A system for gaze-contingent image analysis and multi-sensorial image display

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Improving the performance of GIS/spatial analysts though novel applications of the Emotiv EPOC EEG headset

Geospatial information systems are used to analyze spatial data to provide decision makers with relevant, up-to-date, information. The processing time required for this information is a critical component to response time. Despite advances in algorithms and processing power, we still have many “human-in-the-loop” factors. Given the limited number of geospatial professionals, analysts using their time effectively is very important. The automation and faster humancomputer interactions of common tasks that will not disrupt their workflow or attention is something that is very desirable. The following research describes a novel approach to increase productivity with a wireless, wearable, electroencephalograph (EEG) headset within the geospatial workflow

The emergence of active perception - seeking conceptual foundations

The aim of this thesis is to explain the emergence of active perception. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, by providing the necessary conceptual foundations for active perception research - the key notions that bridge the conceptual gaps remaining in understanding emergent behaviours of active perception in the context of robotic implementations. On the one hand, the autonomous agent approach to mobile robotics claims that perception is active. On the other hand, while explanations of emergence have been extensively pursued in Artificial Life, these explanations have not yet successfully accounted for active perception.The main question dealt with in this thesis is how active perception systems, as behaviour -based autonomous systems, are capable of providing relatively optimal perceptual guidance in response to environmental challenges, which are somewhat unpredictable. The answer is: task -level emergence on grounds of complicatedly combined computational strategies, but this notion needs further explanation.To study the computational strategies undertaken in active perception re- search, the thesis surveys twelve implementations. On the basis of the surveyed implementations, discussions in this thesis show that the perceptual task executed in support of bodily actions does not arise from the intentionality of a homuncu- lus, but is identified automatically on the basis of the dynamic small mod- ules of particular robotic architectures. The identified tasks are accomplished by quasi -functional modules and quasi- action modules, which maintain transformations of perceptual inputs, compute critical variables, and provide guidance of sensory -motor movements to the most relevant positions for fetching further needed information. Given the nature of these modules, active perception emerges in a different fashion from the global behaviour seen in other autonomous agent research.The quasi- functional modules and quasi- action modules cooperate by estimating the internal cohesion of various sources of information in support of the envisaged task. Specifically, such modules basically reflect various computational facilities for a species to single out the most important characteristics of its ecological niche. These facilities help to achieve internal cohesion, by maintaining a stepwise evaluation over the previously computed information, the required task, and the most relevant features presented in the environment.Apart from the above exposition of active perception, the process of task - level emergence is understood with certain principles extracted from four models of life origin. First, the fundamental structure of active perception is identified as the stepwise computation. Second, stepwise computation is promoted from baseline to elaborate patterns, i.e. from a simple system to a combinatory system. Third, a core requirement for all stepwise computational processes is the comparison between collected and needed information in order to insure the contribution to the required task. Interestingly, this point indicates that active perception has an inherent pragmatist dimension.The understanding of emergence in the present thesis goes beyond the distinc- tion between external processes and internal representations, which some current philosophers argue is required to explain emergence. The additional factors are links of various knowledge sources, in which the role of conceptual foundations is two -fold. On the one hand, those conceptual foundations elucidate how various knowledge sources can be linked. On the other, they make possible an interdisci- plinary view of emergence. Given this two -fold role, this thesis shows the unity of task -level emergence. Thus, the thesis demonstrates a cooperation between sci- ence and philosophy for the purpose of understanding the integrity of emergent cognitive phenomena

Gaze and Peripheral Vision Analysis for Human-Environment Interaction: Applications in Automotive and Mixed-Reality Scenarios

