Design Heuristics in Engineering Concept Generation

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/94902/1/j.2168-9830.2012.tb01121.x.pd

The Relationship between Complex Problem Solving and Intelligence: An Analysis of Three Computer Simulated Scenarios

The gap between field research and laboratory research has always been a problem in psychology. With the introduction of computers into the laboratory, computer simulated tasks allowed the observation of complex problem solving performance in the laboratory with a higher degree of ecological validity than ever before. The main aim of this thesis was to explore the relationship between complex problem solving ability and intelligence by presenting the results of two studies, using over 400 adults. Complex problem solving ability was assessed by performance on three computer simulations: Furniture Factory, Tailorshop, and Forestry System. The theory of fluid and crystallised intelligence guided the selection of cognitive abilities tests. Relationships between broad cognitive abilities including Fluid reasoning (Gf), Acculturation knowledge (Gc), Visual processing (Gv), Quantitative knowledge (Gq), and Processing speed (Gs) with computer simulation performance were explored. Previous research exploring the relationship between complex problem solving and intelligence has led to inconsistent and often contradictory findings. Scoring problems in previous research were addressed and for all three computer simulations, relationships between intelligence and complex problem solving were found. Overall, Gf and Gc explained 20% of the variance in complex problem solving. Correlations between intelligence and complex problem solving increased when specific cognitive abilities tests and aggregated computer simulation scores were employed, rather than the employment of general or factor scores of intelligence and final computer simulation scores. A new aggregated scoring technique (goal achievement) that allowed consistent scoring across different computer simulations was developed. The strongest relationship between intelligence and complex problem solving was observed between goal achievement scores and specific tests of cogn itive abilities such as esoteric analogies and critical reas! oning. There were significant correlations between goal achievement on the Furniture Factory and both esoteric analogies and critical reasoning (r = .37, p < .05, r = .41, p < .05) respectively. Correlations between goal achievement on the Tailorshop and both esoteric analogies and critical reasoning were significant (r = .25, p < .05, r = .29, p < .05) respectively. Correlations between goal achievement on the Forestry System and both esoteric analogies and critical reasoning were also significant (r = .38, p < .05, r = .30, p < .05) respectively. In addition, performance scores on all three computer simulations were correlated with one another. These findings support the application of the Brunswik lens model to complex problem solving research. Negative correlations, albeit rather modest, were observed between neuroticism and complex problem solving performance on the Furniture Factory (r = -.17, p < .05) and the Tailorshop (r = -.21, p < .05), indicating that emoti on may also mediate complex problem solving performance. Results of this thesis may bring individual differences research in this area a step closer to obtaining stable results from which generalisations about complex problem solving tasks can be made

Aeronautical Engineering. A continuing bibliography, supplement 115

This bibliography lists 273 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in October 1979

Origami architectural : potentialité et limite du pli comme générateur de systèmes constructifs

Cette recherche-conception en design de l'environnement vise à approfondir les mécanismes et les processus nécessaires pour développer de grandes formes tridimensionnelles à partir du pliage de matériaux en feuille. En créant simultanément une forme et une structure, les matériaux en feuille pliés peuvent fournir une certaine économie de matière tout en questionnant la nature de la conception de l'objet. Le pliage de matériaux en feuille, qui est une stratégie courante en design industriel, demeure plutôt limité dans son application à une échelle architecturale. L'hypothèse de recherche a été de tester les limites du pliage et de valider dans quelle mesure il est possible de transférer les mécanismes de pliage de type origami à de grandes applications architecturales. Suite à une analyse des différentes approches théoriques, nous passons à une série d'expérimentations matérielles qui cherchent à questionner ce changement d'échelle et à déterminer s'il y a une limite dimensionnelle à l'utilisation des principes de l'origami. Dans la tradition du Research by design, les travaux d'expérimentation et de recherche se sont appuyés l'un l'autre dans un cadre itératif. Dans le but de tester l'hypothèse de recherche, nous avons tenté, à travers plusieurs cycles d'expérimentation, d'articuler un système constructif pour lequel le pliage d'un unique matériau en feuille serait le moyen privilégié de construction.\ud ______________________________________________________________________________ \ud MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Matériaux en feuille, Pli, Origami, Structures pliables-dépliables, Research by design, Carto

COBE's search for structure in the Big Bang

The launch of Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) and the definition of Earth Observing System (EOS) are two of the major events at NASA-Goddard. The three experiments contained in COBE (Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR), Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS), and Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE)) are very important in measuring the big bang. DMR measures the isotropy of the cosmic background (direction of the radiation). FIRAS looks at the spectrum over the whole sky, searching for deviations, and DIRBE operates in the infrared part of the spectrum gathering evidence of the earliest galaxy formation. By special techniques, the radiation coming from the solar system will be distinguished from that of extragalactic origin. Unique graphics will be used to represent the temperature of the emitting material. A cosmic event will be modeled of such importance that it will affect cosmological theory for generations to come. EOS will monitor changes in the Earth's geophysics during a whole solar color cycle

Perceptual Organization

Perceiving the world of real objects seems so easy that it is difficult to grasp just how complicated it is. Not only do we need to construct the objects quickly, the objects keep changing even though we think of them as having a consistent, independent existence (Feldman, 2003). Yet, we usually get it right, there are few failures. We can perceive a tree in a blinding snowstorm, a deer bounding across a tree line, dodge a snowball, catch a baseball, detect the crack of a branch breaking in a strong windstorm amidst the rustling of trees, predict the sounds of a dripping faucet, or track a street musician strolling down the road

