Showing papers on "Perceptual psychology published in 2002"

Cognitive Science: A Philosophical Introduction

Abstract: PART ONE: THE NATURE AND METHODS OF SCIENCE A Science for Psychology The Natural Sciences Understanding Scientific Method PART TWO: THE SEARCH FOR A SCIENCE OF HUMAN BEHAVIOUR Psychology as the Science of Mental Substance Psychology as the Science of Material Substance The Beginnings of Cognitive Science PART THREE: TOWARDS A SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY Grammar and Cognition Cognitive Science The Analytical Phase Connectionism and the Brain PART FOUR: COGNITIVE SCIENCE IN ACTION The Memory Machine The Psychology of Classifying Cognitive Disorders

Augmented-reality visualizations guided by cognition: perceptual heuristics for combining visible and obscured information

Abstract: One of the unique applications of Mixed and Augmented Reality (MR/AR) systems is that hidden and occluded objects can be readily visualized. We call this specialized use of MR/AR, Obscured Information Visualization (OIV). In this paper, we describe the beginning of a research program designed to develop such visualizations through the use of principles derived from perceptual psychology and cognitive science. In this paper we surveyed the cognitive science literature as it applies to such visualization tasks, described experimental questions derived from these cognitive principles, and generated general guidelines that can be used in designing future OIV systems (as well improving AR displays more generally). Here we also report the results from an experiment that utilized a functioning AR-OIV system: we found that in a relative depth judgment, subjects reported rendered objects as being in front of real-world objects, except when additional occlusion and motion cues were presented together.

A rose by any other name...would probably be given an acronym [cognitive systems engineering]

Abstract: In this article, we concern ourselves with characterizations of the "new" approaches to the design of complex sociotechnical systems, and we use a biological classification scheme to organize the discussion. Until fairly recently, the design of complex sociotechnical systems was primarily known as "cognitive engineering" or "cognitive systems engineering" (CSE), a term introduced to denote an emerging branch of applied cognitive psychology. A number of new terms have since emerged, all of which might be considered members of the genus "human-centered computing" (HCC). A number of varieties have entered the fray, resulting in an "acronym soup" of terms that have been offered to designate "the" new approach to cognitive engineering. Using the rose metaphor, and taking some liberties with Latin, this article is organized around a set of "genuses" into which the individual "varieties" seem to fall.

Evaluating space perception in NPR immersive environments

Abstract: Non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) methods allow us to emphasize or omit detail in order to communicate information more effectively. An important issue to consider is how can we evaluate and validate the communication adequacy of these techniques? In this paper we present a methodology for quantitatively evaluating spatial perception in a functional, NPR, stereo, immersive environment. The methods described in this paper borrow from both the art and perceptual psychology communities and will provide NPR researchers with a methodology for conducting user studies to perceptually validate new rendering approaches within immersive environments.

Trafficking in cognition: applying cognitive psychology to driving

Abstract: This paper summarises a Presidential Address to the Division of Traffic and Transportation Psychology at the 2002 International Congress of Applied Psychology It considers whether traffic psychology is a distinct area of psychology, and concludes that the range of psychological approaches that understanding drivers and traffic requires is too pervasive for it to be so The difficulties and shortcomings of various attempts to apply cognitive psychology to driving and traffic are explored, with respect to perceptual, motor and skilled aspects of the driving task Examples are given of how ‘understanding driving’ poses theoretical challenges to mainstream cognitive psychology that have yet to be satisfactorily resolved

Thinking about Political Psychology: The Challenges of Political Psychology: Lessons to Be Learned from Research on Attitude Perception

Abstract: Political psychology is a relatively young empirical enterprise. As dated by research involving quantitative techniques such as sample surveys and laboratory experiments, political psychology does not begin to approach the long histories of chemistry, physics, and astronomy. And even considering the application of typically qualitative analytic methods such as case studies and historical document analysis, our enterprise is in its relative youth (see, e.g., Hermann 1986). Partly as a result of our youth and partly as a reflection of it, we have not experienced the dramatic paradigm shifts that other sciences have (see, e.g., Kuhn 1970). Whereas other disciplines have seen the rise and fall of major organizing theoretical perspectives, we have shown no signs yet of rejecting old overarching perspectives in favor of new ones. There have also been no dramatic shifts during the history of political psychology in terms of the methods we employ to evaluate our hypotheses empirically. This is not to say that methods are uniformly employed by investigators across the subfield; clearly, this is not the case. But the current state of affairs seems to be one of tolerance of a multiplicity of methods, rather than a universal sense that some methods have proven not to be useful while others are. Yet a close look at the history of studies in some areas of political psychology suggests that there might be some useful lessons to be learned about the value of certain methods over others.

