Depiction Of Objects Research Articles

:Trading Territories: Mapping the Early Modern World

Offering an account of the status of maps and geographical knowledge in the Early Modern world, this work focuses on how early European geographers mapped the territories of the Old World (Africa and South-East Asia). It contends that the historical preoccupation with Columbus's discovery of the New World in 1492 has tended to obscure the importance of the mapping of territories which have been defined as eastern. The author places the rise of Early Modern mapping within the context of the seaborne commercial adventures of the early maritime empires - the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Ottoman, the Dutch and the English. He explores the ways in which maps and globes were used to mediate in the commercial and diplomatic disputes between these empires, which came to value the map for what it told their power-brokers about their place in the world, over and above its objective depiction of the world. Brotton argues that it was trade, diplomacy and financial speculation which defined the development of early maps and globes, rather than disinterested intellectual pursuit of scientific accuracy and objectivity.

Rotating objects to determine orientation, not identity: evidence from a backward-masking/dual-task procedure.

The effects of picture-plane rotations on times taken to name familiar objects (RTs) may reflect a process of mental rotation to stored viewpoint-specific representations: the rotate-to-recognize hypothesis. Alternatively, mental rotation might be used after stored object representations are activated by a misoriented stimulus in order to verify a weak or distorted shape percept: the double-checking hypothesis. We tested these two accounts of rotation effects in object recognition by having subjects verify the orientations (to within 90 degrees) and basic-level names of 14-msec, backward-masked depictions of common objects. The stimulus-mask interval (SOA) varied from 14 to 41 msec, permitting interpolation of the SOA required for 75% accuracy (SOAc). Whereas the SOAc to verify orientation increased with rotation up to 180 degrees, the SOAc to verify identity was briefer and asymptoted at approximately 60 degrees. We therefore reject the rotate-to-recognize hypothesis, which implies that SOAc should increase steadily with rotation in both tasks. Instead, we suggest that upright and near-upright stimuli are matched by a fast direct process and that misoriented stimuli are matched at a featural level by a slightly slower view-independent process. We also suggest that rotation effects on RTs reflect a postrecognition stage of orientation verification: the rotate-to-orient hypothesis, a version of double-checking that also explains the well-known reduction in orientation effects on RTs when naming repeated objects.

Infants' Responsiveness to Line Junctions in Curved Objects

Several empirical studies demonstrate that infants under 6–7 months of age are unable to extract static-monocular depth information from their environment. The aim of this study was to extend these findings by using a three-dimensional structure indicated by curved Y junctions. Infants 5 and 8 months of age were habituated to the line drawing of a cylinder. During test trials, the infants viewed two displays, one in which a surface marking had been deleted from the habituation figure and one in which an edge had been erased. An ANOVA revealed that the 8-month-old subjects looked significantly longer at the dishabituation display lacking the edge, whereas the 5-month-olds did not. The results provide evidence that 8-month-old infants distinguish between lines indicating edges and lines indicating markings and that they are able to use line junctions to perceive line drawings as depictions of three-dimensional objects in the picture plane.

Poetry After the Holocaust

collective killing known as the Holocaust, and the art of poetry. As I am neither a poet nor a critic of poetry, I do not intend to comment upon poetry which takes the Holocaust as its subject matter, nor very much upon the fate of poetry since 1945 and the degree to which the Holocaust may be said to have affected it. I want to reflect, rather, upon the Holocaust itself and its perpetrators, in general historical terms, and also from the perspective of that aspect of the human spirit of which poetry can be said to be an instance, namely poesis. Poesis is the language-making of the inner life. Its domain is not the instrumental depiction of objects, but the expressivity of the subject; thus poesis might be regarded as a form of speech in which inner being finds collective representation. It is the magic of words. Every child is born with the capacity for, and indeed becomes human through, the exercise of poetic speech, but every child does not become a poet. To do so, one must take poetic speech and work with it by incorporating it into a set of canons, of traditions, formal rules, genres, and so forth. Poetry as an art is also a craft, requiring skill and discipline as well as talent. The poet's medium is words, not as representations of things, but as things-in themselves. Not "things" viewed inertly as passive and exterior, but lived moments of being, suffused with memory, anticipation and desire. To say that these words are lived means that they are felt sensuously?through the ear, the eye, the flesh?then concretely expressed to another. Thus the moment of expression is not exterior to poetry. Poetry is not the solopsistic speech of the psychotic, however vivid this may be. It is always addressed to another; and it gathers this other into a community. Poetry, then, is done through the active means of collective speech. Poetry is a praxis for which

Accuracy of object depiction and opacity transfer function optimization in CT volume-rendered images.