This thesis studies eye-based user interfaces which integrate information about the user’s perceptual focus-of-attention into multimodal systems to enrich the interaction with the surrounding environment. We examine two new modalities: gaze input and output in the peripheral field of view. All modalities are considered in the whole spectrum of the mixed-reality continuum. We show the added value of these new forms of multimodal interaction in two important application domains: Automotive User Interfaces and Human-Robot Collaboration. We present experiments that analyze gaze under various conditions and help to design a 3D model for peripheral vision. Furthermore, this work presents several new algorithms for eye-based interaction, like deictic reference in mobile scenarios, for non-intrusive user identification, or exploiting the peripheral field view for advanced multimodal presentations. These algorithms have been integrated into a number of software tools for eye-based interaction, which are used to implement 15 use cases for intelligent environment applications. These use cases cover a wide spectrum of applications, from spatial interactions with a rapidly changing environment from within a moving vehicle, to mixed-reality interaction between teams of human and robots.In dieser Arbeit werden blickbasierte Benutzerschnittstellen untersucht, die Infor- mationen ¨uber das Blickfeld des Benutzers in multimodale Systeme integrieren, um neuartige Interaktionen mit der Umgebung zu erm¨oglichen. Wir untersuchen zwei neue Modalit¨aten: Blickeingabe und Ausgaben im peripheren Sichtfeld. Alle Modalit¨aten werden im gesamten Spektrum des Mixed-Reality-Kontinuums betra- chtet. Wir zeigen die Anwendung dieser neuen Formen der multimodalen Interak- tion in zwei wichtigen Dom¨anen auf: Fahrerassistenzsysteme und Werkerassistenz bei Mensch-Roboter-Kollaboration. Wir pr¨asentieren Experimente, die blickbasierte Benutzereingaben unter verschiedenen Bedingungen analysieren und helfen, ein 3D- Modell f¨ur das periphere Sehen zu entwerfen. Dar¨uber hinaus stellt diese Arbeit mehrere neue Algorithmen f¨ur die blickbasierte Interaktion vor, wie die deiktis- che Referenz in mobilen Szenarien, die nicht-intrusive Benutzeridentifikation, oder die Nutzung des peripheren Sichtfeldes f¨ur neuartige multimodale Pr¨asentationen. Diese Algorithmen sind in eine Reihe von Software-Werkzeuge integriert, mit de- nen 15 Anwendungsf¨alle f¨ur intelligente Umgebungen implementiert wurden. Diese Demonstratoren decken ein breites Anwendungsspektrum ab: von der r¨aumlichen In- teraktionen aus einem fahrenden Auto heraus bis hin zu Mixed-Reality-Interaktionen zwischen Mensch-Roboter-Teams

Exploring And Training Spatial Reasoning Via Eye Movements: Implications On Performance

This dissertation sought to determine if eye movements could serve as an indicator of success in spatial reasoning, and if eye movements associated with successful completion could be applied to strategically improve spatial reasoning. Using the line images of Shepard and Metzler, an electronic test of mental rotations ability (EMRT) was designed. Two versions of the test were created, allowing for both a timed (6 seconds per question) and untimed testing environment. Four experiments were designed and completed to relate mental rotation ability (MRA) scores from the EMRT, to patterns in chrononumeric and visual salience data. In each experiment, participants completed the EMRT under a different protocol. These protocols included an untimed EMRT, a timed EMRT, a within-participant crossover study where participants completed both the timed, and untimed EMRT in series, and a training crossover study where low MRA participants completed the timed EMRT in both a guided and unguided environment. In the untimed experiment, individuals of high and low MRA were asked to complete the EMRT while their eye movements were observed. As no time limit was imposed, the results allowed for observations based on MRA alone, and served to demonstrate and how individuals of different skill level differ in terms of eye movement. In the following experiment, the addition of a time limit to the EMRT revealed how individuals of high and low MRA perform when under a time restriction. The results of the Timed experiment confirmed differences between the high and low MRA group in terms of eye movements, and attention to salient regions of test images. In the third experiment, the addition of a time limit was further explored through a crossover design. By adding a time limit to an MRT, the ability of individuals to solve spatial problems is impaired, and is manifest in eye movements. Data derived from the Crossover Experiment suggested that salience-based metrics might serve to distinguish between groups of MRA, and that time restrictions may influence both participant accuracy, and identification of visually salient elements. The results from the first three experiments were then applied in the Guidance Experiment to confirm the role that visual salience plays in the context of spatial problem solving. By mapping the apprehension patterns of successful high MRA individuals onto the EMRT, low MRA individuals could be guided to salient areas on the timed EMRT. The results revealed that the application of visual guidance is an effective mechanism for MRA training. This research attends to a previously unaddressed niche in eye-movement and spatial ability training literature. As a result, it may serve as a foundation to cultivate methods of honing and improving spatial skills in the general population