Biology Is to Medicine as Psychology Is to Education: True or False?

Abstract: The nature of the relationship between developmental and cognitive psychology on the one side and education on the other can be better appreciated by considering two other relationships between academic disciplines and areas of application and practice as source domains for an analogy.

Trends in cognitive psychology

Abstract: Cognitive psychology is concerned with several mental processes, including those involved in perception, attention, learning, memory, problem solving, decision making and the use of language. It is often said that cognitive psychology tries to understand how people represent their experience and then use these representations to operate effectively. Cognitive psychology holds that people are not passive organisms whose mental representations are simple or direct reflections of the outside world. Rater, they are active processors of environmental events, and as such they bring their past knowledge and their biases to bear on how they perceive and understand all current events. Thus perceiving, imagining, thinking, remembering, forming concepts, and solving problems, indeed all aspects of people's mental lives, define the domain of cognitive exploration. This book presents important research which was carefully selected and screened for both current relevance and long-term advancement of the field.

Cultural Syndromes and Cognitive Psychology

Abstract: In all scientific studies, the way in which the initial questions or hypotheses are framed determines to a great extent what sort of answers will emerge. In two recent articles in this journal, Hinton, Um, and Ba (2001a, 2001b) put forward the hypothesis that ‘the greater the number of cultural syndromes indicating that commonly encountered bodily experiences of autonomic arousal may result in rapid death, the more likely it is that members of that society will suffer panic disorder’ (2001a, p. 405). This hypothesis is tested in regard to Khmer beliefs about kyol goeu and the prevalence of panic disorder in this population. The hypothesis here simply assumes the validity of the diagnosis ‘panic disorder’ without further discussion. To my mind this sits uncomfortably in an article in Transcultural Psychiatry where we have come to expect a more questioning approach to the DSM and its categories. But I shall return to this below. Kyol goeu is a syndrome in which the person experiences wind moving inside the body. This is associated with other experiences such as nausea, dizziness and headache. One of the patients described in these articles also had a ‘shaking’ sensation in the chest and likened this to the ‘jerky motions of a rice milling machine’ (p. 407). Central to the syndrome is the Khmer understanding of (and experience of) wind in the body. One of the ‘cultural experts’ quoted in the article, outlined in some detail the way in which Khmer people describe the effects of wind moving internally causing effects such as thickening and coagulation of the blood (2001a, p. 409). There are

Recent exact aesthetics applications

Abstract: Exact aesthetics is a challenging field of the computer-aided visual creativity, reconstructing the methods of design and criticism on an algorithmic basis and integrating a computer into processes of an artistic creation and aesthetic evaluation. The discipline involves principles of mathematics, geometry, theory of communication, perceptual psychology, computer graphics, or generative arts into classifying and assessing the aesthetic phenomena. The sketch introduces recent applications in this domain.

Copyright © Imprint Academic 2002 Reproduction permitted for single personal use only Unauthorised transmission, publication and web uploads prohibited

Abstract: In this paper I explore a brand of scepticism about perceptual experience that takes its start from recent work in psychology and philosophy of mind on change blindness and related phenomena. I argue that the new scepticism rests on a problematic phenomenology of perceptual experience. I then consider a strengthened version of the sceptical challenge that seems to be immune to this criticism. This strengthened sceptical challenge formulates what I call the problem of perceptual presence. I show how this problem can be addressed by drawing on an enactive or sensorimotor approach to perceptual consciousness. Our experience of environmental detail consists in our access to that detail thanks to our possession of practical knowledge of the way in which what we do and sensory stimulation depend on each other. Traditional scepticism about perceptual experience questions whether we can know that things are as we experience them as being. This paper targets a new form of scepticism about experience that takes its start from recent work in perceptual psychology and philosophy of mind. The new scepticism questions whether we even have the perceptual experience we think we have. According to the new scepticism, we have radically false beliefs about what our perceptual experience is like. Perceptual consciousness is a kind of false consciousness; a sort of confabulation. The visual world is a grand illusion. The new scepticism raises important questions for philosophy, psychology, and consciousness studies. What is the character of our perceptual experience? And who does the sceptic mean by ‘we’ anyway? Ordinary perceivers? Ordinary perceivers in unusual reflective contexts? Or psychologists and philosophers? These are surprisingly difficult questions. I argue, in what follows, that the new scepticism, and perhaps also the new perceptual psychology it has spawned, rests on a misguided and overly simplistic account of perceptual phenomenology.