Effective Lifeguard Scanning: A Review

The purpose of this scientific review was to address the question of what evidence-based visual surveillance/scanning skills exist in the peer-reviewed scholarly literature. It is well known that lifeguards spend a majority of their on-duty time surveying bathers and swimmers in the water. Lifeguards need to quickly distinguish among swimmers in distress and drowning persons from other bathers in order to rapidly come to their aid to prevent drowning. To be able to accomplish this task, Signal Detection Theory reveals that lifeguards need specific and extensive training in identifying the behavioral patterns associated with drowning persons and swimmers in distress. A typical drowning is not what has been popularized in the press and movies that shows a person calling for help and waving his or her arms about. Instead, drowning victims usually demonstrate the instinctive drowning response in which they are in a vertical position in the water, unable to call out because the mouth is underwater and arm and leg movements are ineffective in keeping them near the water’s surface. The literature revealed that expert lifeguard observation, scanning, and surveillance skills need to be acquired through planned systematic practice to identify the presence of the instinctive drowning response among bathers

Anthropomorphic Robot Design and User Interaction Associated with Motion

Though in its original concept a robot was conceived to have some human-like shape, most robots now in use have specific industrial purposes and do not closely resemble humans. Nevertheless, robots that resemble human form in some way have continued to be introduced. They are called anthropomorphic robots. The fact that the user interface to all robots is now highly mediated means that the form of the user interface is not necessarily connected to the robots form, human or otherwise. Consequently, the unique way the design of anthropomorphic robots affects their user interaction is through their general appearance and the way they move. These robots human-like appearance acts as a kind of generalized predictor that gives its operators, and those with whom they may directly work, the expectation that they will behave to some extent like a human. This expectation is especially prominent for interactions with social robots, which are built to enhance it. Often interaction with them may be mainly cognitive because they are not necessarily kinematically intricate enough for complex physical interaction. Their body movement, for example, may be limited to simple wheeled locomotion. An anthropomorphic robot with human form, however, can be kinematically complex and designed, for example, to reproduce the details of human limb, torso, and head movement. Because of the mediated nature of robot control, there remains in general no necessary connection between the specific form of user interface and the anthropomorphic form of the robot. But their anthropomorphic kinematics and dynamics imply that the impact of their design shows up in the way the robot moves. The central finding of this report is that the control of this motion is a basic design element through which the anthropomorphic form can affect user interaction. In particular, designers of anthropomorphic robots can take advantage of the inherent human-like movement to 1) improve the users direct manual control over robot limbs and body positions, 2) improve users ability to detect anomalous robot behavior which could signal malfunction, and 3) enable users to be better able to infer the intent of robot movement. These three benefits of anthropomorphic design are inherent implications of the anthropomorphic form but they need to be recognized by designers as part of anthropomorphic design and explicitly enhanced to maximize their beneficial impact. Examples of such enhancements are provided in this report. If implemented, these benefits of anthropomorphic design can help reduce the risk of Inadequate Design of Human and Automation Robotic Integration (HARI) associated with the HARI-01 gap by providing efficient and dexterous operator control over robots and by improving operator ability to detect malfunctions and understand the intention of robot movement

Visual attention and working memory in action

This doctoral thesis employed a psychophysical approach to investigate the relationship between goal-directed eye and hand movements, visual attention, and visual working memory. To establish a solid methodological basis for investigating visual attention, the first study compared the strengths and weaknesses of a set of discrimination stimuli frequently used in attention research (Chapter 2.1). Based on the results, we used a novel pink noise stimulus for approaching the following research questions concerning visual attention. In the second study, we investigated the dependence of attentional orienting on oculomotor programming (Chapter 2.2). Motivated by the claim that attention can only be allocated to locations reachable by saccadic eye movements, we measured visual sensitivity – a proxy for visual attention – within and beyond the oculomotor range using an eye abduction paradigm. Contrary to previous findings, we found that attention can be shifted without restriction to locations to which saccades cannot be executed, ruling out the necessity to program a saccadic eye movement as a prerequisite for spatial attention. The third study attempted to resolve the longstanding debate as to whether eye and hand movement targets are selected by a single attentional mechanism or by independent, effector-specific systems (Chapter 2.3). Results revealed that during simultaneous eye and hand movements, attention – an index of motor target selection – was allocated in parallel to the saccade and the reach targets. Motor target selection mechanisms moreover did not compete for attentional resources at any time during movement preparation, demonstrating that separate, effector-specific mechanisms attentionally select eye and hand movement targets. The fourth study tested the assumption of effector-specific selection mechanisms in the framework of visual working memory (Chapter 2.4). Participants memorized several locations and performed eye, hand, or simultaneous eye-hand movements during the maintenance interval. When participants performed an eye and a hand movement simultaneously to distinct locations, memory at both motor targets was enhanced with no tradeoff between the two. This suggests that the two effector systems improve working memory at their selected motor targets independently. In the final study, we dissociated the relative contributions of the two highly interdependent parameters, task relevance and oculomotor selection, to the memory benefits consistently observed at eye movement targets (Chapter 2.5). Participants memorized shapes while simultaneously either avoiding or selecting a specific location as a delayed saccade target. While oculomotor selection was consistently associated with an increased working memory performance, mere task relevance was not, indicating that the frequently reported memory benefits for task-relevant items might, in fact, be caused by oculomotor selection. In summary, goal-directed eye and hand movements selectively boost the visual processing of the currently most relevant information, and likewise bias our memory capacities according to behavioral priority. The observed motor-induced enhancements in both the attention and working memory domains appear to be independent and effector-specific, allowing for the most flexible assignment of our limited cognitive resources as we traverse through our crowded environment