Embodied geosensification-models, taxonomies and applications for engaging the body in immersive analytics of geospatial data

This thesis examines how we can use immersive multisensory displays and body-focused interaction technologies to analyze geospatial data. It merges relevant aspects from an array of interdisciplinary research areas, from cartography to the cognitive sciences, to form three taxonomies that describe the senses, data representations, and interactions made possible by these technologies. These taxonomies are then integrated into an overarching design model for such "Embodied Geosensifications". This model provides guidance for system specification and is validated with practical examples

Scenario pedagogy as a negotiated, multimodal approach to developing professional communication practices in higher education

Includes bibliographical references.The focus of this study is pedagogy - the 'how' of teaching. In particular, a negotiated and multimodal pedagogical approach which I have coined scenario pedagogy is of interest. Scenario pedagogy involves embedding an entire curriculum into a topical and authentic scenario, relevant to a particular group of students in higher education. The course in question is professional communication and the target group comprises senior and post-graduate accounting and other finance and information systems students registered in the commerce faculty. They are not communication students per se but register for a one-semester professional communication course towards their respective commerce degrees. In this study I examine how these students develop their professional communication practices using a wide variety of verbal and visual semiotic resources. Their selection of hybrid discursive, generic and modal resources are foregrounded at both draft and final product stage and include their communicative processes as well as the material artefacts they deliver in class. How students instantiate their meaning making and emerging identity as professionals-to-be is highlighted against a pedagogical framework of negotiated design. This framework combines a multiliteracies cum multimodal perspective which is underpinned by the notion of transformed practice. As pivotal elements of transformation - personally, collectively and societally - education and communication play significant roles, particularly in post-Apartheid South Africa still characterised by enormous socio-economic disparities and disadvantage

Eye Tracking: A Perceptual Interface for Content Based Image Retrieval

In this thesis visual search experiments are devised to explore the feasibility of an eye gaze driven search mechanism. The thesis first explores gaze behaviour on images possessing different levels of saliency. Eye behaviour was predominantly attracted by salient locations, but appears to also require frequent reference to non-salient background regions which indicated that information from scan paths might prove useful for image search. The thesis then specifically investigates the benefits of eye tracking as an image retrieval interface in terms of speed relative to selection by mouse, and in terms of the efficiency of eye tracking mechanisms in the task of retrieving target images. Results are analysed using ANOVA and significant findings are discussed. Results show that eye selection was faster than a computer mouse and experience gained during visual tasks carried out using a mouse would benefit users if they were subsequently transferred to an eye tracking system. Results on the image retrieval experiments show that users are able to navigate to a target image within a database confirming the feasibility of an eye gaze driven search mechanism. Additional histogram analysis of the fixations, saccades and pupil diameters in the human eye movement data revealed a new method of extracting intentions from gaze behaviour for image search, of which the user was not aware and promises even quicker search performances. The research has two implications for Content Based Image Retrieval: (i) improvements in query formulation for visual search and (ii) new methods for visual search using attentional weighting. Futhermore it was demonstrated that users are able to find target images at sufficient speeds indicating that pre-attentive activity is playing a role in visual search. A current review of eye tracking technology, current applications, visual perception research, and models of visual attention is discussed. A review of the potential of the technology for commercial exploitation is also presented

Going Global: Representation and Sense-Making in the British International Branch Campuses of the United Arab Emirates

