Complex Data Produce Better Characters

Abstract: Two studies were conducted to explore the use of complex data in character description and hybrid identification. In order to determine if complex data allow the production of better characters, eight groups of plant systematists were given two classes of drawings of plant parts, and asked to divide them into character states (clusters) in two separate experiments. The first class of drawings consisted only of cotyledons. The second class consisted of triplets of drawings: a cotyledon, seedling leaf, and inflorescence bract. The triplets were used to simulate complex data such as might be garnered by looking at a plant. Each experiment resulted in four characters (groups of clusters), one for each group of systematists. Visual and statistical analysis of the data showed that the systematists were able to produce smaller, more precisely defined character states using the more complex drawings. The character states created with the complex drawings also were more consistent across systematists, and agreed more closely with an independent assessment of phylogeny. To investigate the utility of complex data in an applied task, four observers rated 250 hybrids of Dubautia ciliolata X arborea based on the overall form (Gestalt) of the plants, and took measurements of a number of features of the same plants. A composite score of the measurements was created using principal components analysis. The correlation between the scores on the first principal component and the Gestalt ratings was computed. The Gestalt ratings and PC scores were significantly correlated, demonstrating that assessments of overall similarity can be as useful as more conventional approaches in determining the hybrid status of plants

Perceptual grouping abilities in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: exploring patterns of ability in relation to grouping type and levels of development

This study further investigates findings of impairment in Gestalt, but not global processing in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) [Brosnan, Scott, Fox, & Pye, 2004]. Nineteen males with ASD and nineteen typically developing (TD) males matched by nonverbal ability, took part in five Gestalt perceptual grouping tasks. Results showed that performance differed according to grouping type. The ASD group showed typical performance for grouping by proximity and by alignment, impairment on low difficulty trials for orientation and luminance similarity, and general impairment for grouping by shape similarity. Group differences were also observed developmentally; for the ASD group, with the exception of grouping by shape similarity, perceptual grouping performance was poorer at lower than higher levels of nonverbal ability. In contrast, no developmental progression was observed in the TD controls

Pedagogic Integration of Cultural Art-knowledge Contents into Architecture curriculum: Teachers’ Gestalt Acculturation Experience

Most communities of the world acculturate their own identity by the inculcation of art cultures into the spines of citizenry education. Right from the pre-school stage to higher level education, it has been observed that the Art knowledge contents have skewed away from the gate keepers‟ (Accreditation bodies) expectations and requirements in most schools today. The aim of this study is to evaluate the current art knowledge contents in the selected Universities‟ curricula in order to integrate the relevant artknowledge ingredients into the architecture curricula in southwest Nigeria. The methodology employed qualitative-content analysis on the secondary data retrieved from the curriculum of schools, Community Charrette guidelines and art-oriented pedagogic activities. The results yielded pedagogic indices from Art-based curriculum integration, Tenets from hidden curriculum, Gestalt Acculturation experiences and architectural design studio exhibitions of works. The study recommended that relevant pedagogic knowledge Art-culture content (PKC) should be integrated pragmatically into the curricula of schools to preserve the art cultures in architectural Identity and design practices of the future professionals

On the automation of gestalt perception in remotely sensed data

Gestalt perception, the laws of seeing, and perceptual grouping is rarely addressed in the context of remotely sensed imagery. The paper at hand reviews the corresponding state as well in machine vision as in remote sensing, in particular concerning urban areas. Automatic methods can be separated into three types: 1) knowledge-based inference, which needs machine-readable knowledge, 2) automatic learning methods, which require labeled or un-labeled example images, and 3) perceptual grouping along the lines of the laws of seeing, which should be pre-coded and should work on any kind of imagery, but in particular on urban aerial or satellite data. Perceptual grouping of parts into aggregates is a combinatorial problem. Exhaustive enumeration of all combinations is intractable. The paper at hand presents a constant-false-alarm-rate search rationale. An open problem is the choice of the extraction method for the primitive objects to start with. Here super-pixel-segmentation is used

Structural Extension of the Cattell-Horn-Carroll Cross-Battery Approach to Include Measures of Visual-Motor Integration

In spite of the long-standing tradition of including measures of visual-motor integration in psychological evaluations, visual-motor abilities have not been included in the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) theory of cognitive abilities or its complementary cross-battery approach to assessment. The purpose of this research was to identify the shared constructs of a popular test of visual-motor integration and a test of intellectual functioning, and to investigate how a test of visual-motor integration would be classified within the CHC model. A large normative sample of 3,015 participants that ranged in age from 5 to 97 years completed the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test, Second Edition (Bender-Gestalt II; Brannigan & Decker, 2003) and the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, Fifth Edition (SB5; Roid, 2003). Correlational analyses indicated positive moderate correlations across all age ranges between the Bender-Gestalt II Copy measure and the SB5 Nonverbal Visual-Spatial Processing subscale and between the Bender-Gestalt II Recall measure and the SB5 Nonverbal Visual-Spatial Processing and Nonverbal Working Memory subscales. Exploratory factor analyses revealed a three-factor model for four age groupings and four-factor model for one age grouping, suggesting factors which represent crystallized ability, fluid reasoning, and visual-motor ability. The results of this study suggest that the Bender-Gestalt II measures abilities that are not included in the SB5. Therefore, the Bender-Gestalt II would complement an intelligence test such as the SB5 in order to form a CHC Visual Processing (Gv) broad ability factor. These findings also address the need for further research to validate the constructs measured by newer versions of widely-used tests of cognitive ability

A hierarchical image segmentation algorithm based on an observation scale

International audienceHierarchical image segmentation provides a region-oriented scale-space, i.e., a set of image segmentations at different detail levels in which the segmentations at finer levels are nested with respect to those at coarser levels. Most image segmentation algorithms, such as region merging algorithms, rely on a criterion for merging that does not lead to a hierarchy. In addition, for image segmentation, the tuning of the parameters can be difficult. In this work, we propose a hierarchical graph based image segmentation relying on a criterion popularized by Felzenszwalb and Huttenlocher. Quantitative and qualitative assessments of the method on Berkeley image database shows efficiency, ease of use and robustness of our method

Is image analysis based on Gestalt theory a valuable approach teaching photography?

The general aim of the thesis is to justify the claim that image analysis based on Gestalt psychology can be helpful in improving students' understanding and practice in photography. The thesis firstly identifies the technique-led curriculum as the major problem in photographic education in Taiwan as well as in the teacher-researcher's classroom. A new teaching programme integrating image analysis with Gestalt theory was formulated at the beginning of the target semester, in an attempt to develop students' ability to produce and appreciate photographs.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo