Proceedings of the 2nd IUI Workshop on Interacting with Smart Objects

These are the Proceedings of the 2nd IUI Workshop on Interacting with Smart Objects. Objects that we use in our everyday life are expanding their restricted interaction capabilities and provide functionalities that go far beyond their original functionality. They feature computing capabilities and are thus able to capture information, process and store it and interact with their environments, turning them into smart objects

Knowledge management framework based on brain models and human physiology

The life of humans and most living beings depend on sensation and perception for the best assessment of the surrounding world. Sensorial organs acquire a variety of stimuli that are interpreted and integrated in our brain for immediate use or stored in memory for later recall. Among the reasoning aspects, a person has to decide what to do with available information. Emotions are classifiers of collected information, assigning a personal meaning to objects, events and individuals, making part of our own identity. Emotions play a decisive role in cognitive processes as reasoning, decision and memory by assigning relevance to collected information. The access to pervasive computing devices, empowered by the ability to sense and perceive the world, provides new forms of acquiring and integrating information. But prior to data assessment on its usefulness, systems must capture and ensure that data is properly managed for diverse possible goals. Portable and wearable devices are now able to gather and store information, from the environment and from our body, using cloud based services and Internet connections. Systems limitations in handling sensorial data, compared with our sensorial capabilities constitute an identified problem. Another problem is the lack of interoperability between humans and devices, as they do not properly understand human’s emotional states and human needs. Addressing those problems is a motivation for the present research work. The mission hereby assumed is to include sensorial and physiological data into a Framework that will be able to manage collected data towards human cognitive functions, supported by a new data model. By learning from selected human functional and behavioural models and reasoning over collected data, the Framework aims at providing evaluation on a person’s emotional state, for empowering human centric applications, along with the capability of storing episodic information on a person’s life with physiologic indicators on emotional states to be used by new generation applications

Attention Restraint, Working Memory Capacity, and Mind Wandering: Do Emotional Valence or Intentionality Matter?

Attention restraint appears to mediate the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and mind wandering (Kane et al., 2016). Prior work has identifed two dimensions of mind wandering—emotional valence and intentionality. However, less is known about how WMC and attention restraint correlate with these dimensions. Te current study examined the relationship between WMC, attention restraint, and mind wandering by emotional valence and intentionality. A confrmatory factor analysis demonstrated that WMC and attention restraint were strongly correlated, but only attention restraint was related to overall mind wandering, consistent with prior fndings. However, when examining the emotional valence of mind wandering, attention restraint and WMC were related to negatively and positively valenced, but not neutral, mind wandering. Attention restraint was also related to intentional but not unintentional mind wandering. Tese results suggest that WMC and attention restraint predict some, but not all, types of mind wandering

Psychological Engagement in Choice and Judgment Under Risk and Uncertainty

Theories of choice and judgment assume that agents behave rationally, choose the higher expected value option, and evaluate the choice consistently (Expected Utility Theory, Von Neumann, & Morgenstern, 1947). However, researchers in decision-making showed that human behaviour is different in choice and judgement tasks (Slovic & Lichtenstein, 1968; 1971; 1973). In this research, we propose that psychological engagement and control deprivation predict behavioural inconsistencies and utilitarian performance with judgment and choice. Moreover, we explore the influences of engagement and control deprivation on agent’s behaviours, while manipulating content of utility (Kusev et al., 2011, Hertwig & Gigerenzer 1999, Tversky & Khaneman, 1996) and decision reward (Kusev et al, 2013, Shafir et al., 2002)

Une méthode pour l'évaluation de la qualité des images 3D stéréoscopiques.

Dans le contexte d'un intérêt grandissant pour les systèmes stéréoscopiques, mais sans méthodes reproductible pour estimer leur qualité, notre travail propose une contribution à la meilleure compréhension des mécanismes de perception et de jugement humains relatifs au concept multi-dimensionnel de qualité d'image stéréoscopique. Dans cette optique, notre démarche s'est basée sur un certain nombre d'outils : nous avons proposé un cadre adapté afin de structurer le processus d'analyse de la qualité des images stéréoscopiques, nous avons implémenté dans notre laboratoire un système expérimental afin de conduire plusieurs tests, nous avons crée trois bases de données d'images stéréoscopiques contenant des configurations précises et enfin nous avons conduit plusieurs expériences basées sur ces collections d'images. La grande quantité d'information obtenue par l'intermédiaire de ces expérimentations a été utilisée afin de construire un premier modèle mathématique permettant d'expliquer la perception globale de la qualité de la stéréoscopie en fonction des paramètres physiques des images étudiée.In a context of ever-growing interest in stereoscopic systems, but where no standardized algorithmic methods of stereoscopic quality assessment exist, our work stands as a step forward in the understanding of the human perception and judgment mechanisms related to the multidimensional concept of stereoscopic image quality. We used a series of tools in order to perform in-depth investigations in this direction: we proposed an adapted framework to structure the process of stereoscopic quality assessment, we implemented a stereoscopic system in our laboratory for performing various tests, we created three stereoscopic datasets with precise structures, and we performed several experimental studies using these datasets. The numerous experimental data obtained were used in order to propose a first mathematical framework for explaining the overall percept of stereoscopic quality in function of the physical parameters of the stereoscopic images under study.SAVOIE-SCD - Bib.électronique (730659901) / SudocGRENOBLE1/INP-Bib.électronique (384210012) / SudocGRENOBLE2/3-Bib.électronique (384219901) / SudocSudocFranceF