Taste, beauty, sublime: Kantian aesthetics and the experience of performance

What does it mean to have aesthetic experience? Is it something we are all capable of? Or is our capacity for aesthetic pleasure something we develop, like a skill? What do we mean when we declare something ‘beautiful’, or when we dismiss a performance because it is ‘not to our taste’? Is taste something we possess, concerned with our own personal likes and dislikes? Or is taste part of aesthetic experience, something that happens? Indeed, what is aesthetic experience? And what is the place, in theatre and performance, for the aesthetic qua aesthetic? In this thesis I explore and develop the Kantian notion of aesthetic experience by taking three terms central to the Critique of Judgment – taste, beauty, sublime – and considering their value in the experience and analysis of contemporary performance. In exploring these ideas, the thesis centres on a range of works from the early avant-garde, including extended analyses of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi (1896) and Edward Gordon Craig’s Dido and Æneas. The contemporary works central to the thesis are Proto-type Theater’s Virtuoso (working title) (2009), 3rd Person (redux)(2010) and Whisper (2008). The study also looks at contemporary work from Reckless Sleepers, Station House Opera, and Societas Raffaello Sanzio. The primary theoretical framework is drawn from the field of philosophical aesthetics, and, specifically, the works of Immanuel Kant. In the post-Kantian era, the works of Arthur Schopenhauer, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wendy Steiner, Jean-Luc Marion, Arnold Berleant, and Christian H. Wenzel provide a connection to the world of post-Enlightenment aesthetics and interconnect Kantian philosophy with developments in performance and aesthetics. In aiming to uncover the value of the aesthetic as such, the thesis looks to reflect on taste, beauty, and the sublime in a way that offers a fresh and vital perspective on the experience of performance

The role of phonology in visual word recognition: evidence from Chinese

Posters - Letter/Word Processing V: abstract no. 5024The hypothesis of bidirectional coupling of orthography and phonology predicts that phonology plays a role in visual word recognition, as observed in the effects of feedforward and feedback spelling to sound consistency on lexical decision. However, because orthography and phonology are closely related in alphabetic languages (homophones in alphabetic languages are usually orthographically similar), it is difficult to exclude an influence of orthography on phonological effects in visual word recognition. Chinese languages contain many written homophones that are orthographically dissimilar, allowing a test of the claim that phonological effects can be independent of orthographic similarity. We report a study of visual word recognition in Chinese based on a mega-analysis of lexical decision performance with 500 characters. The results from multiple regression analyses, after controlling for orthographic frequency, stroke number, and radical frequency, showed main effects of feedforward and feedback consistency, as well as interactions between these variables and phonological frequency and number of homophones. Implications of these results for resonance models of visual word recognition are discussed.postprin

Interactive effects of orthography and semantics in Chinese picture naming

Posters - Language Production/Writing: abstract no. 4035Picture-naming performance in English and Dutch is enhanced by presentation of a word that is similar in form to the picture name. However, it is unclear whether facilitation has an orthographic or a phonological locus. We investigated the loci of the facilitation effect in Cantonese Chinese speakers by manipulating—at three SOAs (2100, 0, and 1100 msec)—semantic, orthographic, and phonological similarity. We identified an effect of orthographic facilitation that was independent of and larger than phonological facilitation across all SOAs. Semantic interference was also found at SOAs of 2100 and 0 msec. Critically, an interaction of semantics and orthography was observed at an SOA of 1100 msec. This interaction suggests that independent effects of orthographic facilitation on picture naming are located either at the level of semantic processing or at the lemma level and are not due to the activation of picture name segments at the level of phonological retrieval.postprin

The Animate Object Of Kinetic Art, 1955-1968

This dissertation examines the development of kinetic art—a genre comprising motorized, manipulable, and otherwise transformable objects—in Europe and the United States from 1955 to 1968. Despite kinetic art’s popularity in its moment, existing scholarly narratives often treat the movement as a positivist affirmation of postwar technology or an art of mere entertainment. This dissertation is the first comprehensive scholarly project to resituate the movement within the history of performance and “live” art forms, by looking closely at how artists created objects that behaved in complex, often unpredictable ways in real time. It argues that the critical debates concerning agency and intention that surrounded moving artworks should be understood within broader aesthetic and social concerns in the postwar period—from artists’ attempts to grapple with the legacy of modernist abstraction, to popular attitudes toward the rise of automated labor and cybernetics. It further draws from contemporaneous phenomenological discourses to consider the ways kinetic artworks modulated viewers’ experiences of artistic duration. Structured around case studies of four artists, the chapters draw from archival material and close examinations of artworks to elucidate diverse approaches to the kinetic. Chapter One examines Jean Tinguely’s early motorized reliefs, modeled on the paintings of the historical avant-garde, and argues that their shifting compositions enact an intensifying doubt about the principles of abstract composition. Chapter Two addresses Pol Bury’s exploration of perception in his slow-moving objects, linking the intense experiences of anticipation and suspense they generate to their Cold War context. Chapter Three treats Gianni Colombo’s flexible rubber and Styrofoam artworks, connecting them to the burgeoning field of Italian design and Umberto Eco’s nascent concept of the “open work.” Finally, Chapter Four investigates Robert Breer’s Float sculptures, and demonstrates how these works parody Minimalist principles while also intervening into cybernetic debates about behavior and intentionality in self-driven objects. While grounded in the postwar period, this project intersects with contemporary scholarly interests in performance, animation, and materiality