Volume rendering is a visualization technique that has important applications in diagnostic radiology and radiotherapy. A methodology is presented for (a) evaluation of the quantitative accuracy of representation of known objects in volume-rendered scenes and for (b) optimization of the opacity transfer function to achieve the most accurate representation of a particular structure. Results using this methodology are shown for structures representing each of the major tissue interfaces and are discussed.

The role of typical contours in object processing by children

Draughtsmen depicting objects often do so by means of outlines derived in a systematic manner from the objects' surfaces. These outlines represent those points on a solid's surface where the surface appears to change rapidly; a line joining these points of maximum change is here termed a typical contour. Previous research (Dziurawiec & Deregowski, 1992) has shown that children's distorted drawings of animal models may be explained by the child's tendency to depict typical contours for different regions of an object, e.g. head, trunk, tail, and bring these together in a single drawing. The present paper extends this research to the role of typical contours in the discrimination and recognition of unfamiliar solids. In Expt 1 results collected from 108 nursery school children indicate that learning to discriminate between unfamiliar models is significantly improved when the models' typical contours are presented in the participants' fronto‐parallel plane. In Expt 2 data collected from a further 107 nursery school children established that when all views of an unfamiliar object are available, nursery school children readily abstract the typical contours and use them as an aid to subsequent recognition. The utility of the typical contours approach, previously demonstrated for object depiction, is confirmed for object recognition.

The Script Rose

The Script Rose Joseph S. Catalano Learning to read words, musical notes or numbers is a process by which we attach sounds, pictures and meanings to marks. Looked at in this way, the English script “rose” is a sign of a sound, a picture or a meaning. But when we read fluently is the word “rose” a sign? I think not; and I shall try to make a case that, to the properly disposed reader, the script “rose” (hereafter written rose) is a rose. I To have the perspective I require on reading, a quasi-Davidsonian distinction between causes and reasons may be useful. Early training in matching marks with sounds and pictures, surface irritations of light on the eye, stimulation and fixing of our entire neurological complex are all part of the causal network of our ability to read. But none of these causes are the reasons for our ability to be absorbed in reading a text. Of course, a distinction between causes and reasons does not, of itself, explain how the written page can be a world in which we find things such as roses. In order to see how the script rose got to be a rose, it is useful to suspend the usual questions that we ask about written language. Thus, we must not concern ourselves about the ambiguity that might arise because the word rose can be taken to mean a flower, a hue or a person, nor about what happens when we translate from one language to another, nor about the distinction between a sign, whether natural or artificial, and what is signified, nor whether written language [End Page 85] corresponds to something other than itself, nor the question of the meaning of meaning. II We created better than we knew, when we invented writing. We intended to represent the spoken word; but we made roses, dreams and lives exist as marks on a page. If this seems mysterious, it is a mystery that is present in every artifact, and what I seek is a perspective on written language precisely as an artifact. Of course, scripts are artifacts, but what I am after is the workmanship. The workmanship is both obvious and hidden. It is there for us to see; it is what we read. But we do not see it as forged over a long period of time just to serve its function as marks that are readable. In general, certain aspects of written language are similar to ordinary artifacts, others are not so. The difference is more obvious than the similarity: Scripts differ from ordinary artifacts, because we first approach them as signs of sounds, pictures or meanings: A child does not learn about sitting by looking at a chair as a sign of a chair; for example, the child does not squat on the floor, when it sees a chair. More importantly, the craftsmanship that gave us written language, especially alphabetic writing, was directed toward forging “arbitrary” marks, and a chair is certainly not an arbitrary representation of something to sit upon. In Quiddities, in the section “A” for “Alphabet,” W. V. Quine neatly summarizes the remarkable feat of discovering meaningless marks to represent sounds. . . . the full power of writing awaited the convergence of writing with speech, and this reached its early stages five thousand years ago. Depictions of visible objects came to be pressed into phonetic duty on the rebus principle, as if in English we were to write melancholy by depicting a melon and a collie. This expedient was rendered more flexible and powerful, if less picturesque, by devoting the phonetic representations to brief sounds—single consonants or syllables. The sound was represented by a hieroglyph depicting something whose name merely began with that sound. The rebus principle thus gave way to an acrophonic one. It was a notable step of abstraction. Finding a melon and collie in melancholy is a matter of punning with familiar words; extracting a meaningless me-, on the other hand, and meaningless lan-, and so on, calls for appreciating fugitive sounds that are not words and name nothing. (pp. 1–2) [End Page 86] Quine is right to follow the traditional claim that writing...