Attention and automaticity in social judgments from facial appearance: Cognitive and neural mechanisms

Recent evidence from behavioural and cognitive-neuroscience experiments has already yielded exciting discoveries into how we might code, process and perform judgments of facial social stimuli (indeed research into the latter provides a good vehicle for examining vision and object recognition in general). Nevertheless, the evidence regarding the role of top down control in face processing and the significance of the role of attentional capacity limits is contradictory or indeed absent in certain facial social trait judgments such as trustworthiness. In this thesis, I seek to present a portrayal of these roles, directed by load theory. Load theory suggests that perception has limited capacity but proceeds automatically on all stimuli until capacity is exhausted. Whether this process applies to arguably exceptional stimulus classes such as faces is contentious. Moreover, how this is related to social facial judgments such as trustworthiness, as compared to other evaluations such as threat and dominance judgments is unknown, as up until now, research on face-attention interactions has focused on directing visuospatial attention to emotional visual information rather than to facial trait judgments such as trustworthiness. In spite of this, the theory's predictions are clear; increasing the perceptual load of a task should consume capacity, thereby reducing processing of stimuli external to that task. Here I show that these predictions hold only for certain types of facial image evaluations but not for others. In a series of experiments that applied load theory, employing a combined visual search and face judgment task (where the level of attentional load in the search task was manipulated by varying the search set size of similar non-target letters), I find that under high perceptual load, observers become moderately less able to classify certain facial targets e.g. trustworthy ones as compared to dominant ones, even when these stimuli are fully expected and serve as targets. I also show the robustness of perceptual load effects by countering possible confounds and alternative explanations. Potential order effects are countered by reversing the order of the experiment, indicating that a possible attenuated short term memory imprint for the facial stimuli does not change the pattern of results previously experimentally demonstrated. Additionally, I find that high working memory load does not reduce social judgment evaluations under load, suggesting that perceptual biases during competitive interactions in visual processing are causative of the earlier demonstrated load effects. Following on from the modest but resilient results for trustworthiness modulation experimentally demonstrated here, the issue of bias for trustworthiness judgments is addressed in a signal detection paradigm (allowing bias to be discounted as a likely explanation of load effects). In the wake of the relatively robust results for trustworthiness perceptual load modulation, a new avenue for trustworthy judgments under attention is explored, investigating the possible role of dopamine in such evaluations in a clinical cohort of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients (as contrasted to age matched controls). PD has been linked with facial expression judgment impairment, although, this impairment could be subordinate to other cognitive processes enmeshed in facial evaluation, such as selective attention. Our results once again point to a pervasive role for perceptual load modulation of facial judgments, rather than a specific attentional deficit of PD. Finally, I explore the neurobiological correlates associated with facial social evaluations under perceptual load. In a neuroimaging study, I show neural responses to trustworthy facial images interact with attentional demands, demonstrating reduced activity under high perceptual load. I found high load only affects the facial components of trustworthiness (as compared to neutral faces) in cortical areas involved in social and facial processing (but not the facial signal components of untrustworthiness as compared to their neutral counterparts). The effects of load being specific to the trustworthy aspects of faces coheres with earlier presented behavioural results. As a final point, the demonstrated findings of negative-linear effects in the amygdala are consistent with prior research underlining the role of the amygdala in facial trustworthy judgments. This research presented here, although subtle in some experiments, provides convergent evidence that top-down cognitive and neural mechanisms are involved in influencing the degree to which facial visual judgments are processed. The results demonstrate the role of attentional modulation in facial social judgments and illuminate a possible role of perceptual load and attention in the facial automaticity debate. Both the type of facial judgment and category of facial valence are factors which determine the efficacy of perceptual load effects in facial evaluations

Quantifying Quality of Life

Describes technological methods and tools for objective and quantitative assessment of QoL Appraises technology-enabled methods for incorporating QoL measurements in medicine Highlights the success factors for adoption and scaling of technology-enabled methods This open access book presents the rise of technology-enabled methods and tools for objective, quantitative assessment of Quality of Life (QoL), while following the WHOQOL model. It is an in-depth resource describing and examining state-of-the-art, minimally obtrusive, ubiquitous technologies. Highlighting the required factors for adoption and scaling of technology-enabled methods and tools for QoL assessment, it also describes how these technologies can be leveraged for behavior change, disease prevention, health management and long-term QoL enhancement in populations at large. Quantifying Quality of Life: Incorporating Daily Life into Medicine fills a gap in the field of QoL by providing assessment methods, techniques and tools. These assessments differ from the current methods that are now mostly infrequent, subjective, qualitative, memory-based, context-poor and sparse. Therefore, it is an ideal resource for physicians, physicians in training, software and hardware developers, computer scientists, data scientists, behavioural scientists, entrepreneurs, healthcare leaders and administrators who are seeking an up-to-date resource on this subject