Ecological perception: seeing systems

Graphic designers have the unique ability to make hidden ecological processes visible by revealing relationships, patterns and dynamics in complex socio-ecological systems. This paper describes how communication design can support relational perceptual practices and even nurture ecological perception. It presents specific methods to harness the latent potential of graphic design to communicate the context, comparisons, connections and causality. It proposes that aesthetics experiences can provoke deep perceptual insights supporting new ways of perceiving our relationship with the environment, our ecological context. In ways described in this paper, graphic design has the potential to nurture the ability to ‘see systems’ – supporting both ecological perception and ecological literacy

Ecological perception of fish farmers in Yenagoa Metropolis, Nigeria

The environment plays a keystone role as a hub for biotic and abiotic interaction. Ecological interactions (positive or negative) are reflection of the environmental status quo. Some human activities have grossly infringe on vital components of the ecosystem. A total of 100 questionnaires were administered to fish farmers in Yenagoa metropolis, Nigeria and 80% were retrieved (55% male and 45% female). Furthermore, about 62.50 – 77.50% is with the opinion that temperature, flooding rate, precipitation and pollutants depositions have increased and wind pattern getting warmer, while 43.75 – 52.50% responded that there is change in spawning time, decrease in fish production and juvenile availability, extinction and presence of invasive species. The study confirm the need to adopt multifaceted approaches in sustaining our ecosystem in order to mitigate adverse effects as well as ensure the bioavalability of keystone species

Sketching sonic interactions by imitation-driven sound synthesis

Sketching is at the core of every design activity. In visual design, pencil and paper are the preferred tools to produce sketches for their simplicity and immediacy. Analogue tools for sonic sketching do not exist yet, although voice and gesture are embodied abilities commonly exploited to communicate sound concepts. The EU project SkAT-VG aims to support vocal sketching with computeraided technologies that can be easily accessed, understood and controlled through vocal and gestural imitations. This imitation-driven sound synthesis approach is meant to overcome the ephemerality and timbral limitations of human voice and gesture, allowing to produce more refined sonic sketches and to think about sound in a more designerly way. This paper presents two main outcomes of the project: The Sound Design Toolkit, a palette of basic sound synthesis models grounded on ecological perception and physical description of sound-producing phenomena, and SkAT-Studio, a visual framework based on sound design workflows organized in stages of input, analysis, mapping, synthesis, and output. The integration of these two software packages provides an environment in which sound designers can go from concepts, through exploration and mocking-up, to prototyping in sonic interaction design, taking advantage of all the possibilities of- fered by vocal and gestural imitations in every step of the process

The active inference approach to ecological perception: general information dynamics for natural and artificial embodied cognition

The emerging neurocomputational vision of humans as embodied, ecologically embedded, social agents—who shape and are shaped by their environment—offers a golden opportunity to revisit and revise ideas about the physical and information-theoretic underpinnings of life, mind, and consciousness itself. In particular, the active inference framework (AIF) makes it possible to bridge connections from computational neuroscience and robotics/AI to ecological psychology and phenomenology, revealing common underpinnings and overcoming key limitations. AIF opposes the mechanistic to the reductive, while staying fully grounded in a naturalistic and information-theoretic foundation, using the principle of free energy minimization. The latter provides a theoretical basis for a unified treatment of particles, organisms, and interactive machines, spanning from the inorganic to organic, non-life to life, and natural to artificial agents. We provide a brief introduction to AIF, then explore its implications for evolutionary theory, ecological psychology, embodied phenomenology, and robotics/AI research. We conclude the paper by considering implications for machine consciousness

Efficient energy use and renewable sources of energy in Slovenia

This paper presents unique survey results with opinions on the competitive supply and efficient energy use, sources of energy and renewable sources of energy. The multivariate factor analysis with three common factors confirms the significance of the price competitive supply of energy, energy costs for the economy, and the sustainable energy supply development and ecological perception in the energy use. Among renewable sources of energy, significance is given to the solar, hydro, biogas, and biomass energy, where the energy useand the renewable energy production in agriculture can play a greater role. Education and promotion activities are expressed as important for strengthening the knowledge, awareness, and social responsibility of the sustainable energy development and the use of renewable sources of energy

Down the Slant towards the Eye: Hopkins and Ecological Perception

This essay reads Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poetry for its “ecological perception”: a perceptual modality involving the dynamic interaction between human bodies and environmental givens or potentialities. Linking Hopkins’s syncretic ideas about perception to the psychologist J. J. Gibson’s account of our sensitivity to environmental “affordances,” the essay assesses three scales of ecological perception in Hopkins (arboreal, atmospheric, apocalyptic) and stresses the particular relevance of the intermediate (atmospheric) scale for our experience of environmental crisis. In “The Blessed Virgin compared to the Air we Breathe,” Hopkins recognizes the “teleconnections” bridging global systems and specific sites without remaining rooted to the local or bioregional (arboreal) or rushing to a vantage beyond planetary confines (apocalyptic)

A Simple Theory of Every 'Thing'

One of the criteria to a strong principle in natural sciences is simplicity. This paper claims that the Free Energy Principle (FEP), by virtue of unifying particles with mind, is the simplest. Motivated by Hilbert’s 24th problem of simplicity, the argument is made that the FEP takes a seemingly mathematical complex domain and reduces it to something simple. More specifically, it is attempted to show that every ‘thing’, from particles to mind, can be partitioned into systemic states by virtue of self-organising symmetry break, i.e. self-entropy in terms of the balance between risk and ambiguity to achieve epistemic gain. By virtue of its explanatory reach, the FEP becomes the simplest principle under quantum, statistical and classical mechanics conditions

Possibilidades afetivas : a percepção direta encontra a afetividade

In this paper, I explore and examine different ways in which affectivity is related toperception within ecological psychology. I assess whether some of those wayscompromise the realist and direct aspects of traditional ecological perception. I sus-tain that they don’t. Affectivity, at least in some cases, turns the perception of fine-grained affordances possible. For an engaged perceiver, affectivity is not optional.Neste artigo, eu exploro e examino diferentes maneiras pelas quais a afetividade está relacionada à percepção na psicologia ecológica. Eu avalio se algumas dessas maneiras compromete os aspectos realista e direto da percepção ecológica tradicional. Eu sustento que elas não comprometem. A afetividade, ao menos em alguns casos, torna possível a percepção de affordances refinadas. Para um percebedor engajado, a afetividade não é opcional

Analysing and modelling train driver performance

Arguments for the importance of contextual factors in understanding human performance have been made extremely persuasive in the context of the process control industries. This paper puts these arguments into the context of the train driving task, drawing on an extensive analysis of driver performance with the Automatic Warning System (AWS). The paper summarises a number of constructs from applied psychological research which are thought to be important in understanding train driver performance. A “Situational Model” is offered as a framework for investigating driver performance. The model emphasises the importance of understanding the state of driver cognition at a specific time (“Now”) in a specific situation and a specific context