The spatial gradient of visual masking by object substitution

AbstractA mask that has a common onset but delayed offset with the target produces substitution masking, which can be distinguished from pattern masking and metacontrast masking. This study tests the spatial properties of substitution masking: specificity to the target location and asymmetry to the central and the peripheral sides of the target. Results revealed that substitution declined gradually as the mask moved away from the target. Masking was stronger and its gradient declined more slowly as the eccentricity of the target increased. Substitution was asymmetric, stronger for peripheral than central masks. Results are consistent with a refined model of object substitution based on reentrant visual processing

An Empirical Study of Affective Instruction in Comprehensive English Class for English Majors in China

The research aims at exploring that application of affective instruction in English as a foreign language class in China is conducive to students’ cognitive development and target language acquisition. The study involves both quantitative approach depending on the statistical data and qualitative approach to analyze the investigation results. The subjects are 64 sophomores of English majors from School of Foreign Languages at a university in southwestern China. The instruments of the investigation are questionnaires and tests for English majors. The results of the experiments (Research subjects were required to finish questionnaires and testing papers in Sep. 2006 and Jan. 2007 respectively.) indicated that in the pretest the students from two classes are approximately well-matched concerning affective factors and English proficiency, while in the posttest there are changes of students’ affective state between the students from the experimental class and the control class (t=3.405, P<0.001) and some differences of the two classes in English proficiency (t=3.239, P<0.01). Based on these research results, the conclusion is drawn that affective instruction contributes to cultivating students’ positive affect, and positive affect in turn helps students enhance their target language acquisition

A Survey Study: The Correlation between Introversion/Extroversion and Oral English Learning Outcome

Introversion/extroversion is generally considered to be one of the most important factors affecting the success of foreign language learning, especially spoken language. Extroverts are usually thought to be better at learning a foreign spoken language than introverts. With the intention of finding out whether extroverts are better learners of spoken English (learned as a foreign language in China) than introverts, this study investigated 117 English majors’ personality types (in terms of introversion and extroversion) in Chongqing (a municipality city in China), and their spoken English performance through a spoken English test. With the data collected, this paper analyzes the correlation between introversion/extrusion and spoken English performance. The result shows that the two are not correlated. The author discusses factors leading to this phenomenon from various aspects of learning environment, motivation, language intake and output, culture, and concludes that introversion/ extroversion is not a key factor contributing to the success of spoken English learning. The research result is of great significance to both English teachers and learners, especially those who are concerned about their personality (introversion) being a barrier to their oral English learning. What matters most in spoken English learning probably are the strategies that learners employ to improve it, which is well worth researching

Application of neural network in control of a ball-beam balancing system

Neural networks can be considered as a massively parallel distributed processing system with the potential for ever improving performance through dynamical learning. The power of neural networks is in their ability to learn and to store knowledge. Neural networks purport to represent or simulate simplistically the activities of processes that occur in the human brain. The ability to learn is one of the main advantages that make the neural networks so attractive. The fact that it has been successfully applied in the fields of speech analysis, pattern recognition and machine vision gives a constant encouragement to the research activities conducted in the application of neural networks technique to solve engineering problems. One of the less investigated areas is control engineering. In control engineering, neural networks can be used to handle multiple input and output variables of nonlinear function and delayed feedback with high speed. The ability of neural networks to control engineering processes without prior knowledge of the system dynamic very appealing to researchers and engineers in the field. The present work concerns the application of neural network techniques to control a simple ball-beam balancing system. The ball-beam system is an inherent unstable system, in which the ball tends to move to the end of the beam. The task is to control the system so that the ball can be balance at an location of the beam within a short period of time, and the beam be kept at an horizontal position. The state of the art of neural networks and their application in control engineering has been reviewed. The computer simulation of the control system has been performed, using both the conventional Bass-gura (chapter 3) method and the neural network method. In the conventional method the system equations were established using the Lagrangian vanational principle, and Euler method has been used to integrate the equations of movement

Global/Local Processing in Autism: Not a Disability, but a Disinclination

It is widely suggested that ASD is characterized by atypical local/global processing, but the published findings are contradictory. In an effort to resolve this question, we tested a large group of children on both a free-choice task and an instructed task using hierarchical local–global stimuli. We find that although children with autism showed a reduced preference to report global properties of a stimulus when given a choice, their ability to process global properties when instructed to do so is unimpaired. These findings support prior claims that people with ASD show a disinclination, not a disability, in global processing, and highlight the broader question of whether other characteristics of autism may also reflect disinclinations rather than disabilities.Ellison Medical FoundationSimons Foundatio

1D/3D coupling analysis of engine cooling system

In this paper, the FLUENT and KULI soft wares were used to analyze the cooling performance on the radiating module of the cooling system for a heavy vehicle by 1D/3D coupling simulation. According to the analysis, the cooling performance of the existing engine cooling system for heavy vehicles is declined by the gap between the intercooler and radiator in the cooling system. Moreover, the structure of an integrated cooling system was proposed. The wind tunnel experiment model was built in the FLUENT software to analyze the original cooling system and the integrated cooling system by three-dimensional simulation. Then the obtained velocity matrix from 3D simulation was imported into the KULI software to compare the cooling performances of the original system and the integrated system. It was found that the cooling performance of the integrated cooling system is superior to that of the original cooling system