Representations of Ritual and Symbolic Objects in Late XXVth Dynasty and Saite Private Tombs

Although several scholars have recently investigated aspects of relief decoration in Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Dynasty tombs and temples at Thebes, little attention has been given to depictions of so-called objects of a ritual or symbolic nature. This study will examine the representation of several categories of such objects, including the jars for the seven sacred oils, the lily, the lotus, the formal bouquet {Stabstrauss), and sacrificial animals. These objects of cultic and symbolic function, when used in late Dynasty XXV and Saite private tomb reliefs, reflect the main ideas of contemporary tomb decoration on a symbolic level and point to new interpretations of traditional Egyptian scenes that were evolving in the Late Period.

The Perception of Spatial Structure with Oblique Viewing: An Explanation for Byzantine Perspective?

Earlier work has confirmed that (i) observers can judge divergent receding lines, placed directly in front of them, to be parallel, and (ii) converging lines which are displaced laterally, so that they are viewed obliquely, can also be judged to be parallel. The former observation is in accord with traditional views of perspective while the latter, which is in accord with the depictions of objects found in Byzantine painting, is not in accord with perspective but is predicted by the relative magnitude of the visual angles subtended by the near and far ends of the pair of lines. To investigate whether these effects occurred when the stimulus was clearly three-dimensional, experiments were conducted with a novel apparatus, consisting of a framework of computer-controlled motor-driven luminous rods. This could be remotely adjusted so that all visible sides appeared to be parallel, ie to resemble a cube. Results showed that observers set the sides of this trapezohedron framework as diverging when it was viewed immediately in front of them, a result which is concordant with linear perspective, ie they see the normal projection of a cube as having converging edges. When the framework was displaced from the median plane so that it was viewed obliquely, the sides were set as converging and the magnitude of this effect was significantly related to angle of view, ie observers see the normal projection of a cube as having diverging sides.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Understanding Human-Computer Interaction for Information Systems Design

Over the past 35 years, information technology has permeated every business activity. This growing use of information technology promised an unprecedented increase in end-user productivity Yet this promise is unfulfilled, due primarily to a lack of understanding of end-user behavior End-user productivity is tied directly to functionality and ease of learning and use. Furthermore, system designers lack the necessary guidance and tools to apply effectively what is known about human-computer interaction (CHI) during systems design. Software developers need to expand their focus beyond functional requirements to include the behavioral needs of users. Only when system functions fit actual work and the system is easy to learn and use will the system be adopted by office workers and business professionals. The large, interdisciplinary body of research literature suggest HCI's importance as well as its complexity. This article is the product of an extensive effort to integrate the diverse body of HCI literature into a comprehensible framework that provides guidance to system designers. HCI design is divided into three major divisions system model, action language, and presentation language. The system model is a conceptual depiction of system objects and functions. The basic premise is that the selection of a good system model provides direction for designing action and presentation languages that determine the system's look and feel. Major design recommendation sin each division are identified along with current research trends and future research issues.

Visual mediation and the haptic recognition of two-dimensional pictures of common objects

A set of three experiments was performed to investigate the role of visual imaging in the haptic recognition of raised-line depictions of common objects. Blindfolded, sighted (Experiment 1) observers performed the task very poorly, while several findings converged to indicate that a visual translation process was adopted. These included (1) strong correlation between image-ability ratings (obtained in Experiment 1 and, independently, in Experiment 2) and both recognition speed and accuracy, (2) superior performance with, and greater ease of imaging, two-dimensional as opposed to three-dimensional depictions, despite equivalence in rated line complexity, and (3) a significant correlation between the general ability of the observer to image and obtained imageability ratings of the stimulus depictions. That congenitally blind observers performed the same task even more poorly, while their performance did not differ for two- versus three-dimensional depictions (Experiment 3), provides further evidence that visual translation was used by the sighted. Such limited performance is contrasted with the considerable skill with which real common objects are processed and recognized haptically. The reasons for the general difference in the haptic performance of two- versus three-dimensional tasks are considered. Implications for the presentation of spatial information in the form of tangible graphics displays for the blind are also discussed.

