Modeling Target-Distractor Discrimination for Haptic Search in a 3D Environment

Moringen A, Aswolinkiy W, Büscher G, Walck G, Haschke R, Ritter H. Modeling Target-Distractor Discrimination for Haptic Search in a 3D Environment. In: IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics. 2018

Change blindness: eradication of gestalt strategies

Arrays of eight, texture-defined rectangles were used as stimuli in a one-shot change blindness (CB) task where there was a 50% chance that one rectangle would change orientation between two successive presentations separated by an interval. CB was eliminated by cueing the target rectangle in the first stimulus, reduced by cueing in the interval and unaffected by cueing in the second presentation. This supports the idea that a representation was formed that persisted through the interval before being 'overwritten' by the second presentation (Landman et al, 2003 Vision Research 43149–164]. Another possibility is that participants used some kind of grouping or Gestalt strategy. To test this we changed the spatial position of the rectangles in the second presentation by shifting them along imaginary spokes (by ±1 degree) emanating from the central fixation point. There was no significant difference seen in performance between this and the standard task [F(1,4)=2.565, p=0.185]. This may suggest two things: (i) Gestalt grouping is not used as a strategy in these tasks, and (ii) it gives further weight to the argument that objects may be stored and retrieved from a pre-attentional store during this task

The multisensory attentional consequences of tool use : a functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Background: Tool use in humans requires that multisensory information is integrated across different locations, from objects seen to be distant from the hand, but felt indirectly at the hand via the tool. We tested the hypothesis that using a simple tool to perceive vibrotactile stimuli results in the enhanced processing of visual stimuli presented at the distal, functional part of the tool. Such a finding would be consistent with a shift of spatial attention to the location where the tool is used. Methodology/Principal Findings: We tested this hypothesis by scanning healthy human participants’ brains using functional magnetic resonance imaging, while they used a simple tool to discriminate between target vibrations, accompanied by congruent or incongruent visual distractors, on the same or opposite side to the tool. The attentional hypothesis was supported: BOLD response in occipital cortex, particularly in the right hemisphere lingual gyrus, varied significantly as a function of tool position, increasing contralaterally, and decreasing ipsilaterally to the tool. Furthermore, these modulations occurred despite the fact that participants were repeatedly instructed to ignore the visual stimuli, to respond only to the vibrotactile stimuli, and to maintain visual fixation centrally. In addition, the magnitude of multisensory (visual-vibrotactile) interactions in participants’ behavioural responses significantly predicted the BOLD response in occipital cortical areas that were also modulated as a function of both visual stimulus position and tool position. Conclusions/Significance: These results show that using a simple tool to locate and to perceive vibrotactile stimuli is accompanied by a shift of spatial attention to the location where the functional part of the tool is used, resulting in enhanced processing of visual stimuli at that location, and decreased processing at other locations. This was most clearly observed in the right hemisphere lingual gyrus. Such modulations of visual processing may reflect the functional importance of visuospatial information during human tool use

Towards Reinforcement Learning of Haptic Search in 3D Environment

Moringen A, Nowainski J, Ritter H. Towards Reinforcement Learning of Haptic Search in 3D Environment.; 2018

Attention-based Robot Learning of Haptic Interaction

Moringen A, Fleer S, Walck G, Ritter H. Attention-based Robot Learning of Haptic Interaction. In: Nisky I, Hartcher-O’Brien J, Wiertlewski M, Smeets J, eds. Haptics: Science, Technology, Applications. 12th International Conference, EuroHaptics 2020, Leiden, The Netherlands, September 6–9, 2020, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol 12272. Cham: Springer; 2020: 462-470.Haptic interaction involved in almost any physical interaction with the environment performed by humans is a highly sophisticated and to a large extent a computationally unmodelled process. Unlike humans, who seamlessly handle a complex mixture of haptic features and profit from their integration over space and time, even the most advanced robots are strongly constrained in performing contact-rich interaction tasks. In this work we approach the described problem by demonstrating the success of our online haptic interaction learning approach on an example task: haptic identification of four unknown objects. Building upon our previous work performed with a floating haptic sensor array, here we show functionality of our approach within a fully-fledged robot simulation. To this end, we utilize the haptic attention model (HAM), a meta-controller neural network architecture trained with reinforcement learning. HAM is able to learn to optimally parameterize a sequence of so-called haptic glances, primitive actions of haptic control derived from elementary human haptic interaction. By coupling a simulated KUKA robot arm with the haptic attention model, we pursue to mimic the functionality of a finger. Our modeling strategy allowed us to arrive at a tactile reinforcement learning architecture and characterize some of its advantages. Owing to a rudimentary experimental setting and an easy acquisition of simulated data, we believe our approach to be particularly useful for both time-efficient robot training and a flexible algorithm prototyping

Sensory Communication

Contains table of contents for Section 2 and reports on five research projects.National Institutes of Health Contract 2 R01 DC00117National Institutes of Health Contract 1 R01 DC02032National Institutes of Health Contract 2 P01 DC00361National Institutes of Health Contract N01 DC22402National Institutes of Health Grant R01-DC001001National Institutes of Health Grant R01-DC00270National Institutes of Health Grant 5 R01 DC00126National Institutes of Health Grant R29-DC00625U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-88-K-0604U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-91-J-1454U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-92-J-1814U.S. Navy - Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division Contract N61339-94-C-0087U.S. Navy - Naval Air Warfare Center Training System Division Contract N61339-93-C-0055U.S. Navy - Office of Naval Research Grant N00014-93-1-1198National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Ames Research Center Grant NCC 2-77