7,961 research outputs found

    Prior knowledge about events depicted in scenes decreases oculomotor exploration.

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    The visual input that the eyes receive usually contains temporally continuous information about unfolding events. Therefore, humans can accumulate knowledge about their current environment. Typical studies on scene perception, however, involve presenting multiple unrelated images and thereby render this accumulation unnecessary. Our study, instead, facilitated it and explored its effects. Specifically, we investigated how recently-accumulated prior knowledge affects gaze behavior. Participants viewed sequences of static film frames that contained several 'context frames' followed by a 'critical frame'. The context frames showed either events from which the situation depicted in the critical frame naturally followed, or events unrelated to this situation. Therefore, participants viewed identical critical frames while possessing prior knowledge that was either relevant or irrelevant to the frames' content. In the former case, participants' gaze behavior was slightly more exploratory, as revealed by seven gaze characteristics we analyzed. This result demonstrates that recently-gained prior knowledge reduces exploratory eye movements

    Kinect Range Sensing: Structured-Light versus Time-of-Flight Kinect

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    Recently, the new Kinect One has been issued by Microsoft, providing the next generation of real-time range sensing devices based on the Time-of-Flight (ToF) principle. As the first Kinect version was using a structured light approach, one would expect various differences in the characteristics of the range data delivered by both devices. This paper presents a detailed and in-depth comparison between both devices. In order to conduct the comparison, we propose a framework of seven different experimental setups, which is a generic basis for evaluating range cameras such as Kinect. The experiments have been designed with the goal to capture individual effects of the Kinect devices as isolatedly as possible and in a way, that they can also be adopted, in order to apply them to any other range sensing device. The overall goal of this paper is to provide a solid insight into the pros and cons of either device. Thus, scientists that are interested in using Kinect range sensing cameras in their specific application scenario can directly assess the expected, specific benefits and potential problem of either device.Comment: 58 pages, 23 figures. Accepted for publication in Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU

    Science aspects of a 1980 flyby of Comet Encke with a Pioneer spacecraft

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    Results are presented of an investigation of the feasibility of a 1980 flyby of Comet Encke using a Pioneer class spacecraft. Specific areas studied include: science objectives and rationale; science observables; effects of encounter velocity; science encounter and targeting requirements; selection and description of science instruments; definition of a candidate science payload; engineering characteristics of suggested payload; value of a separable probe; science instruments for a separable probe; science payload integration problems; and science operations profile

    States of suspension : exploring suspended experience of sound and light in popular music and imagery

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    This practice-based research project explores, defines and demonstrates the state of spatio-temporal suspension, or suspended experience, where abstract characteristics of sound and light in music and imagery coalesce to afford audience and performer the experience of liminal or “between” aesthetic zones, in turn providing a gateway into imaginative worlds. Informed by the author’s background in the performance and composition of forms of experimental popular music as well as graphic design and photography, the investigation utilises a combination of creative research methods and research-led analysis within a phenomenological framework to interrogate the physiological and neurological basis for this state. In order to better understand and define this concept, relevant creative exemplars including music and music videos, experimental films and site-specific installations are examined. The analysis draws upon a range of relevant philosophies and theories of perception relating to time and space, including phenomenology, liminality, the Japanese concept of Ma and heterotopia. Perceptual and psychological theories, including affect as felt experience and its role in aesthetics are considered, as well as embodied cognition in aesthetics and ecological approaches to perception. These theories and concepts consider humans as integral parts of a dynamic ecosystem of individual and shared information and perception, providing insight into the perceptual basis of suspension and why it is often encountered as a cross-modal experience. Through the analysis of creative works and the author’s self-observation and journaling of the audiovisual exploration of suspension in performance and practice, the research identifies compositional features that are prevalent in works that facilitate and enhance the potential for suspended experience. These features are explored and realised through creative works that examine how suspension is imparted through an audiovisual composition, how it is experienced by the practitioner through the recording process and as an improvised performance, and how the works are received and experienced by others, via examination of responses to specially designed reception tests. The findings are expressed in the conception and realisation of two major bodies of work: an audiovisual suite, Suspension Studies (2020), comprised of musical and visual studies of suspension as an immobile work; and a site-specific performance work, States of Suspension (2018), which affords audiences and performers an active aesthetic experience of suspension in situ. The enquiry contributes to the understanding of a relatively unexplored phenomenon in music and visual arts and intends to encourage further discourse and investigation into this topic

    Fixation duration and the learning process: an eye tracking study with subtitled videos

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    Learning is a complex phenomenon and education researchers are increasingly focussing on processes that go into it. Eye tracking has become an important tool in such research. In this paper, we focus on one of the most commonly used metrics in eye tracking, namely, fixation duration. Fixation duration has been used to study cognition and attention. However, fixation duration distributions are characteristically non-normal and heavily skewed to the right. Therefore, the use of a single average value, such as the mean fixation duration, to predict cognition and/or attention could be problematic. This is especially true in studies of complex constructs, such as learning, which are governed by both cognitive and affective processes. We collected eye tracking data from 51 students watching a 12 min long educational video with and without subtitles. The learning gain after watching the video was calculated with pre- and post-test scores. Several multiple linear regression models revealed a) fixation duration can explain a substantial fraction of variation in the pre-post data, which indicates its usefulness in the study of learning processes; b) the arithmetic mean of fixation durations, which is the most commonly reported eye tracking metric, may not be the optimal choice; and c) a phenomenological model of fixation durations where the number of fixations over different temporal ranges are used as inputs seemed to perform the best. The results and their implications for learning process research are discussed
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