10,667 research outputs found

    Towards transparent telepresence

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    It is proposed that the concept of transparent telepresence can be closely approached through high fidelity technological mediation. It is argued that the matching of the system capabilities to those of the human user will yield a strong sense of immersion and presence at a remote site. Some applications of such a system are noted. The concept is explained and critical system elements are described together with an overview of some of the necessary system specifications

    Examination of the Colorful Semantic Approach via Telepractice for Children who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

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    Introduction: Hearing loss, deafness or hard of hearing are considered to be the inabilityof perceiving sounds beyond 20 dB. Due to a direct impact of a hearing loss, a developing brain undergoes difficulties in acquiring age-appropriate syntax and speech sounds. As a result, children with hearing loss present language, speech, and literacy disabilities. The current study discusses the efficacy of the colorful semantics approach in order to see its impact on sentence structure development. Methodology: A single subject withdrawal experimental study conducted following ABAB model. Two participants (6 years and 10 years) were recruited to the study following an inclusion and exclusion criteria. The participants were administered colorful semantic therapy sessions for 12 weeks via zoom. The virtual sessions were 45 to 60 minutes long and were administered two times per week. The pre and post language skills and conversational skills were compared using cottage acquisition scales for language, listening and speech (CASLLS) and systematic analysis of language transcripts (SALT). Results: Both participants showed statistically significant improvements at the end of the intervention period. Drastic improvements were observed in four main sentence structures along with improvements in prepositions and pronouns,tenses and negations, verbs and modals and nouns and noun modifiers. The overall clarity of speech in conversations was identified according to the decline in number of mazes ( participant 1- pre intervention 11 and post intervention 7, Participant 2- pre intervention 4 and post intervention 3), number of maze words ( participant 1- pre intervention 32 and post intervention 7, Participant 2- pre intervention 5 and post intervention 3). Both participants were able to generalize conversational skills such as clarify information by repeating, using descriptions to clarifying information, using long detailed conversations and using primitive narratives in to many different contexts. The improvements in the mentioned language areas imply the effectiveness of the approach even within the virtual mode of delivery. More investigations should be done with a larger participant group to generalize the findings

    The Role of the Unconscious in the Perception of Risks

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    Dr. Fritzsche argues that our world is too rational and that the psychology of the unconscious, as developed by Jung, can be key to understanding responses to hazards and to resolving conflicts that arise in the political management of risks

    Selling Kawaii in Advertising: Testing Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Kawaii Appeals

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    Kawaii (cute) culture has become a major global consumer culture. Advertisers in Asia have adopted kawaii appeals to attract attention and promote product images. From a cultural value perspective, this literature review proposes that culture not only affects ad content and appeal, but also influences consumer attitude and ad effects. While kawaii appeals are culturally specified, the effects of those appeals across distinct cultures might be systemically predictable. Today, the concept of kawaii and its effects still remains vague to Western academia. This thesis provides a deeper understanding of kawaii examining the rich origin of kawaii culture in Japan and its expansion and globalization as a dominant consumer culture. Online surveys using specifically designed stimuli were administrated to respondents from both individualistic and collectivistic cultures. The thesis thus develops a theoretical definition for kawaii within the advertising appeal context and a measurement scheme for utilizing its multidimensional composite constructs. Based on the self-congruity hypothesis, it is argued that culturally shaped self-construals affect responses to ads employing kawaii appeals. Kawaii appeals which stress interdependence should be more persuasive among consumers with self-construals congruent with the message. Findings suggested that kawaii appeals were perceived to be friendlier in both United States and China, while consumers with domain interdependent self-construal expressed stronger self-brand connection, more favorable ad attitude and purchase intention toward the kawaii ads

    Scene extraction in motion pictures

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    This paper addresses the challenge of bridging the semantic gap between the rich meaning users desire when they query to locate and browse media and the shallowness of media descriptions that can be computed in today\u27s content management systems. To facilitate high-level semantics-based content annotation and interpretation, we tackle the problem of automatic decomposition of motion pictures into meaningful story units, namely scenes. Since a scene is a complicated and subjective concept, we first propose guidelines from fill production to determine when a scene change occurs. We then investigate different rules and conventions followed as part of Fill Grammar that would guide and shape an algorithmic solution for determining a scene. Two different techniques using intershot analysis are proposed as solutions in this paper. In addition, we present different refinement mechanisms, such as film-punctuation detection founded on Film Grammar, to further improve the results. These refinement techniques demonstrate significant improvements in overall performance. Furthermore, we analyze errors in the context of film-production techniques, which offer useful insights into the limitations of our method

    Gamut extension algorithm development and evaluation for the mapping of standard image content to wide-gamut displays

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    Wide-gamut display technology has provided an excellent opportunity to produce visually pleasing images, more so than in the past. However, through several studies, including Laird and Heynderick, 2008, it was shown that linearly mapping the standard sRGB content to the gamut boundary of a given wide-gamut display may not result in optimal results. Therefore, several algorithms were developed and evaluated for observer preference, including both linear and sigmoidal expansion algorithms, in an effort to define a single, versatile gamut expansion algorithm (GEA) that can be applied to current display technology and produce the most preferable images for observers. The outcome provided preference results from two displays, both of which resulted in large scene dependencies. However, the sigmoidal GEAs (SGEA) were competitive with the linear GEAs (LGEA), and in many cases, resulted in more pleasing reproductions. The SGEAs provide an excellent baseline, in which, with minor improvements, could be key to producing more impressive images on a wide-gamut display

    The use of Google Jamboard for synchronous collaborative reading strategies: The students’ acceptance

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    This study employed a mixed-method approach through administrating the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) questionnaire and conducting in-depth interviews. TAM was used in this study to gain insight into the students' reactions to the technology used for online language learning, especially the acceptance of using Google Jamboard integrated with video conferencing for synchronous collaborative reading comprehension activities. Sixty-three undergraduate students were selected purposefully from the English Language Education Department who enrolled in Literal Reading course in a full-online learning instruction. From the findings, with the regard to the students' acceptance, they confirmed a positive attitude toward using this application, despite the fact that some of them thought it was a new application. As a result, perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of use were rated as moderately high. Many students agreed that the online platform used was immensely useful and simple to use. Meanwhile, some of them experienced technical issues when using this platform, impeding their learning process. Additionally, some pedagogical suggestions also further explored

    Can you see what i am talking about? Human speech triggers referential expectation in four-month-old infants

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    Infants’ sensitivity to selectively attend to human speech and to process it in a unique way has been widely reported in the past. However, in order to successfully acquire language, one should also understand that speech is a referential, and that words can stand for other entities in the world. While there has been some evidence showing that young infants can make inferences about the communicative intentions of a speaker, whether they would also appreciate the direct relationship between a specific word and its referent, is still unknown. In the present study we tested four-month-old infants to see whether they would expect to find a referent when they hear human speech. Our results showed that compared to other auditory stimuli or to silence, when infants were listening to speech they were more prepared to find some visual referents of the words, as signalled by their faster orienting towards the visual objects. Hence, our study is the first to report evidence that infants at a very young age already understand the referential relationship between auditory words and physical objects, thus show a precursor in appreciating the symbolic nature of language, even if they do not understand yet the meanings of words
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