‘Going global’ is a prominent phrase used to describe transnational developments in British higher education, premised on the internationalization and export of UK universities. This dissertation interrogates one influential component of that agenda, the international branch campus (IBC), asking how British higher education is translocated and reimagined in the commercial education market of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As a departure from existing research on IBCs, it examines the phenomenon vertically, tracing the globalizing logics of contemporary exportation to their sites of consumption, and transversally, situating global demand for UK higher education within logics informed by Britain’s imperial past. Applying Appadurai’s (1986, 1996) concepts of the social imagination and regimes of value to transnational higher education, this study analyzes two interrelated processes: firstly, how universities represent themselves and the UK higher education brand through their offshore marketing practices, and secondly, how students and staff make sense of their IBC and imagine its role in fulfilling particular educational needs and desires. It applies an ensemble of interpretive techniques to the marketing images and texts of three large IBCs in the UAE to understand how particular qualities are signified and textured through a lens of Britishness. It then analyzes interviews with 52 undergraduates attending these IBCs, examining how expatriate and international students articulate value within the constrained parameters of ‘choice’ to maximize their future employment and mobility opportunities through an affordable, internationally valuable form of degree capital. The study finds that students’ IBC choices and the sense made of them are layered between proximal, practical calculations and deeply held desires to embody the qualities reflected in the British higher education brand, among them global recognition and belongingness. It also finds alignment between participants’ enunciations of ‘Britain’ and the ways in which IBC marketing selectively mobilizes symbols and discourses to frame their relationship to the national higher education brand, making them knowable and valuable to audiences without making explicit how abstract qualities are translocated to educational experiences in the UAE. These findings affirm the powerful role of the social imagination in shaping higher education choices and meaning-making in transnational contexts

THE SUBJECTS OF FATİH AKIN\u27S MELODRAMAS: A GENEALOGICAL READING THROUGH THE FILMS OF R.W. FASSBINDER, YILMAZ GÜNEY AND ATIF YILMAZ

Fatih Akın\u27s feature films Head-On (2004) and The Edge of Heaven (2007) resonated strongly with Turkish, German and Turkish German communities, albeit for diverse reasons, opening spaces for debate with regard to subjectivites that foreground their alterity and redefine readings of national identity. This dissertation addresses ways in which the melodramatic modality of Akın\u27s films partake in such debates by presenting a dialogic genealogy of melodramas from Turkish, German and Turkish German contexts. An analysis of Fontane\u27s novel Effi Briest and of R.W Fassbinder\u27s Fontane Effi Briest and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul; Atıf Yılmaz\u27s O Beautiful Istanbul; and Yılmaz Güney\u27s The Herd suggests ways in which these texts and films inscribe different aspects of alterity, situating the subjects of these narratives in disruptive relationships with national and transnational identitarian discourses. I examine these melodramatic narratives and the impasses they constructfor their subjects together with the relationship of the films\u27 uses of mise-en-scène to further complicate notions of ethnic and other modes of belonging. Divergent modes of distanciation and identification from different filmic traditions in Turkey and in Germany constitute a multivalent nexus through which I approach Akın\u27s films. The ambivalence of the protagonists\u27 affective states sets up another point of critical inquiry from which I utilize notions of performativity to critique interiorized and exteriorized readings of affect. I trace articulations of the realistic registers in these works, seeking the fissures where the melodramatic modality reveals itself to allow the directors to leave open the subjects\u27 alterity. Finally, I link certain plot-lines to the stranded objects of Turkish and German national histories, including histories pertaining to the Nazi past in Germany, the erasure of the Ottoman cosmopolitan cultural nexus and the nomadic modes of existence of the Kurdish population in Turkey. I then posit ways in which these objects come to interact with transnationally determined subjectivities in the films of Akın. The dialogic genealogy I propose intervenes in current critical debates on melodrama as a trans-generic mode and on transnationality in cinema that look beyond paradigms of nationalism(s) towards a diverse articulation of subjectivities that resist reification by dominant identitarian discourses