Semiotics of performing in Najwa Latif's music videos

Jurnal Komunikasi : Malaysian Journal of Communication312299-32

Semiotics of performing in Najwa Latif’s music videos

With more than 53 million hits on her YouTube videos, Najwa Latif is an icon of contemporary Malay popular culture. Just two of her music videos - Cinta Muka Buku (Facebook Love), and AdaMu (Your Existence), have received more than 12.9 million hits at the time of writing with the former earning a nomination for best Malay song at the coveted Champion Songs Award in 2011. Equally relevant is the semiotics of performing in the music videos that captures the hearts and minds of the cyberspace-inhabiting Generation Y. Contrary to the existing studies of Malay popular culture that usually focus on linguistic content we use atomization as the framework to analyze the rich and rapid visual content in Cinta Muka Buku and AdaMu. By atomizing the musical content into visual frames, we derive base units for examining the semiotic hybridity that underscores the positive identification with an online fan base. The segmented visual frames provide the locus for studying the interplay of semiotic elements in the visual symbolization. Consequently, we may identify the semiotics of performing and its relationship with the consumption of Najwa Latif’s Malay music videos in cyberspace

Annual report (Arizona. Department of Public Safety)

The Arizona Department of Public Safety became operational by the executive order of Governor Jack Williams on July 1, 1969. Governor Williams’ mandate consolidated the functions and responsibilities of the Arizona Highway Patrol, the Enforcement Division of the State Department of Liquor Licenses and Control and the Narcotics Division of the State Department of Law

Visual attention and working memory in action

This doctoral thesis employed a psychophysical approach to investigate the relationship between goal-directed eye and hand movements, visual attention, and visual working memory. To establish a solid methodological basis for investigating visual attention, the first study compared the strengths and weaknesses of a set of discrimination stimuli frequently used in attention research (Chapter 2.1). Based on the results, we used a novel pink noise stimulus for approaching the following research questions concerning visual attention. In the second study, we investigated the dependence of attentional orienting on oculomotor programming (Chapter 2.2). Motivated by the claim that attention can only be allocated to locations reachable by saccadic eye movements, we measured visual sensitivity – a proxy for visual attention – within and beyond the oculomotor range using an eye abduction paradigm. Contrary to previous findings, we found that attention can be shifted without restriction to locations to which saccades cannot be executed, ruling out the necessity to program a saccadic eye movement as a prerequisite for spatial attention. The third study attempted to resolve the longstanding debate as to whether eye and hand movement targets are selected by a single attentional mechanism or by independent, effector-specific systems (Chapter 2.3). Results revealed that during simultaneous eye and hand movements, attention – an index of motor target selection – was allocated in parallel to the saccade and the reach targets. Motor target selection mechanisms moreover did not compete for attentional resources at any time during movement preparation, demonstrating that separate, effector-specific mechanisms attentionally select eye and hand movement targets. The fourth study tested the assumption of effector-specific selection mechanisms in the framework of visual working memory (Chapter 2.4). Participants memorized several locations and performed eye, hand, or simultaneous eye-hand movements during the maintenance interval. When participants performed an eye and a hand movement simultaneously to distinct locations, memory at both motor targets was enhanced with no tradeoff between the two. This suggests that the two effector systems improve working memory at their selected motor targets independently. In the final study, we dissociated the relative contributions of the two highly interdependent parameters, task relevance and oculomotor selection, to the memory benefits consistently observed at eye movement targets (Chapter 2.5). Participants memorized shapes while simultaneously either avoiding or selecting a specific location as a delayed saccade target. While oculomotor selection was consistently associated with an increased working memory performance, mere task relevance was not, indicating that the frequently reported memory benefits for task-relevant items might, in fact, be caused by oculomotor selection. In summary, goal-directed eye and hand movements selectively boost the visual processing of the currently most relevant information, and likewise bias our memory capacities according to behavioral priority. The observed motor-induced enhancements in both the attention and working memory domains appear to be independent and effector-specific, allowing for the most flexible assignment of our limited cognitive resources as we traverse through our crowded environment