Affordances and Safe Design of Assistance Wearable Virtual Environment of Gesture

Safety and reliability are the main issues for designing assistance wearable virtual environment of technical gesture in aerospace, or health application domains. That needs the integration in the same isomorphic engineering framework of human requirements, systems requirements and the rationale of their relation to the natural and artifactual environment.To explore coupling integration and design functional organization of support technical gesture systems, firstly ecological psychologyprovides usa heuristicconcept: the affordance. On the other hand mathematical theory of integrative physiology provides us scientific concepts: the stabilizing auto-association principle and functional interaction.After demonstrating the epistemological consistence of these concepts, we define an isomorphic framework to describe and model human systems integration dedicated to human in-the-loop system engineering.We present an experimental approach of safe design of assistance wearable virtual environment of gesture based in laboratory and parabolic flights. On the results, we discuss the relevance of our conceptual approach and the applications to future assistance of gesture wearable systems engineering

Model of large scale man-machine systems with an application to vessel traffic control

Mathematical models are discussed to deal with complex large-scale man-machine systems such as vessel (air, road) traffic and process control systems. Only interrelationships between subsystems are assumed. Each subsystem is controlled by a corresponding human operator (HO). Because of the interaction between subsystems, the HO has to estimate the state of all relevant subsystems and the relationships between them, based on which he can decide and react. This nonlinear filter problem is solved by means of both a linearized Kalman filter and an extended Kalman filter (in case state references are unknown and have to be estimated). The general model structure is applied to the concrete problem of vessel traffic control. In addition to the control of each ship, this involves collision avoidance between ship

Perceptual Control Theory for Engagement and Disengagement of Users in Public Spaces

This paper presents Perceptual Control Theory-a model that explains behaviour as an attempt to keep sensory inputs in a desired range and demonstrates that it can be used to develop an approach designed to make robots capable of human interaction. In particular, we present an approach that embodies the most salient features of the theory through a feedback loop. This approach has been implemented on a Pepper robot, and a preliminary experiment has been performed by deploying the robot in the entrance hall of a university building. The results show that the robot effectively engages and disengages the attention of people in 43% and 39% of cases, respectively. This result has been obtained in a fully natural setting where people were unaware of being involved in an experiment and therefore behaved spontaneously

Memory model of information transmitted in absolute judgment

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the popular “information transmitted” interpretation of absolute judgments, and to provide an alternative interpretation if one is needed. Design/methodology/approach – The psychologists Garner and Hake and their successors used Shannon’s Information Theory to quantify information transmitted in absolute judgments of sensory stimuli. Here, information theory is briefly reviewed, followed by a description of the absolute judgment experiment, and its information theory analysis. Empirical channel capacities are scrutinized. A remarkable coincidence, the similarity of maximum information transmitted to human memory capacity, is described. Over 60 representative psychology papers on “information transmitted” are inspected for evidence of memory involvement in absolute judgment. Finally, memory is conceptually integrated into absolute judgment through a novel qualitative model that correctly predicts how judgments change with increase in the number of judged stimuli. Findings – Garner and Hake gave conflicting accounts of how absolute judgments represent information transmission. Further, “channel capacity” is an illusion caused by sampling bias and wishful thinking; information transmitted actually peaks and then declines, the peak coinciding with memory capacity. Absolute judgments themselves have numerous idiosyncracies that are incompatible with a Shannon general communication system but which clearly imply memory dependence. Research limitations/implications – Memory capacity limits the correctness of absolute judgments. Memory capacity is already well measured by other means, making redundant the informational analysis of absolute judgments. Originality/value – This paper presents a long-overdue comprehensive critical review of the established interpretation of absolute judgments in terms of “information transmitted”. An inevitable conclusion is reached: that published measurements of information transmitted actually measure memory capacity. A new, qualitative model is offered for the role of memory in absolute judgments. The model is well supported by recently revealed empirical properties of absolute judgments

A study of the human ability to detect road surface type based on steering wheel vibration feedback

A study was performed to investigate the human ability to detect road surface type based on the associated steering wheel vibration feedback. Tangential direction acceleration time histories measured during road testing of a single mid-sized European automobile were used as the basis for the study. Scaled and frequency filtered copies of two base stimuli were presented to test subjects in a laboratory setting during two experiments which each involved 25 participants. Theory of signal detection (TSD) was adopted as the analytical framework and the results were summarised by means of the detectability index d’ and as receiver operating curve (ROC) points. The results of the experiment to investigate the effect of scaling suggested monotonic relationships between stimulus level and detection for both road surfaces. Detection of the tarmac surface improved with reductions in acceleration level while the opposite was true of the cobblestone surface. The ROC points for both surfaces were characterised by gradual increases in detection as a function of acceleration level, obtaining hit rates of nearly 100% at optimum. The results of the experiment to investigate the effect of frequency bandwidth suggested a monotonically increasing relationship between detectability and the bandwi\dth of the vibration stimuli. Detection of both road surfaces improved with increases in bandwidth. Average hit rates exceeded 80% for stimuli covering the frequency range from 0 to 80 Hz. Human detection of road surface type appears to depend on the long term memory model, or cognitive interpretation mechanism, associated with each surface. The complexity of the measured response suggests the need to categorise and classify incoming data before an optimal choice of feedback stimuli can be made in automotive steering systems

Backwards is the way forward: feedback in the cortical hierarchy predicts the expected future

Clark offers a powerful description of the brain as a prediction machine, which offers progress on two distinct levels. First, on an abstract conceptual level, it provides a unifying framework for perception, action, and cognition (including subdivisions such as attention, expectation, and imagination). Second, hierarchical prediction offers progress on a concrete descriptive level for testing and constraining conceptual elements and mechanisms of predictive coding models (estimation of predictions, prediction errors, and internal models)

The Laminar Organization of Visual Cortex: A Unified View of Development, Learning, and Grouping

Why are all sensory and cognitive neocortex organized into layered circuits? How do these layers organize circuits that form functional columns in cortical maps? How do bottom-up, top-down, and horizontal interactions within the cortical layers generate adaptive behaviors. This chapter summarizes an evolving neural model which suggests how these interactions help the visual cortex to realize: (1) the binding process whereby cortex groups distributed data into coherent object representations; (2) the attentional process whereby cortex selectively processes important events; and (3) the developmental and learning processes whereby cortex shapes its circuits to match environmental constraints. It is suggested that the mechanisms which achieve property (3) imply properties of (I) and (2). New computational ideas about feedback systems suggest how neocortex develops and learns in a stable way, and why top-down attention requires converging bottom-up inputs to fully activate cortical cells, whereas perceptual groupings do not.Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0409); National Science Foundation (IRI-97-20333); Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0657