LSD and creativity.

The effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on creativity were examined in a unique experiment in the late 1950's. In this project, artists were asked to draw and paint a Kachina doll both prior to and one hour after the ingestion of LSD. Evaluations of these artistic productions were analyzed by a professor of art history in order to investigate the impact of LSD on artistic creativity. Certain representative changes were found in the artists' predominant style. The most significant change was noted in those artists whose styles were intrinsically representational or abstract to more expressionistic or nonobjective. Other changes noted included the following: relative size expansion; involution; movement; alteration of figure/ground and boundaries; greater intensity of color and light; oversimplification; symbolic and abstract depiction of objects; and fragmentation, disorganization, and distortion. Many artists judged their LSD productions to be more interesting and aesthetically superior to their usual mode of expression. The above-mentioned changes contributed to the artists' convictions that they were fashioning new meanings to an emergent world.

SMS: a suggestive modelling system for object recognition

This paper defines an object representation system motivated by object recognition instead of object depiction, representing the strongly visible features and relationships of non-polyhedral man-made objects. The representation system integrates variably sized or placed curve, surface and volumetric structural descriptions in a subcomponent hierarchy. Generic, alternative (e.g. refinement) and viewer-dependent descriptions are also represented.

Several Problems in the Evaluation of Chen Duxiu

Marxism holds that the fundamental principle of individual historical assessment is the full, objective depiction of historical reality through examining the relevant personage in the context of his time, environment, and social class. Neither a simple affirmation or denial of the person should be made. To evaluate Chen Duxiu accurately it is necessary to investigate his activities in their entirety. Chen's merits and faults should be neither exaggerated nor diminished. His achievements should not be denied because of his mistakes, nor should his mistakes be denied because we acknowledge his achievements.

Context Effects on Preschool Children's Symbolic Behavior

Summary Forty-eight preschoolers were tested individually for symbolic use of objects when realistic props were within sight or when no object props were present. Representational behavior was coded for gestural depiction vs symbolic use of objects. The results showed that three-year-olds but not four-year-olds performed less well when realistic props were within sight. A second study observed 52 children in pairs with a teacher and with either realistic or nonrealistic props present. Results were consistent with the first study for context and age effects, but no age by context interaction was found. Older preschoolers were rated as more imaginative than younger preschoolers, while children overall were rated as more physically active with realistic props present. The studies suggest that realistic materials may depress representational performance in younger but not older preschoolers in a formal testing situation but may depress performance of both age groups in a less formalized situation.

On My Concept of Perceptual Perspective That Accounts for Parallel and Inverted Perspective in Pictorial Art

The author discusses his concept of perceptual perspective based on normal visual perception of nearby objects, which accounts for parallel and inverted perspective used in pictorial art in different parts of the world. His general conclusion is that these two kinds of perspective convey the geometry of visual perception of nearby objects more accurately than does geometrical or linear (scientific) perspective developed during the Renaissance period. He points out that inverted perspective exaggerations that can be found occasionally in pictorial art do not refute his general conclusion about the validity of inverted perspective for the depiction of nearby objects.

Computer-aided definition, manipulation and depiction of objects composed of spheres

As previously demonstrated by Badler and O'Rourke, a variety of 3-D objects can be defined conveniently as collections of spheres-having various sizes and positions in 3-D space and possibly intersecting. This paper is an elaboration on the technique, describing methods of constructing and manipulating such objects and, most particularly, a method of achieving realism in rendering the picture-even though, for reasons of efficiency, computation is performed as if everything were 2-dimensional, with depth ordering.Pictorial realism results from three features of the overall method: roundedness of the basic picture plane images of individual spheres, pictorial merging of 3-dimensionally intersecting spheres (which are very likely intended as parts of the same object), and pictorial separation of spheres whose images overlap but which lie at significantly different depths in 3-space. Separation is achieved by a black line and resembles the lines traditionally found in cartoon cel animation; merging is accomplished by arranging, in effect, for every sphere image to be transparent to the brighter parts of images of other spheres of the same color.The system lends itself well to construction and manipulation of objects defined by geometry and mathematical transformations; it also serves well in construction and depiction of organic forms which arise and/or are modified by random growth and rules of contingency. Several examples of pictorial results are presented.

