially separated dipoles into perceivable contours that have a particular (e.g., radial or concentric) organization. In the current experiment, the shapes were defined by either 40 or 200 oriented dipoles spread over an area …

How Stable Are Human Aesthetic Preferences Across The Lifespan?, Cameron Pugach, Helmut Leder, Daniel J. Graham

Publications and Research

How stable are human aesthetic preferences, and how does stability change over the lifespan?Here we investigate the stability of aesthetic taste in a cross-sectional study. We employed a simple rank-order preference task using paintings and photographs of faces and landscapes. In each of the four stimulus classes, we find that aesthetic stability generally follows an inverted U-shaped function, with the greatest degree of stability appearing in early to middle adulthood. We propose that one possible interpretation of this result is that it indicates a role for cognitive control (i.e., the ability to adapt cognition to current situations) in the construction …

Using Classification Images To Understand Models Of Lightness Perception, Minjung Kim, Jason M. Gold, Richard F. Murray

MODVIS Workshop

No abstract provided.

Correspondence Between Haptic And Visual Perception Of Stand-On-Ability: Do Hills Look As Steep As They Feel?, Jonathan Kenealy Doyon

Master's Theses

Vision and haptics play a central role in perceiving environmental layout to guide action. Hajnal, Wagman, Doyon, and Clark (2016) demonstrated that visual perception of stand-on-ability is accurate compared to action capabilities, whereas haptic perception of stand-on-ability reliably underestimates action capabilities. This finding contradicts Gibson’s (1979) theory of equivalence in perceptual systems, which suggests that perception should be equivalent regardless of modality. Previous comparisons of visual and haptic perception tested the modalities in isolation. The current experiment directly compares visual to haptic perception of stand-on-ability by using one perceptual system to estimate the other. Observers viewed a surface set to …

A Model For Attention-Driven Judgements In Type Theory With Records, Simon Dobnik, John D. Kelleher

Conference papers

This paper makes three contributions to the discussion on the applicability of Type Theory with Records (TTR) to embodied dialogue agents. First, it highlights the problem of type assignment or judgements in practical implementations which is resource intensive. Second, it presents a judgement control mechanism, which consists of grouping of types into clusters or states by their thematic relations and selection of types following two mechanisms inspired by the Load Theory of selective attention and cognitive control (Lavie et al., 2004), that addresses this problem. Third, it presents a computational framework, based on Bayesian inference, that offers a basis for …

Focusing On Selection For Fixation, John K. Tsotsos, Calden Wloka, Yulia Kotseruba

MODVIS Workshop

Building on our presentation at MODVIS 2015, we continue in our quest to discover a functional, computational, explanation of the relationship among visual attention, interpretation of visual stimuli, and eye movements, and how these produce visual behavior. Here, we focus on one component, how selection is accomplished for the next fixation. The popularity of saliency map models drives the inference that this is solved; we suggested otherwise at MODVIS 2015. Here, we provide additional empirical and theoretical arguments. We then develop arguments that a cluster of complementary, conspicuity representations drive selection, modulated by task goals and history, leading to a …

Beauty In Snowflakes: Complexity And Visual Aesthetics, Olivia C. Adkins

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Experimental aesthetics research has been conducted since the nineteenth century. Interestingly, however, few studies have examined the perceived beauty of naturally shaped objects. In the current experiment, 204 participants were presented with a set of ten snowflake silhouettes that varied in complexity (perimeter relative to area); they were similarly presented with ten randomly-shaped, computer-generated, solid objects that also varied in complexity. For each stimulus set, the participants selected the single snowflake or object that was the most beautiful (Fechner’s method of choice). The results for the solid objects replicated the findings of earlier research: the most and least complex objects …

The Effect Of Auditory Stimuli On Visual Time-To-Contact Perception, Chelsea L. Rugel

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Previous research has demonstrated that auditory and visual stimuli have individual effects on the accuracy of a person’s estimation of time-to-contact (TTC), the time at which two objects collide. Prior findings also suggest that there is cross-modal interference between vision and audition; however, this phenomenon has never been studied in a TTC situation. (Driver & Spence, 1998; Ichikawa & Masskura, 2006; Roseboom, Kawabe, & Nishida, 2013) In this study we attempted to fill in this research gap by examining the effect of auditory speed cues over visual speed cues in a two-dimensional TTC scenario, and by determining if an object’s …

Esophoria And Exophoria In Relation To Personality, Nicole F. Horn

Senior Honors Projects

How Vision Problems Affect Our Lives

Nicole Horn

Faculty Sponsor: Charles Collyer, Psychology

Vision is much more than simply being able to see 20/20. There are a number of different visual problems which can impact how we see and interact with the world around us. One visual skill, which is looked at in this research, is convergence. Convergence is the ability to turn the eyes so that they both focus in on the same object, at the same time, and at the same distance in space.  If the eyes either underconverge or overconverge, this can lead to an altered perception …

Eye Contact Perception At Distances Up To Six Meters, Daniel L. Scarl

Dissertations and Theses

Common experience suggests that most people can tell whether they are being looked at by another person who is about 8 m away. However, the results of past experiments, which used distances of no more than about 3 m, have implied that this cannot be done if the person looked at (Receiver) judges only by the iris-sclera configuration of the person looking (Sender). This is true even if eye contact is defined simply as identifying on-face gazes (FGs). It has been suggested that in everyday experience eye contact is accompanied by cues other than iris position, and that these non-iris-position …

Ames Trapezoid Illusion: A New Model, Daniel Robert Kelly

Dissertations and Theses

Current explanations for the Ames Trapezoid Illusion are based upon the the absence of cues: the illusion is said to occur at chance. A review of recent literature showed that: (a) the illusion varies in frequency as a function of target shape (b) that the dominant cue to reduce the frequency of the illusion is the variant in retinal height. Based upon the dominance of this cue a new model was presented. Following this model it was hypothesized that observers viewing partial rotation when the target produces the greatest difference in the retinal height of the ends would determine the …