Naturalistic depth perception and binocular vision

Humans continuously move both their eyes to redirect their foveae to objects at new depths. To correctly execute these complex combinations of saccades, vergence eye movements and accommodation changes, the visual system makes use of multiple sources of depth information, including binocular disparity and defocus. Furthermore, during development, both fine-tuning of oculomotor control as well as correct eye growth are likely driven by complex interactions between eye movements, accommodation, and the distributions of defocus and depth information across the retina. I have employed photographs of natural scenes taken with a commercial plenoptic camera to examine depth perception while varying perspective, blur and binocular disparity. Using a gaze contingent display with these natural images, I have shown that disparity and peripheral blur interact to modify eye movements and facilitate binocular fusion. By decoupling visual feedback for each eye, I have found it possible to induces both conjugate and disconjugate changes in saccadic adaptation, which helps us understand to what degree the eyes can be individually controlled. To understand the aetiology of myopia, I have developed geometric models of emmetropic and myopic eye shape, from which I have derived psychophysically testable predictions about visual function. I have then tested the myopic against the emmetropic visual system and have found that some aspects of visual function decrease in the periphery at a faster rate in best-corrected myopic observers than in emmetropes. To study the effects of different depth cues on visual development, I have investigated accommodation response and sensitivity to blur in normal and myopic subjects. This body of work furthers our understanding of oculomotor control and 3D perception, has applied implications regarding discomfort in the use of virtual reality, and provides clinically relevant insights regarding the development of refractive error and potential approaches to prevent incorrect emmetropization

Levels of Visual Information Processing: Perception of Dynamic Properties and Events

Objective: The here presented studies explore automatic and controlled per- ceptual processes in two dynamic paradigms and support a rationale of a multi- level approach to dynamic visual perception. Method: I investigate different perceptual levels of dynamic scenes, including factors within the perceiver, within the objects, and within the environment. Automatic processes are explored with a simple 3-D tracking task and an event perception recognition task; controlled processes are observed in a modified tracking task with specific object properties and an identification task. Results: Through analysis of tracking and report errors measured in the two paradigms, I observed similarities in the automatic processing of artificial 3-D tracking environments (Study 1: the scene-based relations are more important than positions of individual objects) and real-life video clips (Study 2: core as- pects are preferred over fine details). Despite the assumption that tracking is a cognitive-impenetrable mechanism, results of the modified tracking task (Study 3) point towards the ability of participants to strategically weigh visual information based on task-demands. Conclusion: The results of this dissertation illustrate that the identification of influential internal and external factors is important to enhance our under- standing of the multidimensional nature of perception – an understanding that will eventually and hopefully bring research to move beyond questions of how resources are limited, and start to focus on fundamental issues like how we can use mental resources to our benefit

Dark, Beyond Deep: A Paradigm Shift to Cognitive AI with Humanlike Common Sense

Recent progress in deep learning is essentially based on a "big data for small tasks" paradigm, under which massive amounts of data are used to train a classifier for a single narrow task. In this paper, we call for a shift that flips this paradigm upside down. Specifically, we propose a "small data for big tasks" paradigm, wherein a single artificial intelligence (AI) system is challenged to develop "common sense", enabling it to solve a wide range of tasks with little training data. We illustrate the potential power of this new paradigm by reviewing models of common sense that synthesize recent breakthroughs in both machine and human vision. We identify functionality, physics, intent, causality, and utility (FPICU) as the five core domains of cognitive AI with humanlike common sense. When taken as a unified concept, FPICU is concerned with the questions of "why" and "how", beyond the dominant "what" and "where" framework for understanding vision. They are invisible in terms of pixels but nevertheless drive the creation, maintenance, and development of visual scenes. We therefore coin them the "dark matter" of vision. Just as our universe cannot be understood by merely studying observable matter, we argue that vision cannot be understood without studying FPICU. We demonstrate the power of this perspective to develop cognitive AI systems with humanlike common sense by showing how to observe and apply FPICU with little training data to solve a wide range of challenging tasks, including tool use, planning, utility inference, and social learning. In summary, we argue that the next generation of AI must embrace "dark" humanlike common sense for solving novel tasks.Comment: For high quality figures, please refer to http://wellyzhang.github.io/attach/dark.pd

Does insecure attachment lead to (mis)wired brains? Emotion, cognition, and attachment: an outlook through psychophysiological pathways