Computer-aided definition, manipulation and depiction of objects composed of spheres

As previously demonstrated by Badler and O'Rourke, a variety of 3-D objects can be defined conveniently as collections of spheres-having various sizes and positions in 3-D space and possibly intersecting. This paper is an elaboration on the technique, describing methods of constructing and manipulating such objects and, most particularly, a method of achieving realism in rendering the picture-even though, for reasons of efficiency, computation is performed as if everything were 2-dimensional, with depth ordering.Pictorial realism results from three features of the overall method: roundedness of the basic picture plane images of individual spheres, pictorial merging of 3-dimensionally intersecting spheres (which are very likely intended as parts of the same object), and pictorial separation of spheres whose images overlap but which lie at significantly different depths in 3-space. Separation is achieved by a black line and resembles the lines traditionally found in cartoon cel animation; merging is accomplished by arranging, in effect, for every sphere image to be transparent to the brighter parts of images of other spheres of the same color.The system lends itself well to construction and manipulation of objects defined by geometry and mathematical transformations; it also serves well in construction and depiction of organic forms which arise and/or are modified by random growth and rules of contingency. Several examples of pictorial results are presented.

Influence of radiation dose on image quality.

When the speed of a recording medium is doubled the background quantum mottle is increased by a factor square root 2. However, the signal/noise ratio is changed not in proportion to the square root of the exposure, but in a linear fashion, i.e. by a factor 2. The change in the depiction of objects with a very high attenuation difference in relation to its surroundings appears not to be linear, but proportional to the square root of the exposure. Such objects (metal wire meshes, lead bar grids) should thus be avoided in routine evaluation of image quality since they give incomplete information as to image impairment when high-speed recording media are used.

On the Appeal of M. C. Escher's Pictures

The Dutch artist Maurits Cornelius Escher (1898-1972) used one of the chief characteristics of pictorial artillusion-to demonstrate the possible enigmatic aspects of what is seen and what is known. His 1935 self-portrait (Fig. 1) can be interpreted as a presentation of the coexistence of the outer real world and of the inner subjective world. His pictures, mainly lithographs and woodcuts, have been widely reproduced and discussed. Yet, until about 10 years ago, they were generally ignored by artists and art critics [1, 2]. Escher had different artistic aims from those of his contemporaries, a certain intellectual content of structure, order and logic that does not appeal to artists interested in expressions of emotion [3]. His pictures can be divided into two principal categories: (1) those that deal with figurative symmetric and periodic compositional structures and (2) those that deal with possible ambiguities of pictorial depictions of objects in space. Furthermore, the pictures generally contain representational depictions of familiar real world objects. What then is the appeal of Escher's works? During the late 1960s and early 1970s he became a kind of folk hero to the psychedelic subculture in the U.S.A., just after being noticed by enthusiasts of science fiction. The Rolling Stone magazine of this sub-culture had a review of his work that suggested Escher's understanding of reality corresponded with the aims of psychedelic art because of 'the fact that nothing is really as it seems and that everything is governed by higher laws of logic and mathematical laws that draw the universe and all its opposing elements together in a mysterious, unknowing harmony' [4]. This kind of popularity apparently made Escher uncomfortable, because, while he often depicted aspects of reality as illusory, he respected logic and intellect, and his works show an 'aversion to disorder and to any kind of slovenly, unfinished representation' [5]. He acknowledged scientifically valid laws of nature and said in 1971: 'There is something in such laws that takes the breath away. They are not discoveries or inventions of the human mind, but exist independently of us. In a moment of clarity, one can at most discover that they are there and take them into account' [6]. He also said: 'My affinity with the exact approach to natural phenomena is probably related to the millieu in which I grew up as a boy: My father and three of my brothers were all trained in the exact sciences or engineering, and I have always had an enormous respect for these things. And now again my three sons try to think scientifically, in other words honestly, rather than unverifiably, hazily, sentiently, in the manner of the artist' [4, p. 30]. It is Escher's treatment of some of the varieties of