2346, 2360, 2560The evolutionary-based attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1980) asserts that approach/attachment or avoidance/withdrawal tendencies may reflect distinct regulation strategies underlying individual differences in attachment styles. The influence of the internal working models of attachment on emotion and cognition, and more recently, on its psychophysiological underpinnings has been a central focus of research. Despite the endeavours at clarifying this modulatory influence in behaviour, inconsistent results have prevented definite answers. Aiming at contributing to the current knowledge in the filed, and embedded in a psychophysiological framework, the present thesis brings together findings of empirical studies focusing on the regulation abilities in attentional bias towards emotion information. Following an integrative approach, these studies coupled behavioural responses with measures of skin conductance, heart rate, and eye movements. Findings of these studies converge to show distinctive features between regulation strategies deployed by insecure attached individuals when processing threat-related information on visual attention tasks, as measured by behavioural (Study I), sympathetic (Study II), and eye movement (Study III) responses. Taken together these findings point up the evolutionary value of the attachment behavioural system, providing support for fundamental distinctions between insecure attachment styles, both at a behavioural and physiological level. Considering recent advances emerging in the filed, results are discussed within in a comprehensive and all-encompassing approach.Fundamentada num cenário evolucionista, a teoria da vinculação (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1980) considera que comportamentos de aproximação/evitamento reflectem estratégias de regulação subjacentes a diferenças individuais nos estilos de vinculação. Neste âmbito, a natureza dos modelos internos dinâmicos têm sido um foco central na investigação, tendo sido dada particular atenção à sua influência nos processos emocionais e cognitivos e, mais recentemente, às suas bases psicofisiológicas. Contudo, apesar de vários estudos terem examinado estas questões, a ausência de dados consistentes acerca dos mecanismos que poderão contribuir para esta influência estão ainda por conhecer de modo consistente. Visando contribuir para o conhecimento neste campo, a presente tese reúne um conjunto de estudos empíricos que, numa perspectiva psicofisiológica, focam a acção das estratégias de regulação associadas aos estilos de vinculação insegura – ansiosa e evitante –, nos enviesamentos atencionais no processamento de informação emocional. Numa abordagem integrativa, estes estudos combinam respostas comportamentais com medidas fisiológicas: condutância da pele; frequência cardíaca; e movimentos oculares. Utilizando tarefas de atenção visual, os resultados destes estudos apoiam a hipótese de que os estilos de vinculação insegura estão relacionados com estratégias de regulação específicas no processamento de estímulos potencialmente ameaçadores, avaliadas através de respostas comportamentais (Estudo I), do sistema nervoso simpático (Estudo II), e dos movimentos oculares (Estudo III). Globalmente, os resultados corroboraram o valor evolutivo do sistema comportamental de vinculação, dando suporte para diferenças entre os estilos de vinculação insegura, tanto a nível comportamental como fisiológico. Considerando progressos científicos emergentes, os resultados são discutidos numa abordagem compreensiva e abrangente

Enabling Artificial Intelligence Analytics on The Edge

This thesis introduces a novel distributed model for handling in real-time, edge-based video analytics. The novelty of the model relies on decoupling and distributing the services into several decomposed functions, creating virtual function chains (V F C model). The model considers both computational and communication constraints. Theoretical, simulation and experimental results have shown that the V F C model can enable the support of heavy-load services to an edge environment while improving the footprint of the service compared to state-of-the art frameworks. In detail, results on the V F C model have shown that it can reduce the total edge cost, compared with a monolithic and a simple frame distribution models. For experimenting on a real-case scenario, a testbed edge environment has been developed, where the aforementioned models, as well as a general distribution framework (Apache Spark ©), have been deployed. A cloud service has also been considered. Experiments have shown that V F C can outperform all alternative approaches, by reducing operational cost and improving the QoS. Finally, a migration model, a caching model and a QoS monitoring service based on Long-Term-Short-Term models are introduced

How sketches work: a cognitive theory for improved system design

Evidence is presented that in the early stages of design or composition the mental processes used by artists for visual invention require a different type of support from those used for visualising a nearly complete object. Most research into machine visualisation has as its goal the production of realistic images which simulate the light pattern presented to the retina by real objects. In contrast sketch attributes preserve the results of cognitive processing which can be used interactively to amplify visual thought. The traditional attributes of sketches include many types of indeterminacy which may reflect the artist's need to be "vague". Drawing on contemporary theories of visual cognition and neuroscience this study discusses in detail the evidence for the following functions which are better served by rough sketches than by the very realistic imagery favoured in machine visualising systems. 1. Sketches are intermediate representational types which facilitate the mental translation between descriptive and depictive modes of representing visual thought. 2. Sketch attributes exploit automatic processes of perceptual retrieval and object recognition to improve the availability of tacit knowledge for visual invention. 3. Sketches are percept-image hybrids. The incomplete physical attributes of sketches elicit and stabilise a stream of super-imposed mental images which amplify inventive thought. 4. By segregating and isolating meaningful components of visual experience, sketches may assist the user to attend selectively to a limited part of a visual task, freeing otherwise over-loaded cognitive resources for visual thought. 5. Sequences of sketches and sketching acts support the short term episodic memory for cognitive actions. This assists creativity, providing voluntary control over highly practised mental processes which can otherwise become stereotyped. An attempt is made to unite the five hypothetical functions. Drawing on the Baddeley and Hitch model of working memory, it is speculated that the five functions may be related to a limited capacity monitoring mechanism which makes tacit visual knowledge explicitly available for conscious control and manipulation. It is suggested that the resources available to the human brain for imagining nonexistent objects are a cultural adaptation of visual mechanisms which evolved in early hominids for responding to confusing or incomplete stimuli from immediately present objects and events. Sketches are cultural inventions which artificially mimic aspects of such stimuli in order to capture these shared resources for the different purpose of imagining objects which do not yet exist. Finally the implications of the theory for the design of improved machine systems is discussed. The untidy attributes of traditional sketches are revealed to include cultural inventions which serve subtle cognitive functions. However traditional media have many short-comings which it should be possible to correct with new technology. Existing machine systems for sketching tend to imitate nonselectively the media bound properties of sketches without regard to the functions they serve. This may prove to be a mistake. It is concluded that new system designs are needed in which meaningfully structured data and specialised imagery amplify without interference or replacement the impressive but limited creative resources of the visual brain

3D Information Technologies in Cultural Heritage Preservation and Popularisation

This Special Issue of the journal Applied Sciences presents recent advances and developments in the use of digital 3D technologies to protect and preserve cultural heritage. While most of the articles focus on aspects of 3D scanning, modeling, and presenting in VR of cultural heritage objects from buildings to small artifacts and clothing, part of the issue is devoted to 3D sound utilization in the cultural heritage field

Activity in area V3A predicts positions of moving objects

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